SOURCE: "Land, Lineage, and Nation" in Insular Romance, University of California Press, 1986, pp. 53-91, 225-51.

In the following excerpt, Crane examines the competing principles of feudalism and nationalism in Bevis of Hampton as well as in the Anglo-Norman version of the poem and other Middle English romances. She contends that Bevis merely pays lip service to the notion that national ideology is more important than the interests of noble families; in reality, she asserts, it celebrates ancestral heriage, opposition to royal authority, and aristocratic autonomy.

The conventional notion of what constitutes medieval English romance—much bloodshed, great length, marvels and wonders, action rather than reflection-—comes close to perfect embodiment in the stories of Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton. Lord Ernle's assessment typifies modern reaction to these romances: "The austere simplicity of the older forms is overlaid with a riot of romantic fancy; their compactness of...