The story of the Cornish knight and the Irish princess who meet by deception, fall in love by magic, and pursue that love in defiance of heavenly and earthly law has inspired artists from Matthew Arnold to Richard Wagner. But nowhere has it been retold with greater eloquence and dignity than in Joseph Bédier’s edition, which weaves several medieval sources into a seamless whole, elegantly translated by Hilaire Belloc and Paul Rosenfeld.

    Alan S. Fredrick summarizes missing episodes and includes a translation of 'The Tale of Tristan's Madness.'One of the earliest extant versions of the Tristan and Yseut story, Beroul's French manuscript of The Romance of Tristan dates back to the middle of the twelfth century. It recounts the legend of Tristan, nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, and the king's Irish wife Yseut, who fall passionately in love after mistakenly drinking a potion. Their illicit romance remains secret for many years, but the relentless suspicion of the king's barons and the fading effects of the magic draught eventually lead to tragedy for the lovers. While Beroul's work emphasizes the impulsive and often brutal behaviour of the characters, its sympathetic depiction of two people strug1150gling against their destiny is one of the most powerful versions of this enduringly popular legend.

    Little is known of her but she was probably the Abbess of the abbey at Shaftesbury in the late 12th century, illegitimate daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet and hence the half-sister of Henry II of England. It was to a king, and probably Henry II, that she dedicated these poems of adventure and love which were retellings of stories which she had heard from Breton minstrels. She is regarded as the most talented French poet of the medieval period.

    Out of this skirmish arose a stirring tale of war, which was recorded in the oldest extant epic poem in French. The Song of Roland, written by an unknown poet, tells of Charlemagne’s warrior nephew, Lord of the Breton Marches, who valiantly leads his men into battle against the Saracens, but dies in the massacre, defiant to the end. In majestic verses, the battle becomes a symbolic struggle between Christianity and Islam, while Roland’s last stand is the ultimate expression of honour and feudal values of twelfth-century France.

    This bilingual edition, a parallel text in Old French and English, is based on a reexamination of the Old French manuscript, and makes Silence available to specialists and students in various fields of literature and women's studies.     The Roman de Silence, an Arthurian romance of the thirteenth century, tells of a girl raised as a boy, equally accomplished as a minstrel and knight, whose final task, the capture of Merlin, leads to her unmasking.

    In the hands of Jean de Meun, who continued de Lorris's work, it assumed vast proportions and embraced almost every aspect of medieval life from predestination and optics, to the Franciscan controversy and the right way to deal with premature hair-loss.

    It follows Parzival from his boyhood and career as a knight in the court of King Arthur to his ultimate achievement as King of the Temple of the Grail, which Wolfram describes as a life-giving Stone. As a knight serving the German nobility in the imperial Hohenstauffen period, the author was uniquely placed to describe the zest and colour of his hero's world, with dazzling depictions of courtly luxury, jousting and adventure. Yet this is not simply a tale of chivalry, but an epic quest for spiritual education, as Parzival must conquer his ignorance and pride and learn humility before he can finally win the Holy Grail.

    Malory interprets existing French and English stories about these figures and adds original material (e.g., the Gareth story). Le Morte d'Arthur was first published in 1485 by William Caxton, and is today one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature in English. Many modern Arthurian writers have used Malory as their principal source, including T. H. White in his popular The Once and Future King and Tennyson in The Idylls of the King.

    The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs and early medieval historical traditions. While some details may hark back to older Iron Age traditions, each of the tales is the product of a developed medieval Welsh narrative tradition, both oral and written.Lady Charlotte Guest in the mid 19th century was the first to publish English translations of the collection, popularising the name "Mabinogion". The stories appear in either or both of two medieval Welsh manuscripts, the White Book of Rhydderch or Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch, written c.1350, and the Red Book of Hergest or Llyfr Coch Hergest, written c.1382 – 1410, tho texts or fragments of some of the tales have been preserved in earlier 13th century and later mss.Scholars agree that the tales are older than the existing mss, but disagree over just how much older. The different texts originated at different times. Debate has focused on the dating of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Sir Ifor Williams offered a date prior to 1100, based on linguistic and historical arguments, while later Saunders Lewis set forth a number of arguments for a date between 1170 and 1190; Th Charles-Edwards, in a paper published in 1970, discussed both viewpoints, and while critical of the arguments of both scholars, noted that the language of the stories fits the 11th century. More recently, Patrick Sims-Williams argued for a plausible range of about 1060 to 1200, the current scholarly consensus.

    Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such as Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician and the most famous of all British heroes, King Arthur, it is as much myth as it is history and its veracity was questioned by other medieval writers. But Geoffrey of Monmouth's powerful evocation of illustrious men and deeds captured the imagination of subsequent generations, and his influence can be traced through the works of Malory, Shakespeare, Dryden and Tennyson.

    Reflecting his lifelong interest in Arthurian themes, his primary sources were Malory's Morte d'Arthur and the Welsh Mabinogion. For him, the Idylls embodied the universal and unending war between sense and soul, and Arthur the highest ideals of manhood and kingship; an attitude totally compatible with the moral outlook of his age. Poetically, Tennyson was heir to the Romantics, and Keats's influence in particular can be seen clearly in much of his work. Yet Tennyson's style is undoubtedly his own and he achieved a delicacy of phrase and subtlety of metrical effect that are unmatched. This edition, based on the text authorized by Tennyson himself, contains full critical apparatus.

    While Gottfried adheres faithfully to the events as set down by Thomas, his chosen source, he is correct over questions of Chrisianity and religion, but no more.In fact his persona as narrator is oddly elusive and engaging. A virtuoso stylist, adept in irony and wit, he is subtle and almost unmedieval in putting across his own impressions of a love that transcends the bounds advocated by Church or society.

    The introduction to this work by Eugene Mason gives an excellent account of Wace and the background behind this historical work. Wace begins his history of the Britons as follows. “Constantine came to Totnes, and many a stout knight with him—there was not one but was worthy of the kingship. The host set forth towards London, and sent messages in every part, bidding the Britons to their aid, for as yet they were too fearful to come from their secret places. When the Britons heard these tidings they drew, thick as rain, from the woodlands and the mountain, and came before the host in troops and companies. To make short a long matter, these marched so far and wrought such deeds that in the end they altogether discomfited those evil men who had done such sore mischief to the land. After these things they held a great council at Cirencester, commanding thereto all the lords and barons of the realm. In that place they chose Constantine as their king.”

    It is told through the letters of Peter Abélard, a French philosopher and one of the greatest logicians of the twelfth century, and of his gifted pupil Héloïse. Through their impassioned writings unfolds the story of a romance, from its reckless, ecstatic beginnings through to public scandal, an enforced secret marriage and its devastating consequences. These eloquent and intimate letters express a vast range of emotions from adoration and devotion to reproach, indignation and grief, and offer a fascinating insight into religious life in the Middle Ages.This is the revised edition of Betty Radice's highly regarded translation, in which Michael Clanchy, the biographer of Abélard, updates the scholarship on the letters and the lovers. This volume includes Abélard's remarkable autobiography and his spiritual advice to Héloïse and her nuns, as well as a selection of the 'lost love letters' of Abélard and Héloïse, letters between Héloïse and Peter the Venerable, two of Abélard's hymns, a chronology, notes and maps.

    Shaped by a profound sense of tragic irony, it is a work that gives full play to Victor Hugo's brilliant historical imagination and his remarkable powers of description.