HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

344 AUGUSTO VASINAcanon of St. Autbertus of this same city of Flanders. 67 In contrastto most transalpine chroniclers, the author does not go back to theremote past, nor does he follow the schemes of universalistic historiography;instead, he provides, to a public of presumably ecclesiasticalreaders, information about the lived present, covering an arrayof local and regional interests, attempting to understand above allecclesiastical circumstances and events. In particular, Lambertus triesto give narrative continuity to specific urban and territorial themes,linking them to the current traditions of the local episcopate and tothe most representative of its bishops, as, for example, Nicholas. Wecan see that next to the bishop of Cambrai, starting in 1137–38, isregistered the presence, ever more lively, of the cives, among whomthe chronicler singles out the influential classes of the magnates andproceres: an urban laity that already in the twelfth century is ratherresourceful and that alternates sides—now in collaboration, now inconflict with the local bishop. The narrative horizon of the chroniclertends to widen from strictly local conflicts (for example thatagainst the castle of St. Autbertus) to struggles between the urbanbishop and the counts of Flanders, to relations with the Empire, withthe crusades, and to the delicate question of the subjection of thediocese of Cambrai first by the ecclesiastical metropolitan of Cologne,then of Reims. 68A more advanced phase of the history of German cities is seenin the Annales Lubicenses (Lubeck, 1264–1324), which illustrate diverseevents of a port city on the shores of the Baltic Sea. 69 Its genesis iscomplex: considered a continuation of the Annales of Albert Stadense,it has been attributed, for the part after the year 1267, to Conrad,a dean of the city, a chronicler contemporary with the deeds narrated,who is quite attentive to the urban connections between clergyand laity and, in particular, to the local episcopal tradition. He doesnot neglect to illustrate also, however, in modest Latin and presumablyto a large public of readers in his patria, the controversial67Lambertus Waterlos, Annales Cameracenses, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS 16 (Hannover,1859), 509 ff.68Lambertus Waterlos, Annales Cameracenses, ed. Pertz, passim. This work, alreadyknown and published in the course of the nineteenth century, has been made theobject of more detailed studies in the course of the twentieth century. See Potthast(1962–98), 7:116.69Annales Lubicenses, ed. J. M. Lappenberg, MGH SS 16 (Hannover, 1859) 411–29.