A range of approaches (literary, historical, art-historical, codicological) to this mysterious but hugely significant manuscript. Extravagantly heterogeneous in its contents, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 86 is an utterly singular production. On its last folio, the scribe signs off with a self-portrait - a cartoonishly-drawn male head wearing a close-fitted hood - and an inscription: "scripsi librum in anno et iii mensibus" (I wrote the book in a year and three months). His fifteen months' labour resulted in one of the most important miscellanies to survive from medieval England: a trilingual marvel of a compilation, with quirky combinations of content that range from religion, to science, to literature of a decidedly secular cast. It holds medical recipes, charms, prayers, prognostications, magic tricks, pious doctrine, a liturgical calendar, religious songs, lively debates, poetry on love and death, proverbs, fables, fabliaux, scurrilous games, and gender-based diatribes. That Digby is from the thirteenth century adds to its appeal, for English literary remnants from before 1300 are all too rare. Scholars on both sides of the vernacular divide, French and English, are deeply intrigued by it. Many of its texts are found nowhere else: for example, the French Arthurian Lay of the Horn, the English fabliau Dame Sirith and the beast fable Fox and Wolf, and the French Strife between Two Ladies (a candid debate on feminine politics). The interpretationsoffered in this volume of its contents, presentation, and ownership, show that there is much to discover in Digby's lively record of the social and spiritual pastimes of a book-owning gentry family. SUSANNA FEIN is Professor of English at Kent State University. CONTRIBUTORS: Maureen Boulton, Neil Cartlidge, Marilyn Corrie, Susanna Fein, Marjorie Harrington, John Hines, Jennifer Jahner, Melissa Julian-Jones, Jenni Nuttall, David Raybin, Delbert Russell, J.D. Sargan, Sheri Smith

New essays on Chaucer's engagement with religion and the religious controversies of the fourteenth century. How do critics, religious scholars and historians in the early twenty-first century view Chaucer's relationship to religion? And how can he be taught and studied in an increasingly secular and multi-cultural environment? The essays here, on [the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, lyrics and dream poems, aim to provide an orientation on the study of the the religions, the religious traditions and the religious controversies of his era - and to offer new perspectives upon them. Using a variety of theoretical, critical and historical approaches, they deal with topics that include Chaucer in relation to lollardy, devotion to the saint and the Virgin Mary, Judaism andIslam, and the Bible; attitudes towards sex, marriage and love; ethics, both Christian and secular; ideas on death and the Judgement; Chaucer's handling of religious genres such as hagiography and miracles, as well as other literary traditions - romance, ballade, dream poetry, fablliaux and the middle ages' classical inheritance - which pose challenges to religious world views. These are complemented by discussion of a range of issues related to teachingChaucer in Britain and America today, drawn from practical experience. Contributors: Anthony Bale, Alcuin Blamires, Laurel Broughton, Helen Cooper, Graham D. Caie, Roger Dalrymple, Dee Dyas, D. Thomas Hanks Jr., Stephen Knight, Carl Phelpstead, Helen Phillips, David Raybin, Sherry Reames, Jill Rudd.

This edition contains four Middle English Charlemagne romances from the Otuel cycle: Roland and Vernagu, Otuel a Knight, Otuel and Roland, and Duke Roland and Sir Otuel of Spain. A translation of the romances' source, the Anglo-French Otinel, is also included. The romances centre on conflicts between Frankish Christians and various Saracen groups, and deal with issues of racial and religious difference, conversion, and faith-based violence.

This collection looks beyond the literary, religious, and philosophical aspects of Chaucer's texts to a new mode of interdisciplinary scholarship: one that celebrates the richness of Chaucer's visual poetics. The twelve illustrated essays make connections between Chaucer's texts and various forms of visual data, both medieval and modern. Basing their approach on contemporary understandings of interplay between text and image, the contributors examine a wealth of visual material, from medieval art and iconographical signs to interpretations of Chaucer rendered by contemporary artists. The result uncovers interdisciplinary potential that deepens and informs our understanding of Chaucer's poetry in an age in which digitization makes available a wealth of facsimiles and other visual resources. A learned assessment of imagery and Chaucer's work that opens exciting new paths of scholarship, Chaucer: Visual Approaches will be welcomed by scholars of literature, art history, and medieval and early modern studies. The contributors are Jessica Brantley, Joyce Coleman, Carolyn P. Collette, Alexandra Cook, Susanna Fein, Maidie Hilmo, Laura Kendrick, Ashby Kinch, David Raybin, Martha Rust, Sarah Stanbury, and Kathryn R. Vulic.

This collection looks beyond the literary, religious, and philosophical aspects of Chaucer’s texts to a new mode of interdisciplinary scholarship: one that celebrates the richness of Chaucer’s visual poetics. The twelve illustrated essays make connections between Chaucer’s texts and various forms of visual data, both medieval and modern. Basing their approach on contemporary understandings of interplay between text and image, the contributors examine a wealth of visual material, from medieval art and iconographical signs to interpretations of Chaucer rendered by contemporary artists. The result uncovers interdisciplinary potential that deepens and informs our understanding of Chaucer’s poetry in an age in which digitization makes available a wealth of facsimiles and other visual resources. A learned assessment of imagery and Chaucer’s work that opens exciting new paths of scholarship, Chaucer: Visual Approaches will be welcomed by scholars of literature, art history, and medieval and early modern studies. The contributors are Jessica Brantley, Joyce Coleman, Carolyn P. Collette, Alexandra Cook, Susanna Fein, Maidie Hilmo, Laura Kendrick, Ashby Kinch, David Raybin, Martha Rust, Sarah Stanbury, and Kathryn R. Vulić.