King Of Tars Research Articles

Teaching about the Discourse of Otherness in "The King of Tars"

The present article is a teaching guide for a class or a series of classes about the discourse of Otherness, as employed in the medieval romance The King of Tars. It proposes an in-class discussion that reveals how the romance tells a story of an encounter with the Other and how it perpetuates the discourse of Otherness while doing that. Various strategies used in the tale to perform Othering are analyzed. These include the presentation of Muslims as a dehumanized outgroup, with its main representative – the Sultan – being portrayed as a beast missing the rational part of the soul; contrasting the said presentation with that of the rational Christian Princess; employing and modifying the motif of monstrous birth to define the Sultan further through his failure as a father and through the absence of what the tale sees as the essence of the human soul; setting the transforming power of the dominant group’s rituals against the ineffective, empty rituals of the out-group; the use of the rhetoric of proximity, i.e. pointing to certain similarities between “us” and “them” only to make the differences even more pronounced. The analysis of these strategies helps to recognize that while the characters within the represented world of the romance other Muslims through their actions, the narrator does the same through the use of the discourse of Otherness. The article is also devised as a review of criticism on the romance in the context of Otherness, so it can be useful as a starting point for those willing to research this matter further.

Вхождение армянской легенды в европейскую историко-литературную традицию

Many European chroniclers included in their narrations the legend of the Tatar Khan and the Armenian king’s daughter, who gave birth to a monster, which, as a result of baptism, turned into a beautiful baby, prompting the Khan and the people to accept Christianity. Mainly the same elements constitute the plot of the legend. However, their correlations and combinations change in individual chronicles and annals, as well as in the chivalric novel "The King of Tars". The narrative is often augmented with supplementary events, such as the capture of Jerusalem by the Tatar Khan, the expulsion of the Saracens from Jerusalem, the capture of Aleppo, Damascus, and other cities by the combined armies of the Tatars, Armenian and Georgian kings. The main source of such additions, brought into the plot, was the well-known history by Hethum "La Flor des es-toires de la Terre d'Orient", to which Giovanni Villani refers as well, recommending the book by monk Hayton, written upon the commission of Pope Clement V, to get acquainted with the deeds of the Mongols. As for the Armenian trace of this legend in the European historical-literary tradition, there are obvious parallels between the plots of the first branch of "David of Sassoun" and the legends, concerning the story of the Armenian king's daughter, given in marriage to a non-Christian, which circulated in the West. Veselovsky's excerpt, cited from an Armenian folk poem called "The Lament of Susanna", which he had taken from the collection of "Armenian Popular Songs" published by G. Alishan, is fully consistent with the first part of the legend spread in the West.

Denying Sameness, Making Race: Medieval Anti-Judaism

Denying Sameness, Making Race: Medieval Anti-Judaism

The Mongol Princess of Tars: Global Relations and Racial Formation in The King of Tars (c. 1330)

ABSTRACTThis essay examines the racial formation of Mongols in The King of Tars, a fourteenth-century Middle English romance, in relation to the Syrian geopolitics and Latin European historiographical records that inspired its composition. Because the romance features overt instances of racialized physiognomy, such as skin color changing across confessional lines and the normalization of whiteness for the Christian body, scholars have overlooked how race operates in the text in less visible ways. Critical interest has largely focused on the familiar, oppositional binary of Christendom versus Islam that characterizes the crusade romance genre, thus emphasizing how the text demonstrates a racialization of religion in the period. However, by analyzing the romance in relation to its historiographical source material, this essay reveals how the less visible, yet still present, Mongol figure — represented principally through the Princess of Tars — operates within a nexus of eastern alterity that drives the colonialist fantasy of Muslim conversion and genocide. The essay coins the term “exotic ally” to describe this particular racial construction of Mongols and capture how a romance that is often read through a white-black and Christian-Muslim binary of racial-religious conflict is engaged in a much more complex process of racial thinking.

Douce 228, Richard Coeur de Lion, and The King of Tars

Douce 228, Richard Coeur de Lion, and The King of Tars

Are the ‘monstrous races’ races?

