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Wynnere And Wastoure
Wynnere and Wastoure ("Winner and Waster") is a fragmentary Middle English poem written in alliterative verse around the middle of the 14th century. Manuscript The poem occurs in a single manuscript, British Library Additional MS. 31042, also called the London Thornton Manuscript. This manuscript was compiled in the mid-15th century by Robert Thornton, a member of the provincial landed gentry of Yorkshire, who seems to have made a collection of instructional, religious and other texts for the use of his family. It is not known where Thornton found the text of ''Wynnere and Wastoure'', which has not survived in any other sources, but the dialect of the poem indicates that it is most likely written by someone originating from the north Midlands. The poem can be dated with some confidence due to its prominent reference to William Shareshull, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who left the post in 1361 and died in 1370.At lines 317-318: "...Scharshull itwiste / That saide I prik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' specifies the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English language became fragmented, localized, and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470) and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 14 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis'' spread by fleas, but it can also take a secondary form where it is spread by person-to-person contact via aerosols causing septicaemic or pneumonic plagues. The Black Death was the beginning of the second plague pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history. The origin of the Black Death is disputed. The pandemic originated either in Central Asia or East Asia before spreading to Crimea with the Golden Horde army of Jani Beg as he was besieging the Genoese trading port of Kaffa in Crimea (1347). From Crimea, it was most likely carried ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chester
Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Locality"; downloaded froCheshire West and Chester: Population Profiles, 17 May 2019 it is the most populous settlement of Cheshire West and Chester (a unitary authority which had a population of 329,608 in 2011) and serves as its administrative headquarters. It is also the historic county town of Cheshire and the second-largest settlement in Cheshire after Warrington. Chester was founded in 79 AD as a "castrum" or Roman fort with the name Deva Victrix during the reign of Emperor Vespasian. One of the main army camps in Roman Britain, Deva later became a major civilian settlement. In 689, King Æthelred of Mercia founded the Minster Church of West Mercia, which later became Chester's first cathedral, and the Angles extended and strengthene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashire was created by the Local Government Act 1972. It is administered by Lancashire County Council, based in Preston, and twelve district councils. Although Lancaster is still considered the county town, Preston is the administrative centre of the non-metropolitan county. The ceremonial county has the same boundaries except that it also includes Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, which are unitary authorities. The historic county of Lancashire is larger and includes the cities of Manchester and Liverpool as well as the Furness and Cartmel peninsulas, but excludes Bowland area of the West Riding of Yorkshire transferred to the non-metropolitan county in 1974 History Before the county During Roman times the area was part of the Bri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dining Room Scene From The Luttrell Psalter
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance and offerings, including a wide variety of cuisines and service models ranging from inexpensive fast-food restaurants and cafeterias to mid-priced family restaurants, to high-priced luxury establishments. Etymology The word derives from early 19th century from French word 'provide food for', literally 'restore to a former state' and, being the present participle of the verb, The term ''restaurant'' may have been used in 1507 as a "restorative beverage", and in correspondence in 1521 to mean 'that which restores the strength, a fortifying food or remedy'. History A public eating establishment similar to a restaurant is mentioned in a 512 BC record from Ancient Egypt. It served only one dish, a plate of cereal, wild fowl, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Langland
William Langland (; la, Willielmus de Langland; 1332 – c. 1386) is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative verse generally known as ''Piers Plowman'', an allegory with a complex variety of religious themes. The poem translated the language and concepts of the cloister into symbols and images that could be understood by a layman. Life Little is known of Langland himself. It seems that he was born in the West Midlands of England around 1330, according to internal evidence in ''Piers Plowman''. The narrator in ''Piers Plowman'' receives his first vision while sleeping in the Malvern Hills (between Herefordshire and Worcestershire), which suggests some connection to the area. The dialect of the poem is also consistent with this part of the country. ''Piers Plowman'' was written ''c.'' 1377, as the character's imagination says he has followed him for "five and forty winters." A fifteenth-century note in the Dublin manuscript of ''Piers Plowman'' says ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piers Plowman Tradition
