Histoire et Culture historique dans l'Occident médiévalby Bernard Guenée

Histoire et Culture historique dans l'Occident médiéval by Bernard GuenéeReview by: Antonia GransdenThe English Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 387 (Apr., 1983), pp. 354-360Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/569443 .

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Reviews of Books Histoire et Culture historique dans 'Occident medieval. By BERNARD G UENE E

(Paris: Aubier Montaigne, Ig80. n.p.).

THE value of the narrative sources of medieval history, conventionally categorized as annals, chronicles and histories, according to their degree of brevity or sophistication, has long been recognized. Historians have used them as quarries for material on whatever topics interested them. Stubbs derived from them mainly facts about political and constitutional history. Latterly historians have plundered them for information on intellectual and cultural history. One aspect of these latter subjects has increasingly attracted attention; how the author regarded his craft - what his idea of history was and what were his methods. In England V. H. Galbraith, though generally using chronicles in the Stubbsian way, wrote on historical research in medieval England, and more recently Sir Richard Southern and Professor Denys Hay have extended further the study of medieval historiography. On the continent no one has contributed more to the subject than Professor Bernard Guen&e. In 1977 a collection of papers (Le Metier d'Historien au Moyen Age, Publication de la Sorbonne) appeared under his editorship, one by himself and the others by members of his graduate seminar on historiography at the Sorbonne. Meanwhile from the early 1970S he has published a number of articles on medieval historiography which have now appeared in his collected papers, Politique et Histoire au Moyen-Age (Publication de la Sorbonne, I98I). Medievalists will, therefore, read his Histoire et Culture historique dans 'Occident medieval, the fruit of ten years research and thought, with close attention.

Professor Guenee tackles his subject with impressive learning and unwavering enthusiasm. He discusses the nature of medieval historiography, the kind of people who wrote history and their methods and purposes. Nor does he consider the authors and their works in isolation; he sets them against the 'historical culture' of their times. He discusses the availability of history books to historians in the middle ages, and the popularity and diffusion of some of their productions (with illustrative tables and maps). He also considers the various tastes of those who listened to or read history books, and to what uses history might be put. This study of 'historical culture' is not only relevant to that of 'historiography' interpreted in the narrow sense, because of its influence on historical works produced within it, but is also of interest in itself. Professor Guenee is critical of modern scholars and editors whose shortcomings hinder the pursuit of these studies (pp. 201, 214, 237, 25 6-7). By ignoring or failing to print that (early) part of a chronicle which is a compilation from standard authorities, they neglect evidence of the author's criteria of choice (and of the books available to him). By not printing prologues editors suppress information about the author's intention, and by omitting any index which a (late) chronicler might add to his work, they lose evidence of his taste and of this particular development in historical method. And by failing to note medieval marginalia editors neglect information about the medieval reader's response to the book and on his state of knowledge.



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Having chosen a subject of so vast a span in time, space and ambience, Professor Guen&e has had to take into consideration a multitude of primary and secondary sources. He has faced the problem that no continental country of Western Europe has a full, up-to-date account of its medieval narrative sources, and some important works are still only available in antiquated editions, while an appreciable number of minor annals and chronicles remain unpublished; inevitably, bearing in mind the scale of Professor Guenee's enterprise, he has been able to make only very limited use of unpublished material. Further research may well, therefore, make it necessary to revise some of his conclusions. In any case, he must have had to base his generalizations on a relatively small selection of examples, and the choice of examples itself has its dangers. Some scholars may consider Professor Guen&e's award of prizes idiosyncratic. Why, for instance, is so much attention paid to Martin of Troppau, and so little to Villehardouin, Froissart and Commynes?

