HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

220 LEAH SHOPKOWThus, when someone sat down to write the history of his monasteryor of his diocese and chose to write a serial biography—a gesta—not only did he know what the conventions of his text were (theLiber Pontifialis and Paul the Deacon’s History of the Bishops of Metzproviding a model) 11 but so also would those who read the text, ifthey had read other gesta, understand precisely what it was he orshe was reading, even if neither historian nor reader had any particularname for the type of history being written or read. 12 Whenhistorians set out to continue the work of the great universal historians,Eusebius and Jerome, they were of course continuing in thattradition of dividing universal history into the constituent historiesof individual peoples or regna.Similarly, when people wrote genealogies, one of the types of historyI have subsumed under the rubric of ‘dynastic history’, theyhad models as well and a name for the form—genealogy. Not onlywould writers have been familiar with oral genealogies, which seemto have predated the earliest written versions, but also Christian writerswould have had before them the genealogical materials in theBible. But genealogies often were not fully independent of other texts;they commonly (although not exclusively) appear as excursuses inlarger historical texts. 13 Indeed, the genealogical materials in the Biblealso appear as part of a larger project. Thus, even though genealogieswere relatively clear in their form, their function—whether theywere a sort of supporting text or belonged on their own—was ambiguous.Furthermore, their contents were variable in the informationthe writer felt it pertinent to include. They might consist of a sim-11Liber pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, rev. C. Vogel, 3 vols. (Paris, 1955–57); Paulthe Deacon, Gesta episcoporum Mettensium, ed. G. H. Pertz, in MGH Scriptores, vol. 2(Hannover, 1829), 260–70.12On gesta see Sot (1981) and in this volume; Gesta Normannorum ducum: een studieover de handschriften, de tekst, het geschiedwerk en het genre, ed. E. M. C. van Houts(Groningen, 1982), 145–57 (to my knowledge this discussion is not available inEnglish).13For example, the famous personal family histories of Lambert of Saint-Omerin the Lamberti S. Audomari canonici Liber Floridus, ed. A. Derolez (Ghent, 1968); andLambert of Watrelos’s account of his own family in Annales Cameracenses, ed. G. H.Pertz, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 16 (Hannover, 1859), 510–54. TheLiber Floridus also contains Lambert’s much expanded version of the Flemish comitalgenealogy and a French royal genealogy composed in verse, probably by Lamberthimself, as well as abbatial and episcopal lists (van Caenegem [1973], 73–74). Manynoble genealogies appear in monastic histories and foundation chronicles as well. Onthe relationship between genealogy and lengthier histories, see Genicot (1975), 13.