HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

INTRODUCTION 5But historical truth itself was not necessarily understood in the sameway by every author, as many scholars have pointed out. 12Scholars have attempted to look at the nominal terms used byand about medieval historians, such as ‘historia’, ‘chronica’, ‘annales’,‘gestae’, to see whether they had particular meanings that were commonlyunderstood over time. 13 The conclusions seem to be negative.Bert Roest notes that: 14It can be proposed that throughout the middle ages historia in thebroad sense of the word was seen (1) as a way of knowing (eitherdepicted as an activity: historia est videre vel cognoscere; or as the mediumby which is known: narratio per quam ea, quae in praeterito facta sunt, dignoscuntur);(2) as something like a literary genre (a narratio rerum gestarum);or (3) as the object of cognition itself (res verae quae factae sunt).The only sort of distinction that sometimes appears is between historiaand chronicon, with the former meaning a continuous narrative, andthe latter a type of writing organized by years. 15 This goes back toEusebius, who wrote both types of text; and the tradition was continuedby Isidore, Bede, and others who wrote both narrative historiesand chronicles or annals. Guenée used this distinction, derivedfrom statements in various texts from the twelfth to the fourteenthcenturies, to distinguish these as two main types of historical writing,and moreover as a conceptual tool which enabled historians tomake choices about forms of presentation and format. 16 The distinctionwas between chronicle’s brevitas and history’s prolixitas, asstated by, for example, Gervase of Canterbury: 1712See, among others, Beer (1981); Morse (1991); Otter (1996); and Ainsworth’sarticle on “Legendary history” in this volume.13See Roest (1999); Knape (1984); Guenée (1973).14Roest (1999), 51.15Guenée (1973); Roest (1999), 53.16Guenée (1973).17Gervase of Canterbury, Chronicle, Prologue, ed. W. Stubbs (London, 1879–80),1:87–88; cited by Roest (1999), 54: “Cronicus autem annos incarnationis Dominiannorumque menses computat et Kalendas, actus etiam regum et principum qui inipsis eveniunt breviter edocet, eventus etiam, portenta vel miracula commemorat.Sunt autem plurimi qui cronicas vel annales scribentes, limites suos excedunt, namphilacteria sua dilatare et fimbrias magnificare delectant. Dum enim cronicam compilarecupiunt, historici more incediunt, et quod breviter sermoneque humili demodo scribendi dicere debuerant, verbis ampullosis aggravare conantur.