Sermo doctorum:Compilers, Preachers, and their Audiences in the Early Medieval West

Sermo Doctorum: Compilers, Preachers, and Their Audiences in the Early Medieval West (Sermo: Studies on Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation Sermons and Preaching)

This collection of essays focuses on a wide range of topics related to the composition, transmission, and dissemination of sermons and homiliaries in the early medieval West.

Despite their large number and their potential significance for our understanding of the genesis of Christian thought and practice, early medieval sermons have been conspicuously neglected by modern scholarship. Taking their lead from recent studies that transformed our understanding of the post-Roman world, the various contributors to this collection of essays explore a wide range of topics related to the composition, transmission, and dissemination of sermons and homiliaries in the early medieval West. Some papers focus on individual sermons in an attempt to identify their authors and aims; others examine the manuscript evidence for the compilation and transmission of composite homiliaries; and a few question our concept of early medieval sermons as a peculiar genre that merits special attention. By bringing early medieval sermons into the centre of discussion this volume, which is the first book dedicated to early medieval sermons and homiliaries, makes an important contribution to our understanding of the religious culture of the early medieval West. This multi-lingual collection of papers examines a plethora of texts which, in the past, were pushed to the margins of historical research, and offers a fresh look at these works in their own cultural, religious, and social context.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Compilers, Preachers, and their Audiences in the Early Medieval West ― MAXIMILIAN DIESENBERGER
• Orators, Authors, and Compilers: The Earliest Latin Collections of Sermons on Scripture ― MARK VESSEY
• Prudentius’s Eloquent Martyr: Some Observations on Peristephanon 10 ― KURT SMOLAK
• Der Augustinuscento Sermo Mai 66: Mit einem textkritischen Anhang zu Predigten auf Perpetua und Felicitas ― CLEMENS WEIDMANN
• The Homilies of Avitus ― IAN N. WOOD
• Publikumskonstruktionen in den Predigten des Caesarius von Arles ― KARL BRUNNER
• The Content and Aims of the So-Called Homiliary of Burchard of Würzburg ― YITZHAK HEN
• Winithar in Sankt Gallen (um 760–?) und der Versus Winitharii ― WALTER BERSCHIN UND BERNHARD ZELLER
• Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 334 and its Implications: A Source for Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary ― ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK
• Hrabanus Maurus – the Compiler, the Preacher, and his Audience ― MARIANNE POLLHEIMER
• Inmaculata, Incorrupta, Intacta: Preaching Mary in the Carolingian Age ― CLARE WOODS
• A Preaching Bishop: Atto of Vercelli and his Sermon Collection ― ROB MEENS
• The Preacher’s Audience, c. 800–c. 950 ― JAMES MCCUNE
• Sermones ad diem pertinentes: Sermons and Homilies in the Liturgy of the Divine Office ― JESSE D. BILLETT
• Sermons sous forme de centons dans deux recueils de Freising ― FRANÇOIS DOLBEAU
• The Old French Sermon on Jonah: The Nature of the Text ― DAVID GANZ