Selections from English Wycliffite Writings ed. by Anne Hudson (review)

REVIEWS challenge conventional gender roles even as they function, like other fairy tales, as instruments of acculturation. Lynn Staley analyzes the fifteenth-century MS Huntington 140 as a cultural text, situated in a particular moment of history. The Hunting­ ton anthology, which includes Chaucer's Clerk's Tale with works by Lyd­ gate and others, in effect recontextualizes that tale to reflect political concerns about tyranny and wise rule that were especially prominent in the time of the War of the Roses. James Wimsatt recuperates Malory's often underappreciated tale of Tristram by showing how Malory's alterations of his source connect it to the central themes of the Morte D'Arthur. The main achievement of Sir Tristram, Wimsatt demonstrates, is to emphasize multiple perspec­ tives on moral values and human conduct, thus establishing a complex and enriched view of human experience. The final essay, by R. F. Yeager, deals with Gower's Confessio amantis, a work especially important in Russell Peck's scholarly career. Yeager shows that Gower's transformation ofa fable ofAvianus made it suitable to the Christian moral context ofthe Confessio by replacing the cynicism of Avianus with an emphasis on the possibility of individual change and growth. These brief summaries cannot convey the subtlety and complexity of many of the essays in this collection. Students of the Middle Ages will find much here to command their attention. Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack have produced a worthy tribute to the many-faceted career of an exemplary scholar and teacher. Finally, a word of praise is due the introductory essay by Thomas Hahn. After reading it, one knows why Russell Peck continues to inspire admiration and affection in so many. THOMAS H. BESTUL University of Illinois at Chicago ANNE HUDSON, ed. Selections from English Wycli/jite Writings. Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching 38. Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1997. Pp. xii, 235. $16.95. When this volume first appeared in 1978, reviewers thought it would inspire further research into the political and social forces represented 359 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER by John Wyclif (d. 1384) and his followers, the Wycliffites or Lollards. They seem to have been right. Certainly, there have been several impor­ tant books and articles dealing with just such matters since that date, and the success of the recently formed Lollard Society suggests there will soon be many more. Hudson's selections have also been frequently featured in this research: her text of the Twelve Conclusions in papers marking the sixth-hundredth anniversary of the nailing of the Conclu­ sions to the doors of Westminster Hall in 1395, for example, and her text of the 1430 Confession of Hawisia Moone in some recent papers con­ cerned with women's history. Yet just as teachers were increasingly wanting to use Hudson's volume in their courses, Cambridge University Press let it go out of print. As one of those who particularly asked Medi­ eval Academy Reprints for Teaching to include it in their series, there­ fore, I am delighted to announce its reappearance. Users of the earlier volume already know how judiciously it draws from the writings we can reasonably describe as Wycliffite or Lollard (terms Hudson uses interchangeably), and how skillfully it makes its selections accessible even to nonspecialists. It provides a clear impres­ sion not only of what the Lollards thought was involved in preaching the Word, but also of their assorted polemical views and the energy with which they prepared a surprisingly wide variety of vernacular texts. It completely supersedes our only similar volume, Herbert E. Winn's Wyclif Select English Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929; rpt., New York: AMS Press, 1976). For the most part, the present version of the volume represents a pho­ tographic reproduction of its predecessor (although it has also acquired a more interesting cover). This has the advantage that we can use either version without adjusting page references and the like. But it has also meant that Hudson has been unable to take account of recent writing on the Lollards even when, as so often, this was her own. She has ex­ panded the volume's select bibliography by about a page. But all she has...