Author: William J. Purkis
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843844486
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
Essays on the various manifestations of Charlemagne and his legends. This book explores the multiplicity of ways in which the Charlemagne legend was recorded in Latin texts of the central and later Middle Ages, moving beyond some of the earlier canonical "raw materials", such as Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, to focus on productions of the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. A distinctive feature of the volume's coverage is the diversity of Latin textual environments and genres that the contributors examine in their work, including chronicles, liturgy and pseudo-histories, as well as apologetical treatises and works of hagiography and literature. Perhaps most importantly, the book examines the "many lives" that Charlemagne was believed to have lived by successive generations of medieval Latin writers, for whom he was not only a king and an emperor but also a saint, a crusader, and, indeed, a necrophiliac. William J. Purkis is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Birmingham; Matthew Gabriele is an Associate Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of Religion & Culture at Virginia Tech. Contributors: Jeffrey Doolittle, Matthew Gabriele, Miguel Dolan Gómez, Oren Margolis, William J. Purkis, Andrew J. Romig, Sebastián Salvadó, Jace Stuckey, James Williams.
Author: Phillipa Hardman
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843844729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 491
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Book Description
The first full-length examination of the medieval Charlemagne tradition in the literature and culture of medieval England, from the Chanson de Roland to Caxton. The Matter of France, the legendary history of Charlemagne, had a central but now largely unrecognised place in the multilingual culture of medieval England. From the early claim in the Chanson de Roland that Charlemagne held England as his personal domain, to the later proliferation of Middle English romances of Charlemagne, the materials are woven into the insular political and cultural imagination. However, unlike the wide range of continental French romances, the insular tradition concentrates on stories of a few heroic characters: Roland, Fierabras, Otinel. Why did writers and audiences in England turn again and again to these narratives, rewriting and reinterpreting them for more than two hundred years? This book offers the first full-length, in-depth study of the tradition as manifested in literature and culture. It investigates the currency and impact of the Matter of France with equal attention to English and French-language texts, setting each individual manuscript or early printed text in its contemporary cultural and political context. The narratives are revealed to be extraordinarily adaptable, using the iconic opposition between Carolingian and Saracen heroes to reflect concerns with national politics, religious identity, the future of Christendom, chivalry and ethics, and monarchy and treason. PHILLIPA HARDMAN is Readerin Medieval English Literature (retired) at the University of Reading; MARIANNE AILES is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Bristol.
Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843845830
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Comprehensive survey of the legend of Charlemagne in the medieval German-speaking world. The legend of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne is widespread through the literature of the European Middle Ages. This book offers a detailed and critical analysis of how this myth emerged and developed in medieval German and Dutch literatures, bringing to light the vast array of narratives either idealizing, if not glorifying, Charlemagne as a political and religious leader, or, at times, criticizing or even ridiculing him as a pompous and ineffectual ruler. The motif is traced from its earliest origins in chronicles, in the Kaiserchronik, through the Rolandslied and Der Stricker's Karl der Große, to his recasting as a saint in the Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl.
Author: Björn Weiler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009006223
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493
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Book Description
Medieval Europe was a world of kings, but what did this mean to those who did not themselves wear a crown? How could they prevent corrupt and evil men from seizing the throne? How could they ensure that rulers would not turn into tyrants? Drawing on a rich array of remarkable sources, this engaging study explores how the fears and hopes of a ruler's subjects shaped both the idea and the practice of power. It traces the inherent uncertainty of royal rule from the creation of kingship and the recurring crises of royal successions, through the education of heirs and the intrigue of medieval elections, to the splendour of a king's coronation, and the pivotal early years of his reign. Monks, crusaders, knights, kings (and those who wanted to be kings) are among a rich cast of characters who sought to make sense of and benefit from an institution that was an object of both desire and fear.
