Writing Regional Identities in Medieval England: From the "Gesta Herwardi" to "Richard Coer de Lyon by Emily Dolmans

Becoming English: Ronwenne’s Wassail, Language, and National Identity in the Middle English Prose Brut Margaret Lamont Ronewenne, þat was Engistes douʒter, come wiþ a coupe of golde in here honde, and knelede bifore þe kyng, and saide to him “Whatsaile!” and þe kyng wist nouʒt what it was forto mene, ne what he shulde ansuere, for-asmiche as himself ne none of his Britons ʒitte couþe none Englisshe speke, ne vnderstonde it, but speken þo þat same langage þat Britons ʒitte done. . . . and þat was þe ferst tyme þat “whatsaile” and “drynkehaile” come vp into þis lande; and fram þat tyme into this tyme it Haþ bene wel vsede. [Ronwenne, who was Hengist’s daughter, came with a cup of gold in her hand, and knelt before the king, and said to him, “wassail!” And the king did not know what it meant, nor what he should answer, because neither he nor any of his Britons could speak any English yet, nor understand it, but they spoke the same language that Britons [i.e. the Welsh] still do. . . . And that was the first time that “wassail” and “drink hail” [End Page 283] came into this land, and from that time unto this time it has been well used.]1 The Middle English prose Brut, the most widely circulating vernacular history of Britain in the Middle Ages, consistently presents England as a unified nation, one that arises out of the multiplicity of peoples in medieval Britain. This marks a departure from both its earlier sources and many of the histories contemporary with it, which present, instead, conflicting ethnic and regional identities within Britain. Recent scholarship has focused so heavily upon this counternational, regional tradition that it is easy to forget that there was also a strong current of “nationalistic” British historiography. I want to focus on this current here, with special emphasis on the prose Brut’s presentation of the Saxon2 arrival in Britain and on the figure of Ronwenne in particular. To speak of the English nation and English national identity in the medieval period is controversial. For the majority of scholars today, the nation is a strictly modern phenomenon, rising in concert with the Industrial Revolution and capitalism and dependent on these—the trappings of modernity—for its existence. These scholars argue that competing regional, religious, and familial identities posed a continual challenge to any unified national identity in the Middle Ages. In addition, there has been much recent work that rethinks the practice of studying the whole of medieval Britain rather than examining each region separately.3 Yet [End Page 284] there were discourses in medieval Britain that attempted to imagine the island of Britain as a single political and cultural entity. Responding to the presence of terms and ideas suggestive of the nation in the literature of the past, an increasing number of scholars within medieval studies have questioned the most dominant narrative of the origin of the nation and proposed the existence of medieval national identities.4 In my approach to nationhood and national identity in the later European Middle Ages, I take my cue from Bernard Guenée’s cogent summation: Did national consciousness exist in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages? That is an open question and badly phrased. It would be better to say: what did a European understand by “nation” at the end of the Middle Ages? In which State did the inhabitants see themselves as part of a nation? How intense was this “national” consciousness and what was it like? What vigour and cohesion did the State derive from this “national” sentiment?5 That medieval nations were different from our own modern ones—which themselves vary widely—is clear; but it is equally clear that there was some sense of what it meant to be English in the late medieval period. The modernist bias fails to account for a work like the Middle English prose Brut, with its persistent engagement with questions of cultural and ethnic identity, with nationhood both political and ideological, and, most importantly, with how to create a single, defining history of England that incorporates, nonetheless, its repeated colonization and ethnic...

