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Thomas Hoccleve's Series (1419-21) tells the story of its own making. The Making of Thomas Hoccleve's Series analyzes this story and considers what it might contribute to the larger story about book production in the fifteenth century. Focusing on four surviving manuscripts made by Hoccleve himself between 1422 and 1426, the first four chapters explore the making of the Series in context. They examine the importance of audience judgment in the selection and juxtaposition of forms, the extent to which the physical flexibility of books could serve the needs of their owners and their makers, the changing tastes of fifteenth-century readers, and the appetite for new paradigms for reform in head and members. The final chapter analyzes the most important non-authorial copy of the Series in order to ask what others made of it. While this study draws on Hoccleve's experience, it asserts that the Series offers a reflection on, not a reflection of, his conception of book production. The ironic contrast between what Thomas, Hoccleve's narrator, intends and accomplishes when making his book is its most redeeming feature, for it provides insight into the many conflicting pressures that shaped the way books were made and imagined in early fifteenth-century England.

The Doctrine of the Hert was the fifteenth-century English translation of De doctrina cordis, the thirteenth-century Latin devotional treatise addressed to nuns. The text progressively pairs the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit with seven key actions of the heart, leading readers toward contemplative unity with God. It was a religious bestseller, circulated widely throughout Europe between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, and was translated into numerous vernacular versions. This book consists of ten essays from an international group of scholars of medieval religion discussing the Middle English text alongside its Latin forebear, and other European vernacular translations (French, German, Spanish, and Middle Dutch). Despite its medieval popularity, The Doctrine of the Hert has largely escaped the attention of scholars until recently, yet it has much to offer regarding our understanding of late medieval female spirituality. University of Exeter Press's new edition (published June 2010) opens up the field by providing access to the text, and this companion further establishes scholarship on this text.