First book-length treatment of a fascinating medieval French romance, underlining its influence in the genre. Partonopeus de Blois is one of the most important works of twelfth-century French fiction; it shaped the development of romance as a genre, gave rise to adaptations in several other medieval languages and even an opera (Massanet's Esclarmonde). However, partly because of its complicated transmission history, and partly due to the fact that it has been overshadowed by the works of Chrétien de Troyes, it has been unjustly neglected. This firstfull-length study of the romance brings together literary, historical and manuscript studies to explore its making as it evolved through seven medieval "editions", the earliest of which probably predated most of Chrétien's romances. The book's thematic analyses show how the Partonopeus poet applied established techniques of rewriting to a wide range of classical, vernacular and Celtic sources, combining this literary fusion with political subtexts to create a new and influential model of romance composition. Detailed studies of the Continuation reveal more ambitious experimentation by the original author, as well as the activities of a series of "editors" who continued to modify the text for over a century. A final discussion of patronage proposes a new reading of the poem's distinct narratorial interventions on women and love, and suggests a link between Partonopeus and a disturbing episode in the history of Blois. Penny Eley is Professor of Medieval French at the University of Sheffield.

Douglas Kelly provides a comprehensive and historically valid analysis of the art of medieval French romance as the romancers themselves describe it. He focuses on well-known writers, such as Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France, and also draws on a wide range of other sources—prose romances, non-Arthurian romances, thirteenth-century verse romances, and variant versions from the later Middle Ages. Kelly is the first scholar to present the “art” of medieval romance to a modern audience through the interventions and comments of medieval writers themselves. The book begins by examining the difficulties scholars perceive in medieval literature: problems such as source and intertextuality, structure in its manifold modern meanings, and character psychology and individuality. These issues frame Kelly’s identification and discussion of all the known authorial interventions on the art and craft of romance. Kelly’s careful reconstruction of the “art” of romance, based on the records left by the romancers themselves, will be an invaluable resource and guide for all medievalists.

This book demonstrates that received views on orality and literacy underestimate the importance of public reading in the late Middle Ages.

This collection brings together twelve selected papers given at the Second Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society. Because the courtly ethos is the central phenomenon marking medieval vernacular literature, it provides a theme that serves as an ideological guide through the later Middle Ages and on into the Renaissance and as a framework for the essays collected in this volume.

Examination of the striking new style of writing history in the twelfth century, by men such as Gaimar, Wace and Ambroise.

In 1144, the mutilated body of William of Norwich, a young apprentice leatherworker, was found abandoned outside the city's walls. The boy bore disturbing signs of torture, and a story spread that it was a ritual murder, performed by Jews in imitation of the Crucifixion as a mockery of Christianity. The outline of William's tale eventually gained currency far beyond Norwich, and the idea that Jews engaged in ritual murder became firmly rooted in the European imagination. E.M. Rose's engaging book delves into the story of William's murder and the notorious trial that followed to uncover the origin of the ritual murder accusation - known as the "blood libel" - in western Europe in the Middle Ages. Focusing on the specific historical context - 12th-century ecclesiastical politics, the position of Jews in England, the Second Crusade, and the cult of saints - and suspensefully unraveling the facts of the case, Rose makes a powerful argument for why the Norwich Jews (and particularly one Jewish banker) were accused of killing the youth, and how the malevolent blood libel accusation managed to take hold. She also considers four "copycat" cases, in which Jews were similarly blamed for the death of young Christians, and traces the adaptations of the story over time. In the centuries after its appearance, the ritual murder accusation provoked instances of torture, death and expulsion of thousands of Jews and the extermination of hundreds of communities. Although no charge of ritual murder has withstood historical scrutiny, the concept of the blood libel is so emotionally charged and deeply rooted in cultural memory that it endures even today. Rose's groundbreaking work, driven by fascinating characters, a gripping narrative, and impressive scholarship, provides clear answers as to why the blood libel emerged when it did and how it was able to gain such widespread acceptance, laying the foundations for enduring antisemitic myths that continue to present.

The subject of this volume is the relationship between production and consumption, considered not only as the supply and demand sides of economic life, but within the broader context of the societies of the Low Countries between the 12th and the 16th centuries. Amongst the topics covered are the reality of the so-called 'late medieval depression', comparisons between the great merchant cities of Bruges and Antwerp, and the actual importance of the trade in art and luxury goods. One group of articles then looks in detail at the cloth industry, which remained the mainstay of the region's wealth, and the effects upon it of changes in technology and in fashion, while the volume concludes with two studies specially translated from Dutch, on wine and beer consumption.

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner provides the first book-length examination of all four verse continuations that follow Chrétien's unfinished Grail story, a powerful site of rewriting from the late twelfth through the fifteenth centuries. By focusing on the dialogue between Chrétien and the verse continuators, this study demonstrates how the patterns and puzzles inscribed in the first author's romance continue to guide his successors, whose additions and reinventions throw new light back on the problems medieval readers and writers found in the mother text: questions about society and the individual; love, gender relations, and family ties; chivalry, violence, and religion; issues of collective authorship and doubled heroes, interpretation, rewriting, and canon formation. However far the continuations appear to wander from the master text, the manuscript tradition supports an implicit claim of oneness extending across the multiplicity of discordant voices combined in a dozen different manuscript compilations, the varying ensembles in which most medieval readers encountered Chrétien's Conte. Indeed, considered as a group the continuators show remarkable fidelity in integrating his romance's key elements, as they respond sympathetically to the dynamic incongruities and paradoxical structure of their model, its desire for and deferral of ending, its non-Aristotelian logic of 'and/both' in which contiguity forces interpretation and further narrative elaboration. Unlike their prose competitors, the verse continuators remain faithful to the dialectical movement inscribed across the interlace of two heroes' intertwined stories, the contradictory yet complementary spirit that propels Chrétien's decentered Conte du Graal.

An examination of what the translation of medieval French texts into different European languages can reveal about the differences between cultures.

These articles are mainly concerned with medieval French literature, particularly those areas in which the honorand of the volume, Rupert T. Pickens, has distinguished himself: Old French Arthurian romance, Marie de France, chanson de geste, later poetry (including Villon), and the Occitan troubadour lyric. Among the contributors are some of the most significant scholars from the U.S.A., Canada, France, Switzerland, and the U.K. working in Old French studies today. The volume will be of interest to specialists in Old French, Occitan, and medieval literature generally. Some of the articles deal with relatively unknown works, and all are informed by current developments in medieval literary studies.