REVIEWS that women lack rhetorical ability. Further, she like Puttenham defines covertness and dissemblance as politic strengths as well as feminine spheres of operation. Private, coterie circulation thus came to be privileged as ‘‘not the opposite of public circulation, but rather a strategy that anticipated and even promoted such circulation’’ (p. 188). Yet Elizabeth ’s writing lost favor in later centuries, aligning her with other women writers whose perpetual fading away and recovery marks the boundaries of tradition and enhances the luster of its central figures. Lost Property is an admirable project in several respects. It moves across the unfortunate gaps that specializations have constructed between the medieval and early modern periods, between history and literature , and between intellectual and material culture. Its chronological and disciplinary capaciousness are impressive. The arguments are clearly in view throughout, and specific texts by women writers receive valuable close readings. Specialists may object to an occasional claim—for example , that English literature before Chaucer was ‘‘prenational’’ (p. 6)— but the book as a whole demonstrates for specialists in all the fields it touches that undertaking an inclusive account of women’s writing over three centuries can yield substantial rewards. Susan Crane Rutgers University D. A. Trotter, ed. Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2000. Pp. x, 237. $63.00. Though its main audience will be historical linguists and sociolinguists specializing in medieval English, this excellent collection of essays is essential reading for Chaucerians and for anyone else who wishes to understand the diverse linguistic and literary culture of later medieval England. The volume consists of thirteen papers out of the twenty that were given at an international colloquium at the University of WalesAberystwyth in September 1997. The picture of a multilingual society that emerges is new and exciting. Not entirely new, of course, for students of medieval English literature have long been familiar with ample evidence testifying to the interpenetration of English, French, and Latin in later medieval English literary texts. Macaronic literary texts are dis435 ................. 9680$$ CH16 11-01-10 12:37:33 PS STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER cussed in some detail in only one of the essays in the volume (that of Herbert Schendl), but the collection as a whole contains much that is relevant for students of medieval English literature, macaronic and otherwise . The essays are without exception up-to-date and in some cases also highly innovative in their approach to the major languages of late medieval Britain. Taken together, they demonstrate in illuminating detail how Latin, French, English, and Welsh were used for various liturgical , governmental, legal, literary, and everyday purposes. The volume contains the following essays: Llino Beverly Smith, ‘‘The Welsh and English Languages in Late-Medieval Wales’’; Begoña Crespo, ‘‘Historical Background of Multilingualism and Its Impact on English’’; Andres M. Kristol, ‘‘L’Intellectuel ‘anglo-normand’ face à la pluralité des langues: le témoignage implicite du MS Oxford, Magdalen Lat. 188’’; Michael Richter, ‘‘Collecting Miracles Along the AngloWelsh Border in the Early Fourteenth Century’’; Paul Brand, ‘‘The Languages of the Law in Later Medieval England’’; Herbert Schendl, ‘‘Linguistic Aspects of Code-Switching in Medieval English Texts’’; Luis Iglesias-Rábade, ‘‘French Phrasal Power in Late Middle English: Some Evidence Concerning the Verb nime(n)/take(n)’’; Tony Hunt, ‘‘Code-Switching in Medical Texts’’; Laura Wright, ‘‘Bills, Accounts, Inventories: Everyday Trilingual Activities in the Business World of Later Medieval England’’; Frankwalt Möhren, ‘‘Onefold Lexicography for a Manifold Problem?’’; Edmund Weiner, ‘‘Medieval Multiculturalism and the Revision of the OED’’; Lisa Jefferson, ‘‘The Language and Vocabulary of the Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century Records of the Goldsmiths’ Company’’; and William Rothwell, ‘‘Aspects of Lexical and Morphosyntactical Mixing in the Languages of Medieval England .’’ A brief account of four representative essays in the volume follows. Herbert Schendl’s ‘‘Linguistic Aspects of Code-Switching in Medieval English Texts’’ is one of the two articles in the collection that deals with literary texts (see also Rothwell, below). Schendl’s discussion of macaronic poetry (lyrics, Piers Plowman, and drama) and macaronic sermons addresses questions such as the difference between ‘‘code switching ’’ (CS) and borrowing. He analyzes evidence for possible constraints on switches, and he presents a chart...

