bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Kentigern,St.
Authors: Flood Victoria
Published: June 2017

A short account of the sixth‐ and seventh‐century northern British St. Kentigern's place in northern British, Welsh, and Scottish literary culture, alongside details of his life as recorded in legends incorporated in theVitae Kentigerniproduced for Glasgow Cathedral in the twelfth century.
R
hydderch
H
ael
Authors: Flood Victoria
Published: June 2017

A brief account of the legendary history associated with the sixth‐century king of the Britons of Strathclyde, Rhydderch Hael, as he appears in British and Irish literary‐historical sources. This entry considers his status as a heroic defender of the northern Britons against the Saxons, his association with the battle of Arfderydd, and the long tradition of prophecies of his death.
M
atilda, Empress
Authors: Tolhurst Fiona
Published: June 2017

Empress Matilda, daughter of King Henry I of England, fought a civil war against her cousin Stephen of Blois from 1139–53 in order to assert her rightful claim to the throne. She is a controversial figure, a failure to some historians but an example of female kingship for others. Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia regum Britannie
(
The History of the Kings of Britain
) includes portraits of Guendoloena, Marcia, and Cordeilla that create precedents for Matilda's reign, portraits that his translators altered.
Troy
Authors: Federico Sylvia
Published: June 2017

Medieval rulers and aristocrats frequently traced their genealogies to exiled Trojans. In medieval England, Geoffrey of Monmouth's foundational myth (that Britain was founded by Brutus, a descendant of Aeneas, and that London was named after Troy) was extremely popular and never more so than during the reign of Richard II (1377–99). The association with Troy was not always a positive association. There existed a “counter‐tradition,” equally popular to the tradition arising from Geoffrey of Monmouth, that came from two supposed eye‐witnesses to the Trojan War, Dares and Dictys, a Trojan and a Greek, respectively.
W
illiam of
M
almesbury
Authors: Rollo David
Published: June 2017

William of Malmesbury is the most influential historian of twelfth‐century England. His
Gesta regum Anglorum
documents the history of the English from their arrival in Britain to the reign of Henry I. His
Gesta pontificum Anglorum
is an account of the major English abbacies and bishoprics. William also wrote a short history of the early years of the Anarchy, the
Historia novella
, and several saint's lives. Significant too are his experiments in fiction, which take the form of anecdotes interpolated at historically pivotal junctures in the
Gesta regum
.
Mirk,John
Authors: Powell Susan
Published: June 2017

John Mirk's significance in the history of the late medieval church in England lies in the dominance, from its inception in the late fourteenth century through to the Reformation of the 1530s, of his sermon collection, theFestial. It lies too in the fact that he is the only known medieval churchman to have produced three works of pastoral intent, two in the vernacular, one verse, one prose (Instructions for Parish Priestsand theFestial), and a third in the Latin epistolary tradition (Manuale sacerdotis).
Orosius, Old English
Authors: Discenza Nicole Guenther
Published: June 2017

The Old EnglishOrosiusoffers a free translation or adaptation of Paulus Orosius's early fifth‐centuryHistory against the Pagansinto Old English. The translation, probably done between 870 and 930 by an anonymous translator, adds two interviews with travelers to the geographical introduction, shortens the work, and reduces the antipagan polemic. The Anglo‐Saxon translator retains the Latin's focus on pre‐Christian iniquity and shows particular interest in military conflicts and strategies. Changes are not explicitly signaled, and “Orosius said” frequently introduces additions as well as passages translated from the Latin.
A
callam na
S
enórach

/Dialogue of the Elders
Authors: Nagy Joseph Falaky
Published: June 2017

Acallam na Senórach
(Dialogue of the Elders) is a long prosimetric text from late twelfth‐ or thirteenth‐century Ireland. The
Acallam
houses an extensive collection of stories, poems, lists, and lore coming from (or grafted onto) the Fenian/Ossianic/Finn narrative cycle. The premise of the text is that a few heroes from the era of the Fenian cycle miraculously lived long enough to meet St. Patrick and to convey to him and his scribe their memories of the past, which formed the basis of the
Acallam
.
Physiologus,OldEnglish
Authors: Drout Michael D.C.
Published: June 2017

Found in the Exeter Book, the Anglo‐Saxon Physiologus is a group of three poems,The Panther,The Whale,andThe Partridge, in which characteristics of animals are described and allegorized. As most of the third poem is missing from the Exeter Book, the exact identity of the bird is unknown, as are the date of composition and precise cultural context of the poems. The three poems can be read together as being part of a homiletic tradition and may have particular affinities to Easter homilies.
DurhamProverbs, The
Authors: Grossi Joseph
Published: June 2017

The Durham Proverbsis a collection of 46 short sayings written in Old English and in Latin and preserved in a single eleventh‐century manuscript in Durham Cathedral Library. Their content is unrelated to the city or cathedral of Durham and is instead heterogeneous in topic and style, offering fleeting insights about life and thought in Anglo‐Saxon England. Like all sayings, theDurham Proverbsare brief and devoid of context, and thus pose occasional difficulties of translation. Nevertheless, they have stimulated valuable critical discussion about Anglo‐Saxon mentalities and about the historical and cultural specificity of “traditional wisdom” itself.
Gospelbooks
Authors: Lenker Ursula
Published: June 2017

