HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

222 LEAH SHOPKOWThe genesis of the longer dynastic histories is not fully clear. Whatwe have in most cases is a series of individual biographies, eachstarting with the birth or reign of its subject. Other members of thefamily may be invoked to a lesser or greater degree. In the Deedsand Customs of the Norman Dukes, few collateral relatives are mentioned:the attention is on the succession of Norman rulers. In the Historyof the Counts of Guines and Lords of Ardres, however, the marriages ofmost of the children of the family are related and collateral branchesof the family often are mentioned. 19 These histories resemble theepiscopal and abbatial histories commonly known as gesta, and thefirst example, Dudo’s history, indeed may have been modeled partiallyon that kind of history. 20 In addition to the Norman examples,there are Angevin dynastic histories, and the imperial chronicle ofFrutolf (but not of his successors) is also organized around the imperialsuccession. Finally, the French national history, the Grandeschroniques de France, takes this form, and there are a few other examples.21 What is striking is that there is no one generic name for thiskind of history as there was for genealogies, just as there was commonlyno one name for histories. 22One might also consider family trees as a form of dynastic history,and these begin in the twelfth century and become more commonwith the passage of time, although there seems to have beensome experimentation with the physical form of the trees. 23 However,19Lambert of Ardres, Lamberti Ardensis historia comitum Ghisnensium, ed. J. Heller inMGH Scriptores, vol. 24 (Hannover, 1879), 550–642; Lambert of Ardres, The Historyof the Counts of Guines and Lords of Ardres, trans. L. Shopkow (Philadelphia, 2001).20Shopkow (1997), 147–48.21On Dudo’s title, see Huisman (1984); William of Jumièges, The Gesta Normannorumducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, ed. and trans. E. M. C.van Houts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992–95). The Angevin examples: Halphen and Poupardin,Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou et des seigneurs d’Amboise. Frutolf: Schmale (1972). On theGrandes chroniques: Les Grandes chroniques de France, ed. J. M. É. Viard, in Société de l’histoirede France, Publications in octavo, vols. 395, 401, 404, 415, 418, 423, 429, 438, 457(Paris, 1920–); Spiegel (1978). Frutolf ’s work is regnal, in that it does not concernitself with the time before the emperor’s rule, but begins each reign with a summaryof the years of the reign. His successors may have chosen not to continuethis organization, because they begin in medias res, in that in writing about contemporaries,they did not know how long a reign would last. However, bothEkkehard’s chronicle and the anonymous Kaiserchronik might be called dynastic, eventhough organized in annalistic form, in that the emperors are the main concern ofthe chronicle.22Shopkow (1997), 19–21.23Klapisch-Zuber (1991).