Parergon

Arthurian Authorities: Heroic and Historic

Stephen Knight — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This essay discusses the Arthurian myth, from its early days to the present. The emphasis is on the different character of the hero and the myth in different periods, and how these changes relate to social and historical forces in their periods. Some medieval French and Welsh texts are considered, but the emphasis is on the development and variety of the myth in English.

Arcangela Tarabotti’s Heaven, Hell, and the Emotions of Forced Monachisation

Maddison Taylor-Gillett — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines the emotional impact of forced monachisation through the writing of Arcangela Tarabotti, a seventeenth-century Venetian nun and outspoken critic of the common practice. Analysing Convent Paradise, Convent Hell, and Paternal Tyranny through the lens of Mark Seymour’s ‘emotional arena’ as well as William Reddy’s ‘emotional regime’ and ‘refuge’, it explores the divergent affective experiences of willing and unwilling nuns. It also introduces a new dimension to existing emotions theories: Tarabotti’s linkage of familial and conventual disorder. This article therefore reveals how involuntary enclosure shaped women’s capacity to belong within the emotional and social world of the cloister.

Place, Petitioning, and Welfare in Seventeenth-Century Suburban London

Aaron Columbus — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Petitions were everywhere in early modern England. The recent AHRC-funded ‘The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth-Century England’ project has significantly advanced our understanding of petitioning culture in Britain during this period. There has been limited analysis of petitioning practices in London though, certainly before the 1690s. This includes petitions related to the plague and the poor, intersecting social issues resulting from the capital’s rapid growth. This article uses petitions to illuminate the broader social issues in suburban London, where most of the population growth was accommodated, especially how authority worked. It speaks to the growing petitioning scholarship and the history of metropolitan development.

New Wineskins: Originality and Adaptation in Medieval Biblical Exegesis Introduction

Samuel Cardwell, Emma Knowles — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Bede, the Matthean Great Commission, and the Church’s Universal Mission

Emily Quigley — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Matthean Great Commission, in which Christ instructed the apostles to evangelise all peoples, has been of huge importance across Christian history, but particularly resounded in the Insular world. Through exploring Bede’s engagement with three core themes of Matthew 28. 19–20 – the instruction to ‘teach all peoples’, baptism, and Christ’s eternal presence – this article argues that the pericope was central to Bede’s vision of the Church’s universal mission. Amidst concerns about spiritual complacency within his contemporary society, Bede used the Matthean commission as a framework for the ideal practice and sustainment of the faith.

Anonymous Ninth-Century Innovation and its Impact: The Breton- Fashioned Glossae Floriacenses in Twelfth-Century Reims

Sarah Corrigan — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines an inventive passage of commentary focussing on Exodus 26 in the Glossae Floriacenses (GF), an anonymous Carolingian biblical compilation. The study identifies and compares the sources used in the passage, primarily Bede's De tabernaculo and Josephus' Antiquitates Iudaicae, and reveals the creative adaptation that has taken place. A key feature of the passage is the innovative structuring of the commentary on the Tabernacle's four coverings, which appears in Peter of Celle's twelfth-century commentary on the same topic. The study explores the potential connection between these texts, considering their shared location in Reims. This analysis identifies elements of creative composition by the author-compiler(s) of the commentary, highlights the potential for original thought in early medieval exegesis, and identifies its influence on more predominant exegetical works.

The Trivium in 'Páls saga postula' II

Bond West — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Páls saga postola II (PSP II) is the younger of two extant Old Norse-Icelandic lives of the Apostle Paul. A product of the medieval compilatio tradition, the text reworks materials from the biblical book of Acts into a biography of Paul accompanied by commentative materials from a range of sources, only some of which have been identified. This paper examines the ways in which both alterations to the text edited commentary draw out Paul’s gifts as an orator through references to the Trivium, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, and to the integration of the Trivium with Christian exegetical practices.

Re-Visioning Women’s Literary History: Four Studies

Margaret J. M. Ezell — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000