"Medieval historiography is here challenged and reassessed as 'usable past'. The contributors' shared claim is that the value of medieval historiographical texts lies not only in the factual information the texts contain but also in the methods and styles they use to represent and interpret the past and make it ideologically productive. Violence is adopted as the key term that best demonstrates the making of historical meaning in the Middle Ages, through the transformation of acts of physical aggression and destruction into a memorable and usable past. The twelve chapters assembled here explore a wide array of texts, including chansons de geste, histories, chronicles, travel writing, and lyric poetry. These texts emanate from throughout the francophone world and encompass a broad span of time, from the late eleventh century through the fifteenth. Through examination of topics as varied as rhetoric, imagery, humor, gender, sexuality, trauma, subversion, and community formation, the twelve chapters strive to demonstrate how knowledge of the medieval past can be enhanced by approaching medieval modes of historical representation and consciousness on their own terms, and by acknowledging - and resisting - the desire to subject them to modern conceptions of historical intelligibility"--Back cover.

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