Gospelbooks are omnipresent in medieval culture in their uses as holy texts as well as their diverse functions as, often very precious, material objects. Their functional role is mainly restricted to the sacred and the public space: they are employed for the reading of the gospel of the day during the Mass as well as for the study of the Word of God, but they also play an important role as valuable material objects, as display codices or exquisite gifts. Some of the less sumptuous workaday codices were probably not considered valuable enough to have survived, so that what we are left with is mainly one sort of gospelbook, namely prestigious codices, which are impressive testimonies to the manifold liturgical and public functions of gospelbooks in early medieval England.
E
maré
Authors: Perkins Nicholas
Published: June 2017

Emaré
is a tail‐rhyme romance dating probably from the later fourteenth century, and surviving in one manuscript. Its stylized narrative draws on the “Constance” story pattern of a falsely accused woman, and on other folk motifs. It is distinctive for its rich depiction of a decorated cloth that evokes other romance narratives and orientalist fantasies.
Heroic Poetry
Authors: Hill John M.
Published: June 2017

Beowulf
,
The Battle of Brunanburh,
and
The Battle of Maldon
comprise the bulk of Old English heroic poetry. But scholars include
Waldere
,
Widsið
,
The Fight at Finnsburg
,
The Five Boroughs Poem,
and
Deor
, even though
Widsið
and
Deor
do not involve heroic action and
Deor
, despite legendary material, is an elegy in uneven stanzas. Furthermore, heroic poetry thematically overlaps with ninth‐century prose accounts in The Anglo‐Saxon Chronicle, where
Brunanburh
and the
Five Boroughs Poem
also appear, though set down for tenth‐century dates. Thus heroic poetry, aside from prosody, encompasses heroic story. When considered as a genre, heroic poetry also includes at least one saintly poem,
Judith
, found immediately after
Beowulf
in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A XV, in the same hand that copied the last 1243 lines of Beowulf.
Arthur: “Historical”
Authors: Higham Nicholas J.
Published: June 2017

King Arthur is one of the best‐known figures of the Middle Ages, but there is much doubt as to whether or not he should be considered historical. Several different “original” Arthurs have been proposed, beginning with the classical world, but attention has generally focused on a small number of Welsh texts and attempts to identify a King Arthur in the decades around 500CE. Most academics today are disinclined to include Arthur in their histories but few actively exclude him, leaving him on the margins of history, myth, and legend.
Jerusalem
Authors: Yeager Suzanne
Published: June 2017

Jerusalem, both as an idea and a physical place, occupied a central part of medieval culture in England. The city served as an object of desire to pilgrims and crusaders who journeyed to the Near East, as well as to laity and those in religious orders who would never take up the distant journey. As the place of Christ's Passion, Jerusalem was important in practices of popular affective devotion which focused on the life of Christ, and representations of the city appear in detail across ecclesiastical and popular genres. Profitable scholarly analysis has recognized the constructed nature of Jerusalem in medieval writing about the sacred city, acknowledging Jerusalem's role as a malleable symbol of Christian history as well as that of a focal point of political and religious aspiration.
J
ews in
E
ngland
Authors: Yeager Suzanne
Published: June 2017

The literature of premodern England underscores the complex relationships between Christian and Jewish communities in Europe at that time. Most scholars will agree that Jews were in residence in England within one century after the Norman Conquest. The treatment of the Jews by the English Christian population varied by region and time period; some Jews endured high taxes, aggressive conversion campaigns, and criminal charges ranging from coin‐clipping to ritual execution. Animosity against Jews reached new levels during preparations for the Third Crusade, resulting in attacks, destruction of homes, and massacres of Jews. Jewish persecution increased in the early thirteenth century, leading up to their expulsion from England by King Edward I in 1290. Both pre‐ and post‐expulsion, Jews were central to English medieval art, devotion, historical writing, and literature. Literature produced by Christians in England about Jews often portrays Jewish figures according to Christian theological models, aspirations, and expectations.
P
eredur
f
ab
E
frawg
Authors: Lloyd‐Morgan Ceridwen
Published: June 2017

One of the so‐called
Mabinogion
group of Middle Welsh tales,
Peredur fab Efrawg
was probably first composed in the thirteenth century. Although the narrative has affinities with
Le Conte du Graal
, the late twelfth century French grail romance by Chrétien de Troyes, it also contains material derived from Welsh tradition and from other, post‐Chrétien French romances. The four medieval manuscripts of
Peredur
, dating from c. 1300 to c. 1400, indicate that the earliest version was short and that further episodes were added later.
P
reiddiau
A
nnwfn
Authors: Jones Aled Llion
Published: June 2017

Preiddiau Annwfn (“The spoils/herds of Annwfn”) is an early Welsh Arthurian poem in the voice of Taliesin, contained in the Book of Taliesin (14C). The work details incursions by Arthur on Otherworld fortresses, ostensibly in order to free one of the “Three Exalted Prisoners” known to the Triads, and obtain a magic cauldron (one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Isle of Britain). Arthur (with Taliesin and others) embark on Arthur's ship, Prydwen, but only seven men return. The Taliesin persona demonstrates his characteristic knowledge, utilizing implicit and explicit references from biblical, classical and broad medieval learning in an attack on ignorant monks and other men of the church.
Owain ab Urien
Authors: Jones Aled Llion
Published: June 2017

