Speakers
Conferencistas convidados · Ponentes
Francisco J. Álvarez López, University of Exeter
The Atlantic Connection: Manuscript circulation and transmission between Anglo-Saxon England and Iberia In her introduction to England and Iberia in the Middle Ages: 12th to 15th centuries (New York, 2007), María Bullón-Fernández dismisses any pre-Norman contacts between the two areas arguing that whereas the Christian Iberian kingdoms were busy pushing the Muslims south, the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms occupied themselves fighting each other. It is obvious that the intensity of those connections in the late Middle Ages greatly surpassed any potential contacts before 1066. However, enough evidence has already been produced to suggest that there was some degree of communication between these two distant geographical areas: archaeological remains found in Cornwall attest trading routes from Iberian ports and even the Mediterranean; the arrival of Isidorian texts in Ireland, and possibly England, shortly after their composition, are but a few examples. This paper explores the cultural relations existing between Anglo-Saxon England and the Christian Iberian kingdoms before c. 1100. I will explore the texts that are known to have travelled between these two areas as well as the manuscript context in which they survived to the present day. In addition, I will explore the nature of those texts as well as the use made of them by those communities that acquired them. Finally, I will try to shed some light on the likely route followed by those manuscripts as they travelled between the two geographical extremes of Atlantic Europe. |