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Chapter 20 - Tall Tales from the Archive

from Part III - Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2019

By
Andrew Prescott
Edited by
Jennifer Jahner ,
Emily Steiner  and
Elizabeth M. Tyler
Jennifer Jahner
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology
Emily Steiner
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Elizabeth M. Tyler
Affiliation:
University of York
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Summary

The administrative documents preserved in archives tell stories which are shaped by their institutional and governmental context, and are as deceptive and full of invention as more self-consciously literary works. Medieval archives contain a vast repository of historical narratives which, despite their fictional components and bureaucratic manipulation, nevertheless provide vivid insights into everyday life. The rhetorical conventions of such bureaucratic documents as pardons, petitions and appeals represent forms of historical literature which are cultural productions of equal significance to the chronicle or the epic poem. But, unlike court poetry or chronicles, the archives tell us a great deal about the life of ordinary people. In the wake of the discussion of the archive by Foucault and Derrida, the archive has been seen as a symbol of power and a means of control, but often the archive is the chief means by which non-elite groups find their voice.

Keywords

ArchivesRecordsGovernmentFictionGenreLondonPeasants’ RevoltCoronersProofs of AgePardonsRape
Type
Chapter
Information
Medieval Historical Writing
Britain and Ireland, 500–1500
 , pp. 356 - 369
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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