What were the boundaries between "official" and "subversive," "orthodox" and "dissenting" in the literary theory of the Middle Ages? This collection of new essays by major scholars examines medieval critical practices in relation to questions of orthodoxy and dissent within and between Latin and vernacular cultures. Specific topics include medieval teaching, theories of grammar and rhetoric, poetics and interpretation, academic "sciences," clerical professionalism, literacy, visual images, theology, and heresy.

Acknowledgments; Introduction: dissenting critical practices Rita Copeland; 1. Rhetoric, coercion, and the memory of violence Jody Enders; 2. Rape and the pedagogical rhetoric of sexual violence Marjorie Curry Woods; 3. Heloise and the gendering of the literate subject Martin Irvine; 4. The dissenting image: a postcard from Matthew Paris Michael Camille; 5. The schools give a license to poets Nicolette Zeeman; 6. The science of politics and late medieval academic debate Janet Coleman; 7. Desire and the scriptural text: Will as reader in 'Piers Plowman' James Simpson; 8. 'Vae octuplex', Lollard socio-textual ideology, and Ricardian-Lancastrian prose translation Ralph Hanna III; 9. Sacrum Signum: sacramentality and dissent in York's theatre of Corpus Christi Sarah Beckwith; 10. Inquisition, speech, and writing: a case from late medieval Norwich Steven Justice; Index.