Le Voyage de Charlemagne: Mediterranean Palaces in the Medieval French Imaginary

Abstract

This essay reads the parodic epic Le voyage de Charlemagne à Jérusalem et à Constantinople as a cultural expression of contact between Francophone “feudal” society and the “medieval culture of empire.” By the twelfth century, Latin expansion into the Holy Land and southern Italy had brought French speakers into intimate contact with the great tributary empires of the Mediterranean world. Drawing on recent work from historians and art historians, I take Charlemagne’s visit to Constantinople as a confrontation less with King Hugh than with his palace, exemplifying an elaborate court culture at odds with representations of Frankish power.