Da Costa, Dr Alexandra

Job Title: Research Fellow and Tutor
College: St Hilda's
Period/ Subject: Medieval

Email address: alexandra.dacosta@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests: Early printed books; heretical and orthodox tracts; medieval monasticism.

Teaching Areas: Old English, Middle English, English Language

Recent Publications:

---, ‘John Fewterer’s Myrrour or Glasse of Christes Passion and Ulrich Pinder’s Speculum Passionis’, Notes & Queries 56, 27-29

--- & Ann M Hutchison, ‘Pastoral Care at Syon Abbey’, in R.J. Stansbury (ed.) Pastoral Care (Brill, forthcoming early 2010)

---, ‘From Manuscript into Print: The Quattuor Sermones, the four sermons and the Nova Festa’, Medium Aevum (forthcoming early 2010)

---, ‘Defending Orthodoxy: Ulrich Pinder’s Speculum Passionis and Fewterer’s Myrrour or Glasse of Christes Passion’ in I. Johnson and A. Westphall (eds.) Geographies of Orthodoxy: Opening the Pseudo-Bonaventuran Middle English Lives of Christ (forthcoming 2010)

---, ‘“An ungracious and devilish woman”: Syon’s Public Condemnation of Elizabeth Barton’, Review of English Studies (forthcoming 2010)

Other Information:

My doctoral research focused on the printed books that Syon Abbey, one of the most orthodox and ascetic English monastic foundations, produced in the early sixteenth century. I’m now working on a new project, investigating orthodox and heretical tracts printed between 1529 and 1531...

After Luther was excommunicated, it seemed for a while that the English authorities were succeeding in keeping European heresy out of England. However, as the 1520s drew to a close the flow of heretical books began to grow, peaking in 1530 with the publication abroad of eight volumes for English readers. Orthodox writers such as More, Fisher and the brethren at Syon Abbey responded by increasing their own publications in defense of the Catholic Church. My work will explore the rich web of exchanges between orthodox and protestant English writers in the four years when they were most prolific in print 1529-1532. Although German orthodox controversialist works have been closely studied, the role the press played in England in preparing the ground for the Reformation before the break with Rome has barely been explored. This study will allow more accurate comparison to be made with trends in Germany; reveal the average reader’s experience of the debate in the years before the break with Rome; and determine to what extent this facilitated the adoption of protestant doctrine.

College Website

Back to Faculty Members