'If historians today are giants, they sit on the shoulders of those dwarfs, [their medieval predecessors]' (p. I92). The theme of Professor Guenee's book is continuity, the continuity of historiography from the medieval to the modern period (esp. pp. 5 I, i I 6, 144, 191-2, 2 14, 3 5 4). He describes ways in which the intellectual equipment and methods of the medieval historian foreshadowed those of the modern one. Today among the mental attributes which we consider necessary to a historian are the critical spirit, understanding of natural causation and a sense of anachronism. All three existed in the Middle Ages. Professor Guenee provides convincing illustrations of this. However, perhaps he overstates his case. Even on his own evidence he probably exaggerates their importance relative to the other, more charac- teristic, features of medieval historiography. Various factors (of which Professor Guenee is himself fully aware) hindered their growth. History itself had as yet no academic status; it was the servant of such established disciplines as theology and law, and the historian was in the service not of 'history' but of an institution or patron. Despite Professor Guenee's assertion to the contrary (pp. 129-30, 147, I9I), his objective was rarely 'truth' in our sense. His purposes were the same as those of other disciplines and of interested parties. And supposing he did want to discover the truth, his ability to do so was severely limited by the fact that the sciences ancillary to history, archaeology, epigraphy, place-name studies and the like, were still embryonic.

Professor Guenee emphasizes the 'modesty' of the medieval historian (pp. 207, 2 14, 3 5 8, 361, 366). This itself discouraged rational criticism, since it often took the form of deference to authority. Preeminent authority was exercised by a few standard works, among them the histories of Eusebius, Orosius and Bede, and only slightly less by other works which constituted a hierarchy beneath them. Professor Guenee points out (p. 214) that when a medieval historian made a compilation from such 'authorities', he had to make choices, to decide which passages to select from his sources. His choice might be determined by his religious or political viewpoint, but sometimes he might apply sound critical criteria. He might omit or try to correct a statement which appeared to him suspect. But perhaps Professor Guenee exaggerates the frequency of such occasions. The historian might well include material which he knew to be fictional because he also knew that his



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readers would enjoy it. (Polydore Vergil confesses that he included the Arthurian legends for this reason.)1 If he wanted to correct a false statement he was hampered by the virtual absence of history's ancillary sciences and had to rely on the comparison of narrative accounts. He would, therefore, probably accept the highest authority; the witness's weight, not the weight of the evidence, was decisive. Nevertheless, it is quite likely that the critical ability was less rare among historians than their display of it; it seems that'a historian needed an ulterior purpose to encourage him to put it to effect. This latter point is underlined by the fact that the same historian might dismiss one story as legendary, but, when it suited his purpose, accept another equally improbable. Professor Guen&e cites (pp. 141, i65), as examples of sound criticism, the attacks on the Arthurian legends by William of Newburgh in the twelfth century and Thomas Rudborne in the fifteenth. It should be added, however, that Newburgh may have demolished the legends in the interest not of truth but of the Angevin government.2 The latter had good reason to want proof that King Arthur had never lived; its rule in Brittany was threatened by the Bretons' belief that he had returned, in the person of Prince Arthur, to lead them to victory. Thomas Rudborne, monk of St Swithun's, Winchester, may also have had a worldly motive for challenging the historicity of King Arthur; by so doing he undermined the pretensions of one of St Swithun's rivals, Glastonbury abbey, which claimed to be Arthur's burial place. At the same time Rudborne, in order to promote the reputation of his own monastery, accepted the story of its foundation by two equally legendary figures, Phagan and Deruvian, also drawn from the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae3

The two other mental attributes necessary to an historian, understanding of natural causation and a sense of anachronism, faced similar difficulties in the Middle Ages to those faced by the critical spirit. Professor Guen&e points out that the attribution of an event to divine providence did not prevent an historian from ascribing the same, or another, event to natural causes (p. 20g). But he also admits that historians seldom did so. 'Modesty' discouraged investigation into causes; they belonged to the realm of theologians and philosophers (pp. 207-9, 3 62). To this may be added that the medieval reader liked bright episodic narrative, without authorial comment. And the medieval historians rarely show a sense of anachronism. Again, the historical culture of the age was an impediement. Historians were usually concerned to emphasize the continuity of the past with the present. To do this it was expedient to represent the past as being like the present. Therefore, they 'gave the reader a present a hundred times reflected in the mirrors of the past' (p. 3 5 o).

