Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture

narratives that are constructed in the local vernacular and, while independent of the originating tradition, forming their own subset within the tradition. The next four chapters in this volume explore these categories and describe the extant medieval Arthurian literatures across this broad geographic zone. In Chapter 5, Marjolein Hogenbirk and David F. Johnson provide a detailed description of the translation and adaptation of four French verse romances which came to be the Middle Dutch Wrake van Ragisel, Ferguut, Perchevael, and Torec, and in Chapter 6 Simon Smith and Roel Zemel explore five ‘indigenous’ Middle Dutch Arthurian romances Walewein, Moriaen, Ridder mettermouwen, Walewein ende Keye, and Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet. Frank Brandsma then follows in Chapter 7 with a detailed analysis of the translations and adaptations of French prose romances, including the Lancelot compilation. The textual analyses conclude in Chapter 8, with Jürgen Wolf’s detailed description of Arthurian literature in the medieval Rhineland, the ‘interference zone between the Romance and the German languages’, where ‘French, Middle Dutch and Middle High German Arthurian traditions intersect (p. 194). In his brief summary, Wolf flags the difficult issue of comparative and perhaps mutual influences between Middle High German, French, and Middle Dutch literatures. He observes that the literature of the Rhineland is particularly problematic in its likely multiple linguistic sources. The volume concludes with a survey by Geert van Iersel of the post-medieval Arthurian legacy in the Netherlands and Flanders, paying particular attention to modern cultural reflexes, including novels, comic strips, drama, film, radio, and television. As with all of the other volumes published in ‘The Arthur of the [...]’ stable, this edition is exemplary in its laying out of the scope of the field, exposing critical issues and signposting future directions. As such, this is an important resource for scholars, whether for focusing on the specific languages or cultural groupings in the Low Countries, or for comparative purposes, where Middle Dutch reflexes often provide important comparanda for other non-English vernacular Arthurian traditions. Roderick McDonald, Emu Forge, Sheffield, UK