This 1996 collection of essays examines aspects of medieval literary theory in relation to questions of orthodoxy and dissent.

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.