The twelfth-century Life of King Edward the Confessor, in Anglo-Norman verse, is here presented in modern English for the first time. Its author, an anonymous Nun of Barking Abbey, offers a many-faceted and absorbing portrait of the celebrated king and saint, together with legendary material found in no other version of this hagiographic narrative; there is in addition a wealth of detail about Edward's times as well as about the twelfth-century context in which the Nun was writing. The poem is thus of the greatest interest not only for literary scholars but also for historians.
It is...

The resurgence of interest in the history of the English language has prompted this indispensable introductory guide to the scripts used in Old and Middle English writing. The best way to gain a sense of changes in scripts across time is through visual examples. The reader is introduced gradually to vocabulary suitable for the description of script through a range of plates, for example, Caedmon's Hymn (the earliest extant English poem); the opening of an Exeter Book poem; the Lindisfarne Gospels; the opening page of King Alfred's first translation; an illustrated version of the story of...

This book draws on a lengthy experience of teaching graduates how to approach medieval books. It leads the reader through the stages of the editorial process, using part of Richard Rolle's Commentary on the Song of Songs as the working exemplar. In the humane sciences, the need for texts is ubiquitous; they provide the regular objects of study. But far less prevalent than editions is any discussion of the premises underlying these objects, or the mechanisms by which they have been constructed. This volume takes up both challenges. First, in a preliminary chapter, it discusses what is at stake...

This is the first edition of Andreas for 55 years, also the first to present the Anglo-Saxon, or rather Old English, text with a parallel Modern English poetic translation. The book aims not only to provide both students and scholars with an up-to-date text and introduction and notes, but also to reconfirm the canonical merit of Andreas as one of the longest and most important works in Old English literature. The introduction to our text is substantial, re-positioning this poem in respect of nearly six decades' progress in the palaeography, sources and analogues, language, metrics, literary...

The fifteenth-century texts edited here for the first time describe the changing relationship between heraldic design and heralds themselves. They describe the rules of heraldry and the meaning of colours and charges, the diplomatic and martial roles performed by heralds, and the imagined, illustrious history of the office of arms.

A stylistic and historical study of one of the most celebrated features of Middle English alliterative poetry, the passages of vivid description. The study explores the narrative function of such descriptions, and the models for the poets' descriptive techniques.

Offers a significant new reading of the late medieval poet Thomas Hoccleve, illustrating Hoccleve's role in recasting Chaucer as a figure of intellectual and moral authority, and situating Hoccleve - and the nascent English literary tradition - firmly in the context of heresy and religious reform.

This volume presents the first study, critical edition, and translation of one of the earliest works by Richard Rolle (c. 1300-1349), a hermit and mystic whose works were widely read in England and on the European continent into the early modern period. Rolle’s explication of the Old Testament Book of Lamentations gives us a glimpse of how the biblical commentary tradition informed what would become his signature mystical, doctrinal, and reformist preoccupations throughout his career. Rolle’s English and explicitly mystical writings have been widely accessible for decades. Recent...