Miserere Mei

“King’oo provides a careful and multi-disciplinary history of this group of psalms during the years before and following the English Reformation. . . . Using tools from the scholarship of history, art, literature, and theology, King’oo has written a fascinating study. With its superb scholarship and carefully reasoned arguments, this book is recommended for academic libraries supporting graduate programs.” —Catholic Library World “The discovery of continuities amidst the upheaval of the Reformation has been a major area of scholarship in recent years and King’oo ably demonstrates that the Penitential psalms form yet another example of the way in which ‘the religious literature of the pre-Reformed past was not cast aside but rather gradually and complexly reshaped in Reformation England.’” —Journal of Ecclesiastical History “The interdisciplinary approach used by Costley King’oo is one of the book’s great strengths: we study manuscripts, early printed works and illustrations; Bible commentary, paraphrase and translation; lyric poetry, political parody and devotional song. . . . [This book] will have a broad appeal to scholars of the Bible (and the psalms in particular), scholars of art history and religious history, literary scholars and those interested in early modern sexuality.” —The History of Women Religious “King’oo lays out a concentrated argument for the centrality of the Penitential Psalms and what she calls a ‘penitential hermeneutic’ in both late medieval and early modern culture. . . . The monograph makes a solid case for the need for further study in this area.” —The Medieval Review “A fascinating and impressively composed monograph. . . . King’oo’s study is at its finest and most compelling in her analysis of individual adaptations of the Penitential Psalms, where close reading merges richly with attention to historical context and textual details.” —Comitatus “King’oo is especially perceptive in her attention to textual and literary detail, and she offers many valuable insights into the dynamic life of old traditions carried through time. Read as a whole or as selected essays, this book gives helpful case studies for those looking for a highly nuanced understanding of the continuities and discontinuities between the late medieval and early modern uses of biblical texts.” —Religious Studies Review “King’oo’s study distinguishes itself among other excellent scholarly works on the Psalter for its carefully considered focus on the unique textual tradition of the Seven Penitential Psalms. . . . Given King’oo’s training as a literary scholar, her attention to the Penitential Psalms’ form, genre, language, and even the material texts in which they were available yields exciting interpretations of their nuanced revisions and their implied audiences.” —Church History “Her writing is clear and engaging and stylistically sophisticated. This is a thoroughly enjoyable and well-researched book whose focus, although seemingly narrow, sheds much light on the some of the central controversies of the early modern period.” —Speculum “Miserere Mei convincingly and originally answers a number of the questions raised by the use and persistence of these Psalms, and offers new ones that we didn’t know enough to ask previously. . . . The greatest strengths of the book may be the ostensible narrowness and concreteness of its focus. By limiting her attention to the penitential Psalms, King’oo has written a monograph that is unusually coherent and organic, given the span of time and range of genres covered.” —Renaissance Quarterly “The book offers itself both as a valuable cultural history of the penitential psalms and as a model for rethinking outdated yet still dominant modes of historical periodization.” —Modern Language Review