Proverbes de Salemon (chapter 7) Sanson de Nantuil wrote these Proverbs as a book of instruction, perhaps for the young Roger de Condet (aged about twelve). Children’s literature as we know it did not exist: children were taught from books we should now consider to be intended only for adults, or fr...

Hagiography

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Passages from three saints’ lives have been chosen to represent this important corpus. They are all by women, making a neat set, but I have not attempted to compare them as specifically women’s writing, which I feel would be reductive. Instead, I am taking passages from each that differ widely in ge...

An Anglo-Norman Miscellany

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

The next few chapters represent some of Dean’s sections 5 (Satirical, Social, and Moral), 7 (Grammar and Glosses), and 9 (Medicine); they cannot be lumped into a single genre or even group of genres. The closest would be to describe it as a collection of moral or social pieces, mostly non-fiction (a...

Romance

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Back into storyland giants have fled… The old hymn is about how knights were supposed to be virtuous as well as valiant. Medieval romances may (or not) have been ‘escape literature’, but nobody escaped from the habits of religion. Even outside the Grail romances, and the ‘pious romances’ in which th...

Grammar and Glosses

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

La Maniere de Langage … side by side we lay Fretting in the womb of Rome to begin our fray. Ere men knew our tongues apart… This chapter presents some parts of a medieval ‘Berlitz Guide’, designed for Britishers to improve their foreign language skills. ‘The All Souls Continuation’, chosen for this...

Short Stories

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

There is always some difficulty about ‘short stories’ and how to define them, except simply by length. Dean’s category includes Lais, Fables, Fabliaux, and Dits; from the sublime through the ridiculous to the comparatively ordinary. There are a number of short stories in this book, that are not in t...

Satirical, Social, and Moral

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Le Roman des Franceis, by André de Coutances [129va] Il ont dit que riens n’a valu,Et donc a Arflet n’a chaluQue boté fu par ChapaluLi reis Artur en la palu.Et que le chat l’ocist de guerre,Puis passa outre en Engleterre [129vb]Et ne fu pas lenz de conquerre,Ainz porta corone en la terre,Et fu sire...

Letters

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Maud Mortimer’s letters to the King The first letter is dated 1282, and was transcribed from the manuscript by Emma Cavell. She made a translation of part of the letter; the translation below is broadly my own. It is among a number of letters, from both men and women, that she has worked on. They ar...

History

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Ne vos voil mie metre en letre,Ne jo ne m’en voil entremetre,Quels barons e quanz chevaliers,Quanz vavasors, quanz soldeiers,Out li dus en sa compaignieQuant il out prest tot son navie ;Mais jo oï dire a mon pere— Bien m’en sovient, mais vaslet ere —Que set cenz nes, quatre meins, furentQuant de Sai...

Religious Writings

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

‘Mon père,’ lui dis-je, ‘quels sont ces gros volumes qui tiennent tout ce côtéde bibliothèque?’‘Ce sont,’ me dit-il, ‘les interprètes de l’Ecriture.’‘Il y a un grand nombre!’ lui repartis-je. Dean’s sections 10 and 11 are entitled Biblical and Apocryphal respectively. Then follows Section 12, Hagiog...

Homiletic

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Maurice de Sully: Credo and Pater Noster Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, composed a series of homilies between 1168 and 1175. The manuscript from which this text is taken is listed by Dean (number 587) as Anglo-Norman, and dated to the middle of the thirteenth century. I am grateful to Tony Hunt...

Introduction

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

This book is a new departure in Anthologies, a Reader with a difference. It presents a variety of Anglo-Norman pieces, some less well-known, specially chosen to cover a wide range of literature that would have appealed to a wide range of people who could read or at least understand French. It provid...

Doctors, Lawyers, and Writers

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

This chapter gives a few examples of non-literary texts: these are envisaged as ‘for use’ rather than ‘for eǌoyment’. It has already been remarked that the boundary between these two groups of material can be problematic, for example in religious literature where prayers are for use rather than leis...

Story

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Longue est la geste des NormanzE a metre grieve en romanz.Se l’on demande qui ço dist,Qui ceste estoire en romanz fist,Jo di e dirai que jo suiWace de l’isle de Gersui,Qui est en mer vers occident,Al fieu de Normendie apent.En l’isle de Gersui fui nez,A Chaem fui petiz portez,Illoques fui a letres m...

An Anglo-Norman Reader

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

Jane Bliss (11 janv. 2019)

Livres et chapitres d'ouvrages

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 accessib...

Jane Bliss (éd.), ‘La Vie d’Édouard le Confesseur’ by a Nun of Barking Abbey

Recensions

Maïté Billoré (16 févr. 2021)

Recensions

À la fin des années 1160, peu de temps après la canonisation d’Édouard le confesseur par le pape Alexandre III (7 février 1161), une moniale anonyme du couvent bénédictin de Barking écrit une Vie de ce saint roi sous la forme d’un poème constitué de 3 343 vers octosyllabiques à rimes plates. Dans so...

Monographies publiées en 2014 et dépouillées par l'équipe

Billets de blog

Marie-Laure Savoye (18 janv. 2015)

Billets de blog

Liste des titres dépouillés. Batt Catherine, The Book of Holy Medicines (Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines), French of England Translation Series, Tempe, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2014 Beck Jonathan, Recueil général de moralités d'expression française. Tome III. La Moralité de...

Tony Hunt (ed.), and Jane Bliss (trans.), ‘Cher alme’: Texts of Anglo-Norman Piety

Articles

Juliette Vuille (1 juin 2012)

Articles