ABSTRACT
The Encomium Emmae Reginae predominantly serves the purpose of presenting Queen Emma as the figure central to the legitimisation, perpetuation, and proclamation of royal power in mid-eleventh-century England. The anonymous author of the Encomium achieves this partly with the help of emotive language, which makes the Encomium an example of an emotive historiographic text focusing on the representation of a woman. The chapter examines both the verbal and visual instances of emotional communication present in the Encomium. It further discusses the distinctions in the way this communication is employed by the Encomiast to speak of the queen, of the emotional relations of others towards her, and of her own emotional responses. The chapter argues that the play on and the interplay of emotions in the text create a coherent portrayal of Emma with clear allusions to Mary, the celestial queen and the divine mother, and that they provide an insight into the emotional culture related to the way femininity was depicted in eleventh-century political discourse.
