In Search of the Medieval Voice: Expressions of Identity in the Middle Ages

The theme of identity is currently of great interest in medieval studies and other areas. This volume offers fresh insight and an approach at once focussed and ranging by approaching identity through the theme of the voice. The approach is highly appropriate for a culture such as that of the Middle Ages where so many texts were read aloud and consumed through the ear as much as the eye. The contributors, coming from a range of disciplines, extend the concept of voicing both within and beyond textual disciplines, ranging across literature, musicology, history, theology, arachaeology to do so, while the introduction reflects on the themes and history of thought about identity. It is nowdays generally accepted, as the contributors to this project are well aware, that medieval concepts of identity vary considerably from modern models, often locating identity in what links or positions individuals as much as in what distinguishes them as personalities. Within this framework, the essays recreate the voicing and the voices of medieval individual and group identity with intimacy and conviction and open up fresh and stimulating methods of enquiry to help us hear them. –Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Professor of Medieval Literature, Centre for Medieval Studies, The University of York