Introduction

Abstract

The Treatise is a didactic poem in Anglo-Norman which surveys a host of practical matters, ranging from childbirth and our passage through life, to estate management and life in fields, workshops, to activities in the home, the kitchen and the dining-hall, to the flora and fauna (and even the weather) of thirteenth-century England. The author and the intended audience for this poem are discussed in the introduction which follows, as are also as its date, the language, modern interpretations and its bibliography.