Marion Turner’s books include The Wife of Bath: A Biography and Chaucer: A European Life.
The earliest astrolabe in the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford was made in Syria in the ninth century and is inscribed with text in Arabic and later additions in Armenian. Two made in Seville in the first quarter of the 13th century also have Arabic script – Seville was then still under Islamic rule. One made in England in the 14th century is inscribed with Latin script and...
With her insistence on renegotiating power dynamics between the sexes, claiming her right to sexual pleasure, and earning her own money, Alysoun can sound not unlike a second-wave feminist. Yet she doesn’t...
Every age creates its own Chaucer. For Eustache Deschamps, a contemporary, he was the ‘grant translateur’. For Hoccleve, a disciple, he was ‘my deere maistir’ and ‘the firste fyndere [inventive...
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