Foreword

When one hears or reads the word ‘trial’, the images and ideas that first leap to mind tend to relate to very particular concepts and settings. Courtroom dramas, gavels, judges, juries, and the expectant hush broken by the announcement of a verdict are often foremost among our associations with the term. In the Middle Ages, however, not only were legal disputes settled in very different settings and according to very different rules, but trials writ large appeared in various guises. From trials by fire and water to the physical and spiritual tests endured by the devout and recounted in medieval hagiography, the concepts of trying and testing were familiar ones in medieval culture. Being put to the test, individuals and institutions alike were found to be worthy or unworthy, enduring or ephemeral, innocent or culpable.

Linking the notion of ‘trial’ to that of ‘tribulation’, this issue’s theme invites new applications of the concepts of trying and testing to a variety of subjects. Our hope in selecting this theme was that the essays contained herein would reflect this aim in the way that they examined not only the process of determining innocence or guilt, but also other forms of testing, sifting, or distinguishing of one thing from another. The essays presented in this fifth issue of Marginalia have taken full advantage of the varied possible interpretations of our theme: legal and social history, musicology, and the contents of one of the great Cambridge libraries are here examined in the context of trying and testing. In the first article, Bronach Kane investigates the role of personal and collective memory in the late medieval church court of York, and in the second article, Daniel DiCenso puts accepted approaches to Hildegard of Bingen and her work to the test. Finally, Christopher de Hamel reminds readers of the origins of the Parker Library’s formidable collection, which includes the volume which may have been used in the 1514 heresy trial of Richard Hunne, a London tailor. While it begins with a study of the kind of ‘trial’ most familiar to us, therefore, this issue continues to look beyond it to other tests and trials, and to their effects and ramifications.

It remains to us to express our tremendous gratitude to a number of parties who have been fundamental to the publication of this issue. We are particularly grateful to the members of our Advisory Board for their continuing support and encouragement of the Medieval Reading Group (MRG) and its enterprises. We would also like to thank Christopher de Hamel for his contribution to this term’s issue of Marginalia. The Faculty of English has generously provided us with several years of financial and moral support, without which we could not have produced these first five issues. Finally, our thanks are due to the graduate community which constitutes the MRG and which, by its attendance at our meetings, continues to make the publication of Marginalia possible.

Mary Flannery, on behalf of the Medieval Reading Group