Overview of Research Interests

My current research is focused on three projects in medieval studies.

1) Electronic Campsey: The development and expansion of the electronic corpus of Anglo-Norman hagiography on the MARGOT website (http://margot.uwaterloo.ca). This includes the editions of the following lives found as a unique collection in the Campsey manuscript (to which I am progressively adding editions of other manuscript copies of the six Campsey lives which are extant in other copies):

S. Elizabeth of Hungary, by Nicole Bozon (2 copies);

S. Panuce, by Nicole Bozon;

S. Paul the 1st Hermit, by Nicole Bozon;

S. Thomas the martyr, by Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence (6 copies, in progress);

S. Marie Magdalene, by Guillaume le clerc de Normandie (2 copies);

S. Edward the Confessor, by a nun of Barking (3 copies, and 1 prose remaniement, in progress);

S. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, by Matthew Paris;

S. Audrée of Ely, by Marie, a nun;

S. Osith;

S. Fey, by Simon of Walsingham;

S. Modwenna (2 copies);

S. Richard, bishop of Chichester;

S. Catherine of Alexandria (3 copies).

In addition to the lives from the Campsey manuscript, the electronic corpus includes the 13th-century Anglo-Norman life of S. Clement, pape (Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.46)

2. The French of England: Vernacular Literary Theory and Practices, 1130-1450.

In collaboration with Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Thelma Fenster, I am editing to a critical anthology of some 70 textual prologues or other passages in the French of England which reflect on the nature and strategies of vernacularity. Widely representative texts from the extant corpus will be edited from the manuscript sources and translated, with introductions, notes, and extensive reference to Middle English analogues and parallels. There will be a glossary, a list of Anglo-Norman /Middle English overlaps, an appendix of Middle English translations and reworkings of Prologues. This volume is a complementary volume to the earlier critical anthology, The Idea of the Vernacular: an Anthology of Middle English LIterary Theory, 1280-1520, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, Ruth Evans (Penn State Press, 1999).

3. The French of England in Translation: Selected Verse Saints’ Lives.

I am collaborating with Laurie Postlewate on a volume of saints’ lives translated from the French of England. I am translating the verse lives of Faith (S. Fey, by Simon of Walsingham), Mary Magdalene (by Guillaume le Clerc de Normandie), and S. George (by Simund de Freine). Prof. Postlewate is translating the verse lives by Nicole Bozon. The translations will have a critical introduction and bibliography, notes on the text, and extracts from the original texts in an appendix. This volume is one in the “The French of England in Translation Series” as part of the Medieval and Renaissance Texts Series published by Arizona State University.