Idea Of Anglo-saxon England In Middle English Romance

by Rouse, Robert Allen

• ISBN13: 9781843840411
• ISBN10: 1843840413
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-30
• Publisher: Ds Brewer

Summary

As the point of origin, both real and imagined, of English law and group identity, the Anglo-Saxon past was important in the construction of a post-Conquest English society that was both aware of, and placed great stock in, its Anglo-Saxon heritage; yet its depiction in post-Conquest literature has been very little studied. This book examines a wide range of sources (legal and historiographical as well as literary) in order to reveal a 'social construction' of Anglo-Saxon England that held a significant place in the literary and cultural imagination of the post-Conquest English. Using a variety of texts, but the Matter of England romances in particular, the author argues that they show a continued interest in the Anglo-Saxon past, from the localised East Sussex legend of King Alfred that underlies the twelfth-century Proverbs of Alfred, to the institutional interest in the Guy of Warwick narrative exhibited by the community of St. Swithun's Priory in Winchester during the fifteenth century; they are part of a continued cultural remembrance that encompasses chronicles, folk memories, and literature. Dr ROBERT ALLLEN ROUSE teaches in the Department of English, University of British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
1 Anglo-Saxonism: The Remembrance and Re-Imagining of the Anglo-Saxon Past	1	(10)
2 Remembering Alfred in the Twelfth Century	11	(41)
3 The Romance of the Anglo-Saxon Past	52	(18)
4 The Romance of English Identity	70	(23)
5 In his time were gode lawes: Romance and the English Legal Past	93	(41)
6 Literary Terrains and Textual Landscapes: The Importance of the Anglo-Saxon Past in Late-Medieval Winchester	134	(23)
Conclusion	157	(4)
Bibliography	161	(16)
Index	177