A survey of the foundational disciplines of literate culture in the British isles, from the failure of the Roman imperial project in the fifth century to Henry VIII’s promulgation of uniform Latin grammars in 1540-42.

Grammar and rhetoric were the disciplines charged with teaching correct and effective use of language in antiquity. In the M…[Read more]

This article examines the medieval ars dictaminis, or art of letter-writing, focusing on socio-cultural aspects, especially as taught at Oxford c. 1370–1432. Ars dictaminis participated in and contributed to a structural transformation in the production of written communications and administrative records in later medieval Europe. Two aspects of t…[Read more]

The Rising of 1381, or Peasants’ Revolt, was the largest popular insurrection in premodern England. Soon afterwards, the London poet John Gower commemorated these events in a Latin poem, in which the rebellion is neutralized by an act of penitential prayer. This article examines the moral and political claims implied in that denouement, s…[Read more]

Abstract for article and longer project on literary representations of the medical discourse of lovesickness, with particular attention to gender and violence. Part of the project was presented at the Nineteenth Biennial International Congress of the New Chaucer Society held in Reykjavik, Iceland in 2014, and is currently being prepared for…[Read more]