About the book: 2004 / Reader compiled and published in 1953 by the outstanding scientist and teacher B.I. Purishev (1903-1989) and significantly updated and expanded in the second edition (1974-1975), remains the best educational publication of this kind. The book contains works and fragments that make it possible to clearly imagine the development of medieval literature over a whole millennium, its directions (knightly, clerical, urban literature), genres (from grandiose works of heroic epic to the system of lyrical genres, medieval drama). The anthology reveals the formation of the figure of the author in the literary process from the nameless writers of the early Middle Ages to Dante, Chaucer and Villon. A new edition of the anthology prepared by prof. V.A. Lukov, complies with the State educational standard and curriculum on the history of foreign literature of the Middle Ages for pedagogical universities. For students of philological and historical faculties of universities, students of lyceums, gymnasiums, colleges of the humanities.