For many informed readers or simple enthusiasts the presence of erotic literature in the western or eastern medieval world (the poems of the Carmina Burana, for example, or various tales in The Thousand and One Nights) does not come as a surprise. For the most of us, however, the very existence of erotic literature in … Continue reading
Reading proofs in lockdown
Exodus is an exceptional Old English poem, dramatically focussing on the crossing of the Red Sea. The exodus to the Promised Land is interpreted within the allegorical perspective of the christian's journey through life to the ultimate heavenly home. In May 2020, LUP published the third edition of Peter J. Lucas's Exodus during the first wave … Continue reading
Better late than never: for the popes, and the translation of their letters
Earlier this month we published the first complete translation of all of ninety-nine letters that survive in a single manuscript, the Codex epistolaris Carolinus. These remarkable eighth century political documents are from popes Gregory III, Zacharias, Stephen II, Paul I, the anti-pope Constantine, Stephen III and Hadrian I to, respectively Charles Martel, Pippin III, Carloman and … Continue reading
Locked down with the popes: the Codex epistolaris Carolinus
My constant companions during the isolation necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 were a group of long-dead popes. Gregory III, Zacharias, Stephen II and his brother Paul I, their luckless successor Pope Constantine II,[1] Constantine’s ruthless deposer Stephen III, and the ostensibly more urbane Hadrian I[2] ruled the see of Rome in the second … Continue reading
The Middle Dutch Brut, by Sjoerd Levelt
Published in the Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies series of Liverpool University Press is my edition and English translation of the chronicle which I have called the Middle Dutch Brut. The Prose Brut was the principal historiographical tradition of late medieval England, and exists in various versions in Anglo-Norman French, Middle English and Latin. The … Continue reading
Liverpool University Press Blog 