Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain's Long Twelfth Century (Writing History in the Middle Ages, 10) 9781914049101, 9781800108745, 1914049101

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Writing History in the Middle Ages Volume 10

LITERARY VARIETY AND THE WRITING OF HISTORY IN BRITAIN’S LONG TWELFTH CENTURY

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS York Medieval Press is published by the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Limited. Our objective is the promotion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture. We have a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Centre’s belief that the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas in which its major constituent disciplines at once inform and challenge each other.

Editorial Board (2022) Peter Biller, Emeritus (Dept of History): General Editor Tim Ayers (Dept of History of Art): Co-Director, Centre for Medieval Studies Henry Bainton: Private scholar K. P. Clarke (Dept of English and Related Literature) K. F. Giles (Dept of Archaeology) Shazia Jagot (Dept of English and Related Literature) Holly James-Maddocks (Dept of English and Related Literature) Harry Munt (Dept of History) L. J. Sackville (Dept of History) Elizabeth M. Tyler (Dept of English and Related Literature): Co-Director, Centre for Medieval Studies Hanna Vorholt (Dept of History of Art) Sethina Watson (Dept of History) J. G. Wogan-Browne (English Faculty, Fordham University) Stephanie Wynne-Jones (Dept of Archaeology) All enquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and essay collections, should be addressed to: The Academic Editor, York Medieval Press, Department of History, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD (E-mail: [email protected]) Details of other York Medieval Press volumes are available from Boydell & Brewer Ltd.

Writing History in the Middle Ages ISSN 2057-0252 Series editors Laura Cleaver, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Elisabeth van Houts, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge History-writing was a vital form of expression throughout the European Middle Ages, and is fundamental to our understanding of medieval societies, politics, modes of expression, cultural memory, and social identity. This series publishes innovative work on history-writing from across the medieval world; monographs, collections of essays, and editions of texts are all welcome. Other volumes in the series are listed at the back of this book.

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century

Jacqueline M. Burek

Y ORK MEDIEVAL P RE S S

© Jacqueline M. Burek 2023 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Jacqueline M. Burek to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2023 A York Medieval Press publication in association with The Boydell Press an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com and with the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York ISBN 978 1 914049 10 1 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 800108 74 5 (ePDF) A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Cover image: Initial ‘S’ with man battling dragon, marking the beginning of Psalm 69 (Salvum me), from a psalter of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Baltimore, Walters MS W.25, fol. 72r. Reproduced courtesy of The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. CC BY 3.0.

For my family

Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations

ix xi

Introduction: Discontinuous History in the Long Twelfth Century

1

Part I: Varietas in Latin 1 2 3 4

Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History 23 ‘I take it that no one will object to some variety’: William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum 51 ‘Since nothing endures here, pay attention’: Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum 84 ‘Continuously and in order’: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae 118

Part II: Variety in Middle English 5 ‘Three texts into one’: Laʒamon’s Brut 153 6 ‘Of diuers kynd’: Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande 186 Conclusion: The Rhetoric of Discontinuity? 222 Bibliography Index

247 271

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Acknowledgements This book has been long in the making, and it is my great pleasure to acknowledge the guidance, support and encouragement I have received over the years. First of all, I have benefited immensely from the wisdom of Rita Copeland, Emily Steiner, and David Wallace. This project would literally not exist without them or the vibrant intellectual community they lead at the University of Pennsylvania, and I will remain eternally grateful to them for the priceless support they have provided in so many ways. I am also grateful to the Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth University for welcoming me so warmly while I was conducting early research for this project at the National Library of Wales. Furthermore, I wish to express special gratitude to Björn Weiler, Ryan Kemp, and Nathan Greasley for their much-valued camaraderie during my year in Wales and in the years since. Additional thanks go to Ryan Kemp, whose insightful feedback on early drafts of this book greatly improved the final product. More recently, my colleagues at George Mason University have embraced me into their warm and welcoming community. I owe particular thanks to Eric Gary Anderson, Tamara Harvey, Teresa Michals, and Kristin Samuelian, each of whom has, in some way, helped me bring this book into print. Mason’s medievalists, especially Samuel Collins and Kristina Olson, have also provided muchappreciated comity since my arrival at GMU, as have my early modernist colleagues, Jeffrey Griswold and Daniel Normandin. Over the years, I have also benefited from stimulating discussions during meetings of the International Lawman’s Brut Society and the First Millennium Network, and found much inspiration and joy in Latin reading groups organized by Dan Cheely and Ann Moyer at Penn, Robert Ireland at Aberystwyth, and Sally Davis in Washington, DC. Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention my early mentors at Cornell University, who first introduced me to the field of Medieval Studies. It was Carin Ruff who acquainted me with William of Malmesbury, and Wayne Harbert who taught me Middle Welsh; I still remember when Andrew Galloway, upon being asked if any Anglo-Latin historians wrote in verse, informed me of a certain writer named Henry of Huntingdon. I remain humbled and awed by the support I have received at every stage of my career, and I can only hope that these words of thanks will convey a fraction of the gratitude I feel. Over the years, I have also benefited from the support of many institutions. This book would be very different if the US-UK Fulbright Commission had not awarded me a year-long research fellowship at Aberystwyth University; I will be forever grateful to the US Fulbright Program for their generous support of this project at such a pivotal moment in its development. Moreover, I received ix

Acknowledgements much-appreciated research funding from the Harry Caplan Travel Prize and the Wolf Humanities Center during early stages of this project. In recent years, I have been the fortunate recipient of significant support from George Mason University. My fellowship at the Center for Humanities Research provided much-needed time for writing and a vibrant intellectual forum for testing out new ideas, while the University Libraries’ Fenwick Fellowship supplied the space and library resources necessary for completing this book. I am also grateful for the wisdom and guidance provided by York Medieval Press. The series editors, Laura Cleaver and Elisabeth van Houts, gave invaluable feedback and advice on earlier drafts of this book, as did the anonymous reader for the press. I have benefited immensely from their insights, and I deeply appreciate their time and intellectual generosity. I would also like to thank the York Medieval Press Editorial Board, especially its general editor, Peter Biller, for helpful comments shared at both the beginning and end of the publication process. Whatever flaws remain are assuredly my own, and I ask readers’ pardon for them all. Special thanks also go to Caroline Palmer at Boydell & Brewer for shepherding this book into print, and to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland and Elizabeth McDonald at Boydell & Brewer for their contributions to the creation of the book cover. I have reserved my last set of acknowledgements for the cherished friends and family who have brightened my life and encouraged me to see this project through to completion. My writing groups – first with fellow medievalists Erika Harman, Lydia Kertz, and Anna Lyman, and later with fellow Mason faculty Lourdes Fernandez, Harim Kwon, and Jacqueline Serigos – inspired me to keep working on this project, even as the storms of the COVID-19 pandemic raged in the background. Informal, yet no less crucial, support came from my dear friends Monika Bhagat-Kennedy, Emily Green, Chris Jimenez, and Vanessa Ovalle Perez, who have cheered me along at each step of the way. Stevie Henry, Sarah Rossi, Priscilla Yick – your precious friendship has helped bring this book into being. Finally, I must thank my family – those who have been with me through this whole journey, those who were there at its inception but unfortunately did not see its conclusion, and those who entered my life along the way. With apologies to Cicero: Vobis vero, amici et necessarii, singulis et egi et agam gratias – satis ornate agere nullo modo possum.

x

Abbreviations AL ASE Caligula Brut EETS ES EETS OS FVV

GM, HRB

HH, HA

HSJ JEGP JMH Lambeth Story Langtoft, Chronicle

Laʒamon, C-Brut LCL MED

OED OLD Otho Brut Petyt Story PBA PL PMLA

Arthurian Literature Anglo-Saxon England London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A. ix Early English Text Society Extra Series Early English Text Society Original Series The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, II: The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition, ed. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 1988). Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of De gestis Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae], ed. M. D. Reeve, trans. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 2007). Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. and trans. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996). Haskins Society Journal Journal of English and Germanic Philology Journal of Medieval History London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 131 Peter Langtoft, The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, in French Verse, from the Earliest Period to the Death of King Edward I, ed. and trans. T. Wright, 2 vols. (London, 1866, 1868). Brut, ed. G. L. Brook and R. F. Leslie, EETS OS 250 and 277 (London, 1963, 1978), odd-numbered pp. Loeb Classical Library Middle English Dictionary, ed. R. E. Lewis et al. (Ann Arbor, 1952–2001), in Middle English Compendium Online, ed. F. McSparran et al. (Ann Arbor, 2000–18). Oxford English Dictionary Online (Oxford, 2021). Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare, 2 vols., 2nd edn (Oxford, 2012). London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho C. xiii London, Inner Temple Library, MS Petyt 511, Vol. 7 Proceedings of the British Academy Patrologia Latina Publications of the Modern Language Association xi

Abbreviations RES RM, Story

The Review of English Studies Robert Mannyng, The Chronicle, ed. I. Sullens (Binghamton, 1996). Wace, RB Wace, Roman de Brut: A History of the British, Text and Translation, ed. and trans. J. Weiss, rev. edn (Exeter, 2002). WM, GRA William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–9).

xii

Introduction: Discontinuous History in the Long Twelfth Century This book is about the power of variety – a power with which we moderns are well-acquainted. Our appreciation for variety has deep roots. As far back as the eighteenth century, the poet William Cowper wrote, ‘Variety’s the very spice of life / That gives it all its flavor.’1 Cowper’s words have since become an oft-repeated proverb, because they capture the common view of variety as a valuable if ancillary player in the drama of life. After all, variety is seasoning, not sustenance; we can live without it, just as we can easily gain nourishment from a flavorless meal. But our enjoyment of both food and life is diminished without the ‘spice’ of variety. This association of variety with pleasure quickly lends itself to moral judgment. Social commentators of all ideological bents frequently bemoan the culture of distraction that has gripped contemporary minds, thanks to the infinite variety of pleasures supplied by the internet, and the ease with which those pleasures can now be accessed anywhere, at any time (even during the spiciest of meals!). Yet this is not a purely modern concern. Critics have long recognized that our natural inclination to delight in variety says something rather disturbing about the human psyche. Cowper himself expressed similar sentiments. In the lines following his now-famous maxim, he suggests that variety is valued only because it offers a never-ending supply of amusements, whose sole purpose is to cater to humans’ regrettably short attention spans.2 (One can only imagine what Cowper would say about social media.) We moderns thus think of variety as a double-edged sword: on the one hand, variety embraces the rich diversity of human experience, but on the other, it encourages only a superficial engagement with that diversity. This is true of literary variety as well: we value exposure to a wide range of voices and modes of expression, but we shun tokenism. The Middle Ages had its own understanding of literary variety, which sought common ground between these two extremes. Medieval writers defined variety (Latin varietas) as the mixing of different styles or structures in the same work, for the purpose of creating aesthetic and conceptual harmony.3 Importantly, writers could not simply vary the style or structure of their works at random and expect to create this kind of harmonious varietas. 1 2 3

W. Cowper, The Task: A Poem in Six Books, A New Edition (Philadelphia, 1787), p. 50. W. Fitzgerald, Variety: The Life of a Roman Concept (Chicago, 2016), pp. 57–8. M. Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2013), pp. 135–9, 151–5. For an earlier version of Carruthers’s chapter on varietas in Experience, see ‘Varietas: A Word of Many Colours’, Poetica 41.1–2 (2009), 11–32.

1

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Too little variety would lead to boredom, which inhibits readers’ ability to learn from the text. But too much variety would simply confuse readers, whether through excessive fluctuations of style and structure, or through an ill-fitting combination of literary forms. Thus, writers who use either too much or too little variety will struggle to convey their meaning, but those who assemble a fitting array of style and structure will succeed.4 Of course, modern writing manuals offer much the same advice. The difference lies in medieval writers’ belief that good writing is a moral imperative, and not merely a desideratum. In the Middle Ages, reading was considered a critical way of building one’s ethical and moral character.5 Since good writing enables better reading, it was therefore necessary for writers to write well, which meant practicing a suitable amount of literary variety. Indeed, varietas’s ability to enable deep, meditative reading made it a particularly valuable tool for developing readers’ virtue. The first-century Roman rhetorician Quintilian makes this connection between variety and virtue explicit when describing why pupils learn to praise and chastise famous individuals: ‘Namque et ingenium exercetur multiplici variaque materia et animus contemplatione recti pravique formatur’ (‘the mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the material; the character is moulded by the contemplation of right and wrong’).6 Thus, while a few classical and medieval writers might have agreed with Cowper that variety is a concession to human weakness, many others believed that variety increased readers’ engagement with a text and even guided readers to its deeper meaning.7 Or, to return to the seasoning metaphor: variety’s spice may improve the flavor of food, but its true purpose is to help the body recognize and digest a meal’s nutrients. 4

5

6 7

Carruthers, Experience, pp. 139–46; and H. Lausberg, Handbuch der Literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft, 2 vols. (Munich, 1979), I, 140–2. For a more detailed account of the development of this idea, see H. L. F. Drijepondt, Die antike Theorie der varietas: Dynamik und Wechsel im Auf und Ab als Charakteristikum von Stil und Struktur (New York, 1979). Scholars have made this argument from a variety of perspectives. On ethics and poetry, see J. B. Allen, The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages (Toronto, 1982), pp. 5–11. Although Allen focuses on poetry, he notes that his basic point, that all poetry was considered pertinent to some branch of philosophy, also applies to ‘anything made of words’ (p. 11). On grammar and character, see K. Breen, Imagining an English Reading Public, 1150–1400 (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 80–108; on meditative reading, see M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 89, 202–17, 226–7; and on building character on the edifice of Scripture, see M. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 19–21. Quintilian, The Orator’s Education, ed. and trans. D. A. Russell, 5 vols., LCL 124–7, 494 (Cambridge MA, 2002), II.iv.20 (LCL 124, pp. 290–1). Discussions of negative reactions to varietas can be found in Carruthers, Experience, pp. 46–50; and Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 36–7, 58–60. On relief from boredom, see Carruthers, Experience, p. 146; and Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 2, 36–7; on guiding readers to meaning, see Carruthers, Experience, pp. 137–9.

2

Introduction Medieval writers thus judged variety to be far more crucial to the literary and ethical value of a text than we moderns do.8 To understand how variety could take on such importance, we must remember that varietas refers specifically to the mixing of style and structure and that, in the Middle Ages, style and structure were not considered ancillary to a text’s meaning. Instead, they were thought to embody that meaning in literary form.9 ‘Form is thus the manifestation of thought’, as Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter have observed.10 Consequently, formal variety must also be considered a manifestation of the thought behind the text, and not simply something that makes the text more palatable. For this reason, medieval writers considered variety a fundamental part of rhetoric – that is, they considered variety crucial to a text’s ability to construct and convey meaning. And while medieval writers employed varietas to delight their audiences, they thought of this delight as a pathway to wisdom, rather than an end in itself. The principles of medieval rhetoric thus made it possible to think of literary variety as both dulcis et utilis – that is, both pleasing and useful.11 In this way, medieval varietas avoids the charges of superfluity and shallowness that we moderns level against “variety”. This book studies how the medieval conception of variety shaped the writing of insular history in high medieval Britain. At first glance, medieval historiography may seem an unlikely place to find much literary variety, especially since several medieval historians asserted that history should be written in a simple style.12 Yet debates over historians’ use of literary variety have animated much of the scholarship on medieval British historiography, whether or not critics have used terms such as “variety” or “literary form” when discussing these works. This is equally true of scholarship on historians known for embodying the stereotypes of medieval history (such as Henry of Huntingdon) and of scholarship on historians who seem almost modern in their methods (like William of Malmesbury). It is also true of historians whose works were widely read and highly influential (Geoffrey of Monmouth) and those whose works had a very limited circulation and even less influence (Robert Mannyng). There are even some medieval chroniclers for whom “form” is one of the primary categories of analysis. (Here, I am thinking of Laʒamon, that perennial subject of metrical and linguistic analysis, whose combination of English and French poetic norms has been an ongoing matter of debate.) 8 9 10

11 12

Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 35–6, 58, 161–2. For style, see Carruthers, Craft, pp. 122–35, and Experience, p. 137; for structure, see Allen, Ethical, pp. 117–52. See also Carruthers, Book, pp. 241, 250. R. Copeland and I. Sluiter, ‘General Introduction’, in Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475, ed. R. Copeland and I. Sluiter (Oxford, 2009), pp. 1–60 (p. 40). For an articulation of this idea using modern literary theory, see C. Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature (Oxford, 2004), p. 5. On the merging of utility and pleasure, see Carruthers, Craft, p. 20. M. Kempshall, Rhetoric and the Writing of History, 400–1500 (Manchester, 2011), pp. 297–8.

3

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Moreover, as studies of individual writers have made clear, each of the historians I mentioned above chooses his literary forms carefully, in order to forward a specific political perspective (even if that perspective is sometimes unclear to modern readers). In this way, each also demonstrates his adherence to the principles of variety I described earlier and, in particular, to the idea that varietas shapes readers’ understanding of the meaning of a text. For medieval historians, form – including formal variety, i.e. varietas – can unlock the lessons of history. For this reason, if we wish to gain insight into historians’ political or philosophical views, we should pay attention to how they write as much as what they say. When we do, we soon realize that formal variety is particularly prominent in the histories of Britain produced in the centuries immediately following the Norman Conquest. It is the contention of this book that historians of twelfth-century Britain embraced this conception of meaning-making varietas, that they purposefully practiced formal variety in the hopes of benefiting from its power, and finally, that they inspired some Middle English verse chroniclers to use varietas in the same way. Despite the differences in their forms, languages and political perspectives, the histories I discuss in the following chapters share one characteristic feature: a belief in varietas’s ability to create harmony from the detritus of the past. In this book, I first trace formal variety’s rise to prominence in the twelfth century, by unveiling its role in histories by William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. I then use Geoffrey of Monmouth’s response to this concept to show how varietas functioned in the twelfth century as a site of active historiographical reflection. Finally, I demonstrate formal variety’s lasting appeal by revealing its appearance in two Middle English verse chronicles, namely Laʒamon’s thirteenth-century Brut and Robert Mannyng’s fourteenth-century Story of Inglande. By studying these historians’ use of varietas, I seek to reveal subtle connections between texts and traditions that are typically viewed in oppositional terms: English versus British, Latin versus vernacular, poetry versus prose. In this way, I hope to show how studying historians’ rhetorical ideas and practices can supplement the traditional scholarly methods used to draw connections between texts, and even uncover relationships that might otherwise pass unnoticed. My focus on formal variety obviously echoes recent scholarly interest in medieval literary form. However, this book is concerned solely with the unique characteristics of historiographical form, a subject that has received little attention. Surprisingly few studies of medieval form show any interest in the works of medieval historians.13 Instead, scholarship in this field has mostly focused on what is now called “literature” – Middle English lyrics,

13

For an important exception, see R. R. Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse (Toronto, 2009), esp. pp. 15–22, 125–52.

4

Introduction the works of fourteenth-century poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland, and so forth. Even the recent emphasis on the innate historicity of medieval literary forms has not led to greater interest in medieval historiography.14 Formalists’ attentiveness to historicity sans historians is particularly remarkable given the long scholarly tradition of examining the intersection of politics and rhetoric in medieval historiography. Clearly, medieval historians recognized the political and social significance of literary form, long before modern scholars rediscovered this idea.15 I suspect disciplinary (and linguistic) boundaries are partly to blame: most medievalists housed in English departments are unlikely to think first of an Anglo-Latin prose historian or a Middle English verse chronicler when someone says the word “style”. (I suppose I am the exception that proves the rule.) Terminology presents another challenge, as modern historians are unlikely to use words like “form” when discussing, say, William of Malmesbury, even when they are examining the style or structure of his work. As a result, literary scholars often fail to recognize when a medieval historian might be relevant to their interests. By using terms such as “form” and “variety” throughout this book, I hope to make medieval historians’ contributions to formal thought visible to literary scholars. Nevertheless, as stated above, this book’s primary interest is historiographical form – that is, the kinds of literary forms used to write history. Historiography is necessarily concerned with time, and the inherent temporality of this genre forces historians to think about the consequences of their formal choices in unique ways. For example, how will readers’ understanding of the past differ if a historian yokes a broad array of historical information into a single narrative, or if he separates this information into several adjacent narratives, essentially recounting the events of a single time period over and over? Is the meaning of history best conveyed through chronology (ordo naturalis), or through some other kind of organization (ordo artificialis)?16 Is history more convincing when written in the style preferred during the author’s own time, or in a style that somehow captures the “otherness” of the past? Each of the historians in this book answers these questions differently. Examining their decisions sheds light on their 14

15

16

For helpful discussions of this thread in scholarship, see T. A. Prendergast and J. Rosenfeld, ‘Introduction’, in Chaucer and the Subversion of Form, ed. T. Prendergast and J. Rosenfeld (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 1–18 (pp. 5–7); and R. J. Meyer-Lee and C. Sanok, ‘Introduction: The Literary through – or beyond? – Form’, in The Medieval Literary: Beyond Form, ed. R. J. Meyer-Lee and C. Sanok (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 1–12 (pp. 1–7). On form, politics, and social order, see C. Levine, Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (Princeton, 2015), pp. 3–19; and D. V. Smith, ‘Medieval Forma: The Logic of the Work’, in Reading for Form, ed. S. J. Wolfson and M. Brown (Seattle, 2006), pp. 66–79 (pp. 68–9, 71). For natural versus artificial order, see Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 299–302.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century respective philosophies of history. But comparing them is even more illuminating, because it reveals how attitudes towards historical writing change over time. This book thus offers an account of the development of British historiography in the high Middle Ages, using the rhetorical concepts and practices of medieval historians, rather than more conventional parameters such as language, fictionality, nationalism, or political culture. It therefore contributes to an ever-growing body of work examining the intersection of rhetoric and historiography in the Middle Ages.17 Like other studies before it, this book takes a common rhetorical concept – here, varietas – and attempts to understand its larger significance.18 However, this book also injects some historicity into the study of rhetoric and historiography by attending to the changes in historiographical practice over time. The lasting influence of classical rhetoric on medieval historiography has encouraged scholars to assume that medieval historians simply drew from a timeless, static stock of approved literary devices. But rhetoric, like intellectual and literary culture more generally, was hardly a static field of inquiry in the Middle Ages. Moreover, the following chapters will show that historians did not always agree on which literary devices were “preferred”, or on the contexts in which such devices ought to appear. These differences in opinion should remind modern scholars to pay more attention to our assumptions about historians’ use of rhetoric, and to consider how their rhetorical ideas and practices might have responded to their contemporary moment. Indeed, this book suggests that the popularity of varietas among the historians of high medieval Britain is no coincidence, because (as I discuss in chapter 1) formal variety was thought to increase the cohesion of a text. Cohesion was the very thing insular historians struggled to create, for two reasons. First, Britain’s history defied easy attempts to create single, linear narratives of national development, thanks to its long history of conquests, its genealogical dead ends, and the gaps in its historical record. Britain’s relationship with Rome posed a second, related difficulty. Although Rome played a prominent role in Britain’s history of conquest, the Roman withdrawal and subsequent waves of invasion complicated historians’ attempts to understand Britain’s relationship with Roman culture. The nature of this relationship was likely only of passing interest to earlier historians like, say, Bede; but it was certainly of great interest to historians and audiences living during the twelfth-century 17

18

For a few select examples in what is now a very large field, see the essays in Classical Rhetoric and Medieval Historiography, ed. E. Breisach (Kalamazoo, 1985), and Writing Medieval History, ed. N. F. Partner (London, 2005), as well as Kempshall, Rhetoric. For example, see A. Gransden, ‘Prologues in the Historiography of TwelfthCentury England’, in England in the Twelfth Century: Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. D. Williams (Woodbridge, 1990), pp. 55–81; J. Lake, ‘Authorial Intention in Medieval Historiography’, History Compass 12.4 (2014), 344–60 (pp. 350–1); and S. O. Sønnesyn, William of Malmesbury and the Ethics of History (Woodbridge, 2012).

6

Introduction renaissance. Believing that varietas could help transform the fragments of historical knowledge into a cohesive national narrative, the historians I examine in this book intentionally practice formal variety, especially when confronting these issues. For them, varietas was a tool for mending the past, and they used it to great effect.

Continuity and discontinuity Historians in twelfth-century Britain were eager to find value in fragments. This period witnessed an explosion of interest in insular history, resulting in the production of a great deal of historical writing, including several long, narrative histories of Britain, first in Latin and then in the vernacular. The standard explanation for this growth in historiography goes something like this: the Norman Conquest was a seismic rupture, shaking everything that historians thought they knew about what England was and what its future would be. As Sir Richard Southern wrote in what has now become an oft-quoted sentence, ‘At the level of literate and aristocratic society, no country in Europe, between the rise of the barbarian kingdoms and the twentieth century, has undergone so radical a change in so short a time as England experienced after 1066.’19 At first, these radical changes stunned historians into silence. But once the dust had settled, they began to fundamentally reinterpret the past, so that it would better accord with their present. Continuous historical narratives became more popular because, by their very nature, they explain how the past, present and future relate to each other. These kinds of histories offered further benefits to post-Conquest historians. Politically, by casting Harold as the disrupter of continuity and William the Conqueror as its restorer, continuous histories contributed to the legitimacy of Norman rule. Any support for this idea would doubtless be of personal benefit to most twelfth-century historians and to the institutions that supported them. Institutions could further benefit from continuous histories

19

R. Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 4. The Sense of the Past’, in History and Historians: Selected Papers of R. W. Southern, ed. R. J. Bartlett (Malden, 2004), pp. 66–83 (p. 69). This sentence has been cited numerous times as a representative for a whole line of argument in this vein. See, for example, C. F. Briggs, ‘History, Story, and Community: Representing the Past in Latin Christendom, 1050–1400’, in The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume 2: 400–1400, ed. S. Foot and C. F. Robinson (Oxford, 2012), pp. 391–413 (p. 402 n. 27); M. T. Clanchy in England and its Rulers, 1066–1307, 4th edn (Chichester, 2014), p. 32; and J. Gillingham, ‘A Historian of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance and the Transformation of English Society, 1066–ca. 1200’, in European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century, ed. T. F. X. Noble and J. van Engen (Notre Dame, 2012), pp. 45–75 (p. 45).

7

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century if their rights to a particular property or privilege could be supported by the imprimatur of unbroken possession.20 The continuity of these histories also provided a degree of reassurance about the existence of the English gens. Medieval historians typically believed that only those peoples who could demonstrate their “continuous history” back to the very foundation of humanity could lay claim to being a people in the present day.21 It was therefore in historians’ interest to highlight their histories’ continuity – and where such continuity was lacking, to create it. For this reason, post-Conquest historians tended to write histories that filled some perceived gap in historical knowledge, or that knit together disparate sources to produce a single history of the whole island. They also compiled standalone texts into single manuscripts containing one long, unbroken account of British history, stretching from ancient Troy to their own medieval present. Their desire for continuous histories explains why, for instance, Dares Phrygius’s De excidio Troiae historia (fifth or sixth century) was especially popular in Britain, and why Dares’s text frequently circulated alongside Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae.22 Continuous histories were common in vernacular manuscripts as well. For example, Welsh translations of Dares and Geoffrey often circulated together, sometimes in combination with a third text detailing the history of Wales from the death of Geoffrey’s last king of Britain to the thirteenth or fourteenth century.23 Certainly, continuous histories and manuscript compilations of this sort were not unique to medieval Britain. Yet post-Conquest historians’ particular investment in continuity has led some scholars to assert that continuity was one of the central features of political historiography in Britain and Ireland, from the eleventh and twelfth centuries onwards.24 By filling in gaps in the

20 21

22 23

24

For a recent iteration of this basic narrative, see G. Garnett, The Norman Conquest in English History, Volume I: A Broken Chain? (Oxford, 2020), esp. pp. 3–6, 13–16, 23–4. R. R. Davies, ‘Presidential Address: The Peoples of Britain and Ireland, 1100–1400: IV. Language and Historical Mythology’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 7 (1997), 1–24 (pp. 19–21); L. Genicot, Les généalogies (Turnhout, 1975), pp. 37–8; S. Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium and the Community of the Realm’, History 68.224 (1983), 375–90 (pp. 378–80); and G. Spiegel, ‘Political Utility in Medieval Historiography: A Sketch’, in The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore, 1997), pp. 83–98 (p. 85). See also J. Assmann’s discussion of the relationship between memory and identity in ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, trans. J. Czaplicka, New German Critique 65 (1995), 125–33 (pp. 130–3). F. N. Clark, ‘Reading the “First Pagan Historiographer”: Dares Phrygius and Medieval Genealogy’, Viator 41.2 (2010), 203–26 (pp. 204–8, 213–15, 217–21). H. Fulton, ‘Troy Story: The Medieval Welsh Ystorya Dared and the Brut Tradition of British History’, in Medieval Chronicle VII, ed. J. Dresvina and N. Sparks (Amsterdam, 2011), pp. 137–50. See also my conclusion, pp. 241–2. D. Broun, Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain: From the Picts to Alexander III (Edinburgh, 2007), pp. 40–7, esp. pp. 45–6. The continuity of these works has also

8

Introduction historical record, a medieval historian could metaphorically “fix” history, essentially creating a comforting (if constructed) continuity that would restabilize both his ethnic identity and his monastery’s property rights.25 Modern scholars frequently see in twelfth-century British historical writing a strong desire to create continuity in the wake of political crisis. However, medieval British historians often create the impression of discontinuity in their seemingly continuous works, by declaring that their goal is to repair some flaw in the historical record. Discontinuity is therefore the precondition of their writing. Medieval historians are also the first to promulgate the view that the Norman Conquest had a profound effect on English culture.26 William of Malmesbury, for example, noted that English clergy no longer held high positions of authority after the Norman Conquest.27 But he also believed that English education had improved under the influence of the Normans.28 The author of the First Worcester Fragment (late twelfth century) similarly called attention to the declining influence of English intellectual culture after the Norman Conquest, though unlike William, he did not approve of this change.29 The D version of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (originally produced

25 26 27

28

29

become an oft-repeated idea in scholarship on twelfth-century historiography. See, for example, M. Faletra’s argument that ‘William of Malmesbury presents insular history in a manner that both foregrounds the Normans and legitimates them by repeatedly emphasizing the continuities between their regime and that of the Anglo-Saxons’ in ‘Narrating the Matter of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Norman Colonization of Wales’, The Chaucer Review 35.1 (2000), 60–85 (p. 63); and N. Webber’s comment that Henry of Huntingdon had a ‘strong conception of the historical continuity of [his] homeland’ in ‘England and the Norman Myth’, in Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks, ed. J. Barrow and A. Wareham (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 211–28 (p. 226). On the conflation of continuous history and continuous historical narratives in twelfth-century historiography, see Garnett, Conquest, pp. 3–4, 13, 16, 22–4, 63–4. D. Bates, ‘1066: Does the Date Still Matter?’, Historical Research 78.202 (2005), 443–64 (p. 448). William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–9), ii.227 (I, 414–17) and iii.254 (I, 470–1). Subsequent notes will follow the form WM, GRA followed by (if referring to primary text) the chapter and page numbers in which the text appears or (if referring to editorial apparatus) the page numbers in the critical edition cited above. J. Gillingham, ‘Civilizing the English? The English Histories of William of Malmesbury and David Hume’, Historical Research 74.183 (2001), 17–43 (pp. 21–2, 28–9, 31–3, 35). For the text of the First Worcester Fragment, see S. K. Brehe, ‘Reassembling the First Worcester Fragment’, Speculum 65.3 (1990), 521–36 (p. 530). In contrast, Cannon reads this poem as a reaction to the decline of English learning after Viking predations (Grounds, pp. 34–41). Yet I would suggest that, while the poem could refer to any number of events, its post-Conquest copyist was more likely to have the Norman Conquest than the attacks of the Vikings in mind, regardless of the intent of the original poet.

9

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century in the mid-eleventh century, and later continued to cover the years up to 1080) emphasized the continuing misery of the English after the Norman Conquest.30 Robert of Gloucester (late thirteenth century) noted that even in his day, the Normans were the ‘heyemen’ and Saxons the ‘lowemen’.31 Discontinuity – both historical and historiographical – is therefore deeply embedded in the framework of these histories. If medieval historians were as fixated on continuity as modern scholars have claimed, why would they choose to adopt such a framework? They certainly had other options. For example, Matter of Britain romances tend to strive for continuity either by melding lineages or by describing how a rightful ruler regains his land.32 Genealogical rolls accomplish the same feat by using physical lines on a manuscript to emphasize the continuity of time, or by taking kingship rather than kinship as their organizing conceit.33 Annals possess a similar internal logic, in that the inclusion of dates provides a degree of continuity even when the events of those years were unknown and left blank.34 In all of these examples, the threat of discontinuity always looms, but the author still finds a way to privilege continuity over discontinuity. In contrast, many post-Conquest writers of long, narrative histories seem to value the performance of continuity over continuity itself. Observe how historians of this period discuss the continuity of their works. William of Malmesbury explains in his Gesta regum Anglorum that he has ‘continuam Anglorum historiam ordinauerim post Bedam uel solus uel primus’ (‘set in order the unbroken course of English history, and am since Bede the only man so to do, or at any rate the first’).35 Henry of Huntingdon makes a similar claim about his account of English miracles in his Historia Anglorum: ‘Igitur omnia fere miracula que Beda magnus auctor suo inseruit operi disperse quidem secundum temporis distinctionem, nos coagulata continuauimus’ (‘I have, therefore, collected together in a continuous sequence almost all the miracles which the great author Bede included, though in his work they were 30 31

32

33

34

35

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, Volume 6: MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 79–81. Robert of Gloucester, The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ed. W. A. Wright, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2012), ll. 7500–1 (II, 541). See also T. Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity, 1290–1340 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 94–8. R. L. Radulescu, ‘Genealogy in Insular Romance’, in Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Late-Medieval Britain and France, ed. R. L. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 7–25 (pp. 12–21). See, for example, the roll discussed by M. Lamont in ‘“Genealogical” History and the English Roll’, in Medieval Manuscripts, Their Makers and Users: A Special Edition of Viator in Honor of Richard and Mary Rouse, ed. H. A. Kelly and C. Baswell (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 245–61 (pp. 250–60). See also pp. 121, 239. S. Foot, ‘Finding the Meaning of Form: Narrative in Annals and Chronicles’, in Writing Medieval History, ed. Partner, pp. 88–108 (pp. 89, 94–6, 102); cf. Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 444–5. WM, GRA v.445 (I, 796–7).

10

Introduction scattered according to the different periods of time’).36 Meanwhile, Geoffrey of Monmouth says that his ancient British source (which he supposedly translates in his Historia regum Britanniae) provides a continuous narrative that fills a gap in the historical record: it ‘a Bruto primo rege Britonum usque ad Cadualadrum filium Caduallonis actus omnium continue et ex ordine perpulcris orationibus proponebat’ (‘set out in excellent style a continuous narrative of all their deeds from the first king of the Britons, Brutus, down to Cadualadrus, son of Caduallo’).37 Instead of simply letting the continuity of their histories speak for itself, these three historians chose to explain how and why they were creating continuity out of the fractured pieces of the past. These are therefore not seamless histories, as modern scholars sometimes assert; these are histories whose seams are brought to the awareness of readers. In these texts, discontinuities, both political and historiographical, are highlighted rather than glossed over. As subsequent chapters will discuss in greater detail, all three authors add to this effect by introducing textual discontinuities, such as digressions, stylistic pastiche, and other kinds of formal variety, into their writing (much to the chagrin of some modern scholars).38 By varying the literary forms of their work precisely at moments of political or historiographical disruption, they actively use formal discontinuities to draw readers’ attention to the fragmentation of history. As a result, they create the impression not of unbroken continuity, but instead of a continuity patched together from a variety of sources and traditions. Post-Conquest historians thus seem to be forwarding two contradictory ideas. On the one hand, they claim that history is continuous; but on the other, they claim that both history and historiography are full of ruptures that require mending. For the most part, scholars have responded to this contradiction by debating just how much of a rupture the Norman Conquest truly was. Some argue that there was a high degree of continuity between 36

37

38

Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. and trans. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), ix.51 (pp. 686–7). Subsequent notes will follow the form HH, HA followed by (if referring to primary text) the chapter and page numbers in which the text appears or (if referring to editorial apparatus) the page numbers in the critical edition cited above. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of De gestis Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae], ed. M. D. Reeve, trans. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 2007), Prol.2 (pp. 4–5). Subsequent notes will follow the form GM, HRB followed by (if referring to primary text) the chapter and page numbers in which the text appears or (if referring to editorial apparatus) the page numbers in the critical edition cited above. For example, see R. M. Thomson’s assertion that William’s digressions are inserted ‘gratuitously, in the sense that they contribute little or nothing to his main themes’ in William of Malmesbury, 2nd edn (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 25; and N. F. Partner’s discussion of Henry of Huntingdon’s failures of organization in Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England (Chicago, 1977), pp. 17–22, 27–8.

11

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century pre- and post-Conquest England by, for example, suggesting that complaints about the Normans were inspired more by later conflicts with the French than by the actual effects of the Norman Conquest.39 Others categorize the Norman Conquest as a searing trauma that catastrophically ruptured English history.40 Still others have staked out variations on these two basic positions, by arguing that, while English culture was far more continuous across the eleventh and twelfth centuries than earlier scholars claimed, the catastrophes of 1016 and 1066 should also be considered equally disruptive, and that twelfth-century historians are responsible for creating the impression that the Norman Conquest was more severe than all the other discontinuities that had preceded it.41 In this book, I do not dispute the lived realities of continuity or discontinuity identified by other scholars, nor am I invested in arguing over the precise degree of disruption caused by specific events. I focus instead on how British historians in the long twelfth century conceptualize continuity and discontinuity. I contend that these writers do not think of these concepts as opposing ends of a single, linear spectrum, as modern scholars often do. They do not debate how destabilizing a particular event was, nor do they think of continuity and discontinuity as participating in a zero-sum game. When a medieval historian gazes upon an ancient ruin, he does not see an opportunity to investigate who did what to whom at what time. Instead, he sees a spur for reflection, and he muses on the way that continuity and discontinuity coexist in whatever pieces of the structure remain. For him, their coexistence reflects how the continuity of Christian time is only visible through the discontinuities of human history. Similarly, the medieval historians in this book perceive continuity and discontinuity as participants in a mutually supportive relationship, wherein each renders the other visible and capable of conveying historiographical meaning. Twelfth-century historians’ embrace of this idea, I suggest, derives from their familiarity with the 39

40

41

Bates, ‘1066’, pp. 447–53; and D. Moffat, ‘Sin, Conquest, Servitude: English Self-Image in the Chronicles of the Early Fourteenth Century’, in The Work of Work: Servitude, Slavery, and Labor in Medieval England, ed. A. J. Frantzen and D. Moffat (Glasgow, 1994), pp. 146–68. For a helpful overview of some refinements to the discontinuity argument, see also Bates, ‘1066’, pp. 453–64. For a summary of the state of scholarship on continuity post-1066, see M. Faulkner, ‘Archaism, Belatedness, and Modernisation: “Old” English in the Twelfth Century’, RES 63.259 (2012), 179–203 (esp. pp. 179–83). E. van Houts, ‘The Memory of 1066 in Written and Oral Traditions’, in AngloNorman Studies XIX: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1996, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 169–79 (pp. 170–4); cf. van Houts, ‘The Trauma of 1066’, History Today 46.10 (1996), 9–15 (esp. p. 14). For examples of these kinds of arguments, see E. Treharne, Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020–1220 (Oxford, 2012); E. M. Tyler, England in Europe: English Royal Women and Literary Patronage, c.1000–c.1150 (Toronto, 2017); and E. Winkler, Royal Responsibility in Anglo-Norman Historical Writing (Oxford, 2017).

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Introduction rhetorical understanding of textual discontinuity – that is, formal variety – and their decision to use the rhetorical framework as a tool for interpreting real historical events. In other words, they do not merely use rhetoric to write history; rather, they use rhetoric to comprehend history.

Trauma and history Thus, rather than arguing that twelfth-century histories are seamless, I argue that these texts leave their seams visible to readers, in a manner akin to the Japanese craft of kintsugi, in which broken ceramics are repaired with lacquer containing gold or silver powder.42 Kintsugi aims not to obscure the repair work, but rather to assign new value and meaning to the broken object and its history. From this perspective, the fragmentation of an object can lead to the accumulation of aesthetic and philosophical value. In this book, I suggest that many histories of Britain produced during the long twelfth century exhibit a similar mentality towards Britain’s fragmented past. In doing so, I offer a different way of understanding the discontinuities of British historical writing. Frequently, residues of political rupture have been interpreted as signs of historians’ trauma. For example, Elisabeth van Houts has argued that, after the Norman Conquest, ‘the English were so traumatised that they could not bring themselves to write down their memories’ of the event for generations.43 Post-Conquest English historiography displays many of the features characteristic of the seminal trauma narratives produced in the aftermath of the world wars.44 First, both medieval and modern narratives of human

42

43 44

For discussions of the practice and underlying principles of kintsugi, see C. Iten, ‘Ceramics Mended with Lacquer – Fundamental Aesthetic Principles, Techniques and Artistic Concepts’, in Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics (Münster, 2008), pp. 18–24; G. Keulemans, ‘The Geo-Cultural Conditions of Kintsugi’, The Journal of Modern Craft 9.1 (2016), 15–34 (pp. 16–27); and S. Weintraub, K. Tsujimoto, and S. Y. Walters, ‘Urushi and Conservation: The Use of Japanese Lacquer in the Restoration of Japanese Art’, Ars Orientalis 11 (1979), 39–62 (pp. 51–9). For an extension of this idea to premodern Britain, see H. Chittock, ‘Pattern as Patina: Iron Age “Kintsugi” from East Yorkshire’, in Images in the Making: Art, Process, Archaeology, ed. I.-M. B. Danielsson and A. M. Jones (Manchester, 2020), pp. 149–67. van Houts, ‘Memory’, pp. 170–4, quote p. 179; cf. van Houts, ‘Trauma’, pp. 9–15, esp. p. 14. van Houts explicitly compares the experience of the Norman Conquest to the world wars (‘Trauma’, pp. 9, 15). Similarly, C. A. M. Clarke connects her discussion of twelfth-century trauma writing to another critic’s comments on a museum dedicated to the Holocaust. See ‘Signs and Wonders: Writing Trauma in TwelfthCentury England’, Reading Medieval Studies 35 (2009), 55–77 (pp. 55–6, 74).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century catastrophe exhibit a belated reaction to trauma.45 Second, medieval histories possess many of the characteristics of twentieth- and twenty-first-century trauma narratives, such as dissociation, romanticization and fantastical allegories.46 Furthermore, in medieval histories and modern trauma narratives alike, narrative devices such as delayed responses and image replacement permit writers to develop critical distance from the event being described. Finally, the fracturing of literary form is another common feature of trauma writing. Texts written in the wake of trauma often reflect their authors’ struggles to process and assimilate traumatic memories. To use Nouri Gana’s formulation, trauma writing has four basic characteristics: ‘repetition’, ‘the search for narrative/emotional closure’, ‘fragmentariness’, and ‘the collapse of the narrative voice’.47 Attempting to express the inherent inexpressibility of trauma often leads writers to eschew traditional or approachable forms, and to employ instead formal variety, hybridity, experimentation, repetition, and so forth.48 All of these and more are visible in post-Conquest narratives, especially when describing political instability. For example, Monika Otter has shown how both William of Malmesbury in his Vita Wulfstani (c. 1124–c. 1142) and Folcard of St Bertin in his Vita Ædwardi Regis (c. 1065–c. 1067) were unable to narrate the Norman Conquest in a straightforward way, opting instead for 45

46

47

48

On belatedness, C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (Baltimore, 1996), esp. pp. 7, 91–2; and N. Gana, ‘Formless Form: Elias Khoury’s City Gates and the Poetics of Trauma’, Comparative Literature Studies 47.4 (2010), 504–32 (pp. 518–19). See also Treharne, Living, pp. 88–96. Narrating the traumatic event is key to integrating traumatic memories into one’s psyche; see B. A. van der Kolk and O. van der Hart, ‘The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma’, in Trauma: Explorations in Memory, ed. C. Caruth (Baltimore, 1995), pp. 158–82 (pp. 176–7). On the overlaps between individual and collective trauma, see G. Forter, ‘Freud, Faulkner, Caruth: Trauma and the Politics of Literary Form’, Narrative 15.3 (2007), 259–85 (pp. 259–60, 280–2). Forter discusses individual and collective trauma as part of his questioning of the punctual model of trauma, but the direct experience of a single trauma versus the prolonged experience of systemic trauma is of relevance here. For dissociation in trauma narratives, see van der Kolk and van der Hart, ‘Intrusive’, pp. 163–4, 168–9; for romance and trauma narratives, see S. Onega and J.-M. Ganteau, ‘Introduction’, in Contemporary Trauma Narratives: Liminality and the Ethics of Form, ed. S. Onega and J.-M. Ganteau (New York, 2014), pp. 1–18 (p. 5); and for fantastical allegories, see Gana, ‘Formless’, pp. 522–4. On these features in postConquest narratives, see van Houts, ‘Memory’, pp. 170–3, and van Houts, ‘Trauma’, p. 12. For some examples of fantastical allegories, see chapter 2, pp. 58–61. I use the term dissociation to describe medieval historians’ frequent turns to theological explanations for traumatic events. Gana, ‘Formless’, p. 521. For repetition, see also Caruth, Experience, pp. 62–3, 91–2, 107–8; and van der Kolk and van der Hart, ‘Intrusive’, p. 167. For instability (and ‘indirection’), see Onega and Ganteau, ‘Introduction’, pp. 4–5. L. Berlant, ‘Trauma and Ineloquence’, Cultural Values 5 (2001), 41–58; Forter, ‘Freud’, p. 260; and Onega and Ganteau, ‘Introduction’, pp. 5, 11.

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Introduction digressions, prophecies, duplicated narratives, and other circumlocutions of this sort, which only serve to foreground the rupture of the Norman Conquest even further.49 William’s Gesta regum displays similar features: first, he prefaces his account of the Norman Conquest with Edward the Confessor’s prophecies, and second, he provides two accounts of the Battle of Hastings, one following on his description of Edward the Confessor’s reign, and another as part of his biography of William the Conqueror.50 He also describes the Norman Conquest indirectly in other passages, such as his account of the fates of Godwine’s sons, royal English saints, and Edward the Confessor’s miracles.51 Avoidance, repetition, prophecy – these are hallmarks of trauma narratives, and all are present in the Gesta regum’s account of the Norman Conquest. A different kind of formal variety is visible in accounts of the civil war in King Stephen’s time. Catherine A. M. Clarke has argued that Henry of Huntingdon and his contemporaries rupture their historical narratives by inserting a large number of poems, battle speeches, miracle stories, and other highly stylized language into their accounts of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. In this way, they represent the political fragmentation of England in the formal fragmentation of their texts.52 Why, then, do I refer to the histories I examine in this book as examples of historiographical varietas rather than trauma writing? The answer lies in the positive role that varietas was thought to play in historical writing. Varietas, as explained above, was considered a crucial component of skillful writing, and medieval audiences were trained to perceive formal variety as a sign of rhetorical prowess. Furthermore, historians were encouraged to describe significant events by adding a fitting amount of ornamentation to match the grandeur of the moment.53 For this reason, formal variety can be found in descriptions of a wide range of events, from the Norman Conquest to the reigns of Alfred the Great and King Arthur. Certainly, traumatic events do tend to attract the most formal variety, and the entire conceit of historiographical varietas seems prompted at least in part by historians’ concerns about discontinuity. Nevertheless, it is important to take

49 50 51 52

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M. Otter, ‘1066: The Moment of Transition in Two Narratives of the Norman Conquest’, Speculum 74.3 (1999), 565–86 (pp. 568, 577–85). See, respectively, WM, GRA ii.225–7 (I, 410–17), ii.228 (I, 417–23), and iii.238–47 (I, 444–63). See, respectively, ibid. ii.200 (I, 362–5), ii.207–19 (I, 384–405), and ii.221–7 (I, 406–17). Clarke, ‘Signs’, pp. 55–77; Clarke, ‘Writing Civil War in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum’, in Anglo-Norman Studies XXXI: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2008, ed. C. P. Lewis (Woodbridge, 2009), pp. 31–48; and Clarke, ‘Crossing the Rubicon: History, Authority and Civil War in Twelfth-Century England’, in War and Literature, ed. L. Ashe and I. Patterson (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 61–83. Kempshall, Rhetoric, p. 308. Cf. Cicero, Orator, in Brutus. Orator, trans. G. L. Hendrickson and H. M. Hubbell, LCL 342 (Cambridge MA, 1939), XXIX.102 (pp. 380–1); and Quintilian, Institutio oratoria V.xiv.34 (LCL 125, pp. 518–19).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century medieval historians’ use of variety on their own terms.54 We miss part of the picture if we see only the variety used to describe the Battle of Hastings and neglect the variety used to describe, say, the Battle of Brunanburh. Moreover, medieval varietas emphasizes the meaning-making (rather than the meaningdestabilizing) power of literary variety. For these reasons, medieval histories displaying varietas exceed the interpretive limits of the modern category of trauma writing. This book therefore takes an oft-repeated scholarly refrain about historical narrative – namely, the idea that historians writing in post-Conquest Britain sought to create continuity from the fragments of the insular past – and reveals the rhetorical theory that underpins that idea. But this book also shows that historiographical rhetoric could be just as hotly contested as the events it was used to describe. By turning away from lived historical reality and towards rhetorical theory, I hope to show how different conceptualizations of the same basic rhetorical idea could foster reflection and even debate among historians about the best way to approach the writing of history. A book of this sort can pursue one of two paths: either it can aim for comprehensiveness, by attempting to discuss as many texts as possible, while sacrificing a degree of analytical depth; or it can choose a few representative samples, sacrificing comprehensiveness to permit deeper analysis of individual texts. I have, with some trepidation, chosen the latter course. For one thing, it would be impossible to discuss in a single book the vast amount of historical writing produced in medieval Britain. I am also aware that the concept of varietas is likely unfamiliar to many modern readers of medieval historical writing. For this reason, I believe that I can best illustrate how rhetorical varietas shaped medieval historiography by examining fewer texts in a more comprehensive fashion, rather than by surveying a greater number of texts in less detail. I acknowledge that this decision has created unfortunate lacunae. The most regrettable omissions are Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis (c. 1130s) and Wace’s Roman de Rou (c. 1160–70), which this study passes over entirely. Wace’s Roman de Brut (1155) and Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle (c. 1307) make a few appearances, but only in the context of their translation into Middle English by two of the authors under consideration here. By now, readers of this book will have surely recognized a pattern: all these bypassed texts were written in Anglo-Norman French. I take full responsibility for these omissions (and many others), and I agree with those readers who will find this book’s

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Cf. D. Trembinski, ‘Trauma as a Category of Analysis’, in Trauma in Medieval Society, ed. W. J. Turner and C. Lee (Leiden, 2018), pp. 20–3, 30–1. Treharne’s discussion of the evidence of trauma in relation to the aftermath of Cnut’s accession in 1016 complicates van Houts’s and others’ work in a different way, by pointing to the variety of ways in which the textual record might register cultural trauma. See Living, pp. 11–12, 46–7, 76–90. See also Carruthers’s comments on memory and trauma in Craft, p. 101.

16

Introduction analysis hampered by its near-silence on varietas in French. Still, I stand by my decision, because it was made with a very specific goal in mind. This book seeks to extend recent scholarly work on the relationship between Latin and Middle English, by examining how these two linguistic traditions intersect in history-writing in particular. It is certainly true that English-language historians’ debts to their French-writing counterparts cannot be overstated, especially since a large proportion of Middle English historiography was translated from French. Yet we should not let those debts obscure the influence of Latin as well. In this book, I contend that the ancient rhetorical concept of varietas migrated into Anglo-Latin historiography during the twelfth century, and from there into vernacular chronicles, including those written in Middle English. Thus, I do not argue that Anglo-Norman French chroniclers did not employ varietas, or that Middle English chroniclers were not influenced by their Anglo-Norman counterparts. I simply consider the ties between Latin and Middle English historiography worthy of targeted analysis in their own right. This book explores what happens when we let Latin and Middle English history-writing sit side-by-side, without presuming that Anglo-Norman French must always be the intermediary between those two traditions. In doing so, it adopts a position similar to anthropological studies of interactions between some but not all of a city’s various ethnic communities. Limited analytical frameworks of this sort do not minimize the importance of the communities omitted from the study; they take advantage of the opportunities provided by an in-depth analysis of fewer communities, and use their findings to expand scholarly understanding of the city as a whole. In a similar way, I believe that shedding light on the connections between Latin and Middle English historiography does not minimize the importance of Anglo-Norman French, but instead will improve our understanding of Britain’s multilingual historical culture. That new knowledge will benefit our understanding of Anglo-Norman French historiography as well, especially if – as I hope – future scholarship will be able to give French varietas (and varietas in Britain’s other languages) the attention it deserves. This book is divided into two parts. Part I lays out the basic tenets of varietas and its place in medieval British history-writing. Chapter 1 offers a more comprehensive description of varietas, with more specific examples illustrating its central principles, than the brief discussion offered in this introduction. Subsequent chapters focus on varietas’s appearance in texts written by the most influential historians of this period. Although there is always a danger in relying on the most prominent texts to represent literary history, I have chosen to examine these three works precisely because of their influence. Theirs were the histories that later writers cited and copied and compiled into their own works, and whose visions of history eventually shaped the Middle English verse chronicles I examine in the second part of this book. In chapter 2, I examine the Gesta regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury, who pioneers the use of varietas, even going so far as to use the word explicitly 17

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century to explain his approach to historical writing. But William’s conception of varietas relies heavily on the classical understanding of the word. To support his claim that both he and the great English historian Bede are examples of an idealized mixture of English and Roman literary culture, William uses varietas to construct (what he considers) a fitting balance of English and Roman literary forms, varying the structure of the Gesta regum to argue that his text restores to English historiography the hybrid Anglo-Roman excellence epitomized by Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (731). Yet while William embraces some kinds of formal variety, he carefully avoids any kind of linguistic mixture, choosing instead to offer a consistently “Anglo-Roman” style that he believes will improve the intellectual culture of his day. In this way, William displays a cautious approach to varietas: he may embrace its usefulness, but he draws strict boundaries around its appearance in his text. Henry of Huntingdon, whose Historia Anglorum is the subject of chapter 3, does not limit his varietas in this way. In fact, he does the opposite. Henry takes inspiration from medieval theology more than classical rhetoric, leading him to conceptualize varietas in Christian rather than classical terms. Unlike William, who insists on alternating between different forms, Henry actively seeks out opportunities for mixing different styles and structures together. Henry’s understanding of varietas as a harmonious Christian mixture can account for many of the text’s more striking features, such as its overlapping dating systems, its translations of Old English poetry, its frequent exhortations of contemptus mundi, and, perhaps most famously, its unusually large amount of occasional poetry. But it also illuminates just how deeply the rhetorical concept of varietas can shape not just the writing but also the methodology of medieval historians. Both William and Henry choose sources, discuss their own authority, and weigh competing perspectives based on their larger understanding of how their histories should assemble the various fragments of Britain’s past into a cohesive narrative. This connection between rhetorical theory and historiographical methodology is crucial for recognizing the varietas that undergirds Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, the third text I examine in this book. Geoffrey’s Historia has often been billed as a seamless genealogical history, and as a rejoinder to the English histories of William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. But neither characterization is entirely accurate. Geoffrey’s Historia is rife with varietas, and in particular, with the kind of balance-oriented, classically tinged varietas preferred by William. Geoffrey, like William, favors hybrid identities and alternating literary forms, while eschewing linguistic mixing. However, Geoffrey also adapts classical varietas to suit his own political philosophy, redefining the classical ideal of varietas as a fitting balance to mean not the juxtaposition of equals, but rather the juxtaposition of dominant and subordinate parts. Geoffrey is therefore the first of these historians to think seriously about the tensions that arise from historians’ application of rhetorical variety to the question of political sovereignty. 18

Introduction His recognition of varietas’s utility, mixed with concerns about its longevity, leads him to write a history that simultaneously desires and fears historiographical varietas. Nevertheless, the Historia’s openness to varietas paves the way for this concept to appear in the vernacular. Part II shows how two Middle English verse chroniclers adapt the ideas and practices of Latin prose historians into Middle English poetry. Chapter 5 examines the thirteenth-century Brut by the poet Laʒamon, which provides the first known example of historiographical varietas in Middle English. Laʒamon’s Brut, like countless other Middle English chronicles, is a translation of an Anglo-Norman French source, namely, Wace’s Roman de Brut. However, Laʒamon bypasses certain stylistic and structural features of Wace’s poem, opting instead for a formal variety that echoes the attitudes and practices of earlier Latin historians, especially Geoffrey of Monmouth and, more surprisingly, Henry of Huntingdon. The similarities between Laʒamon’s Brut and Henry’s Historia testify to the continuing philosophical divide between historians who take classical varietas as their point of reference on the one hand, and those whose understanding of varietas is indebted to Christian thought on the other. We can never know the source of Laʒamon’s thinking, but we can see how Laʒamon transfers Latin rhetorical techniques into the vernacular and, by extension, how his Brut participates in a much broader historiographical tradition than has yet been recognized. Varietas’s ability to argue for the value of vernacular historiography seems to have been the source of its appeal, both for Laʒamon and for the fourteenthcentury English verse chronicler Robert Mannyng, whose Story of Inglande is the focal point of the sixth and final chapter of this book. Like Laʒamon’s Brut, Mannyng’s Story displays several kinds of formal variety that hearken back to earlier Latin prose historiography. Mannyng inserts numerous texts into his history, especially romance and popular songs, to call attention to what he considers to be the turning points in English history. Even more striking is his use of poetic meter, which reveals Mannyng’s combination of both classicaland Christian-influenced varietas. Like William of Malmesbury, Mannyng associates certain poetic meters with certain periods of history. However, Mannyng also takes a page from Henry’s book, in that he actually uses the different meters he identifies. Still, Mannyng lacks Henry’s moralizing perspective; his history is focused on conquest, like Geoffrey’s, and therefore echoes Geoffrey’s doubts about the stability of varietas. Mannyng’s Story thus represents the fullest expression of twelfth-century historiographical ideas in Middle English. Yet, the Story’s combination of historiographical philosophies also reveals that varietas had lost much of its contestability by the fourteenth century. That lack of reflection on the ins and outs of varietas signals the arrival of a broader trend, in which British – and especially English – historians become increasingly invested in formal consistency, rather than formal variety. As 19

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century the memory of the Norman Conquest faded, broken histories and narrative mending began to lose their appeal, and varietas no longer spurred deep reflections on historiographical methodology or linguistic diversity. In other words, varietas ceased to be debated when historians no longer thought it was worth debating. From there, it was only a matter of time before varietas declined from a governing principle of much historiographical production to a simple literary device. Ultimately, this book will show that, when a medieval historian suddenly shifts into a more opulent style or changes the structure of his text, he may be doing more than simply following his sources or trying to keep his readers’ flagging interest. Instead, he may be using literary form to resolve some historiographical conundrum. For medieval historians, the style and structure of medieval historical writing is not simply a byproduct of compilation, nor is it an attempt to make the dry bits of history slightly more palatable. Style and structure also do historiographical work. Varietas, after all, is more than a rhetorical term. As a noun, varietas can also denote fluctuations of circumstance. As a verb, variare can mean either to cause or to experience variation – that is, to vary the colors one uses, or to become variegated; to provoke or to hold divided opinions; to be changeable, or to endure the changes of fortune.55 In the long twelfth century, British historians found in varietas’s slippage between causing and experiencing variety a way to both acknowledge the very real changes around them, while also reasserting control over the narrative. They recognized that when discontinuities are harnessed into a standard, recognizable approach to writing history, they lose their threatening nature. By conceptualizing history as varius, then, medieval British historians could turn the confusion of discontinuity into a guide towards a deeper understanding of human affairs. For this reason, we ought to think of varietas not as the spice of life, but rather, as the stuff of history.

