Bodies, Saracen Giants, and the Medieval Romance: Transgression, Difference, and Assimilation explore le traitement des corps de trois géants Sarasins dans les romances de Roland and Vernagu (c. 1330), Sir Beues of Hamtoun (c. 1330), et The Taill of Rauf Coilyear (c. 1513-42).Grâce à une étude de la représentation de ces trois géants Sarasin, la signification du corps humain au Moyen Age, et des pratiques de la Chrétienté an accord avec les discours et idéologies envers le Proche-Orient qui existaient dans l’Occident médiéval, ce mémoire de maîtrise juxtapose le géant Sarasin et le héros de la romance pour indiquer une similarité apparente entre leur deux corps et leur religion respective. La romance démontre avec hésitation un désir d’assimiler le géants Sarasin dans le code héroïque ainsi que dans la religion chrétienne, mais souvent rejette avec suspicion le corps du géant par sa mort sur le champ de bataille. Malgré sa mort ou son assimilation dans le code héroïque et la Chrétienté, le corps du géant Sarasin demeure toujours important dans le contexte de la Romance, puisqu’il contribue à la construction de l’identité du héros, de sa foi, et de sa société. / Bodies, Saracen Giants, and the Medieval Romance: Transgression, Difference, and Assimilation explores the treatment of the bodies of three Saracen giants in the romances of Roland and Vernagu (c. 1330), Sir Beues of Hamtoun (c. 1330), and The Taill of Rauf Coilyear (c. 1513-42). Through a study of the characterization of the three Saracen giants, the significance of the human body in the Middle Ages, and the practices of Christianity in accordance with the discourses and ideologies regarding the near East that existed in the medieval West, this thesis addresses how and why the romance constructs the giant as a physical marker of excess, deviance and evil. Using theories and criticisms of subjectivity and embodiment, this thesis juxtaposes the Saracen giant with the romance hero to underline an obvious similarity between the two bodies and their respective religions. The romance hesitantly demonstrates a desire to assimilate Saracen giants into the heroic code as well as the Christian religion, but it often distrustfully chooses to remove the giant body through its death in battle. Regardless of its death or assimilation into the heroic code and Christianity, the Saracen giant's body forever remains meaningful for the romance, as it always contributes to the construction of the romance hero's identity, faith and society.

This thesis investigates the relations between romance and texts of religious instruction in England between c.1170–c.1330, taking as its principal textual corpus the exceptionally rich literary traditions of insular French romance and religious writing that subsist during this period. It argues that romance is a mode which engages closely with religious and ethical questions from a very early stage, and demonstrates the discourses of opposition in which both kinds of text participate throughout the period. The thesis offers substantial readings of a number of neglected insular French religious texts of the thirteenth century, including Robert Grosseteste's Chasteau d'Amour, John of Howden's Rossignos, and Robert of Gretham's Miroir, alongside new readings of romances such as Gui de Warewic and Ipomedon. This juxtaposition of romance narrative and religious instruction sheds new light onto both kinds of text: romance emerges as a mode with deep-rooted didactic qualities; insular French religious literature is shown to be intensely concerned with the need to compete with romance’s entertaining appeal in literary culture. This oppositional discourse profoundly affects the form of instructional writing and romance alike. The discussion of the interactions between insular French romance and instructional literature presented here also serves as a new pre-history of Middle English romance. The final chapter of the thesis offers several new readings of texts from the Auchinleck manuscript, including the canonical romance Sir Orfeo and the neglected, puzzling Speculum Gy de Warewyk. These readings demonstrate that fourteenthcentury romance intelligently adapts the material it inherits from Francophone literature to a new cultural situation. In these acts of reformation, Middle English romance reveals itself as a discursive space capable of accommodating a wide range of ethical and ideological affiliations; the complex negotiations between romance and instructional literature in the preceding centuries are an important cultural condition for this widening of possibilities.