Having admired Nancy Appelbaum’s 1999 article in the HAHR, I looked forward to reading this monograph. I was not disappointed; Muddied Waters is a thoughtful and timely exploration of the constructed nature of regional identity, focused on the conflicting identities of the Riosucio district in Colombia’s western Andes. The book’s central premise is that regions are as much imagined communities as are nations, and that in the case of Colombia, race has played a central role in creating and articulating these community identities.The book examines the varied stories that Colombians and foreigners have told about the settlers and settlement of Riosucio. The Department of Caldas, in which Riosucio is located, has traditionally been described as “white,” having supposedly been colonized by enterprising migrants from the equally white province of Antioquia. Its hardworking inhabitants were said to contrast with the dissolute and unproductive former slaves of the Cauca Valley. Appelbaum shows very successfully that Caldas was, in fact, settled by immigrants from both Antioquia and the Cauca Valley and that the dominant narrative of the zone as “white” is as much construction as reality. She further charts the role of racial dichotomies in solidifying claims to departmental status. Thus, in the early twentieth century, inhabitants of the town of Manizales described themselves as constituting a distinct “cultural, economic, and ‘racial’ region” in order to justify their control over the newly created department of Caldas (p. 144). The residents of Riosucio itself have described their town variously as “white” and “mestizo” in order to differentiate it from the “black” Cauca Valley and “white” Manizales. Alternative identities were articulated by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages and resguardos, who came to describe themselves as indigenous or black and who on occasion insisted that Riosuceño identity be adapted to include them as well. Appelbaum shows that none of these identities are historically or geographically inevitable, but they nonetheless played important roles in the formation of a sense of regional identity. History, Appelbaum argues, shapes geography as much as geography shapes history.The book does an excellent job at analyzing local and regional histories as constituent elements of the creation of local and regional identities. Lurking behind these identities is the specter of party politics. Appelbaum makes it clear that political conflicts played an important role in determining the affiliations and schisms between individuals and locales, but the nature of political affiliation itself is not a major focus of discussion. We are told that this or that region became known as “liberal” or “conservative,” but the beliefs behind these political identities are not explored in any detail. Instead, it is suggested that “identifying with a place increasingly implied identifying with a specific political party or faction” (p. 99), as if, for individuals, regional identity preceded political identity. This book has not advanced my understanding of how Colombians came to identify with particular political parties, but then that is not its central purpose. The volume ends with some observations about the vitality of regional identities in contemporary Colombia, in contrast to the rachitic nature of national identity. Overall, this careful study both sheds light on the interconnectedness of racial and regional identities and also enriches our understanding of one of Colombia’s national myths—that of the Antioqueño colonization of the coffee zone.

Communal Interdependence in The Battle of Maldon

State institutions remain key actors in identity politics at both federal and regional levels. Nevertheless, both formal and informal institutions of civil society are becoming increasingly significant in the process of territorial identity formation. The concept of community boundaries can be regarded as a matter of civic responsibility for the inhabitants of a specific territory. The practices of environmental change, awareness of the importance of one’s own contribution to the development of the place of residence, and participation of residents in solving problems significant for the community are all related to the strengthening of regional or local identity. The objective of this study is to identify and analyze civic initiatives in the Moscow and St. Petersburg agglomerations that are related to the formation or strengthening of regional and local identity among residents. A series of case studies was conducted to examine instances where the urban community demonstrated a high capacity to influence regional identity from a grassroots level. . In the future, such initiatives can play an important role not only in preserving the symbolic foundations of regional and local identity, but also in creating new, unique meanings. The establishment of civil society institutions is frequently driven by the intention to address a specific urban issue. Examples of such triggers in the field of regional identity politics can be found in the preservation of historical and architectural heritage, the resolution of problems associated with urban improvement, and the resolution of cultural and environmental issues. The issue of developing new models of public communication between the state and civil actors engaged in identity politics in agglomerations, as well as creating non-conflict mechanisms for resolving disputes between state institutions and social movements, remains pertinent.

