(Alas, there are no historical writings about the Giant Foot outbreak of 1178) |
(A Medieval scribe,
looking bored)
|
Nor is this historical
writing limited to the English. Orderic Vitalis was an Anglo-Norman clergyman
whose monumental ‘Ecclesiastical History’ is symptomatic of divided loyalties.
He praises Henry I as a lion but condemns William the Conqueror for his
Harrying of the North and describes the Norman subjugation as a ‘yoke’. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘History of the Kings
of Britain’ is often derided as falsifying and myth-making but it also
represents an attempt by Welsh Britons to commemorate their own history that
English writers (like Henry of Huntingdon) have ignored). Geoffrey was the
first writer to depict King Arthur as we recognise him, and his depiction of
Arthur’s life and Merlin’s Prophecies were the foundation for the growth in
Arthurian literature.
(Henry II in less
murderous times)
|
This can only be a
rudimentary sketch of the exciting and (from a literary perspective)
underappreciated burst of historical writing in England. I have not mentioned
the historical writers of the thirteenth century, notably Matthew Paris, nor
the wealth of writing on the Continent. It is a type of writing which
undermines genre, ethnic national boundaries as quickly as these boundaries are
set up, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Michael Tansini is an MA student in Medieval
Literatures at the University of York
List of Works Mentioned
Eadmer, Lives and Miracles trans. and ed. Muir
and Turner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006)
Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, trans. and ed. Ian
Short. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, trans.
and ed. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977)
Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English People 1000-1154,
trans. and ed. Diana Greenway (Oxford: OUP), 2009
John of Worcester, Chronicle, trans. and ed. McGur, 3
volumes. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)
Jordan De Fantosme, Chronicle ed. R.C Johnson (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1981)
Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History trans. and ed.
Marjorie Chibnall 6 volumes (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1969-80)
Wace, La Roman de Brut, trans. and ed. Judith
Weiss (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002)
Two interesting Critical Studies
Gransden, Antonia. Historical Writing in England 550-1307. (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974)
Partner, Nancy. Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth Century
England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977
Thank you for an excellent post Michael!
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