55

Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare, 2nd edn, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2012), s.v. ‘uario’.

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Part I

Varietas in Latin

1 Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History A book about varietas must necessarily begin with an account of its central term. This chapter outlines the basic theory and practice of varietas in classical Latin, before using the descriptio Britanniae tradition to explain how varietas could become a framework for conceptualizing insular history. A simple definition for varietas is fairly easy to provide. At its most basic level, literary varietas denotes formal variety – that is, any shift, temporary or permanent, in the style or structure of a text. Medieval writers conceptualized literary form as the combination of style and structure.1 For this reason, ‘formal variety’ is a suitable translation of Latin varietas, and one I will employ frequently throughout this book. It is far more difficult, however, to offer a comprehensive account of the workings and significance of varietas, and not only because of the gap between medieval and modern understandings of variety. Even ancient writers struggled to explain this concept in straightforward terms, resorting instead to metaphors or connections to other concepts to clarify their meaning. Variety lacks clear parameters: we cannot simply call a text “varied” because it mixes X number of styles in Y number of lines. Variety is the sort of literary quality we define using guidelines such as “I know it when I see it”. To complicate matters further, the word varietas was regularly applied to textual units of any length, ranging from individual words, phrases or sentences to large sections of a text or even whole books.2 Nevertheless, this chapter will compile insights from several auctores to produce a clear picture of this concept. 1

2

This is true whether they relied on a Ciceronian or Aristotelian conception of form. I note this explicitly because many of the writers I will examine in this book antedate the Aristotelian rhetorical theory popular in the later Middle Ages, which has served as the basis for most formalist work by medieval scholars. See, for example, Cannon, Grounds, p. 8; A. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 28–9, 118–59; and Smith, ‘Forma’, pp. 70–1. However, the same relationship between style and structure is visible in Ciceronian texts (including the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium) popular before the thirteenth century. See Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 295–303. Note, too, that style and arrangement are adjacent in both the ‘C type’ academic prologue popular in the twelfth century and the later ‘Aristotelian’ prologue (Minnis, Authorship, pp. 21–3, 29). M. Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca, 1989), pp. 46–7.

23

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century

Rhetorical varietas As an action, varietas (along with its cognate variatio) could mean either adorning a text with figures and tropes or employing different words with the same meaning to avoid repetition.3 Quintilian refers to the first of these senses when he describes how ‘plurimis figuris erit varianda expositio ad effugiendum taedium nota audientis’ (‘the Narrative should be varied by a generous use of Figures, so as to avoid boring those who find themselves hearing things they already know’).4 Isidore of Seville (c. 625) uses the word varietas in the latter sense when describing the purpose of pronouns: they avoid repeating the noun, ‘sicque varietas significationis et fastidium tollit et ornatum inducit’ (‘and thus the variation in expression both removes annoyance and introduces ornament’).5 As these examples reveal, both senses of the word were associated with the desire to prevent boredom.6 But this book is concerned more with varietas as a quality rather than an action. As a quality, varietas retains its connection to the idea of boredom, while taking on a more expansive range of meaning. Cicero (106–43 BCE) calls attention to this wide applicability, explaining, Varietas enim Latinum verbum est, idque proprie quidem in disparibus coloribus dicitur, sed transfertur in multa disparia: varium poema, varia oratio, varii mores, varia fortuna, voluptas etiam varia dici solet, cum percipitur e multis dissimilibus rebus dissimiles efficientibus voluptates. (‘Variation’ is a good Latin term; we use it strictly of different colours, but it is applied metaphorically to a number of things that differ: we speak of a varied poem, a varied speech, a varied character, varied fortunes. Pleasure too can be termed varied when it is derived from a number of unlike things producing unlike feelings of pleasure.)7

The term varietas can thus be used to describe anything from a Van Gogh painting to a television game show. Cicero’s wide-ranging list of possible uses for this term reveals another important aspect of varietas. The word can be applied equally to two very different kinds of objects: ‘the internally inconsistent’ and ‘the combination of different discrete entities’.8 In other words,

3 4 5

6 7 8

Ibid., pp. 44–6; cf. Fitzgerald, Variety, p. 50. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria IV.ii.22 (LCL 125, pp. 228–9). Text from Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum XX Libri, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), I.viii.1 (I, [unpaginated]). Translation from The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. S. A. Barney et al. (Cambridge, 2006), I.viii.1 (p. 44). Cf. Lausberg, Handbuch, I, 142. Cicero, De finibus. On Ends, trans. H. Rackham, LCL 40 (Cambridge, 1914), II.iii.10 (pp. 88–9). Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 17–18, quote p. 18; cf. Carruthers, Experience, pp. 135–6.

24

Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History an object possesses varietas whether it is variegated (e.g., a speckled egg) or composite (e.g., a jigsaw puzzle). It can certainly possess both qualities (e.g., a jigsaw puzzle depicting a forest in autumn), but it need possess only one to be deemed varius. Essentially, varietas describes an object’s possession of the quality or attribute of differentiation, not the method by which that differentiation is created. For this reason, writers could employ any number of styles or structures to create formal variety in their works. Varietas’s lack of prescriptiveness can encourage innovation, but it can also lead to conflict when writers butt heads over the definition of “good” varietas. This book provides examples of both kinds of reactions: varietas’s flexibility creates the conditions for Geoffrey of Monmouth to respond negatively to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, but it also enables Laʒamon and Robert Mannyng to adapt varietas for their vernacular. Thus, varietas depends on differentiation, whether through variegation or compositeness. However, to be truly varius, an object must be more than merely differentiated. Its various parts must also complement and distinguish each other. I mean both senses of “distinguish” here: individual elements of a varius object must simultaneously enhance and set off each other. Think of how differently-colored gemstones enhance and set off each other in a piece of jewelry. That is the kind of “distinguishing” fundamental to varietas. The pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium’s (first century BCE) discussion of dignitas makes this clear. According to the Rhetorica, ‘Dignitas est quae reddit ornatam orationem varietate distinguens’ (‘To confer distinction upon style is to render it ornate, embellishing it by variety’).9 In this sentence, the Rhetorica reaffirms the connection between varietas and differentiation, Latin distinctio, here ‘distinguens’ – that is, the differentiating of the parts of a text or the attributes of a word or idea. Yet the Rhetorica also connects varietas to a text’s dignitas, roughly defined as ‘a formal coherence presented with grace that gives its perceivers both pleasure and a sense of being internally “right”. [… D]ignitas, “suitableness”, adheres not in any single element of style but rather in the relationship among them, their “variety”.’10 Varietas thus denotes both the differentiation and the fitting combination of various elements. But what does this mean for writers in practical terms? To develop varietas, an author should alternate between the three classically recognized levels of style (low, middle and high) at irregular intervals throughout his work.11 The low style involves simple sentences, commonly used diction, fewer rhetorical figures, and so forth; the high style employs elaborate syntax, rarefied diction,

9 10 11

pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium, trans. H. Caplan, LCL 405 (Cambridge MA, 1954), IV.xiii.18 (pp. 274–5). Carruthers, Experience, p. 138; cf. Fitzgerald, Variety, p. 22, and OLD, s.v. ‘dignitas’. pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.xi.16 (LCL 405, pp. 266–9); cf. Carruthers, Experience, pp. 138–9; Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 22, 48–51, 57–60; and Roberts, Style, p. 46.

25

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century a large number of rhetorical figures, and so forth; and the middle style sits somewhere between. Alternating between these levels of discourse means alternating between different degrees of stylistic and structural complexity. The result of this alternation is a juxtaposition of styles. That juxtaposition was thought to prevent readers’ boredom (here is the idea of boredom again), because it ensures that a text does not contain so much of one style of writing that it becomes tedious. Monotonous writing leads to satietas and fastidium, two words often treated as opposites of varietas. Even beautiful language can be unattractive, if not interspersed with a simpler style. As Cicero explains in De oratore, Vel ex poetis vel ex oratoribus possumus iudicare concinnam, distinctam, ornatam, festivam, sine intermissione, sine reprehensione, sine varietate, quamvis claris sit coloribus picta vel poesis vel oratio, non posse in delectatione esse diuturna. (We can judge from either the poets or the orators that a style which is symmetrical, decorated, ornate and attractive, but that lacks relief or check or variety, cannot continue to give pleasure for long, however brilliantly coloured the poem or speech may be.)12

In contrast, authors who shift between the three levels of style at uneven intervals will keep the attention of their audience, because these changes prevent satietas. Still, there are limits to how far an author can stretch his varietas before the various pieces of his work no longer cohere (that is, no longer distinguish each other), and his writing dissolves into chaos. In the same chapter of the De oratore quoted above, Cicero disparages the variegated appearance of the paintings popular in his day, which juxtapose (what he considers to be) too many bright colors.13 Thus, in one breath Cicero both praises speeches that vary between styles and criticizes overly colorful art of any kind. Horace’s Ars poetica (c. 19 BCE) makes a similar point. His treatise on poetic composition famously begins with a comparison between, on the one hand, a poem that attempts to create more variety than is proper, and on the other, a ridiculous painting that combines a human head with a horse’s neck, feathers with limbs, and a woman’s body with that of a fish. He repeats this sentiment a few lines later: ‘qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam, / delphinium silvis appingit, fluctibus aprum’ (‘The man who tries to vary a single subject in monstrous fashion, is like a painter adding a dolphin to the woods, a boar to

12 13

Cicero, De oratore. On the Orator, trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, 2 vols., LCL 348–9 (Cambridge MA, 1942), III.xxv.100 (LCL 349, pp. 80–1). See ibid. III.xxv.98–100 (LCL 349, pp. 78–81); cf. E. Fantham, ‘Varietas and Satietas; De oratore 3.96–103 and the Limits of Ornatus’, Rhetorica 6.3 (1988), 275–89 (p. 277).

26

Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History the waves’).14 Importantly, Horace objects not to variety per se, but rather to unnatural or excessive (‘prodigialiter’) variety, as the context of these lines reveals. His first set of monstrous images appears in a description of poets who take too much license, and his second in a list of traps that poets fall into while trying to avoid other flaws, presumably tedium in this case (since that is the flaw varietas prevents). Thus, Horace only disapproves of varietas when a poet’s arrogance or fear of boring readers drives him to compose poetry so varied that its constituent pieces no longer “fit”. Such poems are absurd, not varius. To practice varietas properly, authors must find the “Goldilocks zone” between nonsensicality and tediousness. When varietas manages to fly a middle course between these dangers, it can have a powerful effect on audiences. The diverse colors, shapes, and styles of the varius object delight awed viewers, whose eyes dance back and forth as they take in the rich sensory experience. Procopius’s description of Hagia Sophia in the sixth century provides one oft-cited example of this phenomenon, because he explains how the many-hued architectural elements of this building engage viewers’ attention, in the same way that a meadow dappled with flowers can engross passersby.15 Indeed, varietas keeps audiences’ attention partly by appealing to the senses, as a glance at the common stock of metaphors and images associated with varietas reveals. Visual metaphors for varietas are particularly common, though metaphors relying on other senses are also well-attested.16 Color, spice, painting, perfume, music, mosaics, gems, flowers strewn across a meadow or woven into a garland – all have been used to describe varietas.17 Moreover, just as certain metaphors were associated with varietas, so too were certain types of art, such as contrapuntal music, characterized as particularly varius.18 Similarly, although all wellwritten texts contain a degree of varietas, certain genres have been particularly associated with this concept. Satires, miscellanies, and epistolary collections have been deemed varius for their mixture of styles and topics, for example.19 The Roman satirist Juvenal (c. 60–c. 140) proclaims in his opening satire that

14 15 16 17

18 19

Horace, Ars Poetica, in Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, trans. H. R. Fairclough, LCL 194 (Cambridge MA, 1929), ll. 29–30 (pp. 452–3). See Carruthers, Experience, pp. 136–7, 151–4, 169–70, 187–90; and Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 9, 64–6, 139–42. Roberts, Style, p. 47. Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 18, 24, 58, 70–3, 153–7; and Roberts, Style, pp. 47–55, 145–6. Cicero uses several of these metaphors in De oratore III.xxv.96–100 (LCL 349, pp. 76–81). See, for example, A. Luko, ‘Tinctoris on Varietas’, Early Music History 27 (2008), 99–136. On epistolary collections, see S. Bjornlie, ‘The Rhetoric of Varietas and Epistolary Encyclopedism in the Variae of Cassiodorus’, in Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity, ed. G. Greatrex and H. Elton, with L. McMahon (London, 2015), pp. 289–304, and Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 84–100; on satire and miscellany, see ibid., pp. 132–9, 149–95.

27

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century ‘quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, / gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago libelli est’ (‘all human activity – prayers, fears, anger, pleasure, joys, hustle and bustle – this is the mishmash of my little book’).20 Classical and medieval etymologies of the word satire (satura) sometimes even play on the relationship between satietas and varietas.21 Recent scholarship has also suggested that the paratactic structure characteristic of certain medieval romances is another example of varietas.22 Metaphors for varietas also appear in the histories I examine in this book. Indeed, metaphors are often more of a clue to a text’s understanding of varietas than historians’ use of the word varietas itself. Historians’ preference for metaphors over explicit rhetorical theorizing makes sense, given the fact that even classical rhetoricians frequently rely on metaphors when trying to explain this concept. Furthermore, in addition to conveying the experience of varietas, these metaphors allow historians to describe what kind of varietas – variegated or composite – they have in mind. Some metaphors, like spice, prompt readers to think of variegation; others, like garlands, gesture towards compositeness. A single metaphor can also invoke both senses. For example, contrapuntal music is composite because it combines voices and melodies, but at any given moment in a contrapuntal song, the listener’s ear will be drawn to variegated notes. Likewise, a mosaic is composite by nature, but it might also be variegated, depending on the design. (Think of my earlier example of the jigsaw puzzle depicting an autumnal forest.) Attending carefully to the symbolism of a historian’s metaphors can therefore reveal the type of varietas he prefers and, by extension, how he understands his work. For this reason, this book will repeatedly examine how and why historians choose certain metaphors to describe their writing or their approaches to the problem of historiographical fragmentation. On occasion, I will also (for the sake of variatio) employ the phrase “meadow model” to refer to varietas conceptualized as variegation (e.g., flowers scattered across a meadow); and I will use “garland model” to refer to varietas conceptualized as compositeness (e.g., flowers gathered into an orderly garland). I have chosen to use one consistent set of metaphors to invoke these two distinct senses of varietas, so that readers can more easily see how the same ideas appear in different guises in the works of medieval historians; and I have selected these particular images because the historians in this book tend to use metaphors that play on the literature-as-flowers topos. By using these terms, I do not mean to suggest that the words meadow

20 21 22

Juvenal, Satires, in Juvenal and Persius, Satires, ed. and trans. S. M. Braund, LCL 91 (Cambridge MA, 2004), I.85–6 (pp. 138–9). For example, see Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum VIII.vii.8 (ed. Lindsay, I, [unpaginated]); cf. Fitzgerald, Variety, p. 133. Carruthers, Experience, pp. 154–5; Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 62–4; and Roberts, Style, pp. 56–7.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History and garland appear in every work. But, like the classical auctores, I believe metaphors can be a useful way of conjuring different kinds of varietas in readers’ minds. If the works I examine in this book are any indication, medieval historians found metaphors useful too – so useful, in fact, that some even turned the island of Britain into a metaphor for varietas, as we will see.

Historiographical varietas Clearly, varietas was considered an essential component of good writing. But why might historians in high medieval Britain be particularly invested in this concept? Ancient reflections on historiographical practice offer one possible reason. Historiography was thought to contain an especially high degree of varietas.23 This belief stems in part from the classical understanding of how to write history. Sallust states the general consensus when he explains in his Bellum Catilinae (c. 43–41 BCE) that, when writing history, ‘facta dictis exaequanda sunt’ (‘words must match the deeds recorded’).24 When, for example, a historian places a speech into the mouth of some historical figure, he must employ words that suit the occasion and the character of the speaker.25 Historians who abide by this principle will inevitably produce works full of varietas, for the course of human events and the personalities of individual people are themselves varied. Varietas’s links to tedium also support the idea of a particular connection between variety and history. Historians frequently express a fear of boring their readers.26 This is assuredly a topos. But if history is perceived to be forever teetering on the edge of dullness, and if varietas is the literary technique of choice for avoiding that fault, then historians will naturally gravitate towards this device, and indeed, readers will expect to find it in their works. Historiographical varietas also possesses its own unique qualities. In Orator, Cicero helpfully explains what differentiates the variety characteristic of history from that of other genres. As part of his broader discussion of oratorical style, Cicero compares orators to both historians and sophists, in terms of their respective use of varietas. He first states that sophists use the same verbal ornaments as orators, but that they do so ‘et apertius […] et crebrius’ (‘more openly […] and more frequently’), seeking to please rather than to persuade their audience.27 He then describes sophists’ style as inherently varius:

23 24 25 26 27

Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 61–2. Sallust, Bellum Catilinae in The War with Catiline. The War with Jugurtha, ed. J. T. Ramsey, trans. J. C. Rolfe, LCL 116 (Cambridge MA, 2013), III.2 (pp. 24–5). Kempshall, Rhetoric, p. 340. Gransden, ‘Prologues’, p. 68. Cicero, Orator xix.65 (LCL 342, pp. 352–3).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Concinnas magis sententias exquirunt quam probabilis, a re saepe discedunt, intexunt fabulas, verba altius transferunt eaque ita disponunt ut pictores varietatem colorum, paria paribus referunt, adversa contrariis, saepissimeque similiter extrema definiunt. (They are on the look-out for ideas that are neatly put rather than reasonable; they frequently wander from the subject, they introduce mythology, they use far-fetched metaphors and arrange them as painters do colour combinations; they make their clauses balanced and of equal length, frequently ending with similar sounds.)28

Here, Cicero provides some concrete examples of the kinds of stylistic and structural variety that please audiences. Digressions and wordplay are the order of the day; and since sophists try above all else to charm their audience, they revel in variety’s delights more than the orator would. Cicero then suggests that historians resemble sophists in their use of variety: Huic generi historia finitima est. In qua et narratur ornate et regio saepe aut pugna describitur; interponuntur etiam contiones et hortationes. Sed in his tracta quaedam et fluens expetitur, non haec contorta et acris oratio. (History is nearly related to this style. It involves a narrative in an ornate style, with here and there a description of a country or a battle. It has also occasional harangues and speeches of exhortation. But the aim is a smooth and flowing style, not the terse and vigorous language of the orator.)29

Thus, Cicero says that historians employ the same wordplay, the same stylistic features, and the same amplifications as sophists. Yet historians should not be confused with sophists, as ‘finitima’ (‘bordering on’) emphasizes. Although Cicero does not explain his reasons for distinguishing between sophists and historians, it is likely that he considers historians superior because they aim not to appease audiences, but instead to preserve the memory of the past as truthfully as possible, and to offer models of virtuous conduct for readers to emulate – the standard justifications for writing history. In the hands of sophists, variety is all flash and no substance; but in the hands of historians, variety becomes a tool for instilling moral and ethical principles. Unsurprisingly, Cicero concludes that history’s virtues are not enough to topple oratory from its perch. For him, historiography is too neat, too detached, and too charming to outdo the fiery immediacy of the orator. Yet Cicero’s comments are useful for three reasons. First, they demonstrate the belief that variety is especially prominent in historical writing. Second, they show how historiography’s unique qualities – truthfulness and exemplarity – elevate historiographical varietas above the 28 29

Ibid. xix.65 (LCL 342, pp. 352–5). Ibid. xx.66 (LCL 342, pp. 354–5).

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History varietas of other genres. Since historical writing was popular in this period, it is not surprising that its practitioners should embrace (rather than obscure) one of history’s defining features. Third, and finally, Cicero uses tangible examples, rather than metaphors alone, to describe varietas. This approach helpfully illustrates how varietas can refer to either stylistic or structural variety (or both). I mentioned this idea briefly at the beginning of the previous section, when I explained that medieval writers thought of literary form as the combination of style and structure, and that varietas therefore amounts to formal variety – though with the added stricture that varietas must offer a fitting combination of different styles and structures, rather than a combination of any sort. However, I wish to dwell on this point further, using a few tangible examples of my own, because the relationship between style, structure, and varietas will further explain why British historians amplify the varietas of their works. In the Middle Ages, the conceptual boundary between stylistic and structural variety was highly permeable. The roots of this imprecision lie in the medieval rhetorical understanding of style and arrangement, two of the five canons of rhetoric. Although style and arrangement (i.e., structure) describe separate aspects of the process of composition, they were thought to be inextricably tied.30 Different styles make the boundaries between different parts of a text visible to readers, directing them along the text’s narrative trajectory. But the author’s arrangement of his text also plays a role in determining when he will shift from one style to another. In this way, style and structure reinforce each other. Picture a garland woven from a set of flowers, each of a different color. When viewers look at the garland (that is, a text), the flowers’ colors (its various styles) will reveal how the garland has been assembled (its structure). In other words, the flowers’ colors make it possible for viewers to discern where one flower ends and the next begins – and on an even more basic level, to recognize that the garland is not a single object, but instead an object comprised of several smaller elements. At the same time, as viewers take in the garland’s composition (its structure), they will observe the diversity of its colors (its styles), how those colors relate to each other, whether the colors form any patterns, and so forth. In this way, the colors and flowers of the garland reveal and reinforce one another, just as the styles and the organization of individual textual units reveal and reinforce one another in a written work. And just as the colors and the shape of the garland guide viewers’ eyes along its length, this feedback loop of style and structure moves the reader through the text. For this reason, even though rhetorical treatises typically define varietas as shifting between styles, in practice varietas refers

30

Carruthers, Book, pp. 241, 250; Carruthers, Experience, 136–8, 167–8; and E. Johnson, Practicing Literary Theory in the Middle Ages: Ethics and the Mixed Form in Chaucer, Gower, Usk, and Hoccleve (Chicago, 2013), p. 12.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century to both stylistic and structural variation. The works of medieval historians clearly illustrate this relationship between style, structure, and variety. It is easy to find examples of stylistic variety in medieval British historiography. In the Vita Griffini filii Conani (mid-twelfth century), for example, Gruffudd ap Cynan’s various fortunes are represented by a shift from high to low style. In one episode, Gruffudd reclaims his kingdom, a triumph the author describes in elaborate battle sequences and vivid dialogue.31 But immediately afterwards, Gruffudd is betrayed and captured. After a digression on his physical appearance, the Vita provides a series of simple sentences describing how his captor, Hugh, earl of Chester, sought control over Wales.32 Thus, the shift from high to low style reflects Gruffudd’s status at different points in the narrative. Such stylistic modification exemplifies Sallust’s dictum, quoted above, that history be written in a style that suits its contents. Stylistic variety can also result from an author’s mixing of languages. Such is the case in Henry of Huntingdon’s translations of Anglo-Saxon battle poetry, for which Henry adopts a Latin prose style that emulates Old English poetry.33 Even lists can create stylistic variety of this sort. Geoffrey of Monmouth develops a dazzling, polyfocal portrait of Arthur’s court by listing the “exotic” names of all those who were in attendance.34 These last two examples are reminiscent of the wordplay Cicero attributes to sophists. But their presence in historiography grants them a moral meaning that elevates them above the empty verbal maneuvers associated with other genres. Examples of structural variety also abound in the works of medieval historians. I have already mentioned parataxis, which is readily visible in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and digression, which can be seen in William of Newburgh’s accounts of various prodigies in his Historia rerum Anglicarum (1196–8).35 The latter especially resonates with Cicero’s description of sophists, but again, these literary features possess a moral and ethical quality that gives them value beyond mere pleasure. The same can be said of narrative repetition (that is, providing multiple narratives of the same events). Like parataxis and digression, repetition juxtaposes narrative threads, thereby developing multiple perspectives on history, as in the Vita Ædwardi Regis.36 Switching from a chronological or “annalistic” organization (ordo naturalis) to a more artful or “historical” arrangement (ordo artificialis) creates yet another 31 32 33 34 35

36

Vita Griffini Filii Conani: The Medieval Latin Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan, ed. and trans. P. Russell (Cardiff, 2005), chapters 17–19 (pp. 68–73). Ibid., chapters 20–1 (ed. and trans. Russell, p. 73). See chapter 3, pp. 90–1, 108–10. GM, HRB ix.156 (pp. 208–11). On lists as variety, see Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 116–48; and Roberts, Style, pp. 59–61. See, for example, William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, in The History of English Affairs, Book 1, ed. P. G. Walsh and M. J. Kennedy (Warminster, 1988), I.27–8 (pp. 114–21). Otter, ‘1066’, pp. 580–5.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History kind of structural variety, as when William of Malmesbury surrounds his chronological account of early English history with books patterned on Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica and, later, Suetonius’s De vita Caesarum (c. 121).37 Yet in practice, stylistic and structural variety typically overlap. For example, in his De excidio Britonum (c. 540), Gildas simultaneously shifts the structure (chronicle versus invective) and style (grandiose tone to accusatory tone) of his writing.38 This overlap is also visible in the illustrations above. The stylistic shift after chapter 19 in the Vita Griffini filii Conani coincides with a brief departure from the chronology that occupies most of the narrative, with the author pausing to describe Gruffudd’s appearance and character. Similarly, William of Newburgh’s famous account of the green children of Woolpit contains far more direct speech than the surrounding passages.39 At times it can even be difficult to discern how a historian would have characterized his own varietas, as Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica demonstrates. Bede temporarily switches from prose to verse when he incorporates his hymn to Æthelthryth into his history.40 Although modern writers might be more likely to consider the difference between poetry and prose an issue of structure, in the Middle Ages the question of whether a text was in verse or prose fell under the purview of the forma tractandi (the manner of the text, that is, its style) rather than the forma tractatus (the arrangement of the text, that is, its structure).41 For this reason, the hymn should technically be an example of stylistic variety. However, Bede uses the verb ‘inserere’ (‘insert’), a word often associated with varietas, to describe how the poem fits within the larger framework of his history.42 This verb visually resembles the Latin verb serere (principal parts serō, serere, sēvī, satum), meaning ‘sow, scatter’, a word that can connote either style or structure. But inserere’s cognates are more clearly connected to structure: serere (principal parts serō, serere, seruī, sertum), meaning ‘weave, intertwine’; series, ‘sequence’; and most tellingly, sertum, ‘chain of flowers’. Bede’s diction thus implies that the hymn is a digression (that is, an example of structural variety) rather than a shift between poetry and prose (an example of stylistic variety). 37 38

39 40

41 42

See chapter 2, pp. 63–9. Compare chapters 1–26 (pp. 87–99) to 27–110 (pp. 99–142) of the De excidio Britonum in Gildas, The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom (West Sussex, 2002). William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum I.27 (ed. Walsh and Kennedy, pp. 114–17). Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), iv.20 (pp. 396–401). Carruthers, Book, p. 250; Minnis, Authorship, pp. 22, 29; and Smith, ‘Forma’, p. 70. Bede, Historia ecclesiastica iv.20 (ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 396–7). On ‘inserere’, see Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 24, 180.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Thus, while it is sometimes possible and even helpful to distinguish between stylistic and structural variety, it is just as often counterproductive and even misleading to categorize a particular passage as an example of one but not the other. For this reason, though this book may sometimes seem to elide the difference between style and structure, it actually uses the overarching category of form to better reflect the overlaps between these two ideas. Concentrating on the larger concept of form offers a further advantage. By grouping post-Conquest historians’ wide assortment of stylistic and structural variations under a single banner, modern scholars can more easily recognize how seemingly unrelated textual features, such as linguistic wordplay and digressions, are in fact symptoms of the same phenomenon: varietas. Whether through style, structure or some amalgam of the two, varietas uses formal instability to guide readers to the meaning of a text. This paradox, whereby instability leads to meaning, was at the heart of varietas’s appeal in high medieval Britain.

The road to meaning Modern readers may find it strange to think of formal variety as a pathway to meaning, and stranger still to think of medieval historians finding this technique more useful than, say, writing in straightforward prose. But a medieval rhetorician would have followed historians’ logic, for it stems from the medieval understanding of how exactly a variety of styles and structures can direct readers to the inner meaning of a text. Though style and structure offer pleasure to readers, their true purpose is to act as signposts that help readers find their way through the author’s words to his underlying message.43 They tell readers when to speed up and when to slow down, when to turn and when to go straight. In this way, they create a ductus, or pathway, through the text. Martianus Capella (c. 420–90) defines ductus as ‘agendi per totam causam tenor sub aliqua figura servatus’ (‘a course of movement, sustained by some verbal construction, through the whole subject of a text’).44

43

44

My discussion of the relationship between ductus and varietas is indebted in particular to Carruthers, ‘The Concept of Ductus, or Journeying Through a Work of Art’, in Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. M. Carruthers (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 190–213; Carruthers, Experience, pp. 136–8, 167–70; and Fitzgerald, Variety, p. 50. See also Carruthers, Craft, pp. 77–82, 116–17; and Carruthers, ‘Rhetorical Ductus, or, Moving Through a Composition’, in Acting on the Past: Historical Performance Across the Disciplines, ed. M. Franko and A. Richards (Hanover, 2000), pp. 99–117. Martianus Capella’s discussion of ductus is heavily reliant on Consultus Fortunatianus’s, but I quote Martianus Capella because his De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii was more influential. All text from Martianus Capella, ed. J. Willis (Leipzig, 1983), V.470 (p. 165). Because the standard scholarly translation offers a much looser

34

Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History In other words, the way a text has been formed creates within that text an internal trajectory for readers to follow. The text’s styles and structures direct readers to the meaning of each smaller textual unit, and eventually to the overarching meaning of the whole work. For this reason, an author will carefully arrange his text’s various forms in such a way that they construct a particular ductus through his work. His choice of forms also influences the kind of ductus he will create. Martianus lists five different types of ductus, each characterized by how challenging it is for readers to discern an author’s meaning. Sometimes the path to meaning is a well-marked road leading directly to the author’s message. At other times, it is far more difficult to find the trail. For example, Martianus’s first type of ductus, termed simplex, describes ‘cum non aliud est in agentis consilio, aliud in verbis, ut si bene meritum laudes ac noxium accuses’ (‘when the speaker’s words reflect what is in his mind directly; for example, if one praises the deserving and accuses the objectionable’).45 His second type is called subtilis, ‘cum aliud vult animus, aliud agit oratio, ut “quidam abdicat filium, quod amicos non habeat”. hic non vere abdicat, sed ut amicos habeat, terret’ (‘when the words do not directly reflect the mind; for example, a man disowns his son because the son has no friends. The man is not really disowning his son but is frightening him into acquiring friends’).46 In the first scenario, the speaker means precisely what he says, so no translation is necessary. In the second, the audience must parse the speaker’s words to understand his true meaning. For our purposes, the significance of Martianus’s discussion lies not in the specific features of each type of ductus, but rather in the way the author decides whether he will use style and structure to illuminate or obscure the path to meaning. In the latter case, the goal is not to make it impossible for readers to find the text’s message. On the contrary, the objective is to force readers to find their own paths, in a medieval illustration of what modern pedagogy would call “self-directed learning”. Consider, for example, two instances of varietas, one in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum and the other in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum. In these examples, both historians use structural variety, but in service of two very different ductus. Henry adopts a chronicle-like form in the early books of his Historia, in which he recounts the fortunes of each of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, all of which are eventually incorporated into the kingdom of Wessex. Then, at the end of each of these

45 46

translation, I have here opted to translate the line myself. Elsewhere, I quote the standard translation in Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, Volume II: The Marriage of Mercury and Philology, trans. W. H. Stahl and R. Johnson with E. L. Burge (New York, 1977). Martianus Capella, De nuptiis V.470 (ed. Willis, p. 165; trans. Stahl et al., p. 176). Ibid. V.470 (ed. Willis, p. 165; trans. Stahl et al., p. 176).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century books, Henry repeats the same information in the form of a king list.47 Henry thus uses structural variety to provide the same straightforward interpretation of English history not once but twice. His ductus in these passages is simple: readers navigating between the chronicle and king list forms are left in no doubt of Henry’s belief in the supremacy of Wessex. In contrast, the ductus through William of Malmesbury’s account of the Norman Conquest is extremely complicated. William discusses the Norman Conquest in two ways: explicitly, in the main body of the text; and implicitly, in digressions on seemingly unrelated matters that, upon closer examination, are revealed to be thematically relevant to the Norman Conquest.48 Readers navigating William’s Gesta regum must therefore first recognize that these digressions do in fact reflect on the Norman Conquest, and then establish how these anecdotes harmonize with the central narrative.49 Eventually, readers will arrive at William’s true meaning, which occupies the middle ground between his implicit and explicit commentaries. Yet readers can only find that middle ground, that pathway to meaning, by taking note of its borders – the main narrative on one side, and the digressions on the other. Thus, like Henry, William uses formal variety to lead readers to his meaning; but unlike Henry, he makes finding that meaning a challenge. Still, even if an author intentionally lays out a path for readers, it is the audience’s decision to follow that path or to find another ductus through the text. Ultimately, a text’s ability to create a path to meaning does not depend on the specific forms an author chooses, the relative clarity of a text’s ductus, or the audience’s willingness to follow the direction set by the author. What matters is the way that varietas enables the reader’s journey through the text. Varietas relies on carefully constructed interactions between style, structure, ductus and meaning. If, as medieval rhetoricians suggested, every text hides a cohesive, even unified meaning under a veil of words, then varietas – shifting between the styles and structures created by those words – makes it possible for readers to find that underlying meaning. A multiplicity of constituent forms is therefore crucial to maintaining the integrity of the larger system of the text. From this perspective, varietas bears a strong resemblance to the ancient concept of concordia discors.50 It also fits neatly with the Christian understanding of God as Three-in-One, and indeed many Christian writers 47 48 49 50

See chapter 3, pp. 103–4. See chapter 2, pp. 57–63. On digressions as varietas, see Bjornlie, ‘Rhetoric’, pp. 293–6. On digressions as a parallel path (i.e., ductus), see Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 305–8. Roberts essentially equates varietas and concordia discors (Style, pp. 144–7), while Carruthers simply gestures towards the resemblance (Experience, p. 160). In contrast, Fitzgerald argues strenuously against Roberts’s interpretation (Variety, esp. pp. 5, 8–11, 197, but also pp. 20, 39–46, 69–70, 87, 185). But his comments are best understood as arguing against critics who focus on concordia at the expense of discors; see Variety, pp. 87, 113–14, 185.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History were attracted to varietas thanks precisely to the resonances between trinitarian theology and this rhetorical concept.51 As subsequent chapters will show, historians’ preference for classical or Christian varietas will impact how they integrate varietas into their writing. The rhetorical function of varietas had two further consequences on postConquest historiography. The first concerns variety’s stature as a literary device. Varietas’s ability to point readers in the right direction makes it more valuable than it might otherwise be. If variety essentially amounts to signposting, an author might even conclude that increasing the formal variety of his text will help his audience find their way through a particularly difficult narrative crux. This logic might partly explain why narrative histories of Britain produced during the long twelfth century tend to feature more formal variety: when faced with writing difficult histories, greater formal variety can be a tool for discovering historiographical meaning. (More on that below.) The second emerges from the sort of relationship between part and whole, that is, between form and narrative, that this theory creates. Varietas directs a reader’s gaze back and forth between two different sets of opposing poles: between two different forms (e.g., between two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle); and, simultaneously, between each individual form and the whole of the text (e.g., between one jigsaw piece and the larger puzzle). Individual forms thus distinguish each other, but they also distinguish the larger meaning, and the larger meaning distinguishes them. In other words, individual forms harmonize with each other in a way that both develops and balances the unity of the whole text. This feature of varietas can illuminate how medieval historians expected their readers to understand the seeming fragmentation of their writing. Variety and unity are not two tiers in a textual hierarchy. Instead, they are complements – two sides of the same coin. Variety does not simply slip from readers’ awareness once they have apprehended the wholeness of the text, nor do the various elements of a text bleed into each other or become homogenous through their association within a shared unity. In varietas, the various elements remain separate, and indeed it is their distinctness that permits them to develop the sensory tension necessary for creating varietas. The process of moving back and forth between variety and unity remains crucial to the text’s ability to function, for it is the restlessness of this movement that delights audiences and sparks their attempts to understand both it and the larger text. Varietas also creates its own aesthetic effect, namely the impression of bounty (copia).52 Its multiplicity provides richness without excess, stimulation without distraction. In varietas, the small, disparate parts of a larger text are transformed from a cause of concern (“how can all these pieces fit 51 52

Carruthers, Experience, pp. 154–64; Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 10–11, 20–4, 39–46, 78–9; and Roberts, Style, pp. 144–7. Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 10–11, 46–8.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century together?”) to a source of pleasure and meaning (“see how beautifully all these pieces fit!”). Varietas is therefore able to find value in textual fragments, both as a roadmap to meaning and as a way of experiencing the nourishing comfort of copia. To see how historians apply the concept of varietas to insular history, we need only look as far as William of Malmesbury’s, Henry of Huntingdon’s and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s comments on the continuity of the historical record, mentioned earlier. All three historians have essentially applied the garland model of varietas to their continuous histories. They treat periods of time as individual flowers, which they string together to form a continuous garland of history. Conquests, dynastic changes, gaps in the historical record, and other kinds of discontinuities form the borders between one flower and the next. To paraphrase my earlier summary of varietas’s workings, discontinuities distinguish both each other and the overarching continuity of time; and that larger continuity distinguishes them, both individually and collectively. These writers’ characterization of British history as varius emerges in other ways as well. Under the belief that a greater variety of style and structure can help readers through particularly difficult narrative cruxes, histories that use varietas as a guiding principle increase their formal variety at moments of political discontinuity. Every text in the Middle Ages used literary form to create ductus, but because the histories I examine use variety as a way of understanding time, they also tend to historicize the literary forms that comprise their varietas, associating certain forms with certain time periods. In this way, historiographical varietas shapes historians’ view of linguistic and literary history. It also shapes how they define historical writing. Varius historiography values hybridity, juxtaposition, and other kinds of literary amalgams, both in its forms and, importantly, in its methods. Some histories present multiple, even contradictory views of events, while others might juxtapose different kinds of historical writing. Though their investment in multiplicity might take different guises, varietas-filled histories all recognize that continuity can only be apprehended through the distinguishing of literary and historical fragments. As a result, they consider the fragmentation of history and of the historical record useful for pointing to the underlying cohesion of history. Recall that, to maintain varietas, viewers must maintain an awareness of the individual pieces that harmonize to create the larger whole. Otherwise, they lose varietas’s salubrious effects – namely, its impression of copia and its ability to guide readers to meaning. For this reason, varius historiography paradoxically foregrounds discontinuities to develop the impression of continuous history. Moreover, it uses the variety produced by these discontinuities to create a ductus guiding readers to the meaning of the work, and hence, to the meaning of history itself.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History

Britain’s varietas The historians I study in this book would have been well-versed in the form and function of varietas, and thus capable of developing connections between formal variety and political history beyond rhetorical ornament. They were all at least somewhat familiar with the classics, as demonstrated by their use of quotations, allusions, and other kinds of references to the classical past. Moreover, they were all well-educated, which means that they were almost certain to have come into contact with classical texts and writings shaped by classical rhetoric. William of Malmesbury is commonly regarded as one of the best-read classicists of the Middle Ages.53 Henry of Huntingdon studied classical rhetoric (among other topics) under the tutelage of Albinus of Angers, who was likely the product of the cathedral school at Angers, which flourished in the eleventh century (during Albinus’s time), and which was also located near other intellectual centers, such as Le Mans.54 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Robert Mannyng were both universityeducated.55 We know the least about Laʒamon, but we do know that he was a priest, meaning that he too would have been educated in the principles of Latin grammar and rhetoric.56 These historians’ lifespans encompass more than two hundred years, but there are enough continuities to think of their writing as the product of an educational system that held relatively consistent views of varietas. The classical poets Horace and Juvenal, who both wrote satires that engaged with varietas, were frequently included in school curricula throughout the Middle Ages.57 Horace’s Ars poetica was particularly important in this regard.58 Late

53 54 55

56

57

58

Thomson, Malmesbury, pp. 48–61. HH, HA, pp. xxx–xl. For Geoffrey, see J. B. Smith, ‘Introduction and Biography’, in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. G. Henley and J. B. Smith (Leiden, 2020), pp. 1–28 (pp. 6–11); for Mannyng, see Robert Mannyng of Brunne, The Chronicle, ed. I. Sullens (Binghamton, 1996), pp. 13–15. Subsequent citations will follow the form RM, Story followed by (if quoting the chronicle) the part, line numbers, and page numbers, or (if quoting the apparatus) the page numbers in the modern critical edition. W. R. J. Barron, ‘The Idiom and the Audience of Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Laʒamon: Contexts, Language, and Interpretation, ed. R. Allen, L. Perry and J. Roberts (Exeter, 2002), pp. 157–84 (p. 181); F. H. M. Le Saux, Laʒamon’s Brut: The Poem and Its Sources (Cambridge, 1989), p. 22; and E. Salter, English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art and Patronage of Medieval England, ed. D. Pearsall and N. Zeeman (Cambridge, 1988), p. 65. On satirists in the medieval curriculum, see R. Copeland, ‘The Curricular Classics in the Middle Ages’, in The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature, Volume I (800–1558), ed. R. Copeland (Oxford, 2016), pp. 21–33 (pp. 23–8). On varietas in Horace and Juvenal, see Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 118–25, 132–6. R. Copeland, ‘The Trivium and the Classics’, in Classical Reception, ed. Copeland, pp. 53–76 (p. 59).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century antique writers who discuss varietas, including Isidore of Seville, were also part of medieval Britain’s pedagogical landscape.59 More importantly, the concept of varietas appears in oft-studied classical rhetorical treatises such as the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium (which pays particular attention to variety in style) and Cicero’s De inventione (in which Cicero discusses how to vary one’s arguments).60 Furthermore, these ideas were not limited to the original classical treatises: in his fourth-century commentary on De inventione, Marius Victorinus provides additional instruction on Cicero’s directive ‘Variare autem orationem magno opere oportebit’ (‘Variety in the treatment of the speech will be the great necessity’) by restating Cicero’s advice on varying arguments in simpler terms.61 For this reason, the lack of common knowledge of some of the texts I quoted earlier, such as Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria and Cicero’s De oratore, would not have been an impediment to British historians’ knowledge of varietas, especially if they lived during the twelfth century, the heyday of Ciceronian rhetoric.62 When new artes poetriae began to be produced around the turn of the thirteenth century, they typically combined the conceptual frameworks of Horace and Cicero, thus ensuring continued engagement with the concept of varietas.63 Frequently they reiterate the principles and even the metaphors of varietas when explaining poetic principles to readers. For example, Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s influential Poetria nova (1208–13) instructs would-be poets in these terms: Sic igitur cordis digitus discerpat in agro Rhetoricae flores ejus. Sed floreat illis Sparsim sermo tuus, variis, non creber eisdem. Floribus ex variis melior redolentia surgit; Quod sapit, insipidum vitiosa frequentia reddit. […] Verborum flores et rerum confer in unum, Area sermonis ut floreat his speciebus 59 60

61

62 63

Ibid., p. 54. For Isidore’s discussion of rhetorical varietas, see Etymologiarum II.xxi.1 (ed. Lindsay, I, [unpaginated]). See, respectively, pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.xiii.18 (LCL 405, pp. 274–5); and Cicero, De inventione, in De inventione. De optimo genere oratorum. Topica, trans. H. M. Hubbell, LCL 386 (Cambridge MA, 1949), I.xli.76 (pp. 120–1). For the study of Ciceronian rhetoric in the Middle Ages, see Copeland, ‘Trivium’, pp. 58–61; and S. Reynolds, Medieval Reading: Grammar, Rhetoric and the Classical Text (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 23, 26. Cicero, De inventione I.xli.76 (LCL 386, pp. 120–1); and C. Marius Victorinus, Commenta in Ciceronis Rhetorica, ed. T. Riesenweber (Berlin, 2013), I.xli.76–7 (p. 132). For further discussion of Victorinus, see ‘Marius Victorinus, Commentary on the De inventione, Before 355’, in Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric, ed. Copeland and Sluiter, pp. 104–6; cf. Copeland, ‘Curricular’, p. 24 and ‘Trivium’, p. 59. Copeland, ‘Trivium’, p. 59. Both De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium received commentaries during this period; see Reynolds, Reading, p. 26. Copeland, ‘Trivium’, pp. 62–3.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History Florum. Surget enim quidam concursus odorum Et redolet plene permixtus uterque colorum. (In this way, then, let the mind’s finger pluck its blooms in the field of rhetoric. But see that your style blossoms sparingly with such figures, and with a variety, not a cluster of the same kind. From varied flowers a sweeter fragrance rises; faulty excess renders insipid what is full of flavour. […] Bring together flowers of diction and thought, that the field of discourse may bloom with both sorts of flowers, for a mingled fragrance, blending adornment of both kinds, rises and spreads its sweetness.)64

Geoffrey clearly refers here to the meadow model of varietas, and to varietas’s connections to boredom, the levels of style, and to the way that meaning (here, odor) emerges from formal variety. Thus, even though writers do not always use the term varietas, it is possible to see both the practice and the concept in any number of influential rhetorical treatises. Indeed, the lack of a single, universal term for varietas might explain why the historians I discuss in this book are themselves varied in their terminology, though – importantly – not in their understanding of this concept. The association of varietas with history-writing in Britain predates the twelfth century. As far back as Gildas, British historians had used the meadow model of varietas in descriptiones Britanniae, characterizing the island of Britain itself as a place of exceptional variety. In keeping with the modern view that continuity and discontinuity are opposing forces (rather than harmonious complements), scholars have often overlooked the variety of the island, and instead emphasized how Britain’s physical continuity can overcome some of its historical discontinuities. For example, it has often been said that Brut narratives emphasize the stability and continuity of the land as a way of coming to terms with the ruptures in history caused by repeated conquests.65 Similarly, scholars have suggested that the island of Britain appears consistently in medieval British historiography as a single, whole, cohesive, and bounded entity.66 Both arguments treat continuity and discontinuity as an

64

65

66

Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova, in Les arts poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle: Recherches et documents sur la technique littéraire du Moyen Âge, ed. E. Faral (Paris, 1924), ll. 1225–9, 1584–7 (pp. 235, 245); translation from Poetria nova, trans. M. F. Nims, rev. edn (Toronto, 2010), pp. 55, 65. For particularly influential articulations of this idea, see Cannon, Grounds, pp. 50–5; and F. Ingledew, ‘The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History: The Case of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae’, Speculum 69.3 (1994), 665–704 (pp. 674–5, 686–8). V. Flood, Prophecy, Politics, and Place in Medieval England: From Geoffrey of Monmouth to Thomas of Erceldoune (Cambridge, 2016), pp. 5–7; B. F. Roberts, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae and Brut y Brenhinedd’, in The Arthur of the Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature, ed. R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman and B. F. Roberts (Cardiff, 1991), pp. 97–116 (p. 102); and Roberts, ‘Geoffrey

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century either/or scenario. Gildas describes how Britain is both enclosed by the sea and adorned with a rich variety of coastlines, cities and water sources. Its wholeness (as an island) and its differentiation (as a diverse landscape) distinguish each other, in the manner of varietas. Gildas’s language is richly evocative of the metaphors typically used to describe varietas: Campis late pansis collibusque amoeno situ locatis, praepollenti culturae aptis, montibus alternandis animalium pastibus maxime convenientibus, quorum diversorum colorum flores humanis gressibus pulsati non indecentem ceu picturam eisdem imprimebant, electa veluti sponsa monilibus diversis ornata. (Like a chosen bride arrayed in a variety of jewellery, the island is decorated with wide plains and agreeably set hills, excellent for vigorous agriculture, and mountains especially suited to varying the pasture for animals. Flowers of different hues underfoot make them a delightful picture.)67

Here, Gildas guides readers’ eyes back and forth across a mental image of the island, encouraging them to delight in the marvelously balanced variety contained within it. Delight comes not from one feature, or even from many features, but rather from the way that so many features coexist and complement each other in a single, bounded place. Also telling is Gildas’s allusion to the biblical image of the bride adorned for her husband, for this is the same image that provokes Augustine, in his commentary on Psalm 44 (c. 392–422), to offer one of the most influential discussions of varietas from the postclassical period. Like countless other biblical commentators, Augustine interprets the bride as a symbol of the Church. But he also interprets the variegated clothing of the bride of Psalm 44 as a symbol of the diversity of languages spoken by Christians. The word varietas appears twice in this psalm, prompting Augustine to write, Vestitus reginae huius quis est? Et pretiosus est, et varius est: sacramenta doctrinae in linguis omnibus variis. Alia lingua afra, alia syra, alia graeca, alia hebraea, alia illa et illa: faciunt istae linguae varietatem vestis reginae huius. Quomodo autem omnis varietas vestis in unitate concordat, sic et omnes linguae ad unam fidem. In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit.68 (What is this queen’s clothing? It is precious, and it is also varied [varius]: the principles of our faith are conveyed in a countless variety of tongues. There is the African tongue, the Syriac tongue, the Greek tongue, the Hebrew tongue, and many others besides: these languages make up the variety of

67 68

of Monmouth and Welsh Historical Tradition’, in Studies on Middle Welsh Literature, repr. from Nottingham Mediaeval Studies 20 (Lewiston, 1992), pp. 25–40 (pp. 28–37). Gildas, De excidio III.3 (ed. and trans. Winterbottom, pp. 16–17, 90). Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 36, 509. Translation mine.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History this queen’s raiment. Moreover, just as all the variety of that cloth harmonizes in its unity, so too do all languages harmonize in professing one faith. Let there be variety in that garment, but let not its variety be torn asunder.)

Thus, by sending readers’ gaze across Britain’s landscape, and by invoking Augustine’s great symbol of Christian varietas, Gildas attempts to show that Britain is both whole and fragmented, and that it is wealthy precisely for this reason. Bede’s descriptio in the Historia ecclesiastica makes a similar point, but it also takes Gildas’s allusion to the variegated bride one step further. Bede eliminates the biblical allusion, offering instead an explicit reflection on the diverse languages of Britain. He lists each of these languages: English, British, Irish, Pictish and Latin. Concerning Latin, Bede writes, ‘quae meditatione scripturarum ceteris omnibus est facta communis’ (‘through the study of the scriptures, Latin is in general use among them all’).69 Here again we get a picture of unity and diversity existing side-by-side in a very Augustinian way: the island may be held by different peoples speaking different languages, but their shared embrace of Christian Latin unifies them into a single island Church. (In theory, at least.) Varietas thus offered a model for medieval historians seeking to conceptualize the linguistic situation of post-Conquest Britain. While Europe was and remains richly multilingual, Britain’s insular geography and history of migration accentuates this feature, making it ripe for interpretation through the lens of varietas. To be clear, I am not in any way claiming that medieval Britain was unique for its multilingualism. Rather, I suggest that Britain’s status as an island resulted in an awareness of its linguistic diversity that distinguished it from, say, Iceland, where one vernacular language was associated with one people who inhabited one island. That awareness of British multilingualism would only have grown after the Norman Conquest. Indeed, from this perspective, medieval Britain might be thought to have more in common with medieval Spain than Iceland, since Spain was shaped by similar geographical and historical forces. As a single island containing many languages, Britain could be called varia: like the flowers in a meadow, its languages are separate from each other, yet together they point to a single island with a single history. Later medieval historians thus had clear precedents for viewing Britain through the lens of varietas. The innovation of twelfth-century historians lies in their application of both the meadow and garland models of varietas to British history. As subsequent chapters will show, twelfth-century historians recognize the meadow-like multilingualism of post-Conquest Britain. Yet they are also keenly aware of how conquests have punctuated time, and as a result, they also conceptualize insular history as a garland, with each period of time dominated by one gens and one language. Both models 69

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica I.1 (ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 16–17).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of varietas thus inhere in insular history: languages provide variegation, while migration and conquest create compositeness. Because varietas could make sense of this linguistic and political fragmentation, and even reframe it as crucial for both continuity and meaning, varietas became an influential approach to writing long, narrative histories, and it remained in use as late as the fourteenth century.

The limits of varietas Four key hallmarks classify a particular history as varius: first, the use of formal variety to describe historical discontinuities; second, the valuing of multiplicity, whether in the guise of literary forms, historical sources, historiographical methods, or political perspectives; third, the belief that fragmentation and cohesion distinguish each other; and fourth, an investment in making sense of historical change, often resulting in explicit reflections on language. It is worth noting, too, that varietas is just as likely to emerge in depictions of the Roman invasion as the Norman Conquest. After all, British historians writing during the twelfth-century renaissance would have been thinking about their distance from the classical Roman past alongside their distance from early English history. Admittedly, in calling attention to this feature, I have broadened what was already a broad set of parameters for varietas. Indeed, varietas is a literary device that tends to amplify rather than constrict interpretation, since variety can appear in so many (various) ways. But varietas also embeds some limits on the interpretive possibilities of a work of history. For one thing, the varietas of medieval Britain has a sinister side, which allows historians to place limits on diversity, as a closer examination of the descriptio Britanniae tradition reveals. I noted earlier that Gildas uses the biblical image of the bride adorned for her husband to describe the island of Britain. Here I will add that, while others have compared Gildas’s words to the fairly rosy portrait of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. 2, Gildas is actually quoting from Isaiah 61. 10: ‘gaudens gaudebo in Domino et exultabit anima mea in Deo meo quia induit me vestimentis salutis et indumento iustitiae circumdedit me quasi sponsum decoratum corona et quasi sponsam ornatam monilibus suis’ (‘I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice he hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels’, emphasis mine).70 Gildas makes only one change to the biblical verse: his bride is arrayed not just in jewels, 70

I quote here and elsewhere from the Latin Vulgate Bible and the Douay-Rheims translation. For the suggestion that Gildas is relying on Revelation, see R. North, Heathen Gods in Old English Literature (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 16–17. Certainly,

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History but in a variety (‘diversis’) of jewels. In this way, Gildas makes his bride more diverse than Isaiah’s had been. But the larger context of Isaiah 61 uncovers Gildas’s full meaning. As a whole, Isaiah 61 describes the renewal of the land that will follow the renewal of hearts prompted by Isaiah’s preaching. Obviously, this sentiment suits Gildas’s purpose in the De excidio. Yet the chapter also concerns the unequal relationship between God’s chosen people and the gentiles, as the subsequent verse, Isaiah 61. 11, emphasizes: ‘sicut enim terra profert germen suum et sicut hortus semen suum germinat sic Dominus Deus germinabit iustitiam et laudem coram universis gentibus’ (‘For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth: so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the nations’). Thus, Britain is an island garden, decorated with a diverse (‘diversis’) array of jewels, that is, peoples. But while Britain is home to many peoples, one stands before the rest. Thus, both Augustine and Gildas use the biblical image of the bride to create a picture of harmony. But whereas Augustine associates the variously adorned bride of Psalm 44 with the bride of the Song of Songs, and hence the Church, Gildas adopts the image of the bride of Isaiah 61, dresses her in a newfound variety, and associates her with the island of Britain. The result in both cases is a new emphasis on diversity, whether within the Church or on the island. However, Augustine balances that diversity with the unity of the Church, which includes all peoples and languages. In contrast, Gildas balances Britain’s diversity by pointing to the prominence of one people that shines, to use Isaiah’s phrasing, ‘coram universis gentibus’ (‘before all the nations’). Bede’s descriptio hints at a similar interpretation to Gildas’s. There is the preeminence of Latin, mentioned earlier, but his description of the land also suggests that one people stands above the others: Uineas etiam quibusdam in locis germinans, sed et auium ferax terra marique generis diuersi, fluuiis quoque multum piscosis ac fontibus praeclara copiosis […] exceptis uariorum generibus concyliorum, in quibus sunt et musculae, quibus inclusam saepe margaritam omnis quidem coloris optimam inueniunt, id est rubicundi et purpurei et hyacinthini et prasini sed maxime candidi. (It also produces vines in certain districts, and has plenty of both land- and waterfowl of various kinds […] besides [the variety of the creatures inhabiting Britain’s coastal waters] there are various kinds of shellfish, among which are mussels, and enclosed in these there are often found excellent pearls of every colour, red and purple, violet and green, but mostly white.)71

71

Gildas has the general, oft-repeated image of the adorned bride in mind, but his words are those of Isaiah. Bede, Historia ecclesiastica I.1 (ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 14–15).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Here, Bede refers to diversity, copiousness and color, all of which connote varietas.72 But as in Gildas’s descriptio, diversity and supremacy rub shoulders. There may be many pearls, but one type is more numerous and hence more visually dominant than the others. Thus, there is a certain degree of tension around the concordia of varietas’s concordia discors. Does oneness emerge from an overarching category embracing all? Or from the dominance of one group over others? The existence of these options haunted post-Conquest historians, many of whom resorted to verbal gymnastics to explain why unity means balance in some circumstances and subjugation in others. Other writers simply skirted the issue – this is the case with pseudo-Nennius’s Historia Brittonum (early ninth century), which lists the cities of Britain (listing, we will recall, is a technique associated with varietas) and several of the island’s marvels, but which offers no explicit comments about the diversity of the island’s resources or its languages.73 Historians’ willingness to embrace dominance when it suits their political motives should put to rest any notion that their varietas bears the slightest resemblance to our modern ideal of diversity.74 Although the historians in this book are often eager to embrace multiplicity and to find harmony in diversity, they are just as eager to exclude from their harmonious varietas whatever languages and gentes they dislike. Thus, for all its seeming breadth, a varius history is certainly more limited than the kinds of inclusive histories we prize today. Varietas also appears limitless when we recall how medieval historians typically crafted, produced and circulated their writings. The compiling of sources, the often communal nature of manuscript production, and the later additions of scribes all make a degree of variety inherent to historical writing.75 Even the layout of the manuscript page could be considered an opportunity for juxtaposition leading to varietas. However, my concern is less with these incidental connections between literary variety and historywriting, and more with the variety of the literary forms of the historical text itself. Although the practicalities of manuscript culture can – and, in some of the examples I discuss in this book, do – contribute to a history’s varietas, not every manuscript of historical writing exhibits historiographical varietas simply because it is the product of several hands or combines several texts. Whether the creation or adaptation of manuscripts contributes to varietas

72 73 74 75

Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 17–19, 46–8. See pseudo-Nennius, Historia Brittonum, ed. and trans. J. Morris (London, 1980), chapters 7–9 (pp. 59–60), 66–74 (pp. 80–3). On varietas and modern diversity, see Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 4–5. See discussion in L. Cleaver, ‘Autograph History Books in the Twelfth Century’, in Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World: Manuscripts, Makers and Readers, c. 1066–c.1250, ed. L. Cleaver and A. Worm, Writing History in the Middle Ages 6 (York, 2018), pp. 93–112.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History depends on whether the texts within the manuscript contain the quality, rather than simply the action, of varietas.76 Rhetorical (and hence historiographical) varietas is a word-based phenomenon; if the texts inside the manuscript do not create a historiographical meadows or garlands, if its textual units do not distinguish each other, if there is no ductus to historiographical interpretation within the text itself, then the manuscript cannot be called varius. Scribal interventions can certainly add to or detract from the varietas of a text, but the text would almost certainly have needed to be varius in the first place for those interventions to affect the overarching varietas of the text in a substantive way. For this reason, although I acknowledge the role of many voices in the production of a text we now refer to as single-authored, I refer in this book to the actions of single authors, and trust that readers know that the reality behind the production and development of these texts is more complicated. As for the variety of the manuscript page itself, a folio might complement its main text with amusing marginal illustrations or ornate historiated initials, which simultaneously provide readers with pleasure, prevent their boredom, and engage their mnemonic faculties. That is varietas as action, in the sense described by Quintilian and Isidore at the beginning of this chapter. However, that is not varietas as quality. For that kind of varietas, we would need to turn to images that engage directly with the historiographical contents, such as the illustrations of King Stephen’s battle preparations that appear in two manuscripts of Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, or the shields, crowns, and other symbols and scenes drawn by Matthew Paris in the margins of his Chronica maiora (c. 1200–59), all of which depict the events recounted in the narrative.77 In varietas-as-action, the juxtaposition of text and image generates productive amusement; in varietas-as-quality, that juxtaposition generates history. To tell whether the practicalities of writing history in the Middle Ages participate in the varietas of a piece of historical writing, it is helpful to ask questions that seek connections between text and manuscript beyond the incidental. For example, do the formal features of the text intersect with the form of the manuscript page in a way that creates a ductus towards historiographical meaning? Does the manuscript seem to historicize letter forms in the way that the history it contains historicizes literary forms? Does the text reflect on the materiality of books when meditating on its sources, or on insular history? If the answer to such questions is “yes”, then the manuscript may be part of the text’s varietas. If it is “no”, then the realities of manuscript production and circulation might be more distracting than

76 77

Cf. above, pp. 24–5. For the former, see J. Collard, ‘Henry I’s Dream in John of Worcester’s Chronicle (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 157) and the Illustration of Twelfth-Century English Chronicles’, JMH 36.2 (2010), 105–25 (pp. 119–21), and chapter 3 below, p. 102; for the latter, see S. Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 159–242.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century helpful in the study of historiographical varietas. For this reason, this book only discusses manuscript evidence when it contributes directly to the varietas produced by a piece of historical writing. And what of limits on formal variety in written texts? Should we consider every change in style or structure an instance of varietas? Or are there examples of formal variety that do not qualify as varietas in the full sense of the word? There is certainly a danger in reading meaning into a text where none is intended. Recent formalist criticism has stressed that a text’s forms sometimes exceed the intentions of their authors, taking on meaning of their own, and sometimes even working against the text’s ability to convey its own meaning.78 Furthermore, varietas inheres in the text itself, not in the intent of the author; this is why readers can find their own ductus through the work, if they so choose.79 If we accept all variety as varietas, we run the risk of normalizing all attempts at formal subversion, and of redeeming all formal variety without acknowledging the possibility that an author has simply made a mistake. The key to surmounting these challenges is to acknowledge, rather than minimize, the totalizing effects of varietas. Varietas is capacious by nature; once a text’s use of varietas has been identified, every variation in style and structure in that text seems to contribute to its varietas. This feature is in fact part of its appeal: it seeks to find a path through confusion, and in so doing it harnesses even resistant forms into a central meaning. In this sense, varietas limits a text’s ability to resist cohesion. And yet, as subsequent chapters will explore, historians debated what kinds of varietas were acceptable, and how best to incorporate varietas into their work. Method, rather than form, seems to be the way to place a limit on varietas’s totalizing tendencies. Time itself placed another limit on varietas. By the later Middle Ages, historians become less concerned with discontinuity, and thus less interested in varietas’s ability to transform discontinuity into a literary asset. My conclusion will reflect on the decline of varietas more explicitly, but here I will use the descriptio Britanniae tradition to show how this idea of British insular diversity eventually faded. Robert of Gloucester’s late thirteenthcentury Middle English verse Chronicle draws on the histories of William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Laʒamon, all of which – as I argue in subsequent chapters – display varietas.80 Robert’s reliance on these sources might lead us to expect that his Chronicle will be full of varietas. It certainly begins by giving readers that impression: it starts with a descriptio listing all of the many varied natural and man-made resources of

78 79 80

See Meyer-Lee and Sanok, ‘Introduction’, p. 6; and Prendergast and Rosenfeld, ‘Introduction’, pp. 8–9. Carruthers, Experience, pp. 167–72. Wright, ed., Chronicle, pp. xv–xxxix.

