Stevenson Chair in Religion and Literature Inaugural Lecture

Talk by Dr. Antje Chan, Stevenson Chair in Religion and Literature, Religion, Literature and the Shaping of Neighbourliness in Late Medieval England.

Some of the most popular writings of fifteenth-century England were in fact anonymous pastoral treatises that instructed people in the Christian faith. They were copied as much in intricate books of hours owned by the English nobility and in manuscripts of theological scholarship produced by monks, as in account books owned by merchants and in primers used by mothers and school masters to instruct the youth in basic textual and devotional literacy. These tracts of pastoral instruction not only shaped the religious and civic imagination of fifteenth-century people but also their practices, as they explained basic Christian doctrines, sacraments and duties. This lecture explores how religious literature functioned as initiator of community-based care–– neighbourliness––by promoting social connections and responsibility in light of death.