William and the Werewolf

Fellow traveller,

I have produced a brief film about the beauty of fourteenth century Middle English and why I find it so inspiring; in particular, the notion of making contact with the voices and personalities of the unknown writers themselves.

In the film, I introduce you to some familiar proverbs which you might not think were centuries old. I also take you into the world of the narrator…

If you walk from Liverpool Street Station in London towards St Paul's Cathedral along Old Broad Street you might, in one unthinking moment, blink and miss a curious little alleyway on your right hand side. At the corner where the pedestrian turns into Throgmorton Street is Austin Friars; the unprepossessing entrance to a part of London now long forgotten.

Here is a place where centuries ago…

As well as being rich in chivalric exploits and common themes of quest and adventure, mediaeval romances are also defined by their setting; in particular those of castles and countries. Possibly due to its French origins and/or the presence of the Normans in Sicily, the story on which William and the Werewolf is based sets itself in the Italian peninsula, with dynastic links to Spain and to Greece…

Dear subscriber – as the fundraising continues for William and the Werewolf, I thought I’d update you with work behind the scenes: the not inconsiderable task of illustrating the book! I estimate I’ll need to produce around 40 linocut illustrations to give balance to the translation; reflecting its “feel good” theme, I’ve chosen a gentler illustrative style than with King Arthur; more akin to…

As once again government ministers become embroiled in allegations of sleaze embedded in a suffocating cloud of self-entitlement, mendacity and lack of empathy, it’s all too often easy to forget that we’ve been here before - in the end days of Edward III and the years of Richard II.

In the days before social media and a notionally free press (and indeed the days before what we claim to call…

Mediaeval poets knew how to describe a good battle: lots of charging, slashing, blood and gore. The Alliterative Morte Arthure, King Arthur's Death, is one such example - perhaps taking matters to extremes at times with the nature of knightly injuries inflicted. And yet... how warfare is described may, it seems, depend on your patron. Who was the scribe writing the romance for?

In William and…

In 1936, M R James and E G Millar published The De Bohun Manuscripts: a Group of Five Manuscripts Executed in England about 1370 for Members of the De Bohun Family through the Roxburghe Club. Describing together a group of manuscripts of major importance, it revealed the De Bohuns (prounounced de Boon) as patrons of works of the highest order.

Outside the collections of royal circles, these…

The work of mediaeval scribes was one of quiet concentration and, at times, excruciating pain and toil; their manuscripts often all we have left to tell of the dedicated, yet unsung, lives they lived. In the case of the Middle English William of Palerne (William and the Werewolf) there is only one mansucript to tell such a tale of its creator, contained today within a larger manuscript, King’s…

In the words of Leah Haught of the Camelot Project, the "Fair Unknown" is a “universally popular folk motif with strong Arthurian connections in which a young man of questionable lineage becomes an integral part of society. Initially appearing in court without an established identity, the Fair Unknown nevertheless boldly demands to be knighted.” Classic examples in the Arthurian canon are Chretien…

In my last update, I discussed the passion of the two lovers in William and the Werewolf, that between the Sicilian prince William and the Roman princess, Melior. In this update, I want to reflect on the significance of this for the story and how the poet frames the romance so it is rich in tension for its contemporary audience.

Central to the tension is William’s perceived unroyal status …

A central component of William and the Werewolf (the fourteenth century romance also known as William of Palerne) is the love between William, the poem’s central character, and Melior, the daughter of the Roman Emperor. Yet it is how this love plays out which makes us consider our approach to the notion of “courtly love”.

When the emperor first brings William to his palace as a foundling in…

Public storytelling, alongside minstrelsy, dancing, jesting and games, formed an important part of entertainment in noble, knightly and/or merchant households in fourteenth century England. Such storytelling included readings from stories such as William and the Werewolf (William of Palerne).

Like a number of such works, it takes the form of a long poem, broken down into manageable sections…

The character of the werewolf in the Middle English poem William of Palerne (the romance of William and the Werewolf) is one which, when we meet it, is not what we were expecting. A benign creature whose mission is to help others combat injustice is in remarkable contrast to the notion of the werewolf in our own minds. Why is he so different?

To consider the notion of the werewolf, it is important…