Department of English

In the following thesis, I use Roland and Vernagu, the Short English Metrical Chronicle, Richard Coeur de Lyon, and King of Tars, contextualized by modern medievalisms, 19th and 20th century American medievalism, a brief exploration of law and history in the years surrounding the writing of the Auchinleck manuscript, and contemporary criticism, to examine the mutual pressures of past and present on understandings of one another. All four Middle English poems explore the connection between women’s power to disrupt or reimagine genealogy, and its relationship to crusading. Firstly, I explore contemporary medievalisms and the history of misappropriation of Medieval imagery in America. Secondly, I present historical and legal contexts to support my claims that Auchinleck responds to rising xenophobia in late Medieval England. Thirdly, set against critical arguments that the Auchinleck manuscript is an exercise in nation-making, I argue instead, that Roland and Vernagu, the Short English Metrical Chronicle, Richard Coeur de Lyon, and King of Tars use disruptions of genealogical conventions to question the power and the moral and spiritual rectitude of the Crusades. Finally, I ask how we can use a better understanding of the functions of race and genealogy in Auchinleck to inform current choices around Medieval representation.