Songbook: How Lyrics Became Poetry in Medieval Europe

How medieval songbooks were composed in collaboration with the community—and across languages and societies: "Eloquent…clearly argued."—Times Literary Supplement

Today we usually think of a book of poems as composed by a poet, rather than assembled or adapted by a network of poets and readers. But the earliest European vernacular poetries challenge these assumptions. Medieval songbooks remind us how lyric poetry was once communally produced and received—a collaboration of artists, perform...