HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

110 MICHEL SOTLocal InformationThe sources of local history are of three types: archeological sources,oral traditions or direct observations, and archival documents. Thesources that we call ‘archeological’ are the tombs of prelates, or themonuments those prelates built, or the treasures they collected.Knowledge of the locations of the prelates’ burials and, eventually,of the inscriptions upon their tombs is very important in affirmingthe truth of the prelate’s existence and of his deeds. The author ofthe Gesta of the bishops of Verdun is very upset not to have located thetomb of the founder Sanctinus, all the more so since the city ofMeaux claims him, too, and has been able to present a tomb forSanctinus. 62 Similarly, at Ravenna, Agnellus is quite embarrassed notto have found out the location of the tomb of Bishop Peter I: a miracleoccurs just in time, which reveals its location to him. 63 In Naples,le Mans, and Auxerre the excavations and transfers of saintly bishops’bodies took place shortly before or after the gesta were composed.It was due to an archaeological dig around the tomb of SaintJulian, reputed to be the first bishop of le Mans, that other sarcophagiwere discovered, on which could be read in the ninth centurythe names of those who were considered his first successors. 64The authors of the gesta describe also the monuments and the treasuressuch as they might have seen them and such as their contemporariesmight have observed them. They are always integratedinto the entry of the bishop whose memory they observe.Our authors belong most often to the college of the cathedral’scanons or come from an area near that of the bishop, where memorieshave been maintained by the elders, the old men, those whohave seen many things. The questioning of witnesses is justified byAgnellus of Ravenna in his prologue in which he points to the Bible’sexample: it is upon questioning his fathers that Moses was able toput into writing the story of the Creation; it is upon questioning theapostles that Mark and Luke were able to write their Gospels ofJesus, whom they had never seen. 65 Adam of Bremen collected alarge portion of the fourth book of his Gesta on the bishops of62Gesta episcoporum Virdunensium, ed. Waitz, 40.63Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, ed. Holder-Egger, 290–91.64Actus pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium, ed. Busson and Ledru, 328.65Agnellus, Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, ed. Holder-Egger, 278.