Bodies, Saracen Giants, and the Medieval Romance: Transgression, Difference, and Assimilation explore le traitement des corps de trois géants Sarasins dans les romances de Roland and Vernagu (c. 1330), Sir Beues of Hamtoun (c. 1330), et The Taill of Rauf Coilyear (c. 1513-42).Grâce à une étude de la représentation de ces trois géants Sarasin, la signification du corps humain au Moyen Age, et des pratiques de la Chrétienté an accord avec les discours et idéologies envers le Proche-Orient qui existaient dans l’Occident médiéval, ce mémoire de maîtrise juxtapose le géant Sarasin et le héros de la romance pour indiquer une similarité apparente entre leur deux corps et leur religion respective. La romance démontre avec hésitation un désir d’assimiler le géants Sarasin dans le code héroïque ainsi que dans la religion chrétienne, mais souvent rejette avec suspicion le corps du géant par sa mort sur le champ de bataille. Malgré sa mort ou son assimilation dans le code héroïque et la Chrétienté, le corps du géant Sarasin demeure toujours important dans le contexte de la Romance, puisqu’il contribue à la construction de l’identité du héros, de sa foi, et de sa société. / Bodies, Saracen Giants, and the Medieval Romance: Transgression, Difference, and Assimilation explores the treatment of the bodies of three Saracen giants in the romances of Roland and Vernagu (c. 1330), Sir Beues of Hamtoun (c. 1330), and The Taill of Rauf Coilyear (c. 1513-42). Through a study of the characterization of the three Saracen giants, the significance of the human body in the Middle Ages, and the practices of Christianity in accordance with the discourses and ideologies regarding the near East that existed in the medieval West, this thesis addresses how and why the romance constructs the giant as a physical marker of excess, deviance and evil. Using theories and criticisms of subjectivity and embodiment, this thesis juxtaposes the Saracen giant with the romance hero to underline an obvious similarity between the two bodies and their respective religions. The romance hesitantly demonstrates a desire to assimilate Saracen giants into the heroic code as well as the Christian religion, but it often distrustfully chooses to remove the giant body through its death in battle. Regardless of its death or assimilation into the heroic code and Christianity, the Saracen giant's body forever remains meaningful for the romance, as it always contributes to the construction of the romance hero's identity, faith and society.

Robert Thornton of East Newton, Yorkshire (c.1367-c.1465) is the most important scribe of late-medieval England: the only amateur scribe we know to be responsible for the concurrent production of multiple manuscript anthologies. This project constitutes the first extended study devoted exclusively to Robert Thornton and his books that treats them both as independent and as in conversation with each other. By uniting the concerns of codicology and cultural history, we can gain new insights into the effect of each manuscript’s textual sequences while also considering the effect of the distribution of texts among both manuscripts. Moreover, by examining Thornton’s romances in their original material and social contexts, we can read them as they would have been encountered by Thornton and his intended readers, and gain insight into the social and cultural anxieties that may have led to their organization and distribution among his two books. Chapter 1 compares Thornton’s compilations to those of analogous manuscripts, and demonstrates that Thornton took a more active role than most contemporary compilers did in rearranging and editing his texts in order to emphasize shared themes and interests within his books. Chapters 2 and 3 of this dissertation examine the nature of each of Thornton’s manuscripts in turn. Chapter 2 demonstrates that Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91 is a book meant to be used in the maintenance of social, spiritual, and physical health, written to be a useful tool for as wide a range of people as possible. Chapter 3 demonstrates that British Library MS Additional 31042 is a history book that traces the development of Christian civilization from its beginnings in the Holy Land to its present form in Thornton’s England. This dissertation then assesses Thornton’s whole library. Chapter 4 examines the literary contexts of Thornton’s romances, demonstrating that they are divided into thematic groups that emphasise conflict between the interests of individuals and the interests of the individual and communal identities with which they associate. Chapter 5 examines the social context of Thornton’s romances, demonstrating that Thornton employs the discourse of English nationalism produced during the Council of Constance (1414-1418), and that he therefore distributed his romances in order to emphasize England’s superiority to France.

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This thesis explores the geographic complexity of English identity in the High Middle Ages by examining texts that reflect moments and spaces of cultural contact. While interaction with a cultural Other is often thought to reinforce national identity, I challenge this notion, positing instead that, in the texts analysed here, cultural meetings prompt the formation or consolidation of regional identities. These identities are often simultaneously local and cross-cultural, inclusive but based in community ties and a shared sense of place. Each of the four chapters examines a different kind of regional identity and its relation to Englishness through romances and historiographical texts in Anglo-Latin, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English. Discussion primarily focuses on the Gesta Herwardi, Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, Gui de Warewic, Boeve de Haumtone, Le roman de toute chevalerie, and Richard Coer de Lyon. Each of these texts negotiates English identity in relation to a cultural Other, and balances various aspects of cultural identity and scales of geographic affiliation. While some focus exclusively on a particular locality, others create inclusive regional identities, draw together the foreign and the familiar, or depict England as a region on the edge of an interconnected world. These texts show that Englishness can carry different meanings, nuances, and identitary strategies that depend on context, location, or ideology. Together, they forge an image of England that is diverse and multinucleated. Its borders become spaces of meeting, connection, and cultural overlap, as well as division. These works establish a strong English identity while articulating England's necessary relationship with other places, spaces, and peoples, challenging not the borders of England, but the borders of Englishness.

