The articles in this volume take their bearings from an approach to historical communication theory based on linguistics and literary studies. They examine communicative aspects of medieval literature in the following fields: texts as a dialogic medium (author-audience, text-user), dialogic speech (dialogue proper), conversational conventions in dialogue (address, politeness, language regulation) or monologue as dialogue, "dialogue" between texts (intertextuality, e.g. adoption of linguistic patterns, motifs, formulaic expressions, scene types, etc.), and dialogic principles effective in the transmission of texts (mobility of texts, image and text).