Professor Marianne Ailes
M.A.(Edin.), Ph.D.(R'dg)
Current positions
Professor of French
Department of French
Contact
Press and media
Many of our academics speak to the media as experts in their field of research. If you are a journalist, please contact the University’s Media and PR Team:
Biography
Having moved to Reading in 1979 for a one-year degree, I lived there until 2017 when we finally moved to Bristol, removing the regular commute from my life. Being a researcher and teacher in a French department and also being part of the inter-disciplinary Centre for Medieval Studies have combined in my ongoing development as a researcher.
Research interests
Marianne Ailes' research interests are in Medieval French literature, including French literature of medieval England. She has a particular interest in the chansons de geste and early vernacular chronicles, focussing on crusade narratives. She is actively involved in editing and translating as well as interpretative studies. She is currently leading 'Charlemagne: A European Icon', a Leverhulme Trust funded international network project on the appropriation of Charlemagne material in different lingusitic cultures in the Middle Ages. This followed a collaborative project on Charlemagne in England with Phillipa Hardman (Dept of English, University of Reading). She is also currently working on a monograph project on 'Tolerating the Other in Old French epic texts'.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Early Book: Pasts and Futures
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of EnglishDates
01/03/2023 to 28/02/2027
Medievals and Moderns: Clumsy place-making
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Dates
01/07/2022 to 31/03/2023
Tackling Uncertainty across the centuries: medievals and moderns in conversation
Principal Investigator
Description
A place-based response to rural isolation exploring how specific medieval churches in Somerset performed as centres of community life in the past through both local and transnational narrative, and, create…Managing organisational unit
Department of FrenchDates
06/01/2020 to 31/07/2020
Charlemagne: A European Icon
Principal Investigator
Description
This project explores the way the narratives about Charlemagne have been treated across Europe, with Charlemagne variously a figure of national pride, of enmity (in Medieval Spain) or of European unity.Managing organisational unit
Department of FrenchDates
08/04/2012
Charlemagne in England
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Modern LanguagesDates
01/09/2009 to 01/09/2012
Publications
Recent publications
01/08/2024A Grant of Arms in an Age of Heraldic and Linguistic Transition
Documenting Warfare
Onomastics of the ‘Chanson de Roland’, or, Why Gaston Paris and Joseph Bédier Were Both Right. By Gustav A. Beckmann, trans. by Linda Archibald
French Studies
Charlemagne’s Defeat in the Pyrenees: The Battle of Rencesvals. By Xabier Irujo
French Studies
Le roi sacré ou la désacralisation du roi dans la chanson de geste en Angleterre
Oltre la mer salee