In the (late 16th – to late 18th – century) times of the First Republic of Poland, administrative division was mainly determined by Catholic Church structures and the borders of historical regions. In contrast, the period of the People’s Republic of Poland (in essence from World War II’s end through to 1989) saw primarily economic concepts of administrative division put in place. The onset of the era of Poland’s political transformation post-1989 thus minded scientists to attend to the need for a new territorial division underpinned by rational and objective assumptions. Regional identity- as a relevant aspect of historical conditioning - was certainly taken account of, as an important criterion vis-à-vis administrative division. R. Schattkowsky (1996), I. Geiss (1996) and T. Otremba (1997) all stressed the importance of historical conditioning to the transforming Central and Eastern European Countries. However, Poland’s latest administrative reform did not take much account of historical conditions as numerous borders of the (16) new voivodships were put in place. Lack of consistency can even be observed in the nomenclature of these newly-established administrative units, with a mixture of names deriving from historical regions and others simply referring to capital cities. In no way are the borders of the contemporary voivodships consistent with those of historical Polish regions (Miszczuk 2003; Zaborowski 2013; Nowak 2018.) The current administrative division of Poland is thus largely based upon imposed borders actually dividing previously-coherent regions. When set against those of the former regions, the borders of the new administrative units are seen to be characterised by a significant lack of harmony – all the more so given that the relict borders are still found to be apparent in public awareness, thanks to historical conditioning. In the (late 16th – to late 18th – century) times of the First Republic of Poland, administrative division was mainly determined by Catholic Church structures and the borders of historical regions. In contrast, the period of the People’s Republic of Poland (in essence from World War II’s end through to 1989) saw primarily economic concepts of administrative division put in place. The onset of the era of Poland’s political transformation post-1989 thus minded scientists to attend to the need for a new territorial division underpinned by rational and objective assumptions. Regional identity- as a relevant aspect of historical conditioning - was certainly taken account of, as an important criterion vis-à-vis administrative division. R. Schattkowsky (1996), I. Geiss (1996) and T. Otremba (1997) all stressed the importance of historical conditioning to the transforming Central and Eastern European Countries. However, Poland’s latest administrative reform did not take much account of historical conditions as numerous borders of the (16) new voivodships were put in place. Lack of consistency can even be observed in the nomenclature of these newly-established administrative units, with a mixture of names deriving from historical regions and others simply referring to capital cities. In no way are the borders of the contemporary voivodships consistent with those of historical Polish regions (Miszczuk 2003; Zaborowski 2013; Nowak 2018.) The current administrative division of Poland is thus largely based upon imposed borders actually dividing previously-coherent regions. When set against those of the former regions, the borders of the new administrative units are seen to be characterised by a significant lack of harmony – all the more so given that the relict borders are still found to be apparent in public awareness, thanks to historical conditioning.

The period after the Norman Conquest saw a dramatic reassessment of what it meant to be English, owing to both the advent of Anglo-Norman rule and increased interaction with other cultures through trade, travel, migration, and war. While cultural contact is often thought to consolidate national identity, this book proposes that these encounters prompted the formation of intercultural regional identities. Because of these different cultural influences, the meaning of English identity varied from region to region, and became rooted in the land, its history, and its stories. Using romances and histories from England's multilingual literary milieu, including the Gesta Herewardi, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, and Richard Coer de Lyon, this study examines some of England's contact zones and how they influence understandings of English identities during the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Moving from local identity in Ely, to the transcultural regions of Lincolnshire and the Welsh Marches, and finally investigating England as a border region from a global perspective, this book examines the diversity of Englishness, the effects of cultural contact on identity, and how English writers imagined their place in the world.

The article discusses the transformation of regional identity – both “identity of region” and “regional identity of people” – of partly deinstitutionalized Bohemia and Moravia in Czechia. It aims to understand better the role of “new” regional identities in the transformation of “old”/historical regional identities. A questionnaire survey with 454 inhabitants of the Bohemian-Moravian borderland revealed the crucial impact of the “new” administrative regions, not respecting historical boundaries, in the transformation of the “old”/historical regions’ territorial shape. This is connected with a change in regional identity of people. The names of “new” regions play a crucial role here, but their catchment areas are also important. The regional identity of people can be seen as another substantial institution reproducing historical regions since people’s (non-)identification with historical regions contributes to the transformation of these regions‘ identity, too. The results also show that the Czech Lands still exist as perceptual regions in people’s consciousness and are important for the identification of many people and regional activism alike.

