Throughout history, rivers have been a hub for human settlement and have long been a key part of local livelihoods, history, and culture, as well as still playing a present-day role in providing services and leisure to people who live around them. It is no coincidence that all four of the earliest human civilizations were formed on great rivers: the Nile, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow rivers all saw great human aggregation along them. The most ancient, and vital architectural structures linked to the use of rivers are bridges. There are a wide range of medieval bridge structures, some very simple in their construction, to amazing triumphs of design and engineering comparable with the great churches of the period. They stand today as proof of the great importance of transport networks in the Middle Ages and of the size and sophistication of the medieval economy. These bridges were built in some of the most difficult places, across broad flood plains, deep tidal waters, and steep upland valleys, and they withstood all but the most catastrophic floods. Yet their beauty, from simplistic to ornate, remains for us to appreciate. Medieval Bridges of Middle England has been organized geographically into tours and covers the governmental regions of East of England, East Midlands, and West Midlands. There are 62 bridges included and beautiful full color photographs of each bridge are included. A brief history is incorporated with each bridge. Additionally, information about the construction, materials used, and unique features are related, as well as historically relevant documents and images. Directions to each bridge and local attractions are also given. There are literally hundreds of bridges in England that meet the criteria for inclusion in this roll of honor for senior bridges. They vary vastly in size, style, and materials. Most are stone and a very few are brick. We have lost many of our older bridges to the ravages of time and the modern practice of culvertisation and urban development. A few of our older bridges remain though, and their beauty and pivotal role in our history is starting to be recognized.

Throughout history rivers have been a hub for human settlement and have long been a key part of local livelihoods, history and culture, as well as still playing a present-day role in providing services and leisure to people who live around them. It is no coincidence that all four of the earliest human civilizations were formed on great rivers: the Nile, Euphrates, Indus and Yellow rivers all saw great human aggregation along them. The most ancient and vital architectural structures linked to the use of rivers are bridges. There are a wide range of medieval bridge structures, some very simple in their construction, to amazing triumphs of design and engineering comparable with the great churches of the period. They stand today as proof of the great importance of transport networks in the Middle Ages and of the size and sophistication of the medieval economy. These bridges were built in some of the most difficult places, across broad flood plains, deep tidal waters, and steep upland valleys, and they withstood all but the most catastrophic floods. Yet their beauty, from simplistic to ornate, remains for us to appreciate. Medieval Bridges of Southern England has been organized geographically into tours and covers the governmental regions of Southwest England, London, and Southeast England. There are exactly 100 bridges included. There is an introduction and background information about the medieval period of English history at the beginning and there are beautiful full color photographs throughout the book.

An examination of if and how medieval romance was performed, uniquely uniting the perspective of a scholar and practitioner. Although English medieval minstrels performed gestes, a genre closely related to romance, often playing the harp or the fiddle, the question of if, and how, Middle English romance was performed has been hotly debated. Here, the performance tradition is explored by combining textual, historical and musicological scholarship with practical experience from a noted musician. Using previously unrecognised evidence, the author reconstructs a realistic model of minstrel performance, showing how a simple melody can interact with the text, and vice versa. She argues that elements in Middle English romance which may seem simplistic or repetitive may in fact be incomplete, as missing an integral musical dimension; metrical irregularities, for example, may be relics of sophisticated rhythmic variation that make sense only with music. Overall, the study offers both a more accurate comprehension of minstrel performance, and a deeper appreciation of the romances themselves. Linda Marie Zaerr is Professor of Medieval Studies at Boise State University.

The Oxford History of Poetry in English is designed to offer a fresh, multi-voiced, and comprehensive analysis of 'poetry': from Anglo-Saxon culture through contemporary British, Irish, American, and Global culture, including English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry, Anglo-American colonial and post-colonial poetry, and poetry in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Asia, and other international locales. The series both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge research, employing a global team of expert contributors for each of the fourteen volumes. This volume occupies both a foundational and a revolutionary place. Its opening date--1100--marks the re-emergence of a vernacular poetic record in English after the political and cultural disruption of the Norman Conquest. By its end date--1400--English poetry had become an established, if still evolving, literary tradition. The period between these dates sees major innovations and developments in language, topics, poetic forms, and means of expression. Middle English poetry reflects the influence of multiple contexts--history, social institutions, manuscript production, old and new models of versification, medieval poetic theory, and the other literary languages of England. It thus emphasizes the aesthetic, imaginative treatment of new and received materials by medieval writers and the formal craft required for their verse. Individual chapters treat the representation of national history and mythology, contemporary issues, and the shared doctrine and learning provided by sacred and secular sources, including the Bible. Throughout the period, lyric and romance figure prominently as genres and poetic modes, while some works hover enticingly on the boundary of genre and discursive forms. The volume ends with chapters on the major writers of the late fourteenth-century (Langland, the Gawain-poet, Chaucer, and Gower) and with a look forward to the reception of something like a national literary tradition in fifteenth-century literary culture.

Medieval bridges are startling achievements of civil engineering, which prove the importance of road transport and the sophistication of the medieval economy. The Bridges of Medieval England rewrites their history, offering new insights into many aspects of the subject. It has profound implications for our understanding of pre-industrial economy and society, challenging accepted accounts of the development of medieval trade and communications and showing continuities from the Anglo-Saxon period to the eve of the Industrial Revolution.

Middle English literature is intimately concerned with sleep and the spaces in which it takes place. In the medieval English imagination, sleep is an embodied and culturally determined act. It is both performed and interpreted by characters and contemporaries, subject to a particular habitus and understood through particular hermeneutic lenses. While illuminating the intersecting medical and moral discourses by which it is shaped, sleep also sheds light on subjects in favour of which it has hitherto been overlooked: what sleep can enable (dreams and dream poetry) or what it can stand in for or supersede (desire and sex). This book argues that sleep mediates thematic concerns and questions in ways that have ethical, affective and oneiric implications. At the same time, it offers important contributions to understanding different Middle English genres: romance, dream vision, drama and fabliau.

Bridges have always played an important role in the social and economic history of human development and Buckinghamshire has a great wealth of them. Through delightful photographs, stories, and historical facts, this book looks at the historic bridges that make up the chronology of Buckinghamshire. Bridges in this book are more than 100 years old, mostly lie on public roads or rights-of-way, are publicly accessible, and have a significant proportion of the original bridge intact. Trade systems and road networks must solve the challenges of geography’s waterways, and bridges, causeways, fords, and flood systems were necessarily a key aspect of the experience of historical travel. Bridges and river crossings anchored the Buckinghamshire road network in the landscape, and once established it proved remarkably durable. Settlements, villages, and eventually cities have traditionally sprung up at bridgeheads or where a river could be crossed at any time of the year. Some examples in Buckinghamshire are Newport Pagnell, Buckingham, and Cookham. The most ancient, vital, and interesting architectural structures linked to use of these crossings are bridges, and people hold a deep fascination for them. There are thousands of bridges in Buckinghamshire, varying vastly in size, style, and materials. Many are stone, a few are wooden, and there are numerous brick and more modern steel and concrete constructions.