Narrative techniques and aims of the discourse on military expeditions and coastal defense in Ramon Muntaner’s Crònica (1328)

Abstract:

Muntaner was not a professional writer and composed only one work. He was rather a captain, a diplomat, a governor, a man very close to the Crown. His personal experience of war is witnessed in his Chronicle, according to two different narrative mechanisms: the technologization and the literarization of the described events. The defense during the Crusade against the Crown of Aragon (1283–1285) concretizes the author’s peculiar dichotomy technologization-literarization of history, emphasizes a perfect military strategy and the final victory; the narration of expansion through the Mediterranean is developed both in the conquest of Djerba and the Kerkennah Islands (1309–1314) and in the campaign of Sardinia and Corsica (1323–1324), but from two different points of view: the former offers an exemple of self celebration, which is possible because of its relative relevance if compared with other epochal events related in work; the latter is based on the documentation that the admiral Carrós sent to the King, as Muntaner did not participate in it. Finally, the expedition of the Catalan Company to the East (1303–1308) synthetises all these features and represents one of the highest moments of the whole Crònica.