"Establishing justice and telling stories" : paradigms of norm transmission in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman and Old French literary and legal texts

French literature--To 1500--History and criticism;Anglo-Norman literature--History and criticism;Law and literature;Law, Medieval

Hitt, Cory ; Hudson, John ; Hudson, John

University:University of St Andrews

Department:History (School of)

关键词: French literature--To 1500--History and criticism;    Anglo-Norman literature--History and criticism;    Law and literature;    Law, Medieval;   

Others  :  https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/15627/CoryHittPhDThesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

来源: DR-NTU

【 摘 要 】

The texts that comprise the corpus of Old French and Anglo-Norman literature of thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries feature numerous portrayals of courtly life. The rulesof that life, as they are presented in the literature, are contradictory, fluid, and open tointerpretation. The tangle of courtly etiquette in Old French and Anglo-Normanliterature, however, possesses certain recognizable recurring elements. Theseelements form something approaching a corpus of normative behaviours,expectations, and roles. We might even say, as Gadi Algazi and Stephen D. Whitehave suggested, that medieval literature contains templates of various social and legalstrategies of which the reader could have availed himself. This thesis seeks to studythese norms and templates and how they are communicated. A detailed study of theways they are transmitted within each text, coupled with an examination of theircontent, reveals much about authorial voice and stylistic technique. This dual study ofform and content also illuminates the author’s understanding of honour, gender, thelaw, and justice.The literature also offers a glimpse into the psychology and strategy of themedieval legal process. This thesis seeks to build on this thematic connection betweenlegal and literary texts. I therefore compare paradigms of norm transmission not onlybetween individual literary texts, but also with paradigms in law books; specifically,the twelfth- and thirteenth-century coutumiers of Northern France, Glanvill, andBracton’s De Legibus. The law books are analysed from a stylistic, literary angle, andthe ideals of the “law book author” are proposed. Broadly, this thesis considers theprocess of storytelling, seeking to explain how legal texts tell the story of the lawalongside contemporary literary conteurs.