Full Description
The Middle English romance of Richard Coeur de Lion transforms the historical Richard I of England—a Frenchman by upbringing, who spent only four months of his reign in England and who once joked that he would sell London to finance his Crusade if he could only find a buyer—into an aggressively English king. This act of historical revision involves the invention of several fantastic elements that give Richard the superhuman force necessary to unite the English nation and elevate it above all others. Springing from a supernatural birth and endowed with exceptional strength and an insatiable and transgressive appetite, Richard embodies a vision of triumphant Englishness that humiliates and decimates England's foes, whether they be French, German, or Muslim.
Katherine Terrell's faithful but poetic new modern English translation is fully annotated. Appendices include materials on cannibalism, the Crusades, and English national myths.
Contents
Appendix A: The Middle English Richard Coer de Lyon
1. Cassodorien's marriage
2. First episode of cannibalism
3. Richard's message to Saladin
4. King Richard at Jaffa
Appendix B: Calls to Crusade
1. Pope Urban II's Call for a Crusade (1095)
2. Pope Gregory VIII's Call for a Crusade (1187)
Appendix C: Cannibalism
1. Crusader Cannibalism
a. letter from leaders of crusade to Pope Urban II (1099)
b. Gesta Francorum (c.1100)
c. Raymond d'Aguilers (c. 1102)
d. Fulcher of Chartres (c. 1106)
e. Guibert of Nogent (c. 1109)
f. Ralph of Caen (c. 1118)
g. William of Malmesbury (c. 1127)
h. Oderic Vitalis (c. 1142)
i. William of Tyre (c. 1184)
j. Chanson d'Antioch (c. 1200)
2. Religious Cannibalism
a. Robert Mannyng, Handlyng Synne (early 14th c.)
b. On the Feast of Corpus Christi (late 14th c.)
3. Literary Cannibalism
a. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1138)
b. The Alliterative Morte Arthur (late 14th c.)
Appendix D: Richard I and the Third Crusade
1. Richard's Character
a. Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi (c. 1220)
2.Richard in Sicily
a. Roger of Howden: Siege of Messina (c. 1200)
b. Roger of Howden: Richard does penance (c. 1200)
3. Richard at Acre
a. Letter from Richard (1191)
b. Richard of Devizes (c. 1192)
c. Two accounts of the killing of hostages 1. Bah?' al-D?n Ibn Shadd?d (c. 1198-1215)
2. Ambroise (c. 1194-99)
4. Richard at Jaffa
a. Letter of Richard I (1 October, 1191)
b. Richard of Devizes (c. 1192)
c. Gift of a horse: Conquest of Jerusalem (mid-13th c.)
Appendix E: National and Family Legends
1. Demonic Ancestry: Gerald of Wales (c. 1216-23)
2. Eleanor of Aquitaine a. John of Salisbury (c. 1164)
b. Walter Map (1181-92)
c. William of Tyre (1184)
d. Richard of Devizes (c. 1192)
e. Gerald of Wales (c. 1216-23)
f. A Thirteenth-Century Minstrel's Chronicle (c. 1260)
g. French Chronicle of London (early 14th c.)
3. Englishmen with Tails
a. Richard of Devizes (c. 1192)
b. Layamon's Brut (c. 1205)