As the Communist and Congress Parties continue their downfall in West Bengal, two parties relying heavily on identity politics are entrenching their positions as the main political forces of the state: the Trinamool Congress with its pro-Bengali discourse and the Bharatiya Janata Party with its pro-Hindu discourse. Yet, we know little about how the political mobilization of these different regional and religious identities interact in potentially conflicting manners and inform political choices, especially among groups and individuals who identify with both. This paper interrogates the relationship between regional identity, religious identity and political opinions in the state of West Bengal. Backing its conclusions with the results of a qualitative study investigating multi-ethnic Hindu religious organizations, this article argues that, although strongly identifying as a Hindu favours the endorsement of Hindu Nationalist political ideas, identification to the Bengali identity is a stronger determinant of one’s vote.

Studies of seventeenth-century Britain have increasingly recognised a multiplicity of centrifugal and centripetal identities at play. The early Quaker movement witnessed a dramatic convergence of such factors. Its founders came predominantly from the north and midlands of England, and they initially asserted themselves as such. This seemed to bely their theological universalism, and threaten national disintegration. Members appeared revulsed by London upon spreading south, but displayed a more accommodating attitude upon settling, and relaxed their former attitudes regarding region. Such a movement highlights the evolving relationship between religious thought and regional identity. Early Quakerism moved from provincial attachment to an increasingly national and universal register, but the relationship between these modes was continually negotiated throughout the century, and it provides a valuable case study for both historians of regional, religious, and political identity.

The article highlights the results of empirically studied regional differences in the political identification of students with an objective of identifying probable problems and resources for re-adaptation and consolidation of the youth community in the post-war period. Regional political identity was considered in four realms: as a process, as a result of identification, as a mechanism of interactions and as a factor of political activity. Indicators of the regional political identity of youth were determined: political autonomy/dependence; inclusiveness/exclusivity; nominality/reality; value-meaning basis of identification; political competence; political preferences. The data obtained form the psychosemantic study on regional specifics of students' political identification were analysed. The comparative analysis was carried out with Student's t-test. Data obtained from the sample as a whole were compared with regional arrays, after which the latter were compared among themselves. The widest differences were found between the all-Ukrainian array of data and the array of the central region. In particular, the youth form the central region were significantly less likely to identify themselves with their regional community and considered regional identity more important to them; they were more critical as for regional political elites; they were not ready most often to give up rights and freedoms for the sake of order and stability, as well as and the policy of expanding free zones in all spheres of life for the sake of established traditions and continuity. At the same time, the array of the western region differed from the data for the country as a whole in only one parameter: students from the western region more often believed that the values and motives for participation in politics of people from their region were significantly different than those in the rest of the regions. The parameters of young people's political identification differed the least in such pairs of regions: centre-south, east-north and south-west. The majority of reliable differences were found between the data from the central vs eastern and eastern vs western regions. Based on the analysis results, preliminary conclusions were made regarding the prospects of re-adaptation and post-war consolidation of youth from different regions.

