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Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic

Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic Book Reviews 95 interest to all with a concern for crusader studies and/or cultural encounters, it is likely that all will find much of interest. JAMES DOHERTY Lancaster University, UK j.doherty@lancaster.ac.uk © 2015, James Doherty http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2015.1002237 Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic RYAN SZPIECH, 2013 Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 313 pp. £39.00/US$59.95 (hardback) ISBN 9780812244717 Following in the footsteps of A.D. Nock’s classic account of “conversion” in Anti- quity, Ryan Szpiech collects a series of conversion accounts from the High Middle Ages to demonstrate the relationship between conversion accounts and polemical argumentation. Rather than tackling the general topic of medieval conversion in the sense of a pietistic turn (which Szpiech admits would quickly become an impossibly vast project on the hagiographical literature of the entire period), the author offers a study of the theologically oriented conversion accounts that are embedded in polem- ical works. The question is thus: what is the place of first person narratives of conver- sion and post-conversion in the attack on the religious other, who was once the religious self? He argues that there is a fundamental connection between conversion narratives and the creation of polemics against the abandoned religious http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean Taylor & Francis

Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic

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Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic

Abstract

Book Reviews 95 interest to all with a concern for crusader studies and/or cultural encounters, it is likely that all will find much of interest. JAMES DOHERTY Lancaster University, UK j.doherty@lancaster.ac.uk © 2015, James Doherty http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2015.1002237 Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic RYAN SZPIECH, 2013 Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 313 pp. £39.00/US$59.95 (hardback) ISBN 9780812244717...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2015, George Archer
ISSN
1473-348X
eISSN
0950-3110
DOI
10.1080/09503110.2015.1002238
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Book Reviews 95 interest to all with a concern for crusader studies and/or cultural encounters, it is likely that all will find much of interest. JAMES DOHERTY Lancaster University, UK j.doherty@lancaster.ac.uk © 2015, James Doherty http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2015.1002237 Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic RYAN SZPIECH, 2013 Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 313 pp. £39.00/US$59.95 (hardback) ISBN 9780812244717 Following in the footsteps of A.D. Nock’s classic account of “conversion” in Anti- quity, Ryan Szpiech collects a series of conversion accounts from the High Middle Ages to demonstrate the relationship between conversion accounts and polemical argumentation. Rather than tackling the general topic of medieval conversion in the sense of a pietistic turn (which Szpiech admits would quickly become an impossibly vast project on the hagiographical literature of the entire period), the author offers a study of the theologically oriented conversion accounts that are embedded in polem- ical works. The question is thus: what is the place of first person narratives of conver- sion and post-conversion in the attack on the religious other, who was once the religious self? He argues that there is a fundamental connection between conversion narratives and the creation of polemics against the abandoned religious

Journal

Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2015

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