In my post yesterday, I discussed my goals for reading in 2025. A big part of the year will be taken up by the medieval challenge I'm doing with my brother so I thought I'd expand on it separately.
The rules are simple: there are ten categories. Read one text in the assigned categories.
Two things to note:
- We're French and so is the challenge so naturally a lot of the books are French. I've linked to the relevant English Wikipedia pages if you're curious.
- More details on the challenge here - it is all in French.
So here we go, the categories and our picks for them.
1 - Chanson de Geste
We will start the challenge with a classic of French literature, one I've long known about but equally know very little about: La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland).
2 - Littérature courtoise (courtly love)
There are not many recorded works by women so whenever possible, we'll sneak those books in. This is one of them: Lais by Marie de France.
3 - The Matter of Britain
The list is long and my obsession on the topic deep. After some deliberations we settled on a story I do not know well: Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain the Knight of the Lion) by Chrétien de Troyes.
Bonus side quest: The Quest of the Beast edited by Brian Kennedy Cooke.
4 - Satirical Literature
There was no discussion for this category. Over the course of 2024, I slowly read Reynard The Fox) retold by Anne Louise Avery and adored it. So it makes sense to go to the source and read: Roman de Renart (Reynard The Fox).
5 - Epic
This is another category with a lot to choose from but the decision fell on one book simply because I have purchased the book in 2024 and not yet gotten to it: La Chanson de Nibelung (Nibelungenlied).
6 - Icelandic Saga
Out of all the category, this is the one I know the least about. Selecting a book required some deeper research. After some learning (very little) we have selected: The Saga of the Völsungs.
Bonus side quest: Njáls Saga.
7 - Children's Adaptation
This was a tricky category and in the end I used it to sneak in a book I wish I could have put in another category, the Mabinogion. The Mabinogion is not a children book but there is a series I love that is heavily inspired by the stories of the Mabinogion. These books are contained within: The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander.
8 - Biography
Or how to inject another woman into the challenge: Christine de Pizan by Françoise Autrand.
9 - Lettres Gothiques
Lettres Gothique is a special French edition of medieval books that present the original text alongside a modern translation.
Many of the books in this challenge are available in this edition. However, we felt it'd be too easy to kill two birds with one stone, so we perused the catalogue for a different book. We landed on an eclectic text filled with advice for women regarding proper behaviour in marriage and running a household (from sex to recipes): Le Mesnagier de Paris.
Bonus side quest: Mélusine by Jean d'Arras.
10 - Medieval fantasy
My brother led the choice in this category. A fair few books in the previous categories were led by my preferences so it was time to flip the table. My only request was that the book shouldn't be without female characters and said female characters should be more than a pretty woman to marry. He picked Ironhand's Daughter by David Gemmell.
So here you have it. Ten(ish) books of medieval literature (and related literature) to see us through 2025. I'm looking forward to discovering these stories and the context in which they were written. I have allocated notebooks for each category to compile research and reading notes. I have also purchased a couple of general medieval books so I can educate myself in the cultures and histories that spanned the millennia between the year 500 and 1500. Whilst I have studied this period in school, it is a blank slate in my head peppered with names of historical figures I can only provide a title for. Here's to learning and maybe finding a new obsession (definitely finding a new obsession if my preliminary research spree is anything to go by).