The Values of the Vernacular

Overview & Synopsis

This book emerges from a seminar convened by Simon Gaunt as part of the major European Research Council-funded project The Values of French Language and Literature in the European Middle Ages (TVOF), which he led from 2015 to 2021. With participants from universities in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and North America, this seminar met in London three times a year to discuss medieval topics ranging from the use of French outside of what is now France, the distinction between history and fiction, differences between romance varieties, and the importance of manuscript culture in the dissemination of cultural values. These topics are addressed here by leading scholars of medieval literature and romance philology, including both seminar members and a wider community of researchers who collaborated with Gaunt. After his untimely passing in 2021, Gaunt’s ideas live on in a series of dialogues he established across traditionally polarised positions in studies of medieval romance languages and literatures. These essays both honour his memory and continue the conversations he started.