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Medieval Vernacular Literature: Primary Sources

Library and Internet resources about medieval literature in European vernacular languages.

Overview

This page includes primary sources for vernacular literature other than Anglo-Saxon, Chaucer, Drama, and Sacred Texts

Bibliographies
Critical editions
Manuscripts and Facsimiles
Manuscript Databases
Publisher Series
Romances

Surveys

Medieval English Literature by J. B. Trapp et al., eds.
Call Number: PR1120 .M37 2002

The Norton Anthology of English Literature by Stephen Greenblatt et al., eds.
ISBN: 9780393927177

Publication Date: 2005

Vol. A: The Middle Ages

Bibliographies

Introducing English Medieval Book History: Manuscripts, their Producers and their Readers by Ralph Hanna III
ISBN: 9780859898713

Publication Date: 2013
A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500 by Albert E. Hartung (Editor)
Call Number: PR255 .M3
A Middle English bibliography; dates, dialects, and sources of the XII, XIII, and XIV century monuments and manuscripts exclusive of the works of Wyclif, Gower, and Chaucer, and the documents in the London dialect. by John Booker
Call Number: Z2012 .B75
Sir Thomas Malory: an anecdotal bibliography of editions, 1485-1985 by Barry Gaines
Call Number: PR2045 .G34 1990
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight : an annotated bibliography, 1978-1989 by Meg Stainsby
Call Number: PR2065.G31 S73 1992
John Lydgate (1371-1449) : a bio-bibliography by Derek Pearsall
Call Number: PR2036 .P43 1997
Bibliotheca Anglica Chronology (Website) by BIBLIOTHECA AUGUSTANA
Includes primary and secondary material for authors from the eighth to the twentieth centuries.

Publisher Series

Manuscripts and Facsimiles

Pursuing History: Middle English manuscripts and their texts by Ralph Hanna
Call Number: PR275.T45 H36 1996
Manuscript Pepys 2006 : a facsimile : Magdalene College, Cambridge
Call Number: PR1852 .F33 v.6

Located in Pius Spec Coll VFL Ref
The Vernon manuscript : a facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Eng. poet. A.1
Call Number: PR1120 .V47 1987

Located in Pius Spec Coll VFL Ref O'size
The Winchester anthology : a facsimile of British Library additional manuscript 60577
Call Number: PR1120 .W56 1981
The Lost History of Piers Plowman: the earliest transmission of Langland's work by Lawrence Warner
Call Number: PR2016 .W37 2011
The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman: the B-version by C. David Benson; Lynne S. Blanchfield
Call Number: PR2016 .M36 1997

Located in Pius Spec Coll VFL Ref
Piers Plowman : a facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Douce 104
Call Number: PR2010 .P42 1992

Located in VFL
Piers Plowman : a facsimile of the Z-Text in Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Bodley 851
Call Number: PR2010 .B7 1994

Locatein in VFL
Auchinleck manuscript
Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages by Julia Boffey
Call Number: PR355.C68 B63 1985

Located in Pius Spec Coll VFL Ref
Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain, reproduced in facsimile from the unique ms. Cotton Nero A.x in the British museum
Call Number: PR1119 .A2 no. 162
Studies in the Harley manuscript : the scribes, contents, and social contexts of British Library MS Harley 2253 by Susanna Fein.
Call Number: 1580440606
The life of St Edmund, King and martyr : John Lydgate's illustrated verse life presented to Henry VI : a facsimile of British Library MS Harley 2278 by John Lydgate
Call Number: ND3385 .B75 2004
The Book of Margery Kempe (Online)
The full manuscript facsimile, and select transcriptions, for The Book of Margery Kempe are currently viewable.

Romances

Layamon's "Brut" by Donald G. Bzdyl (Translator)
Call Number: PR2023.A2 B9613 1989

This sole surviving manuscript copy (known as the Winchester manuscript)
of Thomas Malory’s version of the legends of King Arthur and his knights, made in 1471.
Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte Darthur' British Library Add. MS 59678, f.35

The Middle English Breton Lays by Anne Laskaya (Editor); Eve Salisbury (Editor)
Call Number: PR2064 .M45 1995
Castleford's Chronicle, or the Boke of Brut by Caroline D. Eckhardt (Editor)
Call Number: PR1119 .A2 no. 305, etc. no.306
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. by Burton Raffel(Translator)
Call Number: PR2065 .G3 1970c
King Arthur's Death: the Middle English stanzaic Morte Arthur and alliterative Morte Arthure by Larry D. Benson
Call Number: PR2064 .B4 1986
Lancelot of the Laik and Sir Tristrem by Alan Lupack (Editor)
Call Number: PR2065 .L19 1994

Contains link to additional online version.
Prose Merlin by John Conlee (Editor)
Call Number: PR2062.A2 C66 1998

ISBN: 1
Wace's Roman de Brut by Judith Weiss (Translator)
Call Number: PQ1545.W2 A613 2002
The Works of Sir Thomas Malory by Thomas Malory; Eugene Vinaver (Editor)
Call Number: PR2041 .V5 1990
Yvain and Gawain; Sir Percyvell; The Anturs of Arthur by Maldwyn Mills (Editor)
Call Number: PR2064 .Y93 1992
Shorter Scottish medieval romances : Florimond of Albany, Sir Colling the Knycht, King Orphius, Roswall and Lillian by Rhiannon Purdie.
Call Number: PR8633 .S4 5th ser., no.11

Critical Editions

The Piers Plowman Tradition : a critical edition of Pierce the Ploughman's crede, Richard the Redeless, Mum and the sothsegger, and The crowned king by Helen Barr (Introduction by)
Call Number: PR1203 .P54 1993
Piers Plowman: the C-text by Derek Albert Pearsall (Editor); William Langland
Call Number: PR2010 .P4 1994
Piers Plowman: a parallel-text edition of the A, B, C and Z versions by A. V. Schmidt (Editor)
Call Number: PR2010 .S3 1995
The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet by Casey Finch
Call Number: PR1972.G35 A345 1993
The Poems of Robert Henryson by Robert L. Kindrick (Editor)
Call Number: PR1990.H4 A17 1997
William Dunbar: the complete works by William Dunbar; John W. Conlee;
Call Number: PR2265.A5 C66 2004
The Alliterative Morte Arthure , The owl and the nightingale, and five other Middle English poems by John E. Gardner
Call Number: PR1203 .G3
Troy Book by John Lydgate; Robert R. Edwards
Call Number: PR2034.T7 L93 1998
Thomas Wright's Political Songs of England by Thomas Wright; Peter R. Coss (Editor)
Call Number: PR1195.H5 P75 1996

Manuscript Databases

Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
Find and view descriptions and images of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the British Library.
Bodleian Library
A guide to the finding aids available for papyri and medieval manuscripts in the Bodleian Library.
Cambridge Digital Library
Digital library of Cambridge University