Abstract
Abstract This essay takes as its starting point the tension between the biblical role of Alexander the Great and his status as a non-Christian, and explores how medieval texts deal with this tension. Working outwards from selected theories of the secular that establish the term as a representative construct and describe its (modern) functions, the essay analyses the semantics of time and space in two twelfth-century Alexander romances: the German Vorauer Alexander and its manuscript transmission, and the French Roman d’Alexandre in the version of Alexandre de Paris. Through detailed analysis the essay tests the concept of ‘Heilsgeschichte’ (‘salvation history’), which emerges as both a productive yet also highly problematic critical terminology and interpretive matrix. The analysis also demonstrates that Alexander narratives (or episodes within them) defy straightforward categorisation as either religious or secular/worldly; the semantics of time and space in the texts create forms of meaning that cannot be grasped through idealised binaries of Christian and ‘worldly’ signification.
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