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Varietas: From Roman Rhetoric to British History Britain, drawn from Henry’s and Geoffrey’s histories.81 This is how Henry describes his homeland and its people: Proprie uero proprium Britannie est, ut incole eius in peregrinationem tendentes, omnibus gentibus cultu et sumptu clariores ex hoc unde sint dinosci possint. Cum autem tot rebus habundet Britannia, uinee quoque fertilis est sed raro, ut habeant qui diuicias eius emendas appetunt, secum quod inferant. (A particular characteristic of Britain is that its natives, when travelling abroad, are more splendid in their dress and manner of living, whence they may be distinguished from all other peoples. Since Britain abounds in so many commodities (it is even fertile enough for vines, though they are uncommon), those who seek to buy its goods may have them only if they bring something [in exchange].)82

In contrast, Robert’s descriptio concludes by emphasizing not the island’s diverse array of pleasures, but rather the cleanness and purity of the land and its people: So clene lond is engelond. & so cler wiþ outen hore. Þe veireste men in þe world. þer inne beþ ibore. So clene & vair & pur ʒwit. among oþere men hii beþ. Þat me knoweþ hem in eche lond. bi siʒte þar me hem seþ.83 (England is so clean a land, and so bright, without corruption, That the fairest men in the world are born there. They are so clean and fair and pure white among other men That, in each land where people see them, they are recognized [as English] by sight.)

Robert accepts Henry’s basic premise, but he shifts this passage away from Britain’s manifold goods and towards the homogeneity of the island and its inhabitants – a homogeneity that, for Robert, connotes beauty and fittingness, in a manner entirely opposite to the principles of varietas. While Henry delights in variety, Robert delights in monochrome. Robert’s replacement of the term Britain for England is also telling for its racial undertones: where once Britain was diverse (albeit not in the modern sense of the word), now it is purely English. If, as has been argued, Robert’s Chronicle marks a new phase of historiography, unconcerned with race and conquest, it is because the island has been reconfigured as a place of racial purity, rather than racial

81 82 83

Ibid., p. xvi. HH, HA i.6 (pp. 18–21). Robert of Gloucester, Chronicle ll. 180–4 (ed. Wright, I, 13). Translation mine. As in my other translations from Middle English, I have prioritized clarity in modern English over close adherence to the wording of the original text.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century fragmentation.84 The variety of peoples Britain once possessed has now been sublimated under the category of England, their multiple perspectives silenced in the face of Anglo-centric history. This tendency to ignore rather than tackle conflicting perspectives head-on is also visible in the way that Robert of Gloucester, unlike Laʒamon and Mannyng, does not add a great amount of dialogue to his sources when translating.85 As subsequent chapters will show, dialogue is a commonly used device for injecting varietas into a text. Yet Robert displays less interest in such tactics. Indeed, Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle has received much criticism for its monotony over the years.86 Yet I would suggest that modern readers are simply mistaking Robert’s studied homogeneity for poetic dullness, in the same way that they have misinterpreted features of varietas – digressions, non-chronological narratives, and so forth – as signs of poor literary merit. Medieval historians will always face modern detractors, whether they adhere to a high or a low style, or shift back and forth between the two. Ultimately, the Chronicle’s lack of formal variety is a testament to the care with which it offers a truly seamless narrative, just a a varius history’s formal variety is a testament to its careful construction of a meaningful, fitting array of textual fragments. In other words, varietasfilled histories perform continuity, while Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle and other late medieval histories are continuous, in both their form and their sense of insular history. Like all philosophies, varietas eventually lost its appeal. From this perspective, by simply having such an appeal among twelfth-century historians, varietas inevitably places limits on itself. But the focus of this book is not on that future, but rather on the way that varietas animated historians’ reading of and reactions to each other’s work, and on the development of this idea from Latin prose to Middle English verse. Tracing that development will illuminate the subtle connections between historiographical and rhetorical theory that shape both individual histories and the linguistic and political traditions to which they belong.

84 85 86

See M. Fisher, Scribal Authorship and the Writing of History in Medieval England (Columbus, 2012), pp. 94–9. D. Callander, ‘Laʒamon’s Dialogue and English Poetic Tradition’, English Studies 97.7 (2016), 709–24 (p. 714). P. A. Shaw has helpfully assembled several of the most vividly-phrased criticisms of the Chronicle’s poetry; see ‘Robert of Gloucester and the Medieval Chronicle’, Literature Compass 8/10 (2001), 700–9 (p. 703).

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2 ‘I take it that no one will object to some variety’: William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum As a historian, William of Malmesbury has attracted much praise over the centuries. Even John Milton, writing in 1670, had good things to say about William’s ‘stile and judgment’, especially in comparison with what Milton dismisses as the ‘Monachisms’ of William’s contemporaries.1 He has been called a ‘classicist extraordinaire’ for his wide reading of ancient literature and his passion for alluding to the classics in his writing.2 William is also respected for his literary aesthetic; recently, he has been described as a ‘mosaicist’ who, with both skill and artistry, wove together quotations from the auctores, fragments from other works, and his own prose.3 This chapter will show how these oft-praised aspects of William’s Gesta regum Anglorum (c. 1126, revised c. 1135, henceforth Gesta regum) constellate around William’s practice of varietas.4 Of the historians in this book, only William uses the Latin word varietas to describe the literary variety of his work – perhaps unsurprisingly, since William, more than other writers, tends to advertise his classicism. Scholars have typically assumed that William uses this term to refer to varietas in its simplest form, i.e. to digressions or changes in stylistic register.5 In contrast, I argue that the Gesta regum’s varietas is far more wide-reaching than that. This chapter examines William’s theory and practice of varietas, to show how William’s conception of varietas shapes the literary forms of the Gesta regum. I argue that William’s reliance on a classical understanding of varietas leads him to choose a variety of styles and structures – both classical and medieval 1 2

3

4 5

J. Milton, The History of Britain, in Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. F. Fogle (New Haven, 1971), V, 1, 230. R. M. Thomson, ‘William of Malmesbury and the Latin Classics Revisited’, in Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose, ed. T. Reinhardt, M. Lapidge and J. N. Adams, PBA 129 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 383–93 (p. 383). M. Winterbottom, ‘Beginning a History: Studies in William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, Book One’, Journal of Medieval Latin 29 (2019), 101–21 (pp. 102, 120–1). On the dating of the Gesta regum Anglorum, see Thomson, Malmesbury, pp. 6, 8. For example, see Thomson, ‘Satire, Irony and Humour in William of Malmesbury’, in Rhetoric and Renewal in the Latin West, 1100–1540: Essays in Honour of John O. Ward, ed. C. J. Mews, C. J. Nederman, and R. M. Thomson (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 115–27 (pp. 126–7); and M. Winterbottom, ‘The Gesta regum of William of Malmesbury’, Journal of Medieval Latin 5 (1995), 158–73 (pp. 168–70).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century – and to arrange them in a way that creates a fitting balance. Since the style and structure of William’s Gesta regum contributes to its political argument, the varietas of this text also plays a role in disseminating William’s interpretation of history.6 In this way, varietas becomes not only an action or even a quality, but also a historiographical framework that forwards interpretations of England’s past. Moreover, the popularity of William’s Gesta regum – it survives in twenty-nine manuscripts, and was often a source for later historians – ensured the availability of that framework to other historians.7

Cato enters the theater As chapter 1 explained, well-fitting juxtaposition is at the heart of classical varietas. It is also at the heart of the Gesta regum. When William mentions the varietas of his writing, he does so as part of a broader classical allusion to ancient satire, signaling both that he perceives varietas to be the juxtaposition of high and low, and that he recognizes varietas’s long-standing association with satire.8 William justifies his digression about Canterbury and York, mentioned above, by referring to a well-known figure from ancient Rome: as William puts it, he knows his readers are waiting for the central narrative to continue, ‘quanuis, nisi me nimius amor mei fallit, nulli uarietatem relationum displicituram opinor, nisi si quis tam nubilus est ut Catonis supercilium emuletur’ (‘although (unless excessive self-love deceives me) I take it that no one will object to some variety in my narrative, unless he is so clouded in mind that he imitates the critical disdain of a Cato’).9 William’s defense of varietas rests on a complex web of allusions to a story about Cato the Younger (95–46 BCE), first recounted by Valerius Maximus (c. 31) and then repeated by other writers.10 In this anecdote, the famously stern Cato leaves a theater so that the lighthearted festival of Floralia can continue without his severe demeanor changing the nature of the festivities. Martial first alludes to this story in the prologue to book I of his Epigrams (c. 86–98), when he asks Cato (a metonym for judgmental readers) why he came to the theater in the first place, if he only intended to leave.11 Later in his Epigrams, Martial again alludes to this story, commanding Cato and others of a similar disposition to 6

7 8 9 10 11

Gillingham, ‘Civilizing’, p. 30; Winterbottom, ‘Gesta’, pp. 166–73; and Winterbottom, ‘The Language of William of Malmesbury’, in Rhetoric and Renewal, ed. Mews, Nederman, and Thomson, pp. 129–47 (pp. 132–3). WM, GRA I, xiii–xxii. See chapter 1, pp. 27–8, 39. WM, GRA iii.304 (I, 538–9). Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, 2 vols., LCL 492–3 (Cambridge MA, 2000), II.10.8 (LCL 492, pp. 226–9). Martial, Epigrams, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, 3 vols., LCL 94–5, 480 (Cambridge MA, 1993), I.pref.3–24 (LCL 94, pp. 40–3).

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum read no further.12 It is the phrasing of this latter epigram that William echoes here (‘Catonis supercilium’).13 William’s familiarity with Martial is uncertain, which makes it difficult to determine how much of this larger context was known to him.14 Nevertheless, we can draw some conclusions about William’s conception of historiographical varietas from this passage. First, since William mentions varietas as part of an allusion to satire rather than, say, biography, he evidently understands varietas’s importance to this genre. Furthermore, he exploits history’s traditional association with satire to suggest that, because varietas is useful in satire, it can be useful in historical writing too. Finally, he frames his defense of historiographical varietas in much the same way as Martial had done. Like Martial, William conjures up the image of a hostile audience, in the hope that, by presenting naysayers in a negative light, he will coax readers into receiving his varietas more favorably. Lighten up, William essentially says to his more serious-minded readers; a little fun never hurt anyone. In fact, William argues, a little fun is necessary for moral development. This, too, is an idea that echoes Martial. Martial had based his valorization of varietas on its ability to create meaningful juxtaposition between playfulness and sobriety. In his Epigrams, Martial transforms the tale of Cato’s departure into a fable about those who consider themselves morally superior. Cato represents Martial’s imagined community of pretentious readers, while the celebrations of the Floralia, the festival honoring the Roman goddess Flora, represent his Epigrams. Flora was thought to encourage a rich variety of flowers and crops, and her festival was famous for its multicolored clothing and its delight in low-brow entertainment, which featured actresses stripped 12 13 14

Ibid. XI.ii.1–2 (LCL 480, pp. 4–5). Cf. commentary on this passage in WM, GRA, II, 266. Compare William’s ‘Catonis supercilium’ in GRA iii.304 (I, 538–9) to Martial’s ‘supercilium… Catonis’ in Epigrams XI.ii.1–2 (LCL 480, pp. 4–5). Martial’s circulation in the Middle Ages was quite limited. Some excerpts from Martial were available in pre-Conquest England, and William’s near-contemporaries John of Salisbury and Alexander Neckam either mention or use his works. See Copeland, ‘Curricular’, pp. 23, 25–7. Nevertheless, William’s knowledge of Martial’s Epigrams is uncertain. On the one hand, William occasionally echoes Martial’s words (Thomson, Malmesbury, pp. 50, 211), and Winterbottom has recently identified another echo of Martial’s Epigrams in the prologue to Gesta regum book i (‘Beginning’, p. 104), suggesting that there are more to discover. On the other hand, these quotations could be derived from an anthology. Nevertheless, I would argue that William likely had access at least to Martial’s discussion of Cato in Epigrams I.pref. and XI.ii. Although William only echoes the latter in the Gesta regum, he quotes verbatim from the former in his Letter to Peter. See William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum Anglorum Libri Quinque; Historiae Novellae Libri Tres, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (London, 1887), I, cxliv. Of the five excerpts from Martial (I.pref.9, VIII.iii.19, XI.ii.1–2, XII.xvii.8 and XIV.cliv.1) that William adapts in some way, two (I.pref.9 and XI.ii.1–2) refer to this story about Cato, suggesting that William knew Martial’s portrait of Cato, even if he did not know the Epigrams in their entirety.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century naked and women competing in gladiatorial competitions.15 Yet for all their cheerful abundance, the goddess and her festivities possessed an underlying seriousness. Flora played a crucial role in guaranteeing the earth’s fertility, and her games held political meaning too, since they were first initiated to celebrate common people’s rights to public grazing land.16 Martial compares his work to the festivities of the Floralia to argue that satire maintains a similar balance between low entertainment and deep sentiment: it shames its readers with descriptions of a variety of coarse behaviors, while relying on that same catalogue of vices to animate its social commentary.17 But Martial’s sanctimonious readers, like Cato, fail to recognize the solemn purpose beneath the lightheartedness of satire. Furthermore, by leaving the theater (that is, by spurning Martial’s book), they deprive others of their serious presence. As a result, they deny both themselves and those around them the juxtaposition of lighthearted entertainment and serious morality necessary for discerning deeper meaning – for by walking away from the low, these supposedly moral readers make it impossible to distinguish the high. Moreover, by making a show of their disapproval, both Cato and Martial’s pretentious readers try to make themselves appear more virtuous than others. Yet their shunning of others’ vices only reveals their own: pride. Thus, for Martial, the self-righteous readers who walk away from varietas are in fact the very readers who need its juxtapositions the most. William alludes to Martial’s Cato to make the same claim about the Gesta regum.18 His history’s varietas is both serious and necessary, William argues, and those who spurn its variety impede both the Gesta regum’s efficacy and their own moral development.19 Moreover, just as variety enables satire’s commentary on society, so too does history use variety as a mode of commentary, as we will repeatedly see both in this chapter and throughout this book. William’s whole defense of the varietas of history thus rests on the crucial role that juxtaposition plays in the development of readers’ moral and ethical character. William does not think of his varietas only as an occasional sweet treat, which whets readers’ appetites for the serious feast provided elsewhere in the Gesta regum.20 Instead, William builds the entirety of the Gesta regum to offer a series of stylistic and structural juxtapositions, which form a ductus through the text, guiding readers to William’s meaning. As I show below, 15 16 17 18 19

20

Juvenal, Satires VI.249–51 (LCL 91, pp. 254–5); and Ovid, Fasti, trans. J. G. Frazer, rev. G. P. Goold, LCL 253 (Cambridge MA, 1931), V.331–74 (pp. 284–7). Cf. Ovid, Fasti V.261–330 (LCL 253, pp. 278–85). Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 132–9. On varietas in William’s historical writing and the satirical tradition, see Thomson, ‘Satire’, p. 127. Cf. Winterbottom, ‘Beginning’, p. 105. Winterbottom is right to point to the pleasure William hopes to create for readers of the Gesta regum, but that pleasure sits alongside a desire for utility. Thomson, ‘Satire’, pp. 126–7.

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum almost every feature of William’s Gesta regum is geared towards creating well-fitting juxtaposition. He quotes classical and Christian auctores alongside English legal documents; he balances anecdotes about events abroad and events in England; he shifts between the literary organizations of Suetonius and Bede; he emphasizes the balance of English and Norman perspectives that his own balanced ancestry affords him; and so on. The importance of varietas to William’s historiographical project appears as early as the prologue to book i. There, in an oft-quoted sentence, William states his two primary goals in this work: ‘interruptam temporum seriem sarcire et exarata barbarice Romano sale condire’ (‘to mend the broken chain of our history, and give a Roman polish to the rough annals of our native speech’).21 Both goals use metaphors connected to varietas. The first half of the phrase openly invokes the garland model of varietas through the word series. Modern translations of William’s series as ‘chain’ or ‘rope’ unfortunately obscure the association of series with varietas.22 We moderns, thanks to advances in technology, are more likely to think of chains and ropes as single, intact objects. As a result, we are more likely to interpret this image as a sign of William’s desire for ‘seamless’ continuity.23 But chains and ropes are in fact composite objects, created by joining together individual links or by weaving together separate threads.24 Because series is a word that describes a composite object, it falls within varietas’s semantic range. As a result, when series is applied to history, it does not create the impression of an unbroken timeline, as the linear diagrams that appear in modern textbooks do. Instead, it implies that distinct spans of time have been ‘fitted’ together to form a comprehensive, yet varius, account of the past.25 Isidore of Seville emphasizes the fittingness, the compositeness, and by extension, the varietas of a temporal series in his etymology of this word, which appears in his broader discussion of historiography. Isidore asserts that the Latin word series is derived from the Latin word for garland (serta or sertum), and he makes it clear that a series is composite: ‘Series autem dicta per translationem a sertis florum invicem conprehensarum’ (‘A series [series] is so called by an analogy with a garland [serta] of flowers tied together one after the other’).26 Isidore’s sense of the relationship between a historical series and a gathering of flowers had classical roots: Justinus’s preface to his secondcentury AD Epitome of the work of Pompeius Trogus, author of a first-century 21 22 23 24 25 26

WM, GRA i.Prol. (I, 14–15). For ‘chain’, see the standard scholarly translation quoted above; for ‘rope’, see Winterbottom, ‘Beginning’, pp. 103–4. This word appears in association with William and the other authors I examine in this book. See, for example, ibid., pp. 102, 120–1. Cf. OLD, s.v. ‘series’. Cf. Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 17–18, 24. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum I.xli.2 (ed. Lindsay, I, [unpaginated]; trans. Barney et al., p. 67).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century BC earlier history of Greece and its environs, also pairs these concepts.27 Justinus writes, ‘ea omnia Pompeius divisa temporibus et serie rerum digesta conposuit. […] Breve veluti florum corpusculum feci’ (‘Pompeius gathered all those histories, divided into time periods and arranged in order of events. […] [Out of those histories] I made a small gathering, as if of flowers’).28 William echoes this connection between the series temporum and floral imagery. His prologue asserts his intention to mend the series of broken time by plucking flowers (‘deflorabo’) from Bede’s history and fitting them together with other works.29 Regardless of William’s source for the idea, it is clear that his goal in the Gesta regum is not to create perfect continuity, but rather to create a fitting varietas, in which individual units of time simultaneously distinguish and are distinguished by both each other and the longer arc of history. If William had so wished, he could certainly have chosen a metaphor that would have portrayed his Gesta regum as a single, uninterrupted line. Reginald of Canterbury (c. 1050–after 1109) refers to history as a river, for example.30 Instead, William has opted to characterize the Gesta regum as varius for its composite structure. William also characterizes the Gesta regum as varius for its variegated style. This second sense of varietas emerges from the latter half of William’s historiographical mission statement, in which William proclaims that he will season English history with Roman salt. ‘Sal’ (‘salt’) can mean wit in the general sense.31 But this phrase also echoes the food and spice metaphors for varietas, which authors use to describe something variegated.32 By applying this image to his Gesta regum, William suggests that the many classical quotations, verbal reminiscences, themes, and allusions scattered

27

28

29 30

31 32

Garnett has recently proposed Justinus’s preface as the source of William’s garland/ chain metaphor (Conquest, pp. 13, 69). However, as Garnett acknowledges, this metaphor also appears in Orderic Vitalis and William of Poitiers, and the excerpts from Justinus in a manuscript compilation copied by William of Malmesbury do not include Justinus’s preface. Garnett does not note the connection between series and flowers, which might support his argument, but the appearance of these images side-by-side in other texts makes it impossible to attribute this idea to William’s reading of Justinus. Therefore, William’s precise inspiration for this phrase remains unknown. Text from M. Junius Justinus, Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi. Accedunt Prologi in Pompeium Trogum, ed. O. Seel (Stuttgart, 1972), Praefatio (p. 2). The translation is mine. Justinus believes one of Pompeius’s motivations was the ‘varietate et novitate operis’ (‘the variety and newness of the task’, p. 1). WM, GRA i.Prol. (I, 14–15). Reginald of Canterbury, ‘De intentione in sequentem librum’, in The Vita Sancti Malchi of Reginald of Canterbury: A Critical Edition, with Introduction, Apparatus Criticus, Notes, and Indices, ed. L. R. Lind, Illinois Studies in Language and Literature XXVII, nos. 3–4 (Urbana, 1942), pp. 38–41 (p. 40). OLD, s.v. ‘sal’. Cf. Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 17–18, 35–6, 57–8.

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum throughout his Gesta regum are a form of stylistic variegation. They distinguish William’s English history, by increasing its sophistication; but his English history also distinguishes them, by providing them with a new home in a work of Christian literature.33 Thus, William opens his Gesta regum by stating that his aim is to write a history that is varius in both senses of the word – that is, composite in its structure (‘seriem’) and variegated in its style (‘Romano sale’). This is not to say that William does not desire continuity or sophistication, of course. On the contrary, these are the very things he desires. But for medieval readers of classical rhetoric, including William, texts accrue these features through formal variety – for it is variety, we will recall, that guides audiences through a text. William’s salt metaphor makes this very point. Salt preserves as well as seasons food, and it was sometimes used as a sacramental in baptismal rites.34 When added metaphorically to history, salt preserves the past, makes historical narratives appealing and accessible, and lays out a path for readers through the author’s words to the deeper meaning of the text. While it may seem paradoxical to modern readers, the textual discontinuities in William’s writing create the conditions that make it possible for readers to learn the political and moral lessons of the past. Moreover, William’s varietas allows him to collect the scattered pieces of insular history and to combine them together, creating a narrative that is greater than the sum of its parts. In this way, William’s careful cultivation of varietas plays a crucial role in mending (‘sarcire’) England’s fractured history.

Sailing between Scylla and Charybdis William’s digressions encapsulate this principle. His digressions are among the Gesta regum’s most notable features, so much so that the modern edition of this text contains a table of contents describing how relevant each of William’s digressions is to the central narrative.35 This type of assessment is part of a larger tendency among scholars to view William’s digressions either as pleasurable breaks from serious history or as imaginative allegories for the historical events recounted in the main narrative.36 It is true that, in 33

34 35 36

On William’s Christianization of classical literature, see N. Wright, ‘“Industriae Testimonium”: William of Malmesbury and Latin Poetry Revisited’, Revue bénédictine 103 (1993), 482–531 (pp. 511, 517–18). Cf. ‘condiebar […] sale’ in Augustine, Confessions, ed. J. J. O’Donnell, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1992), I.xi.17 (I, 9). See WM, GRA, I, xxxi–xxxii. For the former view, see Thomson, ‘Satire’, pp. 126–7; and Winterbottom, ‘Gesta’, pp. 168–9; for the latter, see J. J. Cohen, Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles (New York, 2006), pp. 55–63; and R. M. Stein, ‘Making History English: Cultural Identity and Historical Explanation in William

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century the Middle Ages, a digression was considered a standard rhetorical device, in which an author pursues a loosely-connected narrative thread to offer some insight on the main narrative of the text.37 Digressions could be used to achieve any number of goals. They could strengthen an author’s authority, for example, or heighten the pleasure or dignity of a text – or even forward a philosophical argument.38 Thus, digressions do not deviate from the main narrative so much as offer a different perspective on it. For this reason, they are examples of varietas-as-variegation: within the meadow of the text, the reader’s gaze moves among the various flowers, that is, the different narratives. As a result, the reader looks at history from a variety of angles. Escaping the main chronology of events in this way, however briefly, makes it possible for historians to paint a more complex picture of the past for their audience. It also permits the main narrative to remain “dignified”, even as it creates the balance between high and low necessary for teaching morality. When William’s digressions are examined collectively, it becomes clear that they are driven by the logic of varietas rather than simply a desire to entertain readers with an occasional eye-catching allegory. As noted above, William’s digressions have traditionally been categorized as belonging to one of two groups: historical digressions, which provide supplemental information contextualizing the main narrative; and fabulous digressions, which cloak their historical commentary under a veil of allegory. The first category includes digressions on English, continental, and world history. Their subject matter is not inherently digressive, since William prefaces the Gesta regum by warning audiences that he will occasionally describe events that took place outside of England’s borders.39 Instead, their digressiveness emerges from the way that they break up the main narrative of English history. In contrast, the second category is digressive for its ahistorical contents. This category includes William’s stories about marvels, miracles, and magical happenings, intended to entertain and instruct readers on a range of topics related to the central concerns of the Gesta regum. For example, some, such as the two-bodied woman of Normandy, offer political commentary on English history.40 Others, like William’s account of Gerbert of Aurillac, reflect on the process of history-writing.41 In contrast to the overtly historical digres-

37 38

39 40 41

of Malmesbury and Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages, ed. S. Tomasch and S. Gilles (Philadelphia, 1998), pp. 97–115 (pp. 99–104). Cohen, Hybridity, p. 59; and Kempshall, Rhetoric, p. 315. Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 305–9; and J. O. Ward, ‘Some Principles of Rhetorical Historiography in the Twelfth Century’, in Classical Rhetoric, ed. Breisach, pp. 103–65 (p. 113). WM, GRA Letters 1, 3 (I, 2–5, 10–13). For example, see Cohen, Hybridity, pp. 59–62. For example, see M. Otter, ‘Functions of Fiction in Historical Writing’, in Writing Medieval History, ed. Partner, pp. 109–32 (pp. 116–19); and Otter, Inventiones: Fiction

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum sions, these attention-grabbing tall tales have been called ‘light relief, material designed to entertain and refresh the reader, before plunging into the next round of serious historical narrative with its moral overlay’.42 However, I would argue that we cannot draw so clear a line between William’s historical and imaginative digressions. Both types of digression juxtapose high and low in the manner of classical varietas. For example, his longest historical digression, a narrative of the First Crusade, juxtaposes the morality of Crusaders (high) with the immorality of William Rufus and various corrupt clerics (low).43 High and low appear differently here than in satire or in William’s fabulous digressions, but the basic principle is the same: high and low still distinguish each other, and as a result, they are able to point audiences to some kind of moral lesson, in this case, the virtues of holy war. A different kind of moral juxtaposition appears in William’s account of Æthelwulf, Alfred the Great’s father. William acknowledges that his account of Æthelwulf’s grant of church liberties in ii.114 wanders from his main narrative, but this chapter is in fact only one of a series of digressions on English and Frankish history stretching from ii.110 to ii.116.44 In these chapters, through digressions on visions of the afterlife, church liberties, and genealogy, William makes two key juxtapositions: first, between Æthelwulf’s morality and the immorality of his son Æthelbald; and second, between Æthelwulf’s wife Judith and Queen Eadburh, who was famous for, among other things, demonstrating inappropriate sexual desire for a son over his father. Both juxtapositions foreshadow the events of ii.117, when, after Æthelwulf’s death, his son Æthelbald and wife Judith proceed to marry each other.45 Clearly, the historicity of a digression does not impede its ability to titillate readers with low entertainment. William compares these various figures to make a moral point about sexuality and kingship, but there is also a political commentary embedded here, for in Judith William offers a precursor of Emma of Normandy, another wicked, foreign queen whose various marriages would damage England (in William’s eyes, at least). Of course, not all of William’s historical digressions offer so overt a juxtaposition of high and low. When William digresses on the origins of the Franks in i.67–8, for example, he explicitly juxtaposes their history and language with that of the English, but his comparison does not prompt a clear moral

42 43

44 45

and Referentiality in Twelfth-Century English Historical Writing (Chapel Hill, 1996), pp. 93–102, 107–11, 127–8. Thomson, ‘Satire’, p. 126. Cf. Ward, ‘Principles’, pp. 113, 120–1; and Winterbottom, ‘Gesta’, pp. 168–9. See WM, GRA iv.343–88 (I, 592–701); cf. J. M. Burek, ‘War Worse than Civil: Lucan’s Poetry in Book 4 of William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum’, Journal of Medieval Latin 31 (2021), 1–26 (pp. 10–17). ‘ut ad seriem postliminio reuertar’ (‘with the intention of returning later to my narrative’). See WM, GRA ii.110–16 (I, 158–77), quote ii.113 (I, 172–3). Ibid. ii.117 (I, 176–7).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century commentary in this passage. (That comes later.) Rather, the juxtaposition of high and low in this digression emerges from William’s description of different types of historical narratives. He tells readers that his account of the Franks will be brief, because ‘forte quibusdam non iniocundum uidebitur, si hoc percurrant compendium, quibus magna uolumina euoluere non erit otium’ (‘Perhaps some who lack the time to read long books will find pleasure in running through this brief sketch’)46. Here, the “low” is represented by William’s single ‘compendium’, while the “high” refers to other writers’ ‘magna uolumina’. These are extremes of form, not morality. But they give pleasure (‘non iniocundum’), and they point readers to meaning too, since they force readers to think about relations between England and the continent at an early stage in the narrative. In this way, William’s historical and fantastical digressions can both be understood as juxtaposing high and low in the manner of classical varietas. The arrangement of William’s digressions also suggests that the philosophy (rather than simply the action or even the quality) of classical varietas has influenced the Gesta regum. Recall that varietas provides signposting that can guide readers through confusing or interrupted narratives. Notably, William often digresses at moments of political discontinuity, such as Bede’s death, Æthelwulf’s marriage to Judith, Æthelred’s reign, the reign of Emperor Henry III, and the events before and after Edward the Confessor’s death.47 It is therefore impossible to separate the Gesta regum’s rhetorical varietas from its historical narrative – the discontinuity of the latter prompts the deployment of the former. This is true even of the Gesta regum’s most meandering digressions, which are seemingly connected by nothing more than the tenuous thread of William’s own stream of consciousness. For example, one of Æthelred’s charters sparks a series of digressions on Gerbert of Aurillac.48 Within that larger series, William also develops a smaller group of digressions, when he recounts other fabulous stories that he had heard from one of his colleagues at Malmesbury, which he says will help contextualize his stories about Gerbert.49 Even after William wraps up the digressions and subdigressions about Gerbert, he continues to digress. The next chapter begins with a comment that could just as easily have come from a distracting co-worker as from a well-respected medieval historian: ‘Et quia diuerticulum feci, puto non inhonestum si dicam quod in Saxonia tempore regis istius accidit’… (‘And since I have been digressing, it will not, I think, be found improper if I

46 47 48 49

Ibid. i.67–8 (I, 98–103), quote i.67 (I, 98–9). See, respectively, ibid. i.65–73 (I, 96–109), ii.110–17 (I, 158–79), ii.167–75 (I, 278–301), ii.189–95 (I, 338–49), and ii.201–28 (I, 364–423). Ibid. ii.167–72 (I, 278–95). Ibid. ii.170–1 (I, 288–93).

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum tell of an event that happened in Saxony in the time of that same king’[…]).50 In sequences of digressions of this sort, it has been said, William begins to lose control of his narrative, as history fades into the background and purely rhetorical concerns come to the fore.51 But the digressions of ii.167–75 do not appear at random in his narrative. Instead, they purposefully interrupt his account of the reign of Æthelred. William strongly disliked Æthelred, whom he blamed for the Norman Conquest.52 For this reason, William writes, ‘Melius est interim spatiari in talibus quam immorari in eius rebus et ignauis et tristibus […] Preterea non indecens estimo si multicolori stilo uarietur oratio’ (‘It is better for a time to digress into topics such as this than to dwell on [Æthelred’s] record of cowardice and disaster […] Besides which, I think it is not inappropriate to enliven [uarietur] what I write with various changes of style’).53 His long sequences of digressions are therefore the result of interlocking rhetorical and historiographical concerns. There is an important pattern here: the more politically disruptive the events William describes, the more extreme his diversionary tactics become. In the example above, that intensity is measured by the length of the chain of digressions, but intensity can be measured in content as well. The digressions preceding William’s account of the Norman Conquest contain the majority of William’s most far-fetched tales, including stories about Gerbert of Aurillac, the witch of Berkeley, the Roman youth and the evil priest, the discovery of Pallas’s body, the two-bodied woman of Normandy, various English saints, and the virtues and miracles of Edward the Confessor.54 Though William once more adopts a historicizing tone in his description of William the Conqueror’s early years at the beginning of book iii, he precedes his account of the Battle of Hastings with yet another marvelous digression, this time about two clerks’ encounters with Death.55 Those viewing the Gesta regum from the perspective of trauma studies would point to these extremes of form and content as evidence of trauma. However, given William’s justification for digressing during his account of Æthelred’s reign (quoted above), William would view these digressions as yet another example of varietas. By assembling a set of digressions around his narrative of the Norman Conquest, William essentially creates a road to the inner meaning of his text. His formal variety aims to resolve historiographical cruxes, not to muddy the waters further. Paradoxically, then, this

50 51 52 53 54

55

Ibid. ii.173 (I, 294–5). Ward, ‘Principles’, pp. 120–1. Winterbottom, ‘Language’, p. 129. WM, GRA ii.173 (I, 294–5). Cohen, Hybridity, p. 62. See, respectively, WM, GRA ii.167–72 (I, 278–95), ii.204 (I, 376–81), ii.205 (I, 380–5), ii.206 (I, 384–5), ii.207 (I, 384–7), ii.208–19 (I, 386–405), and ii.220–7 (I, 404–17). WM, GRA iii.238–47 (I, 444–63 [narrative]), iii.237 (I, 440–5 [digression]).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century proliferation of digressions at the moment of the Norman Conquest signifies that William is restabilizing his narrative, not losing control of it. William’s digressions thus map neatly onto the principles of classical varietas: they balance high and low, they have been assembled carefully to make a fitting whole, and, in keeping with the principle that hard-to-follow narratives require more signposting, they grow in number, length, and miraculousness as the events that William describes are more politically disruptive. To describe the particularly severe rupture posed by the Norman Conquest, an event that William admits he finds hard to narrate – he admits openly ‘hic quasi ancipitem uiam narrationis uideo’ (‘here I perceive the course of my narrative to be somewhat in doubt’) – William relies more heavily on digressions, that is, on more varius signposting that can make the road through the narrative clearer for readers.56 It is worth noting that the same classical varietas that drives William’s fantastical digressions is also responsible for some of the features of the Gesta regum that have been praised for their anticipation of modern historiographical practices, including the willingness to entertain multiple perspectives and to weigh competing evidence. Many of William’s comments on his historiographical method are rife with the language of varietas. ‘Anceps’ (which appears in the quotation above) means two-headed or, in a transferred sense, undecided or pulled in opposite directions.57 Similarly, in the prologue to book iii, which is (like the quotation above) also situated in the midst of William’s Norman Conquest narrative, William speaks of the historiographical middle ground he seeks as a ‘temperamentum’.58 William’s editors translate this word as ‘middle path’, but its literal meaning makes its connection to varietas even clearer: ‘a mixture of substances in due proportion’, ‘a mean between hot and cold’, ‘a compromise between extremes of policy, conduct, character, etc.’, or ‘moderation, restraint, balance’ more generally.59 Later in this prologue, William also uses the word ‘moderatione’ (‘middle course’), a word that connotes the action of restraining someone or something from extremes.60 Both ‘temperamentum’ and ‘moderatio’ emphasize William’s recognition of opposites and his attempts to balance between them. This attitude explains why, later in the Gesta regum, William proclaims his intention to write history in a way that allows him to sail between Scylla and Charybdis.61 Like a good sailor, William uses the opposing landmarks of Scylla and Charybdis to chart a middle path for readers. William puts these words into action by, for example, providing two direct accounts of the Battle of Hastings, one following his description of

56 57 58 59 60 61

Quote from ibid. ii.197 (I, 354–5). OLD, s.v. ‘anceps’; cf. Cohen, Hybridity, p. 56. WM, GRA iii.Prol. (I, 424–5). OLD, s.v. ‘temperamentum’; cf. Cohen, Hybridity, p. 57. OLD, s.v. ‘moderatio’; WM, GRA iii.Prol. (I, 424–5). WM, GRA iv.Prol. (I, 540–1).

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum Edward the Confessor’s reign, and another within his biography of William the Conqueror.62 He therefore offers the same history twice – once from the perspective of the English, and again from the perspective of the Normans. He supplements these two narratives by recounting the outcome of the Battle of Hastings in a discussion of Godwine’s sons, and by commenting on the Norman Conquest in a series of fabulous digressions.63 Finally, he digresses on the deeds of various religious figures, including Gregory VI, several early English saints and Edward the Confessor.64 Each of these narratives reflects repeatedly on the Norman Conquest, from a variety of perspectives and through a variety of genres. Rather than confusing readers, William’s juxtaposition of multiple, even contradictory narratives creates the impression that he is well-informed and possesses admirable professional neutrality – the very historical ‘judgment’ that Milton and countless later scholars have so praised in the Gesta regum.

Balancing Suetonius and Bede William’s digressions embody the meadow model of varietas, because they variegate the structure of the Gesta regum by sending readers’ attention back and forth between different narrative strands, with the ultimate goal of providing a full account of history. Meanwhile, the Gesta regum’s overarching organization is composite, like a garland: it is simultaneously an unbroken, continuous strand of flowers (i.e., periods of history) and comprised of individual blooms, each distinct from the others in its color, shape, and size. Likewise, the Gesta regum’s compositeness forwards William’s interpretation of English history. The structure of the Gesta regum is indebted to three very different sources: Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, Suetonius’s De vita Caesarum, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Of these three texts, Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica receives pride of place.65 William commences the Gesta regum by stating his intention to rework Bede’s narrative: ‘ut res ordinatius procedat, aliqua ex his quae sepe dicendus Beda dixit deflorabo, pauca perstringens, pluribus ualefatiens’ (‘To make clear the sequence of events, I will give a selection from the work of Bede, to whom I shall often have to refer, touching on a few points and letting most go by’).66 Though William admits that he will not follow Bede’s 62 63 64 65

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Ibid. ii.228 (I, 416–23), iii.238–47 (I, 444–63). Ibid. ii.200 (I, 362–5), ii.204–7 (I, 376–87). Ibid. ii.201–2 (I, 364–77), ii.208–9 (I, 386–405), ii.221–7 (I, 406–17). For William’s relationship to the content (rather than the structure) of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, see A. Plassmann, ‘Bede’s Legacy in William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon’, in People, Texts and Artefacts: Cultural Transmission in the Medieval Norman Worlds, ed. D. Bates, E. D’Angelo and E. van Houts (London, 2017), pp. 171–92 (pp. 173–83). WM, GRA i.Prol. (I, 14–15).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century ordo, he nevertheless portrays Bede as the foundation of his own work. He also concludes the Gesta regum by invoking Bede once more: ‘ego enim, ueram legem secutus historiae, nichil umquam posui nisi quod a fidelibus relatoribus uel scriptoribus addidici’ (‘I have followed the true law of the historian, and have set down nothing but what I have learnt from trustworthy report or written source’).67 By alluding to Bede’s famous concept of the vera lex historiae, William emphasizes that he has kept to Bede’s historiographical principles, most notably that history should be written in a simple style, and that historians may create credible (rather than factual) narratives to fit the beliefs or opinions of their audience.68 By bookending his history in this way, William treats Bede as the Gesta regum’s Alpha and Omega. William’s opening and closing references to Bede underscore the Historia ecclesiastica’s influence on the structure of the Gesta regum.69 Both histories contain five books.70 Moreover, each of the Historia ecclesiastica’s books concludes just when England has reached some new spiritual apex, just as books iii, iv, and v of the Gesta regum end with some positive development in ecclesiastical affairs: in book iii, the resolution of the conflict between Canterbury and York (which sparks William’s allusion to Cato); in book iv, church reforms and the First Crusade; and in book v, the resolution of the investiture controversy and the flowering of spiritual and intellectual pursuits in William’s own day.71 In addition, while book ii concludes with one of William’s accounts of the Battle of Hastings, the digression on English saints that precedes this account might also be considered a spiritual high note, in which William gives readers proof of the holiness of the early English before explaining how their later moral failings led to their conquest.72 In addition to resembling each other in the number and internal structure of their constituent books, Bede’s and William’s histories also construct their narratives in similar ways. The Historia ecclesiastica echoes the Bible’s episodic framework, with individual chapters intended to be read one at a time.73 The Gesta regum is similarly episodic, and probably meant to be read

67 68

69 70 71 72 73

Ibid. v.445 (I, 796–7). For bibliography concerning this phrase, see E. J. Ward, ‘Verax historicus Beda: William of Malmesbury, Bede, and historia’, in Discovering William of Malmesbury, ed. R. M. Thomson, E. Dolmans and E. Winkler (Woodbridge, 2017), pp. 175–88 (p. 177). In particular, see R. Ray, ‘Bede, the Exegete, as Historian’, in Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, ed. G. Bonner (London, 1976), pp. 125–40 (pp. 129–30, 135); and Ward, ‘Verax’, pp. 176–7. On William’s reworking of Bede, see also Winterbottom, ‘Beginning’, pp. 103, 107, 119–20. J. Barrow, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Use of Charters’, in Narrative and History in the Medieval West, ed. E. M. Tyler and R. Balzaretti (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 67–89 (p. 70). For Bede’s positive endings, see Ray, ‘Bede’, pp. 133–4. WM, GRA ii.207–27 (I, 384–417). Ray, ‘Bede’, p. 133.

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum in the same way. Like Bede, William also inserts documents, digressions on miracles, poems, and other kinds of texts into his Gesta regum (though unlike Bede, William also copies charters into his work).74 Finally, while Bede’s interest in biblical history had convinced him that chronology is the norm in historical writing, he also believed a text’s ordo was ultimately at the service of its morality. If a historian could mold his readers’ moral and ethical character more effectively by proceeding out of order, then he should do just that.75 Judging from the frequency with which the Gesta regum moves backwards and forwards through time, William seems to have agreed with Bede that a dogged adherence to chronology could be counterproductive. These general similarities become more specific in book i, a history of early England, for which Bede is one of William’s main sources. However, William is not content to simply poach the content of the Historia ecclesiastica. The beginning and end of this book echo that of Bede’s history. Although the Gesta regum does not begin with a descriptio Britanniae, as the Historia ecclesiastica does, like Bede’s history it starts with an account of the Romans in Britain (after a brief mention of the arrival of the Angles and Saxons). More tellingly, William ends book i with an allusion to the penultimate chapter of book v of the Historia ecclesiastica. There, Bede had provided an account of the present state of the Church in England, describing which bishop commanded which bishopric, and which provinces were ruled by which king.76 Similarly, at the end of book i of the Gesta regum, William gives an account of the geographical area ruled by each of the various kingdoms, including the episcopal sees they contained.77 Moreover, by concluding book i with the reign of Ecgberht of Wessex, who established a single monarchy over England, William ensures that this book, like those of the Historia ecclesiastica, ends on a positive note. The internal structure of book i also recalls the Historia ecclesiastica. In the prologue to this book, William tells readers that his narrative will discuss, in order, the kingdoms of Kent, Wessex, Northumbria and Mercia, and then the unimportant kingdoms of East Anglia and Essex, which William calls ‘et nostra cura et posterorum memoria […] indigna’ (‘unworthy of my own labours, and of the attention of posterity’).78 This rather harsh judgment conveniently allows William to create five “topics” out of six Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In this way, William maintains the five-part structure of Bede’s history, despite having reordered Bede’s material. Thus, while William openly repurposes Bede’s content, he also uses structural cues to present book i as an abbreviation of the Historia ecclesiastica. William’s use of Suetonius is simultaneously more limited and more wide-ranging than his use of Bede. Although he draws some comparisons 74 75 76 77 78

Barrow, ‘Charters’, p. 71. Ray, ‘Bede’, pp. 132–3. Bede, Historia ecclesiastica v.23 (ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 558–61). WM, GRA i.99–105 (I, 146–9). Ibid. i.Prol. (I, 16–17).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century between the Norman kings and the ancient Caesars, he does not transform one of his books into a miniature version of one of Suetonius’s biographies. He does not even mention Suetonius by name. However, Suetonian biography shapes the royal biographies that appear in books ii through v of the Gesta regum.79 Suetonius’s biographies employ a topics-based (rather than chronological) organization: first the author describes his subject’s birth and childhood development; then his accession and the major events of his reign, grouped under subcategories such as internal and external affairs; and then his character, especially his virtues and vices; his physical appearance and personal attributes; his works; and eventually, his final illness and death, with a concluding judgment of his life.80 William adopts this framework somewhat loosely in his biography of William the Conqueror in book iii, but he keeps to it more closely in his biographies of William Rufus in book iv and of Henry I in book v.81 He also uses an adaptation of this framework in book ii when describing early English kings he finds particularly impressive. For example, William had a positive view of Edgar, because Edgar supported the Church and restored the independence of William’s home institution, Malmesbury Abbey.82 His account of Edgar’s reign therefore covers many of the same topics as Suetonian biography would, in much the same order: first, William relates Edgar’s accession to the throne and the prophecies surrounding his birth; then he describes the events of Edgar’s reign, first political and then ecclesiastical; and finally he offers tales summarizing Edgar’s virtues and vices (and briefly mentioning his physical appearance).83 William’s prominent use of organizational models derived from Bede and Suetonius reveals his preference for ordo artificialis (narrative arranged not according to chronology, but instead according to some other parameters, such as theme or geography) over ordo naturalis (narrative following chronological order). He even says as much in the prologue to book i, where he expresses his gratitude to the writers of the Chronicle for preserving information that would otherwise have been lost; indeed, he even trusts the Chronicle’s accuracy over

79

80 81 82 83

Earlier scholars were unsure of whether William knew Suetonius directly, but later studies suggest he did. See (in order of publication) M. Schütt, ‘The Literary Form of William of Malmesbury’s “Gesta Regum”’, The English Historical Review 46.182 (1931), 255–60; D. H. Farmer, ‘Two Biographies by William of Malmesbury’, in Latin Biography, ed. T. A. Dorey (London, 1967), pp. 157–76 (pp. 166–7); J. G. Haahr, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Roman Models: Suetonius and Lucan’, in The Classics in the Middle Ages: Papers of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, ed. A. S. Bernardo and S. Levin (Binghamton, 1990), pp. 165–73 (pp. 166–70); Thomson, Malmesbury, pp. 20, 31, 57–8, 213; and Sønnesyn, Ethics, pp. 213–15, 226–8. Schütt, ‘Literary’, pp. 255–6. See ibid., pp. 255–60; Haahr, ‘Models’, pp. 166–8; and Sønnesyn, Ethics, pp. 226–8. WM, GRA ii.152–3 (I, 248–51). See, respectively, ibid. ii.148 (I, 238–9), ii.148–53 (I, 238–51), and ii.154–60 (I, 250–63).

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum Bede’s at times.84 Nevertheless, as historical literature, the Chronicle has two major flaws: it is written in English (‘patrio sermone’), and it is annalistic – that is, it proceeds in chronological order, arranged by years (‘cronico more […] per annos Domini ordinata’).85 Still, William’s concerns about the literary merit of the Chronicle do not prevent him from relying on its ordo. In fact, book ii of the Gesta regum – the very book in which William relied on the Chronicle the most – possesses a mostly chronological ordo. It even echoes the Chronicle by starting many of its individual chapters with mentions of the year in which the events he describes took place. Some of these echoes are likely symptoms of William’s reliance on the Chronicle as a source, as is true of book i’s use of Bede. Yet William’s ability to switch between a number of different structures throughout the Gesta regum shows that he is clearly capable of writing in whatever structure he chooses. And he chooses to adopt in limited quantities the same literary structure that he himself had disparaged. This structural variety guides readers to a very specific interpretation of history. Each book of the Gesta regum sports its own internal structural variety; and when all five books are read together, their internal juxtapositions create an overarching narrative of the increasing authority and power of a centralized English crown. In book i, William juxtaposes the respective developments of the various kingdoms of early England to point readers to the eventual supremacy of Wessex over its neighbors. William, unlike Bede, knows that the Northumbria Bede describes in the Historia ecclesiastica would eventually lose its independence, so he reorganizes Bede’s narrative so that it treats Wessex, not Northumbria, as the dominant power in Anglo-Saxon England. Book ii offers a different set of juxtapositions, with a different purpose. There, William contrasts the reigns of good kings, which he describes in a rough approximation of Suetonian biography, with the reigns of bad kings, which he narrates in a less-appealing chronological ordo. William’s appreciation for classical literature and dislike of chronological ordo thus work together as political commentary, depicting post-Bedan Anglo-Saxon history as a time primarily of decline (represented by William’s predominant use of ordo naturalis in this book), punctuated by brief periods of regeneration under the rule of exceptional kings (described in ordo artificialis). William continues this narrative in books iii, iv and v, which together paint a picture of a slow but steady rise in the strength of English kingship. In each of these books, William juxtaposes a Suetonian-shaped biography of a Norman king with important events in ecclesiastical history. In book iii, William balances his account of William the Conqueror with discussions of Berengar of Tours, the discovery of Gawain’s tomb, political, ecclesiastical 84 85

On the latter point, see ibid. i.33 (I, 46–7). William also seems to doubt Bede’s characterization of Ecgfrith in GRA i.51 (I, 78–81). See also Ward, ‘Verax’, pp. 181–2. WM, GRA i.Prol. (I, 14–15).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century and fantastical events centering on Emperor Henry IV, and conflicts over supremacy between Canterbury and York.86 In book iv, he first provides a biography of William Rufus, before describing efforts at church reform, followed by a narrative of the First Crusade.87 Finally, in book v, William reports on the reign of Henry I, and then on the development and resolution of the investiture controversy, before concluding with a description of the accomplishments of various holy and eloquent men across Europe – culminating, of course, with William himself.88 In these books, William has essentially reformulated the “external affairs” section of Suetonian biography to serve as a “matters pertaining to the universal Church” section, and he has removed this section from the middle of the biography, placing it instead after the biography’s conclusion. This adaptation allows these books to satisfy the structural demands of Suetonian biography and Bedan history, by ending each book with a positive development in ecclesiastical affairs. Books iii, iv, and v thus present a more balanced juxtaposition of English and Roman history than that found in book ii, in which Suetonian organization is kept to a few limited examples. William’s structural choices reflect that larger political argument of increasing centralized royal authority. Book i is modeled on Bede alone, because Bede (as I discuss further below) embodied what William considered early England’s heyday, a time of piety and promise, before the decline of English morality (represented by the Chronicle) in book ii. At the same time, the lack of Suetonian biography in William’s first book signifies the fact that all of England did not come under the command of a single king until the reign of Ecgberht (whose reign bridges books i and ii). Book ii shows the juxtaposition of English and Roman history in its inchoate state: in the absence of Bede or any other intellectual luminary, English history here takes the form of the Chronicle, with periodic appearances of Suetonian biography for the reigns of specific kings. Book iii represents the early stages of William’s new BedanSuetonian hybrid organization: William the Conqueror’s biography adheres to Suetonian principles only roughly, and this book’s account of Church history is somewhat unfocused, since it contains some less relevant information (such as the account of the discovery of Gawain’s tomb). In book iv, though, the Bedan-Suetonian structure is more fully-fledged, if imbalanced. Rufus’s biography is more clearly Suetonian in its format, and the latter part of this book is clearly focused on the Church. But the second part of book iv, on ecclesiastical affairs, occupies the clear majority of this book, dwarfing

86 87 88

See, respectively, ibid. iii.229–83 (I, 426–513) alongside iii.284–6 (I, 512–21), iii.287 (I, 520–1), iii.288–93 (I, 520–9), and iii.294–303 (I, 528–39). See, respectively, ibid. iv.305–33 (I, 542–77), iv.334–42 (I, 576–93), and iv.343–88 (I, 592–701). See, respectively, ibid. v.390–420 (I, 708–65), v.420–38 (I, 762–83), and v.439–45 (I, 782–97).

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum the biography of Rufus at a ratio of two-to-one.89 Book iv also concludes with a long chapter detailing how Henry I gained the crown of England over his older brother, Robert.90 Overall, book v represents the Bedan-Suetonian model in its purest form. Its two halves keep to their respective frameworks more precisely and balance their narratives more evenly. The organization of this book thus represents in textual form the new golden age of intellectual and cultural revival that William believed was taking place around him, as he describes in the final chapters of the Gesta regum. The variety both within and across individual books of the Gesta regum thus guides readers to see in English history a narrative of steadily increasing consolidation of power within the firm grip of a single, strong monarch. There is a moral narrative here too: as classical rhetoricians recommend, William has matched the literary form of a given passage to his opinion of the events and people he describes. “Good” times are represented by “good” literary organizations (ordines artificiales) and “bad” times by “bad” structures (ordines naturales). The result is a narrative of rise (book i), decline (book ii), and slow restoration (books iii, iv, and v). The Gesta regum’s organizational variety is therefore not just a symptom of the kinds of sources that William uses in each book, or of William’s increasing skill as a writer. William carefully crafts each book to give it an internal varietas that reflects his view of a specific era in English history. He then assembles these individual books to create an overarching varietas that reveals his sense of how English history has developed over the centuries. Thanks to the Gesta regum’s structural varietas, readers can follow that journey of sophistication as they progress through the narrative.

Anglo-Romanitas Thus far, we have seen how classical varietas shapes the literary structure of the Gesta regum – that is, its digressions and arrangement of material across books. I would argue that it shapes some of its philosophy of history as well, and in particular the high status it accords to juxtaposition in the construction of historical truth. In the Gesta regum, William portrays Bede not as a singularly English historian, but instead as an amalgam of Englishness and Christian Romanitas. He stresses that Bede’s learning was the product of Roman influence. Bede’s first abbot, Benedict, brought many books to England from his travels to Rome, and also introduced the practice of building with stone and glass.91 The latter technique has Roman connotations, since William considered the Romans

89 90 91

Burek, ‘War’, p. 8. WM, GRA iv.389 (I, 700–7). Ibid. i.54 (I, 82–3).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century great builders.92 Bede’s surroundings also amplified his Romanitas. William describes Bede’s environs as ‘Plaga, olim et suaue halantibus monasteriorum floribus dulcis et urbium a Romanis edificatarum frequentia renidens, nunc uel antiquo Danorum uel recenti Normannorum populatu lugubris’ (‘a district once fragrant with religious houses as a garden is with flowers, and brilliant with many cities of the Romans’ building; but now, made wretched by ravages of the Danes of old or Normans in our own day’).93 Bede thus lived in a place sprinkled (that is, varied) with both Christian and Roman architecture. William also presents Bede as the center of Christian life in his day. He begins his account of Bede’s life by stressing that, although Bede was born in the furthest reaches of the world, he enjoyed international renown.94 In William’s account, Bede is the most pious and learned man of his day: Ita iam celebris erat fama ut in questionibus enodandis indigeret eo sullimitas Romana, nec uero umquam Gallicanus tumor inuenit in Anglo quod argueret merito: adeo Latinitas omnis eius fidei et magisterio palmam dedit. (So great was his reputation at that time that in the solving of its problems mighty Rome itself had need of him, nor could the proud Gauls ever find in this English scholar aught deserving of criticism; the whole Latin-speaking world gave him the prize for learning and for faith.)95

William also quietly denies the possibility, whispered by some, that Bede did not receive universal acclaim, and that he traveled to Rome to amend or gain papal approval for his works. He does not dismiss the idea outright. Instead, he undermines it through deflection, changing the terms of the debate to consider not whether Bede went to Rome for correction, but rather, whether he went to Rome at all. In response to this latter question, William says that all anyone can say for sure is that Bede was certainly invited to Rome to share his wisdom with high-ranking ecclesiastical officials – a fact that William proves by quoting the invitation.96 William’s implication is clear: Rome asked for Bede’s help, not the other way around. Meanwhile, the misdirection allows William to make his claim for Bede’s supremacy without needing to explicitly argue his rather exaggerated suggestion that Bede was wiser than the pope and all the Roman curia. The connections William creates between classical and Christian architecture, and between Rome as a geographical place and as the center of Roman Catholicism, quietly elide classical and Christian Romanitas. William 92 93 94 95 96

R. M. Thomson, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Historical Vision’, in Discovering, ed. Thomson, Dolmans, and Winkler, pp. 165–75 (pp. 169–70). WM, GRA i.54 (I, 82–3). Ibid. i.54 (I, 82–3). Ibid. i.59 (I, 88–9). Ibid. i.57–8 (I, 86–9).

