Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- EDITOR'S PREFACE
- ABBREVIATIONS
- R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture The Norman Conquest and the Media
- Dudo of St Quentin and Norman Military Strategy c.1000
- Clergy in the Diocese of Hereford in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
- England and the Irish-Sea Zone in the Eleventh Century
- Les abbés bénédictins de la Normandie ducale
- The Vita Ædwardi Regis: The Hagiographer as Insider
- The Warenne View of the Past, 1066–1203
- Textual Communities in the English Fenlands: A Lay Audience for Monastic Chronicles?
- 1088 – William II and the Rebels
- The Anglo-Norman Civil War of 1101 Reconsidered
- Epic and Romance in the Chronicles of Anjou
Dudo of St Quentin and Norman Military Strategy c.1000
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- EDITOR'S PREFACE
- ABBREVIATIONS
- R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture The Norman Conquest and the Media
- Dudo of St Quentin and Norman Military Strategy c.1000
- Clergy in the Diocese of Hereford in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
- England and the Irish-Sea Zone in the Eleventh Century
- Les abbés bénédictins de la Normandie ducale
- The Vita Ædwardi Regis: The Hagiographer as Insider
- The Warenne View of the Past, 1066–1203
- Textual Communities in the English Fenlands: A Lay Audience for Monastic Chronicles?
- 1088 – William II and the Rebels
- The Anglo-Norman Civil War of 1101 Reconsidered
- Epic and Romance in the Chronicles of Anjou
Summary
For almost a century and a half, scholars have questioned the historical accuracy of De Moribus et Actis primorum Normanniae ducum written by Dudo of St Quentin early in the eleventh century. This work, which is sometimes referred to by scholars as Gesta Normannorum, is now widely recognized to be littered throughout with unreliable details in regard to political matters and this is the case especially in regard to the early history of the Norman ducal family. Whether Dudo's general failure to get the facts right, as many scholars believe, was intentional or whether his inaccuracies resulted from trying to compensate for his ignorace by filling in ‘gaps’ with fiction today still remains controversial. It is clear, nevertheless, that the contemporary ruling family in Normandy, Dudo's patrons, commissioned him to write a story in praise of their ancestors that would be plausible to its intended audience at the ducal court.
In the context of plausibility, it is likely to be of some importance that Dudo was writing within a rhetorical tradition that flourished in the northern parts of Francia Occidentalis during the latter part of the tenth century and especially at Liège where he was educated. Indeed Dudo himself opines, from time to time, on the importance of rhetoric. Thus, fundamental questions must be asked: how did Dudo maintain or perhaps more accurately try to maintain what scholars call ‘rhetorical plausibility’ with his audience?
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- Chapter
- Information
- Anglo-Norman Studies 26Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, pp. 21 - 36Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004