In light of the fact that SCOTUS called upon the past to testify as an expert witness in the tria... more In light of the fact that SCOTUS called upon the past to testify as an expert witness in the trial of same sex marriage, let’s look at what we know about medieval marriage.
This yearlong project is a modernization of The Canterbury Tales, adapted through online media. H... more This yearlong project is a modernization of The Canterbury Tales, adapted through online media. Harry Bailey is the managing editor of a new online magazine called The Pilgrim. After a motley readership held a lengthy conversation on the website's forum, Harry offered to host a tale telling contest. This project seeks to provide supplementary material when teaching The Canterbury Tales. It aims to reveal the hyper-textual and multi-genre characteristics of Chaucer's work. Pilgrim's Prize also seeks to introduce a new, digitally-minded audience to The Canterbury Tales.
This paper investigates the stylistic differences and overlaps present in the Interpolated Middle... more This paper investigates the stylistic differences and overlaps present in the Interpolated Middle English version of Guy de Chauliac, with excerpts from Henri de Mondeville. It investigates the extent to which compilatio becomes a new body of work, and how editorial choices reflect cultural and scribal influences in medical teaching and understanding.
Attached is my foreword from: Selected Proceedings from The Maladies, Miracles and Medicine of th... more Attached is my foreword from: Selected Proceedings from The Maladies, Miracles and Medicine of the Middle Ages (March 2014). The Reading Medievalist, vol.2 Salter, R (ed.) (Reading. 2015).
Delivered at IMC, Leeds 2015
Blood is the stuff of life. Sacred blood is a source of salvation. I... more Delivered at IMC, Leeds 2015 Blood is the stuff of life. Sacred blood is a source of salvation. It is healing. It is unclean. Contact with blood is degrading. Oft-times and certainly in the middle period, blood held ambiguous associations. It was both venerated and horrid. One obvious reason for this polarity is the value of the sacred body of Christ (and also saints by way of relics), in comparison to the sinful imperfect body of everyone else. Certainly spiritually significant bodies would harbour an exception to the imperfection. However, considering the significance of blood for life and health, I am not satisfied that the ambiguous taboo rests in the divide between the sacred and the secular. This paper examines the attitudes toward blood within devotional and medical contexts and suggests that the taboo has less to do with icky blood and more to do with status.
Delivered at Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo 2015
This paper seeks to explore medieval theories of t... more Delivered at Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo 2015 This paper seeks to explore medieval theories of the audible spirit and the ear’s agency in its control. It is structured in two parts: first it considers the substance of sound from the medieval point of view, identifying the degree of materiality attributed to the audible spirit; second, it traces the course of the audible spirit to the deaf ear and provides insight into the medieval understanding of this conceptually physical and incomplete exchange. Ideas in this paper contribute to the scholarship of perception psychology and aurality in the Middle Ages, as well as the burgeoning field of the history of medieval medicine.
In light of the fact that SCOTUS called upon the past to testify as an expert witness in the tria... more In light of the fact that SCOTUS called upon the past to testify as an expert witness in the trial of same sex marriage, let’s look at what we know about medieval marriage.
This yearlong project is a modernization of The Canterbury Tales, adapted through online media. H... more This yearlong project is a modernization of The Canterbury Tales, adapted through online media. Harry Bailey is the managing editor of a new online magazine called The Pilgrim. After a motley readership held a lengthy conversation on the website's forum, Harry offered to host a tale telling contest. This project seeks to provide supplementary material when teaching The Canterbury Tales. It aims to reveal the hyper-textual and multi-genre characteristics of Chaucer's work. Pilgrim's Prize also seeks to introduce a new, digitally-minded audience to The Canterbury Tales.
This paper investigates the stylistic differences and overlaps present in the Interpolated Middle... more This paper investigates the stylistic differences and overlaps present in the Interpolated Middle English version of Guy de Chauliac, with excerpts from Henri de Mondeville. It investigates the extent to which compilatio becomes a new body of work, and how editorial choices reflect cultural and scribal influences in medical teaching and understanding.
Attached is my foreword from: Selected Proceedings from The Maladies, Miracles and Medicine of th... more Attached is my foreword from: Selected Proceedings from The Maladies, Miracles and Medicine of the Middle Ages (March 2014). The Reading Medievalist, vol.2 Salter, R (ed.) (Reading. 2015).
