| Abstract: | Dudo of St. Quentin's so-called De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum is considered on the basis of the extant manuscripts of the text, and in the light of the author's patron, Duke Richard I, and of his diocesan bishop, Adalbero of Laon, to whom the history was dedicated. The narrative, commissioned two years before the death of Richard I (+996), was intended to establish the rights of Richard's son, the future Richard II, to the territory conquered by the latter's great-grandfather Rollo. Issues of succession were of more pressing concern than a desire to misrepresent the barbarian Normans as ‘civilized’, the type of motivation normally posited for Richard's commission and Dudo's narrative. The Norman house was already respected in the most rarified social strata by the 990s. Finally, the ‘reconstruction’ scenario according to which the Viking newcomers caused a major rupture with the past is rejected, for this requires Dudo to be seen as a mendacious propagandist. Continuity is very much suggested by the overwhelming evidence of prosperity and institutional stability during the reign of Richard I, as well as by Dudo's history. |