Owain, son of Urien of Rheged, is present in praise poetry and eschatology, hagiography and, Arthuriana. His historical roots are in post‐Roman northern Britain (the Welsh “Old North”), his grandfather being Cynfarch, founder of the Cynferching Dynasty. He moves into the Arthurian literature of Wales and beyond, becoming equal – or even superior – to Arthur in the Welsh tradition. “Owain” is common in the manuscripts as name of the prophesied deliverer, and Owain ap Urien may shade into Owain Lawgoch and Owain Glyndŵr.
L
ay
L
e
F
reine
Authors: Laskaya Anne
Published: June 2017

Lay Le Freine
renders Marie de France's Anglo‐Norman text into Middle English. Its plot focuses on the actions and attitudes of its female cast of characters while performing tensions between didactic and transgressive content typical of medieval Breton Lays. Residing in the Auchinleck manuscript,
Le Freine
possesses a rich material context for study, and damage to the manuscript has led to editorial emendations that have significantly impacted interpretive work on the poetic narrative.
CânRolant/The Song ofRoland
Authors: Rejhon Annalee C.
Published: June 2017

Cân Rolant, the medieval Welsh version of the Old French epic poem, theSong of Roland,is found in ten manuscripts and makes up one of four texts that constitute the Welsh Charlemagne cycle. Manuscript colophons reveal key names associated with the translations: Reginald, king of Man and the Western Isles, Madawc ap Selyf, and Gruffudd ap Maredudd.
Bede
Authors: Rowley Sharon M.
Published: June 2017

Bede, a Northumbrian monk, was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the early Middle Ages. He wrote extensively across a range of genres, from commentary to computus, but is most famous today for his historical writings. This entry describes his life, and the range of his writings in their cultural contexts, then outlines their lasting impact on western historiography and Christian thought.
G
rosseteste,
R
obert
Authors: Mackie Evelyn A.
Published: June 2017

Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 1235–53, was a philosopher and theologian, a teaching master at Oxford, and bishop of the largest diocese in England in the thirteenth century. His Latin writings include works on the natural sciences and philosophy as well as biblical exegesis, theological treatises, and translations from the Greek. He was also the author of a handful of texts in Anglo‐Norman, the most celebrated of which is the
Château d'amour
. Grosseteste's use in the
Château
of allegory and references to contemporary culture in order to convey key concepts of the Christian faith appealed to a diverse audience, as demonstrated by the manuscripts. The influence of the
Château
on other vernacular religious writings both in Anglo‐Norman and Middle English is still being explored. The work is an important example of the class of texts now described as vernacular theology.
Alfred the Great
Authors: Discenza Nicole Guenther
Published: June 2017

Alfred the Great lived from the late 840s to 899 and was king of Wessex (871–99). He preserved and strengthened Wessex against the Vikings, prepared the way for a single kingdom of England, and made significant contributions to law, literature, and learning. His law code preserves his own laws and those of his predecessor, Ine. In his preface to the Old EnglishPastoral Care, Alfred announced a program to translate Latin texts into Old English and educate young men who could be spared from work to read in English. He himself is credited with four translations: thePastoral Care, theBoethius, theSoliloquies, and the first 50 Psalms. His patronage may have supported Wærferth's translation of Gregory the Great'sDialogues, the Old EnglishOrosius, the Anglo‐Saxon Chronicle, Asser's LatinLife of Alfred, the Old EnglishBede, and the production of art objects.
Domestic Writing
Authors: Hume Cathy
Published: June 2017

Domestic writing – writing from, for, or about the home – is an increasingly large category toward the end of the Middle Ages. Growing lay literacy meant that texts were increasingly written for domestic audiences in secular households: practical and devotional texts as well as entertaining, literary pieces. Domestic authorial voices are also heard for the first time, from the fictionalWife of Bathto the historical husbands and wives in the Paston letters. Writers also explored domestic relationships, spaces and rituals in comic, romance, and religious texts.
Middle English Prose Romances
Authors: Leitch Megan G.
Published: June 2017

Middle English prose romances constitute a distinctive subgenre of medieval romance shaped by their production late in the genre's evolution and during a period of civil wars and regime changes. Many of the prose romances are anonymous and significantly longer than verse romances, and they have traditionally been understudied; however, they are beginning to receive more scholarly attention, both individually and as a literary movement. Today, the most well‐known of the Middle English prose romances is Sir Thomas Malory's narrative of King Arthur,Le Morte Darthur, written in 1469 and printed in 1485. While modern criticism has sometimes considered Malory's Arthuriad as a genre unto itself, it was in fact written alongside many other Middle English prose romances with which it shares significant affinities of theme and style.
Mandeville's Travels
Authors: Higgins Iain Macleod
Published: June 2017

Mandeville's Travelsis a mid‐fourteenth‐century prose traveler's guide to the biblical, marvelous, imaginary, and existing easts. It presents itself as the memoir of an English Knight of St. Albans, John Mandeville, who spent some three‐and‐a‐half decades overseas. About half of the text provides lore and legends of interest to Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, the rest material of interest to anyone traveling farther east as far as the Earthly Paradise. The account of sectarian Christians and non‐Christians is generally neutral, sometimes even positive, but the representation of Jews is uniformly hostile. Composed originally in French, either in England or on the Continent, it was one of the most popular medieval books of its day, being translated into some ten languages. In Britain it circulated in English and Latin as well as French. An Irish translation was made in the late fifteenth century, a Welsh in the late sixteenth.
Debate Poetry
Authors: Cartlidge Neil
Published: June 2017

