| Abstract | Paper -a:
Scholars have long been aware of the 'boom' in London book production of the early 15th century, when professionally produced copies of Chaucer, Gower and Langland proliferated and the canon of literature in English was born. But as this paper argues, the development of Middle English romance as a provincial literature - one removed from professional, metropolitan book production - is crucially important all the same. In fact, a number of late medieval romances offered celebrations of the role of the country landowner, one whose concerns with property rights and establishing family lineage foreground rural economic concerns. This paper will show that, based on the manuscript evidence, Middle English romances of the late 14th and 15th centuries were both produced by and circulated among the minor aristocracy - in provincial England, far from the cultural cachet we have come to associate with London literature of this period.
Paper -b:
Havelok the Dane is the Middle English romance which shows a central preoccupation with the ethnic integration between the English and the Danish. The scene in which Havelok revisits England implicitly evokes a particular moment of the English nation's past, in which the poet attempts to reject the conventional image of the Danish people and demonstrates his highly critical or revisionist stance towards English history. I argue that the effective use of the Middle English word 'here' and 'ferd', which has important implications in the Old English text, serves to deepen the understanding of the poem.
Paper -c:
Legend has it that Emma of Normandy and her daughter Gunnhild were falsely accused of adultery yet managed to exonerate themselves by means of an ordeal. These chronicle accounts have occasionally been discussed in relation to the romance Athelston, the ballad of 'Sir Aldingar', and other 'accused queen' narratives. However, little attention has been paid to Emma's and Gunnhild's ordeal stories in themselves, as well as to their possible sources, religious dimensions, and social functions. By filling this lack, my talk will develop a more complex understanding of their relevance to later literature, such as Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale.
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