How Medieval Songs Come Down

This volume by Arc Humanities Press, doubling as a special issue of the journal Early Middle English, honours the long and prolific career of scholar and poet Carter Revard (1931–2022). The volume includes contributions by Keith Busby, Susanna Fein, Thomas Goodmann, Richard Firth Green, Steven Justice, Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Nancy P. Pope, and Suzanne M. Yeager, along with Revard's unpublished edition and translation of a thirteenth-century Anglo-French parlour game (edited by Susanna Fein and David Raybin). In recognition of Revard's deep interest in early Middle English and Anglo-French literature, these essays offer new research that reflects his “sleuthing” for the scribe of Harley 2253 as well as topics in medieval social history and literary codicology. Taken together, the essays deepen our understanding of the intricate social and political contexts of literary transmission, and of manuscript production and reception.