The term debate‐poetry is conventionally used to describe a diverse group of medieval texts dramatizing imagined opposition between different speakers, often personifications of animals or birds, moral qualities, social classes, or different aspects of human nature. Such poems of this type are relatively prominent in medieval literature. Together with related forms like the parliament, the dream‐vision and the prose‐dialogue, they testify to the important part played by argument and debate in medieval culture.
Bible: Translations and Adaptations
Authors: Kelly Henry Ansgar
Published: June 2017

The Latin Vulgate was translated piecemeal into the vernacular in sermons and other writings as needed for instructing the people. Systematic translations of the Psalms and the Gospels were made in the Old English period, and Psalms was the first book to be translated in the Middle English era. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, the entire Bible was rendered very literally into English at Oxford (Early Version = EV), perhaps to help pastoral students with the Latin Bible; it was then revised into a more fluent rendition (Later Version = LV). Since the seventeenth century, both EV and LV were believed to be the product of John Wyclif and his followers and to have been banned in the province of Canterbury in 1409. However, this assessment is belied by the text of the mandate and the widespread reception of the versions throughout England, especially for liturgical use.
T
urke and
S
ir
G
awain, The
Authors: Rushton Cory James
Published: June 2017

The Turke and Sir Gawain
is a ballad‐like Gawain romance found only in the Percy Folio (c. 1650), dated through language and spelling features to c. 1500. Sharing certain narrative motifs with
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
, this northern poem relates the strange adventures of Gawain and the mysterious “Turke” as they travel from Arthur's court. The romance ends with the revelation of the Turke's identity, and his conversion.
Plowman Poetry
Authors: Phillips Noelle
Published: June 2017

Plowman poetry is a late‐medieval genre of English vernacular literature characterized by its dissenting political, religious, and/or social views. These texts call for reform by using the figure of Piers Plowman, or a generic unnamed plowman, to represent the work ethic and wisdom of the deprived peasant classes. Although plowman poetry was initially inspired by the character of Piers Plowman in William Langland's poem of that name, the later iterations of the plowman figure were very different from Langland's Piers.
L
antfred of
W
inchester
Authors: Stephenson Rebecca
Published: June 2017

Lantfred of Winchester was a monk, probably from Fleury, who was responsible for bringing some aspects of the Continental Benedictine Reform to England. His most famous composition was the
Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni
, which was an important text in establishing the cult of St. Swithun at Winchester. This cult unified the current Benedictine establishment with the previous canons, whom the Benedictines evicted.
R
egularis Concordia
Authors: Stephenson Rebecca
Published: June 2017

The
Regularis concordia
was the foundational document of the English Benedictine Reform adopted at the Council of Winchester in 973. It established common monastic practices for all monasteries in England and united them under the protection of the king. It was written by Æthelwold, and the prologue exhibits features of the
recherché
Latin style that was common in texts connected to the Benedictine Reform.
B
ook of
A
neirin
Authors: Haycock Marged
Published: June 2017

The Book of Aneirin, one of the Four Ancient Books of Wales that preserve the earliest Welsh poetry, was copied in the second half of the thirteenth century, probably in the Cistercian house at Aberconwy. It contains versions of the
Gododdin
, a long heroic poem about the defeat at Catterick in Yorkshire of the warband of the Gododdin kingdom. The core of this work may have been composed shortly after the event, perhaps in the last quarter of the sixth century. Other materials of different provenance and date appear to have been added to this core. The manuscript belongs to Cardiff Central Library but is held at the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth.
Taliesin
Authors: Haycock Marged
Published: June 2017

Taliesin is mentioned in the
Historia Brittonum
(829/30) as one of five poets renowned in British poetry broadly in the mid‐sixth century. The Book of Taliesin contains a group of eight praise poems to Urien, ruler of Rheged, with an elegy for Urien's son, Owain, thought to have been composed by Taliesin. Less certain are other poems to sixth‐century rulers Cynan Garwyn of Powys in Wales and Gwallog, ruler of Elfed, near Leeds. Taliesin's alter ego is an inspired poet and sage, fashioned by wizards: he has supernatural gifts including shape‐shifting and prophecy, and he displays his knowledge in questions, riddles, lists, and boasts. He appears to have been a vehicle for the bardic order to assert itself, and for poets to combine traditional material as well as popular international learning in an entertaining way. Comparisons with the diction and lexicon of the court poet Prydydd y Moch (twelfth–thirteenth century) suggest that he may have been responsible for some of the Book of Taliesin poems. Later poems and a prose Tale of Taliesin, and a range of other sources from the medieval and renaissance periods, indicate continuing interest in the Taliesin story.
Genesis A
and
B
Authors: Remley Paul G.
Published: June 2017

