The community of the parish in late medieval Kent

Throughout medieval England, the parish held a central place in the religion of the laity. In their parish churches, lay people not only followed the calendar through sequenced liturgies, but they also celebrated those rituals which marked the important events in their lives, such as birth and death. Parochial clergy served as the primary communicators of orthodox doctrine and practice. The fabric of the parish church, which contained altars, statues and stained glass, in many places was the only edifice to display public art, and in almost all places was the foremost structure devoted to pious uses. The lay members of medieval parishes not only shared a great deal, they also constituted a distinctive type of community. The basis of community action was the joint responsibility lay parishioners held for the maintenance of the nave and ornaments of their church. A wide variety of practices were developed to raise funds to support this duty. Supervision of these activities was undertaken by officers chosen by the lay community, of which the most important were churchwardens. This study of parishes in four settlements in the county of Kent finds both similarities and differences in the way their communities functioned. The parishes shared a social conservatism, tending to mirror the composition of the secular community in which they were located. For example, women and the poor, who were almost universally excluded from civic office, found their participation in the parish circumscribed as well. Nonetheless, the late-medieval parishioners who formed the core of these communities appear to have viewed service to the parish as possessing genuine religious merit. The settlements under study differed in the strength of their community spirit. Some conditions seemed to have generally weakened attachment to the parish, including difficulty in traveling to the church, a small or frequently absent clerical staff and a relatively poor population. Parochial affiliation appears to have been strong in areas with a relatively high population density, a small ratio of clergy to laity, and a generally prosperous population. Furthermore, strength of the parish community was an important factor influencing the transition through the English Reformation

The Autonomy of Conscience: Images of Confession in Mirk's Festial

Le présent article examine la présentation du sacrement de la confession dans le Festial, recueil populaire anglais de sermons de langue vernaculaire rédigé par John Mirk vers la fin du XIVe siècle. En particulier, l'article s'intéresse aux exempla dans les sermons pour le carême, en concluant que les exempla de Mirk dépeignent les pécheurs comme participants autonomes au processus de leur propre salut, capables de communiquer avec la divinité sans intermédiaire clérical. Le Festial était orthodoxe; ses sermons font allusion fréquemment à la nécessité de se confesser à un prêtre. Néanmoins, ses exempla mettent l'accent sur le pouvoir de l'acte laïque, ce qui pourrait expliquer la popularité de ce texte

ROR1 and ROR2 expression in pancreatic cancer

Background: The Wnt receptors ROR1 and ROR2 are generating increased interest as cancer therapeutic targets but remain understudied in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Compared to canonical Wnt/ beta-catenin signalling, the role of noncanonical Wnt signalling in PDAC remains largely unknown. Only one study has investigated the prognostic significance of the noncanonical Wnt signalling receptor, ROR2 in PDAC. No studies have investigated the prognostic role of ROR1 in PDAC.Methods: Here, we performed analysis of ROR1 and ROR2 mRNA expression in three publicly available datasets ICGC-PACA-AU (n = 81), TCGA-PAAD (n = 150) and CPTAC-PDAC (n = 137). ROR1 and ROR2 protein expression from the CPTAC-PDAC discovery cohort were also analysed. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) using the validated anti ROR1 monoclonal antibody (4A5) was performed on the Australian Pancreatic Cancer Genome Initiative (APGI) cohort of PDAC samples (n = 152). Association between ROR1 cytoplasmic staining intensity and clinicopathological parameters including stage, grade and overall survival (OS) was investigated.Results: High ROR1 mRNA expression levels correlated with a favourable OS outcome in all of the ICGC-PACA-AU, TCGA-PAAD and CPTAC-PDAC cohorts. ROR1 protein expression was not associated with stage, grade or OS in the APGI cohort.Conclusion: ROR1 and ROR2 have potential as prognostic markers when measured at the mRNA level in PDAC. Our IHC cohort did not support ROR1 protein expression in predicting OS, and highlighted the discrepancy of prognostic biomarkers when measured by MS, IHC and RNAseq