Author: Helen Fulton
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843846683
Category : Comparative literature
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
Captured here for the first time is the richness of the Charlemagne tradition in medieval Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Wales and Ireland and its coherence as a series of adaptations of Old French chansons de geste
Author: Paul Webster
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351723006
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
In the first quarter of the thirteenth century, an anonymous Flemish writer set in writing, in Old French, a chronicle of Normandy, England, Flanders and northern France. It ranged from the arrival of the Vikings in Normandy to the early years of the reign of King Henry III of England, ending with an account of the translation of the relics of St Thomas Becket to their magnificent new shrine in Canterbury Cathedral in 1220. Along the way, it adopted and formed part of a tradition of writing of the history of the dukes of Normandy and kings of England, a tradition which had developed in Latin in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and then continued in Old French. The work is famous for vibrant and informed description of the reign of King John, in particular the period of baronial reaction, Magna Carta, ensuing civil war and the nearly-successful invasion of England by Louis, heir to the kingdom of France. Flanders supplied troops to both sides, and this Flemish author sees these events in close detail, and from the Flemish, not the French or English, point of view. He may himself have been an eyewitness, directly involved, but if not he would have known many who had fought and died in this conflict. Janet Shirley’s translation of this chronicle, the first into English, brings the work of the Anonymous of Béthune to a new audience in this volume, accompanied by an introduction and historical notes by Paul Webster.
Author: Jane E. Everson
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843846713
Category : Italian literature
Languages : en
Pages : 409
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Book Description
An exploration of the many depictions of Charlemagne in the Italian tradition of chivalric narratives in verse and prose. Chivalric tales and narratives concerning Charlemagne were composed and circulated in Italy from the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century (and indeed subsequently flourished in forms of popular theatre which continue today). But are they history or fiction? Myth or fact? Cultural memory or deliberate appropriation? Elite culture or popular entertainment? Oral or written, performed or read? This book explores the many depictions of the Emperor in the Italian tradition of chivalric narratives in verse and prose. Beginning in the age of Dante with the earliest tales composed for Italians in the hybrid language of Franco-Italian, which draw inspiration from the French tradition of Charlemagne narratives, the volume considers the compositions of anonymous reciters of cantari and the prose versions of the Florentine Andrea da Barberino, before discussing the major literary contributions to the genre by Luigi Pulci, Matteo Maria Boiardo and Ludovico Ariosto. The focus throughout is on the ways in which the portrait of Charlemagne, seen as both Emperor and King of France, is persistently ambiguous, affected by the contemporary political situation and historical events such as invasion and warfare. He emerges through these texts in myriad guises, from positive and admirable to negative and despised.
Author: Sebastian Scholz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110757303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
Karl Valentin once asked: "How can it be that only as much happens as fits into the newspaper the next day?" He focussed on the problem that information of the past has to be organised, arranged and above all: selected and put into form in order to be perceived as a whole. In this sense, the process of selection must be seen as the fundamental moment – the “Urszene” – of making History. This book shows selection as highly creative act. With the richness of early medieval material it can be demonstrated that creative selection was omnipresent and took place even in unexpected text genres. The book demonstrates the variety how premodern authors dealt with "unimportant", unpleasant or unwanted past. It provides a general overview for regions and text genres in early medieval Europe.
Author: Victoria Flood
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843847213
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
Situates Celtic languages and literatures in relation to European movements, in the tradition of Helen Fulton's groundbreaking research. Professor Helen Fulton's influential scholarship has pioneered our understanding of the links between Welsh and European medieval literature. The essays collected here pay tribute to and reflect that scholarship, by positioning Celtic languages and literatures in relation to broader European movements and conventions. They include studies of texts from medieval Wales, Ireland, and the Welsh March, alongside discussions of continental multicultural literary engagements, understood as a closely related and analogous field of enquiry. Contributors present new investigations of Welsh poetry, from the pre-Conquest poetry of the princes to late-medieval and early Tudor urban subject matters; Welsh Arthuriana and Irish epic; the literature of the Welsh March - including the writings of the Gawain-poet; and the multilingual contexts of medieval and post-medieval Europe, from the Dutch speakers of polyglot medieval Calais to the Romantic poet Shelley's probable ownership of a Welsh Bible.
Author: Susan E. Farrier
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1135736618
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 402
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Book Description
Originally published in 1993, The Medieval Charlemagne Legend is a selective bibliography for the literary scholar, of historical and literary material relating to Charlemagne. The book provides a chronological listing of sources on the legend and man is split into three distinct sections, covering the history of Charlemagne, the literature of Charlemagne and the medieval biography and chronicle of Charlemagne.
