The Middle English Mirror: sermons from Quinquagesima to Pentecost

The Middle English ‘Mirror’, a fourteenth-century prose translation of the thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman ‘Miroir’ by Robert de Gretham, is a text of cultural and linguistic value. As a cycle of sermons addressed to a lay audience, it offers extensive material for the study of popular preaching in fourteenth-century England. Four of the six surviving manuscripts exemplify that variety of fourteenth-century London language designated ‘Type II’ by M. L. Samuels. Only brief, unedited extracts or quotations from the ‘Mirror’ had appeared in printed before the publication of “The Middle English ‘Mirror’: Sermons from Advent to Sexagesima” (MET 34) in 2003. The present volume is the second in a series that will publish the whole of the Middle English ‘Mirror’ with the Anglo-Norman source in parallel. The edition is based on Glasgow, University Library, MS Hunter 250, one of the ‘Type II’ manuscripts. The present volume includes sixteen sermons, those from Quinquagesima to Pentecost.