Description
Book SynopsisExplores discussions of numbers, arithmetic, and other mathematical operations in late medieval English sermons, revealing that popular English-speaking audiences were encouraged to engage in a wide range of numerate operations in their daily religious practices.
Trade Review“An engaging, well-researched study.”
—A. L. Kaufman Choice
“[T]his book, with its focus on medieval numeracy, as an overlooked counterpart to medieval literacy, fills a significant gap within scholarship. It adds to our understanding of the complexity and ingenuity of medieval sermons, and it sheds new light on the multivalent understandings of number possessed by audiences.”
—Sandy Gale Medieval Sermon Studies
“Spiritual Calculations adds greatly to our appreciation and understanding of medieval sermons and sheds light on how receptive audiences must have been to what was a highly sophisticated rhetorical form. Numbers are pervasive in sermons, and preachers employed them in a variety of ways, but they are in some ways so pervasive that their potential rhetorical effectiveness goes unnoticed. Cooper-Rompato’s study therefore makes an original and rich contribution to our greater understanding of how preachers ‘educated audiences’ in a ‘hybrid form of numerate practice’ and why they sought to do so.”
—Holly Johnson,author of The Grammar of Good Friday: Macaronic Sermons of Late Medieval England
