PREFACE

              It is hoped that the present edition will be of interest and use to three main groups of readers. Our object has been to make available a critical edition of the Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc to Christine de Pisan specialists, to undergraduate students studying French poetry of the later Middle Ages, and to historians interested in the literature of the Hundred Years' War.

              We should like to gratefully record our thanks to the many colleagues at Glasgow University and elsewhere who have helped us in our work. Special mention must be made of Professor Lewis Thorpe who encouraged us in our work from its inception and published in Nottingham Mediaeval Studies Vol.XVIII (1974) and Vol.XIX (1975) two preparatory articles which form the basis of our edition. We must acknowledge too his kind permission for us to make use of these two articles in the present work.

              We (and our readers) owe a special debt to Professor T.B.W. Reid who read our work in typescript and generously sent us his invaluable comments and suggestions on the establishment of the text.

              Our thanks are due also to Professor Brian Woledge, Professor James C. Laidlaw and Mr. Michael Bath for the interest which they have shown in our work and for taking time (in the midst of more pressing commitments) to send us their suggestions, or to reply to our queries.

              We gratefully acknowledge the help which we have received from the Libraries of Berne, Carpentras and Grenoble; we are grateful in particular for the readiness with which they supplied us with copies of the respective manuscripts of the Ditié.

              Finally, we must record our gratitude to the Publications Board of the University of Glasgow, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the British Academy for their generous help in financing the publication of this edition.

A.J.K. and K.V.

We gratefully acknowledge Professors Kennedy and Varty as well as Medium Aevum Monographs, who printed this work in monograph form in 1977. To order hard copies, send £7 ($13) to Dr. D.G. Pattison, Treasurer SSMLL, Magdalen College, Oxford OX1 4AU, U.K.

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