Based on selected Latin and vernacular texts, students discover the status and function attributed to the emerging vernacular literature during the first centuries of its production. An introduction in lecture form is followed by a sequence of close readings of selected texts, which develops into a seminar exploring specific types of witnesses (hagiography, treatises, prologues, lyric), specific functions (teaching, entertainment), specific figures (the poet, the jongleur) and other aspects of vernacular literature, up to the fundamental changes in its perception that occur in the 14th century. An important part of the readings concerns France and Italy, but participants may propose examples taken from other regions and languages of the Latin West (e.g. Iberian languages, Old English, Middle English, Middle Dutch, Middle High German, Old Norse).