IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 1603: Mourning and Remembrance, II: Grief and Memory in Medieval Literature

Thursday 7 July 2022, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:	Lena Wahlgren-Smith, Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Culture, University of Southampton
Moderator/Chair:	Christian Steer, Department of History, University of York
Paper 1603-a	'Tearful, troubled and full of anguish': Grief in the History of William Marshal (Language: English) Lili Scott Lintott, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Social History
Paper 1603-b	Wyf hen, Wyf unic: Grief for Children in Canu Llywarch Hen (Language: English) Eleanor Smith, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge Index terms: Language and Literature - Celtic, Social History
Paper 1603-c	Tombs as Repositories of Memory: The Monument of Gillion de Trazegnies (Language: English) Sanne Frequin, Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies Amsterdam, Universiteit van Amsterdam Index terms: Art History - Painting, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Lay Piety
Abstract	This session focuses on the expression of grief and on commemoration in medieval literature. The first paper uses the portrayal of grief in the History of William Marshall as a point of departure for a discussion of how grief was understood in England during the High Middle Ages. The second paper contrasts the fictionalised mourning of Llywarch the Old in the early medieval Welsh poem Canu Llywarch Hen with the real mourning of later medieval Welsh poets writing marwnadau - formal laments - for their own dead sons. The final paper discusses tombs as repositories of memory, using the Roman de Gillion de Trazegnies and its manuscript illustrations as a case study.