Parergon

Medieval English Attitudes to the Outside World

Matthew Firth — 2025-11-27

Medieval English texts reflect a society that was more interested in, and connected with, the wider world than is often recognised. Using the case study of an almsgiving mission sent by Alfred the Great to ‘India’ in 883, this essay offers a glimpse into how English perceptions of the world shifted over time. It then surveys the approaches taken in this special issue to the topic of medieval English conceptions of a wide and complex world. These essays arise out of the Australian Research Council Discovery Projects ‘The First English Speakers in their own Words (DP230101057; CI: Erin Sebo) and ‘Contesting Conquests: Pre-Modern Attempts to Come to Terms with the Past’ (DE250100116; CI: Matthew Firth).

Hated race: Attitudes to the Wider World in Beowulf

Erin Sebo — 2025-11-27

Beowulf is an intercultural drama, dominated by inter-group conflict and yet, there is little negativity towards any of these groups. Here I will examine attitudes to the wider world in Beowulf through three case studies: the Geats and the Swedes, the Jutes, and the monsters. Through these three examples, I will consider what makes someone an other in this poem and what the implications of this are for the poem’s world view. I will also examine on what basis, and to what extent the poem makes moral judgements, and how negative qualities are constructed and understood in the poem.

The Non–Christian as Culturally Distinct ‘Other’ in the Old English Judith, Elene and Andreas

Cassandra Schilling — 2025-11-27

Social belonging in Old English literature is complex. Poems like Beowulf and the various Elegies focus on an individual’s position within their own cultural group. However, in more overtly religious poems, community becomes more fluid. Distinctions seemingly based on ethnicity prove less rigid than any racialised ‘othering’. Instead, social belonging is determined by faith; differentiated between Christian and non–Christian. In Judith, the consciously Christianised Bethulians are juxtaposed with the heathen Assyrians. In Andreas, moral othering of the Mermedonians is resolved when they repent and convert. In Elene, conversion dismantles the barrier between Christians and non–Christians through assimilation. Alterity is thus removed from ethnicity, while communal belonging proves malleable when the ‘other’ is willing to embrace Christianity.

The Earliest English Almanac?

Christine Rauer — 2025-11-27

Elephants in English Literature, Art, and Material Culture before the Reign of Henry III

Alison Hudson — 2025-11-27

For animals that are not definitely known to have lived on the island of Britain until the reign of Henry III, elephants feature in a notable number of English texts and art before the thirteenth century. Moreover, carvers continued to use elephant ivory throughout the early Middle Ages. However, English speakers’ knowledge of elephants’ anatomy was still limited before the late twelfth century. Building on previous literary, art historical, and historical scholarship, this article uses elephants to examine the limits of early English speakers’ understandings of the wider world.

England’s Enemies? Framing Feelings about Foreigners and Mercenaries in High Medieval War Narratives

Emily A. Winkler — 2025-11-27

This article investigates the limits of the English image of the foreign mercenary as enemy and external other by examining how contemporary chroniclers framed relationships between foreign fighters and their English employers or captors. Centring on accounts of Flemish mercenaries in the Battle of Fornham (1173) during England’s domestic war, and on speculative and hypothetical writing about mercenaries’ fates, it examines Jordan Fantosme, Roger of Howden, Jocelin of Brakelond, and Gerald of Wales as Christian writers working in England, and reporting on war and its consequences. It argues that stereotypes of foreign mercenaries came under scrutiny when writers considered power imbalances in mercenaries’ relationships, and reflected on shared experiences of war. Although support for the English nation found value in the idea of victory over a foreign enemy, a sense of national integrity did not require it: ideas of regret, mercy, and common humanity were equally compelling in understanding people from the external world.

Making Excuses: The Diplomatic Anxieties of Edward I of England

Kathleen Neal — 2025-11-27

Making polite and credible excuses was an essential artform of medieval diplomacy, and one in which Edward I of England was well-practised. The matters from which rulers excused themselves can be revealing of the kinds of questions that generated diplomatic anxiety. The explanations and excuses offered in these refusals are equally telling. They articulate what were presumed to be shared ideals; platforms from which rulers’ strongest diplomatic defence could be mounted. This essay examines Edward’s excuses offered in two very different examples of diplomatic negotiation, showing what qualities he wanted to present as central to his persona beyond his realm.

English Queenship from the Mid-Fifteenth to Mid-Sixteenth Centuries and England’s Place in the European World

Michele Seah — 2025-11-27

English kings had long sought consorts from outside England for various reasons. Yet, of England’s ten queens consort from the mid-1400s to mid-1500s, all but three were native-born. This article addresses the relationship between this development in English queenship and awareness during this period about England’s place in the world. It considers whether the changes in queens’ backgrounds was symptomatic of a regression in English political ambition. In so doing, it demonstrates that English kings remained invested in the wider world no matter where their queens came from and increasingly sure of the place they and England occupied in that world.

New Work on Early Medieval England

Jonathan Tickle — 2025-11-27

Pracy, Stuart, Visions of Hierarchy and Inequality in Early Medieval England, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2025; hardback/paperback; pp. 84; R.R.P. £55/£18; ISBN 9781009308342.

Discenza, Nicole Guenther, and Estes, Heide, Writing the World in Early Medieval England, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023; hardback/paperback; pp. 84; R.R.P. £55/£18; 2 illustrations; ISBN 9781108943147.

Sowerby, Richard, Natural and Supernatural in Early Medieval England, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2025; hardback/paperback; pp. 80; R.R.P. £49.99/£17; 10 illustrations; ISBN 9781009175456.