Medieval Romance

Recent studies have shown how cycles of illumination provide a "reading" or interpretation of the text; the present piece sets forth the hypothesis that the planner of Ars. 5218 (probably Pieratt dou Tielt) "read" the Queste del saint Graal in the context of church history and in the light of topics of current ecclesiastical debate.

The Italian edition of the work by Eleazar M. Meletinsky on the historical poetics of the novella – recently edited and translated by M. Bonafin and L. Sestri ‒ gives us the opportunity to revise the theoretical model by which the Russian scholar explained the origins of this narrative genre in Europe and Asia from various folkloric forms, i.e. myth, fairy and realistic tale, anecdote: in particular the analysis is carried out through the comparison with the similar reflections on novel and epic available in other Meletinsky’s books and with the theory of the “converging streams” developed by A.N. Veselovsky. Some corrections to the model of historical poetics are proposed, in order to conciliate typology and contingent elements, poetics and philology.

citation: Zsuzsanna Simonkay, "Friendly Knights and Knightly Friends: Sworn Brotherhood as Amicitia Perfecta in Medieval English Romances," Első Század 14 (2015)/1-2, pp. 101-119

ABSTRACT:

In the present paper I demonstrate that sworn brotherhood in English romances is depicted as an association of knights which meets almost all the requirements of a “true” or “perfect” friendship described by the ever-popular Roman philosopher Cicero in his work De Amicitia and his Greek predecessor, Aristotle in his books 8 and 9 of Nicomachean Ethics. These two works were the primary canons for medieval literates who wished to engage themselves in the study of friendship – only they added a little taste of  courtliness” and Christianity to them. Thus, in my paper I follow suit and found my analysis on the two above-named philosophers in order to point out the main characteristics of sworn brotherhood, the medieval amiticia perfecta, which seems to have been regarded the supreme kind of association – just like its classical antecedent.
I analyse three romances from the 14–15th centuries (Amis and Amiloun, Eger and Grime and Athelston), in which the protagonists are sworn brothers and the main plot is based on the various challenges through which their friendship is tested. I also investigate a fourth one, Sadius and Galo, which is an odd one out for it is in prose, written in Latin, and the knights do not in fact pledge friendship; what is more, it was written in the 12th century, at the peak of courtliness, while the others at the decline of it. Still, I believe that regardless of their distance in time all the four romances agree in the principles of the friendship they depict and in the standards of the parties’ actions.

The Roman du Comte de Poitiers is chiefly known for the elaboration of the wager motif in the first half of the romance, where a valiant noblewoman is publicly accused of infidelity and later exonerated. The second part of the romance has been less frequently studied. It contains a highly unusual depiction of a group of women who are commanded to disrobe so that their virginity may be ascertained. It is generally agreed that the two parts of the story are unrelated. In this article I argue that the two articulations of female honor and humiliation are closely associated and that they serve as an example of a more pervasive rhetoric of "visible honor" found in other romances of the French 12th and 13th centuries.

“Mirror of Chivalry: Salâh al-Dîn in the Medieval European Imagination,” in Images of the Other: Europe and the Muslim World before 1700. Cairo Papers on Social Science 19:2 (Summer, 1996), 7-38. Republished in J. Tolan, Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008.

The present paper examines two Byzantine texts from the middle of the thirteenth century, ostensibly unrelated to each other: a political essay written by a young emperor and an anonymous love romance. The analysis is conducted through the concept of hybrid power, a notion initially developed by postcolonial criticism. It is shown that in the two texts authority (that of the Byzantine emperor and that of Eros as emperor) is constructed as hybrid and thus as an impossibility, though in the case of the political essay this impossibility remains unresolved, while in the romance it is actually resolved. The pronounced similarities between the two texts on the level of political ideology (e.g. the notion of friendship between master and servant, the performance of power relations, shared key concepts) informing the hybrid form of authority and its relation to its servants is a clear indication that they belong to the same socio-cultural and intellectual environment, namely the Laskarid imperial court in Nicaea around 1250.

