Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Medievalist awarded grant to research Mirror to Devout People

Paul Patterson, assistant professor of English at St.Joseph University, has been awarded $8,200 to pursue his personal project, an edition of the Mirror to Devout People.

The Mirror to Devout People, also known as the Speculum devotorum, was written by a monk at the Carthusian monastery of Sheen, in Surrey, England, for a sister of the Bridgettine Syon Abbey in Isleworth, Middlesex. It tells the story of Christ’s life, with an emphasis on the Passion, and was written at a time when the vernacular Bible was banned. Over the past several years, Patterson has examined a number of late-14th and early-15th century texts, and plans to complete a new edition of the Mirror to Devout People for the Early English Text Society this summer. Patterson will conduct his research at the Cambridge University Library, which holds one of the original manuscripts of the text. Both the Huntington Library and British Academy Fellowship for study in the United Kingdom and the NEH summer stipend will support the completion of this project.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net