Writers of the Reign of Henry II

Writers of the Reign of Henry II brings into a single collection the work of scholars studying the often neglected writers of the second half of the twelfth century in England. At this time three languages competed for recognition and prestige and carved out their own spaces, while an English-speaking populace was ruled by a French-speaking aristocracy and administered by a Latin-speaking and writing clergy. This volume provides an accessible introduction for advanced students to the witty and self-aware works of such sophisticated, and undeservedly unfamiliar, authors as Walter Map and Walter of Chatillon, uncovering the Complex politics of identity and race which underlay post-Conquest feudalism and the articulation of their self-diagnosed alienation from the centres of political and cultural power.