The first gendered prose debate in a European vernacular, Le Bestiaire d'amour and subsequent Response constitute a clash of opposites: a medieval chancellor's erotic bestiary to a woman is countered by the woman's passionate protest against the cleric's misogynistic presuppositions. Jeanette Beer presents a close, linear reading of the two literary texts, examining the context that led to the love-bestiary's production in the thirteenth century, especially an influential version of the Physiologus by Pierre de Beauvais, the suggestiveness of the animal symbolism, and...
The first gendered prose debate in a European vernacular, Le Bestiaire d'amour and subsequent Response constitute a clash of opposite...
In Their Own Words examines early medieval history-writing through quotation practices in five works, each in some way the first of its kind. Nithard's Historiae de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii is extraordinary for its quotation of vernacular oaths, the first recorded piece of French. The Gesta Francorum is the first eye-witness account of the First Crusade. Geoffrey of Villehardouin's La Conquete de Constantinople, written by a leader and negotiator of the Fourth Crusade, and Robert de Clari's La Conquete de Constantinople, written by a...
In Their Own Words examines early medieval history-writing through quotation practices in five works, each in some way the first of its ki...