The Siege of Jerusalem

by Ralph Hanna (Editor), David Lawton (Editor)

The historical romance of The Siege of Jerusalem was the most widely dispersed and popular Middle English alliterative poem in the medieval period apart from Piers Plowman. It was previously edited for the Society by Eugen Kolbing and Mabel Day (O.S. 188 (1932)). This new edition offers a critical text based upon all the surviving manuscripts, some unavailable to Kolbing and Day. All extant manuscripts are fully described, and the editors discuss the sources and authorship, as well as the editorial methods best suited for presenting this text, which survives in many copies. RALPH HANNA is Professor of Palaeography at the University of Oxford, and Tutorial Fellow at Keble College. DAVID LAWTON is Professor of English at Washington University, St Louis.

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Ralph Hanna is Professor Emeritus of Paleography at Keble College, Oxford and Professor Emeritus of English at University of California, Riverside. After undergraduate study at Amherst College, he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. at Yale University. He is the author of Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts (1996), London Literature, 1300 - 1380 (2005), The English Manuscripts of Richard Rolle: A Descriptive Catalogue (2010), Introducing English Medieval Book History: Manuscripts, Their Producers and Their Readers (2014), and Editing Medieval Texts: An Introduction (2015). He has also edited a number of important Middle English texts, including volumes such as Richard Rolle: Uncollected Prose and Verse, with Related Northern Texts (2007), the Speculum Vitae, with David Lawton The Siege of Jerusalem (2003), and, with Sarah Wood, Richard Morris's Prick of Conscience: A Corrected and Amplified Reading Text (2013), all with the Early English Text Society.

Reviews

[Eric]

A very thorough examination. The text of the poem is contained herein, however, entirely in Middle English, and untranslated. It contains extensive notes on textual variations. In addition, this edition contains a large body of research regarding authorship, style, source criticism, etc. An excellent manual to study the poem in detail.