Dedication

pp v-vi

Contents

pp vii-viii

List of Illustrations

pp ix-x

Contributors and Editors

pp xi-xi

Acknowledgments

pp xii-xii

Abbreviations

pp xiii-xiv

Introduction

pp 1-18

Part I - Practices of Reading

pp 19-20

1 - Literally, What Did Medieval Readers See?

pp 21-41

2 - Reading for the Ornament: Repetition and Structure in the Old English Exodus

pp 42-62

3 - A Canterbury School of Literary Theory: Aldhelm's De virginitate, the Liber monstrorum, and (Un)Reliable Fictions

pp 63-83

4 - About Face: Addressing the Vernicle in Late Medieval England

pp 84-109

5 - Ascetic Reading

pp 110-135

6 - Prayer at Plough: Medieval Reading Practices and the Work of the Paternoster

pp 136-158

Part II - Politics of Reading

pp 159-160

7 - Who Reads Now? The Anxieties of Millennial Reading: The 2019 Morton W. Bloomfield Lecture

pp 161-180

8 - The Jewish Reader: A Medieval Antitype

pp 181-199

9 - Biblical Compilation, Regional Reading, and Tailored Texts: The Making of Selwyn College MS 108 L. 1

pp 200-227

10 - Reading the Fair Maid of Astolat: Editorial Practice, Performative Emotionality, and Communal Forms of Reading

pp 228-245

11 - Marx Goes Fishing: The Temporalities of Idleness

pp 246-263

12 - Shining Cities: Communal Reading and the New Jerusalem from Maidstone to McCain

pp 264-288

Bibliography

pp 289-320

A Note on the Bloomfield Conferences

pp 321-322

General Index

pp 323-339