Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT The essays collected here put considerable emphasis on Arthurian narratives in material culture and historical context, as well as on purely literary analysis, a reminder of the enormous range of interests in Arthurian narrativesin the Middle Ages, in a number of different contexts. The volume opens with a study of torture in texts from Chretien to Malory, and on English law and attitudes in particular. Several contributors discuss the undeservedly neglected Stanzaic Morte Arthur, a key source for Malory. His Morte Darthur is the focus of several essays, respectively on the sources of the "Tale of Sir Gareth"; battle scenes and the importance of chivalric kingship; Cicero's De amicitia and the mixed blessings and dangers of fellowship; and comparison of concluding formulae in the Winchester Manuscript and Caxton's edition. Seven tantalizing fragments of needlework, all depictingTristan, are discussed in terms of the heraldic devices they include. The volume ends with an update on newly discovered manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth's seminal Historia regum Britanniae, the twelfth-century best-seller which launched Arthur's literary career. Elizabeth Archibald is Professor of English Studies at Durham University, and Principal of St Cuthbert's Society; David F. Johnson is Professor of English at Florida State University, Tallahassee. Contibutors: David Eugene Clark, Marco Nievergelt, Ralph Norris, Sarah Randles, Lisa Robeson, Richard Severe, Jaakko Tahkokallio, Larissa Tracy

This Element is a contribution to the ongoing debate on what it meant to publish a book in manuscript. It offers case-studies of three twelfth-century Anglo-Norman historians: William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Geoffrey of Monmouth. It argues that the contemporary success and rapid attainment of canonical authority for their histories was in significant measure the result of successfully conducted publishing activities. These activities are analysed using the concept of a 'publishing circle'. This concept, it is suggested, may have wider utility in the study of authorial publishing in a manuscript culture. This Element is also available as Open Access.