Cultural traffic in the medieval Romance world

Abstract

This article introduces the issue by discussing ‘Romance Studies’ as an ideological construct and suggesting ways in which this might inform our understanding of cultural exchanges in the parts of medieval Europe where Romance languages were spoken. Through an examination of programmatic inaugural articles in two major academic journals in the field (Romania, established in 1872, and Cultura Neolatina, published in 1941), the authors show that any idea of a ‘Romance world’, of its value and of its boundaries (both internal and external) is contingent on historical and ideological factors, which in turn means that modern ideas about what may have constituted the ‘Romance world’ in the past are often inflected by modern political, cultural and ideological concerns. A further example is the ‘discovery’ of the kharjas of medieval Iberia in 1949.