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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 1817: Crossing the Rubicon: Julius Caesar in the High Middle Ages

Thursday 8 July 2021, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Haskins Society
Organisers:Jacqueline Burek, Department of English, George Mason University, Virginia
Jesse Harrington, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Emily A. Winkler, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford / Department of History, University College London
Paper 1817-aMilitary Glory and the Destiny of Tyrants: Otto of Freising Remembering His Caesars
(Language: English)
Vedran Sulovsky, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Political Thought
Paper 1817-bThe Cistercians' Caesars: The Image of Caesar in the Historical Writings of Aelred of Rievaulx, William of Newburgh, and Jocelin of Furness
(Language: English)
Jesse Harrington, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Monasticism
Paper 1817-c(Not) Like Caesar: Lucan's Caesar in William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum Anglorum
(Language: English)
Jacqueline Burek, Department of English, George Mason University, Virginia
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance)
Abstract

This session explores how the border-crossing historians of the 12th-century renaissance portrayed Caesar variously as conqueror, tyrant, or as divine restorer of peace and prosperity. It charts the 'rediscovery' of Caesar as a vehicle for the theological exploration of fortune and of the providential reform of mankind, by Henry of Huntingdon, Orderic Vitalis, and Aelred of Rievaulx; how the image of Caesar as conqueror or tyrant in time of civil war was used as a foil for political troubles within the Holy Roman Empire and the Angevin realm, by Otto of Freising, William of Newburgh, and Jocelin of Furness; and finally, how these images of Caesar were reworked in a Cistercian context for their own cross-border patrons. Together, these papers show how the climate of the 12th-century renaissance spurred new images and interpretations of Caesar.