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum is certainly aware of the differences between these two types of Roman-ness, but he seems to consider them different expressions of the same culture. As William writes in his description of Bede’s learning and piety, Unde pulcherrime Seneca in libro de causis commemorat Catonem, oratoris offitium diffinientem, dixisse: ‘Orator est uir bonus dicendi peritus.’ Emundabat ergo aecclesiasticus orator prius conscientiam, ut sic accederet ad recludendam misticorum scriptorum intelligentiam. (How admirable is Cato’s definition of the function of an orator, recorded by Seneca in his book on cases: ‘An orator is a good man with skill in speech.’ Thus our orator of the Church used first to clear his conscience, that so he might draw near to unlock the mysteries of Scripture.)97

Classical and Christian cultural perspectives are two sides of the same coin in this passage. Bede is an ecclesiastical orator (‘aecclesiasticus orator’), whom William describes in classical terms. A similar juxtaposition of Bede’s Christianity with William’s classicism appears in William’s depiction of Bede on his deathbed. While Bede speaks lines drawn either from the Bible or from the life of St Ambrose, William’s own narration alludes to Cicero’s description of Scipio the Elder (d. 183 BCE).98 In these passages, both Bede as the speaker and William as the narrator appear to be Roman – just in different ways. In Bede’s day, Romanitas took on a more Christian guise; in William’s own twelfth-century present, Romanitas relies more heavily on classical culture. Nevertheless, they are one and the same. This interpretation allows William to claim that sprinkling the Gesta regum with Roman salt is actually the modern writer’s way of walking in the footsteps of Bede. In reality, of course, Bede was relatively uninterested in classical literature. He only employed the principles of classical rhetoric because he thought they could be used to understand the rhetorical practices of the Bible, which he considered to have ultimate authority.99 His rhetorical treatises select quotations from the Bible rather than from classical literature to provide examples for the principles he explains. In contrast, William considered ancient Rome the pinnacle of all civilization, and especially of literary culture.100 The distinction that emerges between Bede’s reliance on biblical rhetoric and William’s reliance on classical rhetoric appears in their understanding of varietas too: while Bede justifies the variety of his narrative by pointing to the variety of Scripture, William justifies his own variety by pointing to

97

Ibid. i.59 (I, 90–1). Ibid. i.61 (I, 92–3). 99 Ray, ‘Bede’, pp. 127–32. 100 Thomson, Malmesbury, pp. 32–3; Thomson, ‘Vision’, pp. 169–71; and W. KynanWilson, ‘Roman Identity in William of Malmesbury’s Historical Writings’, in Discovering, ed. Thomson, Dolmans, and Winkler, pp. 81–92 (p. 83). 98

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Martial.101 In his view, to emulate the ancient Romans was to approach cultural perfection, while to veer from their example was to step towards barbarism. William often judged other cultures by this standard.102 William’s opinion on the role of Romanitas in English historiography led him to adopt a more elaborate style than Bede’s.103 Despite these differences, William allows readers to interpret both his and Bede’s writing as operating on similar principles. William treats Bede’s death as a discontinuity of the same magnitude as the Norman Conquest, albeit with a different set of effects than that suffered in the wake of the Battle of Hastings.104 The chapters immediately following William’s biography of Bede offer a rapid-fire account of English intellectual culture in the wake of so great a loss. First, Ceolwulf (the addressee of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica) appoints Ecgberht his heir before he dies.105 This Ecgberht then appoints his brother, also named Ecgberht, archbishop of York.106 Next, Archbishop Ecgberht decides to assemble an excellent library, whose quality William proves by quoting two of Alcuin’s letters.107 In one of these letters, Alcuin (whom William calls the most learned of all Englishmen, save Bede and Aldhelm) requests that Charlemagne bring York’s treasures to France.108 This last act prompts an excursus on the history of the Franks.109 In this spiraling digression, William suggests that Ceolwulf’s decision to make Ecgberht his heir sparks a chain of events culminating in Alcuin’s transfer of English learning to France. This reverse translatio studii can be read in either positive or negative terms: one reader might view this as proof that the Carolingian renaissance was indebted to the superior learning of the English, while another might see in these events a catastrophic transfer of wealth and learning that hastened the decline of English intellectual and religious culture, resulting in greater immorality and, eventually, their conquest.

101 Bede

speaks specifically of mixing poetry and prose, but both writers essentially offer explanations for their variety. See Ray, ‘Bede’, p. 127. For William, cf. above, pp. 52–4. 102 Gillingham, ‘Civilizing’, pp. 19–20, 41–3; Gillingham, ‘Conquering the Barbarians: War and Chivalry in Twelfth-Century Britain’, in The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity and Political Values, repr. from HSJ 4 (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 41–58; Gillingham, ‘French Culture, Twelfth-Century English Historians and the Civilizing Process’, in Cinquante années d’études médiévales à la confluence de nos disciplines: Actes du colloque organisé à l’occasion du cinquantenaire du CESCM, Poitiers, 1–4 septembre 2003, ed. C. Arrignon et al. (Turnhout, 2005), pp. 729–40 (pp. 736–7); and Thomson, ‘Vision’, pp. 169–70. 103 On William’s greater sophistication, see Winterbottom, ‘Beginning’, pp. 107, 119–20. 104 Garnett, Conquest, pp. 14–15, 46. 105 WM, GRA i.64–5 (I, 94–7). 106 Ibid. i.65 (I, 96–7). 107 Ibid. i.65 (I, 96–7). 108 Ibid. i.65–6 (I, 96–9). 109 Ibid. i.67–8 (I, 99–103).

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum However readers interpret the significance of this cultural movement from island to continent, William clearly believes that Alcuin preserved English learning for future generations by bringing it to France, where it helped civilize the Franks. Later, the now-sophisticated Franks/French pass on this civilization to the Normans, who then return these traits to the English, renewing their intellectual and spiritual zeal.110 Incidentally, the Normans also stock English libraries full of books – a reversal of Alcuin’s actions.111 In this way, William construes the Norman Conquest less as an invasion and more as a restoration, both politically and intellectually. This narrative participates in his larger attempt to bolster Norman legitimacy, most notably by suggesting that the line of English kings remained essentially continuous before and after 1066.112 Yet recall that William also complicates this comfortable narrative by describing how the Normans destroy York and its environs after the northern revolt against William the Conqueror.113 William’s reflections on the changes to the landscape as a result of this destruction echo his earlier description of Northumbria in the days of Bede.114 Clearly, William sees the Normans as a double-edged sword.115 William’s arrangement of his material thus permits two conflicting interpretations of history to coexist in a single text. This is somewhat the product of the variety of sources (English and Norman histories) and literary traditions (Christian and classical) William used.116 Yet William also adopts a theoretical framework that treats the conflicts between sources – like digressions and narrative repetition – as an opportunity for greater wisdom. He resists the temptation to construct an easy master narrative, opting instead for contradictions that better replicate the complexities of human experience. For William, then, varietas increases the truthfulness of historical writing.

110 The process of “civilizing” the Normans seems to have begun under Richard I and II.

Compare William’s description of Rollo’s barbarism in GRA ii.127 (pp. 200–3) with his account of Richard II’s piety in GRA ii.178 (pp. 304–9). In general, William places peoples and individuals on a spectrum between barbarism and civilization (with France as the peak of culture in William’s day). Any person or people who spends time with persons or peoples deemed more civilized will profit from that exposure. On civilizing and renewal, see Cohen, Hybridity, p. 58; Gillingham, ‘French’, pp. 733–7; Gillingham, ‘Civilizing’, pp. 21–2, 28–35; Gillingham, ‘Historian’, p. 60; and Winterbottom, ‘Language’, pp. 132–3. For William’s more complicated feelings about non-English influence on England, see Thomson, ‘Vision’, pp. 172–3; and Thomson, ‘Satire’, pp. 117–21. 111 On Normans’ additions to English libraries, see Garnett, Conquest, pp. 37–8. 112 Faletra, ‘Narrating’, p. 63. 113 WM, GRA iii.248–9 (I, 462–5). 114 Ibid. i.54 (I, 82–3). 115 Garnett, Conquest, pp. 21–2. 116 Ibid., pp. 18–19, 46–50, 56–8, 63–4, 79–80.

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‘How they rejoice in obscure Greek words’ William’s embrace of literary variety, seen in his many digressions, narrative repetitions, literary structures, and representations of cultural identity, has thus far been wholehearted, so much so that it has shaped both his historiographical methods and his interpretation of history. Yet his strict adherence to classical principles – even in the face of Christian alternatives – limits his willingness to engage in certain kinds of stylistic varietas. Like their classical predecessors, medieval Christian writers appreciated varietas’s rhetorical utility. However, unlike classical writers who emphasized the dignitas of the various elements of varietas (that is, their adherence to traditionally defined styles and their fittingness in relation to each other and to the matter at hand), medieval rhetoricians emphasized their diversitas (their mixture, multiplicity, and difference). In other words, classical writers valued varietas for the way that distinct yet well-fitting components distinguished each other and the whole of which they were a part. In contrast, medieval writers valued varietas for the way that many different components could, for all their differences, be mixed together to create a cohesive whole.117 For example, William’s near-contemporary Alan of Lille, writing in the latter half of the twelfth century, commented on Canticle 2. 1 (‘Ego flos campi, et lilium convallium’, ‘I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys’) by explaining, ‘Campus dicitur humana Christi natura. Sicut enim in campo florum pullulat varietas, sic in humana Christi natura virtutum pluralitas’ (‘The field represents the human nature of Christ. For just as variety sprouts in a field of flowers, so too does a multitude of virtues grow in the human nature of Christ’).118 Alan does not suggest that Christ periodically swaps charity for patience, or chastity for temperance. Instead, Christ possesses a diversity of virtues at all times, and he mixes those virtues together in each miracle he performs and parable he speaks. Medieval Christian writers applied this idea of harmonious diversitas to languages. The best-known iteration of this idea is Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 44, which I discussed in chapter 1. Augustine interpreted the many colors on the clothing of the queen in Psalm 44 as a symbol of the many languages spoken by the variety of peoples gathered together in the Christian faith. For Augustine, the diversity of languages creates harmony, not cacophony. Augustine’s interpretation of this biblical passage was echoed by countless theologians, including both Alan of Lille and William’s great hero, Bede.119 This positive outlook on linguistic diversity derived ultimately 117 Carruthers,

Experience, pp. 151–2, 155–64; Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 52–3, 78–9; and Roberts, Style, pp. 61–5, 122–47. 118 Alan of Lille, Elucidatio in Cantica canticorum, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 210, 64. Translation mine. 119 Bede, Allegorica expositio in Samuelem, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 91, 646; and Alan of Lille,

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum from the medieval belief that events in the New Testament offered typological corrections to those in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the linguistic diversity of humankind was a punishment from God for the pride that led humans to attempt to build the Tower of Babel tall enough to reach heaven – a sin rooted in Adam and Eve’s partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. But this sin was corrected by the miracle of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit made it possible for Christ’s followers to understand each other, despite their speaking different languages to each other at the same time. Thus, although linguistic diversity is a symptom of humanity’s fall from grace, there is little to be gained by ignoring it. On the contrary, attending simultaneously to the diversity of languages and to their unity within the Church can bring humans closer to God. Bede’s discussion of Pentecost makes this clear. Concerning Acts 2. 4 (‘Et coeperunt loqui aliis linguis’, ‘And they began to speak with divers tongues’), he writes, ‘Unitatem linguarum quam superbia Babylonis disperserat, humilitas Ecclesiae recolligit. Spiritaliter autem varietas linguarum dona variarum significat gratiarum’ (‘The humility of the Church gathers again the unity of languages which the arrogance of Babylon had scattered. Spiritually, the variety of languages signifies the gifts of various graces’).120 For Bede, the Church rights the wrongs committed by early humans and provides them with a pathway to God. The coexistence of countless languages reveals the gift of God’s presence in the world, and their mixture creates a harmony that echoes that of heaven. The path through this fallen world to the divine unity of God thus relies on an appreciation of God’s simultaneous singularity and multiplicity – much as varietas provides a ductus through a text to its meaning. Thus, many Christian writers considered the mixing and even the blending of diverse languages to be a mode of valuable varietas, rather than inappropriate mixing of the sort condemned by classical writers. However, William purposefully avoids this Christian approach to varietas, preferring instead the juxtaposition of well-arranged elements recommended by Cicero and Horace and defended by Martial. This attitude is visible in William’s depictions of culturally-hybrid bodies. Although some scholars have argued that William writes about hybrids to reflect on the Norman Conquest’s elimination of ‘“pure” Englishness’, I would suggest that William’s hybrids warn against false or mixed identities to promote cultural balance.121 For example, in ii.207, William tells the story of conjoined twins, separate above the navel but sharing everything below it, who wandered the borders of Brittany and Normandy: ‘Ridebat comedebat loquebatur una, flebat esuriebat tacebat altera; ore gemino manducabatur, sed uno meatu digerebatur’ (‘One of them laughed, ate, and talked; the other cried, fasted, Summa de arte praedicatoria, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 210, 154. Expositio super Acta Apostolorum, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 92, 947. Translation mine. 121 Cohen, Hybridity, pp. 55–63 (quote p. 62); and Stein, ‘Making’, pp. 99–104. 120 Bede,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century and said nothing. There were two mouths to eat with, but only one channel for digestion’).122 Eventually the melancholy sister wastes away, and as a result, the boisterous sister is forced to carry her sibling’s rotting corpse. After three years, the burden of lugging that putrid weight around kills her too. William offers an uncharacteristically candid interpretation of this portent: the boisterous sister represents England, and the melancholy sister represents Normandy. Normandy is already dead, he tells us, and it remains to be seen whether England will follow suit. This allegory thus argues against cultural fusion: England has been polluted by Normandy, and now waits to learn whether that cultural mixture will prove fatal. This story also promotes the value of juxtaposed identities. Physiologically, both tears and laughter were thought to function in complementary ways. By either contracting (tears) or opening (laughter) the body’s passages, tears and laughter could restore harmonious balance to the body.123 These sisters’ personalities are similarly complementary, and they reflect the ancient and medieval topos that recommended balancing lightheartedness with seriousness.124 That balance of opposites was crucial to the sisters’ survival for many years. But when one sister died, successful varietas became impossible. Thus, this story does not express William’s desire for English independence but rather for English and Norman interests to balance each other and hence prevent the destruction of both. Laughter alone cannot thrive; a juxtaposition of laughter and tears is necessary for survival. Otherwise, the English will return to their previously uncivilized state. After all, it was unadulterated Englishness that led Harold’s troops to prepare for the Battle of Hastings by ‘totam noctem insomnem cantibus potibusque ducentes’ (‘spen[ding] a sleepless night in song and wassail’).125 William’s preference for cultural juxtaposition rather than cultural mixing extends to historical writing, as evidenced by his depiction of his favorite historians, namely Bede and those who (like himself) write in the Bedan tradition. For William, such historians always offer two different perspectives without mixing them. As discussed above, Englishness and Christian Romanitas coalesce in Bede, but they do not combine to form a new, single identity. Similarly, William also claims he can offer a balanced perspective on William the Conqueror and his sons, ‘quia utriusque gentis sanguinem traho’ (‘having the blood of both nations in my veins’).126 Notably, he does not say that his body contains a mixture of two bloods. Rather, he writes that he ‘get[s], draw[s], derive[s] (from a source)’ (trahere)

122 WM,

GRA ii.207 (I, 384–5). Experience, pp. 140–6. 124 For the classic discussion of this topos, see E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask (New York, 1953), pp. 417–35. 125 WM, GRA iii.241 (I, 452–3). 126 Ibid. iii.Prol. (I, 424–5). 123 Carruthers,

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum his lineage from ‘each of two things’ (‘utriusque’) – in this case, peoples.127 In William’s eyes, neither he nor Bede write history well because of their harmonious Christian mixing of perspectives. Instead, the juxtaposition of different elements within Bede’s and William’s bodies makes them skillful and sophisticated historians, because that juxtaposition contained within their body gives them the ability to offer balanced historical perspectives to readers.128 At the same time, William argues that historians who mix rather than juxtapose different cultures write histories of less literary skill and therefore less historical value. This perspective emerges from William’s characterization of historical writing in hermeneutic Latin. This style of Latin enjoyed spates of popularity among early English writers from the sixth to the eleventh centuries. Hermeneutic Latin is characterized by extreme verbal wordplay, through some combination of elaborate (often self-consciously poetic) syntax, alliteration, and most famously, the use of obscure vocabulary, such as neologisms and borrowings from Greek.129 This latter feature gives the hermeneutic style a degree of linguistic mixing. Similarly, Old English poetry and hermeneutic Latin likely influenced one another, adding to the sense that hermeneutic style represents a blending of languages.130 William’s distaste for hermeneutic Latin’s mingling of languages is visible in his comments on the Chronicon of Æthelweard (active c. 973–98). Although the Chronicon is a translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and therefore anticipates William’s own historiographical project, William is harshly critical of his predecessor’s work. ‘Prestat silere’ (‘the less is said of him, the better’), William writes.131 Still, he cannot resist one swipe at Æthelweard. After describing his plans for the Gesta regum, William begs for divine inspiration almost as if he were invoking the Muses at the beginning of an epic poem:

127 OLD,

s.v. ‘traho’ and ‘uterque’. ‘Making’, pp. 103–4. 129 For the history and attributes of hermeneutic Latin, see A. Campbell, ed., The Chronicle of Æthelweard (London, 1962), pp. xlv–lx; M. Lapidge, ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, in Anglo-Latin Literature, Volume 2: 900–1066, repr. from Anglo-Saxon Literature 4 (London, 1993), pp. 105–49 (pp. 105–14); Lapidge, ‘Poeticism in Pre-Conquest Anglo-Latin Prose’, in Aspects, ed. Reinhardt, Lapidge, and Adams, PBA 129, pp. 321–37; A. Orchard, ‘Prose Style, Latin’, in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge et al., 2nd edn (Chichester, 2014), pp. 387–8; and Winterbottom, ‘The Style of Aethelweard’, Medium Ævum 36.2 (1967), 109–18 (pp. 109–11). 130 For a summary of this argument, with bibliography, see A. Orchard, ‘Old English and Anglo-Latin: the Odd Couple’, in A Companion to British Literature, I: Medieval Literature, 700–1450, ed. R. DeMaria Jr, H. Chang, and S. Zacher (Malden, 2014), pp. 273–92 (pp. 286–8). 131 WM, GRA i.Prol. (I, 14–15). 128 Stein,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Haec ita polliceor, si conatui nostro diuinus fauor arriserit, et me preter scopulos confragosi sermonis euexerit, ad quos Elwardus, dum tinnula et emendicata uerba uenatur, miserabiliter impegit. (This is my undertaking, if only the favour of Heaven smile on my adventure, and steer me past the rocks of rough and rugged style, on which Æthelweard, in his search for jingling phrase and borrowed finery, so piteously was wrecked.)132

In phrases such as ‘tinnula et emendicata uerba’ (‘jingling phrase and borrowed finery’), William reveals that his dissatisfaction with Æthelweard stems not from Æthelweard’s efforts – which he elsewhere praises – but rather from the literary features characteristic of hermeneutic Latin.133 One could argue that the hermeneutic style is an example of classical variatio, that is, small-scale verbal variation (such as synonyms, for example) intended to keep readers’ attention so that they will continue reading.134 However, William adopts a different view. In commenting on a poem written by an anonymous late tenth-century author in praise of Æthelstan, William writes, Quamquam litteras illum scisse pauci admodum dies sunt quod didicerim, in quodam sane uolumine uetusto, in quo scriptor cum difficultate materiae luctabatur, iuditium animi sui non ualens pro uoto proferre. Cuius hic uerba pro compendio subicerem, nisi quia ultra opinionem in laudibus principis uagatur, eo dicendi genere quod suffultum rex facundiae Romanae Tullius in rethoricis appellat. (Though it is only a very short time since I learnt the extent of his education, from an ancient volume in which the writer was at odds with the difficulty of his material, finding it hard to express his opinions as he would have wished. I would add his words here in an abbreviated form, except that in the praises of his prince he rambles beyond reason, in the style which Cicero, king of Roman eloquence, calls in his Rhetoric ‘bombastic’.)135

In the Rhetorica ad Herennium, alliteration and grandiose vocabulary – the hallmarks of hermeneutic Latin – are signs that a writer has attempted to 132 Ibid.

i.Prol. (I, 16–17). overlapping Old English and Anglo-Latin stylistic influences on Æthelweard’s Chronicon, see A. Lutz, ‘Æthelweard’s Chronicon and Old English Poetry’, ASE 29 (2000), 177–214 (pp. 179–212). On William’s disapproval of Æthelweard’s use of Old English poetry, see Winterbottom, ‘Language’, pp. 132–3. Winterbottom has also pointed out some of the Vergilian underpinnings of Æthelweard’s language (‘Style’, pp. 112–15). Evidently these were not enough to convince William of the classicism of Æthelweard’s text. 134 For the distinction between variatio and varietas, see chapter 1, p. 24. For Æthelweard and variatio, see Winterbottom, ‘Style’, pp. 110–17. 135 WM, GRA ii.132 (I, 210–11). 133 On

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum write in the high style but has instead fallen into the error of writing termed ‘suffultum’ (‘bombastic’), the very term William himself applies to the poem about Æthelstan.136 William describes the writer of this poem as not entirely literate, and thus incapable of producing the high style to which his poem aspires. For William, the hermeneutic style signifies rhetorical ignorance, not literary sophistication. Indeed, since certain elements of Old English literature, such as heavy alliteration and the use of uncommon vocabulary, are inimical to good style as defined by the Rhetorica, it is likely that the English-seeming features of hermeneutic Latin only amplified that conviction.137 If hermeneutic Latin is full of variatio, it is because its users have gone overboard and produced something like the unnatural combinations described by Horace at the beginning of his Ars poetica.138 The only writer of hermeneutic Latin who meets William’s standards is Aldhelm (c. 639–709). As an influential early English author, and one of Malmesbury’s earliest and most famous abbots, we might expect Aldhelm to receive favorable treatment in William’s Gesta regum. Yet Aldhelm was also an early practitioner of hermeneutic Latin style, and some of his works, like Æthelweard’s Chronicon, seem to adopt some of the poetic techniques of Old English poetry.139 William offers a tortured explanation for his uncharacteristic praise of Aldhelm’s hermeneutic Latin, featuring some of the same misdirections he later uses to combat the rumor about Bede traveling to Rome for correction: Mentior, si non hoc testantur de Virginitate codices immortalis eius ingenii indices, quibus meo iuditio nichil dultius, nichil splendidius; quanuis, ut est nostri seculi desidia, quibusdam pariant nausiam non attendentibus quia iuxta mores gentium uarientur modi dictaminum. Denique Greci inuolute, Romani circumspecte, Galli splendide, Angli pompatice dictare solent. (For the truth of my words, see those books On Virginity, the evidence of his undying genius, than which in my judgement there is nothing more delightful nor more brilliant, although – such are the sluggish wits of our generation – some find they cloy, not observing how literary style is bound to vary with

136 See pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.x.15 (LCL 403, pp. 264–5). On William’s

spelling of this term, see discussion in WM, GRA, I, 210 n. 1. pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.xii.17–18 (LCL 403, pp. 268–75), which advises readers to use everyday words (unless technical vocabulary is necessary to write about a specific topic) and to avoid alliteration. 138 See chapter 1, pp. 26–7. 139 A. Campbell, ‘Some Linguistic Features of Early Anglo-Latin Verse and its Use of Classical Models’, Transactions of the Philological Society 52 (1953), 1–20 (pp. 11–12); M. Lapidge, ‘Aldhelm’s Latin Poetry and Old English Verse’, in Anglo-Latin Literature, Volume 1: 600–899, repr. from Comparative Literature 31.3 (London, 1996), pp. 247–69 (pp. 255–69); and Lapidge, ‘Hermeneutic’, p. 111. 137 See

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century varying national characters. The Greeks, for instance, like an involved style, the Romans are lucid, the Gauls brilliant, the English rhetorical.)140

William thus suggests that Aldhelm’s style is what happens when an Englishman writes in the universal language of Latin. It is not a mixture of two different national styles. Furthermore, in a nearly identical passage in his Gesta pontificum Anglorum, William explains how Aldhelm avoids the worst excesses of hermeneutic Latin by avoiding the mixture of languages. The English, he writes, delight ‘quibusdam uerbis abstrusis et ex Greco petitis’ (‘in certain recondite words taken from Greek’). But not Aldhelm: Moderatius tamen se agit Aldelmus, nec nisi perraro et necessario uerba ponit exotica. Allegat catholicos sensus sermo facundus, et uiolentissimas assertiones exornat color rethoricus. (Aldhelm is more restrained; he introduces exotic words only very rarely and for a compelling reason. His orthodox views are commended by eloquent language, and his most forceful affirmations are embellished by rhetorical colouring.)141

Aldhelm is ‘moderatius’ (‘more restrained’) in his diction than many of his countrymen. When he does mix languages, he only does so in accordance with the classical rhetorical principles of the high style. In this way, William carves out an exception for Aldhelm by arguing that Aldhelm, like Bede, juxtaposes rather than mixes Englishness and Latinity. Certainly, Aldhelm’s juxtaposition is not ideal: William acknowledges that not everyone will ‘read [Aldhelm] aright’ (‘perfecte legeris’).142 Nevertheless, Aldhelm’s juxtaposition is a step above the mixture of truly hermeneutic Latin. William’s preference for classical over Christian varietas is also visible in the way that he writes his history. The Gesta regum exhibits only the types of stylistic varietas that align with classical principles. For example, while William mostly writes in the middle style, he also switches between low, middle, and high style, in accordance with the significance of the events he describes.143 In his most sumptuous passages, William practices variatio, drawing on his rich vocabulary to avoid the repetition of words and phrases.144 William is also fond of incorporating quotations and allusions, especially from classical literature, into his writing.145 These features add to the Gesta regum’s varietas,

140 WM,

GRA i.31 (I, 44–7).

141 William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum: The History of the English Bishops,

ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom with R. M. Thomson, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2007), v.196 (I, 518–21). 142 Ibid., v.196 (ed. and trans. Winterbottom and Thomson, I, 520–1). 143 Winterbottom, ‘Gesta’, pp. 168–70. 144 Winterbottom, ‘Beginning’, p. 106. 145 For lists and discussion of William’s quotations, see Thomson, ‘Classics’, pp. 386–93;

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum insofar as they delight readers’ senses, whether or not they recognize the reminiscences (which are usually uncited). Like bees, readers flit from flower to flower in this variegated meadow of words, creating a movement that engages their attention and pulls them onwards through the text. However, this stylistic varietas has a purpose beyond keeping readers’ attention with pleasurable stylistic echoes. In keeping with the principles of varietas, William carefully arranges his style to support his interpretation of history. Some books of the Gesta regum contain more classical quotations than others, and some even favor certain genres or authors. For example, books ii and iv contain the highest number of references to classical epics; in book ii, Vergil (70–19 BCE) is the most-quoted author, whereas in book iv, that title goes to Lucan (39–65).146 Through these textual echoes, books ii and iv acquire a particularly “epic” flavor, which distinguishes these books for the vast scope of time (book ii) and space (book iv) they cover. The choice of author adds further meaning. Vergil’s epic lays the groundwork for empire, just as book ii lays the groundwork for the Norman kings, whom William often describes as Caesar-like.147 Similarly, by alluding repeatedly to Lucan’s De bello civili in book iv, William characterizes Rufus’s reign as a time of civil strife.148 All of this stylistic variety accords with the precepts of classical varietas, insofar as it offers interpretations of history by juxtaposing words and phrases drawn from classical authors with William’s own prose. As is true of digressions, organizational structures, and cultural identities, the Gesta regum accrues historical value through the careful arrangement of passages written in high, middle and low styles. Even when writing in the low style, however, William eschews anything that contravenes classical definitions of “good” style. Here it is important to remember that low style is defined as such not because of the skill needed to create it, but because of its simple diction and syntax, its lack of vivid imagery, its lack of sublime emotion, and so forth. Low style is perfectly acceptable in certain circumstances, in the same way that chronological order (like the ordo naturalis of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) is the best type of organization in some situations. Simple does not mean “bad”. William uses simple style when appropriate (as, for example, in the unadorned accounts of the reigns of Æscwine and Centwine in i.33, which are balanced by the elaborate account Thomson, Malmesbury, pp. 15–17, 40–75, and 202–14; Winterbottom, ‘Beginning’, pp. 102, 120–1; Winterbottom, ‘Gesta’, pp. 170–3; Winterbottom, ‘William of Malmesbury versificus’, in Anglo-Latin and its Heritage: Essays in Honour of A.G. Rigg on his 64th Birthday, ed. S. Echard and G. R. Wieland (Turnhout, 2001), pp. 109–27 (pp. 109–17); Wright, ‘“Industriae”’, pp. 482–531; and Wright, ‘William of Malmesbury and Latin Poetry: Further Evidence of a Benedictine’s Reading’, Revue bénédictine 101 (1991), 122–53. 146 Burek, ‘War’, p. 8. 147 Ibid., pp. 8–11. 148 Ibid., pp. 8–17.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of Cædwalla in i.34).149 In contrast, William scrupulously minimizes the appearance of “bad” style in the Gesta regum. Sometimes, he avoids exposing his readers to poor literary style simply by rewriting texts entirely, as he does with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the history of the First Crusade by Fulcher of Chartres (died c. 1127).150 At other times he edits the texts that he copies into the Gesta regum to remove their (supposed) stylistic deficiencies. For example, William quotes Alcuin (c. 740–804) at length, but he emends several of Alcuin’s letters to ensure that they represent his notion of classical style.151 William’s paraphrase of the anonymous poem about Æthelstan also falls into this category.152 Occasionally, William quotes a poorly-written text, but he tells readers of its flaws so that they do not mistake his quotation of this text for his approval of its style. Such is the case with the epitaphs of Bede and John the Scot.153 William employs a similar rhetorical move when including Old English names in his Latin prose: although he will use Old English names, he often Latinizes them somewhat by adding declension endings (e.g. ‘Wældæg, Wihtlæg and Bældæg’ become ‘Weldegius Wihtlegius [and] Beldegius’), and he openly expresses his hesitation about using any Old English at all.154 In this way, he ensures that readers interpret his use of Old English as necessary to his history (as was true with Aldhelm), rather than stylistically desirable in its own right. William’s discussion and practice of literary style thus demonstrate his adherence to classical rather than Christian varietas, that is, to varietas created through the fitting juxtaposition of different elements, rather than the indiscriminate mixture of those elements. For him, hermeneutic Latin is neither fitting nor a juxtaposition. Instead, it is a jumbled mixture, much like the monstrous combination of human and animal features that Horace describes in the opening lines of his Ars poetica. Writers of hermeneutic Latin do little more than put feathers on limbs. In contrast, William’s ideal prose, sprinkled with bon mots drawn from classical, patristic, and medieval authors, is highly 149 WM, 150 See

169.

GRA i.33–4 (pp. 46–9). ibid. i.Prol., iv.374 (pp. 14–15, 660–1, respectively). Cf. Winterbottom, ‘Gesta’, p.

151 Thomson,

Malmesbury, pp. 161–3. is some debate over whether William adapted this poem to make it worthy of inclusion in his Gesta regum, or whether he replaced it with another poem written in a more acceptable style. For the former theory, see discussion in WM, GRA, II, 116–18; and Winterbottom, ‘Versificus’, pp. 120–7; for the latter theory, see Lapidge, ‘Some Latin Poems as Evidence for the Reign of Athelstan’, in Anglo-Latin Literature, Volume 2: 900–1066, repr. from ASE 9 (London, 1993), pp. 49–86 (pp. 50–9). Here, I follow the former line of thinking; but either way, William is clearly protecting his readers from the objectionable style of the original poem. 153 WM, GRA i.62 (I, 94–5), ii.122 (I, 192–3). 154 For scruples about using Old English, see ibid. i.44 (I, 60–1) and ii.115–16 (I, 176–7); for the examples I mention, see ibid. i.44 (I, 60–1); and for further discussion, see Winterbottom, ‘Language’, pp. 131–4. 152 There

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William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum varius in the proper way: it offers readers a dazzling array of words and phrases culled from other authors, which he has situated elegantly within his own graceful prose. Although William’s theory of national styles abounds with the language of varietas, it does not point to any kind of Christian unity that transcends nations. Instead, William seems stuck on the separation of peoples at Babel, and he does not consider the ways in which Christian voices can come together to sing in harmony.155 111 Of all the historians in this book, William of Malmesbury keeps closest to the classical definition of varietas. As much as he states his admiration for Bede’s work, he updates Bede’s ecclesiastical history for a new age, one more enamored with Rome as a secular source of literary ideas than Rome as the sacred font of divine wisdom. Though William tries to merge these two Romes, and to argue that his love of classical Rome merely echoes Bede’s love of Christian Rome, there remains in the Gesta regum a distinct sense that William’s varietas is indebted more to his reading of classical literature than to his reading of Augustine. Nevertheless, by responding to conquest through varietas, and by associating formal variety with political discontinuity, William’s work inspired others to expand far beyond the classical principles that William himself preferred.

155 Cf.

Carruthers, Experience, pp. 155–64; Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 52–3, 78–9; Roberts, Style, p. 146; and chapter 1, pp. 42–3, 45 above.

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3 ‘Since nothing endures here, pay attention’: Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum William of Malmesbury may have been premature in assuming that ‘no one would object to some variety’ in his history. Henry of Huntingdon uses the term varietas only once in his Historia Anglorum (c. 1130s–50s), where it denotes an immoral dichotomy between thought and action. The word appears in a prophecy, purportedly by St Dunstan (but unattested elsewhere), in which the saint foretells how English morality would decline in the years leading up to the Norman Conquest: Predixit nichilominus uarium adeo seculum creandum, ut uarietas que in mentibus hominum latebat et in actibus patebat, multimoda uariatione uestium et indumentorum designaretur. (In addition, [Dunstan] predicted that a generation must be born so fickle that the changeableness which was hidden in the minds of men and was revealed in their deeds, would be represented in the manifold diversity of their apparel and garments.)1

Henry’s editor suggests that this otherwise-unknown prophecy may be Henry’s own invention, and that ‘it perhaps reflects Henry’s distaste for the fashions of his own day’.2 That may be true, yet Henry’s image also invokes the long-standing association of rhetoric with clothing and, by extension, ancient qualms about rhetoric’s ability to reveal or deceive in equal measure. For Henry, varius clothing is a sign of deception – a far cry from the harmonious varietas envisioned by Christian writers, and exemplified by Augustine’s interpretation of varius clothing as a symbol of the blessed diversity of the multilingual Church.3 In contrast, Henry here suggests that varietas hides, rather than reveals, the world’s truths. Moreover, he fills the chapter in which this prophecy appears with a host of rhetorical devices that paint a similarly bleak picture of varietas. Henry employs antithesis and parallel syntax, both in the passage quoted above (e.g., ‘in mentibus hominum latebat et in actibus patebat’) and throughout the whole chapter, to suggest that the years leading up to the Norman Conquest 1 2 3

HH, HA vi.1 (pp. 340–1). Ibid., p. 340 n. 4. See chapter 1, pp. 42–3, 45.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum were characterized by their varietas. Because the English behaved in a varius way, Henry explains, God laid for them a varius trap: Genti enim Anglorum […] Dominus omnipotens dupplicem contricionem proposuit et quasi militares insidias adhibuit. Scilicet ut hinc Dacorum persecutione seuiente, illinc Normannorum coniunctione accrescente, si a Dacorum manifesta fulminatione euaderent, Normannorum inprouisam cum fortitudine cautelam non euaderent. (For the Lord Almighty had planned a double affliction for the English people. […] This He brought about as if laying a military ambush. I mean that on one side the persecution by the Danes was raging, and on the other the connection with the Normans was growing, so that even if they were to escape the obvious lightning fire of the Danes, valour would not help them to escape the Normans’ unexpected trick.)4

There are so many juxtapositions of opposites in this passage that it is difficult to list them all. There is openness and secrecy, and an ambush from two sides; there are Danes and Normans, oppressions and alliances, the wildness of lightning and the prudence of a well-made trap. The rest of the chapter continues in like fashion: the Normans both claim and conquer England; the English are sinful both for their overzealous infighting and their lazy neglect of their own bodies and the Church; honor becomes dishonor; and so forth. The eye moves back and forth between these dangers, and as it does so, it perceives the looming Norman Conquest. Like William of Malmesbury, then, Henry associates varietas with political discontinuities, including the Norman Conquest; and he uses rhetorical devices to direct readers back and forth between two poles, tracing a ductus intended to reveal the origin and significance of the events he describes. He even uses metaphorical language – the ‘manifold diversity of their apparel and garments’ (‘multimoda uariatione uestium et indumentorum’), ‘double affliction’ (‘dupplicem contricionem’), and ‘military ambush’ (‘militares insidias’) mentioned above – to describe varietas, just like William does. Clearly, Henry understands rhetorical varietas and recognizes its potential as a narrative device for tackling the ruptures in English history. Yet unlike William, Henry does not seem to value multiplicity or hybridity, nor does he seem to think of fragmentation as a guide to the meaning of history. If anything, his metaphors for varietas suggest that fragmentation leads only to annihilation. Nevertheless, this chapter will argue that Henry relies on historiographical varietas to construct his narrative, and that the differences between William’s and Henry’s varietas represent larger philosophical differences between these two authors, which can account for some of the differences in their works. 4

HH, HA vi.1 (pp. 338–9).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century To understand how Henry could take such a negative view of varietas and yet still practice it, we must adopt momentarily the outlook of a medieval rather than a modern reader of the Historia. Medieval Christian theologians often described the human world as varius and unstable, and heaven as unified and constant. Alcuin’s commentary on Psalm 101. 25 exemplifies this worldview. Alcuin explains that the psalmist did not wish to return to his youthful years, which were spent in pursuit of carnal pleasures; instead, the psalmist hopes that he ad aeternos Domini annos, qui mutabiles non sunt, pervenire mereatur, ubi varietas temporum non erit, sed stabilis quaedam semperque eadem [quae est] vita permanet mutationi non obnoxia. (may earn the right to reach those eternal years of God, which are unchanging, where there will be no variety of seasons, but rather a certain stable life which is always the same and remains free of change.)5

The varietas of the world – its ups and downs – presents challenges for humans, because they are easily distracted and can quickly forget God’s love.6 But that same varietas can also encourage humans to find some divine harmony in the chaos of the world, and to look towards the stability of heaven. Like the so-called felix culpa or ‘happy fault’, varietas is therefore valuable despite – or perhaps because of – its distastefulness. The term commonly used to describe this theological idea is contemptus mundi, or contempt for the world – that is, the idea that humans should pay little heed to the transient trappings of earthly life, and instead devote themselves to the pursuit of heaven. This idea of contemptus mundi has deep roots in both classical and Christian thought, and many medieval texts, most notably Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (c. 524), meditate on this idea.7 Contemptus mundi attracted special interest in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with texts such as Hildebert of Lavardin’s De querimonia (c. 1097), Adelard of Bath’s De eodem et diverso (1105–24), and Bernard of Cluny’s De contemptu mundi (c. 1140) relitigating what it means to turn away from the world and towards the eternal truths taught by Christian philosophy.8

5 6

7

8

Alcuin, Enchiridion in Psalmos, ed. J.-P. Migne, PL 100, 591. Translation mine. R. Bultot, ‘Le conflit entre l’aspiration au bonheur et l’idéologie du “contemptus mundi”’, in L’idée de bonheur au moyen âge, ed. D. Buschinger (Göppingen, 1990), pp. 87–96 (pp. 90–1). J. V. Fleming, ‘The Best Line in Ovid and the Worst’, in New Readings of Chaucer’s Poetry, ed. R. G. Benson, S. J. Ridyard, and D. Brewer (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 51–74 (pp. 56–9). See B. K. Balint, Ordering Chaos: The Self and the Cosmos in Twelfth-Century Latin Prosimetrum (Leiden, 2009), pp. 25–56 and 84–110; J. Domański, ‘Remarks on the Medieval and Renaissance “Contempt of the World” and “Human Misery” (Lotario – Poggio Bracciolini – Erasmus of Rotterdam)’, trans. K. O. Kuraszkiewicz,

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum Importantly for our purpose, texts centered on contemptus mundi frequently strive to make heaven look more appealing than earth by engaging heavily in literary variety, using shifts between styles and structures to represent the way that the sand can shift under our feet at any time. For this reason, authors of contemptus mundi narratives frequently choose to write in literary forms full of varietas, such as prosimetrum, a form that also received renewed interest around the turn of the twelfth century. In other words, medieval writers often constructed a feedback loop out of contemptus mundi, prosimetrum, and varietas. In this self-perpetuating cycle, contemptus mundi is the governing philosophy; prosimetrum is the form that represents that philosophy; and varietas is the rhetorical device that guides readers to contemptus mundi. I argue that Henry’s Historia, written only a few years after many influential contemptus mundi texts, bears traces of this feedback loop. In the passage quoted above, for example, Henry represents the instability of the world in the varietas referenced by Dunstan’s prophecy and, crucially, in the style of his writing, which is designed to send readers’ gaze back and forth between ideas. For Henry, human dysfunction is dreadful, as the negativity of this passage emphasizes; but it is also valuable, because it teaches readers how to look for God in times of political upheaval. Even the phrase Henry uses to describe the years preceding the Norman Conquest, ‘uarium seculum’ (which we might translate instead as ‘unstable age’), echoes Alcuin’s commentary. There is little theological distinction between them; the primary difference in these passages on varietas lies in the fact that Henry’s varietas creates a ductus directing readers to God’s plan for England, rather than the meaning of a psalm, as in Alcuin’s commentary. Yet if contemptus mundi and varietas are frequently triangulated with prosimetrum, then where is the prosimetrum in this entirely prose passage? Much of this chapter will be dedicated to revealing the prosimetry that undergirds Henry’s formal choices, in poetry and prose alike. My purpose is not to argue that the Historia is a prosimetrum, for it most certainly is not. Its verses are too sporadic, and its intent too serious to be a prosimetrum in the true sense of the word. Instead, I trace how prosimetrum shapes the varietas of Henry’s Historia. Unlike William, who bases his varietas on the definition provided by classical satire, Henry thinks of varietas in primarily Christian terms. Many of the differences between William’s and Henry’s historiographical methodologies can be traced back to this fundamental decision to rely either on classical satire and classical varietas on the one hand, or medieval prosimetrum and Christian varietas on the other. In other words, if historiographical varietas looks different in William’s Gesta regum and Henry’s Historia, it is because these texts possess different centers of gravity – the

Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 57 (2013), 28–80 (pp. 28–36); and Fleming, ‘Best’, pp. 59–61.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century former is pulled towards the classics, and the latter towards Christianity. Thus, while William was right to guess that other historians would find varietas as useful as he did, he failed to imagine how Christian rather than classical varietas might produce a very different kind of history. Indeed, the popularity of Henry’s Historia, which survives in forty-five manuscripts (not including fragments) to twenty-nine of the Gesta regum, proves the appeal of Henry’s vision.9

‘Well known for its many songs’ The title of this section is drawn from Henry’s characterization of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, which, like the Bible before it, mixes verse with prose.10 However, this phrase could just as easily be used to describe Henry’s own Historia Anglorum, since the Historia’s best-known formal feature is its occasional poetry. These poems, inserted periodically into the main narrative of the Historia, clearly inject literary variety into the text. They also raise the question of the Historia’s relationship to prosimetrum (also referred to as ‘mixed form’), the literary form in which an author alternates between verse and prose in a single text.11 However, few if any scholars would argue that the Historia is a prosimetrum. Although some parts of the Historia contain enough poetry for one modern scholar to deem them ‘prosimetrical in structure’, most would consider Henry’s occasional poems examples of rhetorical amplification, not prosimetrum.12 Scholars of prosimetrum would likely agree, since they typically describe medieval historiography as a genre that deploys verse here and there, but not enough to rise to the level of true prosimetrum.13 I also agree; the Historia is not a prosimetrum in the full sense of the word. Nevertheless, the varietas created by its shifts between verse and prose displays the kind of symbiotic relationship we would expect of a true prosimetrum.

9 10

11 12

13

HH, HA, pp. cxii–cxliv, 839–42. ‘Quod Beda ad imitationem sacre scripture composuit, cuius historie carmina plurima metro et uersibus constat esse composita’ (‘This [hymn] was composed on the model of holy scripture by Bede, whose History is well known for its many songs composed in metre and verses’), HH, HA ix.34 (pp. 662–5). P. Dronke, Verse with Prose from Petronius to Dante: The Art and Scope of the Mixed Form (Cambridge MA, 1994), p. 2. For the Historia’s limited prosimetry, see Clarke, ‘Crossing’, pp. 68–9, 77–9, quote p. 69; and Clarke, ‘Writing’, pp. 31–2, 38–43. For Henry’s poems as amplification, see HH, HA, pp. cviii–cix; and Kempshall, Rhetoric, p. 363. For example, see Balint, Ordering, p. 3; Dronke, Verse, p. 2; and J. Ziolkowski, ‘The Prosimetrum in the Classical Tradition’, in Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse, ed. J. Harris and K. Reichl (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 45–65 (p. 56).

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum In the eyes of medieval rhetoricians, poetry and history are closely related, because they share an interest in the nature and representation of truth.14 It was therefore common for historians to incorporate occasional poetry into their works. In historical writing, occasional poems typically appear at moments of narrative disruption, where they can describe either positive or negative events, ranging from victory in war to the death of a well-respected king. Henry’s poems follow this general principle, using the emotional power of poetry to help readers feel (quite literally, for reading poetry is both an emotional and cognitive experience) the importance of the moment. Henry’s use of poetry also imitates his main sources, Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, both of which sporadically insert poems into their otherwise prose narratives. Finally, Henry was a skillful poet in his own right, so much so that he may have thought of himself as a poet first, and a historian second.15 Henry therefore had many reasons for incorporating so many poems and verse fragments into his history. The Historia includes eighteen of Henry’s own compositions, most of which he wrote expressly for the Historia.16 In addition, it contains poems quoted from other historians, such as Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth.17 Like other historians of his era, Henry also incorporates reminiscences of the classical poets, most notably Vergil, Lucan, and Statius, into his prose. His use of other poets’ writing is nowhere near as prominent as, say, William of Malmesbury’s, but when he does echo the words of another author, he does so with a high degree of sophistication. For example, Henry describes a Danish attack on Winchester by quoting a line from the Aeneid about the destruction of Troy: ‘Et sic urbs antiqua corruit multos dominata per annos’ (‘Thus “fell the ancient city, for many years the seat of power”’).18 The city is soon saved by two ealdormen, who play no other role in the text. Henry’s quotation thus adds dramatic tension to an event that might have drawn little interest from readers, had he not used the Aeneid to emphasize just how close England came to suffering the same fate as Troy.19 His particular interest in poetry also leads him to expand the pool

14 15

16 17

18 19

See Balint, Ordering, pp. 137–41; and Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 360–3, 434–41. W. Black, ed., Anglicanus ortus: A Verse Herbal of the Twelfth Century (Toronto, 2012), p. 8; HH, HA, p. lxvi; and D. R. Howlett, ‘The Literary Context of Geoffrey of Monmouth: An Essay on the Fabrication of Sources’, Arthuriana 5.3 (1995), 25–69 (p. 34). Cf. Clarke, ‘Writing’, p. 35; and HH, HA, p. cix. For example, see Gregory the Great’s epitaph in HH, HA iii.12 (pp. 160–1), Cædwalla’s epitaph in iv.5 (pp. 218–19), the hymn to Æthelthryth in ix.34 (pp. 664–5), Cædmon’s Hymn in ix.37 (pp. 670–1), and Brutus’s prayer to Diana in viii. Warin.2 (pp. 560–1). Ibid. v.4 (pp. 280–1). For further discussion of Henry’s use of classical auctores, see D. Greenway, ‘Authority, Convention and Observation in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of quotations available to him beyond the Latin auctores. He translates lines from one or more Old English battle poems, as well as the whole of the poem now called the Battle of Brunanburh (which appears as the entry for the year 937 in some manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), and compiles them into his history.20 Overall, then, Henry’s poems are representative of the kinds of occasional poetry often found in medieval historical writing, albeit executed at an especially high level of artistry, which we might expect of a poet of Henry’s caliber. Yet the arrangement of Henry’s verses suggests that the poems’ varietas has a broader impact on the Historia beyond simply elevating the style of key passages for dramatic effect. Books vii and x, which contain especially large amounts of poetry, both vary the tone of the verses from one poem to the next. The sequence of poems in book vii begins with two epitaphs, a couplet on the death of Henry’s own father and a short poem on the death of Matilda, wife of Henry I.21 The next poem is a triumphant celebration of Henry I’s victory at the Battle of Brémule.22 From there, the poems alternate between epitaph and praise: mourning the White Ship disaster; praising Henry’s new queen, Adeliza of Louvain; mourning the death of Robert, bishop of Lincoln; praising Alexander, the next bishop of Lincoln; and finally, mourning the death of Henry I.23 Book x’s poems create a similar juxtaposition of tones: the grief of England’s civil war (described in x.12) is resolved by the ascension of Henry II, which concludes the Historia (in x.40).24 But here, Henry creates a narrative of renewal by bridging the tears of x.12 and the laughter of x.40 with a poem in x.33, in which the personified England begs Henry II to come to her aid. The poem of x.33 foregrounds the juxtaposition of opposites through phrases relying on repetition and parallel syntax, such as ‘Si non pugna duplex, nec erit michi gloria duplex’ (‘If the battle is not twofold, neither shall my glory be twofold’).25 In this way, the poems of books vii and x amplify the

20 21 22 23 24 25

Anglorum’, in Anglo-Norman Studies, XVIII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1995, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1996), pp. 105–21 (pp. 105, 112–14). On Henry’s use of classical and medieval auctores more generally, see also L. B. Mortensen, ‘Roman Past and Roman Language in Twelfth-Century English Historiography’, in Conceptualizing Multilingualism in England, c. 800–c. 1250, ed. E. M. Tyler (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 309–20 (pp. 318–20); and N. Wright, ‘Twelfth-Century Receptions of a Text: Anglo-Norman Historians and Hegesippus’, in Anglo-Norman Studies, XXXI: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2008, ed. C. P. Lewis (Woodbridge, 2009), pp. 177–95 (pp. 182–8). Greenway speculates that all of these lines may derive from a single poem, though this must remain conjecture. See HH, HA, pp. lxxviii–lxxix, cii. See, respectively, ibid. vii.27 (pp. 458–9) and vii.30 (pp. 462–3). Ibid. vii.31 (pp. 664–5). See, respectively, ibid. vii.32 (pp. 466–7), vii.33 (pp. 468–9), vii.34 (pp. 470–1), vii.36 (pp. 474–5) and vii.44 (pp. 492–3). See, respectively, ibid. x.12 (pp. 724–5) and x.40 (pp. 776–7). Ibid. ix.33 (pp. 760–3).

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum natural varietas of occasional poetry by directing readers’ emotions between two extremes as they make their way through the Historia, much as William of Malmesbury did. But while William evokes tears and laughter to show how his text abides by the principles of classical rhetoric, Henry bounces back and forth between these ideas to point to the instability of the world. This motivation is clear from the way that Henry varies the tone and frequency of his poetry. Because the Historia shifts back and forth between ecclesiastical and political history, the topics of Henry’s poems likewise shift between sacred and secular. The varietas of their materia reminds readers that these two aspects of earthly life can only be truly unified in the kingdom of heaven. Henry’s shift from praising Henry I in jubilant verse (in book vii) to criticizing him in prose (in book viii) functions in a similar way: he moves from celebration to denigration, before reminding readers of the ultimate fate of all princes in his memorable description of Henry I’s rotting corpse (book x).26 The Historia is also varius in its inconsistent use of poetry. Some books contain stretches of narrative with a significant amount of occasional poetry. Book v, for example, contains several poems, all of which celebrate great rulers of early England: Alfred, Æthelflæd, Æthelstan and Edgar.27 In addition to these poems, Henry also uses a kind of ‘hybrid verse’, that is, prose recognizably translated from Old English poetry, for the Succession poem about Edgar that appears as the entry for the year 959 in some manuscripts of the AngloSaxon Chronicle.28 However, book v’s full-throated celebration of Anglo-Saxon England is followed by the relative silence of book vi. Only two poems appear in this book, both of which are mere couplets on the Battle of Hastings.29 Like William of Malmesbury, Henry thus repeats his Hastings narrative; but in the Historia, the repetition’s varietas takes the form of laconic restraint rather than spiraling digression. In this way, the presence and absence of verse are equally telling, for the varietas created by the alternating feast and famine of poetry reminds readers yet again that nothing of this world lasts forever. Henry’s poems – both his own compositions and the poems he inserts into the text – thus create varietas by shifting not just between prose and poetry, but

26

27 28

29

See ibid. x.2 (pp. 702–3). Gillingham also notes this reversal, but he ascribes it to Henry’s new ability to speak ill of a king whom he no longer admired. See ‘Henry of Huntingdon in His Time (1135) and Place (Between Lincoln and the Royal Court)’, in Gallus Anonymous and His Chronicle in the Context of Twelfth-Century Historiography from the Perspective of the Latest Research, ed. K. Stopka (Kraków, 2010), pp. 157–72 (pp. 165–6). See also Greenway, ‘Authority’, p. 113. See, respectively, HH, HA v.13 (pp. 298–9), v.17 (pp. 308–9), v.19 (pp. 311–15), and v.26 (pp. 322–3). K. J. Tiller, ‘Translating the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Poems for the Anglo-Norman Court’, in The Medieval Translator Vol. 15: In Principio Fuit Interpres, ed. A. Petrina (Turnhout, 2013), pp. 175–85 (pp. 177–8, 180–1, 185, quote p. 178). See, respectively, HH, HA vi.30 (pp. 394–5) and vi.42 (pp. 410–1).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century also between secular and sacred, joy and sorrow, and abundance and scarcity. Moreover, Henry could very well have expected his readers to recognize this rich tapestry of varietas. Then as now, poetry was known to possess particular mnemonic capabilities.30 Since something new or striking stays more easily in the memory, moving from prose to verse and back again would also store the text’s contents more readily and more permanently in audiences’ minds.31 Any vivid imagery or emotion in the poetry would have a similar effect.32 Chronicles and histories employing occasional poetry, including the Historia, amplify the inherent mnemonic attributes of poetry by using their verses to renarrate or dwell at length on some event just described in the narrative, thereby creating repetition that further imprints the information in the reader’s memory. Furthermore, the affective nature of epitaphs, praise poetry, and other historiographically-inclined verse gives the occasional poetry found in chronicles and histories an emotional power that enables readers to internalize their meaning more easily.33 Henry could therefore have expected readers to recognize the varietas of his poems, even those spread across different books of the Historia. If Henry’s readers recognized the significance of Henry’s poetry, then they must also have recognized how the presence and absence of poetry – that is, how poetry and prose – work together to create the poems’ effects. When, for example, Henry declines to versify the decline of Anglo-Saxon England, he pulls the prose of book vi into conversation with the poetry of book v. The reverse is true as well: if the poems are meant to be read as part of the prose history, then the Historia’s prose must play some role in shaping readers’ understanding of its poetry. A good example of this phenomenon is Henry’s view of Henry I’s reign, which is revealed through the combination of verse and prose passages, and not simply through verse or prose alone. In other words, in the Historia, occasional poetry accrues meaning through its relationship to prose, and vice versa. Neither can be fully understood without the other. The indivisibility of these forms distinguishes the Historia from other histories, in which occasional poetry provides amplification and nothing more. In the Historia, verse is certainly a sign of rhetorical amplification, but it is also an indication that varietas permeates the whole text. This symbiotic relationship between verse and prose makes it possible to speak of the Historia’s prosimetry without arguing that the Historia is, in fact, a prosimetrum. As I will discuss in greater detail below, the Historia possesses many of the trademark characteristics of prosimetrum, such as the prominence of the narrator’s voice, the juxtaposition of philosophical perspectives, 30 31 32 33

Balint, Ordering, pp. 171–2; Carruthers, Book, p. 99; and Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, pp. 60–1. pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium III.xxii.35 (LCL 403, pp. 218–19). Carruthers, Book, pp. 166–7, 176–9. Ibid., pp. 75–6.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum encyclopedism, and so forth. But often, those features appear not through the alternation of verse and prose, but instead through prose alone. Though prose’s ability to function prosimetrically may be surprising to modern readers of the Historia, studies of prosimetrum have noted that the earliest extant discussion of this form classifies it as a type of poetry, rather than a mixture of prose and verse, and they have even shown how works written wholly in prose or poetry can create analogous effects to prosimetrum.34 In short, there is much more to prosimetrum than simply alternating between verse and prose, and that broader sense of what prosimetrum is, and what it can do, can help us better understand the Historia’s varietas. Ultimately, tracing the Historia’s adherence to the conventions of prosimetrum will reveal the process of philosophical discovery that readers of the Historia are meant to undertake. Yet to go on that journey, we must first embark on a discovery process of our own – that is, we must first know the characteristics of prosimetrum before perceiving how those characteristics are refracted in the Historia. For this reason, and in a similar manner to the previous chapter’s elucidation of classical versus Christian varietas, I lay out the fundamental principles of prosimetrum below.

