Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Did the Purpose of History Change in England in the Twelfth Century?
- 2 England's Place within Salvation History: An Extended Version of Peter of Poitiers' Compendium Historiae in London, British Library, Cotton MS Faustina B VII
- 3 Computus and Chronology in Anglo-Norman England
- 4 A Saint Petersburg Manuscript of the Excerptio Roberti Herefordensis de Chronica Mariani Scotti
- 5 Autograph History Books in the Twelfth Century
- 6 Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum in Anglo-Norman England
- 7 Durham Cathedral Priory and its Library of History, c. 1090–c. 1150
- 8 King John's Books and the Interdict in England and Wales
- 9 Artistic Patronage and the Early Anglo-Norman Abbots of St Albans
- 10 Matthew Paris, Cecilia de Sanford and the Early Readership of the Vie de Seint Auban
- 11 New Readers, Old History: Gerald of Wales and the Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland
- Bibliography
- Index of Manuscripts
- General Index
- Writing History in the Middle Ages
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 July 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Did the Purpose of History Change in England in the Twelfth Century?
- 2 England's Place within Salvation History: An Extended Version of Peter of Poitiers' Compendium Historiae in London, British Library, Cotton MS Faustina B VII
- 3 Computus and Chronology in Anglo-Norman England
- 4 A Saint Petersburg Manuscript of the Excerptio Roberti Herefordensis de Chronica Mariani Scotti
- 5 Autograph History Books in the Twelfth Century
- 6 Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum in Anglo-Norman England
- 7 Durham Cathedral Priory and its Library of History, c. 1090–c. 1150
- 8 King John's Books and the Interdict in England and Wales
- 9 Artistic Patronage and the Early Anglo-Norman Abbots of St Albans
- 10 Matthew Paris, Cecilia de Sanford and the Early Readership of the Vie de Seint Auban
- 11 New Readers, Old History: Gerald of Wales and the Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland
- Bibliography
- Index of Manuscripts
- General Index
- Writing History in the Middle Ages
Summary
After the conquest of England in 1066 by Duke William of Normandy, historians on both sides of the English Channel tried to record and explain the political and social circumstances in which they found themselves in the context of larger conceptions of history. The twelfth century, in particular, saw a surge in the popularity of historical writing in the lands controlled by the kings of England. Among the authors whose histories are still widely known and studied are Orderic Vitalis, John of Worcester, Symeon of Durham, William of Malmesbury, and later Ralph of Diceto, Gerald of Wales, Roger of Howden and Matthew Paris. The crafting of new works also led to a renewed interest in earlier historical writing about both the Norman and the Anglo-Saxon past, most notably Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, and new copies of older texts were made. History was thus being read, reproduced, discussed and reworked, as well as written, in the years after 1066. Moreover, the process of making manuscripts sometimes involved the selection and combination of texts in a single volume, or the exploration of the past through the addition of imagery. Most of the essays collected in this volume take as their starting point individual manuscripts or references to particular history books. Through the examination of text, script, design and imagery they explore different facets of the creation and use of history books in the lands controlled by the kings of England between c. 1066 and c. 1250. The emphasis here is on narrative histories, rather than other forms of documentation, and the essays explore how historians approached their task, notions of time and place, and the varied potential uses of writing about the past.
One of the major challenges of working with manuscript evidence is the limited survival of medieval books. Those writing history in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries included both monks and secular clerics with access to the royal court, and these authors addressed their works to a range of audiences, including their own monastic communities, kings and members of the nobility. However, manuscripts appear to have stood a much better chance of survival if they were preserved in monastic libraries, which probably distorts the evidence available to us.
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- Information
- Writing History in the Anglo-Norman WorldManuscripts, Makers and Readers, c.1066–c.1250, pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2018