This essay considers the use of the modern term ‘monstrous races’ to describe the wondrous beings found in Herodotus, Pliny, The Wonders of the East, world maps and elsewhere. Considering the etymology and history of the word ‘race,’ a series of modern definitions are tested out on figures found in the images and texts of the British Library MS Harley 3954 Book of John Mandeville, the BL MS Tiberius B.v Marvels of the East, The King of Tars, Cursor Mundi and other medieval sources. The essay questions whether the term, often rooted in modern notions about the fixity of divisions of peoples, is helpful for describing medieval concepts. The essay further explores how the term ‘monstrous races’ reifies the culture of the medieval authors and illuminators – often in practice ‘white’ European Christians – as a ‘race,’ and implicitly, if unintentionally, elevates this group as normative.

Making whiteness matter: The King of Tars

While many critics read the King of Tars’s white bodies as the a priori ground of the text’s racial-religious identities, I maintain that the narrative’s whiteness is more malleable and unstable. This interpretation attends to the historical and cultural logic that gave rise to The King of Tars’s iteration of racialized bodies. Considering historical connections between this narrative and Christian exchanges with Mongols in the decades before the text’s composition suggests that the narrative recuperates distinct racial hierarchies precisely where they were indeterminate historically, while retaining traces of that racial plasticity in its fantasized white bodies. The text materializes the period’s desires to expand Christendom, even figuratively, and to reify unstable racial identifications instantiated by conversions real and fantasized. Illuminating the traces of a constructed white racial body draws whiteness into the text’s production of racial-religious identities – via ideological and performative plasticity – that heretofore have adhered exclusively to readings of black bodies in the narrative.

‘Boþe lim and liþ it is forlorn’: Unnatural children in The King of Tars, Chevalere Assigne, and Sir Gowther

‘Boþe lim and liþ it is forlorn’: Unnatural children in The King of Tars, Chevalere Assigne, and Sir Gowther

Black Metaphors in the King of Tars

In the late Middle Ages, Christian conversion could wash a black person’s skin white—or at least that is what happens when a black sultan converts to Christianity in the late thirteenthor early fourteenth-century English romance the King of Tars. The remarkable transformation, however, is not what it might at first appear to be. While some critics have taken the conversion as the conflation of racial and religious identity, the change is in fact not indicative of a cut-and-dried relationship between Christian identity and the normativity of European whiteness.1 The connection between color and religious identity in the late Middle Ages is rather more complex, and the King of Tars in particular exploits the normativity of physical whiteness in western Christendom when it advocates the necessity of metaphorical, or spiritual, “blackness” in Christians. In the King of Tars, the physical reality of skin-color difference gives way to the metaphor of color that facilitates Christendom’s necessary “blackness.” The King of Tars didactically navigates the line between reality and metaphor in order to turn its reader’s attention from the Christian mission to convert others, a defining feature of late medieval Crusades ideology, to the project of examining and maintaining his own spiritual well-being.

Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts (review)