{{no footnotes, date=September 2009 The Piers Plowman tradition is made up of about 14 different poetic and prose works from about the time of John Ball (died 1381) and the Peasants Revolt of 1381 through the reign of Elizabeth I and beyond. All the works feature one or more characters, typically Piers, from William Langland's poem '' Piers Plowman''. (A much larger number of texts, with less obvious connection to Piers Plowman, may also be considered part of the tradition.) Because the Plowman appears in the ''General Prologue'' to '' The Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer but does not have his own tale (one of seven such characters), plowman tales are sometimes used as additions to ''The Canterbury Tales'', or otherwise conflated or associated with Chaucer. As a rule, they satirically reflect economic, social, political, and religious grievances, and are concerned with political decisions and the relation between commoners and king. In these respects they resemble works su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chanson D'aventure
The chanson d'aventure (, en, song of adventure) is a genre of medieval poetry originating in France, but which had a substantial influence on poetry in Middle English. Structure The ''chanson d'aventure'' (plural ''chansons d'aventure'') is essentially a framing device, where the singer (or poet) wanders into a wild or rural setting and has a chance encounter, usually in the form of a dialogue; it originates in Old French lyrics usually with an erotic or amorous theme.Strohm, P. ''Middle English'', Oxford: OUP, 2007, p.227-8 Sometimes, the ''chanson'' may focus on an overheard dialogue, or lover's complaint. In either way, the chief feature is that of a chance encounter. It likely evolved from two earlier ''chanson'' subtypes, the ''chanson dramatique'' and the ''chanson pastourelle''.Davidoff, J. M. ''Beginning Well: Framing Fictions in Late Middle English Poetry'', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988, p.36 Poets in Middle English adopted the trope for themes other than lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piers Plowman
''Piers Plowman'' (written 1370–86; possibly ) or ''Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman'' (''William's Vision of Piers Plowman'') is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in un-rhymed, alliterative verse divided into sections called (Latin for "step"). Like the Pearl Poet's ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'', ''Piers Plowman'' is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of English literature of the Middle Ages, even preceding and influencing Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales''. ''Piers Plowman'' contains the first known reference to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales. There exist three distinct versions of the poem, which scholars refer to as the A-, B-, and C-texts. The B-text is the most widely edited and translated version; it revises and extends the A-text by over four thousand lines. Summary The poem, a mix of theological allegory and social satire, concerns the narrator/dreamer's quest fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific ''A Treatise on the Astrolabe'' for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament. Among Chaucer's many other works are ''The Book of the Duchess'', ''The House of Fame'', ''The Legend of Good Women'', and ''Troilus and Criseyde''. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Vision
A dream vision or ''visio'' is a literary device in which a dream or vision is recounted as having revealed knowledge or a truth that is not available to the dreamer or visionary in a normal waking state. While dreams occur frequently throughout the history of literature, visionary literature as a genre began to flourish suddenly, and is especially characteristic in early medieval Europe. In both its ancient and medieval form, the dream vision is often felt to be of divine origin. The genre reemerged in the era of Romanticism, when dreams were regarded as creative gateways to imaginative possibilities beyond rational calculation. This genre typically follows a structure whereby a narrator recounts their experience of falling asleep, dreaming, and waking, with the story often an allegory. The dream, which forms the subject of the poem, is prompted by events in their waking life that are referred to early in the poem. The ‘vision’ addresses these waking concerns through the pos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval Debate Poetry
Medieval debate poetry refers to a genre of poems popular in England and France during the late medieval period (although broadly the same type of debate poems existed in the ancient and medieval Near Eastern literatures, as noted below). Essentially, a debate poem depicts a dialogue between two natural opposites (e.g. sun vs. moon, winter vs. summer).Conlee pg XII Although the particulars can vary considerably, this can function as a general definition of the literary form. The debates are necessarily emotionally charged, highlighting the contrasting values and personalities of the participants, and exposing their essentially opposite natures. On the surface, debate poems typically appear didactic, but under this often lies a genuine dialogue between two equally paired opponents. History and precedents Debate poems were common in Mesopotamian Sumerian-language literature (first half of the 3rd millennium BC) and were part of the tradition of Arsacid and Sassanid Persian liter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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