Transnational Medieval Literatures and Cultures

“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.

Empire of Magic offers a genesis and genealogy for medieval romance and the King Arthur legend through the history of Europe's encounters with the East in crusades, travel, missionizing, and empire formation.

The book argues that romance arose in the 12th century as a cultural response to the trauma and horror of taboo acts—in particular the cannibalism committed by crusaders on the bodies of Muslim enemies in Syria during the First Crusade. From such encounters with the East sprang the fantastical episodes featuring King Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth's chronicle, The History of the Kings of England, a work where history and fantasy collide and merge, each into the other, inventing crucial new examples and models for romances to come.

After locating the rise of romance and Arthurian legend in the contact zones of East and West, Empire of Magic demonstrates the adaptability of romance and its key role in the genesis of an English national identity. Discussing Jews, women, children, and sexuality in works like the romance of Richard Lionheart, stories of the saintly Constance, Arthurian chivralic literature, the legend of Prester John, and travel narratives, the book shows how fantasy enabled audiences to work through issues of communal identity, race, color, class and alternative sexualities in socially sanctioned and safe modes of cultural discussion in which pleasure, not anxiety, was paramount.

Romance also engaged with the threat of modernity in the late medieval period, as economic, social, and technological transformations occurred and awareness grew of a vastly enlarged world beyond Europe, one encompassing India, China, and Africa. Finally, the author suggests that romance locates England and Europe within an empire of magic and knowledge that surveys the world and makes it intelligible—usable—for the future.

"

L'étude se fonde sur une analyse comparative des citations latines (149) en caractères hébreux (vocalisés ou non) qui ont été trouvées dans la littérature hébraïque de controverse anti-chrétienne conservée et accessible pour la période prise en compte dans le cadre du colloque : XIIIe au XVe s. (une trentaine de textes, de longueurs très diverses).
En tenant compte des nombreux phénomènes d'emprunt ou d'influence qui caractérisent l'élaboration de ce « corpus », et des problèmes méthodologiques que pose sa tradition manuscrite et éditoriale, elle répond ou tente de répondre aux questions suivantes : quelle est la nature de ces citations ? Dans quels textes et dans quels contextes les trouve-t-on ? Que montre la comparaison de leur liste dans divers écrits, des formes sous lesquelles elles y apparaissent (latin seul, latin précédé ou suivi d'une version hébraïque, latin avec paraphrase hébraïque, etc.), des formules qui les introduisent, et des commentaires qui les accompagnent ? Quelles données fait apparaître la comparaison d'un même verset ou d'un même passage, en hébreu et/ou en latin dans différents écrits ou dans un même écrit ? Selon quel(s) critère(s) les citations latines sont-elles données en hébreu uniquement, en hébreu et en latin, ou en latin seulement ? Lorsque le latin est accompagné d'une traduction hébraïque, quels rapports les deux versions entretiennent-elles ?  Quelles sont les sources des auteurs, en pareil cas ? Dans quelle mesure la citation et la traduction d'éléments latins, toujours empruntés à la tradition chrétienne, peut-elle leur être attribuée ? Quelles informations cette analyse nous donne-t-elle sur l'élaboration des textes, sur leurs auteurs, et sur les modalités de la controverse ? 
L’ensemble de ces investigations permet d’affirmer que, dans la plupart des cas, sinon dans tous les cas, ces citations latines étaient présentes dès la première version du texte, et que leur traduction, lorsqu’elle est donnée, peut être attribuée à l’auteur ; de manière un peu paradoxale, mais aisément compréhensible, il semble que l'importance des éléments latins contenus dans la littérature hébraïque de controverse soit inversement proportionnelle à la familiarité des auteurs et de leurs lecteurs avec cette culture ; autrement dit, que la présence de ces éléments ait été d'autant plus nécessaire que la langue de leur formulation et les convictions dont ils étaient porteurs étaient plus étrangers à ceux qui écrivaient ou lisaient les textes : à partir de la fin du XVe siècle, ces éléments latins disparaissent presque totalement de cette littérature et ce qui est emprunté à la culture chrétienne est presque exclusivement donné en hébreu (le plus souvent dans une version qui diffère selon les textes).

The article aims to outline aspects, features and functions of a cluster of characters in some chansons de geste, in particular Yon and Gaifier, both designated often as rulers of Aquitaine (or Gascony). Around these characters, we can individuate a pattern, in which the Aquitanian lord gives the hero his daughter’s hand, which means power and sovereignty; other features linked with Yon and Gaifier are wealth and treachery. Some features of the pattern can be rooted in the 8th-century struggle of Aquitanian dukes to remain independent from the Carolingian centralization of the power. In the second part, some hypotheses will be advanced about the relationship of the “Aquitanian pattern” with the plot of the Medieval Latin text Waltharius and of the Spanish romancero commonly entitled Gaiferos.

Immediately following the fall of Acre in 1291, the master of the Hospitallers, Jean de Villers, wrote a letter to his superior, Guillaume de Villeret, describing the fierce battle that ended Western control of the city. This unique document, originally written in French, survives in a single manuscript, Bibliothèque nationale de France fr. 24430, where it has been attached to a French translation of the Excidium Aconis. The text of the Destruction, as included in fr. 24430, is the sole surviving copy of a translation based on the Latin version found in two 14th-century manuscripts: Brussels, Bibliothèque royale Albert 1 er , nr. II-2212; and Madrid, Escorial, Q.II.21. Jean de Villers's letter and the Destruction are here edited in their entirety for the first time. A close examination of the base MS, an anthology produced in Tournai ca.1300, shows that the inclusion of these Crusade-oriented texts was of a political nature, establishing a flattering analogy between events in the Holy Land and the early history of Christian evangelisation in the Tournaisis.

