sehepunkte 24 (2024), Nr. 7/8

Denis Renevey: Devotion to the Name of Jesus in Medieval English Literature, c.1100 - c.1530

Denis Renevey's monograph evinces the author's profound interest in the medieval devotion to the Name of Jesus, both as a scholar and as a musician. The study of the religious phenomenon, which bridges Eastern and Western spirituality, allows for creative approaches that complement the dominant "literary perspective" (223) by including liturgical and para-liturgical texts and visual sources. Denis Renevey's linguistic background enables him to expertly close read Latin, Middle English and Anglo-Norman texts, a task that is rarely attempted by scholars despite the common trilinguality of post-Conquest medieval England.

Devotion to the Name of Jesus examines the genesis and the development of a cult in medieval England, tracing its Eastern roots and its emergence in twelfth-century continental Cistercian spirituality. It then follows the cult's rise in England after the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, a pivotal turning point in the spread of the devotion. The Introduction locates the particular devotion in the intersection of the biblical manifestations of praising holy names and the theological problem of naming the divine. Further sections of the Introduction include a review of scholarship. Rob Lutton's parallel research, in particular on the connection of the cult with East Anglian Lollardy, is duly acknowledged. Lutton's findings, incorporated into the monograph, provide valuable insights into the devotion to the Name among the laity.

Two of the five chapters that follow are devoted to the continental development of the cult. With a chronological twist, following the discussion of Bernard of Clairvaux's significance in the invention of the devotion in the West, Chapter 1 returns to the biblical and early Christian roots, highlighting Origen's inspiration for St Bernard (34). However, this latter claim remains unattested.

Chapter 2 follows two lines of enquiry. The close reading of the twelfth-century anonymous Cistercian Latin hymn Dulcis Jesu memoria and of its thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman and Middle English adaptations is justified by the fact that it provided the "script" for the late medieval devotion to the Name. The second line examines the immediate impact of the Second Council of Lyon on the cult in England and analyses the first tangible manifestation of the devotion in John Howden's poetry. Renevey's sensitivity to the musical imagery and context of Dulcis and of Howden's Philomena establishes the link between the two lines. (A parenthetical counterpoint: as a reviewer, I cannot leave the typographical errors in the Latin passages uncommented. Such errors occur with greater frequency than would be expected, largely attributable to the use of automated spell check. Unintentionally, this also exemplifies the spiritual aspirations described in the book, as all of them were intended to overcome human (and linguistic) limitations.)

The remaining three chapters discuss the development of the cult in England, focusing on the significance of Richard Rolle and his immediate legacy (Chapter 3), the late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century afterlives of Rolle (Chapter 4), and case studies of the practice of the cult featuring mainly fifteenth-century female devotees (Chapter 5). Rolle's dominance is justified not only by the author's expertise, but also by the claim that in his writing "[p]rayer and meditation are filled with the performance of the Name" (108). The Rollean chapter, which synthesises Renevey's antecedent studies on the mystic, crystallizes new emphases in his view of Rolle's idiosyncratic mysticism. Renevey asserts the causal relationship between the repetition of the Name and the participation in heavenly melodies (112, 113, 115). This assertion should be balanced by Rolle's evidence, also quoted in the chapter, that his (presumably) sole mystical experience of canor was preceded by the recitation of the Psalms. Furthermore, Rolle emphasized that divine grace necessary for the mystical experience cannot be induced through any spiritual practice.

In the presentation of Rollean afterlives, sources witnessing the late medieval practices shaped by the devotion to the Name are of particular importance. The meticulous analysis of the visual manifestation of the devotion in BL, MS Additional 37049 demonstrates analogies with the fifteenth-century reception of Henry Suso on the continent. The section on the Carthusian Richard Methley provides a wealth of textual evidence of the blending of cataphatic and apophatic traditions of mysticism in the form of single-word, mantra-like prayers as an offshoot of the cult of the Name. A welcome anticipation of this argument in Chapter 3 would have been the inclusion of the fourteenth-century Cloud-author, who espoused similar practices, as well as of the repetitive mantra-like utterances of Walter Hilton's Scale II that function as short-word prayers.

The final section of Chapter 4 (Pore Caitif) and Chapter 5 introduce the aspect of the relations of the cult with authority. The late fourteenth-century compilation Pore Caitif, which includes a Holy Name passage derived from Rolle, "provides incontrovertible early evidence on interest by the Lollards in the devotion to the Name" (179). The appropriation of the Rollean legacy of the cult served not only heterodox purposes. As Renevey shows in Chapter 5, female devotees of the Holy Name could derive authority from the power of the devotion (Margery Kempe) or utilise the cult to shape its female counterpart, the Name of Mary (Eleanor Hull).

Denis Renevey's monograph encompasses a broad temporal scope and various stages of a complex spiritual-cultural change. The chronological watersheds do not necessarily align with the chapter divisions. The initial sections of Chapters 3 and 4 serve more as supplementary material to the preceding chapters. The division of the textual sources into fourteenth- and fifteenth-century materials (Chapters 3 and 4, respectively) is occasionally untenable and creates undesired disruptions in the continuity of the spread of the cult. Furthermore, Renevey's narrative is implicitly committed to the chasm concept in models of cultural and technological change. This suggests a temporal gap between the emergence of an idea and its subsequent adoption. This is undoubtedly a working model, and the scarcity of medieval sources often naturally supports this perception. However, it would be worth considering whether the gaps between the different cultural stages could be filled with the inclusion of materials that have been cursorily referred to and that could potentially be of use in the history of the cult. These may include Old and Middle English medical recipes and charms, vernacular homilies and sermons, reflections on the nascent cult in biblical exegesis, and performative uses of the devotion in late medieval drama.

In his monograph, Denis Renevey dissolves the boundaries between literature and other manifestations of medieval culture. The book invites a broad range of readers to explore the power of words and the magic of naming in medieval England.