The 2004 announcement that Chaucer's scribe had been discovered resulted in a paradigm shift in medieval studies. Adam Pynkhurst dominated the classroom, became a fictional character, and led to suggestions that this identification should prompt the abandonment of our understanding of the development of London English and acceptance that the clerks of the Guildhall were promoting vernacular literature as part of a concerted political program. In this meticulously researched study, Lawrence...

Addressing the history of the production and reception of the great medieval poem, Piers Plowman, Lawrence Warner reveals the many ways in which scholars, editors and critics over the centuries created their own speculative narratives about the poem, which gradually came to be regarded as factually true. Warner begins by considering the possibility that Langland wrote a romance about a werewolf and bear-suited lovers, and he goes on to explore the methods of the poem's localization, and me...

Despite the recent outpouring of scholarship on Piers Plowman, Lawrence Warner contends, we know much less about the poem's production, transmission, and readership than one might think. When did William Langland write each of the three versions of the poem, and when did they enter wide circulation? What role did scribes and other agents play in these processes? The Lost History of "Piers Plowman" engages with these questions to bring about a fundamental shift in our unde...

Despite the recent outpouring of scholarship on Piers Plowman, Lawrence Warner contends, we know much less about the poem's production, transmission, and readership than one might think. When did William Langland write each of the three versions of the poem, and when did they enter wide circulation? What role did scribes and other agents play in these processes? The Lost History of "Piers Plowman" engages with these questions to bring about a fundamental shift in our unde...

The essays in this volume consider the ways in which material and intellectual culture both shaped and were shaped by the literature of late medieval England. The first section, “Textual Material,” reflects on cultural and social issues generally referred to as the History of Ideas, and how those ideas manifest in later medieval English texts. Essays address, for example, affect in The Book of Margery Kempe, rhetoric in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, anarchy in late medieval political te...

Combining contemporary research with practice findings, this book shows how we can improve the mental health of children in care.Expert contributors highlight the challenges that children face and propose innovative models of practice which have been proven to improve outcomes. The book describes the difficulties children in care commonly encounter, such as vulnerability to self-harm, substance misuse or inappropriate sexual behaviour. It goes on to explore therapeutic intervention...

My Friend Kevin is told from a classmates point of view about his friend with an emotional disability. The student explains some of his friends characteristics that can accompany an emotional disability, situations that may occur, and strategies that can be used in the classroom. My Friend Kevin is designed to help teachers explain emotional disabilities to students in a way that promotes understanding and fosters positive peer relationships in their classrooms.

Many say that some of their greatest friends, and their greatest joys and feelings, are about animals. Rather than find those same joys and feelings from amongst friends, family and the rest of humanity it can be far easier, some say wiser, to find that from other sources. Some animals may be entirely innocent and entirely devoted to us. But we forget that in the world of wild animals survival is the primary instinct and usually the great enemy is the human race.In this volume our ...

Planners face a controversial task because their professional role requires them to be spokespersons for the public interest. In a welter of conflicting pictures and voices, how might the public interest be discovered? Once identified, how might it be expressed so that competing publics attend to it? There are no easy answers, but the experience of planners today suggests ways of working and innovations of promise.The focus on planning practice prompted the editors to analyze images that a...