This substantial anthology of documents offers students of later medieval English literature, society and history a range of interdisciplinary perspectives through which to understand the literary texts from the period 1350-1550. Informed by the latest scholarship and meticulous original research, it includes both classic texts and brings rare materials back into circulation. The documents illustrate and illuminate the languages of medieval England, its books and methods of manuscript production; as well as the diverse richness of the spirituality, chivalry and scientific knowledge that shaped the later medieval world. Supported by a wide-range of pedagogically-designed tools to help students find their way into the history, literature and culture of the period, The Later Middle Ages: A Sourcebook includes: * An authoritative introduction outlining key historical events, social and political movements, and literary and cultural ideas of the time. * Informative headnotes, footnotes and section introductions, supporting the material and providing insights into how individual documents aid the reading of major texts * A timeline and a chronological list of the major literary events of the period * A comprehensive guide to further reading and useful websites The Later Middle Ages: A Sourcebook makes available documents that are both important in their own right, and crucial for an understanding of the literary output of the period, challenging boundaries between text and context, literature and history. The rich source material and essential context that this book provides make it an invaluable resource for all students of Medieval Studies.

Essays on the complexity of multilingualism in medieval England. Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne's scholarship on the French of England - a term she indeed coined for the mix of linguistic, cultural, and political elements unique to the pluri-lingual situation of medieval England - is of immenseimportance to the field. The essays in this volume extend, honour and complement her path-breaking work. They consider exchanges between England and other parts of Britain, analysing how communication was effected where languagesdiffered, and probe cross-Channel relations from a new perspective. They also examine the play of features within single manuscripts, and with manuscripts in conversation with each other. And they discuss the continuing reach ofthe French of England beyond the Middle Ages: in particular, how it became newly relevant to discussions of language and nationalism in later centuries. Whether looking at primary sources such as letters and official documents, orat creative literature, both religious and secular, the contributions here offer fruitful and exciting approaches to understanding what the French of England can tell us about medieval Britain and the European world beyond. Thelma Fenster is Professor Emerita of French and Medieval Studies, Fordham University; Carolyn Collette is Professor of English Language and Literature at Mount Holyoke College. Contributors: Christopher Baswell,Emma Campbell, Paul Cohen, Carolyn Collette, Thelma Fenster, Robert Hanning, Richard Ingham, Maryanne Kowaleski, Serge Lusignan, Thomas O'Donnell, W. Mark Ormrod, Monika Otter, Felicity Riddy, Delbert Russell, Fiona Somerset, +Robert M. Stein, Andrew Taylor, Nicholas Watson, R.F. Yeager

New essays demonstrate Gower's mastery of the three languages of medieval England, and provide a thorough exploration of the voices he used and the discourses in which he participated. John Gower wrote in three languages - Latin, French, and English - and their considerable and sometimes competing significance in fourteenth-century England underlies his trilingualism. The essays collected in this volume start from Gower as trilingual poet, exploring Gower's negotiations between them - his adaptation of French sources into his Latin poetry, for example - as well as the work of medieval translators who made Gower's French poetry availablein English. "Translation" is also considered more broadly, as a "carrying over" (its etymological sense) between genres, registers, and contexts, with essays exploring Gower's acts of translation between the idioms of varied literary and non-literary forms; and further essays investigate Gower's writings from literary, historical, linguistic, and codicological perspectives. Overall, the volume bears witness to Gower's merit and his importance to English literary history, and increases our understanding of French and Latin literature composed in England; it also makes it possible to understand and to appreciate fully the shape and significance of Gower's literary achievement and influence, which have sometimes suffered in comparison to Chaucer. ELISABETH DUTTON is Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Contributors: Elisabeth Dutton, Jean Pascal Pouzet, Ethan Knapp, Carolyn P. Collette,Elliot Kendall, Robert R. Edwards, George Shuffleton, Nigel Saul, David Carlson, Candace Barrington, Andreea Boboc, Tamara F. O'Callaghan, Stephanie Batkie, Karla Taylor, Brian Gastle, Matthew Irvin, Peter Nicholson, J.A. Burrow,Holly Barbaccia, Kim Zarins, Richard F. Green, Cathy Hume, John Bowers, Andrew Galloway, R.F. Yeager, Martha Driver

Groundbreaking surveys of the complex interrelationship between the languages of English and French in medieval Britain. With co-editors: CAROLYN COLLETTE, MARYANNE KOWALESKI, LINNE MOONEY, AD PUTTER, and DAVID TROTTER England was more widely and enduringly francophone in the Middle Ages than our now standard accounts of its history, culture and language allow. The French of England (also known as Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French) is the language of nearly a thousand literary texts, of much administration, and of many professions and occupations. English literary, linguistic and documentary history is deeply interwoven both with a continually evolving spectrum of Frenches used within and outside the realm, and cannot be fully grasped in isolation. The essays in this volume open up andbegin writing a new cultural history focussed on, but not confined to, the presence and interactions of francophone speakers, writers, readers, texts and documents in England from the eleventh to the later fifteenth centuries. They return us to a newly-alive, multi-vocal, complexly multi-cultural medieval England, in which the use of French and its interrelations with English and other languages involve many diverse groups of people. The volume's size testifies to the significance of England's francophone culture, while its chronological range shows the need for revision across the whole span of our existing narratives about medieval English linguistic and cultural history.. Contributors: HENRY BAINTON, MICHAEL BENNETT, JULIA BOFFEY, RICHARD BRITNELL, CAROLYN COLLETTE, GODFRIED CROENEN, HELEN DEEMING, STEPHANIE DOWNES, MARTHA DRIVER, MONICA H. GREEN, RICHARD INGHAM, REBECCA JUNE, MARYANNE KOWALESKI, PIERRE KUNSTMANN, FRANCOISE H. M. LE SAUX, SERGE LUSIGNAN, TIM WILLIAM MACHAN, JULIA MARVIN, BRIAN MERRILEES, RUTH NISSE, MARILYN OLIVA, W. MARK ORMROD, HEATHER PAGAN, LAURIE POSTLEWATE, JEAN-PASCAL POUZET, AD PUTTER, GEOFFRECTOR, DELBERT RUSSELL, THEA SUMMERFIELD, ANDREW TAYLOR, DAVID TROTTER, ELIZABETH M. TYLER, NICHOLAS WATSON, JOCELYN WOGAN-BROWNE, ROBERT F. YEAGER

