Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"Ambivalence towards kings, and other sovereign powers, is deep-seated in medieval culture: sovereigns might provide justice, but were always potential tyrants, who usurped power and 'stole' through taxation. Rebel barons writes the history of this ambivalence, which was especially acute in England, France, and Italy in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, when the modern ideology of sovereignty, arguing for monopolies on justice and the legitimate use of violence, was developed. Sovereign powers asserted themselves militarily and economically provoking complex phenomena of resistance by aristocrats. This volume argues that the chansons de geste, the key genre for disseminating models of violent noble opposition to sovereigns, offer a powerful way of understanding acts of resistance.Traditionally seen as France's epic literary monuments-the Chanson de Roland is often presented as foundational of French literature-chansons de geste in fact come from areas antagonistic to France, such as Burgundy, England, Flanders, Occitania, and Italy, where they were reworked repeatedly from the twelfth century to the fifteenth and recast into prose and chronicle forms. Rebel baron narratives were the principal vehicle for aristocratic concerns about tyranny, for models of violent opposition to sovereigns and for fantasies of escape from the Carolingian world via crusade and Oriental adventures. Rebel barons reads this corpus across its full range of historical and geographical relevance, and through changes in form, as well as placing it in dialogue with medieval political theory, to bring out the contributions of literary texts to political debates. Revealing the widespread and long-lived importance of these anti-royalist works supporting regional aristocratic rights to feud and revolt, Rebel barons reshapes our knowledge of reactions to changing political realities at a crux period in European history."--

Epic literature, European --- Poetry, Medieval --- Charlemagne, - Emperor, - 742-814

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

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, Fierebras, Otinel. Why did writers and audiences in England turn again and again to these narratives, rewirting and reinterpreting them for more than two hundred years? This book is the first full-length study of the tradition. 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 Reader in Medieval English Literature (retired) at the University of Reading; Marianne Ailes is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Bristol.

English literature --- Anglo-Norman literature --- British literature --- French literature --- History and criticism. --- Charlemagne, --- Karol Wielki, --- Karl --- Carolus Magnus, --- Shārlmān, --- Charles the Great, --- Karl Velikiĭ, --- Carlo Magno, --- Carlos Magno, --- Karolus Magnus, --- Karl the Great, --- Carlomagno, --- Karl den store, --- شارلمان، --- In literature. --- France --- 1100-1500 --- Middle English Language, Period of --- Charlemagne, - Emperor, - 742-814 --- English. --- French. --- characters. --- chivalry. --- literature. --- manuscript. --- medieval. --- middle ages. --- middle english. --- narrative. --- protagonist. --- religion. --- romance. --- romantic. --- story. --- tradition. --- writing.