Cette thèse propose d’explorer les enjeux de la pratique de la traduction de français en anglais après la Conquête normande, à partir d’une comparaison des deux romans anglais et leurs sources respectives. La première partie s’attachera à examiner le rapport entre le Roman de Brut, écrit au 12e siècle par l’auteur francophone Wace, et sa traduction en anglais, le Brut de La3amon, effectuée au début du 13e siècle. Une autre étude constituera l’essentiel de la seconde partie, portant sur l’examen comparatif de deux versions, française et anglaise, du roman d’Alexandre le Grand : le Roman de toute chevalerie de Thomas de Kent et Kyng Alisaunder, roman anonyme du 14e siècle. / This thesis investigates issues of translation from French to English in post-Conquest England by means of a comparison of two Middle English romances and their respective French sources. The first part of the thesis will examine the relationship between the Roman de Brut, written by the francophone author Wace in the 12th century, and its English translation, La3amon’s Brut. The second part is devoted to a comparative study of French and English versions of a romance about Alexander the Great, the 12th century Roman de toute chevalerie, by Thomas of Kent, and its 14th century translation, Kyng Alisaunder.

Les cycles arthuriens en prose du XIIIe siècle (principalement la trilogie dite de Robert de Boron et le Cycle Vulgate ou Lancelot-Graal) sont des ensembles au statut singulier. Définis à la fois par l’autonomie et l’interconnexion des romans qui les constituent, ils se distinguent des romans en vers individualisés qui les précèdent et des proses amples mais plus homogènes qui les suivent. À leurs caractéristiques formelles s’ajoute le projet de construire des univers de fiction cohérents, susceptibles d’instaurer un canon arthurien définitif. La brièveté de la période de production (1200-1240 environ) est contrecarrée par le succès durable que ces textes connaissent pendant tout le Moyen Âge ; la cyclicité est une forme romanesque expérimentale qui crée un rapport neuf à la matière de Bretagne et génère surtout des modes de lecture nouveaux. Caractérisés par des tendances aussi bien centrifuges que centripètes, les romans cycliques génèrent un réseau que le lecteur peut explorer à sa guise, de manière partielle ou complète, ordonnée ou désordonnée ; mettant en relation des romans aux visées parfois disparates mais assumant leur interconnexion, le cycle offre au lecteur un parcours sans cesse renouvelé, où les grands effets de cohérence l’emportent sur les contradictions de détail. C’est ce réseau inter-romanesque qui est l’objet privilégié de la présente étude : les romans cycliques, loin de développer leur sens en autarcie, vivent de la mise en lien de leurs récits et construisent ensemble, par le biais de la lecture organisatrice, des mondes narratifs multipolaires. / The thirteenth-century Arthurian prose cycles (mainly Robert de Boron’s trilogy and the Vulgate or Lancelot-Grail Cycle) are groupings of a peculiar nature. Defined both by the autonomy and the interconnection of their constituent romances, they differ from the individualised verse romances which precede them as well as from the massive yet more homogenous prose narratives which follow. These formal characteristics go hand-in-hand with a coherent world-building project, which aims to formulate a definitive Arthurian canon. The brevity of the production period (ca. 1200-1240) is counterbalanced by the lasting success of these texts throughout the Middle Ages; cyclicity is an experimental form which creates a new take on the matter of Britain, and most of all, gives birth to new modes of reading. Defined by centrifugal as well as centripetal tendencies, cyclical romances generate a network which the reader may explore at will, either partially or completely, in an orderly or disorderly manner. By linking romances which may have different aims yet accept their basic connectivity, cycles allow their readers to navigate them in constantly renewed ways, while at the same time preserving their coherence in spite of localised contradictions. This cross-romance network is the subject of the present study: cyclical romances, far from existing in isolation, thrive in an interconnected narrative environment; in conjunction with the reader’s own structuring powers, they interact to build multifarious narrative worlds.

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