In this Book
- Fictions of Evidence: Witnessing, Literature, and Community in the Late Middle Ages
- Book
- 2013
- Published by: The Ohio State University Press
- Series: Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture
summary
Throughout the Middle Ages, witnessing was a crucial way religious and legal “truths” were understood and produced. Religious and secular officials alike harnessed the power of testimony to assert doctrinal, political, or legal responsibilities. Swearing an oath, testifying in court, and signing a deposition were common ways to shape and discipline both devotional and legal communities. In Fictions of Evidence: Witnessing, Literature, and Community in the Late Middle Ages, Jamie K. Taylor traces depictions of witnessing in a wide range of late medieval texts and shows how witnessing practices formed and reformed, policed and challenged medieval communities. Through close study of texts like the Man of Law’s Tale and Piers Plowman alongside sermon exempla, common law statutes, and pastoral treatises, Fictions of Evidence argues that vernacular literature was a vital site of criticism and dissent. It shows that devotional and legal witnessing practices offered medieval writers a distinct vocabulary they could use to expose how the ethical and legal obligations to one’s community were constructed. And since vernacular writers often challenged the ways ecclesiastical or secular authorities asserted community bonds, they found they could use those same witnessing practices and language to imagine extra-legal or extra-ecclesiastical communities that followed different ethical codes.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. 2-5
- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-ix
- List of Abbreviations
- pp. x-xi
- Coda: Witnessing the Middle Ages
- pp. 189-198
- Works Cited
- pp. 199-212
Additional Information
ISBN
9780814270189
Related ISBN(s)
9780814212233
MARC Record
OCLC
867740803
Pages
256
Launched on MUSE
2013-11-28
Language
English
Open Access
Yes