1986 Chapters (Layout Features)

Chapter 3: Religion in Pious Romances

Crane, Susan

Religious and moral commitment is strong in England's medieval fictions. The continued presence of moral and homiletic approaches in Middle English romance provides one of the most direct connections between Anglo-Norman and Middle English literature. Studies of Middle English romance even propose, with increasing frequency and conviction, that some of the morally committed romances are so distinctive as to constitute a separate genre of "exemplary romance" or "secular hagiography." On the continent, by contrast, romances rarely incorporate motifs or standards of value from saints' lives. England's pious romances interact extensively with hagiography and, through that literature, respond strongly to changes in the status of church and Christians.