Course description: More than any other secular variety of premodern writing, romances connect the literature of the Middle Ages with that of both earlier and later periods. They blend Classical myth with Celtic mystique, and oriental exotica with local concerns. Romances tell stories about King Arthur and his court, the crusades, and ancient English princes, many of which recur in the works of Shakespeare, Tennyson, or Eliot. In this course we will explore the romance tradition in England, with special attention to the origin and development of the Arthurian canon, the political meaning of Englishness and Britishness, the self-examination of courtly ethics and gender relations, and the ideological origins of the British Empire. The course will not only examine the aristocratic culture of medieval England but will also demonstrate how premodern writings inform the literature of later periods.

Bremmer offers a much-needed reassessment of the career and biography of the famous outlaw. Asking “what national or ethnic sen- timents did the author [of the Gesta] entertain in his description of Hereward?” Bremmer concludes that he “consciously attempted to depict [Hereward] as a latter-day Anglo-Saxon but also that he eventually realized that in view of the new disposition such a characterization could not be maintained until the end of his narrative”. Bremmer situates the Gesta in relation to other later Anglo-Saxon texts concerned with cultural identity, including Ælfric’s Letter to Brother Edward and Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi, yet he notes that that the author also engages in rhetorical flourishes more typical of Classical epic than early English historiography. Ultimately, Bremmer argues, the political realities of post-Conquest England overtake any nostalgia for the Anglo-Saxon past, so that the narrative’s somewhat deflating conclusion—Hereward’s reconciliation with William—s...

I present for the first time edited texts alongside English translations of the Middle Welsh Peredur vab Efrawc as it is preserved in NLW, MSS Peniarth 7 and 14 with accompanying introductory materials that treat the manuscripts, the interrelatedness among the four early manuscripts—specifically the problems associated with traditional methods of textual criticism—, aspects of the language, and the date of the text. As such, I provide descriptions of Peniarth 7 and 14 along with the better known codices, the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest. Special attention is given to the former two. After noting the key orthographical features of the Peniarth 7 and 14 texts, I elaborate on certain of their phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects before broadening the discussion to include a consideration of dialects. I then move on to the vexed problem of manuscript filiation where, after highlighting some of the fundamental difficulties associated with this text in particular, I discuss some conceptual considerations with regard to textual variation in an attempt to bring us closer to the actual nature of manuscript relatedness. In a short discussion on the date of Peredur, I offer what I believe to be the safest time frame within which to consider the written composition of the text. The rest of the volume is occupied by the edited texts and their faithful English translations. To my mind, these editions and translations were much needed since the only edition of any Peredur text to appear with an English-language apparatus is that of the Red Book text by Kuno Meyer (1884), the ‘apparatus’ of which consists only of a Welsh to English glossary. To my understanding, the only English translations of these early Peredur texts are those by T.P. Ellis and John Lloyd in their The Mabinogion (1929).

Le "Conte de Floire et Blancheflor", composé vers le milieu du XIIe siècle, raconte une histoire d'amour contrarié de deux jeunes amoureux, l’un sarrasin, l’autre chrétienne, qui, malgré leur appartenance à des groupes ethniques, culturels et religieux distincts, parviennent à la fin à réaliser leur rêve d’amour. Ce parcours idyllique de dépassement de la différence et de composition du conflit montre qu’une composition avec l’altérité peut se fonder sur l’acceptation et la construction de relations exogamiques. Si dans la chanson de geste l’interaction avec un monde différent, rival ou antagoniste, est conflictuelle, dans le récit idyllique médiéval prévaut une modalité contractuelle qui aboutit à cette forme archétypique de réciprocité et d’échange qu’est le mariage. Dans les réécritures tardives du "Conte", marquées par une réorientation épique du récit idyllique originaire, la solution idyllique démeure, mais désormais enclavée dans un récit de conversion.

