16 - Romance in Historical Context

Summary

It is difficult to reconstruct and analyze the relationship between romances and their historical contexts, especially because of the power of modern myths about chivalry. There was no single age of chivalry that stretched from the eleventh or twelfth centuries to the fifteenth century and beyond, and there was no single code or ideal for how aristocrats should behave during that period. Societies and cultures inevitably changed over time, and there were important geographical variations across the different regions, lands, and linguistic contexts that today form Western Europe. Therefore, medieval romances must be considered against the specific historical contexts in which they were produced and read. This chapter focuses on examples and case studies drawn from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France and England, a period that has often been dismissed as one of chivalric decline. Yet radical changes in warfare, aristocratic class, and identity, as well as lay literacy and engagement with book ownership and writing created a dynamic context for the production and consumption of chivalric texts of all kinds.