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Richard II de Normandie: figure princière et transferts culturels (fin dixième–début onzième siècle)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2023

Elisabeth M. C. van Houts
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

This paper considers the construction of a model prince in Normandy under Duke Richard II. Its main topic concerns some borrowings that shaped the image of the Norman prince. First, it evokes the different representations of the Normans and of their duke at the end of the tenth and at the beginning of the eleventh centuries. This image, which retains a negative connotation around 1000, notably changed under Richard II with the duke himself contributing to this change by his largesse, especially in favour of churches. The model of a prince is also indebted to the model of a king: this fact does not only concern Normandy, but it is especially noteworthy in the Norman principality, where some of the most important attributes of the kingly model were transferred and adapted to the Norman prince: this paper suggests the influence of Carolingian moral literature, especially treatises or specula addressed to kings, combined with other influences, such as that from hagiography. Marriage and conjugal life seem have played a role both in the construction of the model of a prince and in the changes that occurred in the representation of the Normans, suggesting that the moral conversion of descendants of the Vikings, who settled in Normandy, had been fulfilled.

Richard II demeure un personnage mal connu. De ce point de vue, il existe un contraste très réel entre la manière dont son règne est perçu par les historiens et ce que nous pouvons connaître du personnage ou de la façon dont il put influencer l’évolution du duché de Normandie pendant les trente années de son règne. Richard n’a guère suscité de biographies à l’exception de la thèse de Lauren Wood Breese, en 1967, demeurée inédite, et de la courte étude d’Henri Prentout sur le règne du duc. Sans doute faut-il y voir là un des effets de la relative désaffection qui a touché le genre biographique, particulièrement en France, jusque dans les deux dernières décennies du vingtième siècle. Cela n’explique pas tout, car les descendants de Richard, à partir de Guillaume le Conquérant, ont suscité une abondante production, principalement en Grande-Bretagne, il est vrai. Plus récemment, Richard Ier a fait l’objet d’un colloque, dont les actes sont en cours de publication, dans une optique peut-être plus littéraire qu’historique.

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Anglo-Norman Studies 37
Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2014
, pp. 53 - 82
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2015

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