The textually diverse sequence of Anglo‐Saxon poetry in
Genesis A
and
B
, unevenly following Genesis I–XXII and originally comprising more than 3300 lines, represents the single longest sequence of thematically integrated poetry transmitted in Old English.
Genesis B
is a subsection that follows an Old Saxon poem treating Genesis, related to the Old Saxon Heliand, a poetic celebration of the life of Christ, a possible product of a later Carolingian programme of biblical versification.
Genesis B
thus might be dated c. 880 or later, with the literary reforms promoted by Alfred. The rendering in
Genesis A
is literalistic, allowing differentiation of matter derived from Jerome's Vulgate text of Genesis and earlier Old Latin versions.
Genesis A
effectively conflates the so‐called Yahwist and Priestly narratives on Creation and has an abridged Flood narrative exhibiting correspondences with liturgical extracts treating the account of Noah. Additions to biblical sources recall the content of early medieval classroom instruction and also Bede's account of Cædmon, said to have based his biblical verse on paraphrases provided by learned interpreters.
Genesis A
also diverges from its biblical sources in its inclusion of traditional poetic vocabulary recalling the language of Old English heroic verse.
Classical InheritanceI: FromGreco‐Roman Culture toLatin WesternChristendom andEngland Before 1066
Authors: Galloway Andrew
Published: June 2017

This entry and Classical InheritanceIIprovide a wide background of the classical inheritance relevant to literature written in Britain in Latin, French, Irish, Old and Middle English, and Scots between the fall of Rome and the fifteenth century. This entry presents the shift from Greco‐Roman culture to Latin Christendom, then narrows the view to Anglo‐Saxon England (c. 600–1066).
G
othic Revival
Authors: Ganim John M.
Published: June 2017

The Gothic Revival, one of the dominant architectural styles of the nineteenth century, also was reflected in literature, art, and design. Beginning with Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill, it was codified in the designs of Augustus Pugin and popularized in the writings of John Ruskin. It partly inspired the modernist movement that led to its decline.
Anglo‐Saxon Riddles
Authors: Wilcox Jonathan
Published: June 2017

Riddles survive from Anglo‐Saxon England in both Latin and Old English. Collections of 100 Latin verse riddles were written by Aldhelm and by Tatwine/Eusebius, while further Anglo‐Latin riddles circulated in other contexts. A substantial collection of riddles in Old English verse survive in the Exeter Book. These describe a range of different objects, described using a range of different techniques. They provide insight into the material culture of Anglo‐Saxon England, into Old English poetic technique and linguistic consciousness (with some clues exploiting the use of runes), and into an Anglo‐Saxon sense of playfulness.
G
awain

‐Poet
Authors: Olsen Kenna L.
Published: June 2017

The
Gawain
‐poet refers to the presumed and anonymous author of the Middle English alliterative poems
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
,
Pearl
,
Patience
, and
Cleanness
. The poems are believed to have been written sometime in the later fourteenth century. They survive in the only Middle English manuscript containing solely alliterative verse, British Library Cotton Nero A.x. (article 3). From manuscript evidence (dialect), and internal evidence, such as poetic form and interest, it is commonly assumed that the same person wrote all four poems. While some scholars have attempted to identify the poet, none of the theories have been widely accepted. Current scholarship traditionally accepts that the poet was from the northwest Midlands of England, was well read and familiar with courtly traditions, and was perhaps a cleric.
Arthur andGorlagon
Authors: Ward Renée
Published: June 2017

The tale commonly known asArthur and Gorlagon, which survives in only one copy, is one of the least studied and most problematic of the Latin Arthurian romances. Through its fusion of an Arthurian quest narrative with a folk‐based werewolf story, the Latin text raises, and presents no easy answers to, questions concerning genre; high and low cultures; kingship and rule; human identity; and misogyny. Late twentieth‐ and early twenty‐first century revisionary studies draw attention to the text's cultural contexts and readdress questions of its generic identity.
Octavian
Authors: Ward Renée
Published: June 2017

Octavian
is a mid‐ to late fourteenth‐century tail‐rhyme composite romance that includes adventures, battle motifs, and hagiographical elements, and that foregrounds social issues connected to class, gender, and race. Popular in both the medieval and modern periods, the romance survives in numerous English and Continental versions and garners considerable critical attention. The English tradition has two distinct branches – Northern and Southern. The Northern
Octavian
typically receives more attention than the Southern
Octavian
, and is frequently lauded as the superior of the two texts.
Langland,William
Authors: Warner Lawrence
Published: June 2017

“William Langland” is in effect a pen‐name for the author of the Middle English allegorical dream visionPiers Plowman, one of the most important and widely read works of the later English Middle Ages. This poem exists in three authorial versions and multiple variations put together by readers. Its use of the alliterative long line is particularly apt for its satirical emphasis, while the appearance of Latin throughout offers a different set of interpretive questions. Most modern readers now see the poem as recursive rather than progressive in nature, a sense fostered both by its structure and by its wide variety of allegorical modes, which lead readers in different directions.Piers Plowmanis also notable for its remarkable portrayal of laborers and the poor.
Arthurian Literature
Authors: Armstrong Dorsey
Published: June 2017

While the existence of an Insular Arthurian tradition can be seen in the early literature of the Welsh, the medieval literary tradition of Arthur begins in full force with Geoffrey of Monmouth'sHistoria regum Britannie(c. 1136). This medieval “bestseller” acts as the font of one of the most extensive and widespread literary phenomena in medieval Britain and across wider Europe. The production of Arthurian texts barely misses a beat over the next 400 years, with the legends of Arthur being found in all the languages of medieval Britain, and the legend being put to a hugely diverse range of purposes and literary forms. The tradition finds its ultimate medieval English expression in theMorte Darthurof Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1470), a work that would prove to be the most enduring and influential medieval expression of the Arthurian tradition in Britain.
B
rittany
Authors: Booton Diane E.
Published: June 2017

