This volume is the first step in the publication of a new edition of John Trevisa's English translation of Higden's universal history, Polychronicon, to replace the Rolls Series edition of 1865-86. It is based on British Library MS Cotton Tiberius D.vii, a copy made about 1400 in the local South-Western dialect of Middle English at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, where Trevisa was vicar and chaplain to Thomas IV, Baron Berkeley, and the text is fully collated with the thirteen other extant manuscripts and Caxton's print. Book VI is of special interest not only for its subject-matter (principally the history of England from Alfred's reign to the Norman Conquest) but also because it contains in six manuscripts a section of about twelve chapters in a more literal style of translation than that of Trevisa's undoubted work. A critical edition of both translations of this section on facing pages makes possible for the first time a full comparison in order to establish their relationship, if any. The volume includes Higden's original Latin text printed below the English texts, and a comprehensive introduction, notes and glossary. Bisherige Forschungsschwerpunkte des Autors: Sense and Sense Development (London, 1967) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (London, 1970, 2nd revised edn., 1979) The Poem of the Pearl Manuscript (London, 1978, 4th edn, Exeter, 2002, with Malcolm Andrew)

Text of Higden's Polychronicon, beginning with Book I, chapter 9, "De Oceano," corresponding with edition in Rolls Series, no. 41, v. 1, p. 58, and continuing through the entry for the year 1347 (R.S., no. 41, v. 8, p. 344). Text immediately proceeds to an incomplete continuation, or appendix, and ends in the midst of chapter 46, corresponding to R.S., no. 41, v. 8, p. 355-360

A study of John Trevisa's rhetorical arguments for the value, necessity, and authority of translation in his English 'Polychronicon'. John Trevisa was one of the most prodigious translators living in England in the fourteenth century. His numerous translations of works from Latin into English helped to ensure the creation and perpetuation of late-medieval vernacular history, literature, and culture in Britain. His translation of the 'Polychronicon', a universal history of the world originally compiled byRanulf Higden, is both his magnum opus and his opportunity to present rhetorical arguments for the value, necessity, and authority of translation. Through his paratextual 'Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk on Translation' and prefatory letter to Lord Thomas Berkeley as well as his intertextual explanatory notes to the 'Polychronicon', John Trevisa explores the tasks of the translator.

A study of John Trevisa's rhetorical arguments for the value, necessity, and authority of translation in his English 'Polychronicon'. John Trevisa was one of the most prodigious translators living in England in the fourteenth century. His numerous translations of works from Latin into English helped to ensure the creation and perpetuation of late-medieval vernacular history, literature, and culture in Britain. His translation of the 'Polychronicon', a universal history of the world originally compiled by Ranulf Higden, is both his magnum opus and his opportunity to present rhetorical arguments for the value, necessity, and authority of translation. Through his paratextual 'Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk on Translation' and prefatory letter to Lord Thomas Berkeley as well as his intertextual explanatory notes to the 'Polychronicon', John Trevisa explores the tasks of the translator.