Links and Traces: Remanence in Lay le Freine and The Romance of the Cheuelere Assigne

Drawing mainly on Lay le Freine and The Romance of the Cheuelere Assigne, and referring to a selection of other works such as the middle English Breton lay Sir Orfeo, the romances Lybeaus Desconus, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, John Russell’s treatise The Boke of Nurture, this paper explores the issue of disappearance which lies at the core of many medieval texts, in the form of exile, removal and abduction, estrangement and metamorphosis. Disappearance, however, is never complete and this paper focuses on restoration and the return motif while proposing a theoretical reflection on the preservation, transmission and circulation of texts for both literary and political reasons.