HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

LEGENDARY HISTORY: HISTORIA AND FABULA 409qui est en mer vers occident,al fieu de Normendic apent.En l’isle de Gersui fui nez;a Chaem fui petiz portez,illoques fui a letres mis,pois fui longues en France apris.Quant jo de France repairai,a Chaem longues conversai;de romanz faire m’entremis,mult en ecris e mult en fis.Par Deu aïe e par le reialtre fors Deu servir ne dei—m’en fu donnee, Deus li rende,a Baieues une provende.Del rei Henri segont vos di ...(Holden edn., vol. 2, ll. 5299–317; repr. in Lepelley [1987], 5)It is almost at the end of the Roman de Rou that we read a poignantenvoi in which Wace tells us how Benoît de Sainte-Maure came tobe entrusted with the job of finishing the history of the Normandukes:Die en avant qui dire en deit;j’ai dit por Maistre Beneeit,qui cest’ovre a dire a emprisecom li reis l’a desor lui mise;quant li reis li a rové fairelaissier la dei, si m’en dei taire.Li reis jadis maint bien me fist,mult me dona, plus me pramist,e se il tot doné m’eüstço qu’il me pramist, mielz me fust;nel poi aveir, ne plout al rei,mais n’est mie remés en mei. (Holden edn., vol. 2, ll. 11419–30)Benoît’s own Chronique des ducs de Normandie, commenced around 1170,was finished around 1174 but without his going much further thanthe battle of Tinchebray and the death of Henry I of England.Borrowing his general structure from the Latin chronicle of Williamof Jumièges’s Gesta Normannorum ducum in the redaction by Robert ofTorigni, 73 it also relies on three other key sources. For the first part,ending with the death of Richard the fourth duke, it looks to Dudo73The Gesta Normannorum ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert ofTorigni, 2 vols., ed. and trans. E. M. C. van Houts (Oxford, 1992–95).