Although few concrete details exist about the fourteenth-century manuscript known as London, British Library MS Harley 2253, it contains one of the most important surviving literary collections from medieval England. In rarity, quality and abundance, its collection of secular love lyrics is unrivaled, accompanying delicate lyrics of religious devotion and contemporary political songs preserved in no other manuscript. Beyond these Middle English treasures are no less intriguing French and Latin works: four fabliaux (the largest set from medieval England), three Anglo-Saxon saints' lives, and numerous satires, comedies, debates, interludes, collected sayings, conduct literature, Bible stories, dream interpretations, and pilgrim guides. This phenomenal range owes to the Ludlow scribe, the manuscript's compiler and copyist, himself credited with authoring parts of the collection. Volume 2 presents Booklets 3, 4, and the majority of Booklet 5 of the manuscript, including its extraordinary anthology of religious and secular lyrics.



Susanna Fein is Professor of English and coordinator of the Arts and Sciences minor in Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Kent State University. David Raybin is Professor of English at Eastern Illinois University. Jan Ziolkowski is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University, and director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.