Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
11 - Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Manuscripts and manuscript culture
- 2 The troubadours: the Occitan model
- 3 The chanson de geste
- 4 Saints' lives, violence, and community
- 5 Myth and the matière de Bretagne
- 6 Sexuality, shame, and the genesis of romance
- 7 Medieval lyric: the trouvères
- 8 The Grail
- 9 Women authors of the Middle Ages
- 10 Crusades and identity
- 11 Rhetoric and historiography: Villehardouin's La Conquête de Constantinople
- 12 Humour and the obscene
- 13 Travel and orientalism
- 14 Allegory and interpretation
- 15 History and fiction: the narrativity and historiography of the matter of Troy
- 16 Mysticism
- 17 Prose romance
- 18 Rhetoric and theatre
- 19 The rise of metafiction in the late Middle Ages
- 20 What does ‘Renaissance’ mean?
- 21 Sixteenth-century religious writing
- 22 Sixteenth-century poetry
- 23 Sixteenth-century theatre
- 24 Women writers in the sixteenth century
- 25 Sixteenth-century prose narrative
- 26 Sixteenth-century thought
- 27 Sixteenth-century travel writing
- 28 Sixteenth-century margins
- 29 Tragedy: early to mid seventeenth century
- 30 Tragedy: mid to late seventeenth century
- 31 Seventeenth-century comedy
- 32 Seventeenth-century poetry
- 33 Seventeenth-century philosophy
- 34 Seventeenth-century women writers
- 35 Moraliste writing in the seventeenth century
- 36 Seventeenth-century prose narrative
- 37 Seventeenth-century religious writing
- 38 Seventeenth-century margins
- 39 What is Enlightenment?
- 40 The eighteenth-century novel
- 41 The eighteenth-century conte
- 42 Eighteenth-century comic theatre
- 43 Eighteenth-century theatrical tragedy
- 44 Eighteenth-century women writers
- 45 Eighteenth-century philosophy
- 46 Libertinage
- 47 Eighteenth-century travel
- 48 Eighteenth-century margins
- 49 The roman personnel
- 50 Romanticism: art, literature, and history
- 51 Realism
- 52 French poetry, 1793–1863
- 53 Symbolism
- 54 Madness and writing
- 55 Literature and the city in the nineteenth century
- 56 Nineteenth-century travel writing
- 57 Philosophy and ideology in nineteenth-century France
- 58 Naturalism
- 59 Impressionism: art, literature, and history, 1870–1914
- 60 Decadence
- 61 Avant-garde: text and image
- 62 Autobiography
- 63 The modern French novel
- 64 The contemporary French novel
- 65 Existentialism
- 66 Modern French thought
- 67 French drama in the twentieth century
- 68 Twentieth-century poetry
- 69 Francophone writing
- 70 Writing and postcolonial theory
- 71 Travel writing, 1914–2010
- 72 French cinema, 1895–2010
- 73 Writing, memory, and history
- 74 Holocaust writing and film
- 75 Women writers, artists, and filmmakers
- 76 French popular culture and the case of bande dessinée
- 77 Literature, film, and new media
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Like their modern counterparts, medieval historians operated under epistemological and methodological constraints governing evidence. They perceived critical differences between real events (res factae) and fictional narratives (fabulae), and deemed certain forms of testimony and modes of representation more appropriate to historiography than others. Nevertheless, a wide gulf separates medieval scriptores rerum from modern documentary historians. Whereas the latter are concerned with verifiable, referential propositions about the past and hope to restrict as much as possible the ‘distortions’ of aesthetics and style, the former would have been baffled by the notion of a strictly factual presentation of events and emphasised instead rhetorical techniques of figuration, persuasion, and moralisation. In this respect, they take their lead from Roman predecessors, especially Sallust, whose speeches, though attributed to historical actors, were legitimately understood by medieval readers as models of oratorical invention. Cicero justifies rhetorical history in the De oratore, arguing that historians must be ‘exornatores rerum’ (ornamenters of things done), rather than ‘tantummodo narratores’ (mere relaters of facts) (De oratore, 2.12.54). Quintilian likewise argues that historians should alleviate the tediousness of factual reporting with a liberal, vivid use of figures (Institutio oratoria, 10.1.31). The seventh-century encyclopaedist Isidore of Seville augurs a change in Western historiography when he argues for the priority of eyewitness testimony over second-hand sources, content over form. Yet like all medieval thinkers, he also believes that sublime truth (veritas) takes precedence over the merely true (verus), metaphysical beliefs over empirical observation.
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- The Cambridge History of French Literature , pp. 102 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011