Prosimetrum in the twelfth century The earliest known practitioner of prosimetrum was the ancient Greek satirist Menippus (third century BCE), whose work survives only in fragments, but whose name has become attached to the category of satire to which most ancient prosimetra belong.35 Menippean satire is distinguished from satire more generally by its use of formal mixture, its comedic sendups of philosophy and learning, and (in comparison with standard satire) its ‘more cheerfully intellectual and less aggressive’ posture towards the objects of its commentary.36 Classical authors frequently achieved these effects by alternating between verse and prose, hence the connection between prosimetrum and Menippean satire. Prosimetrum in the Menippean mold had an indirect yet profound influence on the Latin Middle Ages. Its major features are visible in the works of Roman satirists, such as the extant fragments of Menippean 34 35

36

Balint, Ordering, pp. 169–71; Dronke, Verse, p. 2; Johnson, Practicing, pp. 55–236; and Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, pp. 58–9. The discussion below is indebted to Balint, Ordering, pp. 1–8, 14–17, 43, 49–50, 84–8, 103–4, 169–73; Dronke, Verse, pp. 2–14, 19, 22, 25–46, 83–114; K. Friis-Jensen, Saxo Grammaticus as Latin Poet: Studies in the Verse Passages of the Gesta Danorum (Rome, 1987), pp. 29–39; Johnson, Practicing, pp. 7–10, 19–37; J. C. Relihan, ‘Prosimetra’, in A Companion to Late Antique Literature, ed. S. McGill and E. J. Watts (Newark, 2018), pp. 281–96 (pp. 283–92); and Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, pp. 45–61. C. Baldick, ‘Menippean satire (Varronian satire)’, in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 4th edn (Oxford, 2015), pp. 218–19 (p. 219).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century satires by Varro (116–27 BCE), the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca the Younger (c. 54) and the Satyricon of Petronius (first century). Through the works of these and other writers, the hallmarks of Menippean satire made their way into the influential prosimetra of the early Middle Ages, Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii and Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, and from there, into medieval literature more broadly. The ancients did not distinguish between Menippean satire and satire in the general sense. Instead, they used one word, satura, to refer to prosimetrum, poetry, and prose satire alike.37 Only in the high Middle Ages was a distinction drawn between satire and the prosimetric form, with the appearance of the word ‘prosimetrum’ in the early twelfth century. It is likely that prosimetrum’s burgeoning popularity at the turn of the twelfth century merited the creation of a specific word for just this form. However, the earlier term satura is revealing because it is connected etymologically to satietas and hence semantically to varietas.38 In this way, the classical term for prosimetrum reveals what its medieval and modern equivalents do not: satire and prosimetrum are kissing cousins, and varietas is a defining feature of both. Yet it is the varietas of prosimetrum that concerns us here, for that is the sort of varietas that finds its way into the Historia. Prosimetra mix forms, perspectives, categories of analysis, and other literary features in the pursuit of some philosophical truth. The diversitas of this mixture aims to reflect some larger abstract unitas. Prosimetra therefore delight in juxtaposing different parts of this diversitas, relying on the mixture of opposites to reflect the larger harmony of the universe. For example, on the one hand, prosimetra embrace encyclopedism and didacticism, through literary devices such as repetition, monologue, and the division and even subdivision of knowledge into ever more precise categories. These techniques allow prosimetrum to explore every inch of truth it can lay its hands on. On the other hand, the prosimetrum’s erudition lampoons the very authorities it exalts. Prosimetric texts mock intellectual elites through a number of techniques, ranging from fabricating pseudo-authorities and imagining otherworldly places to inventing words and employing esoteric or archaic diction. Through this balance of serious study and lighthearted play, prosimetrum conveys the impression of mixture above all. In a prosimetrum, simple words and sophisticated vocabulary sit side-by-side, humans converse with philosophical allegories, and always, a sense of both silliness and soberness permeates the text. For this reason, prosimetrum, the “mixed form”, has occasionally been

37

38

In addition to the sources cited above, see J. C. Relihan, ‘On the Origin of “Menippean Satire” as the Name of a Literary Genre’, Classical Philology 79.3 (1984), 226–9. Cf. chapter 1, pp. 27–8.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum described as a concordia discors, a phrase that should by now immediately conjure for readers of this book the concept of varietas.39 Thus, prosimetrum is a genre built on variety. But prosimetrum’s varietas does more than simply entertain readers with its humorous flights of fancy. Its shifts of form and perspective stage a philosophical conversation, with different interlocutors representing different philosophical perspectives. The most famous example is, of course, the conversation between Boethius and Lady Philosophy, each of whom possesses different outlooks on earthly troubles; but any number of philosophical perspectives may appear in prosimetrum. The sole requirement for this conversation is that it must model a diversity of perspectives. By assembling a range of competing viewpoints and shifting between different types of writing, prosimetrum creates a dialogue that guides readers to the text’s resolution. Again, varietas is the mechanism for that journey. Each philosophical outlook is represented by a different literary form – most obviously, prose and verse, but other kinds of complementary styles and structures can perform this function as well – and each “distinguishes” the others, like one flower might “distinguish” the others in a bouquet. This movement between individual flowers (or forms, or perspectives) also directs viewers’ gaze not only to other flowers, but to the whole bouquet of which it is a part. In this way, each individual flower (that is, each perspective, represented by a different form) also “distinguishes” the larger arrangement (that is, perfect wisdom, represented by the text as a whole). The association of different philosophical perspectives with different literary forms also helps bridge the gap between the prosimetrum’s narrator, who is typically participating in the conversation, and the reader, who is usually just listening to the various characters speak. Varietas of perspective flows from varietas of form; as one form gives way to another, a new perspective comes to the fore. In this way, prosimetra use variations of form to create the conversation between perspectives that the text requires. That variation also makes it possible for readers to learn the same lessons that the narrator learns through this dialogue. To accomplish this, prosimetra establish a connection between narrator and reader, thus ensuring that both benefit from the dialogue. The narrator, of course, grows in wisdom simply by participating in the dialogue; the latter profits by observing and then extrapolating wisdom from the narrator’s personal progression. That transfer of wisdom from narrator to reader occurs through varietas, and in particular, through the interplay of poetry and prose. In prosimetrum, the prose passages are often concerned with the particular circumstances of a single human life. In contrast, verse typically serves as the vehicle for

39

Dronke, Verse, p. 5; and Johnson, Practicing, p. 40. Cf. ‘hybridity’ in Balint, Ordering, p. 2; and ‘hybrid’ in Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, p. 49.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century philosophical teaching and the medicine for difficult emotions. Verse can therefore speak simultaneously to narrator, audience, and humanity more generally, since all of them experience the same desire for wisdom and healing. The mingling of prose and poetry is more effective than prose or poetry alone, because the inclusion of both forms allows the prosimetrum to acknowledge and address the needs of individuals (in prose), while also universalizing those individuals’ experiences to ensure that everyone can benefit from the philosophical conversation (in verse). Moreover, the movement back and forth between these forms allows readers to broaden their thinking (by reading verse) and then to bring their knowledge back to the particulars of their own lives (by returning to prose). In this way, the varietas of verse and prose helps readers participate in a shared process of philosophical discovery, as they acquire universal insights and also learn how to apply those lessons to their own unique circumstances. Prosimetrum’s varietas therefore rests on more than just the juxtaposition of verse and prose. Those forms are instantiations of philosophical perspectives, whose dialogue helps readers grow in wisdom. But the alternation of prose and verse also ensures that none of the philosophical perspectives represented in the text can offer all the answers. Lady Philosophy does not have a monopoly on wisdom, nor is the De consolatione philosophiae simply a long excursus between one perfect and one flawed character. When a prosimetrum juxtaposes body and soul, inner self and outer self, or even the very categories of “individual” and “universal”, it does not suggest that one is right and the other wrong. Instead, it suggests that dialogue between the two parts of a larger whole, rather than the tyranny of a single perspective, is the path to perfection. The blatant limitations of the various philosophical perspectives presented to readers contribute to prosimetrum’s satire (in the modern sense) and, in particular, its sendup of self-important authorities and traditional hierarchies of wisdom. But the faults of each viewpoint also propel audiences through the text, by making it clear that readers need to keep expanding their understanding through further dialogue, that is, to keep following the ductus of the text rather than assuming that the answer has been found. Counterintuitively, then, prosimetrum uses form to construct a conversation between flawed perspectives, with the ultimate goal of finding some philosophical truth. Whether a prosimetrum can ever provide true enlightenment is an open question. Some take an optimistic view, and believe in the possibility of resolution, while others argue that prosimetrum’s dialectic form encourages open-endedness and prohibits facile resolution.40 If nothing else, these divergent perspectives testify to prosimetrum’s ability to spur reflection

40

For more optimistic views, see Dronke, Verse, and Johnson, Practicing; for less optimistic perspectives, see Balint, Ordering, and Relihan, ‘Prosimetra’.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum and, by extension, to the way that prosimetrum turns uncertainty and crisis into philosophical assets. This aspect of prosimetrum made it a favored vehicle for medieval writers interested in contemptus mundi, including Henry, in whose history contemptus mundi is a central theme.41 Yet the theme of contemptus mundi is incongruous with political history’s basic premise – namely, that political history matters. After all, if nothing lasts, not even history, then why bother to write anything down? Indeed, why care about earthly politics at all? Yes, medieval historians took the moral education and ethical development of their readers as historiography’s sine qua non, and yes, Henry’s prologue regurgitates all of the standard justifications for writing history.42 Still, the fact remains that Henry, a historian, repeatedly uses history to tell his readers that history is devoid of value – and this despite his prologue’s insistence that history separates humans from beasts. Scholars have proffered several explanations for this unlikely combination of genre and theme.43 Viewing the Historia as prosimetrical offers another explanation – one in line with Henry’s intellectual context. Prosimetrum acknowledges that every perspective is inadequate in some way, but it suggests that readers can glean some philosophical benefit from those fragments of knowledge. That idea is at the heart of contemptus mundi, which teaches that earthly knowledge is limited, and yet valuable for its limitations, for those limitations are precisely what spurs humans to seek true wisdom with God. Henry’s use of prosimetrum follows a similar logic. Contemptus mundi functions through varietas: humans grow in their contempt for the world because they have experienced its variety, and used it to guide their eyes away from the world around them. The instability of the world 41

42 43

HH, HA, pp. lxii–lxiii; Partner, Serious, pp. 31–8; and B. Roling, ‘Der Historiker als Apologet der Weltverachtung. Die Historia Anglorum des Heinrich von Huntingdon’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster 33 (1999), 125–68 (pp. 142–68). E. J. Mickel, ‘Fictional History and Historical Fiction’, Romance Philology 66.1 (2012), 57–96 (pp. 59–61). For the explanation that Henry resents recent cultural shifts, see K. A. Fenton, ‘Writing Masculinity and Religious Identity in Henry of Huntingdon’, in Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. P. H. Cullum and K. J. Lewis (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 64–76 (pp. 67–72); and Partner, Serious, pp. 36–48. For a more politics-driven take on Henry’s discontent with the age in which he lived, see J. Gillingham, ‘Henry of Huntingdon and the Twelfth-Century Revival of the English Nation’, in The English in the Twelfth Century, pp. 123–44 (pp. 127–36). For the explanation that Henry seeks to advertise his literary skills, see T. Arnold, ed., Historia Anglorum: The History of the English from A.C. 55 to A.D. 1154 (London, 1879), pp. xiv–xv; Gillingham, ‘Time’, pp. 161–71; and Partner, Serious, pp. 17–28, 40–8. For the explanation that Henry seeks to delay the inevitable loss of the past and his own mortality, see M. Otter, ‘Prolixitas Temporum: Futurity in Medieval Historical Narratives’, in Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning, ed. R. M. Stein and S. P. Prior (Notre Dame, 2005), pp. 45–67 (pp. 46–7, 55–61); and (to a lesser extent) HH, HA, pp. lxxii–lxxiii, and Partner, Serious, pp. 33–4, 47–8.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century thus has its merits, in that it can spur a longing for the stability that can only be found in God. The same can be said of the discontinuities in Britain’s history: the fragmentation of the past increases readers’ zeal for the unity of heaven. Prosimetrum gives the remaining fragments of English history a new utility, and when they are placed in conversation with each other, they can help readers gain an understanding of the past. For this reason, I argue, the Historia treats the fragments of British history as voices participating in a conversation, which Henry’s readers can listen to and learn from. Henry could have become familiar with prosimetrum’s connections to contemptus mundi through a number of avenues. Henry certainly knew Boethius, the medieval prosimetrist par excellence. The Historia contains four echoes of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae: three in book viii and one in book x.44 Henry’s poetry was also particularly influenced by Hildebert of Lavardin, who wrote, among many other works, a prosimetrum entitled De querimonia.45 Though there is no direct evidence of Henry’s familiarity with Hildebert’s De querimonia, he may have been more familiar with Hildebert’s works than we know, possibly through his teacher, Albinus of Angers, who was schooled in the same region where Hildebert taught.46 Intriguingly, Henry wrote at least one poem in which he riffed on Hildebert’s theorizations of the self, a key theme of prosimetrum.47 Henry’s familiarity with Hildebert also situates him within one or two degrees of separation from the cathedral school of Tours, which seems to have been the epicenter of interest in prosimetrum during this period.48 Henry studied in the cathedral school at Laon, providing him yet another opportunity for reading the works of French prosimetrists.49 Of course, prosimetrum was not limited to Tours or even France. Prosimetrists in England included Folcard of St Bertin, author of the Vita Ædwardi regis, as well as Lawrence of Durham, who wrote a prosimetrum on the death of his friend in the early 1140s, roughly the same time when Henry was writing the Historia. Lawrence’s Consolatio de morte amici even shares some themes with both Hildebert’s De querimonia and Henry’s treatise De contemptu mundi.50 Henry may also have been aware of and possibly read historical sources that exhibit prosimetric features, such as

44 45 46 47

48 49 50

HH, HA viii.Warin.1 (pp. 558–9), viii.Contemptus.4 (pp. 592–3), viii.Contemptus.12 (pp. 604–7), and x.40 (pp. 776–7). Ibid., p. xxxv. Ibid., p. xxxi. M. Otter, ‘Sufficentia: A Horatian Topos and the Boundaries of the Self in Three Twelfth-Century Poems’, in Anglo-Norman Studies, XXXV: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2012, ed. D. Bates (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 245–58 (pp. 245, 253–5). Balint, Ordering, pp. 167–8; and Dronke, Verse, p. 46. D. Greenway, ‘Henry of Huntingdon as Poet: The De Herbis Rediscovered’, Medium Ævum 74.2 (2005), 329–32 (pp. 329–30). On the Vita Ædwardi regis’s prosimetrum, see in particular T. Licence, ‘The Date and Authorship of the Vita Ædwardi regis’, ASE 44 (2016), 259–85 (pp. 266–72); and Tyler,

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum Dudo of St Quentin’s Historia Normannorum (c. 996–1015) and Ralph of Caen’s Gesta Tancredi (c. 1112–18).51 Henry’s enthusiasm for poetry, his interest in contemptus mundi, and the overlap between his lifespan and prosimetrum’s spate of popularity in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries make it likely that Henry, if given the opportunity, would have enjoyed prosimetra, and been intrigued by the prospect of using this form to instill moral lessons into the Historia.52

Prosimetric history Recognizing that prosimetrum involves more than just mixing prose and verse makes it possible to discern the Historia’s prosimetric qualities. In prosimetrum, poetry is philosophical, didactic, universalizing, and emotional, and it typically takes the shape of a monologue. For the most part, Henry’s poems behave in similar ways. To give just a few examples, the White Ship poem is philosophical; the poem addressed to Adeliza is didactic; and the poem about Bishop Robert Bloet’s death is universalizing, for though it discusses Robert’s specific virtues, it does so in a way that implicitly encourages others to follow Robert’s exemplum.53 Henry’s poems are emotional as well, whether he is expressing his own feelings (as in the epitaph for his father) or a universal sentiment (as in the poem in praise of Æthelflæd).54 They are also almost entirely monologic. Henry might as well be Lady Philosophy when he exclaims ‘Ecce Stigis facies consimilisque lues’ (‘Behold! Here is a glimpse of the Styx and a comparable plague’) in a monologic poem decrying the horrors of civil war.55 There is only one dialogic poem in the Historia, in which the personified ‘Anglia’ converses first with unnamed observers and then with the future Henry II.56 This poem’s dialogism veers from the model of prosimetrum, but its subject matter – England’s suffering during civil war – does echo other aspects of prosimetric poetry, such as its philosophizing, its universalizing, and its emotional caliber. Yet Henry does not need to adhere strictly to prosimetrum in every case for us to see the underlying prosimetry

51

52 53 54 55 56

England, pp. 141–2, 147–9, 189–90. On Lawrence of Durham, see Balint, Ordering, pp. 10, 61–3, 95–7, 167–8; and Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, p. 55. For Dudo of St Quentin, see HH, HA, p. cvii, and Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, p. 56; for Ralph of Caen, see HH, HA, pp. xcviii–xcix, and Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, p. 57. Balint, Ordering, pp. 1, 5–6; Dronke, Verse, pp. 46–52; and Ziolkowski, ‘Prosimetrum’, pp. 54–5. See, respectively, HH, HA vii.32 (pp. 466–7), vii.33 (pp. 468–9), and vii.34 (pp. 470–1). See, respectively, ibid. vii.27 (pp. 458–9) and v.17 (pp. 308–9). Ibid. ix.12 (pp. 724–5), l. 18. Ibid. x.33 (pp. 760–3).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of his work. Indeed, the places where Henry veers from the prosimetric model can be just as illuminating as where he keeps to it. Take, for instance, Henry’s poetic style. Henry’s poetry relies heavily on the sorts of rhetorical devices favored by prosimetrists. Poetry functions by using meter, rhyme, and other such patterns to create a sense of “likeness” that brings the soul into harmony with the universal harmony of heaven. The poetry of prosimetrum relies on verse’s inherently analogic nature to draw a connection between the individual souls of narrator and reader and the divine essence of God.57 Any poetic device built on repetition would be able to create just such a pattern. As it happens, many of the Historia’s poems rely on repetition and parallelisms to create their aesthetic and moralistic effects. In the Historia’s very first poem, which appears at the conclusion of the Prologue, Henry describes God as ‘Iudicio gentes et regna leuansque premensque, / Iudicio nunc occulto, nunc uero patenti’ (‘raising up and putting down peoples by Thy judgement, that operates sometimes secretly and sometimes openly’).58 Here, Henry repeats words and syntactical structures through anaphora and other kinds of rhetorical parallelisms, with synonyms and antonyms conveying God’s omnipotence. He also uses alliteration and rhyme, even where atypical, to connect ideas across clauses and poetic lines.59 In his poems, these features frequently form the basis of some juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, another formal tactic common to prosimetrum. On their own, then, Henry’s poems resemble those found in prosimetra. They also interact with prose in a prosimetrical manner. Prosimetra typically employ repetition and juxtaposition across both verse and prose, to develop a dialogic relationship between its two constituent forms. Importantly, the dialogue of prosimetrum does not take the form of call-and-response, but is instead conversational, as narrator and interlocutor work their way through some philosophical conundrum. Although Henry’s poems are occasional rather than overtly philosophical, most follow this principle in some fashion, working alongside the prose rather than simply amplifying what came before. The poem at the end of Henry’s contemptus mundi treatise, honoring his recently deceased friend Walter, offers one helpful example. It employs parallel syntax, rhyme and the repetition of words and phrases repeatedly throughout the poem, most notably in anaphora of the phrase ‘Mens assueta uiri’ (‘This man’s habitual disposition’).60 The prose in the sentences preceding this poem does the same. For example, Henry writes ‘O mortalium sors abiecta nascendi, misera uiuendi, dura moriendi! O mors, quam cito proruis, quam inopinate irruis, quam magnifice subruis!’ (‘O, the lot of mortals is lowliness 57 58 59 60

Johnson, Practicing, pp. 30–7. HH, HA Prologue (pp. 6–7), ll. 6–7. A. G. Rigg, ‘Henry of Huntingdon’s Metrical Experiments’, Journal of Medieval Latin 1 (1991), 60–72 (pp. 63–4). HH, HA viii.Contemptus.19 (pp. 618–19), ll. 7, 9, 11, 13.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum at birth, wretchedness in life, hardship at death! O death, how speedy your advance, how unexpected your attack, how absolute your conquest!’).61 Both poetry and prose therefore contain a great deal of phrasal repetition, while the repetition of rhetorical devices (apostrophe) and themes (gift-giving, writing as a vehicle for memory) adds an additional recursive quality to this chapter, thus tying the two forms together. At the same time, the prose and verse of this passage offer different perspectives: in the prose, God is the gift-giver and Henry’s treatise has been transformed into an epitaph; and in the verse, Walter and Henry are giftgivers, and Henry’s epitaph for Walter is simply a sad coda to their exchange. Henry’s poem is less universalizing here, and his prose more emotional; but what this adaptation of the prosimetric model accomplishes is a deft integration of poetry and prose into a single conversation. Prose here represents the general grief of mortality, and the reminder of God’s healing mercy, and poetry the individual circumstances of Walter’s and Henry’s relationship. This reversal allows Henry to put Walter in the place where God would typically be – i.e., as the universal gift-giver – thus honoring Walter while also relegating God and Death to the limitations of prose. In this way, the concluding chapter to Henry’s letter to Walter upends authority in the way that prosimetrum often does. This example, and the examples I mentioned above, epitomize how prosimetrum appears in the Historia. Although its contours are clearly recognizable, Henry adapts the form to suit his purpose in the moment, whether that means reflecting the confusion of civil war or meditating on death’s ability to equalize even God and man. Henry also assigns common features of English historiography a certain amount of prosimetry, even when they appear in prose alone. Like his predecessors’ introductory descriptiones, Henry’s descriptio Britanniae enumerates the unique virtues of England’s cities as well as England’s fertility more broadly. However, he paints this picture by mixing prose with excerpts from one of his standalone poems.62 This poem, like the prologue poem discussed above, is full of parallel syntax that encourages the reader to appreciate the manifold riches of England’s resources. Furthermore, the materia of this poem is covered in one form or another in Henry’s several chapters on Britain’s geography and natural resources.63 The poem thus repeats ideas already expressed elsewhere, in a manner reminiscent of other prosimetra. It is even possible to read these opening chapters, especially i.8 (which describes Britain’s four marvels and four highways, a juxtaposition of natural and man-made wonders), as Henry’s ode to the fabulous geography found in some prosimetra.64 Yet the descriptio’s repetition of content and juxtapo61 62 63 64

Ibid. viii.Contemptus.19 (pp. 616–19). Ibid. i.6 (pp. 20–1). Ibid. i.1–i.8 (pp. 10–25). On the juxtaposition of the four natural and four man-made wonders, see A.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century sition of forms spark a philosophical question: is it worthwhile to even try to record the history of place names, let alone of individual peoples? While Henry’s descriptio replicates the basic features of earlier writers’ descriptiones (especially in his emphasis on the varietas of Britain’s natural resources), his version of this common feature is unique for the way that it mixes verse with a variety of prose genres (such as lists of names and descriptions of mirabilia, i.e., wonders), all for the sake of asking this existential question.65 Similarly, Henry often gives prosimetric qualities to common features of medieval history-writing not by interpolating verses, but rather by recreating the effects of prosimetrum in prose alone. Battle speeches, for example, were a standard historiographical convention.66 In the Historia, the competing battle speeches given by Ranulph, earl of Chester, Robert, earl of Gloucester, and Baldwin FitzGilbert de Clare in advance of the Battle of Lincoln (1141) display several features of prosimetrum, even in the absence of poetry.67 Henry organizes these speeches in a way that ensures that they juxtapose opposing views and, in the process, create dialogue. Across four chapters, Henry sets up a miniature dialogue between the Empress Matilda’s supporters Ranulph and Robert, who debate who should receive the honor of striking first against Stephen’s forces; then, he lists the portents forecasting Stephen’s defeat; and finally, Henry provides the speech Baldwin gave on behalf of the weak-voiced Stephen. In creating these levels of conversation, Henry veers from his usual practice of placing speeches in the mouths solely of soon-to-be victors, or of making it clear which side ought to receive readers’ sympathy.68 Evidently, at least a few of Henry’s medieval readers noticed the uniqueness of this format: in two manuscripts the text of the speech given by the losing side is accompanied by an illustration of Baldwin, instructed by Stephen, addressing the king’s troops.69 Thus, while the narrative clearly favors the victors, the actual contents of these speeches make it hard to discern whom Henry wants his readers to support. Ranulph and Robert are portrayed as zealous in their desire to attack

65

66

67 68 69

Cooper, ‘The King’s Four Highways: Legal Fiction Meets Fictional Law’, JMH 26.4 (2000), 351–70 (pp. 355–7). For a discussion of Henry’s adaptation of Bede’s descriptions of Britain and Ireland, see Fisher, Authorship, pp. 81–2; and W. M. Hoofnagle, ‘Charlemagne’s Legacy and Anglo-Norman imperium in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum’, in The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages: Power, Faith, and Crusade, ed. M. Gabriele and J. Stuckey (New York, 2008), pp. 77–94 (pp. 78–81). For discussion, see J. R. E. Bliese, ‘Rhetoric and Morale: A Study of Battle Orations from the Central Middle Ages’, JMH 15.3 (1989), 201–26; and Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 339–41. See, respectively, HH, HA x.14 (pp. 726–7), x.15 (pp. 726–33), and x.17 (pp. 732–7). Clarke, ‘Crossing’, pp. 69–71; Clarke, ‘Writing’, pp. 46–7; and Greenway, ‘Authority’, p. 113. Collard, ‘Dream’, pp. 119–21.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum Stephen’s army, but they engage in a disconcerting amount of dissent over which glories each feels entitled to claim. Meanwhile, no such dissent is visible in the ranks of Stephen’s forces – if anything, Baldwin’s unfailing support of Stephen and his speech’s assertion that Stephen will fight alongside his men suggest that the king’s army is more cohesive than the empress’s. Of course, Baldwin’s speech has its own flaws: he too insults his enemies, and the picture he creates of the difficult flight the empress’s troops will soon face is ironic in light of his and Stephen’s impending capture. None of these speeches is fully persuasive, and they become even less persuasive as the reader continues through the Historia’s narrative. Yet by staging a debate, and by leaving it unresolved, Henry juxtaposes contrasting views without offering a clear resolution, in the manner if not the literary form of a prosimetrum. Furthermore, such passages are designed not simply to entertain readers, but rather to prod readers towards contemplation. This function is visible in Henry’s most repetitive passages, namely, the lists of kings that conclude most books of the Historia. Henry includes king lists ‘non tediosus ut estimo sed apertior et lectori gratior existam’ (‘in the belief that this will not be tedious but will be clearer and more agreeable for the reader’).70 These lists are a type of narrative repetition, of course, since Henry is repeating in king lists the same history that he had told earlier in chronicle form. They also demonstrate the stylistic juxtaposition of nearly identical phrases. At the end of book ii, for example, Henry lists the fourteen emperors whose reigns coincide with early English political history in highly repetitive terms: ‘Tempore Marciani qui regnauit vii annis. Tempore Leonis qui regnauit xvii annis’ (‘In the time of Marcian, who reigned for 7 years. In the time of Leo, who reigned for 17 years’), etc.71 On their own, the repetition of phrases and the juxtaposition of various rulers’ names and the lengths of their reigns offer a mnemonic for remembering historical information. However, in a text packed with philosophical reflection on contemptus mundi, these verbal repetitions create a litany of names and dates whose meaning appears increasingly irrelevant as more and more names are piled on. Readers of these lists will experience a type of semantic satiation, the phenomenon whereby the repetition of a word deprives it of meaning. The juxtaposition of nearly identical phrases thus conveys to readers the ultimate insignificance of earthly achievements. The same is true of the more than two dozen reminders of contemptus mundi sprinkled throughout the Historia’s prose. These repeated admonishments offer the outright didacticism characteristic of prosimetric philosophizing, creating yet another connection between the Historia’s prose and prosimetrum. Henry’s Historia thus delights in giving standard features of English historiography – occasional poems, the

70 71

HH, HA ii.40 (pp. 130–1). Ibid. ii.39 (pp. 128–31, quote pp. 128–9).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century descriptio Britanniae, battle speeches, moralizing, even king lists – a hint of prosimetrum. Rather than offering moral lessons here and there throughout his history, as historians typically do, Henry opts for an overarching theme – contemptus mundi – and emulates a form often used by writers focusing on that theme. This may not have been his original intent, but by his final revision of the text, Henry had produced a history laced with prosimetrum. Henry’s accumulation of information – another feature of prosimetrum – reveals how the Historia’s prosimetry grew over time. From 1123 (when he began work on the Historia) until his death c. 1156–64, Henry produced no fewer than six different versions of the Historia, eventually bringing the narrative up to 1154.72 Some revisions are political in nature, while others are stylistic or add new historical information to the text; many pursue more than one of these goals.73 Although the Historia becomes somewhat encyclopedic in its appearance, insofar as it gathers more and more information with each revision, Henry’s goal is not to write a universal history. Instead, he arranges his new material in a way that situates English history within its British and universal context, encouraging these different historiographical frames to “distinguish” each other in the manner of varietas. For example, the first and second versions of the Historia cover the period of English history up to 1129, but Henry revises the first version by adding a lengthy section to the end of book i, in which he summarizes the gestae of the Roman emperors (derived from Paul the Deacon’s Historia Romana, c. 760s). The juxtaposition of these gestae with early British history places Britain and Rome in conversation with one another, in another sign of Henry’s interest in post-Conquest historiographical varietas.74 Similarly, when Henry gains access to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, he adds it to his history in the form of a letter, which offers an abbreviated version of Geoffrey’s narrative with a few inventive additions of his own.75 72

73

74 75

For a discussion of the different versions of the Historia (including an analysis of earlier accounts of its textual history), see ibid., pp. lvii, lxv–lxxvii, ci–cii, cxii; see also B. Pohl, ‘When Did Robert of Torigni First Receive Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, and Why Does It Matter?’, HSJ 26 (2015 for 2014), 143–68. For example, like William of Malmesbury, Henry later toned down his criticism of Henry I. See A. Cooper, ‘“The feet of those that bark shall be cut off”: Timorous Historians and the Personality of Henry I’, in Anglo-Norman Studies, XXIII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2000, ed. J. Gillingham (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 47–61 (pp. 48–51); Gillingham, ‘Time’, pp. 168–9; and HH, HA, pp. lxxi, lxxvi–lxxvii. On Henry’s use of Paul the Deacon, see HH, HA, pp. lxvii; and Mortensen, ‘Roman’, pp. 313–14. A. Putter, ‘Latin Historiography After Geoffrey of Monmouth’, in The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature: The Development and Dissemination of the Arthurian Legend in Medieval Latin, ed. S. Echard (Cardiff, 2011), pp. 85–108 (pp. 87–8); O. Szerwiniack, ‘L’epistola ad Warinum d’Henri d’Huntingdon, première adaptation latine de l’Historia regum Britanniae’, in L’Historia regum Britanniae et les “Bruts”

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum Of course, many historians add more information to their texts over time. Yet I would suggest that there is a distinction between, on the one hand, accumulating information in the process of writing history, and on the other, accumulating information and then arranging that material so that it offers complementary yet nevertheless distinct historiographical frameworks. The former is a kind of archive-building, while the latter is rather like adding new artifacts to a permanent museum exhibition. While Henry’s many revisions pile up information, he does not collect that information for the sake of simply having it, or even for the sake of representing the whole of God’s creation, as medieval encyclopedists might do. As his history grows in scope, he takes the opportunity to curate his carefully selected array of perspectives, resulting in ever-increasing varietas in the Historia. Since Henry accumulates genres as well as historical information, it is likely that his revisions are aimed at more than incorporating new historical data into his history. In writing version two of the Historia, for example, Henry develops an epilogue in which he imagines conversations with those living in 135, 1135, 2135, and so forth.76 There, he indulges in what we might call speculative history, in which the historian envisions rather than predicts the future, again in the hopes of urging readers towards contemptus mundi. Later, Henry transformed this epilogue into the introduction to a collection of letters (book viii), and then added yet another collection, this time of English miracles (book ix), before finally providing an account of recent English history (book x). In one way or another, each of his revisions either adds to the Historia a kind of historical writing that had not appeared in earlier versions – e.g., letters, miracle stories, competing battle speeches – or describes periods of history that Henry has already covered from a different analytical perspective – political history alternates with ecclesiastical history, national history is complemented by universal history, and so forth. Ultimately, the Historia is more than the sum of its parts. Occasional verse, amplification, the descriptio Britanniae, stylistic embellishment, revisions – none of these features is particularly unusual in English historiography of this period. Yet when they appear alongside each other, in the right circumstances, they can convey to a text a degree of prosimetry.

76

en Europe, I: Traductions, adaptations, réappropriations (XIIe-XVIe siècle), ed. H. Tétrel and G. Veysseyre (Paris, 2015), pp. 41–52; and N. Wright, ‘The Place of Henry of Huntingdon’s Epistola ad Warinum in the Text-History of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie: A Preliminary Investigation’, in France and the British Isles in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Essays by Members of Girton College, Cambridge, in Memory of Ruth Morgan, ed. G. Jondorf and D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 71–113 (pp. 77–88). HH, HA viii.Epilogue (pp. 494–501).

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The poet-philosopher as historian Further evidence for the Historia’s indebtedness to prosimetrum lies in its embrace of contemptus mundi and its approach to narrative voice. Prosimetra, we recall, find meaning in limited viewpoints and philosophical fallacies by constructing dialogues. Prosimetrists typically create a strong first-person narrative voice, and then create dialogues between narrator, audience and other imagined interlocutors to show how the seemingly individual experiences of that narrator are in fact shared by others. Moreover, the link between narrator and audience means that, when the narrator is exposed to new perspectives through dialogue with others, the audience will be exposed to those perspectives as well, allowing both to explore whatever universal truth or cosmological principle has escaped the narrator’s comprehension. The same features – a strong narrative voice, the expansion of the narrator’s perspective, and the use of dialogue to expand philosophical horizons – all appear in the Historia, and their presence allows Henry to address the question that haunts the Historia: what is the purpose of writing history? The strong narrative voice central to prosimetrum can be seen in Henry’s emphasis on his own historiographical authority. He frequently gives the impression of having seen important people and events himself.77 He twice tells readers that he will use his own firsthand knowledge when his narrative reaches the times ‘que uel ipsi uidimus, uel ab his qui uiderant audiuimus’ (‘that I have either seen for myself or heard about from those who did see them’).78 Such language is fairly typical of medieval historians’ interest in propping up their historiographical authority by emphasizing their own eyewitness testimony or their proximity to those who had seen whatever events the historian is describing.79 Yet Henry’s statement is noteworthy for its inaccuracy. While Henry continues to rely on written sources until 1133, he tells readers that he relies on his own knowledge and networks from 1088 onwards. Even if he emphasizes the year 1088 in particular because he was born in that year, as has been suggested, this comment still represents an unusual insertion of Henry’s own personal life into the Historia, for it means that Henry has treated his birth as a major structural element in the Historia.80 Indeed, this is only one of several references to his personal life: for example, Henry mentions the death of his father Nicholas, and his early acquaintance with Bishop Robert Bloet.81 These features are not particularly rare, especially in medieval historiography, but from a prosimetric perspective, they are signs 77 78 79 80 81

Ibid., pp. lii–liii. Ibid. vii.1 (pp. 412–13); cf. ibid. Prologue (pp. 6–7). Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 183–7. Gillingham, ‘Time’, pp. 161–2; Greenway, ‘Authority’, pp. 110–11; and HH, HA, p. lxxxv. See, respectively, HH, HA vii.27 (pp. 458–9) and viii.Contemptus.1 (pp. 586–7).

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum of a strong authorial presence. Henry even refers to himself as both a scriptor and as the ‘huius auctor historie’ (‘author of this History’), rather than a compilator (compiler), even though he compiles his own work with others’, most notably Bede’s.82 In this way, he presents his text as the product of one voice (or hand). The auctor and the scriptor are both engaged in solitary enterprises; the compilator works with others, even if only in textual form. In another echo of prosimetric convention, Henry blurs the line between that strong, self-referential narrative persona and the perspectives of readers.83 In poems about recent events, Henry gives the sense that their author is experiencing history alongside his readers. When Henry addresses specific figures in those poems, his voice is universalized, either because he speaks for the “common weal” or because he has taken on the role of moral chastiser.84 Such features also appear in prose passages. His battle sequences often include some description of what readers would have seen, had they been there.85 To give a very different example, Henry begins his letter to Warin in book viii by telling his friend that he has just found Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, and that he wishes to share this new information with him.86 This kind of personal detail creates a feeling of camaraderie between Henry, who has just heard some piece of new information, and his readers, whom he immediately tells. In fact, all of Henry’s letters recreate the paradoxical relationship between author’s and readers’ voices typical of prosimetrum.87 By its very nature, epistolography contains a first-person narrative voice that frames the rest of the discourse, no matter how sublimated that voice may become during the course of the letter. At the same time, epistolography places the voice of the first-person narrator into the mouth of the reader, who, while he or she reads, speaks the “I” of the letter writer as if it were his or her own, thus blending the voice of narrator and reader. There is dialogue too, of course, in the way that sender and recipient engage in conversation. Letters are shaped by the conventions of dialogue, whether or not that dialogue has been preserved 82

83 84 85 86 87

Ibid. viii.Epilogue.3 (pp. 496–7). For discussion, see E. J. Bryan, Collaborative Meaning in Medieval Scribal Culture: The Otho Laȝamon (Ann Arbor, 1999), pp. 21–3; D. Greenway, ‘Henry of Huntingdon and Bede’, in L’historiographie médiévale en Europe. Actes du colloque organisé par la Fondation Européenne de la Science au Centre de Recherches Historiques et Juridiques de l’Université Paris I du 29 mars au 1er avril 1989, ed. J.-P. Genet (Paris, 1991), pp. 43–50 (pp. 45–50); and Plassmann, ‘Legacy’, pp. 183–92. Otter also notes this feature, though not its prosimetry (‘Prolixitas’, p. 57). For example, see the poems addressed to Queen Matilda in HH, HA vii.30 (pp. 462–3) and Henry I in vii.31 (pp. 464–5). Greenway, ‘Authority’, p. 109. HH, HA viii.Warin.1 (pp. 558–9). For further discussion of the role of epistolography in medieval historiography, see H. Bainton, ‘Epistolary Documents in High-Medieval History Writing’, Interfaces 4 (2017), 9–38 (pp. 15–19).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century or indeed, whether an exchange of letters ever took place. Henry’s use of epistolography thus allows him to recreate the hallmarks of prosimetrum’s treatment of voice – the individuation of the narrator’s voice and the use of dialogue to universalize that voice – in prose alone. In fact, dialogues of all sorts appear with striking frequency throughout the Historia. The battle speeches of book x (discussed above) offer one example of staged conversation, but there are several others, such as the genealogy of the Franks, which is couched as a record of a conversation between Henry I and some learned person.88 Furthermore, many of the most overtly philosophical passages in the Historia are constructed as dialogues between real or imagined interlocutors. For example, at the end of book ix, Henry converses with an imaginary ‘aliquis’ (‘someone’) who questions why no miracles are performed in the present day.89 Henry then provides an explanation, creating a conversation between himself and this Doubting Thomas. Similarly, in chapter 5 of his epilogue, Henry invents an ‘aliquis’ (‘someone’) who asks Henry why he even bothers to discuss the future when the end of the world is nigh.90 Henry quotes Herbert, bishop of Norwich, to respond to this criticism, again creating a conversation around some philosophical conundrum. Henry’s famous apostrophes to his contemporaries and those living in future millennia also create imagined dialogues between the living and the dead.91 Like many other prosimetrists, then, Henry combines a strong narrative voice with a universalizing dialogue supported by several different voices. Henry’s adoption of prosimetric varietas has consequences for his historiographical practice. It leads him to present the figure of the historian as both eyewitness (individual voice) and spokesperson for the nation (universal voice). It also results in a reconceptualization of the idea of historiographical authority, for it presumes that history is both a one-way transfer of knowledge (individual voice) and a conversation in which the historian invites a response from his audience (universal voice). Finally, it encourages the preservation (rather than adaptation) of sources. Unlike William of Malmesbury, Henry prefers to copy his sources in their original form.92 He explicitly states the philosophical reasons for this fidelity in the discussion that precedes his translation of the Battle of Brunanburh into Latin prose: De cuius prelii magnitudine Anglici scriptores quasi carminis modo proloquentes, et extraneis tam uerbis quam figuris usi translatione fida donandi

88 89 90 91 92

HH, HA vii.38 (pp. 478–81). Ibid. ix.53 (pp. 694–5). Ibid. viii.Epilogue.5 (pp. 496–7). Ibid. viii.Epilogue.4 (pp. 496–7). Greenway, ‘Authority’, pp. 107–8; and HH, HA, pp. lxxxv. See also Fisher, Authorship, pp. 83–4. On William of Malmesbury, see chapter 2, p. 82.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum sunt. Vt pene de uerbo in uerbum eorum interpretantes eloquium ex grauitate uerborum grauitatem actuum et animorum gentis illius condiscamus. (The English writers describe the magnitude of this battle in a kind of song, using strange words and figures of speech, which must be given a faithful translation, rendering their eloquence almost word for word, so that from the solemnity of the words we may learn of the solemnity of the deeds and thoughts of that people.)93

This is not simply a restatement of the time-honored principle that the style of historical writing should match the caliber of the events or people it describes.94 Instead, Henry argues that translating Brunanburh as literally as possible is crucial for preserving not just the history but what we might call the very spirits, or hearts, or even dispositions (‘animorum’) of the people involved. Moreover, he acts on this argument by translating the Battle of Brunanburh in a Latin style that mimics Old English.95 Nor is this an isolated incident, for Henry adopts a similar approach when translating shorter snippets of Old English as well.96 Granted, he does employ some classicisms in his translation.97 However, this does not suggest he is trying to classicize the Anglo-Saxon past. On the contrary, he is attempting to find ways of conveying Old English culture in a manner recognizable to twelfth-century readers of Latin. Even if Henry views Latin as superior to English, he does not view that superiority as a reason for eliminating the latter (as William of Malmesbury had suggested).98 In this way, the literality of Henry’s treatment of his sources – no matter their language – illuminates his philosophy of history, and in particular, his belief that historical voices must be preserved in order to ensure that no piece of the historical puzzle is lost. For Henry, then, history’s moral benefit emerges from the dialogue between historian, source, and audience. To gain the greatest benefit, the largest number of voices must be preserved. Note, though, that Henry preserves those voices by mixing languages together, creating a style of Latin prose with poetic undertones derived from Old English. Here Henry’s embrace of Christian rather than classical varietas is on full display. Classical varietas, as epitomized in William’s Gesta regum, would recommend either quoting the English directly, translating it into a contemporary Latin style, or simply referring to Old English poetry in absentia. Instead, Henry’s Christian 93 94 95

96 97 98

HH, HA v.18 (pp. 310–11). Greenway, ‘Authority’, p. 108. For excellent discussions of Henry’s translation, see Rigg, ‘Metrical’, pp. 65–72; and K. J. Tiller, ‘Anglo-Norman Historiography and Henry of Huntingdon’s Translation of The Battle of Brunanburh’, Studies in Philology 109.3 (2012), 173–91. Rigg, ‘Metrical’, pp. 64–5. Tiller, ‘Historiography’, pp. 179–81. On Henry’s privileging of Latin over Old English, see ibid., pp. 177, 189–90.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century varietas inspires him to mix Latin and English together, blending rather than balancing these two languages. It therefore echoes the polyvocality and linguistic play of prosimetrum more than it does the fitting decorum of the classical auctores. The Historia thus shows what happens when a historian uses Christian rather than classical varietas as the paradigm governing his literary and historiographical practice. In such texts, history itself can begin to take on the appearance of a prosimetrum, twisting its literary forms to make a philosophical point. Yet the differences between the Historia and “true” prosimetra are also instructive, because they reveal just how experimental a historian Henry is willing to be. Unlike other prosimetrists, Henry does not revel in esoteric vocabulary or metrical innovation for the sake of upending authority. On the contrary, Henry’s translations can be read as an attempt to restore the natural order of the world, which is disrupted when the past is lost. When discussing his dearth of historical information about the Picts, Henry writes, ‘Quamuis Picti iam uideantur deleti, et lingua eorum omnino destructa, ita ut iam fabula uideatur, quod in ueterum scriptis eorum mentio inuenitur’ (‘The Picts, however, appear to have been annihilated and their language utterly destroyed, so that the record of them in the writings of the ancients seems like fiction’).99 Without historical writing, then, truth risks becoming fiction. Moreover, this destabilization of fact is theologically risky, as Henry’s conclusion to this chapter reveals: ‘Et si de aliis mirum non esset, de lingua tamen quam unam inter ceteras Deus ab exordio linguarum instituit, mirandum uidetur’ (‘And if there were nothing surprising in other respects, yet it must seem amazing as regards their language, which was one of those established by God at the very beginning of languages’).100 For Henry, forgetting the past is dangerous not just because it disrupts the continuity of a people’s identity (as many of Henry’s contemporaries also assert), but also because it subverts natural order, giving humans the ability to ‘annihilate’ (‘deleti’) a part of God’s divinely-ordered creation.101 Henry’s translation of Brunanburh follows a similar justification. The unfamiliarity of Old English in Henry’s day is the spark that prompts Henry’s attempt to save the language and hence the spirit of England’s earlier inhabitants. His aim is not purely ‘celebration’, then, but rather the preservation of early English culture, which played a pivotal role in (Henry’s understanding of) God’s plan for the island of Britain more generally.102 In this way, the prosimetry of Henry’s Historia dallies with linguistic playfulness, but its purpose is deadly serious. That seriousness emerges in 99

HH, HA i.8 (pp. 24–5). i.8 (pp. 24–5). 101 On continuity and identity, see my introduction, p. 8. 102 On the poem as a ‘celebration’, see Tiller, ‘Historiography’, p. 190; on providential history in Henry’s Brunanburh translation, see ibid., pp. 181–9. 100 Ibid.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum other deviations from the model of prosimetrum as well. In general, Henry is eager to tap into prosimetrum’s philosophical utility, but he shies away from its subversiveness. For one thing, Henry does not embrace pseudo-authorities or fabricate sources. He follows Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica and other histories because they are authoritative; he embraces Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae because he believes it to be credible; and when he refers to stories he had heard from old men, he signals his faith in the value of oral, eyewitness testimony.103 Similarly, Henry does not mock authorities, as authors of prosimetra often do. The closest he comes to ridiculing intellectual elites is his depiction of John of Crema. Henry takes some pleasure in noting the prelate’s hypocrisy and humiliation: soon after John denounced clerical marriage, he was found in bed with a ‘meretrice’ (‘whore’).104 But Henry’s scorn here is prompted by contempt, not the gleeful upending of accepted wisdom, and his words are too disdainful (and, we might even say, bitter) to be humorous in the prosimetric sense. Thus, while Henry’s Historia undoubtedly shares similarities with prosimetrum, these differences reveal the extent to which Henry considers the philosophical conundrum of his work – the place of the individual soul within providential history – no laughing matter. Here it may be useful to return to Henry’s willingness to unseat God from a position of authority in the concluding poem to book viii’s letter to Walter. Henry transforms Walter into the supreme gift-giver not because he seeks to undermine God’s authority, but rather because he hopes his allusion to the Incarnation will teach readers that each person is responsible for saving his or her own soul. That Henry’s Historia aims to shape the spirituality of individuals rather than the course of nations is clear from Henry’s constant emphasis on contemptus mundi rather than cultural revival, political arguments or the other kinds of ideas that receive attention from medieval historians. He seems to have seriously attempted to make national history – to use the parlance of modern pedagogy – “relevant”, and to ensure that it bestows upon its students “transferable skills”. For all of Henry’s literary inventiveness, then, the Historia remains a resolutely orthodox text, dedicated to the spiritual improvement of readers rather than the toppling of authority. In the Historia, prosimetrum maintains its ability to engage in philosophical dialogue, but it has lost its characteristic rebelliousness. If there is any upending of hierarchies in the Historia, it emerges not from Henry’s mockery of the intellectual elite, but rather from the way that Henry works to save the souls of individual readers, of any stature, as well as the English people as a whole. Prosimetrum, which is nearly 103 See,

respectively, HH, HA Prologue (pp. 6–7), viii.Warin.1 (pp. 558–9), and vi.2 (pp. 340–1). For discussion, see Greenway, ‘Authority’, pp. 106–9; Greenway, ‘Bede’, pp. 43–5; and Putter, ‘Latin’, pp. 86–8. 104 HH, HA vii.36 (pp. 472–5, quote pp. 474–5).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century always concerned with the relationship of the individual soul to the cosmos, is well-suited to that task. Yet in order to achieve this goal, Henry allows prosimetrum’s subversive potential to slide quietly to the side, unnoticed.

Chaos theory Clearly, Henry has a deep concern for the souls of his readers, and that impulse has shaped his text. Yet that does not mean the Historia’s varietas is divorced from political considerations. On the contrary, the text blends politics and spirituality to advance the theme of contemptus mundi, as its numerous dating schemas show. Henry usually dates events by referring to the regnal year in which the event occurred. For example, instead of saying that an event happened in the year 878, Henry will say that an event happened ‘Alfredi regis anno septimo’ (‘In King Alfred’s seventh year’).105 This system of dates dominates books i– vii and x – that is, every book in the Historia that is not a compilation of letters (book viii), miracle stories (book ix), or poems (books xi and xii, which appear only in some manuscripts). First, Roman emperors are the rulers whose regnal years are used to date the Historia’s events; later, Henry uses the kings of Wessex and eventually, the kings of England.106 In this way, he is able to depict the current English monarchy as the legitimate heirs of a long process of civilizing and political development that began with the Roman conquest of Britain.107 This kind of progression obviously supports Henry’s narrative of political consolidation, but it also provides a framework for understanding England’s history of conquest and its relationship with Rome. Henry’s second dating system complements his use of regnal years. When describing events taking place outside Wessex or, later, England, Henry provides what his editor calls ‘synchronisms’, that is, ‘chronological reference-points rather than a fixed incarnational time-scale’.108 For example, Henry notes that Æthelberht, king of Kent, died in the sixth year of the reign of Cynegils, king of Wessex; likewise, he says that William the Conqueror won the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes in the sixth year of Edward the Confessor’s reign.109 Henry’s centering of Wessex in these synchronisms is explicit and purposeful; he states that ‘Quam ob causam omnium aliorum tempora regnorum ad hos

105 Ibid.

v.8 (pp. 288–9). p. lxiv. 107 Greenway, ‘Authority’, pp. 108–9; Greenway, ‘Bede’, pp. 47–8; HH, HA, pp. lx–lxi, lxiv–v; Hoofnagle, ‘Legacy’, pp. 80–8; Mortensen, ‘Roman’, pp. 313–15; and Tiller, ‘Historiography’, pp. 181–9. See also Wright’s discussion of Henry’s treatment of the classical past in ‘Receptions’, pp. 185, 187. 108 HH, HA, p. lxiv; cf. Greenway, ‘Authority’, p. 109. 109 See, respectively, HH, HA ii.30 (pp. 114–15) and vi.21 (pp. 374–5). 106 Ibid.,

112

Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum reges applicare libet. Vt sicut horum potential creuit, ita tempora regnorum per eos dinoscantur’ (‘On account of [Wessex’s dominance], the dates of all the other kingdoms are measured relative to those kings. So in the same way that their power grew, the dates of the kingdoms may be reckoned by reference to them’).110 Throughout the Historia, the English crown remains the basis of Henry’s synchronisms, whether that means tracking the rulers of Wessex or Anglo-Norman England. Moreover, as in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum, the kinds of non-English events that Henry relates always connect back to England in some fashion. For example, Henry often mentions events in Normandy, such as Rollo’s arrival, the death of Rollo’s son William, William the Conqueror’s childhood, and so forth.111 Like his system of regnal years, then, Henry’s synchronisms reinforce the Historia’s political narrative, in which authority over England passes from the Romans to the English to the Normans, again helping readers understand England’s conquests and its relationship to the wider world. These two dating systems create varietas both individually and collectively. Regnal years embody the garland model of varietas: within the overarching chain of time, each king’s reign represents one link, and groups of links join together to create larger sections of time. Meanwhile, synchronisms follow varietas’s meadow model, by directing readers’ gaze back and forth between English and European history, thus giving readers a sense of how both historical narratives fit with each other, and within the larger framework of human history. Mixing these two systems together – that is, using both systems simultaneously, rather than alternating between them (as William of Malmesbury did) – is also an example of Christian varietas. By forcing readers to make a series of jumps across both time and space, Henry’s many-layered varietas allows readers to comprehend the fullness of English political history. At the same time, Henry balances these dating systems based on human lifespans (regnal years and synchronisms) with a system based on Christ’s lifespan. Henry mostly avoids providing the incarnational year (that is, years determined by the birth of Christ rather than some earthly king) for historical events, even when they appear in his sources, and even though incarnational years were the most common system of dating in this period.112 However, he does provide anno Domini dates for events of great significance, typically conquests and conversions, such as the years in which the Romans and Anglo-Saxons first arrived in Britain, and the year in which Gregory the Great sent missionaries to the English.113 In the early books of the Historia, he draws many of his dates from Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, but he continues this

110 Ibid.

ii.16 (pp. 96–7). respectively, ibid. v.7 (pp. 286–7), v.20 (pp. 314–15), and vi.18 (pp. 368–9). 112 Greenway, ‘Authority’, p. 109; and HH, HA, pp. lxiii–lxiv. 113 HH, HA i.12 (pp. 30–1), ii.1 (pp. 78–9), and iii.1 (pp. 138–9). 111 See,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century approach even when not relying on Bede as his source.114 At the beginning of book vi, for example, Henry notes that Norman influence on England began in the year 1000, and he provides numbered dates for each year from 1000–16, the year in which Æthelred died.115 Later in that same book, Henry also names 1066 as the year of the Norman Conquest.116 Meanwhile, book vii tells readers that the First Crusade began in 1096, that William Rufus died in 1100, and that the White Ship disaster occurred in 1120.117 Henry’s fondness for calling attention to important years may also explain why he continues to state that he completed the Historia in 1135, even after he brought the Historia’s narrative past that date: Henry I died in 1135, sparking the civil war that would occupy book x of the Historia, and Henry would certainly have considered 1135 a significant date for that reason.118 By assigning anno Domini dates for key events in English history, Henry offers a reader-friendly history of God’s plan for England, much like rubrication or a chapter heading might. At the same time, they also expand the varietas of the dating systems based on human lifespans, by adding another dating system that mingles another temporal perspective – that is, Christian time, measured in years relative to the birth of Christ. The Historia also includes non-temporal mnemonic categories which offer even more ways of tracking the passage of time. Book viii’s treatise on contemptus mundi organizes its exempla into six thematic groups (churchmen, high-status individuals who suffered a reversal of fortune, those who pride themselves on their worldly wisdom, and so forth).119 Insular history can be summarized as a progression of five plagues (Romans, Picts and Scots, English, Danes, and Normans), or as a sequence of English bretwaldas, or overkings.120 Book iv counts the eight kings who gave up their crowns in order to join religious orders; book ix repeats that list.121 As with the Historia’s incarnational years, some of these lists and paradigms are inspired by or adapted from Bede or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Henry clearly appreciates the accessibility and mnemonic utility of these lists.122 At the same time, 114 Ibid.,

p. lxiv n. 42. Bede had his own reasons for using incarnational dates; see M. Mac Carron, ‘Christology and the Future in Bede’s Annus Domini’, in Bede and the Future, ed. P. Darby and F. Wallis (Farnham, 2014), pp. 161–80. 115 HH, HA vi.1–vi.11 (pp. 338–57). 116 Ibid. vi.27 (pp. 384–5). 117 See, respectively, ibid. vii.5 (pp. 422–3), vii.22 (pp. 446–7), and vii.32 (pp. 466–7). 118 On earlier versions of the epilogue with different dates, see ibid., pp. lxx–lxxv, cxlvii–cxlviii; and Pohl, ‘When Did’, pp. 156–7. Both discuss earlier scholarship on this question. See also Otter, ‘Prolixitas’, p. 57. 119 Greenway, ‘Authority’ p. 112. 120 See, respectively, HH, HA i.4 (pp. 14–15) and ii.23 (pp. 104–5). 121 See ibid. iv.5 (pp. 216–17), iv.7 (pp. 220–3), iv.10 (pp. 226–9), iv.16 (pp. 234–9), iv.21 (pp. 248–9), and ix.5 (pp. 626–7). For discussion, see ibid., p. lxv. 122 Ibid., pp. lviii–lix, lxi–lxii; Partner, Serious, pp. 22–5; and Plassmann, ‘Legacy’, pp. 184–92.

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum their sporadic rather than systematic presence amidst so many methods for reckoning time can blur the Historia’s narrative trajectory. It could even be argued that, due to the number of dating systems, the fact that some dating systems use the same unit of measurement while others adopt complementary frameworks, and the way that all these dating systems overlap, the Historia’s temporal variety confuses readers instead of pointing them to Henry’s interpretation of history. Yet it is also possible that the Historia aims to confuse. In a varius text, confusion can be aesthetically pleasing.123 It can also be productive, spurring readers to continue through the text, looking for the resolution to the philosophical question that started it all: what is the purpose of historical writing? Henry’s vivid memories of his deceased friends offer a particularly poignant answer: Cogita igitur quomodo predicte persone uenerabiles exinanite sunt, et mox obliuione eterna absorbende sunt. Immo mente reuolue omnes quos in choro dextro, omnes quos in choro sinistro prius uidimus. Nec unus quidem iam superest. […] Cogitemus igitur quia similiter et nos eadem manet obliuioni. Curemus omni nisu querere quod duret. (Consider, then, how these same revered dignitaries have been deprived of life and will soon be swallowed by everlasting oblivion. Turn over in your mind all those whom we saw in the old days on the right of the choir, and on the left. Not one of them now survives. […] Let us consider then that the same death and oblivion await us. So let us make every effort to seek what will endure.)124

This image of the empty choir is, like the two-sided ambush I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, a metaphor for varietas, and full of the stylistic features that enable varietas’s ability to create a ductus through a text. By looking to the right, and then to the left, the reader’s attention is shifted between the Historia’s many threads: historical narrative and devotional treatise, English history and universal history, political history and ecclesiastical history, and so forth. None of these narratives possesses a monopoly on truth; all are necessary for a full understanding of the past. Gaining all those perspectives can be challenging, even disorienting; but, for Henry, it is also a path to wisdom. 111 In the Historia, then, Henry transposes from prosimetrum to national history both a process of philosophical questioning and a set of formal tools that can

123 Fitzgerald, 124 HH,

Variety, pp. 64–6. HA viii.Contemptus.4 (pp. 592–3).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century be used to undertake that process. By using rhetorical varietas to guide readers to an understanding of Britain’s place within God’s creation, Henry suggests that historical writing can overcome the ruptures between past and present, and between God and the individual soul. Of course, in prosimetra, it is often uncertain whether the narrator or the reader resolves his philosophical crisis. The same can be said for the Historia: do Henry’s readers ever feel as though they have determined the value of history?125 The ending of the Historia is ambiguous on this point. On the one hand, the Historia concludes on an optimistic note, thanks to the end of the civil war and the accession of Henry II. Yet this sunny outlook is marred by the text’s incompleteness. Henry promises to continue his narrative in a new book, but no such work survives, if it ever existed at all.126 The text’s success as a work of contemptus mundi is also unclear, since Henry’s philosophizing is often the first thing to be eliminated by later historians who used his work.127 Even book viii’s treatise on contemptus mundi ends inconclusively: Henry’s friend ‘Walter’, to whom his treatise is addressed, dies before receiving it, prompting the epitaph I examined earlier. This ending is satisfying, in a way, but it also negates the ostensible purpose of the treatise: if the point was saving Walter’s soul, then Henry is clearly too late. The Historia’s various endings are a symptom of writing contemporary history, yet there is also something fitting in the way that Henry denies his readers a clear answer to the text’s central question. The Historia feels chaotic at times, especially when read alongside William’s stately juxtaposition of English and Roman history. (One can only imagine what William’s reaction to Henry’s Brunanburh translation would have been.) While William offers readers a Scylla and Charybdis to sail between, Henry seems to have given readers a map of the Mediterranean and told them to find their own way. But it is important to bear in mind that the ductus of Henry’s narrative is designed to bewilder its audience, for that experience of discomfort is precisely what Henry believes will drive his readers to keep moving through the narrative and ultimately, to fix their eyes on heaven rather than earth. Varietas demands not that all its pieces fit together perfectly, but rather that their combination creates some larger sense of harmony.128 The Historia sets its sights on the latter goal, and disregards the former, and even uses a lack of fittingness to push its readers towards wisdom. As a result, William’s Gesta regum has received more accolades from modern historians than Henry’s Historia.

125 Cf.

Partner, Serious, pp. 37–8. HA x.40 (pp. 774–7). 127 Robert of Torigni, for example, specifically minimizes these references. See D. Bates, ‘Robert of Torigni and the Historia Anglorum’, in The English and Their Legacy, 900–1200: Essays in Honour of Ann Williams, ed. D. Roffe (Woodbridge, 2012), pp. 175–84 (p. 181). 128 Fitzgerald, Variety, p. 69. 126 HH,

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Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum Still, Henry might not have minded later audiences’ sense that the Historia’s carefully constructed chaos is a sign of Henry’s literary shortcomings. After all, by convincing readers that his writing is deficient, he has only reminded them that ‘hec nichil sunt’ (‘these present things are nothing’).129

129 HH,

HA viii.Contemptus.4 (pp. 592–3).

