Kendall Bitner

I have a background in medieval manuscript culture in Latin and both Old and Middle English, textual editing, and philosophy. My master’s thesis at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, included producing an edition of Ælfric of Eynsham’s 10th-century Grammar, the first translation of a Latin grammar into any European vernacular, composed in Latin and Old English. Since completing my master’s program I have been a Research Fellow of the Canterbury Tales Project and a copy editor for the Journal of the Northern Renaissance. My MECANO project involves investigating the processes of canonization and canon formation within the fluid corpus of anonymous and pseudonymous late antique and medieval sermons. I am especially interested in exploring the ways in which scholarship may construct post hoc canons which might not accurately reflect the historical reception of the works in question.


Recovering anonymous late-antique preachers in the corpus of pseudo-Augustinian sermons

When it comes to Latin patristic preaching, Saint Augustine is the canon. His ca. 750 sermons were transmitted as sermon collections in thousands of medieval manuscripts. In the manuscripts authenticated Augustinian sermons travel with large numbers of sermons wrongly attributed to Augustine, ca. 150 of which have been classified as anonymous homilies that stem from Late Antiquity or even North Africa. This project will recover, describe and analyse the sermons of forgotten late-antique preachers, preserved through association with Augustine, to contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of inclusion in and exclusion from the canon.