Nicola F McDonald & W Mark Ormrod 
Rites of Passage 
Cultures of Transition in the Fourteenth Century

A wide variety of texts (from chronicles to Chaucer) studied for evidence of medieval attitudes towards the processes of change as they affected individuals at all points of their lives.


Rites of passage is a term and concept more used than considered. Here, for the first time, its implications are applied and tested in the field of medieval studies: medievalists from a range of disciplines consider the varioustheoretical models – folklorist, anthropological, psychoanalytical – that can be used to analyse cultures of transition in the history and literature of fourteenth-century Europe. Ranging over a wide variety of texts, from chronicles to romances, from priests’ manuals to courtesy books, from state records to the writings of Chaucer, Gower and Froissart, the contributors identify and analyse medieval attitudes to the process of change in lifecycle, status, gender and power. A substantive introduction by Miri Rubin draws together the ideas and materials discussed in the book to illustrate the relevance and importance of anthropology to the study of medieval culture.


Contributors: JOEL BURDEN, PATRICIA CULLUM, ISABEL DAVIS, JANE GILBERT, SARAH KAY, MARK ORMROD, HELEN PHILLIPS, MIRI RUBIN, SHARON WELLS.


NICOLA F. Mc DONALD is Lecturer in Medieval Literature, the late W.M ORMROD was Professor of Medieval History, University of York.

Tabela de Conteúdo

Introduction: Rites of Passage – Miri Rubin

Re-writing a Rite of Passage: The Peculiar Funeral of Edward II – Joel Burden

Coming to Kingship: Boy Kings and the Passage to Power in Fourteenth-Century England – W. Mark Ormrod

Boy/Man into Clerk/Priest: The Making of the Late Medieval Clergy – P H Cullum

Manners Maketh Man: Living, Dining and Becoming a Man in the Later Middle Ages – Sharon Wells

Rites of Passage in French and English Romances – Helen Phillips

Becoming Woman in Chaucer: `On ne naît pas femme, on le meurt’ – Jane Gilbert

John Gower’s Fear of Flying: Transitional Masculinities in the
Confessio Amantis –

`Le moment de conclure’: Initiation as Retrospection in Froissart’s Dits amoureux – H S Kay

Sobre o autor

W M Ormrod is Professor of Medieval History at the University of York.The late W. MARK ORMROD was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of York; he published extensively on later medieval history.