The essays in this volume were presented at a conference honoring John V. Fleming at Princeton University on April 21-22, 2004. The aim of the conference was to revisit Fleming's 1977 book, An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages, from a number of different perspectives, including social, religious and literary history, as well as art, exegesis, political thought and the history of education. A prominent, but not exclusive, theme of the contributions is the distinction between "defenders" and "critics" of medieval Franciscanism. Recent scholarship has shown that the dividing line between medieval defenders and critics of Franciscan life was not as sharp or as clear as had once been thought. This, more nuanced approach to medieval Franciscanism is a reflection of the many scholarly developments that have occurred since - and as a result of - Fleming's volume. The present work offers a selection of current approaches to the question.

This book is a history of a medieval literary tradition that grew out of opposition to the mendicant fraternal orders. Penn R. Szittya argues that the widespread attacks on the friars in late medieval poetry, especially in Ricardian England, drew on an established tradition that originated in the polemical theology, eschatology, and Biblical exegesis of the friars' ecclesiastical enemies--secular clergy, theologians, polemicists, archbishops, canon lawyers, monks, and rival orders. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A collection of essays debating what fourteenth-century Italy and its literature meant to Chaucer.

Catalogue of offprints from vols. 1-20 in v. 20, p. [527]-541.