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A translation of three works from the second half of the 13th century: Rutebeuf's Renart le Bestourné, the anonymous Le Couronnement de Renart and Jacquemart Gielée's Renart le Nouvel. These savage and highly entertaining satires are in a league of their own, and Renart le Nouvel contains important music which is reproduced in the text. Rarely can a medieval work have resonated with the mood of the present as uncannily as do these three satires. Acerbic, raging and finally apocalyptic, these poems from the second half of the thirteenth century, richly entertaining and wickedly comic though they are, express a vision of the world and its descent into corruption and disaster which mirrors our own state of rampant alarm. The animal tales of the 12th- and 13th-century Roman de Renart - the Romance of Reynard the Fox - were immensely popular. Any satire in those original tales was generally light of touch, but the characters created in them, fox and wolf and ass and lion to name but four, were an open invitation to anyone of a more scathing satirical bent. The poet Rutebeuf, in his short but startling Renart le Bestourné ('Reynard Transformed'), deploys the beasts to make a venomous attack on the mendicant orders and on 'Saint' Louis IX of France. The anonymous Le Couronnement de Renart ('Reynard Crowned') then has the Fox crowned king, establishing a reign of every vice. And most ambitiously of all, Jacquemart Gielée in his Renart le Nouvel ('The New Reynard'), gripped by an increasingly pervasive sense of apocalypse, ends his poem with the Fox, the epitome of deceit and lying, not merely crowned king, but seated in permanent, malign control of the world atop a chocked, unturning Fortune's Wheel. The New Reynard is of special interest not only to students of medieval literature but also to musicologists. Music, in the form of numerous songs, plays an important part in Renart le Nouvel's satirical and apocalyptic message, and the poem is renowned as the most abundant source of late medieval refrains. The notations have survived, and the music is edited in this volume by Matthew P. Thomson.

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A dramatisation of Dickens's classic novel, requiring a cast of between 11 and 30. The complex story moves forward quickly with the use of open staging. About the series Heinemann Plays is a well established series offering the best of contemporary drama and a wide range of established classics, in value-for-money hardback versions. The series has been specially developed to support classroom teaching and performance. Within the series there are plays for the full 11-17 age range. The series also contains the best of contemporary writing, and new editions of classic plays. Heinemann Plays are sewn and bound in sturdy hardback covers, guaranteeing longer life. Heinemann Plays are ideal for class reading and performance, many with large casts and an equal mix of parts for boys and girls.

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The career of William Marshal, who rose from being the penniless, landless younger son of a middle-ranking nobleman to be regent of England in the minority of Henry III, is one of the most extraordinary stories of the Middle Ages.His biography was completed shortly after his death by a household minstrel and we are fortunate that it survives to give a unique portrait of a twelfth-century knight's life in the early days of tournaments and chivalry as wellas his career in warfare and politics.

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First translation of two vivid accounts of French thirteenth-century tournaments, rich in detail and an impassioned defence of tournaments and their importance. The Romance of Le Hem and The Tournament at Chauvency are eyewitness accounts of the famous tournaments held in 1278 at Le Hem on the banks of the Somme in north-eastern France, and in 1285 at Chauvency in Lorraine. Written within weeks of the events they describe, they record in vivid detail not only the jousts and the mêlées but also the entertainments and dramatic interludes which preceded, followed and embellished these festivals of martial sport. As Sarrasin makes clear, theatre as well as jousting, and jousting in the context of enacted stories, were central to what took place at Le Hem, involving elaborate role-play by participants as figures from Arthurian romance. And few medieval accounts of events have such thrilling immediacy as Jacques Bretel's record of Chauvency. He sat in a prime place, on the fourth step of the stand, and the reader sees and hears the action as if sitting at his shoulder - and eavesdrops on conversations, too. He gives remarkable insights into the surprising role played by song, and into how the whole event was perceived and understood. These intriguing works are invaluable source material for scholars not only of medieval chivalry and tournaments but also of festivities and performance.