ESSAY Nothing Must Be Lost: Regional Identity and Dialogue in the Works of Edwina Pendarvis and Llewellyn McKernan Marianne Worthington In a pluralistic society like ours, where we are urged to recognize and tolerate various perspectives and aesthetic sensibilities, so that we can participate in an open and inclusive society, the critic often finds herself in a bind the minute she starts to label or categorize her text under study. Thus, how do we justify talking about "women's poetry" or "Appalachian poetry" or even about "two Appalachian women poets from West Virginia" without alienating and excluding? Perhaps we can't, but I believe that one benefit of adopting a pluralistic viewpoint is that in calling attention to differing perspectives and worldviews we help to shrink the margins of society. Thus, knowing about women's poetry, or Appalachian poetry, or even about two Appalachian women poets from West Virginia assumes importance and increases the status of those perspectives. I hope to achieve that goal in this essay by illustrating how the poetry of West Virginian women poets Edwina Pendarvis and Llewellyn McKernan forges a regional and communal identity, fosters a dialogue with readers, and fashions a shared life, history and culture of the Appalachian region. I want to begin by introducing Pendarvis's poem "Losses," from which I took the title of this essay: I touched the Pacific Ocean, a young man said, and his mother, dizzy at the distance between them, smiled into the phone, remembering how, when he was five— towheaded, wide-eyed, he wouldn't throw anything out: no broken toys, not the boxes they came in, no outgrown clothes, nor dead batteries, no Coke cans or candy wrappers. 7 Nothing of his could go. Everything must be stacked up, packed up, stuck in bags, tucked in drawers, safely put away and kept close by— nothing must be lost. (90) This poem illustrates several of the concepts I want to discuss in the poetry of Pendarvis and Llewellyn McKernan, namely how those poems engage the reader by forming connections, rescuing the lost, and coupling a personal and collective history. To frame my remarks, I'm borrowing a concept from contemporary poet and critic Alicia Ostriker's essay, "The Nerves of a Midwife: Contemporary American Women's Poetry," which she expands in her later text, Stealing the Language: The Emergence ofWomen's Poetry in America. Ostriker outlines four elements central to women's poetry: first, the quest for autonomous self-definition; that is, defining oneself as authentically as possible from within; second, the intimate treatment of the body, particularly to tell the truth about anatomy; third, the release of anger, or what poet Eleanor Wilner calls the protest against the public silence so long imposed on generations ofwomen. Wilner believes "The Great Silence," a huge reservoir of unspoken inner life of the female past, is what drives and energizes most contemporary poetryby women (xxv). While all these elements are found in the poetry of Pendarvis and McKernan, the concept I want to use in this analysis is what Ostriker names as the fourth component of women's poetry: "the contact imperative" ("The Nerves" 322). The contact imperative are those elements in a poem which cultivate mutuality, continuity, identification, touch, and the union between generations. The contact imperative also imposes an inescapable intimacy on the reader. This notion of the contact imperative is not unlike what language scholars identify as a feminine mode of discourse. Those who have studied the language uses of men and women generally agree that because males and females tend to be socialized into distinct speech communities, they learn different language rules. While men have learned to use language to exert control, preserve independence, to entertain, and to solve problems, linguists have found that women tend to use language as the primary means for establishing and maintaining relationships with others. Women like to match experiences, and their language use tends to foster connections, support, closeness, equality, understanding and invitation (Wood 125-30). This is not to say that all women and only women speak and write in a diametrical or contrary way to men. Nor am I advocating to privilege women poets over men, or...

III The Central Middle Ages (900–1200)

This research examines the influence of political identity, especially religious, kinship and regional identity, on the political behavior of kiai in Tasikmalaya City ahead of the General Election. Data was obtained through surveys and interviews with respondents from kiai circles in the area. The research results show that religious identity has the greatest influence on kiai's political behavior, followed by kinship identity, and then regional identity. Simultaneously, these three political identity factors also have a significant influence on kiai's political behavior. This research provides a better understanding of the complexity of identity politics in the context of kiai in Tasikmalaya City.

Divorce in Medieval England is intended to reorient scholarly perceptions concerning divorce in the medieval period. Divorce, as we think of it today, is usually considered to be a modern invention. This book challenges that viewpoint, documenting the many and varied uses of divorce in the medieval period and highlighting the fact that couples regularly divorced on the grounds of spousal incompatibility. Because the medieval church was determined to uphold the sacrament of marriage whenever possible, divorce in the medieval period was a much more complicated process than it is today. Thus, this book steps readers through the process of divorce, including: grounds for divorce, the fundamentals of the process, the risks involved, financial implications for wives who were legally disabled thanks to the rules of coverture, the custody and support of children, and finally, what happens after a divorce. Readers will gain a much greater appreciation of marriage and women’s position in later medieval England.