ABSTRACT

In Food and Feast in Premodern Outlaw Tales editors Melissa Ridley Elmes and Kristin Bovaird-Abbo gather eleven original studies examining scenes of food and feasting in premodern outlaw texts ranging from the tenth through the seventeenth centuries and forward to their cinematic adaptations. Along with fresh insights into the popular Robin Hood legend, these essays investigate the intersections of outlawry, food studies, and feasting in Old English, Middle English, and French outlaw narratives, Anglo-Scottish border ballads, early modern ballads and dramatic works, and cinematic medievalism. The range of critical and disciplinary approaches employed, including history, literary studies, cultural studies, food studies, gender studies, and film studies, highlights the inherently interdisciplinary nature of outlaw narratives. The overall volume offers an example of the ways in which examining a subject through interdisciplinary, cross-geographic and cross-temporal lenses can yield fresh insights; places canonic and well-known works in conversation with lesser-known texts to showcase the dynamic nature and cultural influence and impact of premodern outlaw tales; and presents an introductory foray into the intersection of literary and food studies in premodern contexts which will be of value and interest to specialists and a general audience, alike.

chapter 2|17 pages

Grendel's Eucharist

An Outlaw's Last Supper

chapter 3|25 pages

Food, Feasts, and Temperance

The Social Contracts of “Mete and Drink” in The Tale of Gamelyn1

chapter 4|20 pages

Bread Without Onions

Winning the Crusades through French Cuisine in Honorat Bovet's 1398 Apparicion Maistre Jehan de Meun [Apparition of Master Jean de Meun]

chapter 5|18 pages

Of Courtesy and Community

Food and Feasting in A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode

chapter 7|19 pages

“So Shall We Take Our Dinner Sweet”

When the Greenwood Consumes the Outlaw

chapter 8|23 pages

Robin Hood's Poached Feasting in Context

Poor Knights, Disguised Kings, and Romance Parody in A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode

chapter 9|30 pages

The Poached Feast and the Kingly Blow

The Question of Courtesy in Late Medieval King and Commoner Narratives

chapter 10|23 pages

Acting Out(Law)

Feasts, Outlawry, and Identity Constructions in Two Shakespearean Comedies

chapter 12|18 pages

“Bread With Danger Purchased”

Hunger, Plenty, and the Outlaw on the Early Modern Stage