| Abstrakt: |
The Gesta Herewardi is a relatively neglected text with a unique literary landscape shaped by the East Anglian Fenlands. In the narrative, the fenland environment constitutes a character with agency in determining who has sovereignty over it. Through a wolf denizen, the Fenlands signify Hereward the Wake's ownership of the landscape as a representative of the Anglo- Saxon ruling class during the Norman Conquest. This paper examines how the Fenlands, by way of the multiculturally constructed wolf motif, form a discourse on land exchange that was culturally productive for the monks at Ely, who wrote the text in the twelfth century. I conclude that the Gesta Herewardi deploys the East Anglian Fenlands as a means of setting a precedent, which was efficacious for the abbey in its property struggles with the newly established bishopric of Ely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
