The century and a half following the Norman Conquest of 1066 saw an explosionin the writing of Latin and vernacular history in England while the creationof the ... » 

The century and a half following the Norman Conquest of 1066 saw an explosionin the writing of Latin and vernacular history in England while the creationof the romance genre reinvented the fictional narrative. Where critics haveseen these developments as part of a crossChannel phenomenon Laura Asheargues that a genuinely distinctive character can be found in the writings ofEngland during the period. Drawing on a wide range of historical legal andcultural contexts she discusses how writers addressed the Conquest and rebuilttheir sense of identity as a new united English people with their ownnational literature and culture in a manner which was to influence allsubsequent medieval English literature. This study opens up new ways of readingpostConquest texts in relation to developments in political and legal historyand in terms of their place in the English Middle Ages as a whole. «