Assistant Professor of English Kathleen Kennedy took a journey through the Middle Ages to explore how the relationship between lords and retainers in medieval England was depicted in literature by Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and Lydgate in her newly published book, Maintenance, Meed, and Marriage in Medieval English Literature.
According to publisher Palgrave Macmillan, "Kennedy uses close readings and medieval letter collections to provide a documentary look at how lords and men communicated information about their relationships and reveals surprising information about both medieval law and society."
Coming on the heels of this book, is the upcoming Cultural Piracy in the Middle Ages: Translating the Bible and the Common Law, which is currently under contract with Palgrave.
This past summer, as a result of receiving a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, Kennedy attended the "NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers, The Reformation of the Book: 1450-1650 in England." She also delivered a short paper and organized a roundtable at the September meeting of the Delaware Valley Medieval Association, where she presented some of the findings of her research.