Rewriting History in the Central Middle Ages, 900-1300

Description

In the Middle Ages, rewriting history was a distinct activity within the larger sphere of historical writing. Rewriting started with existing historical accounts, recasting them into new forms as new stories about the past. Changes in circumstances drove rewriting, encouraging historically literate writers and their patrons to examine their histories anew, to jettison what no longer made sense or was useful, and to supply new material to fill gaps or expand ideas. Writers rewrote not only for the present and future, but also for the past. They curated the past and reorganized its intellectual artifacts, thereby revealing new facets of old history to future eyes. Rewriting was a defining characteristic of the central Middle Ages (900-1300), distinct both from earlier traditions of universal history and from later traditions of making continuations which left the narrative core intact. Reimagining the past by rewriting happened across genres, in the vernaculars as well as the universal languages of Latin and Greek, and across Europe, west and east. The chapters in this book explore the reasons and methods for rewriting, ranging across the Anglo-Norman realm, France and Flanders, Christian Iberia, Norman Italy and the Mediterranean, Byzantium, and Georgia and Armenia. Together, they show a set of rewriters who made themselves the authorities for their own age. Front Matter Introduction Emily A. Winkler and C. P. Lewis. Curating the Past in the Central Middle Ages Roman Deutinger. From Lake Constance to the Elbe: Rewriting a Reichenau World Chronicle from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century Patrick Wadden. The Careful Look: Historical Culture in Gaeldom c. 1100 Nikoloz Aleksidze. Rewriting Histories in Medieval Caucasia Maximilian Lau. Rewriting History at the Court of the Komnenoi: Processes and Practices Comparisons Robert F. Berkhofer III. Rewriting the Past: Monastic Forgeries and Plausible Narratives Jaakko Tahkokallio. Rewriting English History for a High Medieval Republic of Letters: Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, and the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century Marie-Agnès Lucas-Avenel. Writing History on the Order of the Hautevilles: Geoffrey Malaterra and William of Apulia’s Accounts of Guiscard’s Expedition to Constantinople (1081–1082) Case Studies Pauline Stafford. Women in the D Chronicle: Writing and Rewriting the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles Alheydis Plassmann. Æthelred the Unready and Edward the Confessor in William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon: Two Sides of the Same Coin? C. P. Lewis. Selfhood and Perspective in Orderic Vitalis’s Rewriting of English History Kyle C. Lincoln. Rewriting a History of Castilian Dominance in the Age of the Separation of the Crowns of Leon-Castile (1031–1252) Gregory Fedorenko. Thirteenth-Century Memories of the Normans in the Mediterranean in the Estoire de Tancrède de Hauteville Back Matter