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Medieval Literature: A Study of its Evolution
A survey of how medieval writing shifted from Latin church texts to English, French, Italian, Norse and many other vernacular languages between roughly 500 and 1500.
Life and Learning
Literature and Legends
Poems, sagas and tales told across the Middle Ages.
Medieval Legends and Sagas: Folklore and Storytelling
How Norse and Celtic tales moved from spoken performance to manuscripts, what the Icelandic sagas and Irish and Welsh story cycles are, and what we cannot know.
Medieval Literature and Mythology: A Study of the Art of Storytelling
How medieval authors reworked classical tales, Trojan descent stories and Arthurian legend, and how older myth became Christian, courtly or moral material.
Medieval Literature: A Study of the Art of Storytelling
How medieval authors built stories: frame tales, romance plots, fables and the habits of reading aloud to an audience, with examples from Boccaccio, Chaucer and others.
Medieval Literature: The Works of Chaucer and Dante
A side-by-side comparison of Dante's Divine Comedy and Chaucer's English poems: their aims, language, structure, humor and view of the world.
Medieval Literature: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
A guide to Chaucer's writing, centered on the Canterbury Tales: its pilgrim frame, the range of tellers and tale types, its unfinished state, and his other poems.
Medieval Mythology: The Stories of the Gods
How stories of pre-Christian Norse, Celtic and Germanic gods survived in writing by Christian authors, and why those sources need careful reading.
Medieval Myths and Legends: Folklore and Storytelling
How ordinary medieval people shared tales by word of mouth: fireside storytelling, traveling performers, fairs and festivals, and what survives of folk tradition.
The Life and Times of Dante Alighieri
Dante's life in Florence, the political quarrels that led to his exile in 1302, his wandering years, and how he came to write the Divine Comedy before dying in 1321.
The Life and Times of Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer's life as a London merchant's son, royal servant, diplomat and customs official, and how his court career shaped the English poems he wrote for a mixed audience.
The Life and Times of King Arthur: Separating Fact from Fiction
What the earliest sources say about Arthur, a possible post-Roman war leader, and how Geoffrey of Monmouth and French romance turned him into a legendary king.
The Medieval Concept of the Holy Grail
How the Grail appears in medieval romances as a dish, cup or stone, how writers changed it, and why it is a literary legend and not a documented relic.
The Quest for the Holy Grail: A Medieval Legend
The Arthurian Grail quest as a story: the knights who set out, Galahad's success, Lancelot's failure, and how hermits turn adventures into Christian lessons.
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Learning and Science Schools, universities, stars and maps. Food and Drink What people ate and drank, from peasant pottage to noble feasts. Dress, Festivals and Folklore Clothing, holy days, customs and legends. Music and Entertainment Songs, dance, jesters and court amusements. Science and Technology Alchemy, astronomy, ships and the tools that changed work. Women in Medieval Society Work, law, family and religious life for medieval women. Poets and Authors Writers of the medieval world and those who shaped how it is remembered. Medieval Lives Typical lives of a peasant, a knight and a monk. Courtly Love and Ideals Love, chastity and etiquette in noble circles. Elements, Humors and Senses Medieval theories of matter, the body and perception. Medieval Worldview How medieval people thought about time, seasons, life stages and fate. Universities, Oxford and Cambridge How universities arose and how Oxford and Cambridge took shape. Everyday Life Details Homes, hygiene, childhood, marriage and death in ordinary medieval lives.