William of Malmesbury's Carolingian sources

In his great history of England, the Gesta regum Anglorum, completed in 1125, William of Malmesbury included digressions on continental affairs. One of these, on the Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs, provides an interesting study of William's historical method. His Frankish sources are difficult to identify, but we are helped by the survival of the late twelfth-century English MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library Lat. class d.39. This book contains, inter alia, a collection of chronicles and short pieces on Frankish history. We attempt to show that it was copied from a MS. made by or for William, and that his own notes were recopied into its margins. Moreover, it seems probable that he himself compiled the collection of chronicles in it. This discovery enables us to identify most of William's Frankish materials, to draw important conclusions about his manipulation of them, and so advance our knowledge of twelfth-century historiography generally.     

Criticism of Henry II's expedition to Ireland in William of Canterbury's miracles of St Thomas Becket

The long collection of miracles of St Thomas Becket written by William, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, between 1172 and c.1179 is, like many other examples of the genre, a rich source for attitudes towards sanctity, relics, and pilgrimage. A far more unusual feature of William's text is the author's criticism of the recent English presence in Ireland. William's comments on this score amount to a loaded stretching of the normal parameters of his textual medium, resulting in an evaluative engagement with current affairs of the sort that we would more normally associate with reflective forms of history-writing. William's criticism focused in particular upon the expedition to Ireland undertaken by King Henry II (October 1171–April 1172), inverting the very rhetoric that Henry had used to justify his Irish adventure. William was not himself Irish, as has sometimes been supposed, nor was he registering his institution's frustrations about its exclusion from the new ecclesiastical order in Ireland, as might be implied by the traditional but questionable ‘Canterbury plot’ interpretation of the much-debated papal bull Laudabiliter. Instead, William was skilfully engaging with current debates about the rectitude of Henry II's Irish expedition, and more broadly contesting emerging prejudices about England's ‘uncultivated’ neighbours, in order to effect a subtle critique of the king's involvement in Becket's murder.     

The wives of the ‘first troubadour’, Duke William IX of Aquitaine

The sources which offer insights into the life of Duke William IX of Aquitaine, the ‘first troubadour’, are few and disparate in nature. This study focuses on the conclusions which have been drawn from Anglo-Norman chroniclers' accounts of his clashes with the Church, reportedly over the issue of his adultery, and on Latin poems in praise of the bishop who excommunicated William and whom the duke persecuted. While it is generally believed that the duke married twice, close investigation shows this to be based largely on an error in a nineteenth-century secondary source: it is probable that Philippa of Toulouse was William's only wife. A new reading is proposed of the major Latin verse-compositions referring to the duke's excommunication (1114-17) and it is suggested that the historical evidence concerning the Poitevin claim to the country of Toulouse does not match well with the notion that William attempted to repudiate his wife Philippa, on whom this claim depended.     

Orderic Vitalis and Rober of Bellême

The Norman monastic chronicler Orderic Vitalis's treatment of Robert of Bellême, the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman magnate and overmighty subject of the English kings, William II and Henry I, is discussed and compared with evidence from other sources. A contrast is drawn between Orderic's eagerness to portray Robert as a villain and his apparent acceptance of the misdemeanors of Henry I, who is presented favourably because of the period of relative peace following Henry's deposition in 1106 of his brother, the Norman duke, Robert Curthose. Orderic downplays the work of Henry's predecessors, Robert Curthose and William II, and in Robert of Bellême creates a counterweight to his picture of the just king Henry I. His negative assessment of all Robert's actions therefore needs to be adjusted and it is suggested that other modern interpretations based on his work may need similar re-examination and revision.     

The Norman invasion of Gwent: a reassessment

Shortly after the Norman conquest of England, William fitz Osbern was created earl of Hereford. Most historians suggest he overran all Gwent east of the Usk before his return to the continent in 1071. This article will argue that his occupation of Gwent was more limited and was possibly confined to the territories claimed by Harold Godwinson, once earl of Hereford, before his death at Hastings. Instead, the accession of William Rufus in 1087 is seen as the context for a new aggressive policy towards South Wales. In the next fifteen years, Gwent and its neighbouring kingdoms of Morgannwg and Bucheiniog were overrun by William's marcher lords.     

