HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor
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HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

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LEGENDARY HISTORY: HISTORIA AND FABULA 389As one of the goals of the trivium was to establish rules of conduct,examples to avoid or imitate, it was completely natural to look backto the past, that is, to history books, for real examples. 7This edifying function of historical narratives was also known to theRomans. Their rhetoric advocated regular recourse to moral anecdotestaken from model lives and brought to life by the use of—often invented—direct speech. 8 Medieval rhetoric itself distinguishedbetween historia (narration of facts proven to have taken place), argumentum(an account more probable than true), and fabula (neither truenor probable); but most historians in the Middle Ages seem only tohave retained the first- and last-mentioned of these categories. 9 Thisdid not stop them, however, from blending into their accounts bothattested facts and fantastic or legendary phenomena. But as JeanBlacker illustrates so well, both the Latin and vernacular historiansof the twelfth century certainly believed in the existence of a seriesof facts (res gestae) beyond their own accounts (historiae rerum gestarum),even if these occasionally contained magic spells, fantasies and ghostlyapparitions. 10Romance, Historiography, and Epic:The New Vernacular Discourse of the Twelfth CenturyIf, for Bernard Guenée, the first major current of medieval historiography—madeup of texts written in Latin and relating the historyof a monastery, crusade, or province—can be seen as a by-productof moral teaching or theology, a second current—represented thistime by poems composed sometimes in Latin, sometimes in romanby willing humanists who, to please their patrons, adapted and translatedthe two or three books which they were lent by them—must,for this modern historian, be viewed as a mere ‘by-product’ of literature.This judgment appears severe, if only because of the relativeuncertainty still surrounding those composite texts from the twelfthcentury that we know as the chroniques, estoires, and romans 11 —which7Guenée (1977), 264; my translation.8See Hay (1977), 8–10.9Blacker (1994), xi and 201.10Blacker (1994), xii.11Damian-Grint (1999), 231, reminds us that in the twelfth century the primemeaning of romanz is linguistic, i.e., “non-Latin”.

390 PETER AINSWORTHsurely have so much to teach us about how the world was viewedby contemporaries.In an essay published in 1975, Paul Zumthor tried to isolate anddefine the qualities that should enable the modern reader to makeviable distinctions between vernacular epic, historiography, andromance. 12 To the purely formal criteria to which he had had recoursein an earlier study (which had, however, proven inadequate for identifyingthe significant differences characterizing categories of text,which, almost without exception, used the octosyllabic couplet) henow added the criterion of their respective teleologies or finalités. 13For Zumthor, roman and histoire (provisionally: ‘vernacular narrativetexts in octosyllabic couplets with a predominantly legendary or imaginativeemphasis’ and ‘vernacular narrative texts in octosyllabic coupletswith a predominantly historiographical emphasis’)—were “twinsborn of a certain crisis of self-awareness that affected the ruling classof western society in a relatively specific place and time”. 14 He distinguishedthem, on the one hand, from the Latin historiographictradition with its moralizing or annalistic tendency (as defined above)and, on the other hand, from the chansons de geste or epics that precededthem (but which were, of course, to remain popular throughoutthe Middle Ages).Before we can attempt a more detailed examination of the newforms of discourse in roman, both of which used the octosyllabic couplet,we need to establish just how they may be distinguished withregard to that other form of ‘retrospective’ expression, viz., the chansonde geste. The greatest particularity of the latter, again accordingto Zumthor, was its memorializing function:The epic phenomenon ...arises in a society as yet relatively undifferentiatedin social terms and in which the collective social consciousnessseeks, emotively, to identify what it is that both attaches it to theknown world and distinguishes it from the same; seeks, that is, to affirmits wholeness and unity, the very conditions for and consequence ofits ability to dominate it. ... Not so much a reflection of a past reality,the chanson de geste may thus be seen as a means of compensation,12Zumthor (1975), 237–48: ‘Roman et histoire: aux sources d’un univers narratif’.13This part of our discussion owes much to Zumthor’s ideas, but reference willalso be made, as appropriate, to other critics who appear to offer useful clarifications.14Zumthor (1975), 238; my translation.

LEGENDARY HISTORY: HISTORIA AND FABULA 389As one of the goals of the trivium was to establish rules of conduct,examples to avoid or imitate, it was completely natural to look backto the past, that is, to history books, for real examples. 7This edifying function of historical narratives was also known to theRomans. Their rhetoric advocated regular recourse to moral anecdotestaken from model lives and brought to life by the use of—often invented—direct speech. 8 Medieval rhetoric itself distinguishedbetween historia (narration of facts proven to have taken place), argumentum(an account more probable than true), and fabula (neither truenor probable); but most historians in the Middle Ages seem only tohave retained the first- and last-mentioned of these categories. 9 Thisdid not stop them, however, from blending into their accounts bothattested facts and fantastic or legendary phenomena. But as JeanBlacker illustrates so well, both the Latin and vernacular historiansof the twelfth century certainly believed in the existence of a seriesof facts (res gestae) beyond their own accounts (historiae rerum gestarum),even if these occasionally contained magic spells, fantasies and ghostlyapparitions. 10Romance, Historiography, and Epic:The New Vernacular Discourse of the Twelfth CenturyIf, for Bernard Guenée, the first major current of medieval historiography—madeup of texts written in Latin and relating the historyof a monastery, crusade, or province—can be seen as a by-productof moral teaching or theology, a second current—represented thistime by poems composed sometimes in Latin, sometimes in romanby willing humanists who, to please their patrons, adapted and translatedthe two or three books which they were lent by them—must,for this modern historian, be viewed as a mere ‘by-product’ of literature.This judgment appears severe, if only because of the relativeuncertainty still surrounding those composite texts from the twelfthcentury that we know as the chroniques, estoires, and romans 11 —which7Guenée (1977), 264; my translation.8See Hay (1977), 8–10.9Blacker (1994), xi and 201.10Blacker (1994), xii.11Damian-Grint (1999), 231, reminds us that in the twelfth century the primemeaning of romanz is linguistic, i.e., “non-Latin”.

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