Settled by migrations of Britons from the fourth century, medieval Brittany extended across the Armorican peninsula of northwestern France. Over the centuries, the region was ruled as a kingdom, then a duchy, before its incorporation into France in the sixteenth century. For cultural and geopolitical reasons, medieval Brittany had deep connections and alliances with France and England.
B
rutus
Authors: Kelly Stephen
Published: June 2017

This entry discusses the eponymous legendary founder of Britain, Brutus, a descendent of the Trojan Aeneas and first king of Britain. It tracks the emergence of Brutus in historiography and literature from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries, from the
Historia Brittonum
, via the
Brut
tradition and Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia regum Britannie
, to the poem
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
, Caxton's
Chronicles of England
, Milton's
The History of Britain,
and Spenser's
The Fairie Queene
.
Romance
Authors: Cooper Helen
Published: June 2017

Romance was a Europe‐wide phenomenon, starting in the mid‐twelfth century and continuing through the Middle Ages and beyond. French and Anglo‐Norman led the way, but Middle English romances, often based on earlier francophone texts, appear from the late thirteenth century. The three great “matters” of romance – classical, in romances of Troy and Alexander; French, in Charlemagne material; and British, or Arthurian – are all represented in English, along with the “matter of England.” Most were written in verse, either tetrameter couplets or tail‐rhyme, but some were written in alliterative verse; prose romances appear in the fifteenth century. Many were printed, to become the pulp fiction of the Tudor Age.
Minot,Laurence
Authors: Kendall Elliot
Published: June 2017

Laurence Minot wrote alliterative poetry celebrating EdwardIIIand English military victories against Scotland in the 1330s and 1340s and against France during the Hundred Years' War. A short series of poems in an early fifteenth‐century manuscript, British LibraryMSCotton Galba EIX, has traditionally been attributed to Minot, but this attribution has recently been questioned. The poems are marked by aggressive English nationalism seasoned with political prophecy.
Scientific Writing
Authors: Wallis Faith
Published: June 2017

The Middle Ages had no concept equivalent to the modern term “science.” However, texts concerning the natural world and mathematics abound in both Latin and the Insular vernaculars; indeed, the study of texts was the principal mode of engagement with science in this period. Prior to the twelfth century, science writing followed forms laid down in Latin classical and Christian antiquity; thereafter, the influx of Greek and Arabic science in translation, and the emergence of universities, reshaped the sciences as academic disciplines. Vernacular science concentrated on practical subjects like medicine and computus, but also produced a technical literature on subjects as diverse as agronomy and alchemy.
C
hwedlau
O
do

/Tales of
O
do
Authors: Rodway Simon
Published: June 2017

An introduction to
Chwedlau Odo
, the partial Middle Welsh translation of the English author Odo of Cheriton's collection of moralizing fables in Latin.
Translation
Authors: Bridges Venetia
Published: June 2017

Translation is a crucial driving force behind literary production throughout the medieval period. A varied practice during the Middle Ages, it encompasses both linguistic transference,traductio, and also the transfer and transformation of subject matter,translatio. Biblical and Christian pastoral literature are some of the earliest extant examples of linguistic translation in Britain, and by the late Middle Ages the Bible itself is (controversially) translated in vernaculars. Beyond Christian linguistic translation, the concept oftranslatio studiiunderlies much creative literature in Britain, such as the adaptations of classical narratives into French verse seen in twelfth‐ and thirteenth‐century romances and the increasingly complex acts of creation and transformation performed by Chaucer and his peers at the end of the fourteenth century. Translation in both senses is a key aspect in almost every literary work produced during the medieval era.
Treatise of Miraclis Pleyinge
Authors: Hill‐Vásquez Heather
Published: June 2017

The
Treatise of Miraclis Pleyinge
(c. 1380–1425) is a critique of the “playing of miracles,” a term usually seen as a reference to the religious drama. Since few, if any other, texts survive which comment upon the aesthetic function and purpose of the drama, the
Treatise
is treated as the only surviving theoretical document for the religious drama in late medieval England. Scholarship, therefore, has focused on interpreting the theories the
Treatise
contains and association of those theories with either heterodox or orthodox religious beliefs of the time. Other scholars, however, have argued that the
Treatise
is, instead, critiquing forms of entertainment distinct from the religious drama.
Rolle,Richard
Authors: Kuczynski Michael P.
Published: June 2017

Richard Rolle (c. 1300–49), hermit, was an influential theological writer and spiritual director in late medieval England. Born in Yorkshire, he established hermitages throughout the area, advising the recluse Margaret Kirkby and, toward the end of his life, a community of nuns at Hampole, where he is buried. He wrote in Latin and the vernacular. His two most important works are in Middle English: a translation of and commentary on the Psalms and a comprehensive treatise on contemplation. Rolle praises the contemplative life, removed from fleshly temptations and centered on God, over the active life, immersed in worldly affairs. He experienced God's love as a mysterious spiritual heat, sweetness, and song.
R
ichard
C
oeur
de
L
ion
Authors: Blurton Heather
Published: June 2017

