Exchanges in Exoticism: Cross-Cultural Marriage and the Making of the Mediterranean in Old French Romance

Charting important new territory within medieval gender studies, Megan Moore explores the vital role that women played in transmitting knowledge and empire within Mediterranean cross-cultural marriages. Whereas cross-cultural exchange has typically been understood through the lens of male-centered translation work, this study, which is grounded in the relations between the west and Byzantium, examines cross-cultural marriage as a medium of literary and cultural exchange, one in which women’s work was equally important as men’s.

Moore’s readings of Old French and Medieval Greek texts reveal the extent to which women challenged the cultures into which they married and shaped their new courtly environments. Through the lens of medieval gender and postcolonial theory, Exchanges in Exoticism demonstrates how the process of cultural exchange - and empire building - extends well beyond our traditional assumptions about gender roles in the medieval Mediterranean.