A reinterpretation of the place and significance of chivalric culture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and what it says about contemporary attitudes to the medieval.

'This masterly work ought to be The Elizabethan Encyclopedia, and no less.' - Cahiers Elizabethains Edmund Spenser remains one of Britain's most famous poets. With nearly 700 entries this Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive one-stop reference tool for: * appreciating Spenser's poetry in the context of his age and our own * understanding the language, themes and characters of the poems * easy to find entries arranged by subject.

The Middle English romance has elicited throughout the centuries a curious mixture of indifference,hostile apprehension, and contempt that perhaps no other literature--except its most likely offspring, modern best-sellers--has provoked.

The great story motifs of romance were transmitted directly from the Middle Ages to the age of print in an abundance of editions. Spenser and Shakespeare assumed a familiarity with them and therefore exploited it, with new texts aimed at both elite and popular audiences

This book wasa published in 2003. Although Richard Johnson's chivalric romance "The Seven Champions of Christendom" is little known today, it was widely read for over three centuries after its first appearance in print in the 1590s, influencing the work of English writers from John Bunyan to G.K. Chesterton and profoundly affecting the representation of St George, England's patron saint, in folklore and popular culture. In this volume, Jennifer Fellows offers a scholarly edition of the work.