Queeste - Volume 28, Issue 1, 2021

Abstract In late medieval and early modern times, books, as well as the people who produced and read (or listened to) them, moved between regions, social circles, and languages with relative ease. Yet, in the multilingual Low Countries, francophone literature was both internationally mobile and firmly rooted in local soil. The five contributions collected in this volume demonstrate that while in general issues of ‘otherne Read More

Abstract This article analyses the production and consumption of francophone manuscripts in thirteenth-century Flanders from a multilingual perspective. The polyglot linguistic reality of the County of Flanders, home to both Dutch- and French-speaking communities, is evident in documentary sources and manuscripts from around 1200. Using a database compiled for The Multilingual Dynamics of the Literary Cult Read More

Abstract This article offers an initial assessment of the multiple and varied uses of a manuscript of the Liber Floridus as a source of the early thirteenth-century Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César. The material deriving from Lambert de Saint-Omer’s twelfth-century encyclopaedic compilation ranges from idiosyncratic chronologies and genealogies to his abridged versions of Daretis Phrygii de excidio Troiae historia and the Epit Read More

Most of the tales of the Burgundian Cent Nouvelles nouvelles have an identifiable origin in a European anecdote culture but have been repurposed with a Burgundian setting to fit the collection. Examining tales set in Holland and Brabant reveals that, while Holland is presented as ‘other’ from the male aristocratic society of the Burgundian ducal court, Brabant is treated as local, even where tales with similar themes are set in Read More

Abstract This article examines the multilingual transmission of the late medieval idyllic romance Paris et Vienne. The genealogy of incunabula editions of this pan-European bestseller is obscured by an unsettled bibliographical record. The little-known first French edition printed circa 1480 is likely the first printing in any language. The analysis highlights textual and paratextual transformations from the French editio princeps t Read More

Abstract In recent years, the dissemination of medieval-inspired French texts through the printing press has received renewed attention from the scientific community. This research has shown, inter alia, that the Gutenberg revolution, although considered to be one of the thresholds of modernity, did not sound the death knell for the Middle Ages. On the contrary, the medieval legacy found an opportunity to perpetuate i Read More