Middle English Literature A Historical Sourcebook

by Goldie, Matthew Boyd

• ISBN13: 9780631231486
• ISBN10: 063123148X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-09
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This collection of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century documents is designed for students of Chaucer and Middle English literature. It makes readily available accounts of key historical events and descriptions of pertinent cultural phenomena. The documents have been chosen to complement the themes and styles that appear in the literature, enabling students to compare fourteenth- and fifteenth-century creative writing with contemporary debates on a range of important topics such as friars, marriage, Lollardy, the perception of non-Western others, lechery, law, the revolt of 1382, books, and the English language. Twelve images are also included. Modern English translations have been used where the texts were originally written in Latin and French, but Middle English selections remain in Middle English, with glosses and explanatory footnotes where necessary. Succinct introductions help to place the documents in relation to historical, authorial, and manuscript contexts. Select bibliographies list other related medieval works and the most helpful secondary studies.

Author Biography

Matthew Boyd Goldie is Assistant Professor of English at Rider University.

Table of Contents

List of Literary Works and Related Topics	viii
Table of Dates, 1325-1500	xvi
List of Plates	xxiii
Acknowledgments	xxv
Map	xxviii
Introduction	xxix
Conventions and Institutions	1	(45)
Benedictine Rule	1	(6)
Friars	7	(6)
Humors	13	(8)
Marriage	21	(11)
Pilgrimage	32	(5)
Prioresses	37	(9)
Force and Order	46	(42)
Battle of Agincourt	46	(4)
The English and England	50	(9)
Lollardy Trials	59	(10)
Usurpation	69	(19)
Gender, Sexuality, and Difference	88	(45)
Amazons	88	(5)
Chastity, Marriage, Widowhood, and Virginity	93	(6)
The Far East	99	(11)
God's Unknowability	110	(4)
Lechers and Sodomites	114	(4)
Saracens	118	(8)
Women: Margaret Paston	126	(7)
Images	133	(23)
Lovell Lectionary	133	(2)
Anne of Burgundy, duchess of Bedford, before St. Anne	135	(2)
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (Ellesmere)	137	(2)
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (Hengwrt)	139	(2)
Chaucer portrait: Thomas Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes	141	(2)
Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde	143	(2)
Court of King's Bench	145	(2)
``Miracle of the Boy Singer''	147	(2)
New College, Oxford University	149	(2)
Revolt: Jean Froissart, Chroniques	151	(1)
Richard II presented to the Virgin and Christ	152	(2)
Royal Benefactors	154	(2)
Labor and Capital	156	(34)
Guilds	156	(7)
Ordinance and Statute of Laborers	163	(6)
Pestilence	169	(6)
The Revolt	175	(15)
Style and Spectacle	190	(42)
Feasts	190	(7)
The Hunt	197	(7)
Pageants	204	(5)
Processions	209	(6)
Sumptuary	215	(9)
Tournaments	224	(8)
Textualities	232	(41)
Audience Reactions to Sermons	232	(3)
Books	235	(7)
Censorship	242	(7)
Enarratio (Analysis and Exposition of Texts)	249	(10)
The English Language	259	(3)
Plays and Representations	262	(11)
Appendix: Currency, Income, Prices; Measures	273	(4)
Glossary	277	(7)
Bibliography	284	(4)
Index	288