HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

INTRODUCTION 11Eusebius of Caesarea invented the genre; as also in the later MiddleAges, universal histories usually start with creation, and then becomemore local as they approach the time of their composition. In asense, they thus function as both universal and local histories, in thiscase with ‘local’ being the bishopric or the kingdom or the territorialunit. 35 The early Middle Ages was a period that saw many newpolitical entities come into being; of these, it seems to have beenparticularly ‘peoples’ who had their histories written, which was sometimes,but not always, analogous with kingdoms. This ambiguity ofsubject matter reflects the ambiguity of the identities of the ‘peoples’and kingdoms themselves. Curiously, the Carolingian empire, whichsaw a large amount of historiography and the development of somenew forms (notably the annal), was not the subject of major narrativehistories. 36 Institutions in the early Middle Ages whose historieswere written down were almost exclusively bishoprics and individualmonasteries, whose pasts were universalized by demonstrating theirdivine origins. 37 And of the biographical writing produced, there wereonly a very few Lives of exceptional rulers (Charlemagne, Alfred);otherwise it was all hagiography. 38As institutions, governments, cities, and families developed, arose,became more complex and perhaps more politically or socially important,they too began to become the subject of historical writing. Thegenres used for the new subjects were often the same as in the earlyMiddle Ages, but they were adapted to highlight the new subjectmatter. What is interesting about the “new” subject matter in thelater Middle Ages is that the area which saw the greatest expansionin terms of subject matter was local and institutional history. Forthe early Middle Ages, this was one category, and it almost alwayscovered the history of a bishopric or monastery. In the later MiddleAges, in contrast, various different subjects on the local level weredeemed worthy of having their own histories, such as ruling families,cities, and religious institutions. An interesting development isthat in the later Middle Ages, some religious institutions have becometransnational; thus histories of mendicant orders, for example, are35See Sot and Allen, in this volume.36See Pizarro, in this volume.37See Sot, in this volume.38See Heffernan, in this volume.