Reviewed by: Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts Nicole Clifton Rhiannon Purdie and Michael Cichon, eds., Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011. Pp. ix, 195. ISBN: 978–1–84384–260–6. $90. A collection of thirteen papers from the eleventh ‘Romance in Medieval Britain’ conference, this volume focuses on the medieval contexts shaping the production of medieval romance. First, in ‘The Pleasure of Popular Romance: A Prefatory Essay,’ Derek Pearsall wittily and gracefully retracts his 1965 article, ‘The Development of Middle English Romance.’ Pearsall now admits to his own delight in the repetitious elements of Middle English romance. ‘The leap of understanding is in realising that in asking for the wrong things…one misses all that is particular to the pleasure of romance, all those elements that have to do originally and essentially with oral presentation’ (11). Repetitive elements in the Middle English popular romances create a bond between audience and narrative, reinforcing communal values. Pearsall’s essay must become a classic; together, this and the 1965 piece illustrate the changes in attitudes toward and treatment of Middle English romance over the past half-century. Two essays discuss proverbial discourse, both folk and learned, in northern romances. In ‘Representations of Peasant Speech: Some Literary and Social Contexts for The Taill of Rauf Coilyear,’ Nancy Mason Bradbury argues for the Dialogue of Solomon and Marcolf as an analogue to Rauf Coilyear. Unlike chronicle portrayals of common men sounding like animals, Bradbury’s texts present clever, articulate peasants using proverbs and traditional wisdom to vanquish kings. In ‘“As ye have brewd, so shal ye drink”: the Proverbial Context of Eger and Grime,’ Michael Cichon studies traditional comparisons, proverbs to do with women, and proverbs about reciprocity. Nicholas Perkins, in ‘Ekphrasis and Narrative in Emaré and Sir Eglamour of Artois,’ argues that the protagonists both act within exchange networks and are themselves objects of exchange, like the rich fabrics, weapons, and other courtly items in these texts. The descriptions, rather than interrupting the narrative, are integral to it, encouraging the audience to interact imaginatively with the romance and its materiality. Marianne Ailes queries traditional generic distinctions in ‘What’s in a Name? Anglo-Norman Romances or Chansons de Geste?’ Ailes argues that despite a few romance elements, the Anglo-Norman versions of Otinel, La Destruction de Rome, and the Roman de Horn are chansons de geste; the English translations become known as ‘romance’ because derived from French. Phillipa Hardman works with a related text in ‘Roland in England: Contextualixing the Middle English Song of Roland.’ She concludes that it is an ‘innovative treatment’ transforming the geste into Middle English romance, which leans toward black-and-white contrasts and piety (104). Another essay including Charlemagne material is Siobhain Bly Calkin’s study of ‘Romance Baptisms and Theological Contexts in The King of Tars and Sir Ferumbras.’ Both texts ‘explore extremely complex ideas about what makes a body Christian’ (119). In ‘“For Goddes loue, sir, mercy!”: Recontextualising the Modern Critical Text of Floris and Blancheflor,’ John Geck argues that ambiguity is an important theme in all four manuscript versions of Floris, while the Auchinleck manuscript extends this [End Page 110] by ‘mitigating’ the ‘religious ambiguity’ of the text (77). Robert Rouse also studies an Auchinleck text in ‘Walking (between) the Lines: Romance as Itinerary/Map.’ He uses maps and merchants to contextualize geographical movement in Guy of Warwick. Guy also features in Yin Liu’s ‘Romances of Continuity in the English Rous Roll,’ which asks whether John Rous thought he was writing romance or history in his armorial rolls. Liu concludes that late-medieval readers did not differentiate between the two, and that this means that romance ‘was directly relevant to immediate social and political concerns’ (159). Emily Wingfield likewise considers manuscript context in her essay, ‘“Ex Libris domini duncani / Campbell de glenwrquhay / miles’: The Buik of King Alexander the Conqueror in the Household of Sir Duncan Campbell, Seventh Laird of Glenorchy.’ Campbell owned two copies of Gilbert Hay’s work, whose flyleaves reveal a wide circle of readers; Campbell’s other books confirm the family as ‘significant early modern readers of medieval romance’ (174). Judith Weiss reconsiders ‘Modern and Medieval Views on Swooning...

The Case of Anger in The Siege of Milan and The King of Tars

Anger was an ambivalent emotion in the Middle Ages, oscillating between acceptance and condemnation in theological discourse. Initially defined as detrimental during the Carolingian era unless it was internally directed against one’s own sins, anger came to be rehabilitated in a context of Crusade, where zealous leaders were required to defend ecclesiastical interests on the battlefield. However, certain very specific conventions regulated its verbalization, thus permitting authors to either magnify or denounce the protagonists they portrayed according to how they framed the emotion. This paper offers a reading of The Siege of Milan and The King of Tars , two Middle English crusading romances, in light of these codes. A close look at the way anger is represented throughout the texts enables us to acquire a subtle and enriched understanding of two prominent issues inherent to the texts’ ideologies: the promotion of Christian devotion to the religious and military standards intrinsic to the Crusades in The Siege of Milan , and the importance of Christian expansion and incorporation in The King of Tars.

Pulp fictions of medieval England: essays in popular romance

Introduction - Nicola McDonald 1. Incorporation in the 'Siege of Melayne' - Suzanne Conklin Akbari 2. The twin demons of aristocratic society in 'Sir Gowther' - Alcuin Blamires 3. A, A and B: Coding same-sex union in 'Amis and Amiloun' - Sheila Delany 4. 'Sir Degrevant': What lovers want - Arlyn Diamond 5. Putting the pulp into fiction: The lump-child and its parents in 'The King of Tars' - Jane Gilbert 6. Eating people and the alimentary logic of 'Richard Coeur de Lion' - Nicola McDonald 7. 'The Siege of Jerusalem' and recuperative readings - Elisa Narin Van Court 8. Story line and story shape in 'Sir Percyvell of Gales Chretien de Troyes's Conte du Graal' - Ad Putter 9. Temporary virginity and the everyday body: 'Le Bone Florence of Rome' and bourgeois self-making' - Felicity Riddy 10. Romancing the East: Greeks and Saracens in 'Guy of Warwick' - Rebecca Wilcox

