Abstract
There was no shortage of interest in the past in Normandy during the reign of Henry II.1 Although Latin was the conventional language employed by historians writing about the past, the vernacular became an important medium.2 The juxtaposition of Latin and French raises various questions about patronage, authorship, audience, and gender. These can be explored through a study of the work of three contemporary Norman historians in particular: Robert of Torigni, monk of Bee (ca. 1128–54) and abbot of Mont Saint-Michel (1154–86), Stephen of Rouen, monk of Bee (d. after 1170), and Wace, born at Jersey, educated at Paris and Caen, and later canon of Bay eux (d. after 1174).3 All three were clergymen: two monks and one secular clerk. All three were excellent Latinists, well versed in Latin historiography and court documentation, but only Abbot Robert and Stephen wrote, as far as we know, exclusively in Latin, while Wace used the vernacular. Yet, while Stephen and Wace preferred verse, Abbot Robert’s work is in prose. The close connection between Henry II’s mother, Empress Matilda (d. 1167), and the monastery of Bee no doubt explains the personal knowledge of her revealed by the monks Robert and Stephen.4 Did they write as a result of her request or in expectation of patronage? Either way, a good knowledge of Latin on Matilda’s part need not only be assumed but can be proven by other evidence.
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Notes
For useful introductions, see Leah Shopkow, History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 1997)
Emily Albu, The Normans in their Histories (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2001), and Elisabeth van Houts, “Historical Writing,” A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2003), pp. 103–22.
Peter Damian-Grint, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Inventing Vernacular Authority (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 1999)
a comparative study of Latin and French is presented by Jean Blacker, The Faces of Time: Portrayal of the Past in Old French and Latin Historical Narratives of the Anglo-Norman Regnum (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).
For the intellectual climate, see Ian Short, “Language and Literature,” A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2003), pp. 191–214.
Marjorie Chibnall, “The Empress Matilda and Bec-Hellouin,” Anglo-Norman Studies 10 (1987): 35–48, repr. as chap. 11 in Marjorie Chibnall, Piety, Power and History in Medieval England and Normandy, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 11 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 35–48.
Adelard’s address to Henry was printed by C. H. Haskins, “Adelard of Bath and Henry Plantagenet,” English Historical Review 28 (1913): 516–17. Emmanuel Poulie, “Le traité de l’ astrolabe d’ Adé lard de Bath,” Adelard of Bath. An English Scientist and Arabist of the Early Twelfth Century, ed. Charles Burnett, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 14 (London: Warburg Institute, 1987), pp. 119–32; J. D. North, “Some Norman Horoscopes,” Adelard of Bath, ed. Burnett, 147–61, at 159–61 and Louise Cochrane, Adelard of Bath the First Scientist (London: British Museum Press, 1994), 97–98, 105. Recently, it has been suggested that the horoscopes may be by Robert of Chester, see Adelard of Bath, Conversations with his Nephew: On the Same and the Different, Questions on Natural Science and On Birds, ed. and trans. Charles Burnett, et al., Cambridge Medieval Classics 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. xvi, n. 26.
Elisabeth van Houts, “Le roi et son historien: Henri II et Robert de Torigni,” Cahiers de Civilisation mé dié vale 37 (1994): 115–18
for the frontier position of Mont Saint-Michel, see Cassandra Potts, “Normandy or Brittany? A Conflict of Interests at Mont Saint-Michel (966–1035),” Anglo-Norman Studies 12 (1989): 135–56.
J. A. Everard, Brittany and the Angevins. Province and Empire 1158–1203, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser., 48 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 34–75, at 34–45 for a political guide to the chronology.
Judith Everard, “The ‘Justiciarship’ in Brittany and Ireland under Henry II,” Anglo-Norman Studies 20 (1997): 87–106.
Peter Johanek, “Kö nig Arthur und die Plantagenets,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 21 (1987): 346–89, at 384–86, where it is suggested that Stephen may have used an existing fictional correspondence in prose which he put into verse; Julia Crick, The Historia Regum Brittanie of Geoffrey of Montnouth. IV Dissemination and Reception in the later Middle Ages (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 92–93; Chauou, L’ idé ologieplantagenêt, pp. 71–72.
For Agnes de Baudemont, see Theodore Evergates, “Aristocratic women in the county of Champagne,” in Aristocratic women in Medieval France, ed. Theodore Evergates (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 74–100, at 101.
For Henry the Young King, see Warren, Henry II, pp. 117–36; for Robert Curthose, see Judith Green, “Robert Curthose Reassessed,” Anglo-Norman Studies 22 (1999): 95–116.
Elisabeth van Houts, “Wace as Historian,” Family Trees and the Roots of Politics. The Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century, ed. K. S. B. Keats-Rohan (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 1997), pp. 103–32 and Green, “Robert Curthose Reassessed,” pp. 95–96.
Elisabeth van Houts, “The adaptation of the Gesta Nonnannorum Ducum by Wace and Benoit,” Non Nova sed Nove: Mé langes de civilisation mé dié vale dé dié s à Willem Noomen, é d. Martin Gosman and Jaap van Os, Mediaevalia Groningana 5 (Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis, 1984), 115–25; Wace (trans. Burgess, p. xxxi).
V. H. Galbraith, “The literacy of the medieval English kings,” Proceedings of the British Academy 21 (1935): 1–40 , at 15–16; Warren, Henry II, pp. 38–39, 207–208.
Amalie Fö ssel, Die Kö nigin im mittelalterlichen Reich (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2000), pp. 106–107 and 159–61, at 161: “… übernahm Kö nigin Mathilde nicht nur den Vorsitz, sondern auch die Rolle der Richterin, ausgestattet mit den entsprechenden Befugnissen: Sie leitete die Verhandlung, beriet mit den Beisitzern, verkündete den Urteilsspruch, investierte in Besitzungen, verhängte den Bann, verfügte die Ausstellung der Urkunde.”
Corpus Christi College, MS 373. Anonymi Chronica Imperatorum Heinrico V dedicata, ed. Franz-Joseph Schmale and Irene Schmale-Ott, Ausgewählte Quellen zur Deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, 15 (Darmstadt: Wissenschafliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972), 211–65 for the section from 1095 to the end in 1114. For the authorship and date of composition ca. 1112–14, see pp. 39–42; see also Chibnall, Empress Matilda, p. 26.
Waitz, Liber regum Francorum: 376–95, with prologue at 376–77; Chibnall, Empress Matilda, p. 46. For Hugh of Fleury’s text, see Alexandre Vidier, L’ Historiographie à Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire et les Miracles de Saint Benoit (Paris: A. Picard, 1965), pp. 79–80.
Chibnall, Empress Matilda, p. 190. Elisabeth van Houts, “Gender, Memories and Prophecies: Adeliza of Louvain,” in Medieval Narrative Sources: A Gateway into the Medieval Mind, ed. Werner Verbeke, Ludo Melis and Jan Goossens, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series 1: Studia 34 (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 2005), pp. 21–36, at 35–36.
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© 2006 Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones
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van Houts, E. (2006). Latin and French as Languages of the Past in Normandy During the Reign of Henry II: Robert of Torigni, Stephen of Rouen, and Wace. In: Kennedy, R., Meecham-Jones, S. (eds) Writers of the Reign of Henry II. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-08855-0_3
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