Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England [Paperback]

This 1998 book investigates the politics of vernacular translation in late medieval England, with particular attention to Langland, Trevisa and Wyclif.This book investigates how late medieval English writers who translated specialised academic knowledge from Latin into English often projected unprecedented sorts of lay audiences for their writing, and worried about the potential results of making the information they presented more widely available. The well-known concerns with clerical corruption and lay education of authors such as Langland, Trevisa, and Wyclif are linked to those of more obscure writers in both Latin and English, some only recently edited, or only extant in manuscript.This book investigates how late medieval English writers who translated specialised academic knowledge from Latin into English often projected unprecedented sorts of lay audiences for their writing, and worried about the potential results of making the information they presented more widely available. The well-known concerns with clerical corruption and lay education of authors such as Langland, Trevisa, and Wyclif are linked to those of more obscure writers in both Latin and English, some only recently edited, or only extant in manuscript.This book investigates how late medieval English writers who translated specialized academic knowledge from Latin into English often projected unprecedented sorts of lay audiences for their writing, and worried about the potential results of making the information they presented more widely available. The well-known concerns with clerical corruption and lay education of authors such as Langland, Trevisa, and Wyclif are linked to those of more obscure writers in both Latin and English, some only recently edited, or only extant in manuscript.Part I: 1. Introduction; 2. 'Lewed Clergie': vernacular authorisation in Piers Plowman; 3. The 'Publyschyng' of 'Informacion': John Trevisa, Sir Thomas Berkeley, and their project of 'Englysch Translacion'; PartlCï