This anthology presents in two volumes a series of Latin texts (with English translation) produced in Britain during the period AD 450-1500. Excerpts are taken from Bede and other historians, from the letters of women written from their monasteries, from famous documents such as Domesday Book and Magna Carta, and from accounts and legal documents, all revealing the lives of individuals at home and on their travels across Britain and beyond. It offers an insight into Latin writings on many subjects, showing the important role of Latin in the multilingual society of medieval Britain, in which Latin was the primary language of written communication and record and also developed, particularly after the Norman Conquest, through mutual influence with English and French. The thorough introductions to each volume provide a broad overview of the linguistic and cultural background, while the individual texts are placed in their social, historical and linguistic context.
Volume 2. 1066–1500; Introduction; Part I. ELEVENTH CENTURY; II. 1 The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath: the Bayeux Tapestry; William of Malmesbury, History of the kings of England; Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History; II. 2 Charters of William the Conqueror; II. 3 Goscelin of Canterbury, the Book of Consolation; II. 4 Domesday Book: Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English; Richard FitzNigel, The Dialogue of the Exchequer; Domesday Book; II. 5 The Life of St. Swithun: Anonymous (prose); Anonymous (verse); II. 6 The Life of St. Birinus: Anonymous (prose); Henry of Avranches (verse); II. 7 Anselm of Canterbury: Letter to his friend Gundulf; Proslogion; TWELFTH CENTURY; II. 8 Eadmer, The Life of St. Anselm; II. 9 Sæwulf: a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; II. 10 Twelfth-century law codes: Quadripartitus and the Laws of Henry I; II. 11 Historiography of the early twelfth century: the disaster of the White Ship as recounted by Eadmer, William of Malmesbury, Orderic Vitalis, Symeon of Durham, Hugh the Chanter and Henry of Huntingdon; II. 12 Geoffrey of Monmouth: History of the kings of Britain; II. 13 Two twelfth-century Lives of St. Frideswide; II. 14 Ælred of Rievaulx: Letter regarding the nun of Watton; II. 15 William Fitzstephen: a description of London; II. 16 Thomas Becket: Correspondence between Thomas Becket and the Empress Matilda; Edward Grim and William Fitzstephen give accounts of Becket's murder; II. 17 Glanvill: On the laws and customs of the kingdom of England; II. 18 Richard of Devizes: Chronicle of the reign of Richard I; II. 19 Walter Map, Courtiers' trifles; II. 20 Hugh Nonant: Letter on the downfall of Chancellor William de Longchamp; THIRTEENTH CENTURY; II. 21 Gerald of Wales: An account of Gerald's achievements; The Jewel of the Church; II. 22 Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of the deeds of Abbot Samson; II. 23 Medical texts: Adelard of Bath, Questions on Natural Science; the Salernitan Questions; II. 24 Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora: King John offers his kingdom to the Caliph of Morocco; II. 25 Magna Carta; II. 26 Roger of Montbegon: a life in administrative documents; II. 27 Edmund of Abingdon: Speculum Religiosorum and Speculum Ecclesiae; II. 28 The study of Latin and the teaching of grammar: John of Garland, Dictionary; Alexander Neckam, The priest at the altar; Roger Bacon, The usefulness of studying languages; II. 29 A miracle at the minster of St. John of Beverley; II. 30 A 1297 Visitation of Chiswick church; FOURTEENTH CENTURY; II. 31 King Edward I: Letter to Pope Boniface VIII on relations between England and Scotland; II. 32 The trial of Alice Kyteler on a charge of witchcraft; II. 33 John of Gaddesden: an operation to remove a cataract; II. 34 Historiography of the fourteenth century: Henry Knighton and Thomas of Walsingham; II. 35 Wills of lay men and women; FIFTEENTH CENTURY; II. 36 Duke Humfrey sets up home: the king's grant of furniture; II. 37 The Pennal Letter of Owain Glyndŵr; II. 38 Sermons: Thomas of Chobham; a macaronic sermon; a ghost story from a preacher's commonplace book; II. 39 An heir proves his age: oral testimony in proof of age texts; II. 40 A woman is tried for heresy at Norwich: a court record; II. 41 Military historiography; II. 42 A miracle associated with King Henry VI: a painful football injury is healed; Part II. THEMES OF EVERYDAY LIFE: II. 43 The Black death and its effects; II. 44 Forest documents; II. 45 Manorial and agricultural documents; II. 46 Town life and trade; II. 47 Building construction and reparation; II. 48 Royal and ecclesiastical accounts; II. 49 In the courts; II. 50 Safeguarding, accidents and death.
CAROLINNE WHITE was a member of the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford. She collaborated on the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, completed in 2013, is the author of Christian Ideas of Friendship in the Fourth Century (1992) and has translated Early Christian Lives (1997), The Rule of Benedict (2007) and Lives of Roman Christian Women (2010) for Penguin Classics. Catherine Conybeare is Leslie Clark Professor in the Humanities at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. She is an authority on the Latin texts of late antiquity, and is the author of four books, including The Laughter of Sarah: Biblical Exegesis, Feminist Theory, and the Concept of Delight (2013). She is also the editor of a new series for Cambridge University Press, Cultures of Latin from Antiquity to the Enlightenment.
