Violence and the Writing of History in the Medieval Francophone World

Description

An examination of medieval historican writings through the prism of violence. The concept of medieval historiography as "usable past" is here challenged and reassessed. The contributors' shared claim is that the value of medieval historiographical texts lies not only in the factual information the texts contain but also in the methods and styles they use to represent and interpret the past and make it ideologically productive. Violence is used as the key term that best demonstrates the making of historical meaning in the Middle Ages, through the transformation of acts of physical aggression and destruction into a memorable and usable past. The twelve chapters assembled here explore a wide range of texts emanating from throughout the francophone world. They cover a range of genres (chansons de geste, histories, chronicles, travel writing, and lyric poetry), and range from the late eleventh to the fifteenth century. Through examination of topics as varied as rhetoric, imagery, humor, gender, sexuality, trauma, subversion, and community formation, each chapter strives to demonstrate how knowledge of the medieval past can be enhanced by approaching medieval modes of historical representation and consciousness on their own terms, and by acknowledging - and resisting - the desire to subject them to modern conceptions of historical intelligibility. List of Illustrations vii List of Contributors ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1. Historicity, Violence, and the Medieval Francophone World: 'Mémoire Hystérisée' / Noah D. Guynn and Zrinka Stahuljak 1 Part I. Theorizing Violence 2. Violence, History, and the Old French Epic of Revolt / Andrew Cowell 19 3. Rhetoric, Providence, and Violence in Villehardouin’s 'La conquête de Constantinople' / Noah D. Guynn 35 Part II. Institutions and Subversions 4. Vice, Tyranny, Violence, and the Usurpation of Flanders (1071) in Flemish Historiography from 1093 to 1294 / Jeff Rider 55 5. Marvelous Feats: Humor, Trickery, and Violence in the 'History of the Counts of Guines and Lords of Ardres' of Lambert of Ardres / Leah Shopkow 71 6. Dismembered Borders and Treasonous Bodies in Anglo-Norman Historiography / Matthew Fisher 83 7. The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: Violence in the 'Canso de la Crozada' / Karen Sullivan 99 Part III. Gender and Sexuality 8. Political Violence and Sexual Violation in the Work of Benoît de Sainte-Maure / David Rollo 117 9. The Sexuality of History: The Demise of Hugh Despenser, Roger Mortimer, and Richard II in Jean Le Bel, Jean Froissart, and Jean d’Outremeuse / Zrinka Stahuljak 133 Part IV. Trauma, Memory, and Healing 10. 'Guerre ne sert que de tourment': Remembering War in the Poetic Correspondence of Charles d’Orléans / Deborah McGrady 151 11. Commemorating the Chivalric Hero: Text, Image, Violence, and Memory in the 'Livre des faits de messire Jacques de Lalaing' / Rosalind Brown-Grant 169 12. Coming Communities in Medieval Francophone Writing about the Orient / Simon Gaunt 187 Index 203