Emily Steiner describes the rich intersection between legal documents and English literature in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. She argues that documentary culture (including charters, testaments, patents and seals) enabled writers to think in new ways about the conditions of textual production in late Medieval England.

Emily Steiner describes the rich intersection between legal documents and English literature in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. She argues that documentary culture (including charters, testaments, patents and seals) enabled writers to think in new ways about the conditions of textual production in late Medieval England.

This expert survey of historical writing in medieval Britain and Ireland introduces readers to a rich subfield of medieval literature. It will appeal to scholars and students of the literature, culture and history of medieval Britain and Ireland, manuscript studies and the history of the book.