Remembering the Angevins: Introduction and Commentary

Abstract

The Angevin dynasty were the rulers of a medieval European empire. Although their control of their cross-channel domains were relatively short lived (1154–1204), they occupy a central place in the modern imaginary of the Middle Ages. This introductory essay to the collection Remembering the Angevins explores how the administrative and legal reforms, building projects, and literary culture fostered by the Angevins created a robust framework of cultural memory, one that carried their legacy into the modern era. Since the Reformation, the Angevin world has acted as a backdrop or screen onto which modern fantasies and anxieties have been projected. The essays in this volume explore the intellectual, social, and political contexts in which modern Angevin representations were forged. They show how representations of historical Angevin figures and the larger ‘Plantagenet Cinematic Universe’ or ‘Robin Hood Times’ (as contributors refer to the settings of the films) can be effectively read, critiqued, and taught. The link that is demonstrated by the contributors between Angevin memory and contemporary politics raises the issue of American attachment to the story of Magna Carta, enshrined within American political identity in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but likely to occupy a more uncertain place if unchecked executive power is allowed to take hold.