The influence of the Trojan myth on national identity as shaped in the Frankish and British Trojan-origin myths and the “Roman de Brut” and the “Roman de Troie”

Description

The Trojan myth composed in the Iliad by Homer constitutes a splendid and celebrated city under siege, whose potent monarchy is derived from a long distinguished ancestry, whose aristocratic population is humane, and whose heroes generate military prowess and strive to bring honor to themselves and their noble lineage. The appealing attitudes and activities of the Homeric Trojans inspired medieval authors to engage them as an integral part of a “national” identity illustrated in origin myths and reworkings of the Iliad itself. Not a grass-roots phenomenon these works were learned fictions written to enhance the prestige of the ruling classes by providing an ancient and illustrious ancestry which legitimized ascendancy and/or a code of conduct. Chapter 1 defines the ancient and enduring Trojan myth. Chapter 2 introduces Trojan-origin myths of the Franks and the British and undertakes to explain why they were written during a specific period. Chapter 3 presents the “national” ideology of chivalry and courtoisie embodied in the Roman de Brut and especially in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie. Along with martial and royal characteristics, instances of “national” identity featured in the Frankish and British Trojan-origin myths came about during a comingling of cultures at the same time as an age of relative peace, strong leadership, and a renewal of learning favored the creation of each unique myth and “nation.” The Roman de Troie provided a “nation” of Anglo-Norman and Angevin elite with an identity of chivalric/courtois values to correspond to their glorious ancestors. Whether the “nations” were related by blood ties or by a common heritage, or a combination of the two, they could identify with a once great race and its tradition.