Othon III de Grandson: The Story of a Lover-Knight’s Success at the Court of Edward III

Conference keynote address by Prof. Dr Denis Renevey (Université de Lausanne)

Christine de Pizan, Le Maingre and the Marquis of Santillane generously praise Othon de Grandson as a significant European lover-knight. This presentation first explores the nature of the comments made by such eminent poets and continues with an investigation of his influence at the court of Edward III on the occasion of his repeated visits in the last decades of the fourteenth century. The presentation argues that Othon de Grandson’s success and influence at the court of the English king can only be understood in the light of his endorsement and self-representation of the role of the late fourteenth-century lover-knight, which distinguishes him from several of his English contemporaries, including Chaucer.

Denis Renevey is Professor of Medieval English Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne. He specialises in late medieval and devotional literature, medieval religious writings for and by women, and Chaucer and his fourteenth-century contemporaries. He has led Swiss National Science Foundation projects on published on Religiosity in Late Medieval England, on Northern English Saints, and currently heads a project on the Apophatic Tradition in Late Medieval England. He is the author of numerous articles and editions on devotional works, and the monographs Language, Self and Love: Hermeneutics in the Writings of Richard Rolle (University of Wales Press, 2001) and Devotion to the Name of Jesus in Late Medieval English Literature (OUP, 2022).

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