{"product_id":"uncertain-refuge-sanctuary-in-the-literature-of-medieval-england-hardback-9780812253443","title":"Uncertain Refuge; Sanctuary in the Literature of Medieval England (Hardback) 9780812253443","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eUncertain Refuge\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eSanctuary in the Literature of Medieval England\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eElizabeth Allen (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780812253443\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 22 October 2021\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e376 pages, 10 halftones\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"\u003cp\u003eSanctuary has typically been depicted as the source of a power struggle between church and\u003cbr\u003e state, with the church trying to challenge royal authority for ultimate control over the kingdom's\u003cbr\u003e subjects. What is new about Elizabeth Allen's study of sanctuary is that she sees it instead as a boon to bothchurch and state...With her astute analysis and attention to unconventional sources, Allen makes a significant contribution to the study of sanctuary, a field more typically populated by dry legal records and their historians. Nonetheless, this study is the first to clarify just how integral sanctuary was to royal authority.\u003c\/p\u003e \" (Journal of British Studies) \"\u003ci\u003eUncertain Refuge\u003c\/i\u003e couldn't be timelier. The arrival at the United States border of migrants from Mexico, Central America, South America, and elsewhere and African and Middle Eastern asylum seekers' journeys on land to Turkey, as well as the perilous attempts to traverse the Mediterranean to Europe, evince how the search for sanctuary is now, more than ever, a global concern. The question of how sanctuary functioned in the past has enjoyed renewed attention of late...Spanning the twelfth to seventeenth centuries in its examination of an array of texts including Latin chronicles, vernacular poetry, and Tudor drama, \u003ci\u003eUncertain Refuge\u003c\/i\u003e is required reading for anyone interested in not only sanctuary, but also law, cultural geography, kingship, religion, and literature in medieval England.\" (Speculum) \"A splendid, exemplary, important book. Its erudition puts it on the same level as some of the field-transcending, encyclopedic work of medievalists of past generations. But its sense of the stakes of its argument, particularly its extended engagement with the urgency of sanctuary and care for the marginalized, make it a crucial book for this moment.\" (D. Vance Smith, Princeton University) \"Elizabeth Allen's \u003ci\u003eUncertain Refuge\u003c\/i\u003e is an important, indeed necessary, intervention in the scholarly conversation about medieval concepts of sanctuary and the power they continue to hold today. By considering its cultural meaning and power, Allen brings a substantially different perspective to sanctuary in medieval England than others, greatly deepening our understanding of its significance.\" (Shannon McSheffrey, Concordia University)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo seek sanctuary from persecution by entering a sacred space is an act of desperation, but also a symbolic endeavor: fugitives invoke divine presence to reach a precarious safe haven that imbues their lives with religious, social, or political significance. In medieval England, sanctuary was upheld under both canon and common law, and up to five hundred people sought sanctuary every year. What they found, however, was not so much a static refuge as a temporary respite from further action-confession and exile-or from further violence-jurisdictional conflict, harrying or starvation, a breaching of the sanctuary.\u003cbr\u003e While sanctuary has usually been analyzed as part of legal history, in \u003ci\u003eUncertain Refuge\u003c\/i\u003e Elizabeth Allen explores the symbolic consequences of sanctuary seeking in English literary works-miracle collections, chronicles, romances, and drama. She ponders the miracle of a stag's escape from the hunt into a churchyard as well as the account of a fallen political favorite who gains a sort of charisma as he takes sanctuary three times in succession; the figure of Sir Gawain, seeking refuge in a stark land far from the court and Robin Hood, hiding in his local forest refuge among his Merry Men. Her consideration of medieval sanctuary extends to its resonances in a seventeenth-century play about the early Tudor usurper Perkin Warbeck and even into modern America, with the case of a breach of sanctuary in southwest Georgia in 1963, when sheriffs took over a voter registration meeting in a local church.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eUncertain Refuge\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates a fantasy of protection and its impermanence that animated late medieval literary culture, and one that remains poignantly alive, if no longer written into law, in today's troubled political world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eNote on Translation\u003cbr\u003e Introduction. Medieval Sanctuary: Legal History and Symbolic Action 1\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. The Miracle of Cuthbert's Stag\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. The Flight of the King's Man: Hubert de Burgh in the \u003ci\u003eChronica Majora\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Breaches at Westminster and the Making of a Sanctuary King\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. The Dark Sanctuary of \u003ci\u003eSir Gawain and the Green Knight\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. Robin Hood and the Limits of Sanctuary\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. Kingship and the Politics of Pity in the Histories of Perkin Warbeck\u003cbr\u003e Coda. Sanctuary in Southwest Georgia, 1962\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52559245803800,"sku":"9780812253443","price":38.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/uncertain-refuge-sanctuary-in-the-literature-of-medieval-england-hardback-9780812253443","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}