The Printing of Twelfth-Century English Historiography, and the Integration of Law with History

Chapter 10 opens with the first printing in the 1590s of several of the great works of twelfth-century English historical writing: Lord William Howard’s edition of John of Worcester (1592); and Henry Savile’s of William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Howden, and (purporting to be twelfth-century) Pseudo-Ingulf’s Historia Croylandensis (1596). It then proceeds to the editing and publication of works of Norman historiography which encompassed the Conquest: William of Jumièges, William of Poitiers, and Orderic Vitalis. It pays a great deal of attention to William Camden and Robert Cotton. The chapter culminates with a discussion of John Selden’s edition of Eadmer’s Historia novorum. This is shown to combine the two strands of antiquarian interest examined in preceding chapters: medieval historical writing, and medieval law. In terms both of choice of text and focus of editorial attention, it reveals that by the reign of James VI and I, the Conquest had again become the key issue in English medieval history. The chapter also discusses chorographical history as espoused by William Lambarde and William Camden, and the beginnings of scholarly investigation of Domesday Book. It ends by looking forward to the central role which controversy about the Conquest would play in political arguments of the seventeenth century.

Origins and Introductions

The chapter compares different uses of the legend of Troy as a ‘Trojan preface’ to historical and literary texts in medieval England, Wales, and Ireland. Typically used to introduce narratives of nationalist significance, the ‘Trojan preface’ forms a distinctive genre that functioned to establish or confirm myths of national origin. The work of early historians such as Henry of Huntingdon and Geoffrey of Monmouth provides examples of the uses of Troy to construct a particular kind of English identity. In Welsh and Irish texts, the Trojan legend was inserted as a chronological milestone which aligned the ethnic histories of Wales (or Britain) and Ireland with world events. The legacy of Rome was another source of English identity which worked to exclude the early British people and their descendants, the Welsh. Rome was also an important point of reference for the Welsh and Irish, who established their claim to ancient lineage through literary references to Britain under the Romans and through adaptations of Latin epic. The ambiguity of Troy, represented by Aeneas as a figure of both heroic endeavour and treacherous betrayal, is addressed in different ways by English, Welsh, and Irish writers. The chapter ends with a discussion of the Trojan prefaces in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s House of Fame, suggesting that these prefaces are motivated comments on the questionable historical construction of English identity.

Text and Image

This chapter explores combinations of text and imagery in histories produced in England between 1066 and 1272. It focuses on case studies of the Worcester chronicle, and the works of Henry of Huntingdon, Gerald of Wales, Ralph Diceto, and Matthew Paris. Through an examination of page design and the content and location of imagery, it argues that decoration could be used to attract and engage readers, and to add nuance to text. Imagery was used to draw attention to elements of the narrative, prompt a reader to connect chronologically distant events, and impose interpretative frameworks onto the past. This chapter argues that the imagery in many of these histories was intended to help a reader connect the past and present, but that this, together with the complexity of such page designs, often led to images being omitted when text was subsequently copied.

Illuminated History Books in the Anglo-Norman World, 1066-1272

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries texts about the recent and more distant past were produced in remarkable numbers in the lands controlled by the kings of England. This may be seen, in part, as a response to changing social and political circumstances in the wake of the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The names of many of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century historians are well known, and they include Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury, John of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon, Gerald of Wales, and Matthew Paris. Yet the manuscripts in which these works survive are also evidence for the involvement of many other people in the production of history, as patrons, scribes, and artists. This study focuses on history books of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to examine what they reveal about the creation, circulation, and reception of history in this period. In particular, this research concentrates on illuminated manuscripts. These volumes represent an additional investment of time, labour, and resources, and combinations of text and imagery shed light on engagements with the past as manuscripts were copied at specific times and places. Imagery could be used to reproduce the features of older sources, but it was also used to call attention to particular elements of a text, and to impose frameworks onto the past. As a result the study of illuminated history books has the potential to change the way in which we see the medieval past and its historians.

Introduction

Chapter 1 introduces the core argument of the book, which is that twelfth-century writers of history in England accorded more individual responsibility, both causal and moral, to eleventh-century English kings than did their historical sources. In their conquest narratives, the four historians redistribute responsibility away from the English as a collective, revealing proportionally high expectations for English kings. This change, which occurs across the four historians’ diverse genres of writing, arose from their wide reading, experience with Anglo-Norman rule, and the precedents for foreign kings of England set by the Danish and Norman Conquests of the eleventh century. The chapter examines the nature of explanation in twelfth-century historical narratives (including the role of fortune and Providence), outlines the careers of the four writers (William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, John of Worcester, and Geffrei Gaimar), and provides an overview of each writer’s approach to narrating the English past.