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Presidential Address: Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing 1. The Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

R. W. Southern
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Extract

I hope the Society will not think that I am wasting its time in taking the European tradition of historical writing as the general theme of the addresses that I am required to deliver during my term of office. Although there have been many studies of the wide range of problems that fall under the general heading of historiography, the study of the aims, methods and limitations of the historians of the past has been somewhat neglected, in this country at least. There are of course some conspicuous exceptions. The historical attitudes and aptitudes of St Augustine, Gibbon and Macaulay have been examined again and again. But outside the great names comparatively little has been done to examine historical works for what they can tell us about the way in which historical writing is affected by the intellectual presuppositions and environment of the writer. As historians we are generally content to use the chronicles and histories of the past quite simply as quarries of facts that require to be sifted and purified to make them usable for our purposes, but do not require any profound investigation of the principles of selection, emphasis or composition that determined their preservation. This is how Stubbs dealt with the many chronicles that he edited so admirably. They were the raw material for his own works and those of other historians. He examined them for reliability, and he asked whether they provided new facts that could not be found elsewhere.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 20 , December 1970 , pp. 173 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1970

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References

page 173 note 1 In Germany these studies have been much more frequent, as may be seen from the following selection of recent works which throw light on the pattern of historical writing in the period discussed below: Beumann, H., ‘Widukind von Korvei’, Abhandtungen uber Corveyer Geschicktschreibung, 3 (1950), and Ideengeschichtliche Studien iu Einhard u. anderen Geschichts–schreibern desfrüheren Mittelalters (1962);Google ScholarHaefele, H. F., Fortuna Heinrici iv Imperatoris (1954);Google ScholarBornscheuer, L., Miseriae Regum (Arbeiten Zur Frühmittelalterforschung, 4 (1968);Google ScholarSchneider, A., ‘Thietmar von Merseburg über kirchliche, politische u. ständische Fragen seiner Zeit’, Archiv. für Kultur–geschichte, xliv (1962), 34–71;Google ScholarSimon, G., ‘Untersuchungen zur Topik der Widmungsbriefe mittelalterlichen Geschichtschreiber bis zum Ende des xii Jhts.’, Archiv. fur Diplomatik, iv (1958), 52–119; v–vi (1959–60), 73–153.Google Scholar

page 176 note 1 Aristotle, Poetics, 1459a.

page 176 note 2 ibid., 1451b.

page 177 note 1 For the connection between history and rhetoric in the ancient world, see Peter, H., Die Geschicktsliteratur über die römische KaiserZeit (1897), i, 3–107; ii, 179–210;Google Scholar and especially Quintilian, Instituta oratoria, I, viii, 18–21; X, i, 31–34; XII, iv; Pliny, Epistolae, v, 8; vii, 33; Cicero, , De Oratore, II, ix, 36–8; xii, 51–xvi, 68; Rhetorica ad Herennium, i, 8–9.Google Scholar

page 179 note 1 There is a penetrating analysis of Sallust's view of historical causation in Gordon Williams, Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (1969),619–33.

page 179 note 2 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. C. C. J. Webb, i, 211, calls him historicorum inter latinos potlssimus, and his popularity as a school–book (to take a random sample) is attested by the existence of no less than eight copies of his works in the library of Christ Church, Canterbury, about 1170 (M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, p. 9).

page 182 note 1 G. Simon, in the studies cited above, has collected a number of samples of typical apologies for literary shortcomings, but the list could easily be extended.

page 184 note 1 His edition appeared in the series of Classiques de I'histoire de France aumoyen âge in 1923 (2nd edn., 1938).

page 184 note 2 Chapter 9 (Halphen, pp. 28–9).

page 185 note 1 Edited by H. Bresslau in M.G.H. ScriPtores in usum scholarum.

page 186 note 1 They have been carefully uncovered with much penetrating comment by Alistair Campbell in his edition in the Roy. Hist. Soc. Camden Series III, vol. lxxii (1949).

page 187 note 1 Edited by F. Barlow (1962); an indispensable edition.

page 190 note 1 For the origins of the Frankish legend see E. Lüthgen, Die Quellen und der historische Werth der frankischen Trojasaga (1875). The sources are in M.G.H. Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, ed. B. Krusch, ii, 45–6, 194–200,241–6: Wallace–Hadrill, J. M. has some useful comments on them in The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar (1960), pp. xii–xiii.Google Scholar

page 190 note 2 Fredegar, iii, 4–8, ed. Krusch, pp. 45–6.

page 190 note 3 Rerum Gestarum Saxonicarum libri tres, ed. p.Hirsch, M.G.H. Scriptores in usum scholarum, pp. 4, 20–1. It is clear that he knew the legend only (as he tells us) from oral tradition for he thought that these Macedonian fugitives were Greeks, not Trojans as the literary version made clear.

page 191 note 1 ibid., pp. 46–8.

page 191 note 2 The best edition is still that by Lair, J. in Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de Normandie, xxiii (1865).Google Scholar

page 193 note 1 M.G.H. Scriptores, vi. Ekkehard describes his aims in the Preface (p. 9): ‘Cum tota intentio huius libri tarn Romani imperii quam Teutonici regni deserviat honori, quorum coniunctio cepit a Karolo Francigena, necessarium duximus tarn nobilissimae gentis … altius originem repetere, et sic per antiquissimae nobilitatis generationes usque ad eundem Karolum narratione deducta, qualiter ipse capesseret rem publicam labefactam et qualiter deinde Romanum imperium persuccessiones regum istius gentis excellentissime gubernaretur … digerere.’ In those words we see the signs of a sharper political propaganda than in earlier works.

page 193 note 2 The process of transferring the whole Frankish legend to the Capetian monarchy can be followed in the historical collections of St Denis in MS.Bibl. Mazarine 2013 and Bibl. Nat. lat. 12710. On the second of these MSS.see J. Lair in Bibl. de I'école des chartes, xxxv (1874), 542–80 (esp. pp. 551–7where the notes of the compiler of the chronicle show how, and from which sources, he intended to patch together his story linking the Capetian Kingdom with Troy).

page 193 note 3 Geoffrey of Monmouth is too large a subject for annotation in this brief sketch, but 1 should like to record my thanks to Professor Idris Foster for his help, though I cannot claim his authority for anything I have said here.

page 194 note 1 A comparison of Richer's History with the Annals of Flodoard on which it is largely, and sometimes wholly, based will provide an illuminating example of the various types of expansion, invention, transposition and suggestio falsi which a serious and ambitious historian could permit himself in turning his raw material into a finished history.