IMC 2023: Sessions
Session 540: 'The Water Is Wide': Creating, Imagining, and Navigating Water in Old English and Old French Texts
Tuesday 4 July 2023, 09.00-10.30
| Organiser: | Leonie V. Hicks, Department of History and American Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Rebecca Tyson, Department of History, University of Bristol |
| Paper 540-a | The Wave-Tossed Course of Time: Deep Seas as Generative Space in Early Medieval England (Language: English) Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Language and Literature - Old English, Maritime and Naval Studies |
| Paper 540-b | Watery Crossings: Imaginative and Practical Voyages across the British Archipelago (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Geography and Settlement Studies, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Maritime and Naval Studies |
| Paper 540-c | Wace, Water, and Movement (Language: English) Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - French or Occitan |
| Abstract | This session examines various bodies of water in Old English and Old French texts including poetry, chronicles, romances, and charter bounds, alongside landscape evidence, in order to examine how ideas and representations regarding the significance of water were created, imagined, and navigated in early-central medieval Britain and Normandy. Paper -a focuses on the deep sea, Paper-b on representations of maritime travel and Paper -c on water as an actor in the wider landscape. All papers consider the link between the mental constructs and physical experiences of water, and the theoretical frameworks medievalists can use to untangle these concepts. |