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A highly readable version of this remarkable and largely unexplored work. Perceforest is one of the largest and certainly the most extraordinary of the late Arthurian romances. Justly described as "an encyclopaedia of 14th-century chivalry" and "a mine of folkloric motifs", it is the subject ofrapidly increasing attention and research. The author of Perceforest draws on Alexander romances, Roman histories and medieval travel writing (not to mention oral tradition, as he gives, for example, the distinctly racy first written version of the Sleeping Beauty story), to create a remarkable prehistory of King Arthur's Britain. It begins with the arrival in Britain of Alexander the Great. His follower Perceforest, the first of Arthur's Greek ancestors, is made king of the island and finds it infested by the "evil clan" of Darnant the Enchanter. Magic plays a dominant part in the adventures which follow, as Perceforest ousts Darnant's clan despite their supernaturalpowers. He founds the knightly order of the "Franc Palais", an ideal of chivalric civilisation prefiguring the Round Table of Arthur and indeed that of Edward III. But that civilisation is, the author shows, all too fragile. The vast imaginative scope of Perceforest is matched by its variety of tone, ranging from tales of love and enchantment to bawdy comedy, from glamorous tournaments to unvarnished descriptions of the havoc wrought by war.And the author's surprising view of pagan gods and the coming of Christianity is as fascinating as the prominence he gives to women and his understanding of how the world of chivalry should work. Because of its enormous length - it runs to over a million words - Nigel Bryant has provided a version which gives a complete account of every episode, linking extensive passages of translation, to make a manageable and highly readable version (including the previously unpublished Books Five and Six), of this remarkable and largely unexplored work. Nigel Bryant has worked as a producer for BBC Radio 3 and as head of drama at Marlborough College. This is his fourth majortranslation of medieval Arthurian romance.

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First translation of two vivid accounts of French thirteenth-century tournaments, rich in detail and an impassioned defence of tournaments and their importance. The Romance of Le Hem and The Tournament at Chauvency are eyewitness accounts of the famous tournaments held in 1278 at Le Hem on the banks of the Somme in north-eastern France, and in 1285 at Chauvency in Lorraine. Written within weeks of the events they describe, they record in vivid detail not only the jousts and the mêlées but also the entertainments and dramatic interludes which preceded, followed and embellished these festivals of martial sport. As Sarrasin makes clear, theatre as well as jousting, and jousting in the context of enacted stories, were central to what took place at Le Hem, involving elaborate role-play by participants as figures from Arthurian romance. And few medieval accounts of events have such thrilling immediacy as Jacques Bretel's record of Chauvency. He sat in a prime place, on the fourth step of the stand, and the reader sees and hears the action as if sitting at his shoulder - and eavesdrops on conversations, too. He gives remarkable insights into the surprising role played by song, and into how the whole event was perceived and understood. These intriguing works are invaluable source material for scholars not only of medieval chivalry and tournaments but also of festivities and performance.

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The Livre Charny (Charny's Book), by the 14th century French knight Geoffroi de Charny, translated here by Nigel Bryant with an introduction by Ian Wilson. The poem known as the Livre Charny (Charny's Book), by the fourteenth-century French knight Geoffroi de Charny, has never been published, Nigel Bryant's brilliant new translation of this long-neglected poem, based on a hitherto overlooked original Charny manuscript housed in Oxford, vividly conveys Charny's self-deprecating and extraordinarily down-to-earth attitudes towards the knightly career. Charny is surprisingly blunt in his descriptions of the mishaps and mortal dangers to be expected, from losing in a tournament, to homesickness on crusade, to being concussed whilst attempting to scale an enemy tower. Nothing else quite like it is to be found in medieval literature. Ian Wilson's introduction provides a markedly revised understanding of Charny's career as tournament performer, serving soldier, crusader, councillor, and finally royal standard-bearer: he was killed at Poitiers in 1356. Bryant and Wilson also argue that Charny's Book is so different in style from the Book of Chivalry, also attributed to him, that the latter is unlikely to be by the same author. Using the evidence of a hitherto unnoticed manuscript in Madrid, they show that the latter is likely to be a work of the 1380s composed by Charny's son of the same name, possibly as a kind of memorial to his heroic father.

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The mysterious and haunting Grail makes its first appearance in literature in Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval at the end of the twelfth century. But Chrétien never finished his poem, leaving an unresolved story and an incomplete picture of the Grail. It was, however, far too attractive an idea to leave. Not only did it inspire quite separate works; his own unfinished poem was continued and finally completed by no fewer than four other writers. The Complete Story of the Grail is the first ever translation of the whole of the rich and compelling body of tales contained in Chrétien's poem and its four Continuations, which are finally attracting the scholarly attention they deserve. Besides Chrétien's original text, there are the anonymous First Continuation (translated here in its fullest version), the Second Continuation attributed to Wauchier de Denain, and the intriguing Third and Fourth Continuations - probably written simultaneously, with no knowledge of each other's work - by Manessier and Gerbert de Montreuil. Two other poets were drawn to create preludes explaining the background to Chrétien's story, and translated here also are their works: The Elucidation Prologue and Bliocadran. Only in this, The Story of the Grail's complete form, can the reader appreciate the narrative skill and invention of the medieval poets and their surprising responses to Chrétien's theme - not least their crucial focus on the knight as a crusader. Equally, Chrétien's original poem was almost always copied in conjunction withone or more of the Continuations, so this translation represents how most medieval readers would have encountered it. Nigel Bryant's previous translations from Medieval French include Perlesvaus - the High Bookof the Grail, Robert de Boron's trilogy Merlin and the Grail, the Medieval Romance of Alexander, The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel and Perceforest.