A corollary to Professor Guenee's thesis of the continuity of the historiographical tradition from medieval to modern times is that the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries marked no break. In

i. Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia (Basle, 1546), p. i9 (lines 8-io); Polydore Vergil's English History, ed. Henry Ellis (Camden Soc., original series, xxxvi, I 846, XXiX, I 844, 2 vols.), i. 33.

2. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xxxii (I98 1), 417-I 8.

3. Thomas Rudborne, Historia Major Wintoniensis, in Henry Wharton, Anglia Sacra (London, i69T, 2 vols.), i. i 82. Cf. The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. Acton Griscom (London, 1929), pp. 328-30.



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Professor Guen&e's opinion it sometimes merely continued and sometimes fostered existing trends, both good and bad (esp. pp. 138-9, 147, I9', 209-I0, 307, 3 14, 3 36, 3 5 4). On the one hand it encouraged a more rational approach to history; on the other it was responsible for some very biased works, those written under the patronage of Renaissance princes. In addition, some humanist historians devoted themselves to literary style at the expense of research and precise chronology. And meanwhile the irrational elements of the medieval tradition continued to flourish; divine providence still determined men's affairs and the Wheel of Fortune still turned. Here the English evidence agrees with Professor Guenee's views. Humanism made little impact on the historiography of fifteenth-century England. Only four historians can be classed as humanists, Titus Livius, the Pseudo-Elham, Polydore Vergil and Sir Thomas More, and two at least of these were Italians. Classical literature had an appreciable (and bad) influence on only one other, John Whethamsted. At the same time the medieval tradition survived and enjoyed an Indian summer in the sixteenth century.

Professor Guenee derives much of his evidence from France, his own area of special competence. Although he is well versed in English historiography, some of his statements and conclusions do not accord with the English evidence. A few of these may be mentioned. Professor Guen&e, in his anxiety to prove the continuity of the historiographical tradition from medieval to modern times, emphasizes (esp. pp. 3 5 1-3) the progress made by historians in the Middle Ages in methods of research and composition, and in rationality. There is not much evidence for this in England. Chroniclers usually used their predecessors' works simply as repositories of facts and as starting points for their own endeavours. The literary structure of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica was not imitated in the Anglo-Saxon period, and although influential in the Anglo-Norman one, it was not thereafter. The Anglo-Saxon mode of the bipartite biography had its last manifestation in Eadmer's Life of St Anselm. Few of Matthew Paris's methodological innovations (for example, his use of symbols and practice of relegating documents to a separate volume) had any appreciable influence, even at St Albans. And no chronicler except the author of the Eulogium Historiarum made any attempt to imitate the elaborate structure of Higden's Polychronicon. Nor is there much evidence that rational passages in a chronicle disseminated enlightenment. It is true that the doubts Alfred of Beverley expressed about the Arthurian legends appear to have formed the basis of Higden's criticism, which in its turn influenced Thomas Rudborne, but this seems to be an exceptional case.1 William of Newburgh's more devastating criticism apparently remained unheeded for over four centuries, when it was deployed by Polydore Vergil in his own attack on the legends. In general as an historian Bede had no equal in the subsequent Middle Ages, and it would be hard even to argue that historians in fifteenth-century England excelled those of the twelfth. Contrary to Professor Guenee's assertion in a European context that the writing of 'national' history flourished in the fifteenth century (pp. 364-5), in England it was at a low ebb. The monastic chronicle was all but extinct, and the vernacular Brut and London chronicles did not compare in quality with the previous Latin ones, both monastic and other,

i. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xxxii (I98I), 420-I.



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which had had their last revival in Richard II's reign. The spread of literacy among laymen and the use of the English language resulted initially in a lowering of the standard of the average chronicle, since historiography was no longer primarily an interest and occupation of the intellectual elite. Nor in the fifteenth century had the critical spirit gained much, if any, ground. Professor Guenee claims that forgery was no longer an acceptable part of historiography (p. 353); but John Hardyng and the Crowland chronicler, among others, prove otherwise. He also asserts that legends were now called in question and historians increasingly turned to verifiable facts (pp. 3 5 3-4); but in England both 'national' historians and local ones still accepted the Arthurian cycle - which was passionately defended in the sixteenth century by John Leland.

