Late Medieval Popular Preaching in Britain and Ireland: Texts, Studies, and Interpretations (review)

In Late Medieval Popular Preaching in Britain and Ireland, Professor Alan Fletcher continues to extend his scholarship on matters relating to lay devotion and practice. In this book, he aims to demonstrate the extent to which preaching was an essential force that influenced many facets of cultural production in thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Britain and Ireland. He sets out to meet his goal by providing the reader with an anthology of diverse sermons in terms of geographical, authorial and temporal provenance. The common denominator of each of the featured sermons is their intended lay audience. In selecting sermons designed for delivery ad populum, Fletcher hopes his book might also appeal to students 'whose interests in medieval sermons may only be incidental' (p. 4).

Fletcher has divided his book into nine principal chapters. In Chapter 1 he outlines and champions his methodology, contending that there is a need for more specific rather than general analyses of the subject matter, acknowledging the existing sermon scholarship of Owst, Wenzel, Spencer and others. Fletcher's choice of texts is judicious and incisive. He has selected lesser-known sermons but illustrates how they have influenced other elements of British and Insular medieval society. Furthermore, Fletcher endeavours to offer a range of texts from across England and Ireland, duly noting the dearth of Scottish, Welsh and Cornish sermons. Equally, his focus is firmly on orthodox preaching, thus excluding sermons from the reformist wing of the late medieval Church.

In Chapter 2, 'A Codicological Typology', Fletcher introduces and briefly describes his selection of sermon manuscripts, which were 'designed for different late medieval orthodox interest groups' (p. 14). Here Fletcher offers some interesting background information on aspects of manuscript production, ownership and use, on which he further expands in each subsequent and relevant chapter.

Chapters 3 to 6 each feature a single sermon from the Franciscan, Benedictine, Augustinian and secular canons respectively. These four chapters follow a similar structure: provision of some introductory information regarding each sermon's provenance, authorship and extant status; a consideration of the manuscript's composition (scribe, folio, size, language); a careful analysis of the sermon; and the edited sermon. For any student unfamiliar with Latin or Middle English these editions could prove frustrating, but this should not detract from the scholarly discussion Fletcher has provided in each chapter. For instance, in Chapter 3, Fletcher features Oxford MS Bodley 26, a thirteenth-century manuscript, probably Franciscan, selecting from it a macaronic (mixed language) sermon for discussion. What Fletcher carefully elucidates is that the introduction of English into sermons occurred much earlier than previously considered and that this practice was also occurring in extra-clerical sources: epistolary, legal prose and grammatical texts. He claims that rather than provide evidence of 'clerical Latin in decline' (p. 66), this usage demonstrates how sermon authors used dual languages as a means to claim authority.

In Chapter 7, Fletcher features four sermons derived from one of the moralitates of Robert Holcot: The Castle of Prudence. He demonstrates how the English sermon was less structured than the prescribed Latin form of the artes praedicandi. Chapter 8 moves to Ireland and focuses on insular Latin and English preaching traditions. Here, Fletcher changes his format, featuring several sermon manuscripts instead of one. He concludes that preaching was principally undertaken by the mendicants.

The final analytical chapter features the mutual relationship between the sermon and the lyric of vernacular popular literature, focusing on the lyric's function within the sermon. As Fletcher recognizes, the goal of preaching was to guide a person through life towards heaven, and thus the delivery of the sermon was paramount. The use of lyric was one way in which a preacher's performance and message could leave an imprint on the recipient.

This book is a welcome addition to the field of sermon studies and is testimony to Fletcher's...