In 1757, the Englishman Charles Bertram published, in Copenhagen, a text and map of supposed medieval origins, which showed new information on the extent of Roman Britain, particularly in Scotland. This text, and particularly the map, introduced a previously unknown Roman province which covered large parts of southern Scotland, as well as roads and stations extending into this area. It was, of course, not genuine.

Nevertheless, this new information was eagerly embraced by many antiquaries and historians. The forging of this particular text is inextricably linked to the Union of Scotland and England and the Jacobite rebellions. The attraction that this forgery held for contemporary Englishmen, and Scotsmen, was subtle. In showing the Union as having existed during the much admired period of Roman rule, Bertram’s text portrays the Union of 1707 as unavoidable, almost pre-ordained, and as natural. The territorial boundaries are re-affirmed through history, and with an authority that is hard to question. 

This forgery allows for a number of attractive rewritings of history, including the eliding of the Middle Ages themselves. The text focuses on the two transnational aspects of this forgery: the misuse of a ‘medieval’ text in order to promote a political agenda concerning national borders and national unity, and the position of the writer in exile, forging a nostalgic past for a nation in which he no longer dwells.

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The scene of Danaerys wedding night with Khal Drogo differs significantly in the text and the TV episode. In the novel Danaerys is seduced by her new husband, with the clear ability to turn him down. The TV series, on the other hand, shows this scene as a rape.

This change from romance to rape is due to two underlying assumptions: firstly, that sexual violence is perceived as more authentic than consensual sex in this pseudo-medieval setting, and secondly, that the series seeks to titillate the readers by presenting a form of sexual contact that is seen as. essentially, sexier. The portrayal of male sexuality in popular culture and public discourse favours a depiction of men as pursuers and women as pursued, shading into predator/prey. Thus, we perceive men as predatory due to biology, not culture: it is ‘authentic’ for men to be violent. Game of Thrones is often argued to give a ‘realistic’ image of the Middle Ages, particularly in portraying violence against women, showing this connection between ‘authenticity’ and sexual violence.

Furthermore, this type of sexuality is seen as preferred by men, dividing the genders along a sex/romance dichotomy. Catering to the imagined male gaze, the show presents Khal Drogo’s and Danaerys’s sexual interaction as more pornographic and less romantic, which also genders the presentation masculine. In making this change, the TV show caters to the male gaze and an imagined male audience, allowing the narrative to be dominated by male desire and male fears.

While we tend to think of rape as something that happens to female characters, Malory's text does, in fact, contain numerous male characters who suffer attempts to coerce them into sex. This happens to Bors de Ganis, and indeed, to Arthur himself. The most regular victim of this is Launcelot, who is repeatedly in danger of being forced to have sex with various women, and is, of course, in fact drugged and raped.

                      Launcelot seems to attract these women through his fame and prowess, and his attachment to Guinevere frequently arouses jealousy. However, if we take into consideration rape as a crime of power more than of sexual attraction, another image of Launcelot's situation appears. This reading suggests that the women in question desire power over Launcelot - and the common threat to kill him if he will not acquiesce rather strengthens that suggestion - and this desire puts him in a uniquely vulnerable position. As they are women, they cannot be dealt with through his martial prowess and vanquished in battle; their very defenselessness causes Launcelot's vulnerability. This paper investigates how Launcelot's masculinity, based, as masculinity in Malory generally is, on prowess and the steadfast love for a specific woman, paradoxically places him in what is traditionally a feminine position - that of vulnerability to violence, including sexual violence. 

The Swedish 14th century romance Hærra Ivan presents an ideal noble world by portraying courtly manners, feasts, and battles, including scenes that are not present in the French Yvain by Chrétien de Troyes. This article focuses on the portrayal of elegant clothes made from expensive fabrics and the usage of fabrics in furnishing homes. Here the author often expands on the original, and also tends to define the materials used as expensive and rich (kostelik, rik, dyr) – while the terms have the wider meaning of ’valuable, spendid’ they are also closely associated with the amount of money one would have to pay for the item in question. Some of the materials are, in fact, so expensive that it is doubtful whether they were in use even among royalty at the time. In presenting these rich items, the author suggests how the nobility should aspire to the correct forms of consumption to display their nobility and wealth, and uphold their social standing. 

Early on, the works produced by Joss Whedon and writers associated with him were recognised as feminist. This pertains not only to the prominence of female characters, but to the emphasis on co-operation and power-sharing that appear in many of the works. However, there were, also early, concerns about the portrayal of people of colour. I will here consider the entirety of Whedon’s oeuvre, whether he has been writer, producer, or director.

Whedon’s works do not feature many characters of colour; characters played by actors of colour might also be presented as white, thus further limiting the number of openly presented characters of colour. The portrayals of those characters of colour that do appear in his work are also not unproblematic. One particularly problematic instance of this, which I will focus on here, is the depiction of people of colour (especially but not exclusively women) as expected to exhibit strong loyalty to a white person (especially but not exclusively men).

