Reimagining the Past in the Borderlands of Medieval England and Wales [Paperback]

This study demonstrates the emergence of a particular brand of Welsh marcher literature interested in succession, land rights, and the narrative scope of Geoffrey of Monmouth, which had an enduring impact on late medieval thought.Challenging the standard view that England emerged as a dominant power and Wales faded into obscurity after Edward I's conquest in 1282, this book considers how Welsh (and British) history became an enduringly potent instrument of political power in the late Middle Ages. Brought into the broader stream of political consciousness by major baronial families from the March (the borderlands between England and Wales), this inventive history generated a new brand of literature interested in succession, land rights, and the origins of imperial power, as imagined by Geoffrey of Monmouth. These marcher families leveraged their ancestral, political, and ideological ties to Wales in order to strengthen their political power, both regionally and nationally, through the patronage of historical and genealogical texts that reimagined the Welsh past on their terms. In doing so, they brought ideas of Welsh history to a wider audience than previously recognized and came to have a profound effect on late medieval thought about empire, monarchy, and succession.Introduction1. Rewriting Geoffrey of Monmouth2. Royal Aspirations3. Ancestral Memory4. Romance and Identity5. Elegies for Welsh PrincesConclusionGeorgia Henley,Assistant Professor of English, Saint Anselm CollegeGeorgia Henley is an Assistant Professor of English at Saint Anselm College, a Senior Fellow in the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, and an Associate of the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. A thoroughly intelligent work, it fills a significant gap in the historiography of medieval Wales, and in large measure creates a place in that of medieval England. ...this is an important volume, which deserves a wide audience. -- Dal#O