Medieval literature is to a large extent based on oral tradition and permeated by various forms of orality: literary texts were commonly read aloud, up into the late Middle Ages; popular literature was often transmitted orally and performed by public entertainers; and a number of literary forms were shaped by an oral background. Although questions of orality and the manifold interrelations between oral and written traditions have been the subject of intensive research in medieval studies, there is no general, state-of-the-art compendium in this field. In this book an international team of...