Published in English for the first time, and the only Arabic epic named for a woman, The Tale of Princess Fatima recounts the thrilling adventures of a legendary medieval warrior universally known throughout the Middle East and long overdue to join world literature's pantheon of female heroes.

A fearsome, sword-slinging heroine who defeated countless men in stealth attacks on horseback, Dhat al-Himma, or Princess Fatima, was secretly given away at birth because she wasn't male, only to triumph as the most formidable warrior of her time. Known alternately as "she-wolf," "woman of high resolve," and "calamity of the soul," she lives on in this rousing narrative of female empowerment, in which she leads armies of more than seventy thousand men in clashes between rival tribes and between Muslims and Christians; reconciles with her father after taking him prisoner; and fends off her infatuated cousin, who challenges her to a battle for the right to marry her. Though he suffers an ignominious defeat, he impregnates Fatima against her will and, when she gives birth to a Black son, disowns his own son, who also grows up to be a great warrior, eventually avenging his mother's honor. The epic culminates in a showdown between Fatima and another formidable woman warrior, and earns Fatima a place alongside the likes of Circe, Mulan, Wonder Woman, Katniss Everdeen and other powerful women.

Translated, Edited, and with an Introduction and Notes by Melanie Magidow

In this first volume of critical essays ever devoted to Jean Renart's work, contributors draw on political and social history, women's studies, translation theory, musicology, and literary theory to illuminate Jean's remarkable contribution to the highly complex genre of courtly romance. Contributors include Nancy A. Jones, John W. Baldwin, Maureen Barry McCann Boulton, Michel Zink, Regina Psaki, Patricia Terry, and Hendrik Van der Werf. Introduction by Nancy Vine Durling.

'The Middle English Guy of Warwick narrates a vita that is, even by the often outrageous standards of medieval romance, extraordinary. Guy’s life leads him from somewhat humble beginnings as the son of a provincial steward – the very margins of chivalric society – to his predestined place as chivalric, Christian, and most importantly, English culture-hero. Along the way he obtains chivalric glory, courtly paramour and associated noble title (Earl of Warwick), vanquishes Saracen threats both defensively (at the walls of Constantinople) and offensively (whilst on a one-man Crusade in the Middle East) – thus taking on the mantle of defender of European Christianity – before returning home to become England’s saviour from invasion and to finally die, as the circle of his life completes, back in Warwickshire as a devout hermit. As an example of popular romance entertainment, Guy of Warwick has few peers either in terms of popularity or its impact on wider English culture. However, the romance’s importance is not limited to its function as popular entertainment. Much recent scholarship has established the important role of medieval romance in the articulation of national and group identity, figuring romance as a genre that is of great interest to the literary scholar and cultural historian alike. In addition to the importance of Guy of Warwick in the discourse of identity politics, the figure of Guy also enjoys a powerful influence outside the romance, as he is appropriated for the promotion of family, civic, and national pride more widely within English culture. The narrative development of Guy as a medieval culture-hero – a figure that embodies a number of different identity groups – is the subject of this chapter.

Thorlac Turville-Petre has described Guy as ‘the model of the knight of England.’ Implicit within this designation is an understanding of this romance as exemplary narrative: a vita that in some fashion was intended to be imitated by its audience...'

From Winston Black in The Medieval Review 15.06.24...

'In the concluding essay, "The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination," Lila Yawn clearly takes the most chances and has the most fun in exploring the topic of medieval wounds and wounding. After a review of graphic and supposedly "medieval" dismemberments in modern movies and literature, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, or Pulp Fiction, Yawn poses the simple question of "how medieval cutting up living bodies really was" (218). In response, she gives a whirlwind tour of nearly two millennia of images and descriptions of amputation, dismemberment, fragmentation, and mutilation from Cicero to Thomas Jefferson. In so doing she demonstrates, as many medieval apologists have already noted, that there is no greater amount or degree of dismemberment in the Middle Ages than before or after, but what leads moderns to equate "medieval" with "dismemberment" is the medieval tendency to celebrate dismemberment and put severed body parts on display, be they of the criminal or of the saint.'

