THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND FRANCE IN NON-ARTHURIAN LITERATURE

The above findings relating to the Arthurian verse romances must now be put into a wider context, since it is by no means the case that the Arthurian romances are the only genre to be thus politically oriented towards England. There is also evidence of an equally strong sympathy for the cause of England and the English crown to be detected in a whole series of non-Arthurian texts, both courtly romances and non-courtly genres such as political propaganda, to such an extent that they have to be assessed not so much as examples of French literature but as literary products of the English territories written in French. Rickard deals with a considerable number of these works, and repeatedly expresses his astonishment that Frenchmen could identify to that extent with the interests of England; in so doing he fails to recognize the fact that from the eleventh to the fourteenth century the term ‘Frenchman’ was of a thoroughly heterogeneous nature, and that a large number of those who were born and lived on the Continent and spoke continental French felt themselves to be part of the Anglo-Norman community because of the feudal situation and the automatic assumption under the feudal system that loyalty to one's lord was an overriding principle.