Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England - Hardcover

The book is beautifully written, balancing a wealth of detailed information with a sense of broader themes... but what struck me was Johnstons ability to make a familiar text seem fresh and innovative, and this continued through the book. (Lucy Allen, University of Cambridge.)

The combination of socio-cultural, literary and bibliographical analysis here is deftly handled; Michael Johnson has produced an informed and mostly persuasive experiment in exploring books and their readers (Julia Boffey, The Times Literary Supplement)

Johnston has managed to amass and present a large amount of material from which he has teased a fascinating conclusion. It is a welcome addition to the substantial historiography which exists for studies of the gentry, book culture and manuscript production in the late medieval period. It is written in a manner which is accessible to the expert and to the relatively inexperienced ― the focus on literary romance should not discourage those who are less well-versed in the discipline ... an insightful, fascinating contribution to our understanding of the world of the gentry of late medieval England, and in particular to their relationship with contemporary literary culture. (Katie Bridger, Reviews in History)

Michael Johnston's Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England is an impressive first book ... convincing both in terms of his argument and in terms of the research underlying it ... Johnston has added greatly to our understanding of both the genre of medieval romance and its consumers, resulting in a book that is both satisfying in its conclusions and inspiring in its scope. (Deborah Seiler, Parergon)

Johnston has done meticulous work in the archives and printed records as well as on the manuscripts themselves ... scholars of both Middle English romance and gentry culture will do well to take note. (Helen Cooper, English Historical Review)

Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England offers a new history of Middle English romance, the most popular genre of secular literature in the English Middle Ages. Michael Johnston argues that many of the romances composed in England from 1350-1500 arose in response to the specific socio-economic concerns of the gentry, the class of English landowners who lacked titles of nobility and hence occupied the lower rungs of the aristocracy. The end of the fourteenth century in England witnessed power devolving to the gentry, who became one of the dominant political and economic forces in provincial society. As Johnston demonstrates, this social change also affected England's literary culture, particularly the composition and readership of romance. Romance andthe Gentry in Late Medieval England identifies a series of new topoi in Middle English that responded to the gentry's economic interests. But beyond social history and literary criticism, it also speaks to manuscript studies, showing that most of the codices of the "gentry romances" were produced by those in the immediate employ of the gentry. By bringing together literary criticism and manuscript studies, this book speaks to two scholarly communities often insulated from one another: it invites manuscript scholars to pay closer attention to the cultural resonances of the texts within medieval codices; simultaneously, it encourages literary scholars to be more attentive to the cultural resonances of surviving medieval codices.