The Medieval Review 15.06.24
Kirkham, Anne, and Cordelia Warr, eds. Wounds in the Middle Ages. The History of Medicine in Context. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. pp. xvi, 254. $124.95 (hardback). ISBN: 9781409465690 (hardback).
Reviewed by: Winston Black, Assumption College. [email protected]
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19219/25339

Tolkien is not always given due credit for his deep familiarity with Arthurian romances. Yet, in the 1920s, he co-edited and translated the Middle English romantic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkien and Gordon 1925). Around 1930, he tried his own hand at romantic poetry in the incomplete and only recently-published The Fall of Arthur (2013). And of course he taught the genre for many years at Oxford. More than this, however, Tolkien’s epic romance The Lord of the Rings is replete with Arthurian allusions, including (as Veryln Flieger has noted), ‘the withdrawal of a sword, a tutelary wizard, the emergence of a hidden king, [and] a ship departure to a myth-enshrined destination’. Such allusions make it clear that—even as he sought to supplant what he saw as the imperfectly- naturalized myth of Arthur with his own evolving ‘body of more or less connected legend’ dedicated ‘to England’— Tolkien’s great novel also carried on a deft dialogue between modern and premodern views of friendship, love, and romance. Thus, in the sad tale of the Ents and Entwives, Tolkien explored the tragedy of lost love: the ‘old trouble’ of ‘hearts [that] did not go on growing in the same way’. The rich medieval theme of frustrated love comes into his epic in the form of the ‘love triangle’ between Aragorn, Arwen, and Éowyn. Love in the form of mutual respect and sympathy are the focus of several key turning points in the narrative, as we see in the love between Frodo and Sam, Gimli and Galadriel, and Aragorn and Éomer. And the theme of love’s perversion, of ironic, cynical, and sarcastic references to love and to the birth of hate, emerge in several scenes where ‘love’ appears in the mouths of the orcs, and of Gollum. Throughout, Tolkien’s keen philological ear is much in evidence, not only in his careful usage of ‘love’ and its many derivations and inflections—e.g., loved, beloved, lovely, loveliness, lover, etc.— but also in his deliberate development of several nuanced Elvish roots for ‘love’, such as ban-, mel-, and -(n)dil.

Con questo lavoro ci proponiamo di fare ordine nel 'mare magnum' di considerazioni e studi più o meno approfonditi che riguardano la problematica figura di Bieiris de Romans e della sua unica 'canso' a noi pervenuta. Nel primo capitolo tenteremo di mostrare la difficoltà di delimitare in maniera definitiva il corpus delle 'trobairitz' e come vari autori abbiano interpretato diversamente l’inclusione o meno di alcuni testi e personalità. Nel secondo capitolo tratteremo nello specifico di Bieiris de Romans, ovvero il fatto di essere l’unica 'trobairitz' dell’intera produzione lirica in lingua d’oc a indirizzare una 'canso' a un’altra donna; esporremo, dunque, le teorie degli studiosi che appoggiano la sua effettiva esistenza e autorialità e quelli che vi si oppongono; infine, proporremo una nostra opinione sulla questione. Nel terzo capitolo esporremo il testo originale, una traduzione e un’analisi critica.

A peculiar aspect of manuscript variation in the textual tradition of Chrétien’s romances concerns the description of affective states which define the emotional responses of characters to natural or social circumstances in which they are immersed. The fact that the textual tradition presents peculiar readings of different manuscripts in respect to emotion-related circumstances shows that medieval scribes are likely to have interfered with the emotional tone of specific episodes according to their own understandings of the reason why characters might act as they do. Presented data suggest that they had an active understanding and involvement in Chrétien’s empirical realism which revolves around the truth of what characters actually felt, and what the readers felt and keep feeling with them.

