This is the English summary of my dissertation Notam superponere studui: the use of technical signs in the early Middle Ages, which was defended on March 18, 2016 at Utrecht University.

3700 words

This blog post originally appeared on the website of Huygens ING (https://www.huygens.knaw.nl/marginal-scholarship-annoteren-met-behulp-van-tekens-in-plaats-van-woorden/?lang=en) on June 30, 2016. It was published both in Dutch and in English as a part of a four-part series about the Marginal Scholarship project, which was hosted by the Huygens…[Read more]

At a pivotal moment in Maria Edgeworth’s 1805 novella “The Modern Griselda,” a party gathers for a reading of “The Clerk’s Tale” at the home of the eponymous character and her husband. In response to Griselda’s vehement indignation at her medieval counterpart’s example, one member of the party comments that perhaps, “if Chaucer had lived in our…[Read more]

The canso attributed to Bietris de Roman participates in conventions that readily accommodate the language of desire within the exchange of political and social fidelity, offering another means by which to reconcile female authorship with a female object of courtly devotion.

Readers are often left baffled by the bizarre retribution Marie de France’s werewolf protagonist inflicts upon his treacherous wife: why bite off her nose, specifically? Though critics have offered a range of interpretations for the wife’s punishment in Marie’s lai, approaching the significance of noselessness from a dog’s perspective may deepe…[Read more]

Though the deep and abiding concern with honor that Arveragus and Aurelius evince in the Franklin’sTale have been explored in detail, Doreen’s own preoccupation with honor—no less significant in the tale’s exposition of trouthe—has not received much critical attention. Indeed, the question of Dorigen’s honor is often preempted by analysis…[Read more]