Getting the punchline: deciphering anti-Jewish humour in Anglo-Norman England

The idea that laughter was impossible for medieval monks has been largely overturned in recent decades, but the paucity of sources and the cultural specificity of humour still makes understanding their sense of humour difficult. William of Malmesbury, a twelfth-century English Benedictine, nevertheless provides a rare glimpse of what made monks laugh in his collection of Marian miracles, the Miracula sanctae Mariae. Introducing one of his miracle stories as ‘a great joke that will have readers laughing out loud’, William gives us invaluable information about the way humour could infiltrate the most unlikely of genres, in this case one generally thought to be devotional and edificatory in nature. The story is also virulently anti-Jewish. By placing the joke in its historical context, exploring the themes of corruption, political weakness and interaction between Jews and Christians in twelfth-century England, we can understand what this joke meant and what it can in turn reveal about the world that produced it.     

Wellsprings of a ‘World War’: An early English attempt to conquer Canada during King William's war, 1688–97

The military historiography of early modern colonial America currently offers two contrary interpretations. One emphasises the exceptional nature of American warfare as a product of a process of military acculturation between the colonists and the native Americans; the other denies this acculturation in favour of the successful importation of orthodox European forms of warfare. By assessing the military history of the early years of King William's War, 1688–97, including in particular an early attempt to conquer French Canada in 1690 by Sir William Phips, this article contributes to this historiographical debate. King William's War (known on the European continent as the Nine Years' War) has been little studied in this context and the article argues that not only was military acculturation less relevant in the later seventeenth century, but also that the colonists' deployment of amphibious actions against the French demonstrated an increasing recognition that, strategically and militarily, they were required to draw closer to London's war policy and to replicate European combat.     

The politics of being Norman in the reign of Richard the Fearless,Duke of Normandy (r. 942–996)

In 966, by the end of the reign of its third duke, Richard I, Normandy had overcome the crises that had beset it in the middle of the century. Much of this success came from the coherence of its ruling group, which expressed itself partly in terms of ‘Norman’ identity. This article uses Dudo's history of the dukes and Richard's charters to argue that ‘Norman’ as a political identity was a deliberate creation of the court of Richard I in the 960s, following the perceived failure of his and his father's policies of assimilation into Frankish culture.     

Toward a reappraisal of William the Great,duke of Aquitaine (995–1030)

William, duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitou, has won a glowing reputation from historians for his personal piety and his active support of religious reform. Scholars have given him the sobriquet ‘the Great’, and he is traditionally regarded as one of those overmighty subjects whose fame and power eclipsed their less accomplished Capetian contemporaries. As count and duke, however, William clearly had responsibilities that went beyond support of the Church. In the present study an effort has been made to examine the more secular aspects of William's career to see if, in fact, he justly deserves to be considered one of the outstanding figures of the early eleventh century.     

William Rufus: myth and reality

The commonly accepted view of the reign of William II (1087–1100) is a political myth, primarily the work of Eadmer, who depicted the king as the villain against whom St Anselm strove to impose the revolutionary Gregorian reform programme in England. Henry I, moreover, denigrated his brother's regime as a cover for furthering William's harsh but constructive policies. Eadmer's writings were quarried by subsequent twelfth-century writers in the mainstream of the English monastic historical tradition, who added their own literary embellishments. Nineteenth-century historians uncritically accepted these accounts and Henry I's gloss on the reign. They then contributed moral judgements of their own, which passed without qualification into modern secondary works.This paper re-evaluates William II's political and governmental achievements, and his ecclesiastical policy. His character is considered in the light of recent work on twelfth-century intellectual and psychological attitudes, and the accounts of more favourable chroniclers. It is concluded that the king developed his father's strong policies in every direction with considerable success, making possible the more publicized but essentially imitative work of Henry I. William's expansion and consolidation of national frontiers, his legal and financial developments, and his maintenance of royal control over the Church are revealed under the distortions of ecclesiastical and Henrician historiography.     

Knowledge of the past and the judgement of history in tenth‐century Trier: Regino of Prüm and the lost manuscript of Bishop Adventius of Metz

Regino of Prüm's chronicle is an invaluable source for ninth‐ and early tenth‐century Frankish history, but also for contemporary perceptions of that history. Though Regino's motivations for writing continue to be discussed, most historians now agree that his account can be read as one of Carolingian rise and fall. This article argues that this interpretative stance should be considered as in part a product of Regino's engagement with the surprisingly limited sources for the ninth century at his disposal. Taken together, these texts suggested a narrative for which Regino could find ample confirmation in the events of his own time.     

