Thorlac Turville-Petre is Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Nottingham. His previous publications include England the Nation (1996) and (with J. A. Burrow) A Book of Middle English (Third Edition, Blackwell, 2005).

• List of Plates. Preface.Abbreviations.Introduction.1. The Use of English.Three Languages.The Choice of English.Social Register.2. Texts and Manuscripts.Information from Manuscripts.Scribes and their Manuscripts.Audiences.Authors.3. Literature and Society.Bond and Free.Social Tensions in the Reeve's Tale.Ploughing Piers' Half Acre.At the Court of King Arthur.In Criseyde's Palace.4. History and Romance.Definitions.Monastic History.The History of St Erkenwald.Englishing Arthur.The Fairy World.5. Piety.From Pecham to Arundel.Christ the Lover and God the Unknowable.Retelling Biblical Stories.The Death of a Child.6. Love and Marriage.Marriage and Love - and Sex.A Lover's Confession.Love's Craft.'All this Mean I by Love'.Bibliography.Index.

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