Bedingfield, M. Bradford 1971–

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Bedingfield, M. Bradford 1971–

PERSONAL:

Born 1971. Education: University of Georgia, B.A., 1993, M.A., 1995; Oxford University, M.St., 1996, D.Phil, 2000; Columbia Law School, J.D., 2005.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP, 60 State St., Boston, MA 02109. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Admitted to the bar of Massachusetts; Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP, Boston, MA, associate, 2005—. Lecturer at Tokyo Metropolitan University, Rikkyo University, Oxford University, and University of Connecticut.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar; Andrew D. Field Memorial Prize.

WRITINGS:

The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England, Boydell Press (Rochester, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Helen Gittos) The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-Saxon Church, Boydell Press (Rochester, NY), 2005.

Contributing editor, Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition Articles editor, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

SIDELIGHTS:

Before he became an attorney, M. Bradford Bedingfield lectured in English at several universities, both in the United States and abroad, and published two books on early English Christian liturgy. With Helen Gittos, Bedingfield edited The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-Saxon Church, a collection of scholarly essays on such topics as the link between architecture and liturgy, the veneration of the cross in Anglo-Saxon England, the Winchester scribes, penance rites, and rituals created for men and women.

The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England began as Bedingfield's Oxford University dissertation and covers church traditions in tenth- and eleventh-century England, particularly the dramatic and participatory aspects necessary for inspiring the largely illiterate congregants. The discussion of liturgical practices follows the Christian calendar beginning with Christmas and moving on to Epiphany, Lent, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter. He also explores baptism, Ascension, Candlemas, the Temporale, the Great Vigil, Rogation days, Pentecost, and Advent, noting that the rituals for each were identified with Biblical figures and were not practiced in Latin.

Though the book does not explore the liturgy within the context of pre-Conquest society, according to Milton McC. Gatch's review in Albion, the book is nevertheless "an intelligent and interesting examination of a broad segment of Old English literature…. [And] as such it is a welcome contribution and a fitting inaugural volume for a new series of monographs that cross strict disciplinary lines of enquiry." Mary Swan, writing in Medium Aevum, called Bedingfield's book "a welcome and striking contribution" on the subject, and concluded that the author "presents some extremely interesting ways to think about liturgy as performance, and as a mode which requires the involvement of a congregation."