Inspecting the pious body: Christological morphology and the ritual-crucifixion allegation

The first ritual-murder accusations appeared at a time in which a theology that was increasingly invested in Christ's human body was articulated. Forms of mimetic devotion emerged across Latin Christendom, but were considered highly controversial. The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, this essay argues, is an attempt to think about some of the problems that arise from this theology. By interpreting Jewish actions, both real and alleged, the author, Thomas of Monmouth, deployed a Christian bodily logic in order to make a claim about William's sanctity based on his physical ‘likeness’ to Christ in suffering. While in the end this rhetorical and theological scheme was not widely accepted by the author's contemporaries, the Christological grammar of bodily hermeneutics that the Vita articulates resonated in the language of subsequent allegations.     

‘Those same cursed Saracens’: Charlemagne's campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula as religious warfare

While it is well known that many of Charlemagne's wars had a strong religious element, Frankish campaigns against the Muslims of Spain in his reign have generally been understood as secular exercises in power politics. This article presents evidence contemporary to Charlemagne's reign to argue against this, using a diverse range of sources to conclude that many observers of the Frankish invasions of the Iberian Peninsula understood them as religious wars aimed both at the defending of Christian communities in Francia and protecting and expanding the worship of Christianity in Spain. Further, although the prosecution of these wars was politically opportunistic, the sources suggest that Charlemagne and his court encouraged interpretations of these campaigns in religious terms and that they might be considered examples of religious war.     

Parliament in print: William Caxton and the history of political government in the fifteenth century

This article explores the narrative of parliamentary history in fifteenth-century England, specifically as found in the texts William Caxton printed. It investigates Caxton's approach to history and motivation for choosing texts, his translations and vocabulary, his editorial oversight and his audience. As his confidence in his own skill grew, and as he moved from a continental to an English context, his reading of parliaments changed. Initially it corresponded to his French texts, but by the early 1480s he understood the term ‘parliament’ to mean some variation of the contemporary English Parliament. Caxton's later understanding is reflected in the histories he published. This article emphasises the importance of Caxton's historical narratives to Parliament's legitimacy and to political discourse in a time when few parliaments were held.     

A psycho-historical source: the Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent

Medievalists turn to Guibert of Nogent's Memoirs (1116) for the account of the Laon uprising they contain. And yet this account is poor history. It is didactic and self-righteous in tone; one senses that the writer consistently sacrificed historical truth to the moral point he was trying to make. Scratch this twelfth- century ‘historian’ and you will find underneath a guilt-ridden cleric, haunted by vivid sexual reminiscences of his mother and by the terrible chastening reality of the Virgin Mary. A sensitive reading of the confessional sections of the Memoirs may yield up crucial unconscious impulses in a medieval man's psyche: his ‘masculine’ ambitions for glory, his need to prove his manhood, and yet also his ‘feminine’ desire for selfless submission to God, and his need to achieve a kind of passive holiness and innocence. These opposing impulses may account for the ‘demon’ that tortured Guibert of Nogent.After isolating certain psychological themes in the Memoirs it is possible to relate these themes to various nuances in the psychological ‘milieu’ of twelfth-century France. It is also possible to relate some of these themes to a ‘milieu’ not altogether different from that of twelfth-century France — twentieth-century southern Italy. For in southern Italy, we find that the psychological relationship between masculinity and femininity and (perhaps as a result of this relationship) the prominence of the Virgin Mary in the lives of the people corresponds closely to the situation in twelfth- century France. But this cross-cultural analysis is meant only to illuminate some of the possibilities of psychohistory. At the very least, a psychohistorical consideration of a text such as Guibert of Nogent's Memoirs should reveal some useful correlations between the single psychological current and the larger tides of cultural history.     

William of Malmesbury and fortuna

The great Benedictine historian William of Malmesbury has divided scholarly interpretation over recent decades. For some, William was a precocious scholarly talent who steered around or subverted the constraining absurdities of the providential orthodoxy. For others, his explicit expressions of faith in God’s providence, despite its often vexatious reverses, betray a sincere piety and reverence for the hidden justice of divine cosmic rationality. These conclusions have relied on flawed assessments of William’s use of the term fortuna, fortune. They adhere to a broader status quo that imagines all medieval thinkers took for granted that fortune’s reverses were inscrutable and inevitable. On the contrary, this article argues that William was concerned with determining the precise causes of fortune, so that he might prescribe ethical advice to prevent its reverses. This has consequences for understanding the ends of twelfth-century historical writing and the development of thought pertaining to individual and collective punishments.