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Bertrand du Guesclin was one of the main architects of the recovery of France. From humble beginnings he rose to become one of the great heroic figures of French history. This is the first English translation of Cuvelier's epic poem about him. Bertrand du Guesclin is one of the great French heroes of the Hundred Years War, his story every bit as remarkable as Joan of Arc's. The son of a minor Breton noble, he rose in the 1360s and '70s to become the Constable of France- a supreme military position, outranking even the princes of the blood royal. Through campaigns ranging from Brittany to Castile he achieved not only fame as a pre-eminent leader of Charles V's armies, but a dukedom in Spain, burial among the kings of France in the royal basilica at Saint-Denis, and recognition as nothing less than the "Tenth Worthy", being ranked alongside the nine paragons of chivalry who included Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and King Arthur. His is a truly spectacular story. And the image of Bertrand, and many of the key events in his extraordinary life, are essentially derived from The Song of Bertrand du Guesclin, this epic poem by Cuvelier. Written in the verse-form and manner of a chanson de geste, it is the very last of the Old French epics and an outstanding example of the roman chevaleresque. It is a fascinating and major primary source forhistorians of chivalry and of a critical period in the Hundred Years War. This is its first translation into English. Cuvelier is a fine storyteller: his depictions of battle and siege are vivid and thrilling, offering invaluable insights into medieval warfare. And he is a compelling propagandist, seeking through his story of Bertrand to restore the prestige of French chivalry after the disastrous defeat at Poitiers and the chaos that followed, andseeking, too, to inspire devotion to the kingdom of France and to the fleur-de-lis. NIGEL BRYANT is well known for his lively and accurate versions of medieval French authors. His translations of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval and all its continuations and of the extraordinary late Arthurian romance Perceforest have been major achievements; he has also translated Jean le Bel's history of the early stages of the Hundred Years War, and the biography of William Marshal.

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The chronicles of Jean le Bel are one of the most important sources for the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. This is the first English translation of a work written from eyewitness accounts and personal experience. The chronicles of Jean le Bel, written around 1352-61, are one of the most important sources for the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. They were only rediscovered and published at the beginning of the twentieth century, thoughFroissart begins his much more famous work by acknowledging his great debt to the "true chronicles" which Jean le Bel had written. Many of the great pages of Froissart are actually the work of Jean le Bel, and this is the first translation of his book. It introduces English-speaking readers to a vivid text written by a man who, although a canon of the cathedral at Liège, had actually fought with Edward III in Scotland, and who was a great admirer of the English king. He writes directly and clearly, with an admirable grasp of narrative; and he writes very much from the point of view of the knights who fought with Edward. Even as a canon, he lived in princely style, with a retinue oftwo knights and forty squires, and he wrote at the request of John of Hainault, the uncle of queen Philippa. He was thus able to draw directly on the verbal accounts of the Crécy campaign given to him by soldiers from Hainault who had fought on both sides; and his description of warfare in Scotland is the most realistic account of what it was like to be on campaign that survives from this period. If he succumbs occasionally to a good story from one of theparticipants in the wars, this helps us to understand the way in which the knights saw themselves; but his underlying objective is to keep "as close to the truth as I could, according to what I personally have seen and remembered, and also what I have heard from those who were there". Edward may be his hero, a "gallant and noble king", but Le Bel tells the notorious story of his supposed rape of the countess of Salisbury because he believed it to be true,puzzled and shocked though he was by his material. It is a text which helps to put the massive work of Jean Froissart in perspective, but its concentrated focus and relatively short time span makes it a much more approachable and highly readable insight into the period.

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By his contemporaries, Raoul de Houdenc was 'mentioned in the same breath as Chrétien de Troyes as one of the masters of French poetry' (Keith Busby, The New Arthurian Encyclopaedia). The writers of later romances deemed Raoul's work worthy of memory on a par with the Prose Lancelot, and placed Raoul and Chrétien on the same level in terms of authority. Raoul de Houdenc was a major and innovative figure in 13th-century French literature. His surviving works are unusually diverse: they include an impassioned tract about the values of chivalry (The Romance of the Wings), two superbly crafted Arthurian romances (Meraugis of Portlesguez and The Avenging of Raguidel), and a swingeing polemic against declining standards especially among the bourgeoisie (The Burgess's Burgeoning Blight). And with his hugely influential satire The Dream of Hell he was the very first to compose allegory in the vernacular, mastering to perfection the art of parody and the unexpected. After a long period of neglect Raoul is finally receiving the scholarly attention he deserves, and this is the first translation into English of his complete surviving works. The Avenging of Raguidel 'must surely be counted as one of the most fascinating and innovative of the French Gawain romances' - Norris J. Lacy.

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