HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

CHAPTER TWELVELEGENDARY HISTORY: HISTORIA AND FABULAPeter AinsworthThere were historians in the Middle Ages, and there was a medieval historiography.What we lack are historians of medieval historiography. 1The present essay is intended as a complement to ‘Contemporaryand “Eyewitness” History’, which appears elsewhere in this volume,and attempts to deal with issues not covered there. In particular itsets out to explore the reasons for the appearance in Old French,from ca. 1100 onwards, of different kinds of writing about the pastin all of which legend and the ‘recycling’ of elements of the pastplay a major role. It begins with a discussion of the tension betweenhistoria and fabula, continues with an account of the edifying functionof medieval history as understood by the scholars of the time,and then explores in turn the appearance of the new vernaculartexts of the period 1100–1220, starting with the chanson de geste, continuingwith the roman arthurien and roman d’antiquité, and concludingwith developments towards the end of the period studied, which ledto the separation of verse and prose and to a new emphasis in thelatter form on truth-telling. If the bill of fare proposed here seemsa strange one, in the context of a handbook of historiography, it isbecause the vernacular writers of the twelfth-century Renaissancewrote about the past in ways that are surprisingly varied and delightfullyperplexing to a modern audience, and which tell us a gooddeal about how they viewed their present.The High Middle Ages were not ignorant of the fundamental distinction,so familiar to us, between historical and fictional account.In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville explained to his readershow the task of historia was to inform and instruct by recountingactual facts. 2 Fabula, in contrast, was expected to offer a fictional1Guenée (1977), 275; my translation.2Isidore de Séville, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum Sive Originum Libri XX,