The new edition of Medieval England, 500-1500, edited by Emilie Amt and Katherine Allen Smith, spans several centuries in 102 documents that present the social and political history of England. The documents include constitutional highlights and records such as the Magna Carta and Froissart's Chronicles, as well as narrative sources describing the lived experiences of a range of historical actors. These narratives fit into thematic clusters covering topics such as the Anglo-Saxon monarchy, lay piety, later medieval commercial life, queenship, and Jewish communities. Thirty-nine new sources discuss significant events like the conquest of Wales, the Gregorian mission, and the Viking invasions. They also allow for multiple examples of particular genres, such as wills and miracle collections, to facilitate comparative analysis. Introductions and questions situate each source in the historical landscape and facilitate engagement with the text, inspiring readers to delve into the medieval past. The book also features 40 illustrations, a map, and an index of topics. Additional resources, including essay questions, web resources, and a timeline, can be found on the History Matters website (www.utphistorymatters.com).

Imagining Medieval English is concerned with how we think about language, and simply through the process of thinking about it, give substance to an array of phenomena, including grammar, usage, variation, change, regional dialects, sociolects, registers, periodization, and even language itself. Leading scholars in the field explore conventional conceptualisations of medieval English, and consider possible alternatives and their implications for cultural as well as linguistic history. They explore not only the language's structural traits, but also the sociolinguistic and theoretical expectations that frame them and make them real. Spanning the period from 500 to 1500 and drawing on a wide range of examples, the chapters discuss topics such as medieval multilingualism, colloquial medieval English, standard and regional varieties, and the post-medieval reception of Old and Middle English. Together, they argue that what medieval English is, depends, in part, on who's looking at it, how, when and why.

In the first book-length study of the whole lifespan in Old English verse, Harriet Soper reveals how poets depicted varied paths through life, including their staging of entanglements between human life courses and those of the nonhuman or more-than-human. While Old English poetry sometimes suggests that uniform patterns shape each life, paralleling patristic traditions of the ages of man, it also frequently disrupts a sense of steady linearity through the life course in striking ways, foregrounding moments of sudden upheaval over smooth continuity, contingency over predictability, and idiosyncrasy over regularity. Advancing new readings of a diverse range of Old English poems, Soper draws on an array of supporting contexts and theories to illuminate these texts, unearthing their complex and fascinating depictions of ageing through life. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Recent research has emphasised the importance of insular French in medieval English culture alongside English and Latin; for a period of some four hundred years, French (variously labelled the French of England, Anglo-Norman, Anglo-French, and Insular French) rivalled these two languages. The essays here focus on linguistic adaptation and translation in this new multilingual England, where John Gower wrote in Latin while his contemporary Chaucer could break new ground in English.

The Middle English Book analyzes 202 literary manuscripts from late medieval England (1350-1500) and argues that most readers looked to scribes in their immediate vicinity to acquire copies of literature. It examines various forms of writing practiced by scribes throughout the late medieval English countryside and shows that the production of documents underscored the wide availability of literary copying. As a result, when a reader acquired a manuscript,they were most often tapping into local networks of document production.

A thorough and well-illustrated history with eight long essays by leading scholars which cover the history and culture of England, rather than the British Isles, from the 5th to the 15th century. Contents: Medieval England - Identity, Politics and Society ( Nigel Saul ); Anglo-Saxon England ( Janet L Nelson ); Conquered England ( George Garnett ); Late Medieval England 1215-1485 ( Chris Given-Wilson ); Economy and Society ( Christopher Dyer ); Piety, Religion and the Church ( Henrietta Leyser ); The Visual Arts ( Nicola Coldstream ); Language and Literature ( Derek Pearsall ).

First full-length study of the mouth's centrality to discourses of physical, ethical and spiritual 'good' in Middle English literature.

This book traces the evolution of traditional English verse structures from their Old and Middle origins to the Modern English period.

From Anglo-Saxon runes to postcolonial rap, this undergraduate textbook covers the social and historical contexts of the whole of the English literature.

The Oxford History of Poetry in English is designed to offer a fresh, multi-voiced, and comprehensive analysis of 'poetry': from Anglo-Saxon culture through contemporary British, Irish, American, and Global culture, including English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry, Anglo-American colonial and post-colonial poetry, and poetry in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Asia, and other international locales. The series both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge research, employing a global team of expert contributors for each of the fourteen volumes. This volume occupies both a foundational and a revolutionary place. Its opening date--1100--marks the re-emergence of a vernacular poetic record in English after the political and cultural disruption of the Norman Conquest. By its end date--1400--English poetry had become an established, if still evolving, literary tradition. The period between these dates sees major innovations and developments in language, topics, poetic forms, and means of expression. Middle English poetry reflects the influence of multiple contexts--history, social institutions, manuscript production, old and new models of versification, medieval poetic theory, and the other literary languages of England. It thus emphasizes the aesthetic, imaginative treatment of new and received materials by medieval writers and the formal craft required for their verse. Individual chapters treat the representation of national history and mythology, contemporary issues, and the shared doctrine and learning provided by sacred and secular sources, including the Bible. Throughout the period, lyric and romance figure prominently as genres and poetic modes, while some works hover enticingly on the boundary of genre and discursive forms. The volume ends with chapters on the major writers of the late fourteenth-century (Langland, the Gawain-poet, Chaucer, and Gower) and with a look forward to the reception of something like a national literary tradition in fifteenth-century literary culture.