Robert Rypon, Selected Sermons. Volume 1

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are considered the golden age of
preaching in medieval England. The Latin sermons edited and translated
in this volume, preached by Robert Rypon (c. 1350–1421/22) and collected
in a single manuscript, are both representative and exceptional
instances of the preaching during this period. Rypon was an English
Benedictine monk educated at Oxford and a member of Durham priory, where
he served a number of important roles. He preached regularly not only to
his monastic community but to lay and clerical audiences at Durham
cathedral and in parishes around Durham and Northumbria. Many of his
analogies, metaphors, and exempla are original or distinctive in
their development, but he applies all of them to traditional homiletic
concerns, such as the seven deadly sins, the acts of mercy, the
theological virtues, the Ten Commandments, prayer, and penance. He also
artfully employs the complex scholastic sermon form popular with
preachers trained at the universities. His sermons open a window onto
the world of preaching and the religious culture of late medieval
England.






This volume includes a selection of sermons preached on various Sundays
and other feast days during the liturgical year, along with seven
sermons preached on saints’ days, which include the feasts for John the
Baptist, Mary Magdalene, and Oswald, the seventh-century king of
Northumbria. The second volume will include a selection of sermons
preached during Lent.