The article shows the Western perception of the Muslim world through the representation of the pilgrimage’s diaries. In this kind of sources is in fact evident the contrast between stimulus aroused from the comparison with otherness and the resistance that come from a generally hostile and conservative cultural background. The research cover the entire corpus of Florentine diaries and this choice is its peculiarity. Although there are many excellent studies about the pilgrimage, no one develop a systematic study on the representation of otherness, a subject full of consequences for the history of Western thought.

Dissipabitur secta Mahometi. Crusade and prophecy in Arnau de Vilanova


Arnau de Vilanova’s position on the crusades, in the frame of his apocalyptic prophetism, evolved from their rejection to a conditioned approval throughout a process influenced by the projects of crusade of both king of Aragon and king of Sicily, whose projects he took part in as a negotiator.


Key words: Arnold of Villanova, crusade, conversion, Islam, prophetism

The article analyses the transformation of the topos of the Muslim enemy by proposing an excursus through the patristic and epic literature until to the diaries of the late medieval pilgrimage. From idea of heresy to that of idolatry, the Western perception towards the Muslim world passes through a representation which depends by political dynamics. In the background of a system of high knowledge, as the monasticism, Islam was considered as a form of Christian heresy. But when the description was developed in the context of the normal people, usually poorly educated, Islam became a pagan idolatry with demonic tones. Although the epic and patristic echoes remain intense, the matter changes deeply when one observes the representation of the Muslims in the pilgrimage diaries. In this kind of sources is obvious the friction between the stimulus derived by the comparison with others and the resistance of a generally conservative cultural background. The research covered the entire corpus of Florentine diaries and this is the peculiarity of the research. Although there are excellent works about the Italian pilgrimages, none had yet developed, in this sources genre, a systematic study on the representation of otherness, a subject full of consequences for the history of Western thought.

The problematic use of ideas established in nineteenth century, using medieval literature and culture, to define nascent senses of nationalism lingers over the field of Medieval Studies. The nineteenth century saw the construction of Western European national identity using, for example, texts such as the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenleid, and the works of Thomas Malory. However, the biography of the French national hero Charlemagne was written by the German Meister Eckhart; the German national epic is about a group of Burgundians; and King Arthur has equal ties to his Celtic and French development as he does to his Englishness.

When advocating for a global Middle Ages, we must also cast a critical eye on outdated scholarship and modes of thinking about national identity construction in Western Europe as well. The aforementioned examples of complicated nationalism have been examined, but to this day, these examples are misused by groups ranging from the innocuous (vis-à-vis textbooks and scholarship that seeks to simplify the development of the nation state) to the deeply problematic (vis-à-vis the alt-right and other nationalist groups). This panel seeks to show the complicated nature of medieval literature when considered beyond the inheritance of nineteenth-century English, French, and German scholars.

We are seeking submissions from scholars who work on traditionally 'national' texts in new ways. This panel is not limited to literature, but we welcome scholars of art, ideas, technology, even fashion and cuisine—any 'text' that has been pigeonholed into representative of a post-medieval national identity, but in fact represents the cultural exchange or transnationalism during the Middle Ages. We will also consider papers that deal with theoretical aspects of building national idendity based on medieval texts.

Please email 200 word abstracts proposing 15-20 minute papers for the 2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies (Uni. of Western Michigan, 10-13 May) to Emerson Richards (emstrich@indiana.edu) no later than 10 September, 2017.

... "El Libro de confesión de Medina de Pomar", Dicenda: Cuadernos ... Sancho IV (Actas del Congreso Internacional "La literatura en la época de Sancho IV", Alcalá de Henares, 21-24 de febrero de 1994), ed. por Carlos Alvar y José Manuel Lucía Megías, Alcalá de Henares ...

Medievalism and Medieval Romances

Within the history of the reception of medieval culture in postmedieval times the reception of medieval romances plays a special role. In fact, medieval romances provide a perfect case study of a medieval genre that attracts the attention of antiquarians and other enthusiastic readers of past texts because of their otherness and popular nature. After this first phase of reception, romances quickly become the subject of philologists and linguists in medieval studies, especially because they are considered not to have the poetic everlastingness attributed to the works of Chaucer or Gower. However, soon after most manuscripts of romances have appeared in scholarly editions, and after the language of the romances has served as a quarry for language studies, only romances with sufficient national appeal (Matter of Britain) continue to attract scholarly attention. Thus, medieval romances suffer the same fate as the term, "medievalism" which, born in the first half of the nineteenth century to describe the increasingly historically-minded reception of a specifically defined medieval culture, is semantically narrowed by the beginning of the twentieth century to mean the unscholarly re-imagining or re-inventing of the Middle Ages. The advent of feminism, postmodernism, and the Studies in Medievalism movement has recently brought about a return to the possibility of a healthy mix between pastist medieval studies and presentist medievalism, which might bode well for a renewed interest in medieval romances. Conscious negotiations of temporality should be the hallmark of such scholarship.