Mary C. Flannery & Katie L. Walter 
The Culture of Inquisition in Medieval England 

Groundbreaking essays show the variety and complexity of the roles played by inquisition in medieval England.


Inquisition in medieval and early modern England has typically been the subject of historical rather than cultural investigation, and focussed on heresy. Here, however, inquisition is revealed as playing a broader role in medieval English culture, not only in relation to sanctions like excommunication, penance and confession, but also in the fields of exemplarity, rhetoric and poetry. Beyond its specific legal and pastoral applications,
inquisitio was a dialogic mode of inquiry, a means of discerning, producing or rewriting truth, and an often adversarial form of invention and literary authority.

The essays in this volume cover such topics as the theory and practice ofcanon law, heresy and its prosecution, Middle English pastoralia, political writing and romance. As a result, the collection redefines the nature of inquisition’s role within both medieval law and culture, and demonstrates the extent to which it penetrated the late-medieval consciousness, shaping public fame and private selves, sexuality and gender, rhetoric, and literature.


Mary C. Flannery is a lecturer in English at the University of Lausanne; Katie L. Walter is a lecturer in English at the University of Sussex.


Contributors: Mary C. Flannery, Katie L. Walter, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Edwin Craun, Ian Forrest, Diane Vincent, Jenny Lee, James Wade, Genelle Gertz, Ruth Ahnert, Emily Steiner

Tabella dei contenuti

Introduction: Imagining Inquisition – Mary C. Flannery and Katie Louise Walter

Inquisition, Public Fame, and Confession: General Rules and English Practice – Henry Ansgar Kelly

The Imperatives of
Denunciatio: Disclosing Other’s Sins to Disciplinary Authorities – Edwin Craun

English Provincial Constitutions and Inquisition into Lollardy – Ian Forrest

The Contest over the Public Imagination of Inquisition, 1380-1430 – Diane Vincent

‘Vttirli Onknowe’? Modes of Inquiry and the Dynamics of Interiority in Vernacular Literature – Mary C. Flannery

‘Vttirli Onknowe’? Modes of Inquiry and the Dynamics of Interiority in Vernacular Literature – Katie Louise Walter

From Defacement to Restoration: Inquisition, Confession and Thomas Usk’s
Appeal and
Testament of Love – Jenny Lee

Confession, Inquisition and Exemplarity in
The Erle of Toulous and Other Middle English Romances – James Wade

Heresy Inquisition and Authorship, 1400-1560 – Genelle Gertz

Imitating Inquisition: Dialectical Bias in Protestant Prison Writings – Ruth Ahnert

Response Essay: Chaucer’s Inquisition – Emily Steiner

Circa l’autore

Ian Forrest is professor of social and religious history at the University of Oxford.