This chapter explores the borders of education in relation to contemporary refugee issues in Europe, specifically addressing the informal ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais, Northern France, where University of East London (UEL) colleagues taught an accredited Life Stories short course between September 2015 and October 2016. It suggests that this pedagogy apparently beyond the borders of the conventional university is in some ways precisely the terrain of the university and education more generally. It disassembles ‘education’ itself, in a context where it was at the same time a humanitarian response, a human right and a political field of reciprocity, traversed by processes of coalition, commoning and association. Within this field, the outside of the camp, more than the camp itself, might appear as a jungle, irrational and denying humanity, while the ‘Jungle’ space itself contested neoliberal education and counterposed its own ‘university’.

For almost Chaucer’s whole life, England was at war. This chapter sets his own military career within the context of military activity. The principal conflict was between England and France (the Hundred Years War), with varying fortunes for both sides being revealed.It emphasises the significance of Scotland in this struggle, as the ally of France and thereby a thorn in the side of England. Large armies were sent to Scotland in 1385 and 1400. The heraldic dispute between Scrope and Grosvenor, in which Chaucer gave testimony, is linked to the 1385 expedition. The chapter also considers contemporary military organisation at the level of the army as a whole and of the individual soldier. It also looks briefly on the impact of war on politics and society in England.

What is ‘heresy’? One answer would be, ‘that which orthodoxy condemns as such’; though we may also wish to consider when conscious dissent invites such a condemnation. The main ‘heresy’ in late medieval England was that usually termed Lollardy, understood to be inspired by the radical theological thought of John Wyclif (1328-1384), which among other things emphasised the overwhelmingly importance of Scripture, and of lay access to Scripture, through vernacular translation. Orthodox repression of heresy began in the late fourteenth century and developed in various ways in the fifteenth. There are small traces of these much wider battles in Chaucer’s oeuvre, but it would be very hard to say quite how he saw them. We might instead see the fluidity of attitude toward aspects of religion in Chaucer as a sign of his times. ‘Dissent’ can encompass more than that which is solidly decried as heresy, and ‘orthodoxy’ can turn out to be more than one mode of religious thought and expression.