This collection of essays focuses on the questions of women's access to a written culture in medieval Britain and their representation within it. It explores women's engagement with Anglo-Norman, English and Welsh as well as Latin, and addresses issues including orality and literacy and women's exclusion from a written tradition. It considers the question of the levels of literacy attained by women, and contemporary attitudes to their acquisition of such skills, as well as the historical evidence for women's activity as writers, patrons and readers. It also examines the representation of women within different literary genres, both secular and religious - their possession or lack of power, and their roles as lovers, mothers and saints. This is the first such volume to focus on these issues within the specific framework of late medieval Britain, and as such constitutes a unique contribution to the study of women and medieval literary history.

Material on the production and transmission of medieval literature and the early formation of the canon of English poetry. A wide range of poets is covered - Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, the Gawain poet, Langland, and Lydgate, along with the translator of Claudian's De Consulatu Stilichonis. The Turnament of Totenham is read in termsof theory of the carnivalesque and popular culture, and major contributions are made to current linguistic, editorial and codicological controversies. Going beyond the Middle Ages, the book also considers the sixteenth-century reception of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women and Post-Reformation reading of Lydgate. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the production and transmission of medieval literature, and in the early formation of the canon of English poetry. Contributors: JULIA BOFFEY, J.A. BURROW, CHRISTOPHER CANNON, MARTHA DRIVER, SIAN ECHARD, A.S.G. EDWARDS, KATE D. HARRIS, S.S. HUSSEY, KATHRYN KERBY-FULTON, CAROL M. MEALE, LINNE R. MOONEY, CHARLOTTE C. MORSE, V.I.J. SCATTERGOOD, ELIZABETH SOLOPOVA, ESTELLE STUBBS, JOHN THOMPSON.

Wide-ranging essays engaging with all aspects of medieval romance, from textual studies to historical sources. The essays in this volume reflect the range and diversity of approach and of critical stance which have characterised romance studies in recent years. Amongst the areas of interest addressed are those of generic definition; the role of romance in relation to emergent ideas of nationalism; the complex associations between gender and genre, and between historical events and their expression in literature. Other issues explored are the transmission and reception of texts; the nature of the audiences; and the implications of critical theory for the reading of medieval romance. Contributors: MALDWYN MILLS, J.A. BURROW, DONNA CRAWFORD, A.S.G. EDWARDS, ARLYN DIAMOND, JOCELYN WOGAN-BROWNE, JOHN J. THOMPSON, THORLAC TURVILLE-PETRE, DIANA SPEED, JOHN SCATTERGOOD, COLIN RICHMOND, CAROL M. MEALE.

Malory's Morte Darthur - text, history and reception - expertly appraised by international scholars. This collection of original essays by an international group of distinguished medievalists provides a comprehensive introduction to the great work of Sir Thomas Malory, which will be indispensable for both students and scholars. It is divided into three main sections, on Malory in context, the art of the Morte Darthur, and its reception in later years. As well as essays on the eight tales which make up the Morte Darthur, there are studies ofthe relationship between the Winchestermanuscript and Caxton's and later editions; the political and social context in which Malory wrote; his style and sources; and his treatment of two key concepts in Arthurian literature, chivalry and the representation of women. The volume also includes a brief biography of Malory with a list of the historical records relating to him and his family. It ends with a discussion of the reception of the Morte Darthurfrom the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and a select bibliography. Contributors: P.J.C. FIELD, FELICITY RIDDY, RICHARD BARBER, ELIZABETH EDWARDS, TERENCE MCCARTHY, CAROL MEALE, JEREMY SMITH, ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD,BARBARA NOLAN, HELEN COOPER, JILL MANN, DAVID BENSON, A.S.G. EDWARDS