'National' historiography flourished on the continent in the fifteenth century partly because rulers, aware of its propagandist value, encouraged it. They employed official historians and patronized others. In England, as Professor Guen&e recognizes (p. 3 39), the scene was different; there was no tradition of official historiography. Therefore, the point on which Professor Guen&e enlarges (pp. I 34-8), that historians sought to increase the 'authority' of their works by obtaining a ruler's confirmation of it (a 'guarantee') does not apply to England. It is, nevertheless, well known that the kings tried to increase their authority by appealing to evidence in chronicles. Professor Guen&e cites (pp. I I I, 135, 339) the example of Edward I in I 29 I, when as judge in the Scottish succession case, he obtained from several monasteries extracts from their chronicles substantiating his claim to overlordship of Scotland. This was not, however, as he suggests (p. i i i), the last time when a king made such an appeal: Edward III did so in 1352,1 and Henry IV in 1400.2

Professor Guenee's main preoccupation is with the medieval historians' research into the past. He stresses their achievements and claims that their greatest success was 'the conquest of time', whereby after considerable labour they did much towards establishing sound chronology (pp. 147-65 passim). With regard to England his conclusions need modification. The English chroniclers made little progress in research on their country's remote history. The good influence of Bede's sensible account of the period of British and early Anglo-Saxon history was eclipsed in the twelfth century by the publication of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittonum. Thenceforth until the end of the Middle Ages and beyond, this legend-laden narrative was accepted as an authority and blocked further enquiry into the period it covered. For the subsequent period chroniclers had little need to do research to discover the principal events and their dates. Bede had laid the foundations of the chronology of English history and (in his Epitome) of the annalistic mode, upon which the Anglo-Saxon chroniclers and then their post-Conquest successors built. It can, indeed, be claimed that the greatest achievement of the medieval historians of the English nation was the

i. J. G. Edwards, 'Ranulf, Monk of Chester', E.H.R. xlvii (1932), p. 94. 2. E. L. G. Stones, 'The appeal to history in Anglo-Scottish relations between

1291 and I40I: Part II', Archives, ix, no. 42(I969), 80-83. Henry, as Bolingbroke, also used the chronicles in 1399 to justify Richard II's deposition; Chronicon Adae de Usk A.D. 1377-1421, ed., with an English translation, E. Maunde Thompson (London, 1904), pp. 30- 3 1.



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unbroken series of contemporary annals, covering the period from the eighth century to the end of the Middle Ages, at their best with full reportage, supported by citations from public documents,1 and graphic detail.

Had Professor Guenee been able to confine his remarks on medieval research to local historiography, they would have been true of England. In this sphere the work of English monastic historians was impressive, and is perhaps underrated by Professor Guen&e. He states (p. 93) that the monastic historian was not usually concerned with the origins of his house, but only in recording its privileges and possessions so that they could be more easily defended. However, the defence of rights was helped by prestige, and much prestige stemmed from ancient origins. In fact, the monastic historians, especially in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, did some excellent research on their houses' foundations and early histories. Moreover, a few local histories were not intended to strengthen monastic defences at all; the purpose of the twelfth-century foundation histories of the north-country Cistercians was to commemorate the religious fervour of the first generation of monks and to inspire their successors to emulation.

These selected examples of small factual errors and doubtful conclusions in Professor Guen&e's book are merely mentioned to warn the reader to treat it judiciously. A few such minor blemishes are inevitable in a work on this scale, and they are of insignificant importance in the total context of Professor Guen&e's remarkable achievement. It should also be noted that some conclusions which at first sight seem questionable are in fact subsequently modified; this tendency to modification is encouraged by the book's structure; since each chapter and subsection is devoted to a particular theme, one subject may well be discussed from more than one angle. What is important is that his principal theme, the continuity of historiography from the early medieval to the modern period and the limited influence of the Renaissance, is presented, with full scholarly apparatus, in a persuasive fashion, and has much to recommend it. This book is one which should be read right through, and it is extremely readable. Despite Professor Guenee's declared suspicion of those historians who prefer 'discourse' to research, he

