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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 459

Part of Session 145: Conflicts in the city, cities in conflict? (Other abstracts in this session)

Constructing a Flemish identity: language and identity in the narration of the Franco-Flemish conflict (1297-1307)

Authors: Peersman, Catharina Fernanda
Submitted by: Peersman, Catharina Fernanda (FWO & K.U.Leuven, Belgium)

On the 11th of July 1302, the Flemish troops unexpectedly beat the French army before Courtrai. This event coincides with the growing link between the concepts of "language" and "nation" and with the decisive rise of the vernacular written languages (GOYENS-VERBEKE 2003). Moreover, the battle symbolizes the historic birth of the Flemish community and of the current Belgian language problems (LAMBERT 2000, TRIO et alii 2002). The highly politicized tension between francophone and Dutch-speaking communities, such as during the 2010-2011 governmental crisis, is often framed in historical terms (ELCHARDUS - DE KEERE 2011). From a sociolinguistic perspective, the historical event of 1302 thus becomes a high-profile Romano-Germanic encounter.
Our contrastive case study focuses on the construction of identity in the narrative sources describing the Franco-Flemish conflict (1297-1307). We only take into account the sources predating 1408, when the first language ordinance concerning Flanders was issued by John the Fearless (WILLEMYNS 1994). These pre-language policy sources represent the two opposing sides of the conflict and they are written in Latin, French and Dutch. On the explicit level, the chroniclers obviously try to vilify the enemy and/or to glorify their own cause. This attitude translates for instance into language judgments such as « des Flamens car sa gent si sont mal parlans et c'est au roy trop grand laidure » (BUCHON 1827: 43). Although the explicit message seems to convey a considerable degree of self conscience, the implicit message is not automatically identical. The critical distance between the explicit and the implied construction of identity will be analyzed by means of the use of identity markers (frequency of names of languages and people, loan words, multilingual fragments) and of the indirect speech (particularly the conscious use of the adversary's language).
By means of the analysis of the use and the perception of languages in medieval Flanders, we reconstruct the creation of identity on two different levels. In other words, we learn how the image and language of the "other" were negotiated in the camps of both Flemish and French after the 1302 conflict. 
REFERENCES
BUCHON, J.A. éd. 1827. Chronique métrique de Godefroy de Paris suivie de la Taille de Paris, en 1313. (Collection des chroniques nationales françaises IX). Paris: Verdière.
DE KEERE, K. - ELCHARDUS, M. 2011. “Narrating linguistic conflict: a storytelling analysis of the language conflict in Belgium”. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32(3), 221-234.
GOYENS, M. - VERBEKE, W. eds. 2003. The Dawn of the Written Vernacular in Western Europe. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
LAMBERT, V. 2000. ‘De Guldensporenslag : van fait-divers tot ankerpunt van de Vlaamse identiteit (1302-1838): de natievormende functionaliteit van historiografische mythen’. Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 115, 365-391.
TRIO, P. – HEIRBAUT, D. – VAN DEN AUWEELE, D. 2002. Omtrent 1302. Leuven: Universitaire Pers.
WILLEMYNS, R. 1994. ‘Taalpolitiek in de Bourgondische tijd’. Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde 1994 (2): 162-177.