In 'England in Europe', Elizabeth Tyler focuses on two histories: the 'Encomium Emmae Reginae', written for Emma the wife of the Aethelred II and Cnut, and 'The Life of King Edward', written for Edith the wife of Edward the Confessor.
Tyler offers a bold literary and historical analysis of both texts and reveals how the two queens actively engaged in the patronage of history-writing and poetry to exercise their royal authority. Tyler's innovative combination of attention to intertextuality and regard for social networks emphasizes the role of women at the centre of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman court literature. In doing so, she argues that both Emma and Edith's negotiation of conquests and factionalism created powerful models of queenly patronage that were subsequently adopted by individuals such as Queen Margaret of Scotland, Countess Adela of Blois, Queen Edith/Matilda, and Queen Adeliza. England in Europe sheds new lighton the connections between English, French, and Flemish history-writing and poetry and illustrates the key role Anglo-Saxon literary culture played in European literature long after 1066.
Author(s): Elizabeth M. Tyler
Series: Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series, 24
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 458
Note on Translations and Referencing ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of Abbreviations xv
Geneaological Table xvii
Introduction 3
1. Vernacular Foundations 20
2. Fictions of Family: The 'Encomium Emmae reginae' and Virgil’s 'Aeneid' 51
3. Talking about History: The 'Encomium Emmae reginae' and the Court of Harthacnut 101
4. The Politics of Allusion in Eleventh-Century England: Classical Poets and the 'Vita Ædwardi' 135
5. Reading through the Conquest 202
6. The Women of 1066 260
7. Edith Becomes Matilda 302
Conclusion: Endings and Beginnings 354
Bibliography 367
Index 415
