Essays on the medieval chronicle tradition, shedding light on history writing, manuscript studies and the history of the book, and the post-medieval reception of such texts. The histories of chronicles composed in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and onwards, with a focus on texts belonging to or engaging with the Prose Brut tradition, are the focus of this volume. The contributors examine the composition, dissemination and reception of historical texts written in Anglo-Norman, Latin and English, including the Prose Brut chronicle (c. 1300 and later), Castleford's Chronicle (c. 1327), and Nicholas Trevet's Les Cronicles (c. 1334), looking at questions of the processes of writing, rewriting, printing and editing history. They cross traditional boundaries of subject and period, taking multi-disciplinary approaches to their studies in order to underscore the (shifting) historical, social and political contexts in which medieval English chronicles were used and read from the fourteenth century through to the present day. As such, the volume honours the pioneering work of the late Professor Lister M. Matheson, whose research in this area demonstrated that a full understanding of medieval historical literature demands attention to both the content of theworks in question and to the material circumstances of producing those works. JACLYN RAJSIC is a Lecturer in Medieval Literature in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London; ERIK KOOPER taughtOld and Middle English at Utrecht University until his retirement in 2007; DOMINIQUE HOCHE Is an Associate Professor at West Liberty University in West Virginia. Contributors: Elizabeth J. Bryan, Caroline D. Eckhardt, A.S.G. Edwards, Dan Embree, Alexander L. Kaufman, Edward Donald Kennedy, Erik Kooper, Julia Marvin, William Marx, Krista A. Murchison, Heather Pagan, Jaclyn Rajsic, Christine M. Rose, Neil Weijer

It will enable scholars to make full use of this remarkable resource for the study of Arthurian tradition, contemporary visions of British history, popular thought about society and government in late-medieval England, and the history of reading itself."--BOOK JACKET.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

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

"Layamon's Brut" long remained unstudied. In the past two decades several translations of this long chronicle have been released both in English, French and Italian while substantial scholarly and critical work has been done on a great many aspects of the work. The present volume contains fourteen essays, most of which were papers given at the 7th international Layamon's conference held at the Sorbonne in Paris in June 2012.

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

First full-length interpretive study of the prose Brut tradition, setting its manuscript context alongside textual analysis.