From Lawmen to Plowmen: Anglo-Saxon Legal Tradition and the School of Langland

‘This is an innovative, textually grounded inquiry into the connections between Old and Middle English literature.’

M.B. Busbee, Choice Magazine vol 52:11:2015

‘Yeager’s literary-historical argument is powerful and marches on firmly to the fifteenth-century poems of the Piers Plowmen… It convincingly demonstrates the durability of certain Anglo-Saxon attitudes as they were annealed in the distinction of style.’

Christopher Cannon, Modern Philology, vol 113:03:2016

“From Lawmen to Plowmen is an original, fresh approach to one of the large mysteries in medieval English literary studies: the relationship between the alliterative poetry of the late Middle Ages and Anglo-Saxon alliterative literature. Written and researched with confident expertise, Stephen Yeager’s book will provoke important discussions about literary history and periodization in medieval English literary studies.”

Andrew Scheil, Department of English, University of Minnesota

“Yeager has an interesting and innovative thesis that sheds a great deal of light on the possible connection between Old English legal-homiletic writing and Middle English alliterative verse.”

Joyce Lionarons, Department of English, Ursinus College