A fresh reading of the Legend shows it to be one of Chaucer's most carefully crafted and significant works. Professor Collette's approach to this challenging and provocative poem reflects her wide scholarly interests, her expertise in the area of representations of women in late medieval European society, and her conviction that the Legend of Good Women can be better understood when positioned within several of the era's intellectual concerns and historical contexts. The book will enrich the ongoing conversation among Chaucerians as to the significance of the Legend, both as an individual cultural production and an important constituent of Chaucer's poetic.achievement. A praiseworthy and useful monograph. Professor Robert Hanning, Columbia University. The Legend of Good Women has perhaps not always had the appreciation or attention it deserves. Here, it is read as one of Chaucer's major texts, a thematically and artistically sophisticated work whose veneer of transparency and narrow focus masks a vital inquiry into basic questions of value, moderation, and sincerity in late medieval culture. The volume places Chaucer within several literary contexts developed in separate chapters: early humanist bibliophilia, translation and the development of the vernacular; late medieval compendia of exemplary narratives centred in women's choices written by Boccaccio, Machaut, Gower and Christine de Pizan; and the pervasive late fourteenth-century cultural influence of Aristotelian ideas of the mean, moderation, and value, focusing on Oresme's translations of the Ethics into French. It concludes with two chapters on the context of Chaucer's continual reconsideration of issues of exchange, moderation and fidelity apparent in thematic, figurative and semantic connections that link the Legend both to Troilus and Criseyde and to the women of The Canterbury Tales. Carolyn Collette is Emeritus Professor of English Language and Literature at Mount Holyoke College and a Research Associate at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York.

Essays demonstrating the importance and inflence of Italian culture on medieval Britain. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the rise of international trade, the growth of towns and cities, and the politics of diplomacy all helped to foster productive and far-reaching connections and cultural interactionsbetween Britain and Italy; equally, the flourishing of Italian humanism from the late fourteenth century onwards had a major impact on intellectual life in Britain. The aim of this book is to illustrate the continuity andthe variety of these exchanges during the period. Each chapter focuses on a specific area (book collection, historiography, banking, commerce, literary production), highlighting the significance of the productive interchange ofpeople and ideas across diverse cultural communities; it is the lived experience of individuals, substantiated by written evidence, that shapes the book's collective understanding of how two European cultures interacted with eachother so fruitfully. MICHELE CAMPOPIANO is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Latin Literature at the University of York; HELEN FULTON is Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol. Contributors: Helen Bradley, Margaret Bridges, Michele Campopiano, Carolyn Collette, Victoria Flood, Helen Fulton, Bart Lambert, Ignazio del Punta

Groundbreaking surveys of the complex interrelationship between the languages of English and French in medieval Britain. With co-editors: CAROLYN COLLETTE, MARYANNE KOWALESKI, LINNE MOONEY, AD PUTTER, and DAVID TROTTER England was more widely and enduringly francophone in the middle ages than many standard accounts of its history, culture and language allow. The development of French in England, whether known as "Anglo-Norman" or "Anglo-French", is deeply interwoven both with medieval English and with the spectrum of Frenches, insular and continental, used withinand outside the realm. As the language of nearly a thousand literary texts, of much administration, and of many professions and occupations, the French of England needs more attention than it has so far received. The essaysin this volume form a new cultural history focussed round, but not confined to, the presence and interactions of French speakers, writers, readers, texts and documents in England from the eleventh to the later fifteenth century.Taking the French of England into account does not simply add new material to our existing narratives of medieval English culture, but changes them, restoring a multi-vocal, multi-cultural medieval England in all its complexity, and opening up fresh agendas for study and exploration. Contributors: HENRY BAINTON, MICHAEL BENNETT, JULIA BOFFEY, RICHARD BRITNELL, CAROLYN COLLETTE, GODFRIED CROENEN, HELEN DEEMING, STEPHANIE DOWNES, MARTHA DRIVER, MONICA H. GREEN, RICHARD INGHAM, REBECCA JUNE, MARYANNE KOWALESKI, PIERRE KUNSTMANN, FRANCOISE H. M. LE SAUX, SERGE LUSIGNAN, TIM WILLIAM MACHAN, JULIA MARVIN, BRIAN MERRILEES, RUTH NISSE, MARILYN OLIVA, W. MARK ORMROD, HEATHER PAGAN, LAURIE POSTLEWATE, JEAN-PASCAL POUZET, AD PUTTER, GEOFF RECTOR, DELBERT RUSSELL, THEA SUMMERFIELD, ANDREW TAYLOR, DAVID TROTTER, ELIZABETH M. TYLER, NICHOLAS WATSON, JOCELYN WOGAN-BROWNE, ROBERT F. YEAGER