Studies in the Vernon Manuscript ed. by Derek Pearsall

REVIEWS worth pursuing, this brief book may not have been the proper place to pursue it. Finally, there is no clear principle determining which of the secondary studies cited in the notes are also cited in the bibliography (pp. 346--48). None of these matters will seriously mislead, much less distress, the intended readership of this book, but since that readership is certain to be large, such mistakes and misprints should be corrected in future printings. Recently experience and authoriry have combined to show us that there cannot be a "definitive" biography of any author, and Pearsall neither ex­ plicitly nor implicitly makes claim to such status for this critical biogra­ phy. But The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, as an acute, scholarly, well-written, informed work, will persuade readers to intelligent agreement and provoke in them fruitful disagreement. SUMNER FERRIS California Universiry of Pennsylvania DEREK PEARSALL, ed. Studies in the Vernon Manuscript. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990. Pp. xi, 238. $70.00. Of alle pe vertues pat per beone To suffre, hit is a ping of prys. (Vernon 118.7-8] A. I. Doyle's excellent facsimile edition makes the Vernon manuscript available to scholars around the world and should stimulate renewed study of it and of its companion manuscript, theSimeon.1 With Studies, Derek Pearsall provides essays on several important features of the Vernon. Studies is in two main sections. The first, "General Essays," begins with Doyle's "TheShaping of the Vernon andSimeon Manuscripts," a reprint­ ing, with additions and corrections, ofhis essay of 1974 ofthe same title.2 Then follow P. R. Robinson's "The Vernon Manuscript as a 'Coucher Book,"' Thorlac Turville-Petre's "The Relationship of the Vernon and 1 The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Eng. Poet.a.], intro. by A. I. Doyle (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987). 2 Originally published in Beryl Rowland, ed., Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour ofRossell Hope Robbim (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974) pp. 328-41. 241 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Clopton Manuscripts," N. F. Blake's "Vernon Manuscript: Contents and Organisation," and S. S. Hussey's "Implications of Choice and Arrange­ ment of Texts in Part 4." The second section, "Essays on Individual Texts or Groups ofTexts," has three subsections. The first, "Religious Texts," contains Thomas J. Heffer­ nan's, "Orthodoxies' Redux: The Northern Homily Cycle in the Vernon Manuscript and Its Textual Affiliations," Avril Henry's "'The Pater Noster in a table ypeynted' and Some Other Presentations of Doctrine in the Vernon Manuscript," Carol M. Meale's, "The Miracles of Our Lady: Con­ text and Interpretation," and C. W Marx's "The Middle English Verse 'lamentation of Mary to Saint Bernard' and the 'Quis Dabit."' While leading up to his main subject, Heffernan briefly introduces a topic worth further discussion: the "tumultuous" and "volatile" political, social, and religious world in which Vernon came to be and from whose threats and temptations its compiler(s) may have intended it to provide safe refuge. Henry shows that the Vernon's elaborately contrived Paternoster page, though "rigid and unimaginative" in its elements, leaves an effect that is "fluid, complex, and interesting." Since the fine colorplate that reproduces the page is not easy to read, a transcription would have been useful. The remaining subsections have just two essays each. "The 'Romances"' contains A. S. G. Edwards's "The Contexts of the Vernon Romances" and Karl Reichl's "The King o/Tars: Language and Textual Transmission." "The Vernon Refrain-Lyrics" contains John Burrow's "The Shape of the Vernon Refrain Lyrics" and John J. Thompson's "The Textual Background and Reputation of the Vernon Lyrics." Uncomfortable with the conventional classification ofRobert ofSicily, The King ofTars, andJoseph ofArimathea as "romances," Edwards explains how "in all three works the narrative exists wholly as a means of Christian edification." Without disputing that con­ clusion, Reichl--as his title promises--concentrates on traditional philo­ logical issues. Burrow notes in passing "the iqtellectualiry which distin­ guishes at least some of the Vernon poems." Rereading them while preparing this review reminded me that the dreary banaliry that had seemed to me characteristic of the Vernon lyrics does not extend to every poem. Still...

New Analogues to the "King of Tars"

New Analogues to the "King of Tars"

Trivet's Constance and the King of Tars

Trivet's Constance and the King of Tars