“David Aers is one of the most experienced and accomplished scholars in Middle English studies. His consistently bracing and dynamic work has opened up many extremely fertile areas in the field.” —James Simpson, Harvard University

 

“Sanctifying Signs is a book that must be read by theologians as well as scholars of late medieval England. Through patient reading of Piers Plowman and other texts David Aers helps us see that theology is impoverished when theologians fail to read Langland with the same care they read Aquinas. This is a book about medieval England but it is no less important for the challenges facing Christians today.” —Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University

 

Sanctifying Signs presents a critical study of Christian literature, theology, and culture in late medieval England. In this notable book, David Aers considers the diverse ways in which certain late medieval Christians and their Church engaged the immense resources of the Christian tradition in their own historical moment. Using a wide range of texts by William Langland, John Wyclif, Walter Brut, William Thorpe, and others, Aers explores the complex theological, institutional, and political processes that shape and preserve tradition during changing circumstances. He is particularly interested in why some texts were judged by the late medieval Church to be orthodox and others heretical, and the effect of these judgments on the conversations and debates of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.