'An Untimely Inheritance? The Material Impact of 12th-century French Romance in the "English" Middle Ages'
Abstract
Many 12th-century insular French romances survive in copies made significantly later than their apparent moment of composition, the majority of witnesses dating from the late 13th and 14th centuries. Although this is well known, there has been little sustained scholarly consideration of the impact that these texts and their manuscripts have had in this later period, probably because of the focus on ‘Englishness’, linguistic and cultural, that is the driving force of insular literary history focusing on the later Middle Ages. This historical narrative leaves little room for French romance, especially that dating from two centuries previously, even though the material record indicates that such romances were owned and read across Britain.
This paper addresses this lacuna in literary studies by considering specific manuscripts that shed light on 12th-century romance’s ongoing impact within insular literary and book culture, and thus highlights the shortcomings of the currently accepted historical narrative. Witnesses such as British Library, MS Harley 527, MS Additional 38662 and Bodleian Library MS Douce 132/137 will be analysed in terms of their texts, dating and provenance to reveal their vital contributions to multilingual literary history within the ‘age of Chaucer’.
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