IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 138: Constructing Identities in Narratives of the First Crusade

Monday 4 July 2022, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Northern Network for the Study of the Crusades
Organiser:	Iain Dyson, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair:	Iain Dyson, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 138-a	'Mother of mercy, is this the end of Reynald?': Bordering on the Extreme in the Portrayal of Crusaders (Language: English) Carol Elizabeth Sweetenham, School of Modern Languages & Cultures, University of Warwick / Royal Holloway, University of London Index terms: Crusades, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Military History
Paper 138-b	Cannibalism as Spectacle in the Chanson d'Antioche (Language: English) Hannah MacKenzie, Institute for Medieval Studies University of Leeds Index terms: Crusades, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Military History
Paper 138-c	One of Us?: Human and Non-Human Categories of Belonging and Exclusion in the Chronicles and Chansons of the First Crusade (Language: English) Sini Kangas, School of Social Sciences & Humanities, University of Tampere Index terms: Crusades, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Language and Literature - Latin, Military History
Abstract	The first panel in a strand of three panels organised by the Northern Network for the Study of the Crusades focuses on the construction of identities in narratives of the First Crusade. Carol Sweetenham reflects on the borders between fiction and reality in laudatory depictions of two notoriously violent crusaders, Thomas of Marle and Raimbaut Creton. Hannah MacKenzie examines how responses to hunger and cannibalism in the Old French Crusade Cycle allow the morally ambiguous Tafurs to be tactically assimilated into the heroic ranks of the Franks, and Sini Kangas discusses the social, cultural and ideological factors that inform processes of inclusion and exclusion as they apply to both human and non-human participants of the First Crusade.