Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Historicity, Violence, and the Medieval Francophone World: Mémoire Hystérisée
- Part I Theorizing Violence
- Part II Institutions and Subversions
- Part III Gender and Sexuality
- 8 Political Violence and Sexual Violation in the Work of Benoît de Sainte-Maure
- 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
- Part IV Trauma, Memory, and Healing
- Index
- Already Published
8 - Political Violence and Sexual Violation in the Work of Benoît de Sainte-Maure
from Part III - Gender and Sexuality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Historicity, Violence, and the Medieval Francophone World: Mémoire Hystérisée
- Part I Theorizing Violence
- Part II Institutions and Subversions
- Part III Gender and Sexuality
- 8 Political Violence and Sexual Violation in the Work of Benoît de Sainte-Maure
- 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
- Part IV Trauma, Memory, and Healing
- Index
- Already Published
Summary
Late in his Chronique des ducs de Normandie (ca. 1170–80), Benoît de Sainte-Maure makes an analogy:
Vez, merveilles poez entendre
Qu'en vos deit mostrer e aprendre:
Qu'Agamennon e li Grezeis
Ne bien plus de quatorze reis
Ne porent Troie en disz anz prendre;
Unques n'i sorent tant entendre.
E icist dus od ses Normanz
E od ses autres buens aidanz
Conquist un reiaume plenier
E un grant pople fort e fier,
Qui fu merveille estrange e grant,
Sol entre prime e l'anuitant.
(39873–84)[Now you can hear a marvel that should indeed be brought to your attention. Agamemnon and the Greeks, including more than fourteen kings, could not take Troy in ten years. So much was beyond the scope of their abilities. Yet this duke, with his Normans and other worthy retainers, conquered an entire kingdom and a great, strong, proud people. And, what is truly cause for great marvel, he did so entirely between early morning and nightfall.]
The favorable comparison of the Norman victory at Hastings with the ineffectual Greek siege of Troy may appear unexceptional hyperbole: Benoît was writing under royal commission, and such fulsome praise of the Conqueror could be assessed as a predictable gesture of deference toward his great-grandson, Henry II. However, Benoît's relationship with his appointed task was complex.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013