This collection honours the scholarship of Professor David F. Johnson, exploring the wider view of medieval England and its cultural contracts with the Low Countries, and highlighting common texts, motifs, and themes across the textual traditions of Old English and later medieval romances in both English and Middle Dutch.Few scholars have contributed as much to the wider view of medieval England and its cultural contacts with the Low Countries than Professor David F. Johnson. His wide-ranging scholarship embraces both the textual traditions of Old English, especially in manuscript production, and later medieval romances in both English and Middle Dutch, highlighting their common texts, motifs, and themes.Taking Johnson's work as its starting point and model, the essays collected here investigate early English manuscript production and preservation, illuminating the complexities of reinterpreting Old English poetry, particularly Beowulf, and then go on to pursue those nuances through later English and Middle Dutch Arthurian romances and drama, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Canterbury Tales, and the Roman van Walewein. They explore a plethora of material, including early medieval textual traditions and stone sculpture, and draw on a range of approaches, such as Body and Disability Theories. Overall, the aim is to bring multiple disciplines into dialogue with each other, in order to present a richer and more nuanced view of the medieval literary past and cross-cultural contact between England and the Low Countries, from the pre-Conquest period to the late-Middle Ages, thus forming a most appropriate tribute to Professor Johnson's pioneering work.

List of IllustrationsList of ContributorsPrefaceAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Medieval English and Dutch Literature in its European Context and the Work of David F. JohnsonLarissa Tracy and Geert H. M. Claassens1. Reconstructing a Lost Manuscript of the Old English GospelsRoy M. Liuzza 2. The Reception of the Old English Version of Gregory the Great's Dialogues between the Conquest and the Close of the Nineteenth CenturyRolf H. Bremmer Jr3. An Unrecorded Copy of Heinrich Krebs's An Anglo-Saxon Version of Gregory's Dialogues, Printer's ProofsThomas A. Bredehoft and Rachel C. S. Duke4. The Body as Media in Early Medieval EnglandMartin Foys5. Who Snatched Grendel in Beowulf 852b?Stephen Harris6. 'Mobile as Wishes': Anchoritism, Intersubjectivity, and Disability in the Liber confortatoriusDanielle Allor and Stacy S. Klein7. The Presence of the Hands: Sculpture and Script in the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries Catherine Karkov and Elaine Treharne 8. Perceval's Name and the Gifts of the MotherThomas D. Hill9. A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch FerguutMarjolein Hogenbirk10. Multilingualism in Van den vos Reynaerde and its Reception in Reynardus VulpesBart Besamusca11. Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van WaleweinRoel Zemel 12. As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer's Squire's Tale and the Roman van WaleweinJamie C. Fumo13. For a Performer's Personal Use: The Corrector's Lines in the Lower Margin of the Middle Dutch Lanceloet ManuscriptFrank Brandsma14. 'Oft leudlez alone': The Isolation of the Hero and Its Consequences in Sir Gawain and the Green KnightK. S. Whetter15. Shifting Skin: Passing as Human, Passing as Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green KnightLarissa Tracy16. The Lover Caught Between his Mother and his Maiden in Lanseloet van DenemerkenGeert H. M. Claassens17. Afterlives: The Abbey at Amesbury and the 'Rehabilitation' of Guinevere in Malory and the Stanzaic Morte ArthurChristopher Jensen18. The Importance of Being an Arthurian MotherElizabeth ArchibaldSelect BibliographyBibliography of David F. Johnson's WorksIndexTabula Gratulatoria