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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
Moderator/Chair:Jaclyn Rajsic, New College, University of Oxford
Paper 710-aFictions of Orality and the Textuality of History: Vernacular Historical Writing and the Written Word
(Language: English)
Henry Bainton, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Language and Literature - Latin
Paper 710-bConstructing a Narrative of the High Middle Ages in Wales: Brut y Tywysogion and Annales Cambriae
(Language: English)
David Stephenson, School of History & Welsh History, Bangor University
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Latin
Paper 710-cThe Death of Marquis Conrad of Montferrat in Medieval English Historiography
(Language: English)
Ilya Berkovich, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge
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.