IMC 2010: Sessions
Session 710: Vernacular Historiography of the British Isles in the High and Later Middle Ages, III: Latin and Vernacular Writings of History in Medieval England and Wales
Tuesday 13 July 2010, 14.15-15.45
Organiser: | Jaclyn Rajsic, New College, University of Oxford |
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Moderator/Chair: | Jaclyn Rajsic, New College, University of Oxford |
Paper 710-a | Fictions of Orality and the Textuality of History: Vernacular Historical Writing and the Written Word (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Language and Literature - Latin |
Paper 710-b | Constructing a Narrative of the High Middle Ages in Wales: Brut y Tywysogion and Annales Cambriae (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Latin |
Paper 710-c | The Death of Marquis Conrad of Montferrat in Medieval English Historiography (Language: English) Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval |
Abstract | Fundamental for discussions of vernacular historiographical writing, this third of four sessions explores relationships between Latin and vernacular languages, historical texts, and manuscripts, focused on 12th and 13th-century England and Wales. Beginning in 12th-century England, the first paper examines Jordan Fantosme's Estoire and Guernes de Pont-Ste-Maxence's Vie de Saint Thomas, both Anglo-Norman works, to explore the implications of a historian's choice of language (Latin or French) for the writing of history and to probe the attitudes of historical writing towards the written word. The second paper investigates the reconstruction of 12th-century Welsh history in a thorough study of the Brut y Tywysogion and the related Annales Cambriae, and challenges current views to argue that the vernacular texts closely reflect a detailed record of events constructed near to the events themselves. The final paper examines the suspicion that King Richard the Lionheart was involved in the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, King-elect of the Frankish Jerusalem, in medieval English historical works, and makes note of different approaches employed by authors writing in Latin and the vernacular. It demonstrates how exonerating explanations, initially brought forward by Richard's contemporaries, had developed over the centuries, from the writings of Matthew Paris up to those of Raphael Holingshed. |