Saracens and the Making of English IdentityAuthor :
Paperback
Published : Tuesday 16 June 2009
Description
This book explores the ways in which discourses of religious, racial, and national identity blur and engage each other in the medieval West. Specifically, the book studies depictions of Muslims in England during the 1330s and argues that these depictions, although historically inaccurate, served to enhance and advance assertions of English national identity at this time. The book examines Saracen characters in a manuscript renowned for the variety of its texts, and discusses hagiographic legends, elaborations of chronicle entries, and popular romances about Charlemagne, Arthur, and various English knights. In these texts, Saracens engage issues such as the demarcation of communal borders, the place of gender norms and religion in communities' self-definitions, and the roles of violence and history in assertions of group identity. Texts involving Saracens thus serve both to assert an English identity, and to explore the challenges involved in making such an assertion in the early fourteenth century when the English language was regaining its cultural prestige, when the English people were increasingly at odds with their French cousins, and when English, Welsh, and Scottish sovereignty were pressing matters.
You may also like ...
by
Paperback
16 Jun 2009
Cognition and cognitive psychology
€52.64
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Hardback
29 Jul 2005
Cognition and cognitive psychology
€152.10
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Paperback
28 Dec 2023
Historical crime and mysteries
€16.37
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Hardback
03 Oct 2023
Ethical issues: abortion and birth control
€83.07
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
Reviews