PIMSPontifical Institute
of
Mediaeval Studies

September 2023

Henry Constable, The Complete Poems

Studies and Texts 232; Catholic and Recusant Texts of the Late Medieval & Early Modern Periods 5 • xxii, 454 pp. plus 8 colour plates • ISBN 978-0-88844-232-1 • Cloth • $115

Elizabethan poet Henry Constable (1562–1613), a Protestant-born Catholic convert, is a fascinating case study in how religious and political preoccupations could drive the learned across the unstable confessional divide. This book provides a new comprehensive critical edition of Constable’s sonnets that returns to the primary sources – some of them newly discovered.

September 2023

Hebraism in Sixteenth-Century England: Robert and Thomas Wakefield

Studies and Texts 231; Judaism in the Medieval and Early Modern World 3 • xvi, 332 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-231-4 • Cloth • $95

Robert Wakefield (ca. 1493/5–1537) and his brother Thomas (1500–1575) were pioneers in the study and teaching of Hebrew in early modern England, but the range of their learning and their accomplishments has received scant scholarly attention.

December 2023

New Latin Contexts for Old English Homilies: Editions and Studies of Ten Sources and Analogues

Studies and Texts 233 • xii, 504 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-233-8 • Cloth • $115

This book sheds new light on the Latin background of various Old English homilies, and of certain homilies from related vernacular traditions. The texts and motifs examined here treat two broad themes: the Nativity of Christ and Christian eschatology. Critical editions and translations of five Latin texts dealing with each theme are included. These are equipped with detailed introductions and commentaries and are accompanied by case studies that demonstrate the relevance of each text to one or more homilies written in Old English, and, in a few cases, early Middle English and Old Norse.

January 2024

The Life of St Brendan and His Prayer

Mediaeval Sources in Translation 62. xii, 134 pp. ISBN 978-0-88844-312-0 • Paper • $25.00

Founder of monasteries, navigator of fantastic voyages, wonder-working intercessor and confessor, Saint Brendan of Clonfert and Ardfert (c. 486–578) was among the most colourful and celebrated figures of medieval Ireland. Brendan’s renown, nurtured by his monastic community and their princely patrons, approached that of Patrick, Brigit, and Columba, Ireland’s national saints. His fame was such that stories about him were told with those of King Arthur and other worthies.

April 2024

The Correspondence and Unpublished Papers of Robert Persons, SJ, vol. 2: 1588–1597

Studies and Texts 235; Catholic and Recusant Texts of the Late Medieval & Early Modern Periods 6 • xx, 916 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-235-2 • Cloth • $150

The rapid growth of early modern British Catholic studies, and its integration into the wider historiographical project, continues to focus attention on Robert Persons as one of the most significant public figures of the Reformation era in England. As the superior of the Jesuit English mission from 1580 until 1610, he was engaged in a controversial campaign for the reconversion of England that had wide political, ecclesiastical, pastoral, and polemical ramifications. Modern scholarship is engaged in lively debate over his role in international relations and conflicts within British Catholicism.

April 2024

The Medieval Clergy, 800–1250: A Sourcebook

Mediaeval Sources in Translation 63; Saint Michael’s College Mediaeval Translations. xxiv, 512 pp. ISBN 978-0-88844-313-7 • Paper • $47.50

The Medieval Clergy is a collection of documents from the ninth to thirteenth centuries by and about the so-called secular clergy – a group that included priests, bishops, deacons, and canons, whose primary responsibilities included ministering to laypeople.

April 2024

Bound and Free: Voices of Mortal and Otherworld Women in Medieval Irish Literature

Studies and Texts 236 • x, 220 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-236-9 • Cloth • $90

Otherworld women feature in a number of medieval Irish tales, but they are not always powerful figures. Indeed, those who express their own desires are often disadvantaged and even threatened in the mortal world, especially when their choices are restricted by human society. The struggles they face often mirror those of mortal women; yet medieval Irish authors apparently found Otherworld women useful as vehicles for exploring social tensions and issues of contemporary concern.

May 2024

Salome and the Kin of Jesus: The Treatises of Maurice of Kirkham and Herbert of Bosham

With the assistance of Samuel Baudinette and Rina Lahav

Studies and Texts 237; British Writers 8 • cxxx, 226 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-237-6 • Cloth • $125

In the twelfth century a matter was debated that still confronts readers of the New Testament, namely, just who constituted the kin of Jesus? The question held considerable significance, politically as well as theologically. It was popularly held that St Anne, mother of the Virgin, had had three husbands, and that James the Less, James the Great and John the Evangelist were all descended from her. However, this story, proposed by the Carolingian commentator Haimo of Auxerre, included the belief that Salome, the mother of the disciples James and John, was in fact a man and St Anne’s third husband.

September 2024

Found in Translation: Itinerant French Epics in Medieval Scandinavia

Mediaeval Sources in Translation 64 • x, 256 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-314-4 • Paper • $30

This volume contains English translations of three Old Norse–Icelandic renderings of French chansons de geste: Elis saga ok Rósamundu, Bevers saga, and Flóvents saga, as well as Bærings saga, an Icelandic chivalric romance.