Delivered at IMC, Leeds 2015
Blood is the stuff of life. Sacred blood is a source of salvation. I... more Delivered at IMC, Leeds 2015 Blood is the stuff of life. Sacred blood is a source of salvation. It is healing. It is unclean. Contact with blood is degrading. Oft-times and certainly in the middle period, blood held ambiguous associations. It was both venerated and horrid. One obvious reason for this polarity is the value of the sacred body of Christ (and also saints by way of relics), in comparison to the sinful imperfect body of everyone else. Certainly spiritually significant bodies would harbour an exception to the imperfection. However, considering the significance of blood for life and health, I am not satisfied that the ambiguous taboo rests in the divide between the sacred and the secular. This paper examines the attitudes toward blood within devotional and medical contexts and suggests that the taboo has less to do with icky blood and more to do with status.
Delivered at Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo 2015
This paper seeks to explore medieval theories of t... more Delivered at Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo 2015 This paper seeks to explore medieval theories of the audible spirit and the ear’s agency in its control. It is structured in two parts: first it considers the substance of sound from the medieval point of view, identifying the degree of materiality attributed to the audible spirit; second, it traces the course of the audible spirit to the deaf ear and provides insight into the medieval understanding of this conceptually physical and incomplete exchange. Ideas in this paper contribute to the scholarship of perception psychology and aurality in the Middle Ages, as well as the burgeoning field of the history of medieval medicine.
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Papers by Jessica Legacy
This project seeks to provide supplementary material when teaching The Canterbury Tales. It aims to reveal the hyper-textual and multi-genre characteristics of Chaucer's work. Pilgrim's Prize also seeks to introduce a new, digitally-minded audience to The Canterbury Tales.
For the six papers please visit: http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/trm/
Conference Presentations by Jessica Legacy
Blood is the stuff of life. Sacred blood is a source of salvation. It is healing. It is unclean. Contact with blood is degrading. Oft-times and certainly in the middle period, blood held ambiguous associations. It was both venerated and horrid.
One obvious reason for this polarity is the value of the sacred body of Christ (and also saints by way of relics), in comparison to the sinful imperfect body of everyone else. Certainly spiritually significant bodies would harbour an exception to the imperfection. However, considering the significance of blood for life and health, I am not satisfied that the ambiguous taboo rests in the divide between the sacred and the secular. This paper examines the attitudes toward blood within devotional and medical contexts and suggests that the taboo has less to do with icky blood and more to do with status.
This paper seeks to explore medieval theories of the audible spirit and the ear’s agency in its control. It is structured in two parts: first it considers the substance of sound from the medieval point of view, identifying the degree of materiality attributed to the audible spirit; second, it traces the course of the audible spirit to the deaf ear and provides insight into the medieval understanding of this conceptually physical and incomplete exchange. Ideas in this paper contribute to the scholarship of perception psychology and aurality in the Middle Ages, as well as the burgeoning field of the history of medieval medicine.
This project seeks to provide supplementary material when teaching The Canterbury Tales. It aims to reveal the hyper-textual and multi-genre characteristics of Chaucer's work. Pilgrim's Prize also seeks to introduce a new, digitally-minded audience to The Canterbury Tales.
For the six papers please visit: http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/trm/
Blood is the stuff of life. Sacred blood is a source of salvation. It is healing. It is unclean. Contact with blood is degrading. Oft-times and certainly in the middle period, blood held ambiguous associations. It was both venerated and horrid.
One obvious reason for this polarity is the value of the sacred body of Christ (and also saints by way of relics), in comparison to the sinful imperfect body of everyone else. Certainly spiritually significant bodies would harbour an exception to the imperfection. However, considering the significance of blood for life and health, I am not satisfied that the ambiguous taboo rests in the divide between the sacred and the secular. This paper examines the attitudes toward blood within devotional and medical contexts and suggests that the taboo has less to do with icky blood and more to do with status.
This paper seeks to explore medieval theories of the audible spirit and the ear’s agency in its control. It is structured in two parts: first it considers the substance of sound from the medieval point of view, identifying the degree of materiality attributed to the audible spirit; second, it traces the course of the audible spirit to the deaf ear and provides insight into the medieval understanding of this conceptually physical and incomplete exchange. Ideas in this paper contribute to the scholarship of perception psychology and aurality in the Middle Ages, as well as the burgeoning field of the history of medieval medicine.