Fruit of the orchard : reading Catherine of Siena in late medieval and early modern England / Jennifer N. Brown.

"Fruit of the Orchard sheds light on how Catherine of Siena served as a visible and widespread representative of English piety becoming a part of the devotional landscape of the period. By analyzing a variety of texts, including monastic and lay, complete and excerpted, shared and private, author Jennifer N. Brown considers how the visionary prophet and author was used to demonstrate orthodoxy, subversion, and heresy. Tracing the book tradition of Catherine of Siena, as well as investigating the circulation of manuscripts, Brown explores how the various perceptions of the Italian saint were reshaped and understood by an English readership. By examining the practice of devotional reading, she reveals how this sacred exercise changed through a period of increased literacy, the rise of the printing press, and religious turmoil."-- Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Intro; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction -- Finding Catherine of Siena in Late Medieval and Early Modern England; 1 Compiling Catherine: The Visionary Woman, Stephen Maconi, and the Carthusian Audience; 2 William Flete, English Spirituality, and Catherine of Siena; 3 Catherine Excerpted: Reading the Miscellany; 4 The Orcherd of Syon: How to Read in the Convent; 5 Catherine in Print: Lay Audiences and Reading Hagiography; Conclusion -- Reforming Reading: Catherine of Siena in an Age of Reform; Appendix A: Literary Ancestry Chart; Appendix B: Catherine Texts in England; Notes; Bibliography

Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on January 29, 2019).

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