Richard Coeur de Lion
is a Middle English Romance appearing in manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as well as an early printed edition. It romances the crusade of the English king Richard the Lionheart, introducing the themes of nationalism, Englishness, and monstrosity as well as rehearsing many popular romance tropes and battle scenes.
H
enry of
A
vranches
Authors: Townsend David
Published: June 2017

This entry provides a brief overview of the works of the thirteenth‐century poet Henry of Avranches and modern scholarship on his career.
W
idsið
Authors: Johnson David F.
Published: June 2017

Widsið
is an anonymous Old English “catalogue” poem – just 143 lines long in edited form – found in the late tenth‐century Exeter Book anthology of Anglo‐Saxon poetry. Following a brief prologue, it consists of a speech made by the poet
Widsið
in which he lists, in often extremely allusive fashion, a wide range of ancient rulers, warriors, and kingdoms, many, though not all, from Continental Germanic tradition. He claims to have been with and performed for a chronologically and geographically impossible number of them. The poem concludes with a brief epilogue which extols the merits of
gleomen gumena
, “the people's entertainers,” and those who support them with their patronage.
Lancelot of theLaik
Authors: Caughey Anna
Published: June 2017

A fifteenth‐century Scottish romance,Lancelot of the Laikis derived from the French proseLancelot(c. 1215–30). The poem survives in one witness and is incomplete: three Books and a Prologue remain. Book II, which has attracted significant critical interest, features an extensive “Advice to Princes” section in which King Arthur is given instruction on good kingship, while books I and III deal with the conflict between Arthur's knights and Galiot (Galehault) with an emphasis on the adventures of Lancelot as he fights in disguise. The romance has been studied as part of the strong tradition of advisory writing in late medieval Scotland.
Ohthere and Wulfstan
Authors: Appleton Helen
Published: June 2017

Ohthere and Wulfstan
is an Old English prose text preserved in the geographical section of the
Old English Orosius
.
Ohthere and Wulfstan
consists of travel narratives recording journeys undertaken in northern Europe by two seafarers, Ohthere and Wulfstan, as related to Alfred the Great, the Anglo‐Saxon king of Wessex. Ohthere gives an account of voyages from his home in Hålogaland in northern Norway to the White Sea, and from Hålogaland to the port of Hedeby in southern Jutland. Wulfstan describes sailing from Hedeby to the Baltic. The accounts record the routes taken and the customs of the peoples encountered.
St. Cuthbert, Lives of (Latin andOE)
Authors: Appleton Helen
Published: June 2017

St. Cuthbert was a seventh‐century bishop of Lindisfarne who spent time living as a hermit on the island of Farne. The cult of Cuthbert was very prominent in the Anglo‐Saxon church and he was a popular subject for hagiography. Several lives of Cuthbert were written between the seventh and tenth centuries, in both Latin and Old English, including works by Bede and Ælfric of Eynsham. Texts concerned with Cuthbert continued to be produced throughout the medieval period, including verse lives, histories of his community, and accounts of post‐mortem miracles.
B
ourchier,
J
ohn,
L
ord
B
erners
Authors: Boro Joyce
Published: June 2017

John Bourchier, Lord Berners's translations of French and Spanish romances and histories are situated at the threshold of the medieval and early modern periods; his corpus blends traditional medieval genres and new humanist styles and ideologies. Berners is known for his translations of three romances –
Arthur of Little Britain
(1560),
Huon of Bordeaux
(c. 1515?), and
Castle of Love
(1548?) – and two historical texts – Jean Froissart's
Chronicles
(1523, 1525) and
The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius
(1532).
Robin Hood and Outlaw Literature
Authors: Gossedge Rob
Published: June 2017

Seeming to emerge in the fourteenth century, the mythic figure of Robin Hood became the archetype of the social bandit – an outlaw whose principled and unlawful resistance to corrupt authority eclipsed the literary fame of the many outlaws of medieval British literature. Recorded in ballads, proverbs, short play‐games, marginal scribbling, and elusive records, the story of medieval Robin is both simple and elusive. Unlike the distressed‐gentlemen sagas of Hereward the Wake, Fouke fitz Waryn, or Eustace the Monk, or the national heroes, William Wallace and Owain Glyndŵr, driven to outlawry by the forces of aggressive English colonialism, Robin is never fixed in a precise historical moment, or determined by class or ethnic identities. While he shares much with the large British outlaw tradition, Robin always remained politically indeterminate, ready to be adapted to new situations, forms, and contexts.
Becket,Thomas
Authors: Malo Robyn
Published: June 2017

Thomas Becket (c. 1118–70), also known as St. Thomas of Canterbury, was both a medieval saint and political figure. He served as chancellor to Henry II; in 1162, Henry appointed him archbishop of Canterbury. Having caused Henry trouble over the legal jurisdiction of the church, Thomas Becket was murdered on December 29, 1170. He was almost immediately declared a saint; he was canonized in 1173, and his cult at Canterbury flourished from the time of his death in 1170 until it was dismantled under Henry VIII in 1538.
Sermons
Authors: Patterson Paul J.
Published: June 2017

Medieval sermons were used primarily as a teaching tool to instruct both lay and monastic audiences of the moral and theological necessities of their faith. They were delivered in both Latin and the vernacular and were often tailored to the audience. Written and spoken forms of sermons differed, which makes it difficult to know exactly how sermons were delivered, but they were a central part of the worship of Christians throughout the Middle Ages.
De OrtuWaluuanii NepotisArturi/The Rise ofSirGawain, Nephew ofArthur
Authors: Day Mildred Leake
Published: June 2017