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4 ‘Continuously and in order’: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (c. 1138, henceforth Historia) is not an obvious place to look for historiographical varietas, for several reasons.1 First, many scholars contend that Geoffrey’s emphasis on genealogy and dynasty allows him to create a continuous, teleological foundation narrative in support of his own political agenda (whatever that may be).2 The kind of continuous historical writing envisioned by these scholars differs significantly from the kinds of historiographical varietas I examine in this book, because the latter advances its interpretations of history by foregrounding political discontinuities, not continuous genealogies. Second, Geoffrey’s Historia was extremely popular (it survives in over 220 manuscripts) and influential (it was the direct or indirect source for many narratives about early Britain until the early modern period).3 As a result, its purported genealogical (rather than varius) structure can be said to have contributed to the increasing interest in genealogy in Britain during the later Middle Ages.4 Finally, Geoffrey casts himself as the foil to his English contemporaries, both explicitly in his prologue and colophon, and implicitly 1

2

3

4

For a discussion of the dating of the Historia, see J. Tahkokallio, ‘Publishing the History of the Kings of Britain’, in L’Historia regum Britannie et les “Bruts” en Europe, II: Production, circulation et réception (XIIe-XVIe siècle), ed. H. Tétrel and G. Veysseyre (Paris, 2018), pp. 45–57. For example, see R. R. Davies, The Matter of Britain and the Matter of England: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford, 29 February 1996 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 3–4; M. A. Faletra, ‘The Conquest of the Past in the History of the Kings of Britain’, Literature Compass 4.1 (2007), 121–33 (pp. 127–8); Faletra, ‘Narrating’, pp. 63–9; L. A. Finke and M. B. Shichtman, King Arthur and the Myth of History (Gainesville, 2004), pp. 37–8, 72–3; and Radulescu, ‘Genealogy’, pp. 8–12. Manuscripts of the Historia continue to come to light, making it difficult to provide a firm number. For descriptions of all known manuscripts at this time, see (in order) J. C. Crick, The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, III: A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1989); Crick, ‘Two Newly Located Manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae’, AL 13 (1995), 151–6; J. Tahkokallio, ‘Update to the List of Manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae’, AL 32 (2015), 187–203; and Tahkokallio, ‘Early Manuscript Dissemination’, in Companion, ed. Henley and Smith, pp. 155–80 (p. 155 n. 1). For a helpful overview of this phenomenon, see R. L. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy, ‘Introduction’, in Broken Lines, ed. Radulescu and Kennedy, pp. 1–6.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae throughout his Historia.5 Since (as previous chapters have shown) English historians wrote and interpreted history with the help of varietas, Geoffrey’s elevation of continuous genealogy can be interpreted as a rejoinder to the varietas of English historians such as William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. Yet Geoffrey’s political sentiments and purposes for writing remain continual subjects of debate, with scholars holding mutually incompatible views of Geoffrey’s work.6 His relationship with English historiography is no different. On the one hand, Geoffrey’s literary methods owe more to English historians than he claims.7 His Historia imitates the basic structure of both William’s and Henry’s histories, in his use of sparse details at the beginning and end of his narrative, coupled with an expansive account of

5

6

7

For example, see Davies, Matter, pp. 9–11; J. Gillingham, ‘The Context and Purposes of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain’, in The English in the Twelfth Century, pp. 19–39 (pp. 25–31); Howlett, ‘Literary Context’, pp. 42–4; S. Levelt, ‘Citation and Misappropriation in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie and the Anglo-Latin Historical Tradition’, in Citation, Intertextuality and Memory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Volume 2: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Medieval Culture, ed. G. Di Bacco and Y. Plumley (Liverpool, 2013), pp. 137–47 (pp. 140–3); and K. Robertson, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Insular Historiography’, Arthuriana 8.4 (1998), 42–57. There are more nuanced views as well. For example, Faletra finds similarities between William of Malmesbury’s and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s politics, if not always their methods (‘Narrating’, pp. 61–72, 75, 82). For shared humanism (but not shared politics) between Henry of Huntingdon and Geoffrey of Monmouth, see Mortensen, ‘Roman’, pp. 312, 315. For an overview of the debate about Geoffrey’s political sentiments (with bibliography), see Faletra, ‘Conquest’, pp. 121–33. Of the many scholarly works examining Geoffrey’s possible reasons for writing the HRB, I offer a small sampling. For the pro-Norman argument, see Faletra, ‘Narrating’, pp. 60–85; and Ingledew, ‘Troy’, pp. 686–8. For the pro-Welsh argument, see M. Aurell, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance’, HSJ 18 (2007 for 2006), 1–18 (pp. 5–9); and Gillingham, ‘Context’, pp. 99–118. For the pro-Breton argument, see J. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and Its Early Vernacular Versions (Berkeley, 1950), pp. 396–402. The argument that Geoffrey is a product of the Welsh Marches tends to combine many of the perspectives enumerated above. See, for example, Davies, Matter, p. 7; J. Farrell, ‘History, Prophecy and the Arthur of the Normans: The Question of Audience and Motivation Behind Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae’, in AngloNorman Studies XXXVII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2014, ed. E. van Houts (Woodbridge, 2015), pp. 99–114 (p. 105); D. Helbert, ‘“Alienos Ortulos”: Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Gardens of Others’, JEGP 118.2 (2019), 211–33 (pp. 212–14, 231–3); and M. R. Warren, History on the Edge: Excalibur and the Borders of Britain, 1100–1300 (Minneapolis, 2000), pp. 25–59. For example, see C. N. L. Brooke, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth as a Historian’, in The Church and the Welsh Border in the Central Middle Ages, repr. from Church and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to C. R. Cheney on his 70th Birthday, ed. C. N. L. Brooke et al. (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 95–106 (pp. 83–4); Faletra, ‘Narrating’, pp. 61–72, 75, 82; and Mortensen, ‘Roman’, pp. 312, 315.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century important rulers in the early parts of the latter half of his history.8 It has also been argued that both Geoffrey and William embrace a relentless genealogical linearity, interpolating documents into their respective narratives ‘to cover up gaps or to forge transitions’, in the hopes of shoring up their histories’ continuity.9 On the other hand, it has been argued that Geoffrey adopts English historiographical norms in order to parody or criticize them.10 In this chapter, I argue that Geoffrey is sincere (rather than mocking) when he applies English historiographical varietas to British history. Yet that does not mean he is uncritical; he thinks through the logic of varietas, rather than accepting it wholesale, and he makes his own decisions about how and when to employ it. He even includes a scene in which two characters debate the merits of those contrasting perspectives. In this way, Geoffrey’s engagement with the English historiographical tradition lies not in the way that he ‘cover[s] up gaps’ like an English historian, but rather in the way that he, like William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, lingers in those gaps, varying the style and structure of his writing to help his readers find their way through the maze of history – and ensuring that they arrive at the same conclusion as him: that insular history is incomplete without British voices.

Genealogy, or garland? As I mentioned above, some scholars have termed both the Historia and the many histories that translate or retell Geoffrey’s narrative ‘genealogical’ or ‘dynastic’ histories, because they present a chronological, continuous narrative describing the reigns of a series of kings, each connected to the next by biology and sovereignty.11 Geoffrey’s Historia is one of the many such narratives produced in the high Middle Ages. For example, Middle English romances seek continuities in a similar way.12 However, I would suggest that scholarship on linear narratives in the Middle Ages has sometimes conflated

8 9 10

11

12

R. W. Hanning, The Vision of History in Early Medieval Britain: From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth (New York, 1966), pp. 135–6; and Tatlock, Legendary, pp. 392–5. Faletra, ‘Narrating’, p. 75. Brooke, ‘Historian’, pp. 96–102; V. I. J. Flint, ‘The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth: Parody and Its Purpose. A Suggestion’, Speculum 54.3 (1979), 447–68; and Robertson, ‘Translation’, pp. 43–9. Cf. W. J. R. Barron, F. Le Saux, and L. Johnson, ‘Dynastic Chronicles’, in The Arthur of the English: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval English Life and Literature, ed. W. J. R. Barron (Cardiff, 1999), pp. 11–46; Ingledew, ‘Troy’, pp. 674–81; and L. Johnson, ‘Etymologies, Genealogies, and Nationalities (Again)’, in Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. S. Forde, L. Johnson, and A. V. Murray (Leeds, 1995), pp. 125–33 (p. 127). S. Crane, Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley, 1986), pp. 13–91; and Radulescu, ‘Genealogy’, pp. 12–21.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae narratives that quietly hide their discontinuities (what I would call truly genealogical texts) and narratives that, like Geoffrey’s Historia, put the repair of those discontinuities on display for readers to see. Truly genealogical narratives provide the illusion of steady historical progress by creating a continuous, affiliated progression of kings that would meet the ideological needs of their audiences.13 Human biology provides the central structuring mechanism of such texts, creating order out of an otherwise unmarked sea of time and providing a cohesive overarching structure for the many micro-narratives joined paratactically to each other.14 Continuity is therefore key to genealogical narratives: just as one generation begets another, thereby ensuring that the family tree never dies out, so too does each period of time beget the next, harnessing the vagaries of historical accident into a teleological narrative that makes some claim about contemporary politics or power structures.15 Of course, the continuity of genealogical history is often an illusion.16 However, in true genealogical histories, complications of this sort are smoothed over by the overarching genealogical structure. Once superimposed onto history, genealogy becomes the lens through which readers view history. Discontinuities are not eliminated, but rather contained. Think, for example, of genealogical rolls: the form of the roll encourages viewers to appreciate the continuity of the dynastic line, even when the family tree veers from strict primogeniture. In a similar way, genealogical narration is a structural form that shapes how readers interpret historical events, encouraging them to see dynastic continuity over political discontinuity. In genealogical histories, the form of the narrative typically minimizes discontinuities, or narrates them in a way that suppresses their inherent instability, preventing them from undermining the integrity of the whole. Here, John Lydgate’s ‘Kings of England’ (1426) provides a useful example.17 In this poem, each king receives a stanza providing a brief history of his reign. The poem acknowledges discontinuities in the royal line through various techniques, for example by marking the 13

14 15 16

17

For particularly helpful discussions of this phenomenon in relation to Geoffrey of Monmouth, see Faletra, ‘Narrating’, pp. 63–9; Finke and Shichtman, Arthur, pp. 53–4; and Radulescu, ‘Genealogy’, pp. 8–10. G. Spiegel, ‘Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historiography’, in Past as Text, pp. 99–137 (pp. 103–9). Radulescu and Kennedy, ‘Introduction’, pp. 4–6; and Spiegel, ‘Genealogy’, pp. 105–8. For example, see Finke and Shichtman, Arthur, p. 54; K. McLoone, ‘Caesar’s Sword, Proud Britons, and Galfridian Myths of Discontinuity’, in Writing Down the Myths, ed. J. F. Nagy (Turnhout, 2013), pp. 181–200 (pp. 186–91); and Warren, History, pp. 9–11, 50–2. See text in The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, Part II: Secular Poems, ed. H. N. MacCracken with M. Sherwood, EETS OS 192 (London, 1961), pp. 710–16. For discussion, see L. R. Mooney, ‘Lydgate’s “Kings of England” and Another Verse Chronicle of the Kings’, Viator 20 (1989), 255–90.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century discord that led to the accession of Edmund Ironside by declining to mention Edmund’s name in the first line of the stanza, as is typical throughout the rest of the poem. Yet in the end, that threat of political discontinuity is sublimated by the stanzaic march through time presented by the rest of the poem. In purely continuous histories, such as Lydgate’s ‘Kings’, ruptures in the genealogical line of succession are transcended to the point that continuity obscures any challenges that discontinuities might hold over the narrative. Truly genealogical narratives therefore cannot rely on varietas. Certainly, varietas creates continuity between past and present, which is precisely what genealogies hope to achieve. Moreover, the garland model of varietas, with its paratactic juxtaposition of the reigns of kings, seems to offer an obvious structural paradigm for a genealogical narrative. Yet the manner in which varietas creates continuity is antithetical to the purpose of many genealogical histories. Variations of style and structure – intended to help readers find their way through the text – actively call attention to the very discontinuities that the genealogy is trying to obscure. For this reason, varietas is not an effective historiographical technique for would-be genealogists. Does the Historia’s narrative behave like a genealogy, or a garland? Certainly, the Historia is full of genealogical and dynastic discontinuities. Many of the Historia’s greatest heroes, most notably Brutus and Arthur, are the products of inappropriate relationships.18 Furthermore, there are several ruptures to the royal line of succession over the course of the Historia. Brutus’s lineage comes to an end with the deaths of Ferreux and Porrex; this leads to the accession of Dunuallo Molmutius (who gains the crown not through a blood claim, but thanks to his ability to defeat his rivals) at the end of book ii. Fraternal inheritance is also common, and several kings simply take the throne by defeating their rivals or deposing their predecessors. Even Arthur’s claim to the throne rests on his status ‘as the only son (illegitimately conceived with the aid of Merlin) of the fourth son of a king’.19 However, genealogies are full of such discontinuities. The question is whether the Historia’s forms elide or spotlight those discontinuities – and, by extension, whether Geoffrey sees historical continuity as something to be created or performed. Certainly, its narrative is comprised of the lifespans of individual kings tied together through their shared, sequential possession of a throne, and it possesses the parataxis frequently associated with genealogy.20 Yet compositeness and parataxis are not solely under the

18

19 20

L. Georgianna, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae: Lessons in Self-Fashioning for the Bastards of Britain’, in Crossing Boundaries: Issues of Cultural and Individual Identity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. S. McKee (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 3–25 (pp. 3–6, 22–3). McLoone, ‘Sword’, p. 188. For the former, see Cannon, Grounds, p. 56; and S. Echard, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’,

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae purview of genealogy; both, in fact, can contribute to varietas.21 Moreover, the Historia displays the sine qua non of a varius history: it overlaps formal and political discontinuity. Geoffrey changes the style of his writing when describing the great moments of rupture in British history. For example, when the Romans depart from Britain, paving the way for the Britons’ loss of sovereignty to the Saxons, Geoffrey indulges in a rare authorial lament: O diuinam ob praeterita scelera ultionem! O tot bellicosorum militum per uesaniam Maximiani absentiam! Qui si in tanta calamitate adessent, non superuenisset populus quem non in fugam propellerent. (Alas for the divine retribution upon their previous sins! Alas for the absence of so many warlike knights through Maximianus’s madness! Had they been faced with this disaster, they could have driven off any invading peoples, as they had demonstrated before they left, by conquering far-off lands and maintaining peace in Britain.)22

Similarly, Geoffrey channels his inner Gildas by launching a jeremiad (a long lament concluding with a prophecy of doom) in his account of Gormundus’s Donation, which precedes the conversion of the English.23 Both of these events lead directly to the transfer of sovereignty from the Britons to the English. The shift in tone therefore marks the end of British sovereignty. Stylistic varietas and political discontinuity thus go hand-in-hand in the Historia. Geoffrey’s approach to dating the events in his history also relates to political discontinuity. Geoffrey mostly avoids dating the events he describes. However, he includes the occasional synchronism, in which he tells readers what was happening elsewhere in the classical or biblical history at the same time as whatever event he is recounting in the Historia.24 The synchronisms appear at the dividing lines between episodes in the narrative, injecting variety to mark the end of one narrative and the beginning of another – a feature that would be even more obvious in manuscripts, which frequently mark such temporal signals visually for readers.25 Synchronisms also create

21 22 23 24

25

in Arthur of Medieval Latin, ed. S. Echard, pp. 45–66 (pp. 56–9). For the latter, see Radulescu, ‘Genealogy’, p. 9; and Spiegel, ‘Genealogy’, pp. 108–9. See chapter 1, pp. 25, 28, 32, 44. GM, HRB vi.91 (pp. 114–15). See, respectively, ibid. xi.185 (pp. 256–7) and xi.188 (pp. 258–9). For discussion, see N. Wright, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas’, AL 2 (1982), 1–40 (pp. 11–12). S. Echard, ‘Palimpsests of Place and Time in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie’, in Teaching and Learning in Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Gernot R. Wieland, ed. G. Dinkova-Bruun and T. Major (Leiden, 2017), pp. 43–60 (pp. 53–4); M. Miller, ‘Geoffrey’s Early Royal Synchronisms’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 28.3 (1979), 373–89; and P. Russell, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Classical and Biblical Inheritance’, in Companion, ed. Henley and Smith, pp. 67–104 (pp. 84–5). Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, p. 54; and Russell, ‘Inheritance’, p. 85.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century the sense that the narrative pace has quickened or slowed, creating further variety while also reinforcing the way that time, like political power, is fleeting.26 For example, at the end of his account of the foundation of Britain by Brutus, Geoffrey tells readers what leaders were ruling in Judea, Troy, and Italy.27 The synchronism offers a moment of structural variety that underscores the conclusion of Geoffrey’s foundation narrative. Geoffrey’s mention of the birth of Christ performs a similar function. According to Geoffrey, Christ was born during the reign of Kimbelinus, an otherwise unnoteworthy king.28 But Geoffrey’s three-sentence description of the reign of Kimbelinus appears between his long narratives describing the Britons’ subjugation to the Romans under Cassibellaunus and the uprising that begins under Kimbelinus’s son, Guider.29 As in William’s and Henry’s texts, clusters of formal variety occur at moments of political rupture. Geoffrey’s vivid account of Arthur’s reign, packed with detailed descriptions of councils, fabulous geography, monsters, and stirring battle speeches, jolts readers out of the text’s sequential framework, essentially shifting into a biographical mode to dwell on the reign of Britain’s most famous king.30 The distinction between the Arthurian narrative and the rest of the Historia is magnified by Geoffrey’s uncharacteristic insertion of his own voice at the beginning of book xi, just before his account of Arthur’s death. Geoffrey’s voice surfaces just at the moment when he shifts from writing celebratory biography to dispassionate history.31 Part of Geoffrey’s motivation for elevating his style and adapting his structure in books ix and x must surely derive from the standard rhetorical practice of keeping readers entertained and matching the materia of a text to its form, as well as a general desire to glorify Arthur and the Britons. But Geoffrey also structures his account of Arthur’s reign in a way that encourages readers to compare Arthur’s rise to power (book ix) and his imperial ambitions (book x), before witnessing the fallout of Arthur’s decision to leave Britain for Rome (at the beginning of book xi). The structure of these books therefore encourages reflection on the differences between Arthur the King and Arthur the Would-Be Emperor, and by extension, on the nature of power in general. Meanwhile, using style to differentiate between Arthur’s life and death reinforces the way that all kings, even Arthur, are eventually laid low, often in the manner that is least expected. These messages permeate the Historia, of course, but the noticeable shift in style and structure in Geoffrey’s Arthurian

26 27 28 29 30 31

Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, pp. 53–4; and Russell, ‘Inheritance’, p. 85. GM, HRB i.22 (pp. 30–1). Ibid. iv.64 (pp. 80–1). See, respectively, ibid. iv.54–63 (pp. 68–81) and iv.65–9 (pp. 80–7). See, respectively, ibid. ix.148–62 (pp. 200–23), ix.150 (pp. 202–3), x.165 (pp. 224–9), and x.169–70 (pp. 236–9). Echard, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’, pp. 57–8.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae narrative gives them a prominence and a poignancy that they lack in some of the more simplistically wrought parts of the Historia. In addition to amplification (the proliferation of detail, as in my example above), Geoffrey employs abbreviation (the elimination of narrative detail) to convey historical interpretations to his readers. Sometimes, he provides so little information about a king or series of kings that his Historia begins to resemble some combination of annals and king lists. The reigns of Rivallo and his heirs, for example, read more like annals than regnal history: Postremo defuncto Cunedagio successit ei Riuallo filius ipsius, iuuenis pacificus atque fortunatus, qui regnum cum diligentia gubernauit. In tempore eius tribus diebus cecidit pluuia sanguinea et muscarum affluentia homines moriebantur. Post hunc successit Gurgustius filius eius, cui Sisillius, cui Iago Gurgustii nepos, cui Kinmarcus Sisillii filius, post hunc Gorbodugo. (When Cunedagius finally died, he was succeeded by his son Rivallo, a peaceful and fortunate youth, who ruled the kingdom well. While he was king, it rained blood for three days and people died from a plague of flies. He was succeeded by his son Gurgustius; next came Sisillius, next Iago, Gurgustius’ nephew, then Kinmarcus, Sisillius’ son, and finally Gorbodugo.)32

In passages like this, Geoffrey adopts a sparse, paratactic style to march through time at a swift pace.33 In each case, Geoffrey has altered his style to accomplish a particular purpose. For example, the passage quoted above precedes his account of Ferreux and Porrex, the brothers whose civil war ends Brutus’s dynasty. Here, Geoffrey reminds readers of the dangers of civil war through varietas, rather than through imagery, characterization, or any of the other methods that he employs elsewhere in his work.34 Modern audiences, reading Geoffrey’s Historia from a modern literary perspective, might think that Geoffrey has downplayed the ascension of Dunuallo Molmutius and the beginning of a new dynasty. Yet medieval rhetoricians might also interpret this shift in tone as an example of formal variety that encourages readers to recognize and learn from this fratricide-induced discontinuity in the ruling dynasty. Thus, whether mourning conquest, celebrating triumph, or teaching statesmanship, Geoffrey uses varietas to convey his view of the past. Crucially, it

32 33 34

GM, HRB ii.33 (pp. 44–5). Foot, ‘Finding’, pp. 89–91; and Russell, ‘Inheritance’, pp. 92–3. On Geoffrey and civil war, see P. Dalton, ‘The Topical Concerns of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie: History, Prophecy, Peacemaking, and English Identity in the Twelfth Century’, Journal of British Studies 44.4 (2005), 688–712; Farrell, ‘History’, pp. 107–10; and F. Tolhurst, ‘The Britons as Hebrews, Romans, and Normans: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British Epic and Reflections of Empress Matilda’, Arthuriana 8.4 (1998), 69–87 (pp. 84–5).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century is not only Geoffrey’s use of elaborate or simple forms to suit the content he conveys, but rather the movement between those forms, that achieves this effect. By utilizing formal variety at moments of political rupture, Geoffrey simultaneously poses and solves historiographical puzzles for his readers. Readers of the Historia would recognize these shifts and ask themselves, “Why is the text changing form?” The process of answering that question would lead them to Geoffrey’s interpretation of history. For example, by paying attention to the type (e.g., low versus high style) and arrangement (e.g., amplification after abbreviation, or vice versa) of Geoffrey’s forms, readers might see in the juxtaposition of narrative fragments around the accession of Dunuallo Molmutius the need for clear hierarchies. The progression of kings from Cunedagius to Gorbodugo does not follow strict father-to-son genealogical lines. It is only when Ferreux and Porrex fail to establish a clear hierarchy in horizontal kinship relations that the dynasty finally breaks down. The contrasting forms used to describe these periods of history juxtapose the vertical line of succession from Cunedagius to Gorbodugo and the horizontal fratricidal conflict between Ferreux and Porrex, and in the process, argue for the necessity of creating vertical hierarchies even within otherwise equivalent family relations. Geoffrey’s exploration of a diverse range of styles and structures therefore cannot be attributed to the medieval principle of varying forms to keep readers’ attention, nor can it be explained as a byproduct of compilation, since the Historia is not a compilation of historical sources in the manner of, say, Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum. For this reason, I would suggest that we view Geoffrey’s Historia as a garland, that is, a series temporum, rather than a genealogy. The distinction between these models is subtle, but it exists, and it does influence how Geoffrey constructs and conveys historical interpretations. The garland-like nature of the Historia is also visible in the way that Geoffrey presents the relationship between his writing and English historiographical tradition. Although Geoffrey’s Historia overlaps chronologically with Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica, Geoffrey only mentions Bede twice: once to note Bede’s silence on early British history, and once to explain that Bede calls Geoffrey’s Cadualadrus Chedualla the Younger.35 Both instances implicitly criticize Bede, first by charging him with ignorance or manipulation of the facts (or both), and second by suggesting that Bede is not as accurate (or, again, as straightforward) as he appears.36 The oppositional relationship Geoffrey develops between his work and Bede’s extends to those English historians who explicitly aim to continue Bede’s work. As Geoffrey famously writes in the colophon to his Historia,

35 36

See, respectively, GM, HRB Prol.1 (pp. 4–5) and xi.202 (pp. 276–7). For further discussion, see N. Wright, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Bede’, AL 6 (1986), 27–59 (pp. 47, 52).

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae Reges autem eorum qui ab illo tempore in Gualiis successerunt Karadoco Lancarbanensi contemporaneo meo in materia scribendi permitto, reges uero Saxonum Willelmo Malmesberiensi et Henrico Huntendonensi, quos de regibus Britonum tacere iubeo, cum non habeant librum illum Britannici sermonis quem Walterus Oxenefordensis archidiaconus ex Britannia aduexit, quem de historia eorum ueraciter editum in honore praedictorum principum hoc modo in Latinum sermonem transferre curaui. (The Welsh kings who succeeded one another from then on I leave as subjectmatter to my contemporary, Caradoc of Llancarfan, and the Saxon kings to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon; however, I forbid them to write about the kings of the Britons since they do not possess the book in British which Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, brought from Brittany, and whose truthful account of their history I have here been at pains in honour of those British rulers to translate into Latin.)37

Geoffrey thus presents insular history as the product of two series temporum: one English (starting with Bede, then moving to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon), the other Welsh (starting with his own Historia, then moving to Caradoc of Llancarfan). Individually, these traditions contain a degree of genealogy, insofar as one historian and one era are “succeeded” by another. Yet when taken together, they depict insular history as varius, that is, as a balance of multiple perspectives that work together to guide readers to the full meaning of the past. Similarly, many scholars have noted that the Historia is riddled with competing frameworks: English history and Welsh history, continuity and change, time passing in a straight line and looping back upon itself to form repetitive cycles of events, and so forth.38 Through varietas, all of these frameworks can coexist, without any taking precedence. In this way, Geoffrey relies on the idea of varietas to argue that insular history cannot be fully understood without considering all of its constituent parts, including the British perspective. Varietas thus plays an important role in the Historia’s presentation and interpretation of history, both within the text of the Historia and in Geoffrey’s assessment of the Historia’s place in the insular historiographical tradition. Distinguishing between Geoffrey’s Historia and other, purely genealogical histories enables us to appreciate more fully how Geoffrey, for all his dubious historiographical methods, draws from the historical culture of twelfthcentury Britain.

37 38

GM, HRB xi.208 (pp. 280–1). See, for example, Aurell, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History’, pp. 17–18; Cannon, Grounds, p. 56; Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, p. 51; Hanning, Vision, pp. 139–41, 162–72; and Warren, History, pp. 30–52.

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Languages in time If Geoffrey uses varietas, what model of varietas – juxtaposition or mixing – does he prefer, and how might that preference shape his writing of history? In keeping with his reputation as an author not particularly interested in religion for theology’s sake, Geoffrey does not find Christian varietas compelling, and he seems to reject the idea that languages can mix together in harmony.39 In the Historia, scenes involving multilingual characters or contact between languages generally result in slaughter.40 The best-known is the so-called Night of the Long Knives, during which the Saxon leader Hengest directs his soldiers in English to attack the Britons. The Britons, unable to understand Hengest’s orders, suffer heavy losses.41 At first glance, this scene might suggest that Geoffrey believes multilingualism to be an asset; had the Britons learned English, they might have had advance warning of the ambush. Yet the actions of other multilingual characters suggest that Geoffrey is troubled by the prospect of two languages housed together in a single body: Guider (the king who, as noted above, refused to pay tribute to the Romans) is eventually murdered by Hamo, a Roman masquerading as a Briton. Hamo was able to get close to the king because he ‘didicerat enim linguam eorum et mores’ (‘knew the language and customs of the British’).42 In each of these instances, linguistic diversity is used to foreclose rather than open up meaning. In addition to sowing distrust in multilingualism, Geoffrey does not blend Latin and the vernacular in his own writing. In his prologue, he explains that he will translate his source from British into Latin.43 This choice affords him the opportunity to dignify the Britons, by writing their history in a language that would be easily trusted and respected, thanks to its association with the Bible and other authoritative texts.44 Yet as previous chapters have demonstrated, there is more than one way to write Latin. Henry of Huntingdon’s translations of Old English poetry model one way of translating vernacular texts into Latin without losing their vernacular character. Hermeneutic Latin 39

40 41 42 43 44

For discussions of the scholarship on Geoffrey’s secularism, see Aurell, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History’, pp. 15–18; and B. Lewis, ‘Religion and the Church in Geoffrey of Monmouth’, in Companion, ed. Henley and Smith, pp. 397–424. Both argue that Geoffrey is not a purely secular author, as has sometimes been claimed. I share this view, which is why I cite these essays; I do not argue here that Geoffrey is entirely unconcerned with religion, but rather that he is not particularly interested in high theology for its own sake. Warren, History, p. 48. GM, HRB vi.104 (pp. 134–5). Ibid. iv.66 (pp. 82–3). Ibid. Prol.2 (pp. 4–5). On Geoffrey’s decision to write in Latin, see S. Echard, ‘“Hic Est Artur”: Reading Latin and Reading Arthur’, in New Directions in Arthurian Studies, ed. A. Lupack (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 49–67; Mortensen, ‘Roman’, pp. 309–20; and Robertson, ‘Translation’, p. 52.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae offers another template for mixing Latin with the vernacular. Even pseudoNennius’s Historia Brittonum, written in a vernacular-tinged Latin, provides an example of how to mix vernacular and Latin.45 Yet despite having several models, Geoffrey avoids giving the impression that he has mixed Latin and vernacular for the purpose of creating harmony between languages. He was a skillful (if ‘business-like’) Latinist who wrote in the Latin of his day.46 Outside of features like names or etymologies, his Latin does not possess recognizably vernacular qualities.47 I would suggest that Geoffrey’s workaday style was a deliberate rather than incidental choice. Though in possession of various linguistic models, Geoffrey chooses to write in a Latin prose that lacks any conspicuous vernacularization. Indeed, Geoffrey’s assertions that ‘infra alienos ortulos falerata uerba non collegerim’ (‘I have never gathered showy words from the gardens of others’), nor lined the pages of his history with ‘ampullosis dictionibus’ (‘bombastic terms’), echo William of Malmesbury’s denigrating comments about hermeneutic Latin.48 The adjective ‘phalerata’ is particularly striking in this context. On its most basic level, this adjective denotes ‘wearing phalerae’, the tinkling metal discs used by Roman soldiers as adornments; yet in the context of rhetoric, ‘phalerata’ denotes ‘tinsel, pretty’.49 Such verbal adornments create a jingling 45

46 47

48 49

Geoffrey is most likely to have used the Harleian recension of the Historia Brittonum, which contains traces of insular vernaculars that later recensions lack. On pseudoNennius’s Latin, see the discussions and bibliography in D. N. Dumville, ‘The Textual History of the Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 70–123, 350–1; B. Guy, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Welsh Sources’, in Companion, ed. Henley and Smith, pp. 31–66 (pp. 42–58); and R. L. Thomson, ‘British Latin and English History: Nennius and Asser’, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society: Literary and Historical Section 18.1 (1982), 38–53 (pp. 39–48). N. Wright, ‘Update: Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas Revisited’, AL 4 (1985), 155–63 (p. 157). For discussions of Geoffrey’s Latin, see T. D. Crawford, ‘On the Linguistic Competence of Geoffrey of Monmouth’, Medium Ævum 51.2 (1982), 152–62 (pp. 152–3); GM, HRB, pp. lv–lvi; and Howlett, ‘Literary Context’, pp. 34–42. Wright’s discussion of the differences between Geoffrey’s Vulgate and the First Variant Version is also helpful on this point; see The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, II. The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition, ed. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. xvii–liv. Subsequent notes will follow the form FVV followed by (if referring to primary text) the chapter and page numbers in which the text appears or (if referring to editorial apparatus) the page numbers in the critical edition cited above. GM, HRB Prol.2 (pp. 4–5). OLD, s.v. ‘phalerae’ and ‘phaleratus’. As a noun, the word survives once, in a fragment of Fronto, as a figurative term for ‘embellishments’; it appears as an adjective in Terence’s Phormio. Geoffrey’s use of the adjectival form found in Terence, combined with Terence’s greater availability in the Middle Ages, means that Terence’s adjective is the more likely source for this word. On Fronto in the Middle Ages, see L. D. Reynolds, ‘Fronto’, in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century sound that echoes the tinkling of phalerae – much as William described Æthelweard’s Latin as full of ‘tinnula’ (‘jingling phrase’).50 Geoffrey thus seems to share William’s distaste for linguistic mixing. However, his reasons for that opinion have more to do with his historical outlook than his investment in classical satire. Geoffrey begins his Historia with a descriptio Britanniae that is grounded in juxtaposition, rather than mixture. Like Gildas and Bede before him, Geoffrey enumerates the varied copia of the island’s rich resources: Omni etenim genere metalli fecunda, campos late pansos habet, colles quoque praepollenti culturae aptos, in quibus frugum diuersitates ubertate glebae temporibus suis proueniunt. Habet et nemora uniuersis ferarum generibus repleta, quorum in saltibus et alternandis animalium pastibus gramina conueniunt et aduolantibus apibus flores diuersorum colorum mella distribuunt. […] Bis denis etiam bisque quaternis ciuitatibus olim decorata erat, quarum quaedam dirutis moeniis in desertis locis squalescunt, quaedam uero adhuc integrae templa sanctorum cum turribus perpulcra proceritate erecta continent. (Rich in metals of every kind, it has broad pastures and hills suitable for successful agriculture, in whose rich soil various crops can be harvested in their season. It has all kinds of wild beasts in its forests, and in its glades grow not only grasses suitable for rotating the pasture of animals, but flowers of various colours which attract bees to fly to them and gather honey. […] It was once graced with twenty-eight cities, some of which lie deserted in lonely spots, their walls tumbled down, while others are still thriving and contain holy churches with towers rising to a fine height.)51

In this description, the eye darts back and forth, taking in a pleasing and harmonious mixture of mountains and hills, mining and agriculture, forests and pastures. This passage is itself rich with the language of varietas: meadows, flowers, bees, and colors are all metaphors for varietas. Moreover, Geoffrey’s descriptio shows how the diversity of the island’s natural wealth allows Britain to boast a boundless copiousness. At the same time, Geoffrey’s descriptio is much longer than Bede’s or pseudo-Nennius’s, placing greater emphasis on the natural abundance of the island, and on the way that it is not yet cultivated.52 In this way, Geoffrey subtly reminds his audience of the way that Britain’s innate varietas is bound up with the history of its human

50 51 52

the Latin Classics, ed. L. D. Reynolds (Oxford, 1983), pp. 173–4. On Terence in the Middle Ages, see M. D. Reeve, ‘Terence’, in Texts and Transmission, ed. Reynolds, pp. 412–20. WM, GRA i.Prol. (I, 16–17). GM, HRB i.5 (pp. 6–7). Faletra, ‘Narrating’, p. 70; and R. Waswo, ‘Our Ancestors, the Trojans: Inventing Cultural Identity in the Middle Ages’, Exemplaria 7.2 (1995), 269–90 (pp. 279–83).

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae inhabitants. He underscores this point further by using verb tenses to contrast the perpetual fertility of the island with the finite lifespan of Britain’s cities: the island is fertile but it had many cities, some of which still thrive while others have long since fallen into ruin.53 The Historia thus never lets its readers forget about the passage of time. Similarly, Geoffrey injects temporality into his account of the languages of Britain. His descriptio lists Britain’s various inhabitants, while also reminding readers of their successive periods of domination: Postremo quinque inhabitatur populis, Normannis uidelicet atque Britannis, Saxonibus, Pictis, et Scotis; ex quibus Britones olim ante ceteros a mari usque ad mare insederunt donec ultione diuina propter ipsorum superbiam superueniente Pictis et Saxonibus cesserunt. (It is finally inhabited by five peoples, the Normans, the Britons, the Saxons, the Picts and the Scots; of these the Britons once occupied it from shore to shore before the others, until their pride brought divine retribution down upon them and they gave way to the Picts and the Saxons.)54

While Bede had portrayed Britain’s peoples and languages as part of the great copia of the diverse island, Geoffrey places them within a temporal framework.55 Rather than envisioning an island rich with varied languages, Geoffrey envisions an island rich with many eras. The many place name histories throughout the Historia function in a similar way, describing how names change either through conquest or simply through the passage of time.56 Indeed, the Historia frequently implies the impossibility of linguistic mixture by associating different languages with different eras. Geoffrey often provides multiple names for a town in different languages, tracing the history of Britain’s many conquests by examining the etymological history of its land. The place name history for Kaerkein exemplifies this tendency: Geoffrey notes that Rud Hudibras ‘condidit Kaerkein, id est Cantuariam. Condidit etiam Kaergueint, id est Guintoniam, atque oppidum Montis Paladur, quod nunc Seftonia dicitur’ (‘built Kaerkein, or Canterbury. He also built Kaergueint, or Winchester, and the town of Mons Paladur, now known as Shaftesbury’).57 Giving first the defunct British name, followed by its contemporary Latin name, creates a narrative that repeatedly reminds readers of the transfer of sovereignty from the Britons to the English

53 54 55 56 57

Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, p. 44; Otter, Inventiones, pp. 71–3; and Warren, History, pp. 30–2. GM, HRB Descriptio Insulae (pp. 6–7). Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, p. 45; and Otter, Inventiones, pp. 72–3. Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, pp. 46–53. GM, HRB ii.29 (pp. 36–7).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century and now to the Normans. In these passages, Geoffrey emphasizes, rather than elides, the distinction between past and present.58 By constantly injecting temporality into his account of Britain’s places, Geoffrey makes it difficult for a place to be known by multiple names in multiple languages at the same time. Not even the ostensibly timeless Latin can escape Geoffrey’s relentless temporality. For example, Geoffrey explains how Kaercarrei’s name was derived from Hengest’s clever manipulation of a bull’s hide, and he provides three names for the city: one in British, one in English, and one in Latin.59 These names represent successive eras of sovereignty, under first the Britons, then the English, and then the Normans. Geoffrey thus characterizes the Anglo-Norman period as the time of Latin (rather than French, as we might expect). He underscores this narrative from British to English to Latin through his choice of tenses as well: this city ‘dictum […] fuit postmodum Britannice Kaercarrei, Saxonice uero Thanccastre, quod Latine sermone Castrum Corrigiae appellamus’ (‘was later called in British Kaercarrei, and in English Thanccastre, or Castrum Corrigiae in Latin’).60 The standard scholarly translation uses one verb in the past tense for all three names. But Geoffrey’s Latin draws a distinction between the British and the Saxon names, which are governed by the impersonal verb in the past tense (‘dictum fuit’, ‘it was called’), and the Latin name, which is the subject of the first-person plural verb in the present tense (‘appellamus’, ‘we call’).61 ‘We’ in the twelfth-century use Latin, Geoffrey seems to say.62 Just as the Britons are conquered by the English, and the English by the Normans, the language of Britain changes from British to English to Latin, which for Geoffrey is his present-day. In each period of time, one people – and one language – has sovereignty. Reality is obviously far more complicated than Geoffrey allows here, but for our purposes, what matters is that Geoffrey is presenting a vision of history in which languages remain separated by time. Thus, Geoffrey’s Historia seems to reject both the principle and the practice of Christian varietas. Geoffrey does not mix languages himself, and by associating languages with peoples and hence waves of conquest and periods of history, he makes it difficult to envision how linguistic mixing could ever occur. Furthermore, the time of the narrative keeps moving relentlessly forward, inhibiting the possibility of languages mixing, and when two languages do come into contact, one tends to destroy (rather than harmonize with) the other. Thus, narrative time may slow in amplifications

58 59 60 61 62

Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, pp. 52–3. GM, HRB vi.99 (pp. 128–9). Ibid. vi.99 (pp. 128–9). Cf. Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, p. 53. For the importance of tense in another passage, see ibid., pp. 43–4. For a different (yet compatible) reading of Geoffrey’s ‘we’ from the perspective of identity rather than time, see Crawford, ‘Competence’, pp. 152–3.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and accelerate in abbreviations, and may even seem to stop entirely in Arthurian romances descended from the Galfridian legend. But in the Historia itself, time stops for no one.63

Fair and balanced Geoffrey’s frequent juxtapositions of British past and Anglo-Norman present encourage readers to think of varietas in terms of juxtaposition. The style of Geoffrey’s Historia has a similar effect. In addition to avoiding vernacularized Latin, Geoffrey also eschews other kinds of formal mixing. Unlike Henry, Geoffrey does not artfully tangle different dating systems, or combine genres, or sprinkle a dizzying array of historiographical forms across his writing. He may shift from one to another, but there is always a sense of balance: amplification is complemented by abbreviation, and linearity by cyclicality. Formally, then, the Historia reads more like the Gesta regum than the Historia Anglorum. It is also possible to see echoes of William’s politicization of varietas in Geoffrey’s history. For William, varietas means a fitting arrangement of high and low, which balances the need to maintain audience attention with the need to elevate the general culture of the English people. William also applies this idea to the English nation in the wake of the Norman Conquest, arguing that the Normans have returned to the English their previous AngloRomanitas. In other words, he makes the varietas-as-balance model of classical rhetoric the central formal principle of his work, and he extrapolates from that rhetorical concept an understanding of how English identity needs to be structured in order to thrive. This is why William’s formal features and his metaphors for the English state adhere to the same basic paradigm, namely, the well-ordered balance of opposites. Like William, Geoffrey applies his conception of rhetorical varietas to the body politic, making it possible to use the latter to identify the former. He also prefers the fitting balance of different identities and different forms to cultural or formal uniformity. The distinction between William’s and Geoffrey’s application of classical varietas to British history lies in their conceptualization of “fitting balance”. William defines “fitting balance” as parity, as an equal amount of indebtedness to all relevant and meritorious cultural traditions. In contrast, Geoffrey determines the “fittingness” of a particular combination by its ability to gain and maintain power. Furthermore, he seems to think political and formal stability derive from an unequal balance of identities or forms. 63

Echard, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’, pp. 56–9; A. Putter, ‘Finding Time for Romance: Mediaeval Arthurian Literary History’, Medium Ævum 63.1 (1994), 1–16; and K. M. Talarico, ‘Sounds of Silence: Rewriting, Rereading, and Retelling the Arthurian Legend’, in Satura: Studies in Medieval Literature in Honour of Robert R. Raymo, ed. N. M. Reale and R. E. Sternglantz (Donington, 2001), pp. 48–73.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century The common thread in all of Geoffrey’s examples of successful kingship is that the prosperous king always has a loyal nobleman at his side. Sometimes the king is supported by a brother or kinsman-by-marriage, as we find with Brutus and Corineus, Belinus and Brennius, and Aurelius and Uther; at other times, the king works closely with a retainer, as we see with Aurelius and Eldol, Uther and Merlin, Caduallo and Brianus, and so forth.64 Regardless of the particulars of these relationships, in all of these examples, the king succeeds when he partners with another leader, with whom he can work towards a common goal. Furthermore, the leader with whom the king works is always of a lower status than himself, and – crucially – always willingly accepts his lower status. For Geoffrey, then, the fitting balance of varietas means a power-sharing agreement between two leaders of unequal rank. Geoffrey is under no illusions about the longevity of this delicate (im)balance of power. Inevitably, the coalition eventually breaks down, either because the king behaves capriciously to his loyal supporter (e.g., Locrinus and Corineus) or because the supporter is no longer willing to take a secondary role (e.g., Vortigern and Constans). This narrative of working-coalition-turned-civilwar appears again and again in the Historia, making Geoffrey’s admonitions against civil war one of the Historia’s best-known themes. But what is civil war, if not a failure of varietas? In civil conflict, the harmonious balance of the kingdom’s various interests fails to hold, because those interests no longer “fit”. Likewise, in Geoffrey’s Historia, the misalignment of priorities results in discordant, rather than harmonious, varietas. Geoffrey’s successful ruling pairs thrive because both partners (sometimes grudgingly) acknowledge that one is superior to the other. When that “fit” is not achieved, civil war results, as the breakdowns in the relationships between, say, Cassibellaunus and Androgeus, or Caduallo and Edwinus, reveal. Belinus and Brennius offer a rare example of a relationship which begins with a lower-ranked nobleman unwilling to accept his place, who eventually accedes to the arrangement, thus returning to the kingdom its previous stability. Yet Britain is only able to remain stable in the long term because Brennius simply stays in Europe after he and his brother conquer Rome, thus eliminating the danger to Belinus’s rule.65 Belinus and Brennius are thus able to find a “fit”, but many others do not. Indeed, the most memorable tragedies of British history – the many wars between brothers or kinsmen, the Roman conquest of Britain, the death of Arthur, the loss of sovereignty to the English – are nearly all the result of a failure on the part of the king and one high-ranking nobleman to maintain the unequal yet well-matched balance that Geoffrey identifies as the key to national prosperity. In this way, Geoffrey’s warnings against civil war are also warnings against upending the communal varietas of Britain – a varietas

64 65

Georgianna, ‘Lessons’, pp. 14–18. GM, HRB iii.44 (pp. 58–9).

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae defined not by equality, but rather by each person’s willing acceptance of his or her social rank.66 The same principle governs Geoffrey’s treatment of cultural identity. Geoffrey suggests that the most successful peoples are those who possess two identities, one of which clearly dominates the other. Arthur’s Whitsuntide celebration exemplifies this view. The entire description is full of the language of varietas, but there is always the sense that one aspect dominates the rest. The event is held at Caerleon, because it possesses ‘diuitiarum copiis’ (‘superior wealth’) in comparison with other cities. Yet it is also particularly varius: it has a river on one side, and various natural landscapes on the other; it also has two churches, dedicated to two companion saints, with nuns housed in one and canons in the other.67 Each of these details directs readers’ gaze back and forth between two extremes. Thus, while Caerleon is rife with varietas, it is also still grander than the rest of Arthur’s outstandingly prosperous kingdom. The same phenomenon appears in Geoffrey’s description of the attendees. Knights and ladies (the two halves of the whole kingdom) celebrate the feast separately, dressed in single colors, but their attendants wear multicolored garb.68 The ladies require the knights to fight admirably, thus playfully situating the women in positions of power above the men according to the principles of courtly love, though the complementary monochromatic clothing of men and women alike indicates that both sexes are crucial parts of the larger scene. Similarly, the text includes a long catalogue of names, a rhetorical device commonly associated with varietas, which again encourages the mind’s eye to move back and forth between the innumerable nobility present at the feast.69 Yet Arthur is clearly the greatest of them all, and he alone wears the crown presented to him by his loyal bishop, Dubricius.70 Both the location and the events of the city are thus wrapped in varietas and yet forward the idea that the ideal varietas has one prominent element within its multiple constituent parts. This feast also creates an implicit juxtaposition of the Britons and the Romans, with Arthur working hard to make the former the dominant of the two groups. Arthur essentially tries to outdo the Romans; his Caerleon echoes Rome and perhaps even seeks to supplant it.71 Geoffrey’s use of this device thus emphasizes the varietas of Arthur’s court, and the way that possessing 66

67 68 69 70 71

On Geoffrey’s expression of this idea in the Vita Merlini, see C. Chism, ‘“Ain’t Gonna Study War No More”: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae and Vita Merlini’, Chaucer Review 48.4 (2014), 458–79 (pp. 465–8, 476–8). GM, HRB ix.156 (pp. 208–9). Ibid. ix.157 (pp. 210–13). Ibid. ix.156 (pp. 210–11); Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 116, 148. GM, HRB ix.157 (pp. 210–13). R. Rouse, ‘Reading Ruins: Arthurian Caerleon and the Untimely Architecture of History’, Arthuriana 23.1 (2013), 40–51 (p. 42).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century varietas is itself a sign of strength, even dominance. At the same time, the particular contours of this passage’s literary varietas imbue the Whitsuntide feast with additional layers of meaning. The catalogue of names alludes simultaneously to the classical epic and Welsh Arthurian traditions, reminding readers of the source of the Britons’ lasting strength, namely, the combination of two identities.72 However, they are still Britons first and foremost, as becomes clear from the angry responses Arthur’s barons make to the Roman emperor’s threats.73 Arthur’s Britons also abide by Trojan practices at the feast, as if to argue that their subordinate identity is Trojan, not Roman, and that the Britons can rival the Romans, since the Romans are themselves only part-Trojan (as the ending of the Aeneid makes clear).74 The Whitsuntide feast thus uses an allusion to classical literature to reinforce Geoffrey’s conception of successful varietas as a fitting balance of one dominant and one subordinate part, and to suggest that the Britons of Arthur’s day desire to be part-Trojan, rather than part-Roman. Much of the Historia traces how the Britons repeatedly create and then lose a varius identity, much like the varius identity on display at Arthur’s Whitsuntide feast. Geoffrey begins the Historia by portraying the Britons as keepers of a Trojan-British identity. At the end of book i, although Brutus renames the land and his people after himself, he names his city New Troy. As their name reveals, the Britons are more British than Trojan.75 However, both parts of their identity are important. It is no accident that the Romans decide to conquer Britain immediately after the Britons shrug off their Trojanitas, by renaming New Troy (now bastardized to Trinovantum) ‘Kaerlud’.76 In the exchange of letters that precedes Julius Caesar’s first invasion, the Britons and the Romans refer to their ties of ‘cognationis’ (‘common ancestry’), identifying their bond as one of ‘cognatorum’ (‘cousins’); but this exchange only demonstrates that they are cousins no longer.77 Caesar’s attack is animated by his belief that the Britons have lost their military ability, which for Caesar is part of their now-defunct Trojanitas. By the end of book iv, the Britons have mostly come to terms with their subjugation, and they accept Roman Christianity.78 Their new religion gives them a new identity to complement their overarching Britishness. That new combination of dominant British and complementary Christian identities defines the Britons throughout their subsequent dealings with the Saxons, and it remains the source of their hybridity until the conversion of the English,

72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Helbert, ‘Gardens’, pp. 229–30. GM, HRB ix.158–62 (pp. 214–23). Ibid. ix.157 (pp. 212–13). Russell, ‘Inheritance’, pp. 90–1. See GM, HRB i.21–2 (pp. 26–31) and iii.53 (pp. 66–7). Ibid. iv.54–5 (pp. 68–9). Ibid. iv.72 (pp. 86–9).

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae which occurs immediately after Gormundus’s Donation.79 When the Britons refuse to accept Augustine’s (and, by extension, Rome’s) authority, they essentially abandon their Christian Romanitas, and suffer much slaughter and the loss of their holdings north of the Humber.80 Peace returns for a while, but when Edwinus upends the balance of power by seeking to wear his own crown, conflict returns, and the British and Saxon kings who were once like brothers become mortal enemies.81 Although the Britons are successful for a time, their hold over Britain is soon lost, and they eventually lose even their name, and with it, the last vestige of their connection to Brutus.82 The Historia thus narrates how the Britons repeatedly gain and then lose a secondary identity, and with it, their political and military power. From Belinus and Brennius, conquerors of Rome, to Cassibellaunus and Androgeus, admired but defeated by Rome, to Arthur, who is unable to repeat his predecessors’ greatness, the Historia depicts how the Britons progressively abandon their Trojan/British, classical Roman/British, and even Christian Roman/British identities.83 Again and again, the Historia shows how peoples who should be allies turn against each other, because no culture is willing to play second fiddle. Likewise, civil wars recur thanks to an individual who (if he is the king) cannot accept that a king needs supporters or who (if he is a nobleman) cannot accept that he does not have absolute authority or power. Thus, while Geoffrey has a sense of what “good” varietas should look like, and what it can achieve, he also questions how long it can be maintained before one selfish person disrupts the harmonious balance of an entire people.

The walls of New Troy Geoffrey’s understanding of varietas pervades his definition of historical writing as well. Although Geoffrey does not use the word varietas as William and Henry do, there are signs of his understanding of and interest in this concept. Twelfth-century historians frequently reflect on history-writing in short narratives, inserted within their histories, which discuss historiographical concerns in metaphorical rather than direct discourse.84 Geoffrey

79 80 81 82 83

84

See, respectively, ibid. xi.188 (pp. 258–9) and xi.184–7 (pp. 25–9). On Geoffrey’s twisting of Bede’s account of these events, see Wright, ‘Bede’, pp. 37–8. GM, HRB xi.187–90 (pp. 258–61). Ibid. xi.190–7 (pp. 260–73). Ibid. xi.207 (pp. 280–1). McLoone also notes the decreasing Romanitas of the Britons, though she discusses this phenomenon from the perspective of the definition of a British nation. See ‘Sword’, pp. 191–8. On Arthur’s failures in comparison with his ancestors, see also Roberts, ‘Historical Tradition’, pp. 33–4. Otter, Inventiones, pp. 1–19.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century is no different, and some of these anecdotes provide evidence of Geoffrey’s appreciation of varietas as a historiographical as well as a political concept.85 For example, Merlin functions as something of an alter-ego for Geoffrey, in that he possesses the historian’s voice and power over the narrative.86 Tellingly, Merlin embodies and employs varietas. Like the fantastical figures of William of Malmesbury’s digressions, Merlin is a hybrid figure, whose parentage – he is born of a nun and an incubus – makes him a representative of some of the text’s key themes.87 Both he and his prophecies appear at moments of structural and political disruption.88 When he speaks, he does so by providing a dazzling array of images, sending readers down a disorienting array of ductus that only provokes audiences to desire the truth even more strongly. One of Merlin’s prophecies even echoes Dunstan’s prophecy from Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, in which Dunstan refers to the disconnect between outer clothing (rhetoric) and internal morality (textual meaning).89 Although Merlin’s prophecy refers to Henry I, rather than the Norman Conquest, the image is strikingly similar: ‘Calamistrati uaria uellera uestibunt, et exterior habitus interiora signabit’ (‘Men with curled hair will wear fleeces of varied hue, and their outer apparel will betray their inner selves’).90 Merlin, a de facto historian, has a varius body and speaks with varietas. He even reflects Geoffrey’s conception of varietas, in that he represents unequal-yet-harmonious balance: he prioritizes the Christian side of his nature, and only uses his supernatural powers when necessary.91 Merlin’s supernatural qualities might even suggest that mending historical narratives is rather like performing an incantation: the strangeness of the words – in this metaphor, the ever-shifting formal variety of the text – both enacts the magic and signals to readers that magic is happening. Yet writers of varius history change the style and structure of their texts to direct readers to (their definition of) historical truth, not historical fantasy. What might Geoffrey’s truth be, given the seeming ahistoricity of much of his Historia? The story of Lud, Nennius, and the walls of New Troy connects historiographical varietas to the truthfulness (or lack thereof) of the Historia. In this anecdote, Geoffrey stages a debate between historians in favor of classical varietas and those who prefer Christian varietas. As I argued above, Geoffrey chooses neither – but the “third way” he proposes in this story demonstrates 85 86 87 88

89 90 91

On Geoffrey’s metaphorical reflections on history-writing, see ibid., pp. 69–84. K. Bell, ‘Merlin as Historian in Historia regum Britannie’, Arthuriana 10.1 (2000), 14–26 (pp. 19–24); Finke and Shichtman, Arthur, p. 41; and Hanning, Vision, p. 171. Chism, ‘“Ain’t”’, pp. 460–1. L. Coote, ‘Prophecy, Genealogy, and History in Medieval English Political Discourse’, in Broken Lines, ed. Radulescu and Kennedy, pp. 27–44 (p. 35); and Gillingham, ‘Context’, pp. 19–20. See chapter 3, pp. 84–5. GM, HRB xii.113 (pp. 146–7). Ibid. viii.128 (pp. 170–3).