Characters of colour, regardless of prominence, often appear as subordinate to a white character, whether this is due to a formal chain of command or an informal hierarchy. Examples of this appear in Agents of Shield, Firefly, Dollhouse, and Angel, to mention a few. Obviously, the hierarchy is more or less formalised in these texts, but it is generally clear to the viewers even when informal. The moral quality of the characters of colour is repeatedly judged by how loyal they remain to the white person above them in the hierarchy; this judgement may be openly referred to in the text or consist of how the audience is expected to perceive them and their fortunes, or lack thereof, in the arc of the plot.

As viewers, we tend to accept the hierarchies inherent in the plot, whether formal or informal; we are presented with a leader and a group of followers, who might also have an internal hierarchy. We are invited to judge the performance of the leader, including on how well the followers follow them, and to expect, if we approve of the leader, to see loyalty from the followers. Nevertheless, the demands of loyalty from the characters of colour tend to go beyond the normal expectation that they carry out orders and offer input, if necessary, and often includes emotional and psychologial support. This support is generally not extended in the other direction, making it a power imbalance rather than mutual care, with the less privileged characters taking on the labour of making white characters feel better. This paper will discuss some instances of this, and how simply including more characters of colour does not in and of itself solve the long-noted issues of race in Whedon’s work.

While we tend to think of rape as something that happens to female characters, Malory's text does, in fact, contain numerous male characters who suffer attempts to coerce them into sex. This happens to Bors de Ganis, and indeed, to Arthur himself. The most regular victim of this is Launcelot, who is repeatedly in danger of being forced to have sex with various women, and is, of course, in fact drugged and raped.

Launcelot seems to attract these women through his fame and prowess, and his attachment to Guinevere frequently arouses jealousy. However, if we take into consideration rape as a crime of power more than of sexual attraction, another image of Launcelot's situation appears. This reading suggests that the women in question desire power over Launcelot - and the common threat to kill him if he will not acquiesce rather strengthens that suggestion - and this desire puts him in a uniquely vulnerable position. As they are women, they cannot be dealt with through his martial prowess and vanquished in battle; their very defenselessness causes Launcelot's vulnerability. This paper investigates how Launcelot's masculinity, based, as masculinity in Malory generally is, on prowess and the steadfast love for a specific woman, paradoxically places him in what is traditionally a feminine position - that of vulnerability to violence, including sexual violence.

In 1757, the Englishman Charles Bertram published, in Copenhagen, a text and map of supposed medieval origins, which showed new information on the extent of Roman Britain, particularly in Scotland. This text, and particularly the map, introduced a previously unknown Roman province which covered large parts of southern Scotland, as well as roads and stations extending into this area. It was, of course, not genuine.

Nevertheless, this new information was eagerly embraced by many antiquaries and historians. In the aftermath of the Jacobite risings, any evidence that the union of Scotland and England had ancient origins was welcome, as it implied that this union was, in a sense, natural, and had existed in a warmly admired Roman era, on which the emerging British Empire was keen to model itself.

The text comprises many aspects of international medievalism and intentional misuse of a medieval past. This paper discusses how the forgery engages the relationship between England and Scotland after the Union, but also the position of Bertram as an Englishman in exile and his desire for a nostalgically remembered England.

Figurative language in Malory is not very varied, but is strongly connected to chivalry and the community standards that uphold it. This paper deals briefly with set figurative phrases, but focuses on similes and some other figurative phrases, especially ‘out of measure’ and phrases involving hands, as examples of this. The figurative language used has a number of functions: the similes are not original or intended to be so, but instead connect the depiction of chivalry to other chivalric texts; the phrases concerned with measure reminds the reader if the standards of the chivalric community, and the phrases involving hands retain a connection to the literal hands of the knight characters, bringing the violence perpetrated by a knight's hands into focus. The figurative language of Malory, while not as diverse and varied as we might expect were this a modern text, fulfils literary functions that are essential to this chivalric romance. © International Journal of Language Studies 2016

Charles Bertram is best known for his Britannicarum Gentium Historiæ Antiquæ Scriptores Tres, published in 1757. This contains two genuine chronicles, Gildas' and Nennius,' and Bertram's forgery of a chronicle by Richard of Cirencester, and while not having had an extensive print run, still exists in some libraries, including the Centre for Arthurian Studies at Bangor.

The few studies that exist of Bertram's text focus on the forgery, but I owuld here like to look at one of the other two texts: that of Nennius. It seems clear that the inclusion of those two texts was intended to add credibility to the forgery, but considering that Bertram choose to publish Nennius's text again in 1758, it would seem to have meant more to him than a useful façade for his forgery. He provides it with a preface discussing its origin and sources, which indicates the extent of his interest.

From his letters and his forgery, it seems clear that Bertram is always more interested in Roman Britain than in medieval Britain: his main interest in medieval texts is where they transmit knowledge of the Roman era. The Middle Ages are interesting only as a time when the texts of classical authors later lost were still to be found in monastic libraries, and when Roman remains were more visible, and in better repair, than they were in his time. Yet he was invested enough in Nennius to publish the text twice, at some expense to himself.

His preface discusses the origins of Nennius' text, and its later fates in the hands of editors. It concerns itself specifically with what is Nennius' genuine text and what are later additions - a concern which produces some amusement, considering Bertram's own forgery. In this paper, I investigate Bertram's approach to Nennius, and why this text, so far removed from the Roman sources he primarily focused on, still fascinated him.