An Anglo-Norman Reader

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This book is an anthology with a difference. It presents a distinctive variety of Anglo-Norman works, beginning in the twelfth century and ending in the nineteenth, covering a broad range of genres and writers, introduced in a lively and thought-provoking way. Facing-page translations, into accessible and engaging modern English, are provided throughout, bringing these texts to life for a contemporary audience.

The collection offers a selection of fascinating passages, and whole texts, many of which are not anthologised or translated anywhere else. It explores little-known byways of Arthurian legend and stories of real-life crime and punishment; women’s voices tell history, write letters, berate pagans; advice is offered on how to win friends and influence people, how to cure people’s ailments and how to keep clear of the law; and stories from the Bible are retold with commentary, together with guidance on prayer and confession.

Each text is introduced and elucidated with notes and full references, and the material is divided into three main sections: Story (a variety of narrative forms), Miscellany (including letters, law and medicine, and other non-fiction), and Religious (saints' lives, sermons, Bible commentary, and prayers). Passages in one genre have been chosen so as to reflect themes or stories that appear in another, so that the book can be enjoyed as a collection or used as a resource to dip into for selected texts.

This anthology is essential reading for students and scholars of Anglo-Norman and medieval literature and culture. Wide-ranging and fully referenced, it can be used as a springboard for further study or relished in its own right by readers interested to discover Anglo-Norman literature that was written to amuse, instruct, entertain, or admonish medieval audiences.

An Anglo-Norman Reader
Jane Bliss | February 2018
416 | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)
ISBN Paperback: 9781783743131
ISBN Hardback: 9781783743148
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781783743155
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781783743162
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781783743179
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0110
BIC and BISAC categories: DQ (Anthologies, non-poetry), CFP (Translation and interpretation), DSBB (Literary studies: classical, early and medieval); LCO008000 (Literary Collections / European), LCO017000 (Literary Collections / Medieval), LIT018000 (Literary Criticism / Short Stories), LIT025040 (Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Religion)

Acknowledgements & Notes
    Copyright Acknowledgements
    Note for Ebook Editions
Abbreviations
    Bible Books

Introduction
    Selection of Texts
    Principal Themes and Topics
    Treatment of Texts

Story
History
    Wace’s Roman de Rou
    Description of England
    The French Chronicle of London
    Des Grantz Geanz
Romance
    Roman de Thèbes (Amphiarax)
    Protheselaus
    Le Roman deFergus
    Le Roman du reisYder
    The Anglo-Norman Folie Tristan
Short Stories
    TristanRossignol
    Two Fabliaux
    LeRoi d’Angleterre et le Jongleur d’Ely

An Anglo-Norman Miscellany
Satirical, Social, and Moral
    Le Roman des Franceis, by André de Coutances
    L’Apprise de Nurture
Grammar and Glosses
    LaManiere de Langage
Letters
    Maud Mortimer’s letters to the King
    Christine de Pisan’s letter to Isabelle of Bavaria
Doctors, Lawyers, and Writers
    A MedicalCompendium
    Legal Texts
    ‘En autre ovre’ (Prologues)

Religious Writings
Biblical and Apocryphal
    Proverbes de Salemon (chapter 7)
    TheCreation, by Herman de Valenciennes
Hagiography
    La Vie d’Edouard le Confesseur, by a Nun of Barking
    La Vie SeinteAudree, by Marie
    The Life of St. Catherine, by Clemence
Homiletic
    Maurice de Sully: Credo and Pater Noster
    Sermon onJoshua
    Rossignos
    Eight Deadly Sins, attributed to Robert Grosseteste
    Nicole Bozon, from Contes Moralisés, 128: Bad Company

Appendix
    ‘Et pis y avait quat’e: enne histouaire de ma graond’mé’, an adventure story

Bibliography
    Primary Texts
    Secondary Texts

Indexes
    Manuscripts
    Bible References
    General Index

Jane Bliss is a medievalist, free-lance writer and occasional teacher. Her publications to date include Naming and Namelessness in Medieval Romance (2008), La Vie d'Edouard le Confesseur by a Nun of Barking (2015), and Cher Alme: Texts of Anglo-Norman Piety (with Tony Hunt and Henrietta Leyser; 2010); as well as a number of articles on medieval literature and history. She also helps to convene the Oxford Anglo-Norman Reading Group. She lives in Oxford with a mathematician, a large number of musical instruments, and two cats.

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Jane Bliss, An Anglo-Norman Reader. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2018. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0110

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