Narrative Frames in the Dialogues of Religious Controversy: The Case of Gilbert Crispin’s and Peter of Cornwall’s Disputes

Abstract

Many fictional dialogues of religious controversy are preceded by narrative frames that provide the interpretative key for the fictional interreligious debate. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a general model to analyze and compare these frames, in order to find any dependencies, patterns of influence, or, on the contrary, dissimilarities that may help us to establish clearer links. A second, complementary purpose is to put into practice this model. Therefore, I will compare the narrative frames of two very special dialogues, produced at the opposite ends of the period we might consider, following Cotts, the “long 12th century”: the Disputatio Iudei et Christiani, by Gilbert Crispin—exemplary of this genre—, and the Liber Disputationum contra Symonem Iudeum, by Peter of Cornwall—“the latest representative in England of the tradition revived” by him—.