Francophone literary perceptions of Celtic space in Britain, 1100-1300

Abstract

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a period characterised by Anglo-Norman political intervention, expansion, and settlement in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. In this thesis, I argue that Francophone literary texts, previously neglected by historians, offer a new lens through which to explore the relationship between England and its neighbours in Britain during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Although select French texts such as Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis and L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal have garnered attention from historians, my thesis delves deeper into ‘fictional’ narratives, applying an ecocritical approach to closely examine the representation of the landscapes of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in the texts. This provides a window both into contemporary Francophone knowledge of Celtic spaces, and into how they existed within the thought world of the Francophone elite. The first section of this thesis, ‘Geographical knowledge and localisation’, examines how the narratives of Fouke le Fitz Waryn, the Roman de Fergus, and the lais of Desiré and Melion are embedded in local geographies, demonstrating precise knowledge of place names and topography. In ‘Wilderness and adventure’, I explore how the practical realities of Celtic geographies might interact with their imaginative resonance as spaces for adventures and encounters with the unknown in the lai of Desiré, the Gesta Herewardi, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, Les Merveilles de Rigomer, and Sone de Nansay. Finally, in ‘Alternative visions of space’, I examine how the Roman de la Manekine and the Roman de Horn present Celtic spaces in a different manner to those explored in the two previous sections, offering reimaginings of Ireland and Scotland that serve authorial aims and reflect the places and times of composition of the texts. My thesis clearly demonstrates the value of Francophone literary texts as windows into the mental world of the Francophone elite, and their knowledge, ideas, and anxieties. By concentrating on themes of landscape and geography, I use the language of the Francophone elite to explore how they thought about the Celtic spaces of Britain during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in a practical, political, and imaginative sense.