These texts will be of interest because they represent a kind of writing - at the intersection of ecclesiastical and secular power, drawing on the whole range of medieval Latin learning, yet written in vernacular verse - that is not found elsewhere in the European Middle Ages. In addition, they may be of use in teaching since, although relatively short, they illustrate a great number of characteristic medieval ways of writing and can be linked to a number of quite remarkable historical figures.

Refining adult-focused perspectives on medieval rulership, Emily Joan Ward exposes the problematic nature of working from the assumption that kingship equated to adult power. Children's participation and political assent could be important facets of the day-to-day activities of rule, as this study shows through an examination of royal charters, oaths to young boys, cross-kingdom diplomacy and coronation. The first comparative and thematic study of child rulership in this period, Ward analyses eight case studies across northwestern Europe from c.1050 to c.1250. The book stresses innovations and adaptations in royal government, questions the exaggeration of political disorder under a boy king, and suggests a ruler's childhood posed far less of a challenge than their adolescence and youth. Uniting social, cultural and political historical methodologies, Ward unveils how wider societal changes between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries altered children's lived experiences of royal rule and modified how people thought about child kingship.

New perspectives on and interpretations of the popular medieval genre of the universal chronicle.

Ava is the first woman whose name we know who wrote in German. She wrote her poem - or poems - on the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ sometime early in the twelfth century, no later than 1127. It seems certain that she was a layperson, and her work reflects a level of learning that raises all sorts of interesting questions about the education of the laity, especially the education of lay woman, and about the nature of authorship in the Middle Ages, generally and particularly in medieval Germany.

The Katherine Group brings together for the first time newly edited and translated versions of three dynamic saints' lives, The Lives of Saints Katherine, Margaret and Juliana, a quirky but rhetorically persuasive guide to virginity, Hali Meidenhad, and a psychologically astute sermon, Sawles Warde ("The Guardianship of the Soul"). These works are important witnesses to the development of Middle English writing after the Conquest and to the rigorous anchoritic spiritual life pursued by female recluses in medieval England.

British Library MS Harley 2253 is one of the most important literary works to survive from the English medieval era. In rarity, quality, and abundance, its secular love lyrics comprise an unrivaled collection. Intermingled with them are contemporary political songs as well as delicate lyrics designed to inspire religious devotion.

The complete text of John Gower's Confessio Amantis is a three-volume edition, including all Latin components - with translations - of this bilingual poem and extensive glosses, bibliography, and explanatory notes. Volume 2 contains Books 2, 3, and 4, which follow in their structure the outline of Vice and its children found in the early French poem the Mirour de l'Omme.