Games and Gaming in Medieval Literature constitutes the first collection that explores, through a geographical and methodological diversity of interdisciplinary scholarship, the depth and breadth of games in medieval literature and culture. Drawing on a range of literature and languages, from Flemish romance and Anglo-Norman sermons to Spanish cancionero poetry and Old French motets, this volume presents fresh critical discussions of medieval games as vehicles for cultural signification, and challenges scholars to reconsider how games were understood by medieval writers, compilers, scribes, players, audiences, and communities. Chapters span from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, and cover Europe from England, France, Denmark, Poland, and Spain. This volume not only brings to the forefront a re-examination of medieval games in diverse social settings - the Church, the court, the school, and the gentry household - but also their multifaceted relation to literary discourses as systems of meaning, interactive experiences, and modes of representation.
