Fantastic Histories - (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture) by Victoria Flood

About the Book

Details the political and cultural contexts of the entry of fairies to the historical record in twelfth century England, and the subsequent political uses of fairy narratives in both insular and continental history and romance, revealing the fairy as a contested marker of historicity and fictionality.

Book Synopsis

Fantastic Histories explores the political and cultural contexts of the entry of fairies to the historical record in twelfth century England, and the subsequent uses of fairy narratives in both insular and continental history and romance. It traces the uses of the fairy as a contested marker of historicity and fictionality in the histories of Gerald of Wales and Walter Map, the continental mirabilia of Gervase of Tilbury, and the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century French Mélusine romances and their early English reception. Working across insular and continental source material, Fantastic Histories explores the practices of history-writing, fiction-making, and the culturally determined boundaries of wonder that defined the limits of medieval history.

From the Back Cover

Delving into the relationship between medieval history and fiction, this book meticulously explores the political and cultural contexts around the entry of fairies to the historical record in twelfth-century England, and the subsequent uses of fairy narratives in both insular and continental history and romance.

Beginning with accounts of fairy mothers in the works of Walter Map and Gerald of Wales, the book traces the uses of the fairy as a contested marker of historicity and fictionality in the continental mirabilia of Gervase of Tilbury, and the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century French Mélusine romances and their early English reception.

Spanning diverse sources from across insular and continental Europe, Fantastic histories dissects the intricacies of history-writing and fiction-making practices. It investigates the culturally determined boundaries of wonder that defined the limits of medieval history, and how dominant political and cultural interests determined whose fantasies were false and whose were the stuff of history.

About the Author

Victoria Flood is Associate Professor in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at the University of Birmingham