Women's Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon

An International Network Funded by the Leverhulme Trust

A Name is Not Enough: the Trobairitz and the Problem of Medieval Women Poets

By Kate Travers, New York University.   BnF Fr. 854, also known as Occitan Chansonnier I, taken from f.125r. (Source: Gallica) Medieval lyric poetry, a genre used throughout western Europe that often focused on love and erotic desire, is often imagined to be a genre of lovelorn poets petitioning for favours from silent, unforgiving ladies. For those […]


Perceval’s Sister and the Place of Women in the Quest of the Holy Grail

  Royal 14 E III f. 125v. Source: https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=54938 Within the landscape of medieval literature, Old French Arthurian romance provides a rich cast of women as subjects. The works of Chrétien de Troyes give us Guinevere, Enide, Fenice, Laudine, and Lunete. These are characters with developed personalities who frequently drive the plot of the romances […]


The Letter of Cecily Daune: A Poetic Translation

The letter of Cecily Daune in British Library Add MS 34889 f.166. Screen shot of the digitised image. Copyright The British Library. I am currently working on a project to transform into modern English and poetic form letters by fifteenth-century women connected to the Paston family of Norfolk. The project involves translation from one vernacular […]


1 7 8 9 10 11 20