Ever since its creation, the Cambridge Companion series has provided stimulating guides to a broad range of subjects. The latest medieval instalment, the Cambridge Companion to Medieval French Literature, is no exception. In 16 chapters, scholars from different backgrounds cover a wide range of aspects pertaining to medieval French literature, introduced and divided into four sections by editors Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay. The first of these sections addresses the definition of the medieval text and includes essays on the Chanson de Roland (Chapter 1), the Old French Vulgate Cycle (2), the Roman de la Rose (3), and François Villon’s Testament (4). Chapters on Chrétien de Troyes (5), the Châtelain de Couci (6), Guillaume de Machaut (7), and Christine de Pizan (8) shed light on what exactly is a medieval author. The third section covers the subject of genre by looking at lyric poetry (10), ‘Theatre and theatricality’ (12), ‘Genre, parody and spectacle’ (11), and narrative genres (9). Questions surrounding the historicity in (and of) medieval texts are raised and answered in the final section, which contains chapters on ‘Feudalism and kingship’ (13), ‘Clerks and laity’ (14), ‘The marital and the sexual’ (15), and ‘Others and alterity’ (16).

The 16 chapters in this book are well written and demonstrate the contributors’ ability to paint an interesting picture of the production and dissemination of literature in medieval France. Nine beautiful illustrations of (parts of) manuscript folios provide insight into the way in which texts circulated in the Middle Ages, and alert the reader to the pros and cons of the transfer of manuscript literature. Gaunt and Kay are to be commended for classifying four chapters in each of the four categories mentioned above. This division successfully embeds four narratives – each focusing on a specific text, author, genre, or historical context – into a broader argument surrounding some of the most heatedly debated aspects of medieval literature. A very helpful chronological table listing historical events and cultural events, as well as French and Anglo-Norman authors and texts between 1050 and 1500, is included in the front matter of the Companion. Equally beneficial to the collection of essays is the extensive bibliography and list for suggested further reading provided in the book’s back matter.

It has to be noted first of all that this book, true to its title, is a Companion to medieval French literature, and not an Introduction. As such, it is very useful for those who – source texts and seminal studies in hand – want to brush up their knowledge of French literature of the Middle Ages. Students and scholars who are not acquainted with the field, however, may be disappointed by the book’s tendency to take for granted large amounts of foreknowledge. An apparent lack of explanation manifests itself in chapters that discuss medieval texts; too often these discussions go without a clear synopsis of the text in question. On other occasions, references are made to specific scenes in a romance by including titles such as ‘the “Joy of the Court” episode’ (p. 82), while the exact contents and context of the scenes remain a mystery to non-initiates. Technical yet important notions – including koinè (pp. 3, 25), parataxis and hypotaxis (pp. 3, 29) – remain unexplained or are defined only vaguely. Although the editors indicate that they decided ‘not to make extensive use of “theory” in this volume’ (p. 16), quite a lot of theoretical discussions are to be found in this anthology. The chapter on the Chanson de Roland (pp. 21-34), for instance, contains about as many references to Pierre Nora as to the narrative of Roland.

There are inaccuracies in some of the individual chapters, perhaps generated by the necessary focus on a broad theme. For instance, Guillaume de Machaut and Christine de Pizan did not try to control the circulation of their works, as is stated in the Introduction (p. 6), but they exerted influence over the production (the contents, layout, form) of manuscripts of their texts. And is Chrétien de Troyes really ‘the most important romancer of the Middle Ages’ (p. 79)? Similar imprecisions occur in Marilynn Desmond’s otherwise excellent piece on Christine de Pizan: the name of the Provost of Lille with whom Christine exchanged letters during the Querelle de la Rose is Jean de Montreuil rather than Montrueil (p. 125); just because only three texts by Christine have come down to us from 1418 onwards, that does not necessarily mean that ‘her textual output all but ceases at this point’ (p. 133); scholars have suggested that Christine worked as her own scribe not just ‘in the first decade of her widowhood’ (p. 135), but indeed throughout her career as an author; finally, the notion that Parisian scriptoria ‘appear to have been open to women’ (p. 134) is more than slightly over-simplified: it is all but sure whether Christine was in contact with scribes and illuminators herself or – more plausible in the Parisian book trade of the time – hired a (male?) libraire who acted as an intermediary.

These shortcomings notwithstanding, this Companion has succeeded in its aim to provide ‘a wide-ranging and stimulating guide to literature composed in medieval French from its beginnings in the ninth century until the Renaissance’ (front matter). It is to be hoped that subsequent medieval instalments in the series will display a similar perspicacity and clarity.