HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

LEGENDARY HISTORY: HISTORIA AND FABULA 403Dares, the chronology hardly functions at all as a structuring principle.55 The area of greatest interest is, in fact, the episode. Thisremains an autonomous temporal unit within narrative sequences,which—in nearly all cases—owe their respective coherence to thematicrather than chronological elements, even though within eachparticular episode micro-chronologies undergird the coherence properto that unit of narration. The function of these micro-chronologiesis not to relate what happens in such or such an episode to theoverall narrative fabric of the poem but, rather, to heighten theimportance of the episode itself and, thus, maintain the reader’s interest.Further proof of this tendency is to be found in the absence,from one episode to the next, of any overtly chronological linkingreference. The result is a fragmented and disorienting narrative whoseconstitutive episodes nonetheless make for an absorbing read. Theapproach recalls, to some extent, the technique of similar or parallellaisses employed in the chanson de geste, and in many respects theRoman de Troie is a poem of truly epic grandeur.Although we are about to leave behind the world of the romanbreton and roman d’antiquité, we shall stay within the domain of rhetoric.In texts which are primarily historical and chronological in nature,we shall occasionally find elements of a style that reminds us of theepic, lay, or romance. But in the chronicles and estoires which weare about to discuss, the particular blend and admixture of theseelements is very different—not least because these are narratives inwhich recognizably esthetic patterning and ‘structuration’ are muchless apparent.Vernacular Historiography in Verse in the Twelfth CenturyIt was around 1155 that Master Wace, a clerk from Jersey workingin Caen and already the author of A Life of St Margaret, a Creation ofOur Lady (ca. 1130–40), and a Life of St Nicholas (ca. 1150) completedhis roman of Brut or Brutus, great grandson of Aeneas—and, as such,his spiritual heir and the presumed founder of the kingdom of theIsland Bretons. Possessed of considerable talent as an artist, Wacewas to contribute to the subsequent development of the roman d’aventures.55Eley (1994).