Book contents
- The New Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance
- The New Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- 1 “For Love and For Lovers”
- 2 The Manuscript Contexts of Medieval Romance
- 3 Matters of Form
- 4 Authors, Narrators, and Their Stories in Old French Romance
- 5 Arthurian Transformations
- 6 Romance and the Medieval Mediterranean
- 7 The Crusading Romance in Britain
- 8 “Making Race” in Medieval Romance
- 9 The Construction and Interrogation of Gender in Old French Romance
- 10 Emotions as the Language of Romance
- 11 Medieval Iberian Romance
- 12 Medieval and Early Modern Italian Romance
- 13 German Medieval Romance
- 14 The Ends of Romance in Chaucer and Malory
- 15 French Romance in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance
- 16 Romance in Historical Context
- 17 Romance in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Popular Culture
- Bibliography of Editions and Translations
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
6 - Romance and the Medieval Mediterranean
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023
- The New Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance
- The New Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- 1 “For Love and For Lovers”
- 2 The Manuscript Contexts of Medieval Romance
- 3 Matters of Form
- 4 Authors, Narrators, and Their Stories in Old French Romance
- 5 Arthurian Transformations
- 6 Romance and the Medieval Mediterranean
- 7 The Crusading Romance in Britain
- 8 “Making Race” in Medieval Romance
- 9 The Construction and Interrogation of Gender in Old French Romance
- 10 Emotions as the Language of Romance
- 11 Medieval Iberian Romance
- 12 Medieval and Early Modern Italian Romance
- 13 German Medieval Romance
- 14 The Ends of Romance in Chaucer and Malory
- 15 French Romance in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance
- 16 Romance in Historical Context
- 17 Romance in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Popular Culture
- Bibliography of Editions and Translations
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
- References
Summary
This chapter provides a brief overview of the development of crusading practices in Europe from the eleventh century until their formal end in the seventeenth. It highlights crusading’s broad impact on society, its inconsistent racial and religious discrimination, and the appeal of its story of loss and recovery across social levels. The chapter then discusses two popular Middle English romances, Richard Coeur de Lion (c. 1300) and Guy of Warwick (c. 1330), to illustrate the ways crusading affected and was affected by literary narratives. The two poems represent different kinds of crusading practices – the large army sponsored by ecclesiastical authorities and the individual undertaking a personal vow without church involvement – while offering critical commentary on crusading itself. These crusading romances and others like them situate the British Isles as part of a larger premodern world engaged in religious conflict and exchange. By recognizing the long relationship between the romance and holy warfare – one that lasted well into the early modern period – we can better understand the interests of medieval and Renaissance audiences as well as the foundational role of religious intolerance in modernity.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The New Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance , pp. 88 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023