HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

HIGH AND LATE MEDIEVAL NATIONAL HISTORIOGRAPHY 209the planned Books VI and VII, reveals an understanding of historyas Volksgeschichte that finds few parallels up to this time in its radicality.The depiction begins with the sweeping early history, the storyof the eponymous great-grandparents Gaythelos, the son of a Greekking and Scota, the daughter of a pharaoh, who initiated a migrationof their people from Egypt to Albion via Spain and Ireland.Carrier and subject as well as identificatory concept of Scottish historyin this context is not the regia stirps or individual significant kings,nor an already always firmly circumscribed region of settlement but,instead, the gens Scotorum, the genus Scoticum. This Scottish conceptionof history is informed by a century-long struggle for Scottish independencevis-à-vis the claims of the English crown, and, against thebackground of a crisis-laden development of the kingdom underDavid II (1329–71) and Robert II (1371–90), is implemented as adidactic device for them. History contains examples for politicallypositive and negative actions on the part of the rulers, exempla adfuturorum, the observance of which should ensure the security of thepolitical independence of the natio Scotorum.New Developments Since the Middle of the Fifteenth CenturyIn the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with emphasis on theperiod following the middle of the fifteenth century, the nationalhistoricalform of depiction achieved a level of popularity not previouslyattested. The more than sixty texts of this period cannoteven be enumerated here. Instead, one should describe the strikingcharacteristics of national historiography towards the end of theMiddle Ages.In western Europe—in Spain, France, and England—a textual traditionof national chronicles had developed in the 1270s, which experiencedits last level of reworking in the 1460/70s. The Crónica general,dating back to Alfonso X, underwent a revision around 1460, characterizedas a Cuarta Crónica General, in which a vernacular versionof the Historia Gothica of Jiménez de Rada also left its mark; the versionextended to 1454. 104 The official version of French history, theGrandes Chroniques de France, was continued, in the last stage of revision,104Primera Crónica General, ed. Menéndez Pidal, vol. 1 (as n. 54), lxix–lxxii.