| This thesis examines how medieval Byzantium is represented in French epics, romances, and chronicles of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries within a discursive triangle formed by Exoticism/Orientalism/Otherness. Despite their geographical proximity with the Muslim world, which connoted the archetypal ominous Other for the Franks, the Byzantines were a Christian people, closer to the Franks in philosophy, in value systems, and in destiny than the latter were willing to admit. Both the Eastern Byzantines and the Western Franks cherished opulence and knowledge, but it was Byzantium's pagan Greek heritage, as well as its abundant natural resources, which placed it in a privileged position. Further, Byzantium was located in the mythical East, suspended between the two continents of Europe and Asia. In the Frankish mind, this geography meant that Byzantium was privy to exceptional (esoteric even) knowledge and wealth. Soon, it represented the Exotic, coveted by the Franks for its (suspicious) beauty and its attractions, and provoking fantasies of capture and conquest. Thus, Byzantium fit Edward Said's definition of an "Oriental" with all its cultural cliches of weakness, effeminacy, softness, and idleness, a construct fabricated by the West to mirror its desires within the context of Frankish expansionism and colonialism. Aided by these parameters, a discourse of dominance, of domestication, of empowerment and of disempowerment is developed.;The negativity in the portrayal of Byzantium is the result of a deliberate distortion, exaggeration, and falsification of historical facts on the part of the French, in order to remove any suspicion of guilt for their aggression. This aggression was due in part to years of cultural antagonism and church politics. Nevertheless, the alliances between the two Christian worlds and their undeniable sameness did not go unnoticed in the works of my corpus. Ultimately, Byzantium was a between and betwixt entity, both despised but also admired by the Franks, who stood in awe before the vastness of its territories, the brilliance of Constantinople, the technological advancements in the court of the autocrat, the educated Byzantine women, and the accomplishments of its builders of symbolic edifices. |
