Re-assessing St. Birgitta of Sweden and her Revelations in Medieval England: Circulation and Influence, 1380-1530

Progress on the project in 2025 includes the final version of the "DIGITAL BIRGITTA" online resource and the graphing visualization of manuscript relationships. Former researcher Samira Lindstedt (now in Oxford/London) continues the editing of the Revelations in collaboration with former post-doc Katherine Zieman (now in Poitiers, France). The PI continues research concerning the Revelations in medieval devotional compilations and work on a public-facing book on Birgitta's influence in England. The international project seminar was held in May 2025 and participants have submitted their revised chapters for a collected essays volume book proposal, to be published by Boydell & Brewer Press.

It is a commonplace that we continue to underestimate women's roles in shaping literature and culture, both in the present and in the past. Holy woman and visionary Birgitta of Sweden (1303-73) was well-known in late-medieval England and her Revelations were translated multiple times, but she remains chronically understudied. Nearly all of the English texts concerning Bridget are unedited and trapped in medieval manuscripts, and no-one has yet undertaken what this ReVISION project proposes: a comprehensive study of the full impact of Birgitta and her Revelations on English literature and culture. The main research question will be: what was the reception and influence of St. Birgitta of Sweden, and her Revelations and related texts, in late-medieval England? In pursuing this question by means of a text database, new editions, and their analysis, the ReVISION project will test a bold overarching hypothesis: that from when the Revelations first crossed the Channel around 1380 into the English Reformation in the 1530s, Birgitta was in fact the most influential female author in medieval England, indelibly shaping the English society - and, at the same time, the English also shaped Birgitta and her texts to fit their own needs and tastes, sometimes through dramatic adaptation. The original methodologies chosen to tackle this question would be path-breaking in two ways. First, the combination of an open access database, network graphs, and digital editions represents a leap forward in the development of new knowledge about medieval manuscripts in England and textual circulation (not only for within the project itself but for other research). Second, analysis of these resources offers high potential for significant theoretical advancement about how gender and authorship functioned in late medieval England. This creative approach to expanding the current knowledge base fills important gaps in the fields of English literature, women’s writing, and religious culture.