Lister M. Matheson

This is not a new edition of the Middle English text that survives in more manuscripts than almost any other. Rather, this work classifies and groups the manuscripts and early printed editions, and comments on the relationships that developed among them from the late 14th to and sometimes beyond the 15th century. Covers the common versions, the extended version, the abbreviated version, peculiar texts and versions, and early printed editions. The detailed comparisons require a fairly high degree of fluency in Middle English. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Development of a Middle English Chronicle

The Prose Brut

This is a remarkable collection of scholarly Middle English texts that deal with astrology, fortunetelling, medicine, horticulture, marine navigation, as well as "popular and practical" scientific matters, as they were perceived in the Middle Ages. This groundbreaking volume is indispensable to scholars of medieval studies, the history of science and medicine, early English literature and language, manuscripts, technical prose, and popular culture.

Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England

From Thomas Becket to Charlemagne, from Leif Erickson to Count Dracula, this series of biographical essays separates truth from legend as it explores the lives of some of the most accomplished and influential figures of medieval history. • Contributions from 18 accomplished scholars and writers bring their fascinating medieval era subjects to life in 20 entries—18 biographical and 2 topical entries • Bibliographical references and "Suggestions for Further Reading" for each chapter

Rulers, Writers, Rebels, and Saints

Icons of the Middle Ages: Rulers, Writers, Rebels, and Saints [2 volumes]

From Thomas Becket to Charlemagne, from Leif Erickson to Count Dracula, this series of biographical essays separates truth from legend as it explores the lives of some of the most accomplished and influential figures of medieval history. * Contributions from 18 accomplished scholars and writers bring their fascinating medieval era subjects to life in 20 entries—18 biographical and 2 topical entries * Bibliographical references and "Suggestions for Further Reading" for each chapter

Icons of the Middle Ages

Thomas H. Ohlgren

While references to Robin Hood began to appear as early as the thirteenth century in legal records, the earliest surviving poems did not appear in manuscripts and early printed books until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Several fourteenth-century allusions in the works of William Langland and Geoffrey Chaucer suggest that the rymes of Robyn Hood were widely circulating by the 1370s, but, it is vital to note, none of these late fourteenth-century works survives. A better approach, Thomas H. Ohlgren argues, is to focus on what has actually survived rather than on what might have existed. As a result, the poems Robin Hood and the Monk and Robin Hood and the Potter, which survive in two different Cambridge manuscripts of the last third of the fifteenth century, and A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, which was printed at least seven times in the sixteenth century, must receive pride of place in the canon because they have a physical reality as material artifacts - in short, they exist and provide valuable information about the places and times of their composition and dissemination.

Lister M. Matheson

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