Essays examining the genre of medieval romance in its cultural Christian context, bringing out its chameleon-like character. The relationship between the Christianity of medieval culture and its most characteristic narrative, the romance, is complex and the modern reading of it is too often confused. Not only can it be difficult to negotiate the distant, sometimes alien concepts of religious cultures of past centuries in a modern, secular, multi-cultural society, but there is no straightforward Christian context of Middle English romance - or of medieval romance in general, although this volume focuses on the romances of England. Medieval audiences had apparently very different expectations and demands of their entertainment: some looking for, and evidently finding, moral exempla and analogues of biblical narratives, others secular, even sensational, entertainment of a type condemned by moralising voices. The essays collected here show how the romances of medieval England engage with its Christian culture. Topics include the handling of material from pre-Christian cultures, classical and Celtic, the effect of the Crusades, the meaning of chivalry, and the place of women in pious romances. Case studies, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Morte Darthur, offer new readings and ideas for teaching romance to contemporary students. They do not present a single view of a complex situation, but demonstrate the importance of reading romances with anawareness of the knowledge and cultural capital represented by Christianity for its original writers and audiences. Contributors: HELEN PHILLIPS, STEPHEN KNIGHT, PHILLIPA HARDMAN, MARIANNE AILES, RALUCA L. RADULESCU, CORINNE SAUNDERS, K.S. WHETTER, ANDREA HOPKINS, ROSALIND FIELD, DEREK BREWER, D. THOMAS HANKS, MICHELLE SWEENEY

The Sinful Knights is a detailed study of a small group of Middle English romances which concern themselves with the sin, repentence, and atonement of their heroes. Despite being few in numbers the poems - Guy of Warwick, Sir Ysumbras, Sir Gowther, and Robert of Cisyle - form a coherent and distinctive group and have never previously been studied in association with each other. Andrea Hopkins finds that in this closely related group of texts, the kind of penance experienced by the heroes, and its treatment by the authors, reflects archaic traditions and views at variance with the contemporary teaching and practice of the Church, and that this surprising departure is largely determined by the nature of the kind of literature to which the poems belong - romance. Andrea Hopkins discusses the nature of romance and the extent to which the poems are entitled to be considered as such. Detailed examination of the penitential romances illuminates other more important and frequently studied texts, particularly Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

During the Middle Ages, tournaments and jousting were both an occasion for public festivities and a way of training knights. Describing various types of combat with the use of primary source material and magnificent illuminated manuscripts, this book provides a look into the jousts and tournaments that entertained the people and trained knights for war. Though considered mock combat, many knights lost their lives during these jousts and melees.