HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

354 MICHAEL GOODICHcentury, Matthew Paris (ca. 1200–59) was the author of versifiedand prose saints’ lives in both Latin and Anglo-Norman dedicatedto SS. Alban, Amphibalus, Thomas Becket, Edmund of Abingdon,Edward the Confessor, and Stephen Langton, along with historiesof the abbots and founders of his abbey at St. Albans. Lawrencenotes the considerable rhetorical baggage that weighs down his lifeof Edmund, including oxymorons, puns, biblical quotations, and otherfigures of speech. Matthew was likewise an artist whose chroniclesand biographies include tinted drawings and half-page illustrations. 3Konrad of Megenberg (1309–74), the author of polemical, political,and scientific tracts, also composed lives of SS. Erhard, Dominic,and Matthew. Thomas of Cantimpré (ca. 1200/01–1270/72), authorof the scientific encyclopedia De natura rerum (ca. 1240) and an allegoricalstudy of bees, Bonum universale de apibus, also composed livesof Mary of Oignies, Christina (Mirabilis) of St. Trond, Lutgard ofAywières, and John of Cantimpré. The Dominican Giovanni of SanGemignano (ca. 1260–ca. 1323), author of sermons and of the widelyconsulted moral encyclopedia Summa de exemplis et rerum similitudinibus,composed lives of such local saints as Seraphina of San Gemignanoand Peter of Foligno. In addition to his De viris illustribus, Sigebertof Gembloux (ca. 1028/29–1112) authored scriptural commentaries,lives of Bishop Theodoric I of Metz, Guibert, Maclovius, Theodard,Deoderic, King Sigebert, Wicbert, and Lambert, along with computational,historical, liturgical, and polemical works. William ofMalmesbury (ca. 1095–ca. 1142) wrote a life of St. Wulfstan ofWorcester and other saints in addition to histories of the kings (ca.1118, at the order of Queen Matilda) and bishops of England, amonograph on the church of Glastonbury, a collection of miraclesof the Virgin, and a Liber pontificalis (1119–25). Although Williamclaims in his preface that Wulfstan’s biography is a translation of anearlier English work by the saint’s chaplain Coleman, there is neverthelessevidence of some editorial work. 43Matthew Paris, The Life of St. Edmund, trans. and ed. C. H. Lawrence (Oxford,1996), 114–15.4Mason (1990), 290–93.