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae that varietas shapes how Geoffrey interprets the past, even when the past is his own invention. Varietas is therefore a historiographical tool in the Historia as much as in William’s Gesta regum and Henry’s Historia Anglorum. At the end of book i, Geoffrey provides the place-name history of London, which Brutus, Britain’s founder, originally named New Troy. He writes: Condidit itaque ciuitatem ibidem eamque Troiam Nouam uocauit. Ea, hoc nomine multis postmodum temporibus appellata, tandem per corruptionem uocabuli Trinouantum dicta fuit. At postquam Lud frater Cassibellauni, qui cum Iulio Caesare dimicauit, regni gubernaculum adeptus est, cinxit eam nobilissimis muris nec non et turribus mira arte fabricatis; de nomine quoque suo iussit eam dici Kaerlud, id est ciuitas Lud. Vnde postea maxima contentio orta est inter ipsum et Nennium fratrem suum, qui grauiter ferebat illum uelle nomen Troiae in patria sua delere. (There [Brutus] founded a city which he called New Troy. It retained this name for a long time until it was eventually corrupted to Trinovantum. When Lud, the brother of Cassibellaunus, who fought against Julius Caesar, came to the throne, he surrounded the city with fine walls and wonderfully built towers; and he commanded that it be named Kaerlud or Lud’s city. Afterwards this was the cause of a mighty argument between him and his brother Nennius, who was indignant that Lud wished to suppress the name of Troy in the realm.)92

In past-oriented medieval writing, buildings often symbolize the culture and identity of the people who made them, as in The Ruin (extant from c. 960–80), St Erkenwald (c. 1390), and William of Malmesbury’s own Gesta regum. The walls of New Troy serve a similar purpose here: they commemorate the Britons’ Trojan heritage. In this passage, Geoffrey invents the characters of Lud and Nennius to stage a debate about the best way of responding to the inevitable changes that result from the passage of time. Both brothers recognize that time has erased some of their capital’s earlier brilliance. This decline is undeniable, thanks to the corruption (‘per corruptionem’) of the city’s original name, New Troy (‘Troia Noua’), to Trinovantum. But the two brothers react to cultural change in emphatically different ways. Lud embarks upon the project of rebuilding the city. In contrast, Nennius considers Lud’s renaming of the city a betrayal of its heritage, tantamount to the wholesale destruction (‘delere’, ‘suppress’) of their Trojan ancestry. I call attention to this incident because it demonstrates Geoffrey’s awareness of other authors’ responses to cultural change, his dissatisfaction with those responses, and the alternative that he offers in his Historia. First, the attitudes of Lud and Nennius map neatly onto those of none other than William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. Notice how Lud

92

Ibid. i.22 (pp. 30–1).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century symbolizes renewal, and Nennius preservation – just as William advocates for the renewal of English culture and Henry for the preservation of the past. Lud surrounds the pre-existing city with a new set of walls, just as William prefers to give his English history the trappings of Romanitas, balancing old and new. Like Lud, William also aspires to revive English culture, by giving it a new sophistication that erases some of what came before. He praises the Normans for their impressive building projects, even if he grieves that such renewal was necessary in the first place.93 Meanwhile, Henry’s attitude towards historical change echoes Nennius, who supports the preservation of Britain’s Trojan heritage at all costs. We are not told whether Nennius objected to Lud’s building works, but he clearly sees the change in name (which symbolizes the change in the city’s identity, of which the buildings are merely the physical manifestation) as the active demolition of the Britons’ Trojan identity. The word Nennius uses to describe this process, ‘delere’, is an extremely strong word, and its appearance here suggests that Nennius believes Lud is in fact conquering his own people by renaming the city after himself.94 Tellingly, Henry of Huntingdon uses the same word, ‘delere’, to describe what happened to the Picts when their language was forgotten.95 For both Nennius and Henry, refusing to preserve one’s past is tantamount to self-annihilation. The similarities between the two brothers and the two historians Geoffrey admonishes in his colophon run even deeper. Nennius and Henry, who support preservation over renewal, view cultural survival of any sort as more important than sophistication or purity. Henry’s translations of Old English poetry into a vernacularized Latin testify to that belief, as does Nennius’s own name, which Geoffrey chooses as an ode to (pseudo-)Nennius, the British historian who, as noted above, also wrote in a Latin with some vernacular elements.96 In contrast, William and Lud prefer sophistication in the hereand-now over the preservation of every crumbling ruin. William, of course, refuses to include hermeneutic Latin in his Gesta regum, rewriting texts as needed to meet his cultural standards and return England to its previous place on the world stage.97 Lud does something similar. When Geoffrey retells this story at the end of book iii, he again states that Lud built walls and towers around Trinovantum, but he adds the detail that Lud ‘praecepit etiam ciuibus ut domos et aedificia sua in eadem construerent ita ut non esset in 93

94 95 96 97

See chapter 2, pp. 69, 73. Garnett interprets the story of Wulfstan’s weeping at the demolition of Winchester Cathedral in William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum iv.141 (ed. Thomson and Winterbottom, I, 428–31) in a similar way; see Conquest, pp. 19, 87. For other appearances of this word in the Historia, see Echard, ‘Palimpsests’, pp. 51–2. See chapter 3, p. 110 (‘deleti’). On the significance of Nennius’s name, see McLoone, ‘Sword’, p. 183. See chapter 2, pp. 77–83.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae longe positis regnis ciuitas quae pulcriora palacia contineret’ (‘commanded its citizens to build homes and houses there, so that no foreign city could boast finer palaces’).98 In this second version of London’s place-name history, Lud clearly understands the cultural and political symbolism of architecture (as does William), and he proactively works to give Trinovantum an appearance that matches his vision of Britain’s place in the world. Both Lud and William therefore actively change their culture to improve their people’s standing in the eyes of others. We cannot say for certain that Geoffrey models Lud and Nennius on William and Henry, but we can certainly say that Geoffrey recognizes the kind of thinking that went into their historical writing. Moreover, Geoffrey views both these perspectives as fatally flawed. Both Lud and Nennius fail to achieve their respective goals. Lud is the last truly independent king of Britain, though he conveniently dies before he must face the consequences of his decisions. The Romans invade and eventually conquer Britain during the reign of his successor, Cassibellaunus (another brother). Julius Caesar justifies his invasion on the grounds that, while Britons and Romans share a common Trojan ancestry, ‘degenerati sunt a nobis nec quid sit milicia nouerunt, cum infra occeanum extra orbem commaneant’ (‘they are no longer our equals and have no idea of soldiering, since they live at the edge of the world amid the ocean’).99 In reality, Lud’s newly cosmopolitan city, intended to rival the cities of other great civilizations, likely drew Roman attention and prompted the invasion. Moreover, it is Lud’s own son, Androgeus, who eventually betrays his king (and uncle) Cassibellaunus, paving the way for British subjugation. Lud’s dream of cultural brilliance thus creates a legacy of defeat, because among the Britons, individual pride – the same pride that built Kaerlud – creates a culture in which personal grievance is greater than national solidarity. The negative consequences of cultural renewal might suggest that Henry and Nennius have the better argument, but events prove otherwise. Caesar’s declaration that the Britons were no longer Trojan gave Nennius and those who shared his sentiments a reason to draw arms in defense of their definition of their identity. In doing so, they prove Caesar’s point, for by taking up arms against the Romans, the Britons exacerbate the divide between themselves and their kin, thereby accelerating the decline of their Trojanitas. Nennius therefore finds himself fighting against the very people with whom he should feel most connected, and in the process, he loses that connection. He also loses his life: he dies from the wounds he sustains while disarming Caesar.100 Nennius’s valor may have proved his innate Trojanitas, but the effort to prove that the Britons are still Trojan results in the death of the greatest protector of 98

GM, HRB iii.53 (pp. 66–7). Ibid. iv.54 (pp. 68–9). 100 For further discussion of the symbolism of Nennius’s death, see McLoone, ‘Sword’, pp. 182–3. 99

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century that identity. The loss of Nennius also has long-term consequences. Fighting at Nennius’s side in the Britons’ first victory was none other than Androgeus, the son of Lud who would eventually betray his people to the Romans. Readers are left to speculate about the relationship between Nennius and his other kinsmen, and whether the Britons would still have devolved into civil strife had Nennius been alive to remind his brother and nephew of the heritage they all share. Thus, while Nennius’s preservationist attitude succeeded for a time, his people ultimately lost not only the war, but their sovereignty and identity as well. The tale of Lud and Nennius suggests that neither renewal nor preservation can offer a satisfying response to the problems posed by cultural change. Lud, Nennius, and their latter-day counterparts all recognize that their people are no longer who they were. In the short term, renewal and preservation can mitigate the feelings of discontinuity that arise from that recognition. Yet in the long term, no positive outcome emerges from either embracing (Lud and William) or fighting (Nennius and Henry) cultural change. What, then, does Geoffrey propose? Geoffrey’s conclusion to his parable of the quarreling brothers is instructive on this point. He finishes this narrative by writing, ‘Quam contentionem quia Gildas hystoricus satis prolixe tractauit, eam praeterire praeelegi, ne id quod tantus scriba tanto stilo perarauit uidear uiliori dictamine maculare’ (‘Since their argument has already been discussed at length by the historian Gildas, I have chosen to omit it, lest my poor style should appear to spoil what a great author has described so well’).101 In other words, let the sources speak for themselves, from their own books. Do not try to renew, redirect, recompile, reimagine, restructure, or otherwise rescue earlier historical writing. Simply let the histories of the past be. Crucially, the word ‘maculare’, which Geoffrey uses to express his fear of ‘spoil[ing]’ Gildas’s prose, has a broader range of meaning than its translation here suggests. ‘Maculare’ primarily means ‘To cover with stains, blot, soil; to pollute, foul’, but it also means ‘To mark with coloured patches, to variegate’.102 As a result, it lies within the spectrum of verbs used to describe varietas, though it has a more negative connotation than words like ‘uariare’ (‘to variegate’), ‘distinguere’ (‘to distinguish’), or ‘ornare’ (‘to adorn’).103 Geoffrey’s diction thus implies the ultimate failure of both classical and Christian varietas. The excuses he offers address those two kinds of variety. To paraphrase, Geoffrey first says he could add Gildas’s voice to his own, in the manner of a preservationist, but he does not have the space and he would bore readers if he digressed too far on this matter. Then, Geoffrey says he could balance Gildas’s style with his own, in the manner

101 GM,

HRB i.22 (pp. 30–1). s.v. ‘maculare’. 103 Fitzgerald, Variety, pp. 37–9. 102 OLD,

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae of a renewalist, but his style is so poor that, like one of Horace’s monstrous hybrids, it would fail to achieve proper balance. At first glance, Geoffrey’s invocation of Gildas seems to argue that varietas should be avoided rather than sought. However, both of Geoffrey’s comments in this passage are highly misleading, thus calling into question the sincerity of Geoffrey’s disavowal of varietas. First, the enterprising reader who follows Geoffrey’s advice will find that Gildas does not actually write about Lud and Nennius at all.104 Second, this characterization of Gildas runs against common opinion. Gildas may have been admired for his morality, but he was not admired for his prose. In the early 1190s, Gerald of Wales diplomatically described the De excidio as ‘ueram magis historiam […] quam ornatam’ (‘a history […] more accurate than attractive’).105 In words reminiscent of William of Malmesbury’s assessment of Æthelweard, William of Newburgh writes, Cum enim sermone sit admodum impolitus atque insipidus, paucis eum vel transcribere vel habere curantibus, raro invenitur. Integritatis tamen eius non leve documentum est quia in veritate promenda propriae genti non parcit. (Since his language is unpolished and lacks flavour, few people have bothered to transcribe or possess it, and so it is rarely found. But it is no slight proof of integrity that he does not spare his own nation in revealing the truth.)106

Meanwhile, William of Malmesbury is content to simply praise Gildas as a historian, while quietly refusing to quote him, likely because he found Gildas’s style objectionable.107 In contrast, Geoffrey deals with Gildas in the same way as William dealt with Aldhelm – he praises Gildas’s style on several occasions, implying that Gildas’s reputation as a lackluster Latinist is a reflection of the poor taste of his modern readers, not his own merits.108 Of course, there is no voice of Gildas to preserve; but even if there were, pleasing balance could not be achieved not because Geoffrey’s style is too mean, but because Gildas’s is too ornate. This passage is not the only occasion in which Geoffrey combines doubts about variety with misleading or inaccurate references. In his prologue, Geoffrey invokes the idea of a garden – a metaphor for varietas – in deeply contradictory ways. He famously says that he will not gather ‘infra alienos 104 Wright,

‘Gildas’, pp. 22–3. of Wales, Descriptio Cambriae, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. F. Dimock (London, 1868), VI, Preface (p. 158). Translation mine. 106 William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum I.Prologue (ed. Walsh and Kennedy, pp. 28–9). 107 Thomson, Malmesbury, p. 69; and Wright, ‘Gildas’, pp. 1–40. On William’s unwillingness to quote authors whose style he disliked, see chapter 2, p. 82. 108 Wright, ‘Gildas’, pp. 23–4; cf. chapter 2, pp. 79–80. 105 Gerald

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century ortulos falerata uerba’ (‘showy words from the gardens of others’) nor fill the pages of his history ‘ampullosis dictionibus’ (‘with bombastic terms’).109 Both imply that he will avoid varietas by avoiding juxtaposing voices and mixing styles. Yet that is precisely what he does. The phrase ‘infra alienos ortulos’ is derived from one of Seneca the Younger’s Epistulae (first century), meaning that he has juxtaposed his voice with another’s.110 This particular sentence also contains some of the ‘bombastic terms’ that Geoffrey scorns: its syntax is exceedingly complex, and the words that Geoffrey uses to describe ornate diction, ‘falerata’ and ‘ampullosis’, are relatively rare. I discussed ‘falerata’ above, but here I will note that one possible inspiration for the term ‘ampullosis’ is Horace, who twice uses cognates of this word to refer to tragedians’ use of grandiloquent language to convey grief.111 Geoffrey is doing exactly what Horace recommends: he chooses the style appropriate for his readers, and for him, that means writing in a style that does not resemble Gildas-like lament. Yet Geoffrey makes it clear that he could have made a different choice, if he had wanted: there is a joke in his implication that he has no need for other men’s flowers, since he has enough of his own.112 A clear pattern thus emerges from Geoffrey’s varietas. He consistently implies that he is avoiding varietas. Sometimes, that implication is accurate; he certainly avoids the linguistic mixing of Christian varietas. At other times, his claims of avoiding varietas are disingenuous, even deceitful. He provides inaccurate reports of the contents of other histories; he argues against quotation by quoting from other authors; he implies his history is seamless, but then uses formal variety to ensure that it cannot be seen as such. Some of this misinformation can be excused by errors of interpretation (maybe Geoffrey did not fully understand Horace?), or misattributed or lost sources (perhaps Geoffrey refers to a now-lost manuscript containing a history purportedly by Gildas?). Yet when all this evidence is assembled in one place, Geoffrey begins to look mendacious rather than misguided. But what exactly is Geoffrey lying about? Why go through the trouble of pretending not to use varietas? Here, Geoffrey’s association of history-writing with Merlin’s marvelous abilities is instructive. Merlin’s sorcery often takes the form of wish fulfillment: after all, his arts help Uther satisfy his desire for Igerna.113 Geoffrey himself seems to be in possession of similar skills. Yet his magic fulfills his wish for a historical record other than 109 GM,

HRB Prol.2 (pp. 4–5). M. Burek, ‘An Echo of Seneca’s Epistulae in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae’, Notes & Queries 68.1 (2021), 42–5. Some versions of the prologue include an echo of Vergil as well; see Helbert, ‘Gardens’, pp. 216–17; and Russell, ‘Inheritance’, pp. 67–72. 111 ‘ampullas’ (‘bombast’, l. 97) in Horace, Ars poetica (LCL 194, pp. 458–9); and ‘ampullatur’ (‘swell’, l. 14) in Horace, Epistles I.III (LCL 194, pp. 270–1). 112 S. Echard, ‘Whose History? Naming Practices in the Transmission of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie’, Arthuriana 22.4 (2012), 8–24 (p. 11). 113 GM, HRB viii.137 (pp. 186–7). 110 J.

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae the one he has – that is, a historical record that demonstrates the necessity of including British perspectives in the insular historiographical tradition. Varietas can help achieve that goal in several ways. First, as I argued above, insisting on the varietas of Britain’s culture and history ensures the place of British historywriting (in any language) in Britain’s historiographical landscape. In addition, by conceptualizing varietas as unequal juxtaposition, Geoffrey can even argue that the Britons were, during some eras in the series temporum, more important than other groups. Finally, pretending not to use varietas (even though his text clearly does) allows Geoffrey to feign the existence of a Welsh literary tradition equal to – and possibly even greater than – the classical literary tradition.

A Cambrian classical tradition The Historia repeatedly sets up a comparison between the Britons and Romans, in the same way as it often juxtaposes warring brothers such as Belin and Brennes, or Ferreux and Porrex. Like those brothers, the Britons and the Romans share a common Trojan ancestry, yet they continually fight each other for supremacy. The Historia’s structure rests in part on a sequence of Britain’s three wars with Rome: (1) early civil wars leading to the conquest of Rome; (2) civil wars that prompt and then put an end to the Roman occupation; and (3) the resurgence of the Britons under Arthur, who tries but fails to reconquer Rome.114 At stake in all these conflicts is the issue of whether the Britons and the Romans are equals, or whether one dominates the other (and, of course, which is dominant). In many ways, Geoffrey replicates that dynamic in British history-writing’s relationship with classical literature. The text frequently echoes the words, literary forms and even the content of classical auctores.115 Although such features are common in twelfth-century historical writing, Geoffrey’s Historia is unique for creating the impression that British – rather than Roman – literature might sometimes be superior. Geoffrey is particularly fond of citing lines of ancient works that mention the Britons, inventing a British context

114 Roberts,

‘Historia Regum Britanniae’, pp. 105–8; and Roberts, ‘Historical Tradition’, pp. 33–4. 115 For a helpful overview of Geoffrey’s use of classical literature, see Russell, ‘Inheritance’, pp. 67–104. For more specific discussions, see N. Cartlidge, ‘Laʒamon’s Ursula and the Influence of Roman Epic’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut: Approaches and Explorations, ed. R. S. Allen, J. Roberts, and C. Weinberg (Amsterdam, 2013), pp. 499–522 (pp. 502–9); Faletra, ‘Narrating’, pp. 65, 74; R. W. Hanning, ‘Inescapable History: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and Arthurian Romances of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Romance and History: Imagining Time from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period, ed. J. Whitman (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 55–73 (p. 62); Ingledew, ‘Troy’, pp. 665–704; and Waswo, ‘Ancestors’, pp. 274–86.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century that can explain a line of Latin poetry that would otherwise be uninterpretable. In book iv, for example, he praises the Britons who fought against the Romans. Although the Britons are by this time in the narrative about to be defeated, Geoffrey nevertheless praises them, exclaiming, O ammirabile tunc genus Britonum, qui ipsum bis in fugam propulerunt qui totum orbem sibi submiserat! Cui totus mundus nequiuit resistere, illi etiam fugati resistunt, parati mortem pro patria et libertate subire. Hinc ad laudem illorum cecinit Lucanus de Caesare ‘territa quaesitis ostendit terga Britannis’. (How admirable were the Britons of that age, who twice put to flight the conqueror of the whole world! Even after being routed, they faced a man the whole world could not resist, and were ready to lay down their lives for the liberty of their country. It was in praise of them that the poet Lucan described how Caesar ‘in terror turned his back upon the Britons he had attacked’.)116

In one breath, Geoffrey manages to glorify the Britons for their selflessness, harangue their descendants for their selfish unwillingness to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause, emphasize the way that strife between leaders can undermine the strength of a whole people, and, most importantly for our purposes, paint his Historia as uniquely capable of explaining an allusion made by a famous Roman poet. In this passage, Geoffrey offers both moralistic and political lessons as well as “factual” historical information of the sort that would appear in glosses and commentaries on classical texts. Clearly, this is blatant (one might even say, desperate) opportunism, intended to convince readers that “British history is important too!”. It also reflects forgers’ tendency to draw connections between known and forged texts, in the hopes of bolstering the credibility of their forgery.117 Yet for medieval readers of classical literature, living in a culture for whom Rome would always feel somewhat alien, hungry for explanations of unfamiliar references, and eager to find connections between their own history and the grand reputation of Rome, the Historia would have offered a fascinating glimpse of history from the other side. At one point, Geoffrey implies that British history is not only useful but even necessary for reading the classics. One line from Juvenal’s Satires refers to an otherwise-unknown British king. Geoffrey quotes this line as evidence of the British king Arviragus’s worldwide renown: unde Iuuenalis caecum quendam Neroni dixisse in libro suo commemorat cum de capto rumbo loqueretur inquiens ‘regem aliquem capies aut de themone Britanno decidet Aruiragus’.118 116 GM,

HRB iv.62 (pp. 78–9); Lucan, The Civil War, ed. A. E. Housman, trans. J. D. Duff, LCL 220 (Cambridge MA, 1928), II.572 (pp. 98–9). 117 A. Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship, 2nd edn (Princeton, 2019), pp. 58–9. 118 See Juvenal, Satires 4.126–7 (LCL 91, pp. 206–7).

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (Juvenal in his satires tells how a blind man said to Nero, while discussing a newly caught turbot: ‘you will capture a king or Arviragus shall fall from his British chariot’.)119

Since Arviragus is not mentioned in any other extant work of classical literature, Geoffrey’s Historia provides the only information that could explain this.120 Granted, in the original satire, the reference to a figure as inconsequential to Rome as Arviragus is likely meant to emphasize the ridiculousness of Nero’s whole banquet. Geoffrey’s explanation of this line replaces Juvenal’s ridicule with straightforward, guileless praise for Arviragus. Geoffrey either entirely misreads the passage as genuine praise of Arviragus, or he conveniently ignores the fact that this line is part of a mock-prophecy about what the delivery of an impressively sized turbot might portend for the emperor.121 What matters for our purposes is not whether Geoffrey is sincere, but rather that he has turned this line of Juvenal into evidence of the Historia’s veracity and, even more importantly, its value. Somehow, British history has become necessary for understanding Roman literature. Geoffrey’s contextualization of the classics thus elevates the status of British historical writing. Rather than suggesting that classical literature is the “high” that can sophisticate “low” insular culture, as William of Malmesbury had, Geoffrey depicts classical literature and British history as equally worthy of respect and admiration. For him, British history does not need Roman sophistication to be valuable – it has a value of its own. Crucially, this value derives not from some pure British culture, but rather from the fact that the Britons already possessed their own Trojanitas. Accordingly, the Historia is full of allusions to classical epic, especially the Aeneid. The narrative of book i follows a particularly epic narrative trajectory: Brutus, like Aeneas, is driven from his home by fate, reconnects with forgotten parts of his identity, escapes

119 GM,

HRB iv.69 (pp. 86–7). note in Juvenal, Satires (LCL 91, p. 207 n. 34). 121 It is difficult to determine whether Geoffrey is purposefully misreading Juvenal. On the one hand, Geoffrey’s Latin was strong enough to combine Welsh tradition and new scientific learning in his Latin Historia. See E. J. Bryan, ‘Astronomy Translated: Caput Draconis and the Pendragon Star in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace and Laʒamon’, Arthuriana 26.1 (2016), 141–63 (p. 147). At the same time, Geoffrey errs in more than just his sense of its overall tone. For one thing, the emperor in Juvenal’s satire is Domitian, not Nero. Geoffrey’s mistake may be the result of a misreading of an earlier line, in which Juvenal describes this event as taking place ‘Cum iam semianimum laceraret Flavius orbem / ultimus et calvo serviret Roma Neroni’, ‘Once upon a time, when the last of the Flavians was mangling a world already half-dead, and Rome was the slave of a bald Nero’, 4.37–8 (LCL 91, pp. 198–9). Domitian was the last emperor of the Flavian dynasty; Juvenal’s reference to Nero here is metaphorical, though Geoffrey does not seem to have understood that. Geoffrey also misreads the scene: the speaker of this line is Veiento, who is accompanied by the blind Catullus; but the speaker himself is not blind. 120 See

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century to freedom, makes allies, overcomes challenges, and eventually finds the land promised to him, conquering that land’s earlier inhabitants and then building his city, named (not coincidentally) New Troy.122 This foundation narrative can easily be mapped onto the Aeneid’s, and indeed, it flows directly from its narrative, thanks to Brutus’s direct descent from the Roman hero.123 There are also more specific parallels: Diana’s response to Brutus’s prayer draws on a prophecy to Aeneas in book iii of the Aeneid, for example.124 Geoffrey’s audience might assume that these echoes of classical epic are simply examples of a medieval author using a classical one, in the manner recommended by rhetorical training in the period.125 But Geoffrey’s insistence that he has merely translated his source, and that he has done so in a rustic style, opens up another possibility. It is common for writers of classical epic to allude to a common shared tradition: for example, Lucan often alludes to Vergil’s Aeneid. Geoffrey’s medieval audience could just as easily assume that Geoffrey’s source, rather than Geoffrey himself, contained the original allusion, or that the Britons also wrote epic in the classical tradition, just in their own language, rather than in Latin. After all, the Britons (according to Geoffrey) were descendants of the Trojans and shared some customs with the Romans – why not their literature too? Herein lies the singularity of Geoffrey’s Historia. When William or Henry refer to classical literature, it is clear that these allusions come from the historian writing the text; but when Geoffrey refers to classical literature, the ultimate source of that allusion is not so clear. Is it Geoffrey? The ancient British book? Or is it an echo of some other long-buried tradition? This effect is compounded by Geoffrey’s tendency to make his readers work rather hard to recognize his echoes of classical literature.126 Rather than showing off his knowledge of the classics to boost his credibility and authority, Geoffrey gives his writing the feel of classical literature, without making his classicizing obvious to readers. He also heaps praise on the style of his vernacular source.127 Such details make it possible for audiences to walk away from the Historia thinking that they had caught a glimpse of some Cambrian classical tradition, akin to the Roman classical tradition, both of which derive ultimately from the Trojans. This impression might be even more convincing since Geoffrey’s allusions to classical literature are interspersed throughout the Historia, not just in the parts dealing with Rome. Epic is particularly prominent in the Britons’ wars with the Saxons. The introduction of Merlin and the insertion of his Prophetiae

122 Ingledew,

‘Troy’, p. 677. ‘Narrating’, p. 65. 124 N. Cartlidge, ‘The Norman Conquest and English Literary Culture After 1066’, in Companion, ed. DeMaria Jr, Chang and Zacher, pp. 97–113 (p. 105). 125 Russell, ‘Inheritance’, pp. 101–4. 126 Ibid., pp. 98–101. 127 Echard, ‘“Hic”’, pp. 53–8. 123 Faletra,

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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae halfway through the Historia perform the same function as the appearance and prophecy of the Sybil in Aeneid vi.128 It also echoes epic’s inclusion of a journey to the underworld (here, the journey to the cave beneath Vortigern’s castle), where the hero will receive a prophecy about his future. This underworld narrative usually occurs halfway through an epic, as it does here.129 The astrology-driven conclusion of the Prophetiae is indebted to Lucan.130 Meanwhile, the tale of Stonehenge and the description of the marvelous loch resemble epic’s frequent use of mythology to describe marvelous geographic features, such as Scylla and Charybdis.131 Book x also contains a number of epic elements, such as the giant of Mont St Michel.132 To the unknowing reader, these features could be read with equal likelihood as classicizing on Geoffrey’s part or as signs of a long-standing insular epic tradition. Geoffrey’s insinuations that such a tradition exists are, I would suggest, part of a broader attempt to depict the Historia’s varietas as indicative of the Britons’ possession of a rich historiographical tradition that predates Bede. It is no accident that the genres Geoffrey implies existed in early Britain are the same genres considered “cousins” to history. Epic, for example, was thought to be based on real, historical events, and to possess a similar ethical value as history.133 Satire, too, bears a strong resemblance to history: both aim to spur their readers to more virtuous behavior, the former by laying bare the faults of others, and the latter by providing examples of good and bad behavior from the past.134 The formal variety of the Historia hints at the existence of other kinds of historical writing as well: stepping into biography, annals, king lists, and other genres of historical writing creates the impression of a rich British historiographical tradition, which some previous historian had gathered into an ancient British book, and which Geoffrey himself was only translating. Geoffrey’s presentation of his ancient British book makes this story entirely plausible (even if some modern audiences consider it false). Thus, although Geoffrey praises the perfect wholeness of his source, his formal variety and his use of classical literature create the impression that the Britons had their own rich literary and historiographical tradition, descended from their own Trojan ancestry, which some earlier compiler had already assembled into a varius whole, and which he is now merely translating. The simultaneous diversity and unity of Geoffrey’s Historia thus allow him to both have his cake and eat it too, for they allow him to present British historiography as 128 Faletra,

‘Narrating’, p. 74. Legendary, p. 403. 130 Ibid., pp. 405–6. 131 See, respectively, GM, HRB viii.128–30 (pp. 170–5) and ix.150 (pp. 202–3). 132 Ibid. x.165 (pp. 224–9). For discussion, see Russell, ‘Inheritance’, pp. 96–7. 133 Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 129–30. 134 For example, see Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum VIII.vii.7–8 (ed. Lindsay, I, [unpaginated]). For a modern discussion of this relationship, see Kempshall, Rhetoric, p. 129. 129 Tatlock,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century already sophisticated, rather than in need of sophistication, as William of Malmesbury had remarked of English historiography. Creating and then hiding the Historia’s varietas is, therefore, a kind of magic, which allows Geoffrey to bring into being the kind of historical sources he wishes he had. If Geoffrey’s Historia seems not to possess a great deal of varietas, it is because the text possesses a veneer of wholeness, continuity, and truth, all for the purpose of arguing that the Britons deserve a prominent – and during some periods, dominant – place in insular history. Misleading readers about the realities of the historical record may go against the very principles of history-writing, yet forgers who invent fakes for ideological reasons frequently find themselves engaging in just this sort of hypocrisy, because their desire for a text that can prove the truth of their beliefs overrides their respect for the very norms that they wish to uphold.135 Apparently, Geoffrey is no different: his desire to prove the importance of British historywriting leads him to perform some sleights of hand. Still, he seems to have considered that a fair price to pay for ensuring the inclusion of British voices in insular history. 111 In sum, Geoffrey recognizes, questions, but ultimately employs varietas, and the popularity of his history opens the door for later writers in the Galfridian tradition to do the same. Moreover, Geoffrey’s decision to pretend that his ancient British book already possessed varietas suggests that he considers varietas a sign of a developed historiographical tradition. Yet Geoffrey’s Historia also demonstrates just how far historians could stretch the basic concept of varietas to suit their own ideological needs. Much more than William or Henry, Geoffrey adapts the principles handed to him by earlier ideas about varietas. Still, comparing his Historia to the histories of William and Henry offers an early indication of a pattern that will become fully visible by the end of this book. Geoffrey is a political commentator more than a theologian, and he clearly has a greater ideological affinity for the balance-oriented varietas exemplified by the classicizing William rather than the mixture-oriented varietas of the theologically focused Henry. As future chapters will explore, these associations remain fairly stable throughout the long twelfth-century. When varietas focuses on making a political argument, it tends to adhere to the classical model of balance; but when it trains its sights on spiritual rather than political meaning, varietas is more likely to emulate the Christian ideal of mixing. Or, in other words: the practice of varietas is itself varius, but that diversity of practice only helps us see the larger picture of British historical writing more clearly.

135 Grafton,

Forgers, pp. 31–2, 39–41, 44–8.

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Part II

Variety in Middle English

5 ‘Three texts into one’: Laʒamon’s Brut Laʒamon’s Brut is best known today as the earliest narrative about King Arthur in English. Yet the Brut holds an altogether different significance for our purposes. As the earliest surviving Middle English verse chronicle, the Brut demonstrates how historiographical varietas – that is, a specific set of ideas and literary practices derived from classical rhetoric, applied to British history, and then popularized by twelfth-century British historians – finds its way from Latin prose histories into Middle English verse chronicles. Laʒamon’s Brut is a translation of Wace’s Roman de Brut (completed in 1155), which is itself a translation of Geoffrey’s Historia (c. 1138) into AngloNorman French.1 Laʒamon’s Brut was likely produced a few decades later, c. 1216.2 Like other Middle English verse chronicles of the Brut tradition, Laʒamon’s Brut tells the story of Britain’s foundation by Brutus and its subsequent history under British rule. Although it is a fairly faithful translation of Wace’s text, Laʒamon also adapts Wace’s Roman de Brut to suit his own vision of history. Importantly, that vision is built on varietas. The varietas – both formal and philosophical – of Laʒamon’s Brut exceeds that of Wace’s Roman de Brut. It also exceeds that of the First Variant Version, the Latin recension of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia produced between 1138 and 1155 that Wace used as his primary source for the Roman de Brut.3 Sometimes, Laʒamon’s varietas even exceeds that of Geoffrey himself. Yet Laʒamon never uses the Latin word varietas in his Middle English chronicle, nor does he ever discuss this concept explicitly. How, then, can we discern varietas in his work? As earlier chapters established, the formal variety of a piece of historical writing can reveal whether its author considers varietas a tool for repairing historical narratives, whether he uses varietas in that way, and even what kind of varietas he favors. This chapter follows the same approach, scrutinizing Laʒamon’s formal variety for glimpses of his varietas. When the Brut is examined in the same manner as William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum, Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, and Geoffrey 1

2 3

Wace’s Roman de Brut: A History of the British: Text and Translation, ed. and trans. J. Weiss, rev. edn (Exeter, 2002), p. xii. References to the primary text will follow the format Wace, RB, followed by the relevant line and page numbers for the text and translation cited above. For the date of the Brut, see R. Allen, ‘Eorles and Beornes: Contextualizing Lawman’s Brut’, Arthuriana 8.3 (1998), 4–22; and Le Saux, Poem, pp. 1–10. FVV, p. lxx.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, it quickly becomes apparent that Laʒamon turns to varietas for much the same reason as his predecessors: to create harmony among the fragments of insular history. Admittedly, some modern readers may find it difficult to believe that a Middle English poet such as Laʒamon would or even could use a Latin rhetorical concept to think about how to express historical time in historiographical narrative. Yet there has been much work of late on Laʒamon’s engagement with Latin and especially classical literature.4 This chapter will add to that work not by attempting to argue that Laʒamon used this-or-that twelfth-century historian, but by showing how the Brut’s formal variety is shaped by Laʒamon’s conception of varietas, which in turn is indebted to the theories and practices of earlier historians.5 In other words, I apply the same methods of analysis used in earlier chapters to Laʒamon’s Brut, to reveal the extent to which Laʒamon participated in the historiographical trends of his day. I focus in particular on the way that the distinctions between classical and Christian varietas move into the vernacular. While Laʒamon is sympathetic to Geoffrey’s views on varietas’s inherent instability, he ultimately favors the Christian varietas represented in this book by Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum. In this way, Laʒamon’s Brut reveals how tracing rhetorical ideas and practices can draw connections between historians that might otherwise not be considered members of the same historiographical tradition. Yet Laʒamon’s modifications to the idea of varietas – especially his ability to bridge the perspectives of Geoffrey and Henry – also illuminate how, when a rhetorical idea crosses a linguistic divide, it takes on new qualities that can sometimes undermine the stability of its theoretical framework.6 Still, the varietas of Laʒamon’s Brut marks an important new step in varietas’s progression from the Latin rhetorician’s manual to the vernacular historian’s toolkit.

4

5

6

For example, see Barron, ‘Idiom’, p. 181; J. M. Burek, ‘(Not) Like Aeneas: Allusions to the Aeneid in Laʒamon’s Brut’, RES 71.299 (2020), 229–50; Cartlidge, ‘Ursula’, pp. 499–521; Le Saux, Poem, pp. 16–18, 22, 94–117; G. Mercatanti, ‘Some Rhetorical Devices of the Latin Tradition in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Laʒamon: Contexts, ed. Allen, Perry, and Roberts, pp. 241–9; Salter, English, pp. 61–5; and C. Weinberg, ‘Julius Caesar and the Language of History in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. Allen, Roberts, and Weinberg, pp. 473–98. There is some evidence that Laʒamon knew Geoffrey’s Historia directly, but not enough to offer definitive proof one way or the other. See R. Allen, trans., Brut (New York, 1992), pp. 414, 419, 420 (and for evidence against this argument, pp. 427–8); and Le Saux, Poem, pp. 94–117. On Henry’s ability to bridge English and British historiography, see also L. Johnson, ‘Reading the Past in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in The Text and Tradition of Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. F. H. M. Le Saux (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 141–60 (p. 149).

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Laʒamon’s Brut

Middle English varietas How can we know that Laʒamon (or indeed any other verse chronicler) was familiar with the principles of historiographical varietas? This question is particularly challenging in light of the fact that the English word ‘variety’ is first attested in 1533.7 Other cognates appear earlier (‘variable’ in c. 1387, ‘variation’ in c. 1385, ‘vary’ in c. 1384, and ‘variance’ in c. 1340), but even the briefest scan through the Middle English Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary reveals that ‘variety’ and its cognates were far more common in the fifteenth than the fourteenth century.8 As late as the 1380s, ‘variety’ and its cognates were unfamiliar enough that the translators of the Wycliffite Bible felt the need to add an additional word to their rendering of Zechariah 11. 8 to ensure that their meaning was clear to readers: they translate ‘et succidi tres pastores in mense uno et contracta est anima mea in eis siquidem anima eorum variavit in me’ (‘And I cut off three shepherds in one month, and my soul was straitened in their regard: for their soul also varied in my regard’) as ‘The soule of hem variede, or chaungide, in me’ (emphasis mine).9 The addition of ‘chaungide’ would not be necessary if the translators thought the meaning of ‘variede’ needed no explanation. Although cognates of varietas had existed in Anglo-Norman French from the twelfth century, early Middle English does not seem to possess a word that maps directly onto the Latin varietas.10 There are words such as ‘sondri’ and ‘misliche’, but both simply imply difference rather than the concordia discors of varietas. Still, as earlier chapters have shown, a writer does not need to refer to a rhetorical concept by name in order to use it. The word ‘rethorik’ does not appear in English before c. 1330, yet no one would claim that English writers of earlier eras were unaware of the concept of rhetoric.11 Only two manuscripts of the Brut survive: London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A. ix (henceforth the Caligula Brut) and London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho C. xiii (henceforth the Otho Brut). Both manuscripts were written

7 8

9

10 11

Oxford English Dictionary Online (Oxford, 2021), s.v. ‘variety’. Ibid. and Middle English Dictionary, ed. R. E. Lewis et al. (Ann Arbor, 1952–2001), in Middle English Compendium Online, ed. Frances McSparran et al. (Ann Arbor, 2000–18), s.v. ‘variable’, ‘variation’, ‘vary’, and ‘variance’. The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, With the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Versions Made from the Latin Vulgate, by John Wycliffe and His Followers, ed. J. Forshall and F. Madden, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1850), III, 760. Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2 Online Edition) (Aberystwyth, 2020–), s.v. ‘variement’ and ‘varier’; cf. ‘variance’ in the thirteenth century. MED, s.v. ‘rethorik(e)’. I do not discuss Laʒamon’s variation (Latin variatio), which, as my introduction discusses, differs from varietas. Moreover, this technique is more likely a product of Laʒamon’s familiarity with Old English poetry. See Callander, ‘Dialogue’, pp. 711–12; and J. Noble, ‘Variation in Laʒamon’s Brut’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 85 (1984), 92–4.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century much later than the Brut itself, probably in the third quarter of the thirteenth century.12 Of these, one – namely, the Caligula Brut – manages to engage frequently in varietas despite lacking any overt self-reflection on this rhetorical concept. For example, its description of Arthur’s Whitsunday feast mentions the attendees’ complementary-yet-distinct monochromatic attire: For heo hafden on iqueðen alle; bi heore quike liue. þat heo wolden of ane heowen; heore claðes habben. Sum hafde whit sum hafden ræd; sum hafde god grene æc. (For they had all promised one thing, by their very persons, That they would all wear outfits in one colour scheme: Some wore white, some wore red, and some wore vivid green.)13

Clothing, as we have repeatedly seen, is a common metaphor for varietas. Even more tellingly, the repetition of ‘sum’ and the enumeration of the different colors that together form a single court use varietas to send readers’ gaze back and forth, encouraging them to take in the court’s concordia discors.14 This passage is even more striking when placed within the larger Brut tradition. Every Brut text emphasizes the varietas of Arthur’s court in some fashion. But comments about clothing are not universally present. Geoffrey’s Historia merely mentions the ladies’ monochromatic tones, which match those of the equally-monochromatic knights.15 The First Variant Version leaves out the detail entirely.16 Wace reintroduces the image into his narrative, in much the same form as it had taken in the Historia.17 However, the Caligula Brut amplifies Wace’s account, adding the poetic repetition of ‘sum’ and the references to particular colors that make it clear this scene is one of varietas. Meanwhile, the Otho Brut lacks these rhetorical details, and instead resembles Wace’s basic account.18 Thus, while all these descriptions of Arthur’s feast emphasize the varietas of Arthur’s court in some way, the Caligula Brut goes beyond the others in actively encouraging readers to visualize the court’s varietas. 12 13

14

15 16 17 18

Le Saux, Poem, pp. 2, 6–7, 13. Laʒamon, Brut, ed. G. L. Brook and R. F. Leslie, EETS OS 250, 277 (London, 1963, 1978), ll. 12300–2. Translation from Lawman, Brut, trans. R. Allen (New York, 1992), p. 314. Subsequent references to the Caligula Brut will follow the form Laʒamon, C-Brut, followed by the line numbers for the critical edition and page numbers for the translation cited here. References to the Otho Brut will follow standard (rather than abbreviated) formatting, to clearly differentiate between the two versions. Translations from the Otho Brut are mine. For further discussion of the court’s diversity, see R. Allen, ‘Did Lawman Nod, or Is It We That Yawn?’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. Allen, Roberts, and Weinberg, pp. 19–51 (pp. 37–40). GM, HRB ix.157 (pp. 212–13). FVV ch. 157 (p. 151). All translation from FVV is mine. Wace, RB ll. 10503–10 (pp. 264–5). Laʒamon, Otho Brut ll. 12300–1 (ed. Brook and Leslie, II, 643, 645).

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Laʒamon’s Brut This passage exemplifies the two different approaches to varietas taken by the two extant manuscripts of the Brut. Their divergent attitudes are hardly surprising, given the many differences that scholars have noted between them. The Caligula Brut is far more stylistically ‘archaic’ than Otho, especially in its diction, which eschews French cognates in favor of Old English poetic vocabulary.19 This avoidance of French diction sometimes results in the sublimation (though not the elimination) of other French cultural influences, such as courtoisie.20 Caligula is also more moralizing, more dramatic, and much longer.21 For these reasons, it has long been assumed that Caligula is closer to Laʒamon’s original text.22 This chapter does not focus exclusively on the Caligula Brut for that reason, but rather for what the Caligula version represents: a serious attempt to transfer the theory and practice of varietas from Latin prose histories to a Middle English verse chronicle. I will return to the Otho Brut in the conclusion to this book, to reflect on the eventual decline in varietas’s popularity, but until then, I train my sights on the Caligula Brut, where historiographical varietas survives even in the absence of the word itself.

‘Pondering many things in many ways’ As a descendant of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, Laʒamon’s Brut echoes many of the Historia’s varietas-driven traits. For example, it conceptualizes time as both linear and cyclical, just as Geoffrey’s Historia does.23 Because 19

20 21

22

23

For discussion of the relationship between the Caligula and Otho Brut texts, see C. Cannon, ‘The Style and Authorship of the Otho Revision of Laʒamon’s Brut’, Speculum 62.2 (1993), 187–209; C. Elsweiler, Laʒamon’s Brut Between Old English Heroic Poetry and Middle English Romance: A Study of the Lexical Fields ‘Hero’, ‘Warrior’ and ‘Knight’ (Frankfurt am Main, 2011), esp. pp. 2–15, 369–75; and A. C. Gibbs, ‘The Literary Relationships of Laʒamon’s Brut’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1962), p. 245. On the elimination of French words, see also D. Donoghue, ‘Laʒamon’s Ambivalence’, Speculum 65.3 (1990), 537–63; B. S. Monroe, ‘French Words in Laʒamon’, Modern Philology 4.3 (1907), 559–67; and E. G. Stanley, ‘Laʒamon’s Antiquarian Sentiments’, Medium Ævum 38.1 (1969), 23–37. W. J. R. Barron and F. H. M. Le Saux, ‘Two Aspects of Laʒamon’s Narrative Art’, in AL 9 (1989), 25–56 (pp. 45–56); and Elsweiler, Study, pp. 369, 373–5. On morality and drama, see Allen, ‘Nod’, p. 41; and Le Saux, Poem, p. 13. On the comparative lengths of the two versions, see Bryan, Collaborative, p. 48; and L. Perry, ‘“Þus heo hit speken”: Direct and Indirect Speech in the Two Versions of Laʒamon’s Brut’, Neophilologus 92 (2008), 523–44 (pp. 523–4). On the Otho reviser’s tendency to compress the lines of Caligula, see Cannon, ‘Style’, pp. 191–3. See Le Saux, Poem, pp. 10–13 for a discussion and bibliography. For linguistic evidence supporting this view, see also E. Ciszek, ‘Middle English Decline of the Old English Word lēode: a Case Study of the Two Manuscripts of Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Historical English Word-Formation and Semantics, ed. J. Fisiak and M. Bator (Frankfurt am Main, 2013), pp. 229–43; and Elsweiler, Study. For cyclicality, see Cannon, Grounds, p. 56; for linearity, see J. P. Brennan, ‘Myth,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century it follows the same basic framework as the Historia, it also contrasts the purported continuity of the dynastic line with the discontinuities presented by ruptures in the genealogy of kings.24 The same can be said of all the texts in the Brut tradition. However, Laʒamon often seems to bypass Wace’s Roman de Brut and the First Variant Version, and to embrace the varietas that had lain dormant in the tradition since the First Variant’s redaction of Geoffrey’s work. This tendency is particularly clear in these texts’ treatments of prophecy. Geoffrey’s prophecies of Merlin are an example of varietas, insofar as they use digression, narrative repetition, chronological rupture and stylistic variation to draw readers’ attention to the constructedness of history. Yet Wace famously refuses to translate them, saying that he cannot fully understand or interpret them, so he will pass over them.25 For Wace, it is more historiographically sound to eliminate challenges to historical continuity, rather than to foreground them, as Geoffrey did.26 In contrast, Laʒamon displays particular interest in prophecies and their ability to rupture the style and structure of history. He omits Wace’s comments on the prophecies, and instead knits together Vortigern’s request for an explanation of the two dragons (which precedes Wace’s comment) and his praise for Merlin’s abilities (which follows it) into a single conversation.27 He also expands on Wace’s allusion to the prophecy of Arthur as the boar of Cornwall.28 Thus, Laʒamon eliminates Wace’s disparaging remarks about the prophecy, while amplifying the reference to Arthur as the boar. Other passages, such as those detailing Arthur’s conception and future achievements and the British hope, also draw on the imagery or spirit of the Prophetiae. Furthermore, Laʒamon refers to prophecy throughout the Brut.29 He keeps Wace’s mention of Merlin’s foreknowledge of Arthur’s death, and adds another prophecy by Merlin, that the walls of Rome would fall before Arthur.30 In addition to asserting the accuracy of Merlin’s prophecies, Laʒamon magnifies Wace’s portrayal of Merlin’s powers by adding on several occasions when Merlin knew what would happen in advance of an event’s occurrence in the narrative.31 Other characters also speak prophecies: Arthur

24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

Marriage, and Dynastic Crisis in Laʒamon’s Brut’, Arthuriana 26.1 (2016), 41–59. See chapter 4, pp. 122–3. Wace, RB ll. 7539–42 (pp. 190–1). Wace may have had political motivations for eliminating the prophecies, but his stated reason for this decision is historiographical discretion. J. Blacker, ‘“Ne vuil sun livre translater”: Wace’s Omission of Merlin’s Prophecies from the Roman de Brut’, in Anglo-Norman Anniversary Essays, ed. I. Short (London, 1993), pp. 49–60. Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 7971–8040 (pp. 206–8). Wace, RB ll. 7577–82 (pp. 190–1); Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 8031–8 (pp. 207–8). See, respectively, Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 9403–23 (p. 242) and ll. 11489–517 (pp. 294–5). See, respectively, Wace, RB ll. 13275–93 (pp. 332–5) and Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 14288–97 (p. 365); and ibid. ll. 13964–8 (p. 356). Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 8515–22 (p. 220), l. 8687 (p. 224), ll. 9390–7 (p. 241). For

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Laʒamon’s Brut says that he is going to Avalon to be healed, but that he will return, while in his speech preceding Arthur’s Roman campaign, Howel predicts that Arthur will be the third British king to conquer Rome, as the Sybil foretold.32 On occasion, Laʒamon goes so far as to add proleptic material of his own. For example, he creates a new prophetic dream for Arthur, which the king receives the night before he learns of Modred’s and Guinevere’s treachery.33 In all of these passages, Laʒamon juxtaposes past, present and future, helping readers to both discern and appreciate these fragments of history. That Laʒamon’s interest in prophecy pertains to varietas (rather than simply prophecy for prophecy’s sake) is visible from the narrative quality of his prophecies. Recall that prophecies are digressions, which rupture the formal and temporal progression of the text, sending readers down a parallel path that forces them to grapple with the meaning of the central historical narrative. Laʒamon’s addition of the prophecy of the eagle during the construction of Shaftesbury Castle illuminates how Laʒamon treats prophecy in this way. In Geoffrey’s Historia, this prophecy provides another opportunity for Geoffrey to allude to the existence of countless other British texts, and to use these allusions to reinforce the legitimacy of his own. According to Geoffrey, ‘Ibi tunc aquila locuta est, dum murus aedificaretur; cuius sermones si ueros esse arbitrarer sicut cetera memoriae dare non diffugerem’ (‘While the city-wall was being constructed there, an eagle spoke; and if I thought that its prophecies were true, I would not hesitate to set them down here with the rest’).34 The First Variant Version removes Geoffrey’s purported reluctance to include inaccurate prophecies, and states simply, ‘Ibi tunc, ut dicitur, aquila locuta est dum murus edificaretur’ (‘In that place then, as they say, an eagle spoke while the city-wall was being constructed’).35 Wace then takes a characteristically uninterested attitude towards this prophecy: ‘Uns aigles, ço dit l’on, parla, / Ne sai que dist ne que nunça’ (‘it is said that an eagle spoke, but I do not know what it said or foretold’).36 Of the three, only Geoffrey imbues this scene with any sense of varietas, because he is the only one who entertains the possibility of a digression here. Yet even he refuses to go down that path. Laʒamon, in contrast, actually provides a prophecy for the eagle. He says that the prophecy foretold this king’s death, and that the king himself and all his knights heard it. Ruhhudibras died a little time later.37 In this prophecy, Laʒamon sends readers down a narrative path (the eagle speaks, the king

32 33 34 35 36 37

discussion, see K. Wickham-Crowley, Writing the Past: Laʒamon’s Prophetic History (Cardiff, 2002), pp. 117–19. See, respectively, Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 14272–82 (pp. 364–5) and ll. 12543–65 (p. 321). Ibid. ll. 13982–4021 (pp. 357–8). GM, HRB ii.29 (pp. 36–7). FVV ch. 29 (pp. 22–3). Wace, RB ll. 1617–18 (pp. 42–3). Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 1411–16 (p. 38).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century and his knights hear it, the bird prophecies the king’s death, the king dies) that is absent in earlier versions of the Brut tradition. The journey is short, yet for a brief moment, the narrative exists in two parallel lines – what is happening (history), and what is about to happen (prophecy) – and it uses the juxtaposition of those narratives to help readers grow in wisdom. Here, they learn the importance of listening to the natural world for signs of God’s plan. That lesson is brought home in the story of Ruhhudibras’s successor, the Minerva-worshipping Bladud, who is most famous for attempting to fly like a bird, only to crash to his death.38 In other words, it is wise to see the natural world as a reflection of God’s plan, and to try to interpret earthly signs to get a glimpse of divine meaning. At the same time, it is unwise to try to reshape God’s order of the world, or to think that one has complete control over one’s place in nature. The Christianity underneath this passage is revealed by the fact that Bladud is dashed to pieces on, of all things, the roof of a pagan temple.39 These passages thus mount a defense of prophecy and other kinds of symbolic narratives common to varietas, while suggesting that writers of varietas should aim not to control but rather to interpret history. In this way, Laʒamon argues against Wace’s notion that prophecy is unsuitable for history, and in favor of the idea that prophecies and other varietas-inspired digressions can contribute to history’s ability to teach Christian morality. Laʒamon’s faith in varietas’s power appears most clearly in his prologue. There, Laʒamon both revisits Geoffrey’s Historia and strikes out in new directions. Geoffrey, we will recall, began the Historia by expressing his surprise at the ignorance of the renowned historians of early Britain.40 Meanwhile, the First Variant Version eliminated Geoffrey’s original prologue to the Historia entirely.41 For this reason, Wace composes his own prologue for the Roman de Brut, in which he unintentionally reveals the distinctions between his and Geoffrey’s conception of history: Ki vult oïr e vult saveir De rei en rei e d’eir en eir Ki cil furent e dunt il vindrent Ki Engleterre primes tindrent, Quels reis i ad en ordre eü, E qui anceis e ki puis fu, Maistre Wace l’ad translaté Ki en conte la verité. (Whoever wishes to hear and to know about the successive kings and their heirs who once upon a time were the rulers of England – who they were,

38 39 40 41

Ibid. ll. 1417–48 (pp. 38–9). Ibid. ll. 1444–6 (p. 39). GM, HRB Prol.1 (pp. 4–5). Warren, History, pp. 63, 71–2.

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Laʒamon’s Brut whence they came, what was their sequence, who came earlier and who later – Master Wace has translated it and tells it truthfully.)42

Whereas Geoffrey had focused on the institution of kingship and the succession of kingship and sovereignty, Wace’s short prologue stresses the genealogical connections between kings and their heirs. There is no mention of other writers’ variety here, nor is there any reference to metaphors for varietas (such as the garden in Geoffrey’s prologue). Wace gives attention solely to continuity. He also avoids any mention of his sources or the British historiographical tradition, both in his prologue and throughout the Roman de Brut. Part of this is due to the First Variant Version, which mostly eliminates Geoffrey’s narrative voice (including his references to other historians).43 Still, when combined with the Roman de Brut’s new emphasis on inheritance, this absence of historiographical reflection on the flaws of earlier histories has the effect of making Wace’s history appear unconcerned by the narrative gaps and political fissures of British history that had preoccupied Latin prose historians in the early twelfth century. At first, Laʒamon’s prologue seems to follow Wace’s lead. He translates the general sense of Wace’s introductory lines in its entirety, stating that his topic is the kings of England, who they were and where they came from, and referring to himself in the third person.44 Yet Laʒamon’s prologue also represents a marked change from Wace’s approach. His prologue is longer and more elaborate, incorporating into its thirty-five lines many of the features we would expect to find in a prologue to a Latin prose history.45 It introduces the author and his credentials to the audience (Laʒamon, Liefnoth’s son and priest at Areley Kings); provides the impetus behind the project (‘Hit com him on mode’, ‘There came to his mind’); mentions a dedicatee (Eleanor, Henry’s queen); lists sources (the English, Latin, and French books noted above); praises the style of his primary source; says that he will follow his sources as closely as possible, combining them to create a single narrative but following the more accurate of them when they conflict; and finally, suggests that his work will educate his reader while also benefiting his own soul.46 Furthermore, by stating that he has relied heavily on Bede in particular, Laʒamon implicitly claims, like William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon (among others), to belong to the English historical tradition founded by Bede – even though he is clearly 42 43 44 45

46

Wace, RB ll. 1–8 (pp. 2–3). FVV, pp. liii–liv. See, respectively, Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 7–8 (p. 1) and ll. 1–5, 29–35 (pp. 1–2). For Latin historiographical prologues in general, see Gransden, ‘Prologues’, pp. 55–81. For rhetorical influence on Laʒamon’s prologue, see Allen, trans., Brut, p. 411; and Mercatanti, ‘Devices’, pp. 242–4. See, respectively, Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 1–5, 6, 22–3, 14–23, 21, 27–8, 37, 31 and 35 (pp. 1–2).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century operating in a Galfridian framework.47 In this way, the prologue suggests that the Brut is a fully-fledged member of the insular historiographical tradition. As part of that argument, Laʒamon’s prologue reintroduces references to the fragmentation of insular history that sparked earlier historians’ use of varietas. He removes Wace’s references to the succession of rule from kings to their heirs, focusing instead only on the kings themselves, as Geoffrey had done. Moreover, he tells readers of the labor he expended to find sources, thus reminding them of the brokenness of the historical record. Laʒamon says that he ‘gon liðen; wide ʒond þas leode’ (‘went travelling the length of this whole land’), eventually settling on three sources: first, ‘þa Englisca boc; þa makede Seint Beda’ (‘the “English Book” that Saint Bede had created’); next, a book ‘on Latin; þe makede Seinte Albin / & þe feire Austin; þe fulluht broute hider in’ (‘in Latin created by Saint Albin / And our dear Augustine who brought the Christian faith in’); and finally, he selected a third book that he placed in the middle of the others, by ‘a Frenchis clerc’ (‘a French cleric’) named Wace.48 The identities of the first two books in this list are unclear, but what matters for our purposes is the fact that he dedicates space in his prologue to discussing these sources, even though Wace – his primary source – does not.49 Moreover, by casting each book as representative of one of England’s primary linguistic communities, Laʒamon emphasizes that the history of England’s kings has been broken into several different pieces – the building blocks of varietas. Crucially, Laʒamon then goes on to explain how his Brut mends that broken narrative by putting those pieces back together and restoring the integrity of insular history – not by ignoring its brokenness, but instead by appreciating how pleasing it is when all of history’s pieces are arranged just so. Concerning his sources, he writes, Laʒamon leide þeos boc; & þa leaf wende. he heom leofliche bi-heold. liþe him beo Drihten. Feþeren he nom mid fingren; & fiede on boc-felle. & þa soþere word; sette to-gadere. & þa þre boc; þrumde to are. ([Laʒamon] laid out these books, and he leafed through them, Gazing at them gratefully – the Lord be gracious to him! Quill pens he clutched in fingers, composing on his parchment, And the more reliable versions he recorded, Compressing those three texts into one complete book.)50

47 48 49 50

Cf. A. Galloway, ‘Laʒamon’s Gift’, PMLA 121.3 (2006), 717–34 (p. 721). See, respectively, Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 14, 16, 17–18, 20 (p. 1). For a summary of these debates, see Johnson, ‘Reading’, pp. 147–9; and Le Saux, Poem, pp. 16–22. Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 24–8 (p. 1).

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Laʒamon’s Brut As a priest, Laʒamon has the ability to transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.51 Here, he acts in his priestly capacity to perform textual transubstantiation, miraculously transforming three different sources, written in three different languages, into a single text.52 There is also a heavy degree of trinitarian imagery in this passage, with three books being pressed into one. This theological concept is connected to varietas: as the fourteenth-century Middle English poet William of Shoreham wrote, ‘Þaȝ hy be ine reyson dyuers / O god hyt hys’ (‘Though they [the three persons of God] are diverse in reason / there is one God’, emphasis mine).53 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all distinguish (distinguere) each other, and the single God which they comprise. When Laʒamon invokes the Trinity here, then, he is invoking the language of varietas, and suggesting that looking between the three books – as he explicitly describes himself doing – is the path towards creating a single British history.

Standing once more on the walls of New Troy Laʒamon’s prologue thus returns to many of the concerns of Geoffrey’s Historia. However, the image of Laʒamon’s priestly poetics represents a significant divergence from Geoffrey’s conception of varietas. Geoffrey had conceptualized varietas as lopsided balance, and his prologue represents that idea in its weighing of different source materials and subsequent decision to rely almost exclusively on a single text, translated for the benefit of its readers.54 Laʒamon, in contrast, presses different languages together – an act of mixture, not balance. Moreover, he compares compiling sources to transubstantiation. In this way, the Brut’s prologue suggests that Laʒamon conceptualizes varietas as more Christian than classical. Other aspects of the Brut support that conclusion. Geoffrey had proposed a hybrid identity for the Britons, with one dominant and one subordinate aspect of that identity. In his account, the success of the Britons at any given moment hinges on whether they maintain that unequal balance of identities. For example, discussion of the Britons’ Trojan identity dominates Geoffrey’s explanation of the Roman invasion of Britain. However, while the First Variant adheres closely to Geoffrey’s view, Wace minimizes the role of identity in this scene, by removing Caesar’s references to the Britons’ degenerated Trojanitas, and having Caesar attribute his invasion to a combination

51 52 53

54

Ibid. l. 1 (p. 1). Galloway, ‘Laʒamon’s Gift’, p. 722. The Poems of William of Shoreham: ab. 1320 vicar of Chart-Sutton, ed. M. Konrath, EETS ES 86 (London, 1902), VII.32.190–1 (p. 136). For further discussion of varietas and trinitarian theology, see chapter 1, pp. 36–7. See chapter 4, esp. pp. 133–7, 143, 149–50.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of a desire for vengeance and the turning of Fortune’s wheel.55 In contrast, Laʒamon eliminates Wace’s reference to Fortune’s wheel, attributing Caesar’s invasion to some blend of vengeance and personal pride, thus removing from his narrative the hint of a reason other than the Britons’ lack of a hybrid identity.56 Laʒamon’s explanation is therefore based on Christian morality rather than classical metaphors. Moreover, he creates this new emphasis on Caesar’s personal character with the help of formal variety. In Laʒamon’s Brut, the peasants describe Britain to Caesar in direct rather than indirect speech, and give to Caesar a miniature descriptio of the island’s resources and inhabitants.57 By having humble peasants converse with an arrogant conqueror, Laʒamon creates a dialogue between perspectives that reveals Caesar’s character flaws to readers. The rhetorical techniques and historical interpretations in this scene are thus connected more to the Christian sense of varietas as harmonious blend than to the classical understanding of wellarranged balance. Yet Laʒamon does not eschew all of the principles of classical varietas. For many historians partial to classical varietas, including William of Malmesbury and Geoffrey of Monmouth, possessing multi-faceted cultural identities is an asset, because it can create the desired varietas. Similarly, in the Brut, the English succeed where the Britons fail because the English are willing to adopt the customs of other peoples, while the Britons are not.58 Laʒamon therefore shares with historians of classical varietas an appreciation of hybridity. He simply sees that hybridity in Christian rather than classical terms. For him, identity is a mixture of customs, rather than a balance of Romanitas and Englishness (William) or a delicate equilibrium between dominant and subordinate identities (Geoffrey). Laʒamon’s self-characterization of his role as a historian creates a similar picture. Rather than casting himself as a cultural influencer seeking a proper cultural balance (William) or a submissive translator who gives one culture 55 56 57

58

Wace, RB ll. 3870–94 (pp. 98–9). Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 3620–39 (pp. 94–5). See, respectively, ibid. ll. 3616–18 (p. 94) and Otho Brut ll. 3616–18 (ed. Brook and Leslie, I, 191). The latter is only in Otho, not Caligula; however, its presence in Otho suggests that it was present in Laʒamon’s own version, which Caligula more closely approximates but obviously does not represent. Thus I include this evidence here under the assumption that it would have been in the text when first composed. J. M. Burek, ‘“Ure Bruttisce speche”: Language, Culture, and Conquest in Laʒamon’s Brut’, Arthuriana 26.1 (2016), 108–23; Warren, History, pp. 96–104; and WickhamCrowley, Writing, pp. 21, 27–8. For other discussions of overlapping cultural identities (specifically, linguistic and religious), see H. M. Bailey, ‘Conquest by Word: The Meeting of Languages in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. Allen, Roberts and Weinberg, pp. 269–86 (pp. 276–86); Johnson, ‘Reading’, pp. 150–6; F. Somerset, ‘Mingling with the English in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Truth and Tales: Cultural Mobility and Medieval Media, ed. F. Somerset and N. Watson (Columbus, 2015), pp. 96–113; and Warren, History, pp. 116–17.

