Charlemagne in England: The Matter of France in Middle English and Anglo-Norman Literature

中世纪英格兰的英雄文学歌颂了三类人物的行为：英国传奇英雄、亚瑟王和他的骑士、查理曼皇帝和他的同僚。前两组最近受到了主要的学术关注，但最后一组的12个文本相对来说被忽视了，尽管19世纪末早期英语文本协会的一系列中世纪英语（ME）文本给了它们一个突出的身份，即“英国查理曼罗曼史”。从14世纪到16世纪，查理曼大帝的诗歌传奇被创作和复制，卡克斯顿出版了查理大帝的散文生活和摩尔达尔，但是当亚瑟王的主题在英国文学和文化中持续存在时，查理曼的主题却没有。如果他被视为法国的民族英雄，这似乎是可以解释的。然而，令评论家困惑的是，大多数查理曼大帝的英文文本的出版与百年战争同时进行。因此，原始的法语文本已经以盎格鲁-诺曼语（AN）形式存在，这有意义吗？在什么意义上，查理曼可能有一个既定的岛国身份？“查理曼在英格兰”项目的目的是探索这一孤立的文学传统，同时关注AN和ME文本，研究它们之间的文本关系以及叙事形式和一般期望的对应关系。它评估了它们在多语言社会中的受众和接受的证据，以及它们在当代的文化和政治意义。基督教和撒拉逊人之间的核心冲突，与早期的国际十字军利益有相似之处，也反映了14世纪和15世纪奥斯曼土耳其人对西方安全的威胁。在许多文本中突出的侠义撒拉逊人的主题表明，通过皈依的幻想，渴望与东方他者接触。这种对中世纪英格兰文化和政治关切的复杂反映，对当代英国有一些共鸣。需要进一步研究狭隘的查理曼传统中的宗教因素。在早期的法国作品中，重点是重新获得的受难遗物，特别是与朝圣地点有关的，在AN和ME文本中被修改为不同的目的。许多文本中强烈的教理特征可能与第四次拉特兰会议（1215）的关注有关，该会议将牧灵改革和教育计划与促进十字军东征重新夺回耶路撒冷相结合，这两者都反映在查理曼文本中。基督教文本中虔诚的各个方面都被归因于“神职人员的作者”，这也需要调查与世俗虔诚有关的问题。这是一个及时的项目——它受益于中世纪英格兰法语项目（约克）和多语言项目（布里斯托尔）的工作。它将激发对AN文本更充分的批判性关注。艾尔斯博士正在完成埃格顿MS《罗马的毁灭》和《菲伦布拉斯》的一个版本，并建议一名博士生编辑汉诺威MS的独立文本。同样，该项目将鼓励ME作品过期的新版本，因为《梅拉尼之围城》和《拉乌夫·科伊尔》——这两本都是没有已知来源的独特文本——已经被编辑了不止一次，而基于菲拉布拉斯、奥提内尔和罗兰香颂的八首独立的诗歌文本正在等待彻底的学术关注。哈德曼夫人对ME罗兰碎片的研究提供了一个可以做些什么的指示，这是由达根最近对法国罗兰语料的评论版提供的，一名博士生将以这项工作为基础，调查中世纪英国的隆塞沃传统。这是一个相当大的，连贯的项目，也是一个更大的国际合作项目的典范，在其他语言和文化中重新探索传统：“欧洲的Chalemagne”。

The heroic literature of medieval England celebrates the acts of three groups of characters: English legendary heroes, King Arthur and his knights, and the Emperor Charlemagne and his peers. The first two groups have received major recent scholarly attention, but the twelve texts in the last group have been comparatively neglected, though a series of editions of the Middle English (ME) texts for the Early English Text Society in the late 19th century gave them a prominent identity as 'The English Charlemagne Romances'. From the 14th to the 16th century, verse romances of Charlemagne were composed and copied, and Caxton printed a prose life of Charles the Great as well as the Morte Darthur, but while Arthurian themes persisted in English literature and culture, those of Charlemagne did not. This might seem explicable if he is viewed as the national hero of the French. Yet, to the puzzlement of critics, the production of most English Charlemagne texts coincided with the Hundred Years' War. Is it significant, therefore, that the original French texts already existed in Anglo-Norman (AN) form? In what sense might Charlemagne have had an established insular identity? The aim of the Charlemagne in England project is to explore this insular literary tradition with equal focus on the AN and the ME texts, examining the textual relations between them and the correspondences in narrative form and generic expectations. It assesses the evidence for their audiences and reception in a multilingual society, and for their contemporary cultural and political significance. The central conflict represented, between Christians and Saracens, offers parallels to international crusading interests in the earlier AN period, and in the 14th and 15th centuries mirrors the perceived threat to western security from the Ottoman Turks. The prominence in so many of the texts of the motif of the chivalrous Saracen indicates, through the fantasy of conversion, a desire for engagement with the eastern Other. This complex reflection of cultural and political concerns in medieval England has some resonances for contemporary Britain.Further investigation is needed of the religious element in the insular Charlemagne tradition. The emphasis in early French works on recaptured Passion relics, specifically related to pilgrimage sites, is modified in AN and ME texts for different purposes. The strong catechetical feature in many of the texts may relate to the concerns of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which combined a programme of pastoral reform and education with the promotion of crusade to retake Jerusalem, both reflected in Charlemagne texts. Aspects of piety in the ME texts have been attributed to 'clerical authorship', and this too needs investigation in relation to lay piety.This is a timely project - it benefits from the work of the French of Medieval England programme (York) and the Multilingualism project (Bristol). It will stimulate fuller critical attention to the AN texts. Dr Ailes is completing an edition of the Egerton MS La Destruction de Rome and Fierenbras, and proposes that a PhD student edit the independent Hanover MS text. Equally, the project will encourage overdue new editions of the ME works, for while The Siege of Melayne and Rauf Coil3ear - both unique texts with no known source - have been edited more than once, the eight separate verse texts based on Fierabras, Otinel, and the Chanson de Roland await thorough scholarly attention. An indication of what can be done is provided by Mrs Hardman's study of the ME Roland fragment, informed by Duggan's recent critical edition of the French Roland corpus, and a PhD student will build on this work, investigating the tradition of Roncevaux in medieval Britain. This is a considerable, coherent project in itself and also the exemplar for a larger collaborative project on an international scale to explore the tradition anew in other languages and cultures: 'Chalemagne in Europe'.