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ABC

ABC  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
One of Chaucer's shorter poems (184 lines, in eight-line stanzas). It is a translation of a prayer to the Virgin (Seinte Marie) in the Pelerinaige de la vie humaine (1331 ...
Abigail

Abigail  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
In 1 Samuel 25, the wife of Nabal and subsequently of David. The name came to signify a waiting‐woman, from the name of the ‘waiting‐gentlewoman’ in The Scornful Lady by ...
Absolon

Absolon  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
In the Old Testament, the son of King David (2 Sam. 13–19:8), whose beauty and whose splendid head of hair (2 Sam. 14:26) were famous. In medieval literature he became ...
Absolon

Absolon  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
The Oxford parish clerk in The Miller's Tale, the rival of the clerk Nicholas for the affections of Alison. We are given a formal portrait of him (I.3312–80). He has ...
Achademycis

Achademycis  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
‘the scoles of … Achademycis’ [L. Academicis studiis], the ‘Academy’, the school of philosophy founded by Plato (in a grove of olive trees near Athens sacred to the hero Academus), mentioned in Boece ...
Achātēs

Achātēs  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
Character in mythology, faithful lieutenant of Aeneas in the Aeneid; a late source ascribes to him the killing of Protesilaus (Eustathius Ad Iliadem 2. 701).T. Weber, Fidus Achates (1988).[...]
Achitofel

Achitofel  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
The wicked counsellor of King David, who incited Absolon (1) to rebel against his father (2 Sam. 15–17), cited as a famous traitor in The Book of the Duchess (1118).[...]
Adam

Adam  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
Chaucer's scribe (see book), the subject of the poem Adam (sometimes called ‘Adam Scriveyn’ or, from the rubric in the only surviving MS, 'Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn) ...
Adoon

Adoon  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
The son of Myrrha (Mirra). His beauty captivated Venus. When, in spite of her warnings, he went hunting and was killed by a boar, she caused the anemone to spring ...
Adriane

Adriane  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, fell in love with Theseus, and gave him a thread so that he could find his way out of the Labyrinth (Laboryntus) after ...
Affrican

Affrican  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
(236/5– c.183 bc), Roman consul at the beginning of the Second Punic War and a great general who drove the Carthaginians out of Spain, invaded Africa, and ended the war ...
Affrike

Affrike  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
(see Map 1) Until the Portuguese voyages of the 15th c., medieval Europe knew little of Africa except those northern areas along the Mediterranean which had been (more or less) ...
Agamenon

Agamenon  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
Agamemnon, son of Atreus (hence called Attrides), the king of Mycenae and brother of Menelaus, the husband of Helen (Eleyne), led the Greek forces at the siege of Troy. Troilus ...
Agaton

Agaton  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
Who in The Legend of Good Women (F 526) is said by the narrator to have told how Alceste was turned into a constellation. His identity is uncertain. It has ...
Ages of Man

Ages of Man  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
(see children, Nature, old age, youth). In his work on old age, Cicero (Tullius) remarks that nature has a single path which is run only once, and to each stage ...
Aglawros

Aglawros  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
Aglauros the sister of Herse (Hierse) (Tr III.730). In Ovid's Metamorphoses 2 she provoked the wrath of Minerva (Mynerva) by prying into one of her secrets. Minerva made her envious ...
Agnes Chaucer

Agnes Chaucer  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
The poet's mother, appears in documents as the wife of John Chaucer from October 1349 to May 1367. Her husband died in 1366, and she married another London vintner called Bartholomew Chappel.[...]
Albertano of Brescia

Albertano of Brescia  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
(c.1200–c.1270) Judge, notary, scholar.Countering Italian cities’ factionalism, Albertano sought solutions in personal moral development and civic cooperation. He was among the first to look to ...
Albon

Albon  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
One of the names given to the Monk by the Host (VII.1930).
Albricus Philosophus

Albricus Philosophus  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
The name of a popular handbook of mythography, sometimes called De deorum imaginibus libellus (?late 14th c.), an epitome of the first chapter of the Ovidius moralizatus, part of the ...

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