The questions of fame and reputation are central to Chaucer's writings; the essays here discuss their various treatments and manifestations. Fama, or fame, is a central concern of late medieval literature: where fame came from, who deserved it, whether it was desirable and how it was acquired and kept. An interest in fame was not new but was renewed and rethought within the vernacular revolutions of the later Middle Ages. The work of Geoffrey Chaucer collates received ideas on the subject of fama, both from the classical world and from the work of his contemporaries. Chaucer's place in these intertextual negotiations was readily recognized in his aftermath, as later writers adopted and reworked postures which Chaucer had struck, in their own bids for literary authority. This volume tracks debates onfama which were past, present and future to Chaucer, using his work as a centre point to investigate canon formation in European literature from the late Middle Ages and into the Early Modern period. Isabel Davis is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Birkbeck, University of London; Catherine Nall is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. Contributors: Joanna Bellis, Alcuin Blamires, Julia Boffey, Isabel Davis, Stephanie Downes, A.S.G. Edwards, Jamie C. Fumo, Andrew Galloway, Nick Havely, Thomas A. Prendergast, Mike Rodman Jones, William T. Rossiter, Elizaveta Strakhov.

A comprehensive survey of Malory's Morte Darthur, one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages. Malory's Morte Darthur is now a canonical and widely-taught text. Recent decades have seen a transformation and expansion of critical approaches in scholarship, as well as significant advances in understanding its milieux:textual, literary, cultural and historical. This volume adds to and updates the influential Companion of 1996, offering scholars, teachers and students alike a full guide to the text and the author. The essays it contains provide a synthetic overview of, and fresh perspectives on, the key questions about and contexts connected with the Morte. MEGAN G. LEITCH is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University; CORY JAMES RUSHTON is Associate Professor in the Department of English at St Francis Xavier University, Canada. Contributors: Dorsey Armstrong, Thomas Crofts, Sian Echard, Rob Gossedge, Daniel Helbert, Amy Kaufman, Megan Leitch, Andrew Lynch, Catherine Nall, Ralph Norris, Raluca Radulescu, Lisa Robeson, Meg Roland, Cory Rushton, Masako Takagi, Kevin Whetter.

An investigation into the connections between military and literary culture in the late medieval period, and how warfare shaped such texts as Malory's Morte. Offers an impressive vision of a militaristic culture and its thinking, reading and writing. This is war as political and economic practice - the continuation of politics by other means. The book develops that feeling of war as avery real practical and intellectual problem and shows how a discourse community comes to share its thinking: in the processes of translating, annotating, rewriting, and so on. A major contribution to the literary history of thefifteenth century. Professor Daniel Wakelin, University of Oxford. Reading, writing and the prosecution of warfare went hand in hand in the fifteenth century, demonstrated by the wide circulation and ownership of military manuals and ordinances, and the integration of military concerns into a huge corpus of texts; but their relationship has hitherto not received the attention it deserves, a gap which this book remedies, arguing that the connections are vital to the literary culture of the time, and should be recognised on a much wider scale. Beginning with a detailed consideration of the circulation of one of the most important military manuals in the Middle Ages, Vegetius' De re militari, it highlights the importance of considering the activities of a range of fifteenth-century readers and writers in relation to the wider contemporary military culture. It shows how England's wars in France and at home, and the wider rhetoric and military thinking those wars generated, not only shaped readers' responses to their texts but also gave rise to the production of one of the most elaborate, rich and under-recognised pieces of verse of the Wars of the Roses in the form of Knyghthode and Bataile. It also indicates how the structure, language and meaning of canonical texts, including those by Lydgate and Malory, were determined by the military culture of the period. Catherine Nall is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London.

A comprehensive survey of one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages. Malory's Morte Darthur is now a canonical and widely-taught text. Recent decades have seen a transformation and expansion of critical approaches in scholarship, as well as significant advances in understanding its milieux:textual, literary, cultural and historical. This volume adds to and updates the influential Companion of 1996, offering scholars, teachers and students alike a full guide to the text and the author. The essays it contains provide a synthetic overview of, and fresh perspectives on, the key questions about and contexts connected with the Morte. MEGAN G. LEITCH is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University; CORY JAMES RUSHTON is Associate Professor in the Department of English at St Francis Xavier University, Canada. Contributors: Dorsey Armstrong, Thomas Crofts, Sian Echard, Rob Gossedge, Daniel Helbert, Amy Kaufman, Megan Leitch, Andrew Lynch, Catherine Nall, Ralph Norris, Raluca Radulescu, Lisa Robeson, Meg Roland, Cory Rushton, Masako Takagi, Kevin Whetter.

A range of important issues in current research are debated in the latest volume in the series, with a special focus on warfare. The theme of conflict is central to the essays gathered in this volume. Apart from the renewed armed struggle with France in the final stages of the Hundred Years War, subjects covered include the theoretical foundations of the Wars of the Roses, the impact of this conflict in the provinces, the frequently strained relationship between the English, the Irish and the Welsh, and the effects of intermittent warfare between England and Scotland. Other themesthat emerge include the evolution of the English constitution, clerical practice at the centre and in the regions, and the competence (or otherwise) of Italian bankers when dealing with men at war. Contributors: JIM BOLTON, LUCY BROWN, MICHAEL BROWN, CHRISTINE CARPENTER, ANNE CURRY, GILLIAN DRAPER, PETER FLEMING, ANTHONY GOODMAN, HANNES KLEINEKE, CATHERINE NALL AND JAMES ROSS