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REVIEWS125 reaches ofsociety. He has also considered carefullythe gendered nature ofchildhood experiences in medieval England. Medieval Chiblren is based on original, mostly published, sources rather than secondary authorities (only rarely will Orme comment on a scholarly debate). As such, it is not a guide to the scholarship on the subject, but it is a treasure trove of medieval evidence on a host ofsubjects, all meticulously noted in the unobtrusive but full scholarly apparatus. Orme's overall argument is that children were integral to society, and this means that his book discusses many aspects of medieval life, from the metaphysical (conceptualizations oftime and the afterlife) to the mundane (dress, diet, toileting). Yet the obvious erudition is never dry or pompous; Medieval Chiblren is gracefully written and eminently suitable for classroom use and general readership. The next time a non-academic friend or relative asks you to recommend something 'interesting' to read on the Middle Ages, suggest this book. Orme begins his book with a discussion of Philippe Aries's infamous theories about the absence of a distinctive concept of childhood or affective ties between parents and children in the Middle Ages. Although no scholar ofmedieval childhood gives any credence to them, it is, unfortunately, still obligatory to address Aries's views in any study ofmedieval children, especially one aimed at a popular audience. As Orme says, 'Aries's views were mistaken: not simply in detail but in substance. It is time to lay them to rest' (10). Let's hope this is the book that finally does it. SHANNON MCSHEFFREY Concordia University Bernadette smelik, Bijftguren in de 'Lancelot en prose', een Studie over de verteUechnischefuncties van ridden,jonkvrouwen, schiblknapen, dwergen en kluizenaars. Nijmegen: De Keltische Draak, Münster: Nodus, 2002. Pp. 332. isbn: 90-806863l -x; 3-89323-081-5. Euro 55. Bernadette Smelik's monograph focuses on the episode in the romance's interlacing narrative strands. A strand is that segment of a knight's quest that falls between switches from one knight's strand to that ofanother. The episodic adventures each knight encounters within each strand are composed ofmultifarious, often marvelous events. How does this vast narrative remain coherenr for the long romance's reading or listening publics? It does so, Smelik argues convincingly, by conforming to a basic, relativelysimpleepisodic pattern. In each episode the questing knight confronts a minor character, or 'bijfiguur.' This encounter contains a 'provocation' ('Provokatie') followed by a 'determining ofhierarchy' ('Hiërarchiebepaling'), usually by combat; before, between, or after these two commonplace features, a minor character provides information about the provocation that also explains or justifies the hierarchy the provocation reveals. The positioning of the information depends on which of the minor characters named in the monograph's sub-title—knight, maiden, squire, dwarf, or hermit—provides the information. If it is offered at the beginning ofan episode, we have what Smelik terms an ob ovo sequence; ifit comes in the middle or at the end, we have an in medias res sequence. Smelik links these terms to the principle of natural and artificial order familiar in the medieval arts ofpoetry and prose. 126arthuriana Smelik also examines the relation between these sequences and the role and place assigned to minor figures in each episode. A detailed typology offigures is set out, including main figures ('Hoofdpersonen'), minor figures, and nominal figures ('Figuranten'), whose functions are defined using Propp's narratology. These three types offigures are further classified by the number ofpages or lines they occupy in the Prose Lancelot's plot in Micha's edition. For example, minor characters of the first order occupy between five and fifteen pages, those ofthe second order, between two and five pages, and those ofthe third order, between two lines and two pages. The principle ofclassification raises some questions that future studies will have to confront. These arise in part because Smelik treats episodes in the LancebtProper, but leaves out for the most part the Queste and the Mort. What happens to the episode when allegory becomes common and the hermit a major figure as interpreter, as in the Questei Is that mescheance a different kind of adventure? What changes, if any, result when adventures and quests stop, but interlacing...

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