This thesis examines the prose style of eleven anonymous Old English <I>temporale</I> homilies (Blickling Homilies II-XII). Although it is only in a single late-tenth- or early-eleventh-century manuscript (Princeton, University Library, W.H. Scheide Collection 71) that these items appear together in sequence, later versions of the majority of them survive elsewhere. Following an introduction stressing the number and variety of surviving Anglo-Saxon vernacular preaching collections, the first chapter considers the styles employed in earlier corpora of preaching texts which were exploited by Anglo-Saxon homilists. Chapter 2 includes some discussion of the question of how frequently and in what context vernacular preaching was undertaken in Anglo-Saxon England, but focuses primarily on the range of styles adopted by Ælfric and by the anonymous homilists. Attention is drawn to two Old English translations of passages treating oral delivery, which suggest that advice on this topic was considered useful for a vernacular audience. The third chapter describes firstly the physical characteristics and compilation of the Blickling manuscript; and secondly the structure, major stylistic devices, sources and later versions of each of the <I>temporale</I> homilies. Derived largely from existing scholarship, Chapter 3 represents a more comprehensive synthesis of relevant information than has been available hitherto (in the absence of a critical edition). Chapter 4 analyses the use of six stylistic devices in the Blickling <I>temporale</I> homilies (alliteration and rhyme; the repetition of syllables; thematic repetition; pairing or listing devices; antitheses and rhetorical questions) and reveals that a limited range of effects are combined in varying patterns which reinforce the homilists' themes. Chapter 5 demonstrates that five types of formula are distributed throughout the eleven homilies in order to equip them for oral delivery.

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There has been a growing awareness among scholars of the close and complex relationship between writing and oppression in Reformation England. Until now, however, there has been no systematic study of the writings produced from prison during this period. My thesis deals with individuals from both confessions who were imprisoned for their faith during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I; by examining their writings it explores how they conceptualised and inhabited the space of the prison itself, and how they imagined this space in relation to the outside world. The thesis is comprehensive in its scope, ranging from the most famous prison writers – such as Thomas More, Thomas Wyatt, and Henry Howard, the early of Surrey – to graffitists, and those figures appealing to Thomas Cromwell for mercy in letters now held at the National Archive. This material is organised into four chapters, dealing with: 1) discourse on the inward man; 2) the range of strategies employed by prisoners to appropriate the prison as a site of writing; 3) the emotional and textual significance of prison communities; and 4) how the prisoner imagined the reception of his writings (and, implicitly, the milieu of the prison) by a readership. Together these chapters demonstrate that, through writing, prisoners not only gave meaning to their cell, but also projected a positive, industrious, and spiritual image of incarceration. In so doing, my research makes an overdue challenge to the thesis of ‘victimology’ that dominates much scholarship on the Reformation.

This dissertation examines narratives of decline as part of the late medieval discourse of complaint and social criticism, focusing on vernacular orthodox and Wycliffite preaching, and on <i>Piers Plowman</i>. I argue that these texts sought to ‘place’ their readers and listeners within a narrative, where the past was characterised by the build up of sin, and where future recuperation depended on a will to reform in the present. I draw on the work of Paul Ricoeur to account for the interaction between textual narrative and human experience, and so to describe the way narratives of decline were offered to readers and congregations as a way to understand their own lives. Preachers and poets identified narratives of decline with one another, creating a ‘horizon of expectations’ about the ultimate consequences of sin and social decay, and with other narratives where decline led to reform, creating a ‘horizon of expectations’ about the possibilities for renewal. Narratives of decline formed part of the authoritative critical rhetoric of orthodox preaching, but were also appropriated by ‘unlicensed’ speakers like the poet of <i>Piers Plowman</i>, and by the heretical preachers of the Wycliffite movement. These texts, or group of texts, which, in turn, form the topics of my three main chapters, understood decline in different ways, and proposed very different kinds of reform in response to it. In orthodox preaching, narratives of decline most often served to promote a new engagement with the Church, commonly through the custom and practice of penance. Yet for <i>Piers Plowman</i>, and, in different ways, for the Wycliffite preachers, the Church itself was involved in narratives of decline. These writers redeploy the rhetoric of decline in more radical ways, challenging the ‘horizon of expectations’ they inherit from orthodox preaching.

This dissertation considers the principles of structure in the <I>Morte Darthur</I>. I conceive of structure as an internal logic which generates the selection of incidents and stories and which governs the additions and deletions which Malory makes to his source material. I consider Malory as a participant in a textual tradition, Arthurian fiction, which has its own economy of symbols, and I explore the ways in which Malory deploys the Arthurian semiotics. I develop a theory of 'symbolic structure' to account for the generation and combination of narrative elements in Malory's work. I describe features typical of the work's narrative lexicon, such as redundancy and ellipsis, and I consider the relations of entire stories (such as "Balin" and "Gareth") to each other and to the symbolic economy of the "hoole book." Because Malory is principally a redactor and translator, the structure of his narrative is often the same as that of his sources. Alternatively, the structure of the sources often reveals what has caused Malory's version to be the way it is. This thesis therefore considers the sources in French and English in some detail, and sees the <I>Morte Darthur</I> both as a representative of the traditional oeuvre of Arthurian literature, and in some cases as a response to it. Thus I argue, for example, that Malory's interpolation of "The Healing of Sir Urry" provides a symbolic solution to certain problems raised in his main source, <I>Le Mort le Roi Artu</I>. Among the results of my inquiry is an account of historical change as it is registered in symbolic practice; by examining Malory's text--sometimes in minute detail--I show the ways in which a late redaction while to a large extent conserving thirteenth-century narratives and their concerns records, often in displaced ways, its own particular era and author.

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<i>The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes </i>(1521) represents the earliest surviving English translation of Christine de Pizan’s <i>Le Livre de la cite des dames </i>(1405) and, perhaps more remarkably, the first time that the work was printed in France or England. It is presented here in parallel with the Middle French version of the <i>Cité</i> found in London British Library Royal MS 19.A.XIX, which shares structural similarities and provenance with the translation. Annotations identify names, places and allusions, as well as differences between the English and French texts that might potentially be of interest to the modern reader. Introductory chapters offer several contexts for approaching the work. Some critics have argued that the book’s male translator, printer and patron constrain the voice of its female author, but chapter one offers a reassessment of the <i>Cyte</i> as a profeminine endeavour that is largely consistent with Christine’s goals. Chapter two provides additional information about the translator, Brian Annesley, and considers the contemporary political circumstances of the book’s publication in England. Chapter three shifts from the work’s historical relevance to the history of the book. Particular attention is given to its printer, Henry Pepwell, and how the work stands out as the most ambitious project of his brief publishing career. Collectively, the introductory chapters and annotations aim to facilitate future scholarly study of the <i>Cyte.</i>

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