The explanation is that there was no such thing as Italy in medieval Europe. Nations are more or less pre-modern inventions (circa age of exploration). Medieval Europeans considered themselves one "nation," by today's standards, both because the Roman Empire did not seem as distant, and because they all shared the same religion, and an inherently inclusive and internationalist religion at that. Moreover, the modern languages had not formed yet, and certainly Latin was still the common language of all reasonably educated Europeans. However, early French was the language of poetry and music at the time, and many Italian youths (citizens of various states within the modern nation of Italy) therefore spoke this early version French, being a slight variation on Latin anyhow, so it was not as foreign as our post-Reformation concept of strong nationalism and strictly separated languages. Also, the French Revolution centralized France like it had never been before. There were many more European languages based on Latin until about 200 years ago. Then most local cultures were illegalized and persecuted out of existence under the new nationalistic centralization programs of the 1800s, culminating in world wars of various totalitarian/standardization governments of the first half of the 20th century, and so on. Medieval Aquila was a wholly different world. So it is not at all so unusual that there would be French people or at least French names in the medieval land that is now Italy.
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traveller007
11 years ago
...thanks for taking the time to spell this all out.
Best Wishes, Traveller
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pol-edra
10 years ago
I strongly disagree that medieval Europeans considered themselves one nation. People who consider themselves one nation do not routinely wage war on each other. I also disagree with the bit about early French being "the language of poetry and music at the time". There was no such supremacy of the French language during the Middle Ages - that happened much more recently. Surely Italian poetry, to name but one other language, was just as famous as French poetry, if not even more. Petrarch and Dante were much more internationally revered than, say Marie de France or Chrétien de Troyes.
I have no idea what languages based on Latin you think have disappeared due to politics. Could you name some examples?
To the OP: not all the names are French. Navarre was an independent kingdom until the 16th century, so if anything, the main character is neither French nor Italian but rather Spanish of Basque. The monk Imperius bears a Latin name, he could be from anywhere. The wolf-hunter's name is Cezar, which is neither French nor Italian: in French it would be César, in Italian it would be Cesare. I think it's safe to assume that the story and the characters are set in a fantasy land that is roughly based on medieval Europe, but not actually meant to ressemble medieval history or geography - surely the armour and costumes, not to mention the politics, are nothing like historical reality.
"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."
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triplegrim
9 years ago
I strongly disagree that medieval Europeans considered themselves one nation. People who consider themselves one nation do not routinely wage war on each other.
Christianity saw itself as one "nation", with an emperor (the holy roman one, though he was not emperor over all of christianity), one pope (though there were antipopes), and kings and dukes with their own sovereign land.
Noblemen fought with other christians over land, usually when the inheritance or succession was in dispute. Other than that, Europe was actually quite peacefull as far as organized warfare is concerned. The society was quite violent of course.
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Pharazon
9 years ago
BS
Europe was (and is) far bigger than your France and Italy.
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