The question of what medieval "courtliness" was, both as a literary influence and as a historical "reality", is debated in this volume.

The question of what medieval "courtliness" was, both as a literary influence and as a historical "reality", is debated in this volume.

The concept of courtliness forms the theme of this collection of essays. Focused on works written in the Francophone world between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, they examine courtliness as both an historical privilege and aliterary ideal, and as a concept that operated on and was informed by complex social and economic realities. Several essays reveal how courtliness is subject to satire or is the subject of exhortation in works intended for noblemen and women, not to mention ambitious bourgeois. Others, more strictly literary in their focus, explore the witty, thoughtful and innovative responses of writers engaged in the conscious process of elevating the new vernacular culture through the articulation of its complexities and contradictions. The volume as a whole, uniting philosophical, theoretical, philological, and cultural approaches, demonstrates that medieval "courtliness" is an ideal that fascinates us to this day. It is thus a fitting tribute to the scholarship of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, in its exploration of the prrofound and wide-ranging ideas that define her contribution to the field.

DANIEL E O'SULLIVAN is Associate Professor of French at the University of Mississippi; LAURIE SHEPHARD is Associate Professor of Italian at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Contributors: Peter Haidu, Donald Maddox, Michel-André Bossy, Kristin Burr, Joan Tasker Grimbert, David Hult, Virgine Greene, Logan Whalen, Evelyn Birge Vitz, Elizabeth W. Poe, Daniel E. O'Sullivan, William Schenck, Nadia Margolis, Laine Doggett, E. Jane Burns, Nancy FreemanRegalado, Laurie Shephard, Sarah White

Introduction
Matilda Tomaryn: A Bibliography
A Perfume of Reality: Desublimating the Courtly - Peter Haidu
Shaping the Case: theOlim and the Parlement de Paris under King Louis IX - Donald L Maddox
Charles d'Orléans and the Wars of the Roses: Yorkist and Tudor Implications of British Library MS Royal16.F.ii. - Michel-André Bossy
Meraugis de Portlesguez and the Limits of Courtliness - Kristin Burr
The Art of "Transmutation" in the Burgundian ProseCligés (1454): Bringing the Siege of Windsor Castle to Life for the Court of Philip the Good - Joan Tasker Grimbert
Thomas'sRaisun: Désir, Vouloir, Pouvoir - David Hult
Humanimals: The Future of Courtliness in theConte du Papegau - Virginie Greene
A Matter of Life or Death: Fecundity and Sterility in Marie de France'sGuigemar - Logan E. Whalen
Le Roman de la Rose, Performed in Court - Evelyn Birge Vitz
Lombarda's Mirrors: Reflections on PC 288,1 as a Response to PC 54,1 - Elizabeth W. Poe
Na Maria: Courtliness and Marian Devotion in Old Occitan Lyric - Daniel E. O'Sullivan
From Convent to Court: Ermengarde d'Anjou's Decision to Reenter the World - William Schenck
From Chrétien to Christine: Translating Twelfth-Century Literature to Reform the French Court during the Hundred Years War - Nadia Margolis
The Favorable Reception of Outsiders at Court: Medieval Versions of Cultural Exchange - Laine E Doggett
Shapng Saladin: Courtly Men Dressed in Silk - E. Jane Burns
Force de parole: Shaping Courtliness in Richard de Fournival'sBestiaire d'amours, Copied in Metz around 1312 (Oxford, Bodl. Ms Duce 308) - Nancy Freeman Regalado
The Poetic legacy of Charles d'Anjo in Italy: Aristocratics Poetics in theComune - Laurie Shepard
Envoi - Sarah White