I. Professor Guenee states (pp. 92-93) that from the eleventh to the thirteenth century chroniclers only had access to the archives of their own houses, and that (p. 98) their interest in documents was limited to those relating to their houses' property and privileges. With regard at least to England these statements need qualification. Some public documents found their way into monastic archives and attracted chroniclers' attention: for instance, John of Worcester copied the decrees of the synods held at Westminster in I I 1 5 and I1I 27 into his chronicle; The Chronicle of John of Worcester 1118-1140, ed. J. R. H. Weaver (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Oxford, 1 908), pp. 20-22, 24-25. Moreover, Matthew Paris laboriously accumulated copies of a vast number of public documents for citation in his Chronica Majora; see, for example, Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 195 8), pp. 17-I8, 34, 78 ff., 126, 132-4, 136; and Hans-Eberhard Hilpert, Kaiser - und Papstbriefe in den Chronica Majora des Matthaeus Paris (Publications of the German Historical Institute, London, ix, Stuttgart, I98I). In addition, it should be noted that in the late twelfth century a non-monastic chronicler connected with the royal administration might take full advantage of his access to public documents and include copies in his chronicle; for the case of Roger of Howden see J. C. Holt, 'The assizes of Henry II: the texts', The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford, 1971), pp. 86-ioi.



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himself writes fluently and well. Many of his illustrative examples are not only interesting but also vivid (see for example the account of the dispute between the monks of St Denis and the canons of Notre Dame in Paris, pp. I 37-8, I4I-2), and he has some telling comments to make about the role of historians throughout the ages (pp. 69, 279, 3 5 4); he clearly admires those who 'without remorse savour the calm pleasures of a useless erudition' (an erudition 'hardly ever rewarded by success'); and yet they should not be antiquarian, aloof from the needs and concerns of their own times, because historians without audiences are 'like priests without flocks'.

The actual presentation of the volume is austere. There are no pictures or other reproductions, which would have been especially appropriate to illustrate the section on cartography (which is included as an ancillary science to history), and that on paschal tables and annals. Nor are the table of contents and the four indices (of modern authors and editors, medieval people, anonymous works, and places) analytical. However, there are numerous footnotes, and a substantial bibliography (of 829 titles). Although the system of reference is rather tedious (the footnotes are grouped at the end of the chapters and their elucidation requires resort to the bibliography), it is sound. The book will, therefore, be an invaluable aid to future scholars in the field. This is important since it is likely to prove seminal. It is, indeed, besides being itself a major contribution to the study of historiography, a most stimulating work, one which serves to underline the interest of the subject, opens up new approaches, and points the way to areas in need of further research.

University of Nottingham ANTONIA GRANS DEN

On the Laws and Customs of England. Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Thorne, edited by MORRIS S. ARNOLD, THOMAS A. GREEN, SALLY A. SCULLY,

and STEPHEN D. WHITE (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, I98I. $2s5.oo); Law-making and Law-makers in British History. Papers presented to the Edinburgh Legal History Conference, I977, edited by ALAN

HARDING (London: Royal Historical Society Studies in History Series, I980. fI 5f25).

T HE SE two books complement each other nicely as reminders of the past and present state of the study of British legal history. The Festschrift for Professor Thorne honours an American scholar who has made important contributions to the subject over the course of the half-century since 1930. In Britain during this period interest in legal history declined somewhat by comparison with the heroic ages of Maitland and Holdsworth which preceded it, but more recently there has been a renaissance. Today, in both Britain and the United States an ever-increasing number of scholars, both lawyers and historians, are looking at the law, its institutions and its practitioners. Law-making and Law-makers is one product of this new vitality. It is the third volume to emerge from a series of British Legal History Conferences which began in I972, and which now look like becoming regular bi-annual events.

Of the two books, On the Laws and Customs of England stands out for its



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Histoire et Culture historique dans l'Occident médiévalby Bernard Guenée