HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

214 NORBERT KERSKENHumanistic national historiography began in France with the Compendiumde origine et gestis Francorum (1495) of Robert Gaguin (1433–1501), 124 which took the last version of the Grandes chroniques as itspoint of departure and continued the account up through Gaguin’spresent time. A historiographic new beginning is more strongly indicated,however, by the literarily successful De rebus gestis Francorumlibri X of Paolo Emilio (†1529), 125 who came from Italy and wascourt historiographer in Paris under Charles VIII and Louis XII. InEngland as well, the humanistic new conceptualization of nationalhistory came from an Italian, Polidore Vergil (ca. 1470–1555), whohad lived since 1502 in England and who, already commissioned byHenry VII, published the Anglica Historica in 1534. 126 This work wassupposed to demonstrate the legitimacy of the new Tudor dynastyto the European public and, at the same time, questioned for thefirst time the traditional conception of the beginnings of English history,handed down since Geoffrey of Monmouth. In this context,Antonio Bonfini (1427–1502/03) must be mentioned as well. Whilehis historiography did not signify a new revival of Latin chroniclesfor Hungary, it did signify a historiographic new beginning comparableto that of the aforementioned texts. From 1486 he lived inBuda at the court of Matthew Corvinus, who commissioned him towrite a Hungarian history, the Rerum Ungaricarum decades, 127 a synthesisthat, for two hundred years, became the reference work forHungarian history.With this integration of Italian humanists into genuine nationalhistoricaltraditions, the connection is made to another new developmentof the fifteenth century. National history up to this point124It first appeared in print in 1495 and underwent several new editions until1528. See also Schmidt-Chazan (1985); Collard (1995) and (1996). A first completeFrench edition, which had numerous re-editions, appeared by 1514, see Collard(1994).125A first incomplete edition appeared as De rebus gestis Francorum libri IV in Parisin 1517; the first complete edition, going up to 1488, appeared in 1539; numerousfurther editions appeared through the middle of the seventeenth century; seeMaissen (1994).126Polydori Vergilii Anglicæ historiæ libri XXVI (Basel, 1534); Books XXIV–XXVII:The Anglica Historia of Polydor Vergil A. 1485–1537, ed. and trans. D. Hay, CamdenSeries III, 74 (London, 1950). See also Hay (1952).127Antonius de Bonfinis, Rerum Hungaricarum decades quatuor cum dimidia, ed.M. and P. Kulcsár, Bibliotheca scriptorum medii recentisque aevorum. Saec. XV.[22] 1–4. Series Nova 1, vols. 1–3 (Leipzig, 1936), and vol. 4.1–2 (Budapest, 1941,1976). See also Kulcsár (1973); Cochrane (1981), 344–49.