Gender is one of the most fraught topics in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, and medieval authors made productive use of humor and laughter, inviting the audience to laugh with, or at, their characters, based on how good or unsuccessful they are at fulfilling ideal male or female roles. Sagas and eddic poetry are noted for brave heroes who die with a sarcastic remark on their lips, and formidable women who coldly laugh as they demand that someone be killed. These characters are likely to reflect a society preoccupied by honor and the heroic ethic. In sagas inspired by romance, where the theme of women’s independence is the central concern, laughter becomes a weapon in the battle of the sexes, and instead of men laughing at other men, they join ranks to laugh at women. This article examines how the employment of humor plays a fundamental role in the construction and representation of gender in Old Norse-Icelandic texts, and reinforces or interrogates existing models of masculinity and femininity.

"'The late-fourteenth-century romance Sir Launfal narrates the financial, martial and erotic adventures of one of the lesser-known knights of the Arthurian court.  In Thomas Chestre’s popularised version of Marie de France’s Breton Lai (Lanval), our hero’s woes begin when he is excluded from the Arthurian court’s largesse after he refuses the predatory Guinevere’s sexual advances.  Shamed by his resulting poverty, which is only amplified by the financial demands of his role as Arthur’s royal steward, Launfal takes his leave of the court and departs for Caerleon, where he vainly seeks succour at the hands of the city’s mayor, who has benefited in the past from Launfal’s own generosity.  However, a knight out of favour in the royal court is of no current use to the mayor, who begrudgingly offers only meagre lodgings, and this is only forthcoming after Launfal sarcastically rebukes him regarding the value of past loyalties.  Denied not only the company of men due to his poverty, but also access to the Church, as he lacks clean clothing in which to visit it, Launfal is approaching the depths of despair.  After a final humiliation of being excluded from the invitations to a Trinity feast hosted by the mayor, Launfal rides out into the forest to seek refuge both from the ridicule of the townsfolk and from his own sense of shame.

It is in this moment of extreme financial deprivation and social exclusion, the pathos of which is further intensified by his fall into a fen while riding to the forest, that Launfal encounters what turns out to be the unsought answer to his social and pecuniary predicament.  Having stopped to rest and to contemplate his woes under a tree in a forest clearing, he is visited by two beautifully arrayed maidens, who greet him nobly before leading him to the pavilion of their mistress, Dame Triamoure.  Once there, Launfal comes across a most magnificent scene of exotic opulence...'
"

This project examines representations of conversion in the twelfth and thirteenth century romances, the Old French Floire et Blancheflor, Aucassin et Nicolette, and Flamenca.  In these works, the figure of the convert is used to articulate and elaborate internal social concerns. The twelfth century was less a time of the ‘rise of the individual’ than a time of the individual thought in relation to others. In this way, understanding the self depends both on the 'other' to whom the self relates and the framing of that relation. These works position the native self in relation to the Saracen other, probing their relation through the structures of religious conversion. The framework of religious conversion provides a vocabulary to express and examine cultural difference, cultural absorption and assimilation of new knowledge and technologies of Arabic culture. Temporal history in turn consists of both nativist, monoculturally formulated histories and more relational models formulated with a view toward articulating a more cosmopolitan, interrelated view of culture and as such, the self. The literary treatments of conversion were used to probe the problematics of these discourses.

A translation of Þjalar-Jóns saga, a neglected but highly entertaining late-medieval Icelandic romance (or Russia-oriented fornaldarsaga). Here the translation is accompanied by a short introduction which discusses some of the intertextual influences upon the text as well as taking up questions of genre and manuscript transmission.

It is a preprint of a book "Deciphering of the WHOLE text of the Voynich Manuscript by Alisa Gladyseva",ISBN 978-609-475-419-7, research years © 2015-2019 Alisa Gladyseva. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing from the copyright holder. The first print is a limited-edition, non- commercial, nonprofit, dedicated to science popularization proposals for foreign editors, publishers, and research societies.