The characters in The Swamp Dwellers fell into three groups: the parents Makuri and Alo-conservative, the corrupt priest Kadiye, who beguiles his superstitious followers; and the two positive individuals Igwezu and the Beggar, moving, wondering, seeking and then uncertain what they have found. It is a play of mood and atmosphere, constructed so as to provide the audience with ample opportunity to make comparisons and reach judgment. Soyinka makes his … Read the rest
Revolt: Jean Froissart, Chroniques
London, British Library, MS Royal 18 E.1, fol. 175r
Language: French
Manuscript date: 1460–80
Jean Froissart’s narrative of the revolt is valuable for several details it provides of the revolt, including, for instance, a sermon by John Ball, the priest from Kent and rebel leader. Manuscript Royal 18 E.1 was made in Flanders for William Hastings, Baron Hastings. It contains 48 richly colorful illuminations of events in France and England … Read the rest
Royal Benefactors
London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.vii, fols. 6v–7r (Golden Book of St. Albans)
Language: Latin
Manuscript date: 1380
The Golden Book of St. Albans (also known as the Liber Benefactorum, Book of Benefactors) is a record of the names of benefactors and their contributions to the Benedictine abbey of St. Albans (for more on donors, see the image “Anne of Burgundy, duchess of Bedford, before St. Anne,” p. 135). … Read the rest
Regiment of Princes
Chaucer portrait: Thomas Hoccleve,
Regiment of Princes
British Library MS Harley 4866, fol. 88r
Language: English (Southeast Midland)
Manuscript date: ca. 1411
Portraits of Geoffrey Chaucer appear in the Ellesmere Canterbury Tales and in a few other Thomas Hoccleve Regiment manuscripts (see the image of an Ellesmere page, “Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales,” p. 137). Hoccleve wrote the Regiment of Princes for Henry, Prince of Wales, in the years preceding 1413, … Read the rest
Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 61, fol. 1v
Language: English (Southeast Midland)
Manuscript date: ca. 1420
Chaucer wrote his “book of Troilus” about 1381–6; it survives in 16 manuscripts and the same number of fragments; Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 61 is one of the earliest manuscripts. Only two others and an early Caxton print of the poem have illuminations, but the Corpus Christi College manuscript’s full-page illumination is much … Read the rest
Middle English Procession
London quickly received news of Henry V’s October 25, 1415, victory at Agincourt. Three days later, on October 28, the newly elected mayor, Nicholas Wotton, and many of London’s citizens processed on foot to Westminster to give thanks to God and praise for Henry before the queen and lords of the realm. In the month before the king arrived back in London on Saturday, November 23 (via Calais), the city … Read the rest
Sumptuary
Church writers, national and local administrations, and interested observers of society regularly condemned their contemporaries’ extravagant behavior and appearance. Manners, carriage, gestures, diet, drink, clothing, makeup, and hairstyles all formed a complex aggregation thought to be specific to particular estates, classes, genders, sexualities, and occupations (see “Feasts,” p. 190). The pestilences of the later fourteenth century stimulated anxieties about social movement and personal transgressions, as evidenced in the legislation to … Read the rest
Tournament (medieval)
Tournaments were part of a knight’s training for war, and they became the ritualistic occasion for demonstrations of military prowess and the development of male social status. More mock battles than jousts in lists, tournaments began to flourish in the twelfth century and tended more and more towards theatrical and elaborately decorated ceremonies as the centuries progressed. Descriptions of chivalric criteria and tournaments appear in legal, historical, instructional, biographical, and … Read the rest
Glossary
A
abay see bay
ac conj. but, and
adighten, adyghtyn v. adorn
adight, adyth p. adorned
advoutri(e) see avouteri(e)
after prep. according to
agayn see ayen
al conj. even if, although
alday adv. always, all the time
algate(s) adv. entirely, continually,
nevertheless
Alkaron n. Koran
almes(se) n. pl. alms (almes-dede,
good deed)
als, also adv. as, also, as well
and conj. and, if
anon(e) adv. at once, immediately
apeire, apaire … Read the rest
Enarratio (Analysis and Exposition of Texts)
Enarratio, the analysis and exposition of texts, was part of the discipline of grammar, itself one of the three major areas of study within the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic or dialectic). Medieval grammar encompassed reading practices from simple grammar as we know it today to sophisticated literary interpretation. Enarratio means literally to lift a linguistic unit – a letter, syllable, word, or a longer passage – out of the … Read the rest