The early adventures of Sir Gawain are in the LatinDe ortu Waluuanii nepotis Arturi.John Bale's catalogues list the author as Robert de Torigni (c. 1110–86). Robert was librarian and prior at Bec before becoming abbot of Mont Saint‐Michel. One copy of the manuscript survives. It was available in Ireland for Edmund Spenser who used it extensively inThe Faerie Queene, book 1. The manuscript became part of Sir Robert Cotton's library: London, British Library, MS Cotton Faustina BVI, 23rto 38r.
Chancery
Authors: Kendall Elliot
Published: June 2017

Chancery was the principal writing office of central government in medieval England. It was at the heart of a huge expansion of royal administrative and judicial bureaucracy in the thirteenth century and the related growth of documentary culture throughout England. Chancery had a foundational role in the development of vernacular literary culture in the late Middle Ages, not only because it trained legal writers who often also copied poetry, heard and read poetry, and sometimes authored poetry but because the petitions and writs which it drew up in abundance belonged to a mode of writing that deeply informed literary imaginations.
U
trecht
P
salter
Authors: Jaski Bart
Published: June 2017

In the ninth‐century Utrecht Psalter the 150 Psalms and 16
cantica
are each illustrated. After its arrival in Canterbury the “Utrecht Psalter style” influenced English manuscript decoration in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
M
erciless Parliament
Authors: Oliver Clementine
Published: June 2017

The Merciless Parliament which sat from February to June 1388 was the outcome of one of the greatest political conflicts of the reign of Richard
II
. The immediate cause of the conflict was Richard
II
's excessive favoritism toward a group of unpopular courtiers known as the Ricardians. The attack against the king's courtiers was initiated by a coalition of five nobles known as the Appellants, so‐called because they were the first to bring an appeal of treason before Parliament for judgment. In the end, eight government officials were executed, including the king's closest companion and childhood tutor, Sir Simon Burley.
G
esta
R
omanorum
Authors: Bennett Alastair
Published: June 2017

The
Gesta Romanorum
is an extensive compilation of fictional narratives, many of which claim to describe the deeds of Roman emperors or events that took place during their reigns. These narratives are allegorized to provide Christian moral instruction. The
Gesta
survives in hundreds of medieval manuscripts and numerous printed editions, and was translated out of Latin into many European languages. Its stories were adapted for use in sermons and provide analogues and direct sources for some important medieval and postmedieval literary texts.
VespasianPsalter
Authors: Thomas Kate H.
Published: June 2017

The Vespasian Psalter, an eighth‐century Roman Psalter from Canterbury, features a ninth‐century Mercian gloss, ninth‐century additions on the importance of the Psalms, and eleventh‐century prayers in the hand of the scribe Eadwig Basan. Its particular importance for manuscript studies lies in being the earliest surviving Roman Psalter and also the earliest example of a biblical text in English. Vespasian is also known for its full‐page miniature of King David and his musicians, and for its decorated initial capitals.
Lawrence ofDurham
Authors: Dinkova‐Bruun Greti
Published: June 2017

Lawrence of Durham (c. 1110–54) was a monk and later a prior at Durham Cathedral Priory. He was one of the leading men of his time with a reputation of being an able church official and a skillful Anglo‐Latin writer. Among his major works are the verse Bible entitled theHypognosticon, theConsolatio de morte amici(inspired by Boethius), and the autobiographical verseDialogi. In all of these works Lawrence exhibits high erudition, wit, and remarkable writing style.
Chaucer: Shorter Poems
Authors: Cawsey Kathy
Published: June 2017

Chaucer's “Short Poems” include complaints, love lyrics, and philosophical, religious, and political short verse. They are primarily written in courtly lyric forms taken from the French tradition, but most do not have direct French sources. The short poem that has drawn the most scholarly attention is the poem to “Adam Scriveyn,” both in terms of positing the actual scribe to be Adam Pinkhurst and more literary approaches which analyze the metaphors and images used. Other poems have garnered attention in terms of source study, formalism, gender study, historicism, and more.
Editing
Authors: Shepherd Stephen H.A.
Published: June 2017

A survey of editorial methods, past and present, used to represent medieval texts.
Saga
Authors: Poole Russell
Published: June 2017

Sagas in Old Norse containing material relevant to Britain can be divided into four categories: the king's sagas and associated quasi‐historical works; the sagas of Icelanders; the
fornaldarsögur
(“sagas of ancient times”); and translations of British historical and hagiographic texts. The material includes accounts of the dealings of Scandinavian kings and other rulers with their counterparts in Britain; Viking raiding and expeditions in the British Isles; visits to British rulers on the part of the skalds (court poets); the ancestral origins of some Icelandic families in the British Isles; and the lives of English kings and saints. Very little of this material is of historical value, partly because few of the sagas were set down in writing before the thirteenth century, but it encompasses some of the most famous episodes in saga literature.
S
tanzas of the
G
raves, The/
E
nglynion
y B
eddau
Authors: Williams Mark
Published: June 2017

A description of the content and transmission of the Welsh “Stanzas of the Graves” (
Englynion y Beddau
).