Illuminations Of The Roman De Troie And French Royal Dynastic Ambition 12601340 Thesis Elizabeth Morrison by Elizabeth Morrison 9780493661025, 0493661026 instant download after payment.

Between 1260 and 1340, the Roman de Troie experienced a surge of popularity in France, over 100 years after Benoit de Sainte-Maure first wrote it. The explanation behind the sudden desire for illuminated copies of this text lies in considering the methods used by the Capetian kings in the same period to gather the reins of power and build a unified French nation. Legitimacy through descent became one of the most powerful propagandistic tools of the Capetian kings in the thirteenth century, seen in a pronounced emphasis on a genealogy that stretched in a long line back to the Trojan Diaspora. In this particular climate, the Roman de Troie, telling the story of the Trojan War, emerged as a text that could occupy a place between history and romance, providing an idealized account of the heroic origins of the French people. The key to understanding how the manuscripts of the Roman de Troie functioned at this time in France, however, is found by examining the illuminations, the only evidence of the contemporary reception and interpretation of the text.

A careful analysis of the iconographic programs of the illuminated copies of the Roman de Troie demonstrates that the images offer a specific visual gloss on the text, shaping the reader's understanding of and relationship to the narrative. The subject that was consistently given the most illumination was the story of Hector, who is identified as the founder of the French royal dynasty in the Grandes Chroniques de France, the principal vehicle for disseminating the Capetians' claims to genealogical legitimacy. The illuminations in the French Roman de Troie manuscripts, moreover, variously depict the invading Greeks as aggressive outsiders, stress the perfidious role of traitors in the city's downfall, or highlight the role of the king as the personification of the state, all aspects of the story that would interest readers sympathetic to the Capetian monarchy's attempts to increase its power and foster a sense of French nationalism. This new reading of the manuscripts' iconography is only possible through recasting the most important copies as Parisian products illuminated by artists with intimate ties to the Capetian sphere. It was ultimately the particular story being told by the images in illuminated copies of the Roman de Troie that fulfilled the specific needs and hopes of the Capetian dynasty.