The Review of English Studies· 2026Q2
Parochial alchemy: ordinals and their effects in Thomas Norton’s Bristol
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- 2026year
Short summary
Thomas Norton's 'Ordinal of Alchemy' (c.1477) is reframed as an artifact of Bristol's parish book culture, drawing on the liturgical genre of ordinals to assert authority over alchemy's textual tradition.
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Key points
- Thomas Norton's 'Ordinal of Alchemy' (c.1477) is reinterpreted through the lens of Bristol's parish book culture.
- The poem's title 'Ordinal' deliberately invokes the liturgical genre of ordinals, which guided readers to correct readings at specific times.
- Norton aligns his alchemical text with the 'Crede Mihi' or 'Believe Me' concept, referencing projects of textual emendation.
- This framing imbues Norton's vernacular alchemical poem with authority and assertiveness, imposing order on its textual tradition.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract Why did Thomas Norton call his Middle English alchemical poem an ‘ordinal’? This essay reframes Norton’s Ordinal of Alchemy (c.1477) as an artefact of parish book culture in his native city of Bristol. Every medieval English parish needed a good ordinal, the liturgical book-genre which pointed readers to the right readings (in other books) at the right times. A new ordinal had appeared in fifteenth-century England to correct widespread error: Clement Maidstone’s Directorium sacerdotum (often accompanied by a companion text, called Crede Mihi or ‘Believe Me’). When Norton names his poem ‘the Ordinal, the Crede Michi’, then, he mobilizes a familiar, parochial genre concept: a kind of book his readers could place. Norton invokes Maidstone’s project of textual emendation, and its meticulousness, to animate his vernacular poem with a plainspoken assertiveness as he imposes a proper form upon alchemy’s disordered textual tradition.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. The Review of English Studies, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Classics
ClassicsArts and Humanities