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Laʒamon’s Brut priority (Geoffrey), Laʒamon presents himself as a compiler of cultural perspectives.59 Like Henry of Huntingdon and Bede, both of whom describe how the evidence for English history is scattered across England, Laʒamon advocates actively seeking out books.60 That argument appears from his description of his own actions, namely that he went ‘liðen; wide ʒond þas leode’ (‘travelling the length of this whole land’) to acquire them.61 He also describes his methodology as sifting through sources representing a variety of cultural perspectives, discovering ‘þa soþere word’ (‘the more reliable versions’), and then blending them all together to create a single narrative.62 Laʒamon is more interested in cultural hybridity than Henry of Huntingdon (or Bede), but that does not mean that Christian varietas is inimical to that idea. On the contrary, Laʒamon’s Brut can be seen as an example of what cultural hybridity might look like when understood through the lens of Christian rather than classical varietas. Furthermore, Laʒamon’s treatment of the Lud and Nennius narrative shows how he shares the concerns about the loss of history that had spurred Henry’s Christian varietas. As I discussed in the previous chapter, Geoffrey uses the argument between these two brothers to reflect on the distinctions between cultural renewal (classical varietas) and cultural preservation (Christian varietas). This debate is largely eliminated from the First Variant Version: it omits the description of the brothers’ argument in book I, stating simply that New Troy ‘postmodum per corruptionem uocabuli Trinouantum dicta est’ (‘later, through the corruption of its name, was called Trinovantum’).63 Thus, when readers encounter the second place-name history of London again in book III, they have no indication of the significance of Lud’s decisions. All they know is that Lud elevated the city above all others, so that ‘postmodum de nomine suo Kaerlud dicta est’ (‘later it was called Kaerlud from [Lud’s] own name’).64 Interestingly, Wace returns some varietas to this scene, and in the process, reveals something of his attitude towards this concept. Wace’s treatment of London’s first place-name history repeats the basic outline provided by the First Variant (and Geoffrey), explaining how the name of the city changed over time. However, he also provides the Latin, French, English, and Welsh words for ‘city’.65 In this way, he contrasts the way that each phase of history is dominated by one language with the way that languages offer comparable

59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Allen, trans., Brut, p. 411. See the preface to Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 2–7) and HH, HA ix.51–2 (pp. 686–95). Laʒamon, C-Brut l. 14 (p. 1). Ibid. l. 27 (p. 1). FVV ch. 22 (p. 17). Ibid. ch. 53 (p. 46). Wace, RB ll. 1231–2 (pp. 32–3).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century terms for the same object. Thus, rather than debating the merits of renewal or preservation, Wace simply invokes both. There are echoes of the meadow model of varietas in his listing of words for ‘city’, since readers’ attention is sent now here, now there, and they appreciate and learn from this diversity; there are also echoes of the garland model of varietas in Wace’s series of names and historical eras. His place-name histories thus use the rhetorical techniques of varietas, while ignoring the historiographical heft associated with those techniques in other historians’. Yet there is no deeper sense that history can be mended through the proper application of varietas: when presented with the opportunity to use varietas to grapple with the Roman invasion of Britain (a common site of varietas in other historians’ works), he declines. For Wace, it seems, varietas is a valuable rhetorical technique, but it is not a framework for interpreting the insular past. In contrast, Laʒamon sees in varietas an opportunity for reflecting on the meaning of history. In his version of the first place-name history for London, Laʒamon writes, He ʒef hire to hire tirfulne name; Troye þe Newe. to munien his ikunde; whone he icomen weore. Soððen þa leodene; longe þer-after. leiden adun þene noma; & Trinouant heo nemneden. Binnen feola winter; hit iwerð seo[ð]ðen. þat aræs of Brutus kunne; þat was an heh king. Lud wes i-haten; þas burh he luuede swiðe. Þe king i þere burh wonede; swiðe feola wintre. he lette heo lude clepian; ʒond his leod-folke. hehte heo nemnen Kaerlud; æfter þone kinge. Seo[ð]ðen com oþer tir; & neowe tidinde. þat men heo clepeden Lundin; ouer al þas leode. Seoððen comen Englisce men; & cleopeden heo Lundene. Se[ð]ðen comen þa Frensca; þa mid fehte heo bi-wonnen. mid heora leodðeawe; & Lundres heo hehten. Þus is þas burh i-uaren; se[ð]ðen heo ærest wes a-reræd. þus is þis eit-lond; i-gon from honde to hond. þet alle þa burhʒes; þe Brutus iwrohte. & heora noma gode; þa on Brutus dæi stode. beoð swiðe afelled; þurh warf of þon folke. (He gave it as its glorious name, great ‘Troy the New’, To commemorate his kindred from whom he had come down. Later the land-dwellers, very long after, Set aside the old name and ‘Troynovant’ named it then. With the passage of many years it later came to pass That there came to power a high king from Brutus’s kin, Who was called Lud, and this city he loved greatly; The king dwelt in this city for very many long winters. He had it called ‘Lud’ aloud among his land’s people:

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Laʒamon’s Brut Commanded them to pronounce ‘Kaerlud’ after this king. Later came another fame, and new information, That men were calling it ‘Lundin’ throughout all the land. And then there came English men and they called it ‘Lundene’; And then came the French race who gained it by fighting, With their language habits, and they called it ‘Lundres’. So has this city fared since its early erection, So has this island passed from hand to hand, Such that all the boroughs which Brutus established, And all their good names which in Brutus’s day were famed Have quite disappeared through dispersal of peoples.)66

Laʒamon has eliminated Wace’s meadow-like linguistic equivalencies, relying entirely on a garland-like recounting of successive conquests, which echoes Henry’s description of Britain’s history as a series of plagues, i.e., invasions. He also returns to this narrative the fact that Lud’s renaming of London is a forceful one, a detail present in Geoffrey’s account but absent from both the First Variant Version and the Roman de Brut. The praise Laʒamon heaps on the original name suggests that he does not approve of Lud’s decision to rename the city, nor of the carelessness of the peoples who permitted the name to be corrupted in the first place.67 Laʒamon’s impulses thus seem to be those of a preservationist, rather than a translator of other texts (Geoffrey and Wace) or a purifying renewer of a now-flawed culture (William). This mentality is embodied most fully in Laʒamon’s statement that all the previous names of the city have been ‘afelled; þurh warf of þon folke’. The standard translation of this phrase (‘disappeared through dispersal of peoples’) takes some liberties with this particular line, but a closer look at Laʒamon’s wording here reveals the philosophical similarity between Laʒamon and Henry. In the previous chapter, I noted that both Geoffrey and Henry use the word ‘delere’ to describe cultural obliteration: in Henry’s history, the word refers to the demolition of the Picts and their language, and in Geoffrey’s, it characterizes Nennius’s belief that his brother Lud’s renaming of London is an act of cultural destruction. Laʒamon’s ‘afelled’ offers very similar connotations: the word can mean anything from ‘kill’ and ‘bring down a building’ to ‘overcome (morally)’ or ‘make a name fall out of use’.68 It therefore connotes the destruction of both the names and buildings of cities, which is precisely how Nennius viewed Lud’s treatment of London.

66 67

68

Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 1017–36 (pp. 27–8). On Laʒamon’s dislike of renaming, see J. Bellis, ‘Mapping the National Narrative: Place-Name Etymology in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. Allen, Roberts, and Weinberg, pp. 321–42 (pp. 332–42); and Wickham-Crowley, Writing, p. 26. MED, s.v. ‘afellen’.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century The word ‘warf’ further strengthens the similarities between Laʒamon’s and Henry’s mindsets. This word appears nowhere else in Middle English, making it difficult to determine its meaning. Based on this passage and the word’s roots in Old English ‘hwearf’, the Middle English Dictionary defines ‘warf’ as ‘?Changing, change; ?dispersal’.69 (The Dictionary’s question marks are a clear sign of the ambiguities around this word.) But Old English ‘hwearf’ has a much broader meaning: it can denote ‘a distance (sc. to go)’; ‘wandering, going astray; error, sin’; and, most commonly, ‘exchange (of property, land, etc.)’.70 The last of these definitions is particularly apt for this passage – the ‘eit-lond’ passes ‘from honde to hond’, in an exchange of property from one people to the other. However, as its Latin equivalent commutatio reveals, this exchange is also ‘A change, reversal, upheaval (in circumstances, etc.)’, an ‘exchange, substitution’, a ‘turning’.71 Laʒamon’s ‘warf’ thus seems to denote a shift away from earlier modes of being, or the swapping of one way of life for another. Place names therefore change not because the people have been dispersed, but rather because one culture, one way of life, has been exchanged for another. That is precisely the charge that Nennius leveled at Lud, and the fear that sparks Henry’s mixture of genres and languages. Laʒamon’s phrasing of this scene reveals his sympathy for Nennius’s – and, by extension, Henry’s – preservation-oriented approach to the past. It also shows that Laʒamon mourns the past and conceptualizes varietas’s role in historiography in the same Christian terms as Henry did. In Henry’s Historia, all languages are welcome at the table of British history. It seems that Laʒamon simply wishes to bring English to the feast.72 Thus, rather than thinking of varietas in purely rhetorical terms, Laʒamon embraces the idea of varietas as an interpretive tool.

The poet-priest as verse chronicler Although varietas relates to Laʒamon’s philosophy of history, it is not divorced from rhetorical concerns. Indeed, attending to the Brut’s formal choices can shed light on how the earlier division between practitioners of classical and Christian varietas has seeped into Middle English chronicles as well. In his prologue, Laʒamon describes himself as a poet-priest who can mix different linguistic communities within the body of the Church and the body of the text. He acts out this action by mixing English and French poetic conventions within the very body of his poem. For a long time, the Brut’s meter 69 70 71 72

Ibid., s.v. ‘wharf (3)’. Dictionary of Old English: A to I online, ed. A. Cameron et al. (Toronto, 2018), s.v. ‘hwearf (2)’. OLD, s.v. ‘commutatio’. Cf. Somerset, ‘Mingling’, p. 103.

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Laʒamon’s Brut and diction were considered ‘archaistic’, ‘archaizing’, or ‘antiquarian’, in its purposeful attempt to write a type of Old English-inspired alliterative poetry over a century after the Norman Conquest.73 Yet more recent scholarship has taken the view that Laʒamon’s poetic practices are not particularly unique for his era. The Brut’s rhyme, assonance, and other features largely conform to literary conventions popular in early Middle English texts written around the same time.74 Furthermore, like other early Middle English writers, Laʒamon’s writing becomes more individualized, more interested in newly popularized poetic forms like rhyme and assonance, and less reliant on the shared conventions of early Middle English, as he continues to write.75 However, Laʒamon’s diction complicates this interpretation. Laʒamon seems specifically to have avoided French cognates in the Brut, and he is also fond of formulaic phrases similar to those found in Old English poetry and prose.76 Laʒamon deploys his Old English vocabulary in compounds and idioms of his own creation, rather than using those developed by his predecessors.77 His battle sequences are particularly English in the style of their descriptions, thanks in part to the relatively high number of compounds in these passages, at least in comparison with other parts of the Brut.78 Linguistically, a compound is a word comprised of two or more constituent 73

74

75 76 77 78

For ‘archaistic’, see W. J. R. Barron, ‘Bruttene Deorling: An Arthur for Every Age’, in The Fortunes of King Arthur, ed. N. J. Lacy (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 47–65 (p. 50); for ‘archaizing’, see D. Brewer, ‘The Paradox of the Archaic and the Modern in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English: Studies Presented to E. G. Stanley, ed. M. Godden, D. Gray, and T. Hoad (Oxford, 1994), pp. 188–205 (pp. 198–9); and for ‘antiquarian’, see Stanley, ‘Antiquarian’, pp. 23–37. For example, see M. L. Harrison, ‘The Wisdom of Hindsight in Laʒamon and Some Contemporaries’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. Allen, Roberts, and Weinberg, pp. 623–41; and E. Weiskott, English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 71–92. For linguistic analysis that supports this view, E. Kooper, ‘Laʒamon and the Development of Early Middle English Alliterative Poetry’, in Loyal Letters: Studies on Mediaeval Alliterative Poetry and Prose, ed. L. A. J. R. Housen and A. A. MacDonald (Gröningen, 1994), pp. 113–29; Kooper, ‘Laʒamon’s Prosody: Caligula and Otho – Metres Apart’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. Allen, Roberts, and Weinberg, pp. 419–41; D. Moffat, ‘The Intonational Basis of Laʒamon’s Verse’, in Prosody and Poetics in the Early Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of C. B. Hieatt, ed. M. J. Toswell (Toronto, 1995), pp. 133–46 (pp. 141–3); and N. Yakovlev, ‘Metre and Punctuation in the Caligula Manuscript of Laʒamon’s Brut’, in The Use and Development of Middle English: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Middle English, Cambridge, 2008, ed. R. Dance and L. Wright (Frankfurt am Main, 2012), pp. 261–79. Kooper, ‘Development’, pp. 118–23; and Kooper, ‘Prosody’, pp. 430–5. Barron, ‘Bruttene Deorling’, p. 49; and Bryan, Collaborative, p. 48. For linguistic analysis of the Brut’s diction, see Ciszek, ‘Decline’; and Elsweiler, Study. That is, the compounds and idioms are Laʒamon’s own, as far as we can tell. See Barron, ‘Bruttene Deorling’, pp. 49–50; and Elsweiler, Study, pp. 208–10. Allen, ‘Nod’, p. 50; and J. Davis-Secord, ‘Revising Race in Laʒamon’s Brut’, JEGP 116.2 (2017), 156–81 (pp. 158–9).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century words, which exist independently in the language, but which have been joined together to create the compound.79 In Old English texts, compounds permit a piece of writing to ‘create hybrid discourses that mix multiple registers or discourses in order to present stylistic illustrations of important themes’.80 Compounds thus embody the basic principle of varietas, of parts joined together in such a way that the mind perceives both the fragmentation and the unity that exists in their union.81 For example, the word ‘kinebenche’, for which the Caligula Brut provides our sole attestation, combines the ideas of ‘kine’ (‘kingly, royal’) and ‘benche’ (‘bench’ or ‘royal seat’).82 This word both distinguishes between the abstract concept of kingliness (‘kine’) and the realities of what kingship looks like in the flesh (‘benche’), while simultaneously highlighting the way that abstract and real power are mutually constitutive. Importantly, Laʒamon’s compounds do not glorify stylized violence. His battle scenes are actually shorter than Wace’s, and focus more on its grim aftermath than on celebrating victory.83 Indeed, Laʒamon’s compounds have more in common with Old English homiletic material than Old English battle poetry.84 Like certain Old English homilies, they manipulate audiences’ experience of narrative time to ensure that they see the grief rather than the glory of war.85 Thus, like other writers of Christian varietas, Laʒamon delights in wordplay not for its own sake, but rather for the way that linguistic playfulness directs attention to the stability of God.86 Linguistic contingency – homonyms, etymological connections, and so forth – exemplifies the world’s changeableness and multiplicity. However, as discussed in chapter 3, highlighting the world’s instability calls attention not towards the things of this world, but rather to their opposite: the unity of God. Laʒamon’s Christianizing wordplay comprises more than just compounds.87 For example, although Merlin’s pronouncements might seem like babbling, their linguistic eccentricities are given the imprimatur of 79 80 81

82 83 84 85 86 87

J. Davis-Secord, Joinings: Compound Words in Old English Literature (Toronto, 2016), pp. 32–6. Ibid., p. 110. Laʒamon could not have known this, but scientific studies of the brain’s cognitive processing of compounds suggest that the brain does indeed perceive the constituent parts of the compound, the compound itself, and the relationship between those parts and the whole word. See ibid., pp. 41–3. MED, s.v. ‘kinebenche’, ‘kine-’, and ‘bench(e)’, respectively. For its appearance in the Brut, see C-Brut, l. 4833 (p. 126). Allen, ‘Nod’, pp. 47–50; and Donoghue, ‘Ambivalence’, pp. 544–50. Davis-Secord, ‘Revising’, pp. 162–8. On compounds’ role in regulating narrative, see Davis-Secord, Joinings, pp. 165–6, 180–91. For further discussion of wordplay in Middle English, see M. C. Davlin, OP, A Game of Heuene: Word Play and the Meaning of Piers Plowman (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 1–23. Wickham-Crowley, Writing, p. 67.

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Laʒamon’s Brut Christian truth.88 Furthermore, the text is full of puns that function in a similar way.89 For an example of both a pun and other kinds of wordplay, we need look only to the passage surrounding the word ‘kine-benche’, mentioned above. After the Roman emperor Claudius dies, the British king Arviragus claims that he will never pay tribute to Rome again, and he boasts that if the Romans ever return to Britain, scullen alle heore wif; widewen iwurðen. Þus seide þe king; þeh hit soð [n]eore. þer he sæt mid his scenche; an his kine-benche. (‘All of their wives shall at once become widows!’ So declared the king (even though it did not happen) Where he sat with his beverage upon his kingly bench.)90

There is wordplay (polyptoton) in the juxtaposition of ‘wif’ and ‘widewen’, which appear on either side of the caesura in l. 4831. The whole passage also contains a healthy dose of irony, for as Laʒamon explicitly states, Arviragus’s boast does not reflect reality: when the Romans invade, Arviragus is persuaded by his Roman wife to not disrupt the integrity of their family, and to lay down his arms and pay the promised tribute. Thanks to this irony, we can recognize the pun in ‘kinebenche’, which relies on the similarities between the morpheme ‘kine’ and another, very similar-sounding Middle English word, ‘kene’, which means ‘brave’, ‘fierce’, ‘eager’, and so forth.91 Arviragus is thus speaking boldly from his ‘royal’ bench – but he is nothing more than what we moderns would call an armchair general. Readers would be cued into this meaning by the rhyming of ‘scenche’ and ‘kinebenche’, which heavily implies that alcohol has contributed to his bravado. Indeed, while the Caligula Brut does not specify what kind of ‘scenche’ Arviragus is drinking, the Otho Brut states that Arviragus is enjoying a ‘win-senche’ (draught of wine, another compound), which suggests that Laʒamon’s audience understood his implication here.92 Thus, in these few lines, Laʒamon uses several types of wordplay to remind readers that “truth will out”, and to point out the foolishness of arrogance (and perhaps of gluttony as well). The coexistence of Christian messaging and verbal wordplay in Laʒamon’s Brut echoes that of texts like Henry’s Historia, which creates similar combinations of serious Christian moralizing and linguistic playfulness. Indeed, I would argue that the impulse driving Laʒamon’s poetic form is the same that inspired Henry’s literary experimentation in the Historia. There are

88 89 90 91 92

On the Christianization of Merlin, see ibid., pp. 104–19. Ibid., pp. 65–7. Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 4831–3 (p. 126). MED, s.v. ‘kene’. Laʒamon, Otho Brut l. 4833 (ed. Brook and Leslie, I, 253).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century echoes of Henry’s linguistic blending, didacticism, imagined conversations, and accumulation of genres in Laʒamon’s Brut. For example, in Laʒamon’s prologue, languages mingle to form the body of Christ; in his melancholic mourning over Britain’s lost place names, the destruction of names destroys some insight into God’s plan for Britain; and in his battle sequences, his descriptions of carnage are a reminder of the transience of earthly life. The contemptus mundi justification for preservation appears even more clearly in Laʒamon’s second place-name history of London. This placename history focuses especially on Lud’s specific building works, an emphasis maintained in the First Variant and Wace as well.93 Laʒamon adds a new detail of his own: according to Laʒamon, Lud ordered each wealthy person to spend half his wealth building a fine house, so that the city was full of mansions, and he also expelled all the weak-willed people from the city.94 At first glance, this seems reasonable, potentially even admirable – but then Laʒamon reveals that all these building works are nothing more than a vanity project: He leide a-dun þere burhȝe nome; and nemnede hire æfter him-seoluen. & hehten heo Kaer Lud; and ouer-al hit let cuðen. Þat he duden al for þon; þat s[eoð]ðen sculden moni mon. þennen þe king weoren dæd; demen of his weorken. (He set aside the town’s name and named it after himself, Calling it ‘Kaer Lud’; and had it everywhere announced That he did it for the reason that many a man thereafter, When the king would be dead, would judge of his deeds.)95

Lud’s actions should therefore be understood not as benefiting the community or seeking to improve British standing for the Britons’ sake. Instead, he thinks only of how to prop up his earthly fame so that future generations will know how great a king he was. Laʒamon juxtaposes this description of Lud’s motivations with the brutal reality: in the following line, he begins reciting how the name of the city has changed with each new invasion, ‘swa þat nis her burh nan; in þissere Bruttene. / þat habbe hire nome æld; þe me arst hire on-stalde’ (‘So that there’s not one borough, in this land of Britain, / Which still has the old name which it was first established with’).96 Laʒamon notes Lud’s death in the following line, further emphasizing the pointlessness of Lud’s desire for earthly fame. This is a very contemptus mundi-oriented account of London’s

93 94 95 96

See, respectively, FVV ch. 53 (p. 46) and Wace, RB ll. 3745–56 (pp. 94–5). Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 3535–7 (p. 92). Ibid. ll. 3539–42 (p. 92). Ibid. ll. 3554–5 (p. 92).

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Laʒamon’s Brut name.97 Enumerating all of London’s names invites readers to reflect on the folly of those who, like Lud, seek immortality through earthly works. However, Laʒamon is still preserving all those names, so that readers can come to that conclusion. Laʒamon’s subtle adjustments to Wace’s version of this place-name history reveal how, in the Brut, language preserves the past to serve the needs of the present. The same can be said of his mixture of Old English and Anglo-Norman French poetics: past and present blend together to prompt readers’ reflection on Britain’s history of conquest, a key concern of historiographical varietas. Nevertheless, such blending can only occur if the past is preserved. Laʒamon’s interest in preservation – the logical conclusion of conceptualizing varietas in Christian terms – emerges in other ways as well. Recall that Henry of Huntingdon’s Christian varietas led him to portray his Historia as a collection of voices. As a result, he stressed both his own narrative voice and its relationship to others, and he created dialogue between various real and imagined figures in his Historia. Tellingly, Laʒamon does the same. As a narrator, Laʒamon clearly draws a line between himself and his audience. Like earlier Anglo-Latin historians, he gives himself a prominent voice in his prologue.98 Yet his prologue also simultaneously emphasizes the voice of a single named individual as well as the community to which that individual belongs.99 Moreover, while the subject matter of the Brut precludes him from, say, referring to his eyewitness testimony, the Brut contains several insertions of Laʒamon’s authorial voice.100 Some of these, such as the reflection on the loss of earlier names, are in Wace’s text too; but others, like Laʒamon’s extended disquisition on the reasons why stories about Arthur obscure the truth, are unique to Laʒamon’s Brut.101 Laʒamon also likes to address his readers directly in the second person, telling them what they would have seen had they been present at a particular historical event.102 At other times, Laʒamon uses the first person plural ‘we’ or repeats proverbs laden with shared wisdom, thus creating a community of those who are experiencing

97

Others have noted the presence of contemptus mundi in Laʒamon’s Brut, but have not explored it in detail. See F. H. M. Le Saux, ‘Paradigms of Evil: Gender and Crime in Laʒamon’s Brut’, in Text and Tradition, ed. Le Saux, pp. 193–206 (p. 205); and K. J. Tiller, ‘Prophecy and the Body of the King in Laʒamon’s Account of Arthur’s Dream (Brut 13984–14004)’, Arthuriana 26.1 (2016), 22–40 (p. 28). 98 For an interpretation of the prologue’s emphasis on Laʒamon’s voice that looks ahead to the fourteenth century rather than back to the twelfth, see Allen, trans., Brut, p. 411. 99 Bryan, Collaborative, pp. 37–8. 100 Wickham-Crowley, Writing, pp. 70–1. 101 See Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 11454–65 (p. 293). 102 J. D. Parry, ‘Narrators, Messengers, and Lawman’s Brut’, Arthuriana 8.3 (1998), 46–61 (pp. 52–9); and Wickham-Crowley, Writing, pp. 77–8.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century historical narrative together.103 In this way, Laʒamon both reinforces and undermines the relationship between narrator and audience, as Henry did. The similarities between Laʒamon’s and Henry’s treatment of voice extend beyond simply privileging the author’s voice. Henry’s Historia contains an unusually large amount of dialogue in comparison with other texts written in the same period, which reflects Henry’s Christian conception of varietas. The same can be said of Laʒamon’s Brut. As others have noted, Laʒamon’s text includes far more direct speech than Wace, the First Variant Version, or even Geoffrey himself, often because Laʒamon adds messengers to the narrative who will provide other characters with information about the events taking place in the narrative.104 Much of Laʒamon’s amplification of Wace’s poem results from his fondness for incorporating speech acts into the narrative.105 The peasant who describes Britain’s varietas to Caesar (mentioned above) offers one of many examples where Laʒamon transforms what had been a narrative passage in Wace’s Roman de Brut into a passage full of either direct or indirect speech. Even the choice to use direct or indirect speech in a given passage echoes Henry’s Historia. Of the two versions of the Brut, the Caligula frequently contains indirect speech where Otho opts for direct speech. Caligula’s blurring of the lines between speech and narrative serves to blur the line between narrator and characters.106 This effect would be even more pronounced when the Brut was performed aloud, as was likely Laʒamon’s intention.107 The same blurring appears in the letters, imagined interlocutors, and other devices that Henry uses to blend the voices of narrator, interlocutor, and audience. There is no indication that Laʒamon’s collapse of voices is grounded in prosimetrum, as Henry’s was. Yet Laʒamon’s investment in mixture and preservation allows traces of that prosimetric mindset to find their way into his Brut. Indeed, Laʒamon’s voices behave much like the voices in Henry’s prosimetrum-laced dialogues, despite the Brut’s obvious lack of prosimetrum. For one thing, Henry’s perspective-broadening letters have an analogue in the messengers and other characters that Laʒamon adds to Wace’s narrative. The dialogue spoken by these characters tends to function prosimetrically. Typically, the passages with dialogue juxtapose a long speech forwarding one opinion or perspective with a short speech that either sets up the ideas of the longer speech or provides a change in pace that returns the readers

103 Wickham-Crowley,

Writing, pp. 78–9, 91–2. discussions of this phenomenon, see Allen, ‘Nod’, pp. 44–5, 51; Callander, ‘Dialogue’, pp. 709–24; F. H. M. Le Saux, ‘Narrative Rhythm and Narrative Content in Laʒamon’s Brut’, Parergon 10.1 (1992), 45–70; Parry, ‘Messengers’, pp. 46–61; and Perry, ‘Direct’, pp. 523–43. 105 Le Saux, ‘Rhythm’, pp. 50–1. 106 Perry, ‘Direct’, pp. 535–9. 107 Allen, ‘Nod’, pp. 23, 41–4. 104 For

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Laʒamon’s Brut back to the main movement of the narrative.108 Thus, the characters’ voices take on different philosophical perspectives to direct readers to wisdom, as they did in Henry’s Historia. Take, for instance, Laʒamon’s treatment of the prophecy about the birth of Christ. While Wace places Taliesin’s prophecy about the Incarnation in direct speech, Laʒamon turns this prophecy into a conversation between Cymbeline and Taliesin.109 Cymbeline has heard only rumors of Christ, and he asks Taliesin for the truth. When Taliesin confirms for Cymbeline the truth of the Incarnation, readers who, like Cymbeline, have only heard but not seen Christ’s humanity for themselves gain reassurance and grow in faith. In this passage, the movement between doubter and believer (that is, between Cymbeline and Taliesin) is an important part of this structural variation’s effect. When readers alternate between the roles of Cymbeline and Taliesin, they expand their understanding of the Incarnation by tempering their doubt and actualizing their faith. In other words, moving back and forth between these roles acknowledges the reality of doubt and the ideal of faith, just as moving back and forth between fragments of insular history acknowledges the reality of historical discontinuity and the ideal of historical continuity, and by extension, the reality of earthly instability and the ideal of heavenly constancy. Just as Laʒamon collects and blends languages, then, he collects and blends voices, in the belief that the accumulation and presentation of these languages and voices can spur Christian devotion in his readers. This impulse to collect, blend, and hence preserve drives Laʒamon to experiment with other modes of historical writing as well, just as Henry does. There is a whiff of encyclopedism in Laʒamon’s tendency to accumulate perspectives – though in Laʒamon’s case, that accumulation is not a gathering of information (as it was in Henry’s Historia), but rather of genres. I mentioned above that Laʒamon sprinkles references to prophecy throughout his Brut, and even provides prophetic material lacking in Wace’s Roman de Brut. Laʒamon also dabbles in the fabulous geographies often found in prosimetra. His travels across Britain in search of books cast England as a place rich with historiographical resources, much as Henry of Huntingdon advises those interested in English saints to travel across the countryside to gather information for themselves.110 There are marvels too: Laʒamon adopts a more mystical tone than Wace and stresses the supernatural qualities of Scotland’s lakes, for example.111 Many of Laʒamon’s non-marvelous descriptions of the land are built on formal variety, or juxtapose ideas in a manner that leads readers in that direction. For example, the miniature descriptio Britanniae that appears in the 108 Le

Saux, ‘Rhythm’, pp. 52–3. RB ll. 4865–9 (pp. 122–3); Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 4521–69 (pp. 117–18). 110 See HH, HA ix. and ix.53 (pp. 622–3 and 694–5, respectively). 111 Wace, RB ll. 9425–586 (pp. 236–41); Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 10848–11005 (pp. 278–82). 109 Wace,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century peasant’s address to Caesar is both a fabulous geography and an insertion of some voice from the past. Similarly, while Wace describes Britain’s diverse fertility in the descriptio preceding the first place-name history for London, Laʒamon’s version adopts Brutus’s perspective to blur the lines between past and present: ‘al he iseih on leoden; þat him leof was on heorten. / Þa bi-þohte he on Troyȝen; þer his cun teone þoleden’ (‘All this he saw in the country and his heart was light and happy; / Then he reflected on Troy-town where his tribute had suffered terrors’).112 Moreover, only Laʒamon turns his account of Athelstan’s rejuvenation of Britain into a de facto descriptio, which enumerates all the things that Athelstan has done in the same list-like manner as the opening descriptio, with Athelstan’s division of the land taking the place of Brutus’s appreciation of Britain’s natural fertility.113 Notably, many of Athelstan’s contributions – courts, forests, English names – involve recognizable features of English life in Laʒamon’s day. In this way, Laʒamon bookends the Brut with foundational figures whose survey of the land constitutes a change in sovereignty and hence a rupture in history – yet that rupture is marked not by a clear juxtaposition of two eras of history, but rather by the blending of past and present. The same can be said of Laʒamon’s well-known foray into the epic genre. In the Middle Ages, epic and history were thought to be closely-related genres, in much the same way that history was thought to be a cousin of satire.114 On several occasions (especially in his Arthurian narrative), Laʒamon capitalizes on epic’s historicity by inserting extended similes inspired by classical epic into the narrative of his text.115 Although these similes certainly elevate the style of Laʒamon’s text, they do far more than simply add drama to battle scenes. Epic similes inject varietas into a text because, by their very nature, they send readers’ gaze back and forth between two parallel narratives.

112 Laʒamon,

C-Brut ll. 1009–10 (p. 27). For the descriptio itself, see Wace, RB ll. 1209–16 (pp. 32–3); and Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 1002–8 (p. 27). 113 Laʒamon, C-Brut ll. 15969–77 (p. 407). 114 For the relationship between epic and history in the Middle Ages, see V. Gillespie, ‘The Study of Classical and Secular Authors from the Twelfth Century to c. 1450’, in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, II: The Medieval Period, ed. A. J. Minnis and I. Johnson (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 145–236 (pp. 212–4); D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and Fiction, 1150–1220 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 1–34, 96–102, 153–201; and Kempshall, Rhetoric, pp. 129–33, 350–88. 115 For studies of Laʒamon’s similes (with further bibliography on the similes’ role in Laʒamon’s depiction of Arthur), see Burek, ‘Aeneas’, pp. 229–50; Cartlidge, ‘Ursula’, pp. 499–500; H. S. Davies, ‘Laʒamon’s Similes’, RES 11.42 (1960), 129–42; S. E. Deskis and T. D. Hill, ‘The Wolf Doesn’t Care: The Proverbial and Traditional Context of Laʒamon’s Brut Lines 10624–36’, RES 46.181 (1995), 41–8; G. Griffith, ‘Reading the Landscapes of Laʒamon’s Arthur’, in Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, ed. Allen, Roberts, and Weinberg, pp. 643–60 (pp. 647–50); K. Regel, ‘Spruch und Bild im Laʒamon’, Anglia 1 (1878), 197–251; Salter, English, pp. 61–6; and Tatlock, Legendary History, p. 494.

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Laʒamon’s Brut This movement between main narrative and simile narrative is what guides readers to the meaning of a text. Laʒamon’s epic similes typically appear at moments of political discontinuity, fragmenting the flow of the narrative to shed light on foundational figures such as Brutus and Arthur and on Laʒamon’s sense of what constitutes good kingship. As Rosamund Allen has noted, the similes are a form of ‘deflect[ion]’, moving readers around these narrative moments so that they can find their way through them.116 The particularly Vergilian undertones of Laʒamon’s similes also allow him to draw a connection between Britain and Rome, as varius historiography often does. Laʒamon’s allusions to epic are therefore not merely stylistic, but rather part of the text’s larger varietas. The significance of these allusions can only be fully understood in comparison with Laʒamon’s larger historiographical tradition. William, Henry, and Geoffrey all treat epic in a manner that represents their general philosophy concerning earlier literature. William quotes from epic to add sophistication to his text and, by extension, English literary culture. Geoffrey alludes to epic to give the impression that the Britons had a rich literary tradition of their own. But only Henry dips briefly into the epic mode by writing an extended simile of his own, comparing Penda to a wolf: Vt lupus ad caulas iniuste prodigus ire Molle pecus nec pro meritis mactatque uoratque, Ora fluunt sanie, latus undique sanguine manat, Perstat atrox nec abit donec simul omnia fundat. Sic super attonitos fertur rex Penda propinquos. (As when the wolf, full of wrongful anger, comes down on the fold, slaughtering and devouring the gentle creatures in their innocence, its mouth streams with bloody gore, each flank drips with blood, and the savage beast stays on and does not leave until he has laid everything low at once. So King Penda bears down on his terrified neighbours.)117

This simile is practically a cento (that is, a poem composed from lines in other poems), because it consists of lines from Vergil and Statius knitted together with a few poetic lines of Henry’s own. Like Laʒamon, Henry thus draws on the language of classical epic, and uses epic’s historiographical underpinnings to inject a sense of mixture into his history, all for the purpose of sending some kind of moral message – here, the way that the pagan Penda is subhuman, and that the epics of pagan poems are ideal for describing his inhumanity. Laʒamon’s extended similes function in much the same way. For example, when describing Arthur’s battle fury, Laʒamon writes, 116 Allen, 117 HH,

‘Nod’, p. 50. HA ii.33 (pp. 120–1).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Vp bræid Arður his sceld; foren to his breosten. & he gon to rusien; swa þe runie wulf. þenne he cumeð of holte; bi-honged mid snawe. and þencheð to biten; swulc deor swa him likeð. (Arthur caught up his shield, covering his breast, And began rampaging like the rime-grey wolf, When it comes loping from the snow-laden woodlands Intending to savage such creatures as it fancies.)118

Laʒamon is building on the same cultural associations of the wolf as Henry and countless other writers.119 As with Henry’s Penda simile, Arthur’s comparison to a wolf is no compliment to the British king. This simile, like others in the Brut, paints Arthur as a deeply flawed character whose personal failings eventually bring down his own people.120 Like Henry, then, Laʒamon uses extended similes to tell readers something about the savagery of certain characters, and by extension, to give a negative exemplum of how kings ought not to behave. The simile deflects that information to make it less painful, but not less visible. Neither Henry nor Laʒamon smooths over history’s discontinuities. On the contrary, both authors call attention to them, by using formal variation to help readers through the discomforting realities of insular history. Moreover, both authors mix classical and English traditions while doing so: Laʒamon’s similes allude to classical epic even as his battle scenes dive more deeply into English heroic poetry, while Henry patches together lines from classical poets while also echoing the alliterative half-lines of Old English poetry (note the repetition of ‘m’ in line 2, ‘s’ in line 3, and ‘s’ and ‘p’ in line 5). The similarities between Henry’s and Laʒamon’s Christian philosophies are thus visible through the formal practices they share. To be clear, the Christian philosophy I refer to here is not the providential view of history that some modern scholars argue Laʒamon holds.121 Rather, I refer to the way that Christian theologians see in the variety of earthly experiences the unity of God. In this way, Laʒamon’s Brut perpetuates the long-standing divide between historians who ground their understanding of varietas on classical decorum and those who rely instead on Christian theology. But in the Brut, this Christian underpinning of Laʒamon’s varietas takes on new meaning by becoming an argument in favor of translating into the vernacular.

118 Laʒamon,

C-Brut ll. 10040–3 (p. 258). and Hill, ‘Wolf’, pp. 41–8. 120 Burek, ‘Aeneas’, pp. 242–6. 121 Whether or not Laʒamon possesses such a view is a topic of debate in Brut studies. See, for example, Donoghue (‘Ambivalence’) and Johnson (‘Reading’). 119 Deskis

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Laʒamon’s Brut

Varietas and verse chronicles As important as it is to recognize Laʒamon’s debt to the Latin prose historians of the twelfth-century historiographical renaissance, it is also important to recognize how Laʒamon charts his own path. Laʒamon’s Brut proves that a rhetorical device developed in classical antiquity could be successfully employed by a medieval writer working in the vernacular. But it would not be accurate to say that varietas functions the same way in Middle English poetry as it did in Latin prose, because the verse chronicle form affords an entirely different set of possibilities for historiographical varietas.122 Laʒamon’s extended similes offer a good example of those possibilities. In Henry’s Historia Anglorum, the epic simile about Penda is a fairly noticeable rupture, which Henry compounds by surrounding the simile with reminiscences of lines from classical epic (Lucan) and the Bible (Isaiah and Joshua). In contrast, Laʒamon’s epic similes are integrated more seamlessly into the narrative, allowing him to give the impression – like Geoffrey before him – that the Britons had their own classical epic tradition. As a result, Laʒamon’s Brut might be even more effective at persuading readers of this falsehood than Geoffrey himself, since Laʒamon can actually practice epic in a way that Geoffrey cannot. In this way, the Brut’s verse chronicle form makes it possible for Laʒamon to take something from both Henry’s and Geoffrey’s perspectives. He also expands on epic similes’ ability to create varietas by incorporating well over a hundred simple similes in addition to the epic similes he includes in his narrative. There are some short similes in Geoffrey’s Historia, and in Wace’s Roman de Brut, but nowhere near the number found in Laʒamon’s Brut. Like Wace’s linguistic synchronisms, similes ask readers to look back and forth between equivalents, amplifying the varietas of the text. Although it is possible to achieve this effect in Latin prose, as chapter 3’s study of Henry’s style demonstrates, the specific features of English poetry, and in particular the structure provided by each line’s division into halflines, magnifies the similes’ juxtaposition by placing the point of comparison in one half-line and the object of similitude in another, as in ‘Heo comen to hirede; alse haȝel þe ualleð’ (‘They arrived at the court as hailstones come tumbling’).123 Here, tenor and vehicle are balanced across the poetic line. The verse form thus forces the audience to perceive both diversitas and unitas at the same time. This effect is even more striking when there is alliteration (as in ‘heo’/‘haȝel’ above) or internal rhyme, as in ‘Iseȝen heo Iulius Cesar; fæhten al swa a wilde bar’ (‘They spotted Julius Caesar fighting like a wild boar’, emphasis mine).124 These devices strengthen the connection between tenor

122 On

form and affordances, see Levine, Forms, pp. 6–11. C-Brut l. 7245 (p. 187). 124 Ibid. l. 3740 (p. 97). 123 Laʒamon,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century and vehicle but also help readers to look one way, and then the other, and in the process, to see the bigger picture. Thus, Laʒamon’s forays into other genres are only one part of the story. Because the Brut is written in verse, rather than prose, literary forms that functioned in one way in Henry’s Historia will inevitably work differently in Laʒamon’s Brut, which in turn affects the kinds of meaning those forms convey. Take, for instance, Laʒamon’s use of repetition in his first descriptio. The poem inserted into Henry’s descriptio employed syntactic repetition and anaphora to adopt a prosimetric relationship with the prose that surrounds it.125 But Henry reserves the wholesale repetition of words and phrases for places where he aims to use semantic satiation to help readers meditate on contemptus mundi. Meanwhile, both Wace and Laʒamon repeat words and phrases in their respective descriptiones. Their repetition achieves the same effect as Henry’s syntactic repetition and anaphora, even though the structure of these passages bears more in common with Henry’s attempts to instill contemptus mundi in his readers. In other words, Henry, Wace, and Laʒamon all seek to convey the same basic point: that Britain teems with rich varietas. As a result, they all include descriptiones, which use stylistic and structural variety to explain how Britain’s history can be so fragmented and yet still so thriving. However, they choose specific rhetorical techniques – the repetition of structures (Henry) or actual words (Wace and Laʒamon) depending on the form of their text. When varietas moves from prose to verse, then, new possibilities for formal variety emerge, each with its own potential to create new historiographical interpretations, as Laʒamon’s similes and descriptiones demonstrate. Yet moving from prose to verse can also limit a historian’s opportunities for formal variety and historiographical interpretation. Geoffrey’s annalistic passages pose particular challenges for those who rework his Historia into poetry. When Geoffrey compresses time in the Historia, he gives his Historia the look of annals or king lists, which helps him persuade readers that the Britons had their own historiographical tradition. However, when a verse chronicler compresses time, the resulting text does not read like a set of annals. Wace’s treatment of Cunedagius and his heirs demonstrates this issue: Emprés la mort de Cunedage Regna un fiz qu’il out mult sage, Rival out num, mult par fu pruz, Et mult se fist amer a tuz. En sun tens pluie de sanc plut Treis jurs entiers, ne sai que dut, E tel plenté de musches crut Dunt mainte gent d’engrot morut;

125 HH,

HA i.6 (pp. 18–21).

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Laʒamon’s Brut De la pluie ki plut vermeille E des musches fud grant merveille. La gent en fu tute en effrei E chescuns out poür de sei. Quant Rivail, li reis, fu feniz, Le regne out emprés lui sis fiz Qui aveit nun Gurgustius. Puis refu reis Sisillius, E puis Lago, niés Gurgusti, E puis Kimare, fiz Sisilli. Gorbodiagnes fu emprés (After Cunedag’s death reigned a very wise son of his, by the name of Rival. He was very brave and much loved by all. In his time a bloody rain fell for three whole days – I do not know what that signified – and flies increased in such multitudes that many people died from disease. People were amazed at the crimson rain and the flies; they were terrified, and everyone was afraid for himself. When king Rival died, his son Gurgustius ruled the realm after him. Next came Sisillius, then Lago, nephew of Gurgustius and then Kimare, son of Sisillius. Then came Gorbodiagnes.)126

There is no mistaking this poem for annals. Indeed, Wace seems to feel pressure to poeticize (as it were) these events, hence his vivid emphasis on the people’s fear and his confession of his own bewilderment. Moreover, his repetition of the kings’ names removes the linearity implied by Geoffrey’s Historia and in the First Variant Version.127 Wace does not march through time so much as wheel through it. His verse is what makes that possible: the placement of these names within the poetic lines makes linear history appear cyclical. As a result, a passage that, in Geoffrey’s Historia, had read as a brief foray into annalistic history becomes in Wace just another set of prophetic material that Wace chooses not to interpret, and thus another place where Wace turns away from the possibility of engaging in varietas. Laʒamon does not try to return to Wace’s narrative any hint of the annals that provided the variety in Geoffrey’s Historia. On the contrary, he expands on Wace’s version, adding an entire short narrative concerning the plagues and new details for each of these kings, so that none of them are left without any explanation: After þritti wintere com þe dæi; þat Cunedagius deæd læi. He hefte anne sune ræhne; Riwald wes ihaten. he wes wis he wes fæir he welde þat riche hær. al hit hine luuede; þat liuede in londe. An þan ilke time; hær com a selkeð taken.

126 Wace, 127 See,

RB ll. 2121–39 (pp. 54–5). respectively, GM, HRB ii.33 (pp. 44–5) and FVV ch. 33 (p. 29).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century sulche hare nere eær ne com; ne neuer seoð[ð]en hider-to. From heouene her com a sulcuð flod; þre dæʒes hit rinde blod. þreo dæies and þreo niʒt; þat wæs swuþe mochel pliht. Þa þe rein wes agan; her com hider taken a-[n]an. Her comen blake fleʒen; and fluʒen in mone eʒene. in here muð in heore neose; heore lif heom eode al to leose. swulc. fare of fleoʒen her was. þat heo freten þet corn & þat græs wo wes al þen folke þe wuneden an folden. Þær-after com swulke mon-qualm; þat lute hær cwike læfden. Seoð[ð]en her com a strong ræd; þat Riwald kinge iwerð dea[d]. Riwald king hafuede; anne sune. Gurgustius ihaten; his lond he huld half ʒer; and suððen he adun halde. Þer-efter com Sisillius; he wes sone her deæd. Suð[ð]en com Lago; þa æhte wike liuede. Suoðen. com king Marke. he wes þritti wiken king. Þeo com Gorbodiago; he wes fif ʒere god king. (After thirty years there came the day when Cunedagius dead lay; He had one resolute son whose name was Riwald: He was wise, he was handsome and he ruled this very kingdom; Everyone loved him who lived in the land. In that same time there occurred a strange signal, Such as never came before nor ever since to this place: From heaven there came a miraculous flood; for three days it rained down blood; For three days and three nights (it was quite a tremendous plight). When the rain had gone there came another signal hard upon it: Black flies came flying here and floated in men’s eyes, In their mouths and in their noses so that their very lives were lost. Such a swarm of flies there was that they swallowed the corn and all the grass. Wretched were all the people who lived in this land. After this came such a fearsome plague that very few were left alive; And then came a harsh event: that King Riwald was dead. King Riwald had but one son, Gurgustius was his name; His lands he held for half a year, and then he heeled over. After him came Sisillius, and he soon died off here. Then came Lago, who lived only eight weeks, And then came Kin[e] Mark, and he was king for thirty weeks; And then came Gorbodiagus who was a good king for five years.)128

Laʒamon’s revisions here are entirely in keeping with his tendency to insert prophecies and portents into Wace’s narrative, thus restoring to the Brut narrative some of the varietas it had lost through redaction (the First Variant)

128 Laʒamon,

C-Brut ll. 1937–57 (pp. 51–2).

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Laʒamon’s Brut or translation (the Roman de Brut).129 As a result, Laʒamon’s account is more linear than Wace’s had been, thanks especially to the repetition of names at the end of the first half-line in the final lines of the passage quoted above. However, Laʒamon’s adjustments to Wace’s verse make it impossible for this section of the Brut to read like a set of annals. Even if Laʒamon had gone in the opposite direction, and truncated rather than expanded Wace’s account, the Brut’s poetic form, built on rhyme and alliteration, would imbue the passages with a different meaning. The combination of English and French conventions that Laʒamon adopts in the Brut draws connections between words and phrases in ways that do not comport with the form and function of annals. Tracing annalistic passages from Geoffrey to Wace to Laʒamon thus reveals that, while the verse form opens new doors for the practice of historiographical varietas, it nevertheless closes others. Because they write in verse, neither Wace nor Laʒamon can give the impression that there is a set of British annals hidden in some library, waiting to be discovered. Yet both Wace and Laʒamon can use the form of their poetic lines to forward their own views of history. The same can be said of Laʒamon’s decision to write in Middle English rather than another language. Laʒamon, like all the historians of the Brut tradition, is keenly aware of the way that languages exist within time. This is especially true of vernacular languages. While at least Latin could claim to be timeless (even if Geoffrey does not view it so), vernaculars like French and English are too closely enmeshed in Britain’s history of conquest to ever exist outside time. When Laʒamon writes the Brut in Middle English, he is essentially acknowledging from the very beginning what Henry took ten books of historical narrative to say: that all of his efforts would eventually fade in time. His prologue’s plea that readers pray for his soul and those of his parents is an implicit acknowledgement of that fact. Yet writing history in English affords historiographical opportunities of its own, just as Henry had concluded that political history – in any language – has innate value. The temporality of English can even be an argument in favor of writing vernacular history. Laʒamon’s place-name histories exemplify this idea. I have already discussed how Laʒamon’s poetry is able to preserve names that might otherwise be lost. Here I will add that translating these place names into the vernacular imbues the Brut with a simultaneous sense of continuity (through the preservation of the names) and change (through the changing of the names).130 Laʒamon also endows the physical land of Britain with a particularly strong sense of continuity, which provides a degree of comfort 129 For

a different interpretation of how Laʒamon embeds a moral message into these lines, see Allen, ‘Nod’, pp. 32–4. 130 Cf. Bellis, ‘Mapping’, pp. 329–31; Donoghue, ‘Ambivalence’, pp. 562–3; and Johnson, ‘Etymologies’, pp. 127–33. Elsewhere, Johnson argues strenuously against Donoghue’s argument (see ‘Reading’, pp. 141–60), but here their perspectives align.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century and security in the face of the many upheavals the island’s inhabitants have faced over the centuries.131 In this way, vernacular translators of the Brut infuse these passages with the paradoxical both/and quality characteristic of varietas. British history is both fragmented by conquest and continuous in its sense of geography. The city of London has been disrupted by cultural change yet still exists in the same place as it did before. Because these passages use the ruptures of time (the change from one name to another) to reinforce the larger narrative of British history (the continuity of time and land), they also give vernacular Brut chronicles the same kind of historiographical varietas visible in Latin prose histories of the twelfth century. In Laʒamon’s Brut, that sense of continuity and change is even stronger, because the sheer existence of his Middle English text is a testament to the fact that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Post-Conquest historians are still writing in English, as they were before the Norman Conquest. It is only the form and the kind of English – what we would now call Old English or Middle English – that has changed. That shift from Old to Middle English provides its own justification for writing Middle English verse chronicles. Every language has its own unique history, as Laʒamon was well aware. Moreover, each language has its own literary traditions, its own practices, its own possibilities and limitations. All of that is lost when a language is lost. The loss of cultural perspective means that all languages should, if possible, be preserved, if only because every language is part of the body of the Church and hence the body of Christ, and therefore illuminates some facet of God’s divine plan. From this perspective, the Brut’s translation of Wace’s Roman de Brut into English is valuable, because it preserves the English perspective of early insular history. Of course, Henry’s translations of Old English poetry work toward the same goal. However, Laʒamon preserves the English perspective in a way that Henry’s mixture of Old English and Anglo-Latin cannot, for rather than preserving Old English by mixing it with Latin, Laʒamon preserves Old English by mixing it with Middle English. He then takes that idea one step further, by embodying the transition from Old to Middle English in his mixture of Old English and Anglo-Norman French poetic conventions. As readers make their way through the Brut, they move slowly but steadily away from the pre-Conquest past and towards the post-Conquest present, just as Laʒamon’s own poetic style becomes seemingly more modern in appearance as the Brut progresses. Thus, while Laʒamon’s decision to translate Wace’s Roman de Brut into English echoes Henry’s decision to write political history,

131 On

the role of the island of Britain in the Brut’s construction of historical narrative, see in particular Bellis, ‘Mapping’, pp. 328–9; Cannon, Grounds, pp. 50–81; A. C. McKee and S. Pirzadeh, ‘Arthurian Eco-Conquest in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and Laʒamon’, Parergon 34.1 (2017), 1–24 (pp. 13–24); Parry, ‘Messengers’, pp. 53–7; Somerset, ‘Mingling’, pp. 101–2; and K. J. Tiller, Laʒamon’s Brut and the AngloNorman Vision of History (Cardiff, 2007), pp. 127–72.

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Laʒamon’s Brut his Middle English verse chronicle also achieves something that Henry did not: Henry worked to preserve the past, but Laʒamon works to preserve it and to give it an entirely new shape. 111 Scholarship on Laʒamon’s Brut has been heavily shaped by debates about continuity versus change in the post-Conquest period. Yet Laʒamon’s Brut demonstrates that both continuity and change can coexist in a single text, and that these themes can even work in tandem to create historiographical meaning. Indeed, the Brut’s formal variety calls attention to its appreciation (in both senses) of Britain’s fragmentation and its belief that discontinuities in insular history can be resolved with historical narrative. For this reason, the Brut should be understood as a continuation not just of earlier English poetic traditions, but also of the Latin histories produced during the twelfthcentury renaissance. However, Laʒamon’s Brut also reflects how historians’ focus has changed over time. The basic contours of Latin prose historiographical varietas – overlapping political and formal discontinuities, valuing the multiplicity produced by formal and narrative fragmentation, using fragments to reflect on England’s history of conquest and, in the process, to forward historiographical arguments – are all present in Laʒamon’s Middle English verse chronicle. However, the Brut lacks any sense of unease around the question of whether varietas should be based on balance or mixture. Laʒamon certainly takes a clear position on the issue, but nowhere does he fret over the prospect of mixing languages together (William), or mull the value of historical writing (Henry), or question whether balance could ever achieve lasting peace (Geoffrey). Part of the reason for Laʒamon’s comfort with this issue may be the fact that he is already writing in Middle English. By transferring the concept of varietas across language and form, Laʒamon has freed himself from the strictures that come with choosing classical or Christian varietas. Yet that newfound freedom comes at a cost, for once varietas has been unmoored from its roots, it starts to lose some of its power. The full consequences of that loss – that is, both the possibilities and the problems – become clear in Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande.

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6 ‘Of diuers kynd’: Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande I have chosen to make Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande (also known as the Chronicle, but henceforth Story here) the focus of my final chapter because it offers a useful counterpoint to Laʒamon’s Brut.1 If the Brut demonstrates the innovative potential for vernacular varietas, the Story shows how moving too far from varietas’s original principles can impede its historiographical utility. Robert Mannyng was a Gilbertine canon, who lived and wrote in the early decades of the fourteenth century. Much of his biography is uncertain, but Mannyng tells us that he lived most of his life at various Gilbertine establishments in Lincolnshire, and that he wrote his Story at the request of a certain Robert of Malton.2 As Mannyng notes in his prologue, the Story is primarily a translation from two Anglo-Norman French verse chronicles, Wace’s Roman de Brut (discussed in the previous chapter) and Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle, a history of Britain from its foundation through the reign of Edward I, compiled from numerous sources (including Wace’s Roman) and completed c. 1307.3 Mannyng is, for the most part, a faithful translator, who maintains many of the narrative emphases and stylistic flourishes of his sources.4 However, like all translators, Mannyng puts his own stamp on the narrative.5 For

1

2

3 4

5

I prefer the title Story of Inglande, first proposed by Joyce Coleman in ‘Strange Rhyme: Prosody and Nationhood in Robert Mannyng’s Story of England’, Speculum 78.4 (2003), 1214–38 (p. 1214 n. 1). I will therefore use that title in an untranslated but abbreviated form, as I have done for other titles throughout this book (e.g., Gesta regum for Gesta regum Anglorum). For Mannyng’s biography (with bibliography), see RM, Story, pp. 13–22; and T. Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives: The Design of Past and Present in the Early Fourteenth-Century Verse Chronicles by Pierre de Langtoft and Robert Mannyng (Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 129–58. For recently-proposed revisions to the standard biography, see R. Hanna, ‘Robert Manning: Some Textual – and Biographical – Emendations’, Notes and Queries n.s. 66.1 (2019), 26–8. Summerfield, Matter, pp. 1, 15–17, 81–4. R. Allen, ‘Long is Ever: The Cassibellaunus Episode in Three Versions of the Brut’, New Comparison 12 (1991), 71–88 (p. 77); L. Johnson, ‘Robert Mannyng’s History of Arthurian Literature’, in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to John Taylor, ed. I. Wood and G. A. Loud (London, 1991), pp. 129–47 (pp. 134–5); and Summerfield, Matter, pp. 153, 160. For particularly helpful discussions, see Allen, ‘Long’, pp. 72, 81–3; and Summerfield, Matter, pp. 15, 22, 159–91.

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande example, like Laʒamon, he vivifies his sources’ narratives by frequently turning indirect to direct speech.6 He also expands his pool of sources beyond Wace and Langtoft, relying on additional written sources, including Bede and the Anglo-Latin historians I examined in the first part of this book, as well as stories from English oral tradition, such as Havelok the Dane.7 Some of these references are in his predecessors, but others are his own, testifying to Mannyng’s broader familiarity with the British historical record.8 Still, Mannyng’s Story has received less attention than the histories I examined in previous chapters. As a translation, the Story attracts relatively little notice among historians, aside from whatever general information it can provide about the early fourteenth-century English zeitgeist; meanwhile, literary scholars tend not to pay much attention to verse chronicles (unless they possess some overtly “literary” appeal, as is the case with Laʒamon’s Brut).9 At the same time, Mannyng’s Story has also attracted modern scholars’ derision for its stunning variety of verse forms. It has been said that Mannyng’s Story switches from using one verse form to a different form midway through its narrative, ‘seemingly almost by accident’, for reasons that are ‘not clear’ and ‘apparently arbitrary’.10 Furthermore, some of the forms Mannyng uses in his Story are the very forms that Mannyng himself explicitly argues against in his prologue.11 As Joyce Coleman puts it, ‘When Mannyng categorically

6 7

8

9

10 11

Allen, ‘Long’, p. 81; and N. Nyffenegger, Authorising History: Gestures of Authorship in Fourteenth-Century English Historiography (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2013), pp. 41–2. For Mannyng’s sources, see RM, Story, pp. 51–61, 695–733. Note, though, that Sullens warns her discussion of Mannyng’s sources is often speculative, and many of her suggestions have not yet been confirmed. For additional discussion, see Nyffenegger, Authorising, pp. 132–3; and Summerfield, Matter, pp. 150–1. Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 136–7; and Summerfield, Matter, pp. 150–1. For Mannyng’s indebtedness to the Anglo-Latin historiographical tradition more generally, see Summerfield, ‘Synthesis and Tradition in the Early FourteenthCentury Verse Chronicles in English’, in Thirteenth Century England, VII: Proceedings of the Durham Conference, 1997, ed. M. Prestwich, R. Britnell, and R. Frame (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 143–52 (pp. 144–6). For example, see Coleman, ‘Strange’, pp. 1214–38; R. Knight, ‘Stealing Stonehenge: Translation, Appropriation, and Cultural Identity in Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s Chronicle’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 32.1 (2002), 41–58; Moffat, ‘Sin’, pp. 146–68; Summerfield, Matter, pp. 201–9; Summerfield, ‘Synthesis’, pp. 143–52; Turville-Petre, England, esp. pp. 34–7, 76–103; and Turville-Petre, ‘Politics and Poetry in the Early Fourteenth Century: The Case of Robert Manning’s Chronicle’, RES 39.153 (1998), 13–28. In addition, Mannyng occasionally provides autobiographical information, which has attracted some historically inclined analysis. See, for example, RM, Story, pp. 13–16, 20–2; and Turville-Petre, ‘Politics’, pp. 6–13. For the first two quotations, see Summerfield, Matter, p. 152; for the last, see Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1235. See also RM, Story, pp. 35, 62–3. See Coleman, ‘Strange’, pp. 1220–3, 1234–8; M. M. Furrow, Expectations of Romance: The Reception of a Genre in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 20–1; Johnson,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century disavowed prosodic complexity in his prologue […], he knew very well that he himself had attempted every variety of proscribed composition in his list.’12 Coleman and a few others have tried to explain this contradiction.13 Yet in what little scholarship there is on the Story, negative impressions of Mannyng’s work still abound. For many, ‘the whole work lacks unity’, and Mannyng himself seems to be guilty of incompetence (that is, of ‘lapsing, willy-nilly, into poetical experimentation and ornament’), hypocrisy (‘He says one thing, but he does another’), and even insubordination (namely, by ‘transgressing the injunction, in his order’s rule, against “the vanity of profound and swelling words”’).14 The effects of such pronouncements are visible in interpretations of Mannyng’s formal experimentations. When Laʒamon mixes English and French poetic forms, he sparks debates about political ideology and linguistic colonialism; when Mannyng occasionally imitates French verse forms in Middle English, he is dismissed for playing a self-indulgent ‘game’, which eventually ‘must have become tedious’.15 Such comments are all the more striking in light of Mannyng’s advanced knowledge of poetry. Scholars have repeatedly mined Mannyng’s verse for insights into vernacular literary theory, and in particular, exemplarity and prosody.16 In roughly 200 lines, the Story’s prologue – Mannyng’s own composition, not a translation of Wace or Langtoft – lays out Mannyng’s arguments for and against using certain poetic forms. It therefore proves Mannyng’s skill as both a poet and a literary critic, as he goes back and forth between practicing and commenting on the art of poetry. In the early lines of his prologue, for example, Mannyng enumerates the different kinds of kings described by historians in a list similar to the enumeration of different kinds of romances found at the beginning of the Middle English romances Sir Orfeo and Lay le Freine (both preserved in Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates MS 19.2.1, also known as the Auchinleck Manuscript, which was

12 13

14

15 16

‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 134–5; Nyffenegger, Authorising, pp. 47–8; and TurvillePetre, England, p. 77. Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1234. See ibid., pp. 1234–8. For other approaches, see Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 134–5; Nyffenegger, Authorising, pp. 47–8; and A. Putter, ‘Adventures in the Bob-and-Wheel Tradition: Narratives and Manuscripts’, in Medieval Romance and Material Culture, ed. N. Perkins (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 147–63 (p. 156). First quotation from M. D. Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and Its Background (Oxford, 1963), p. 279, which is cited with tacit approval in Summerfield, Matter, p. 152; second quotation from Furrow, Expectations, p. 21 (and cf. Allen, ‘Long’, p. 83); third quotation from Furrow, Expectations, p. 21 (but cf. Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, p. 135); fourth quotation from Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1234. Quotations from Summerfield, Matter, p. 152 and RM, Story, p. 61, respectively. For example, Mannyng’s Story has been anthologized as an example of vernacular literary theory; see ‘Robert Mannyng, Chronicle: Prologue’, in The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520, ed. J. WoganBrowne et al. (University Park, 1999), pp. 19–24.

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande compiled c. 1330–40).17 He later discusses the romance Sir Tristrem (like Lay le Freine, extant only in the Auchinleck Manuscript), praising it for its metrical sophistication, and bemoaning how its elegance is frequently butchered in oral performance.18 Indeed, much of his prologue is dedicated to reflecting explicitly on the difficulties of remembering, performing, and understanding different poetic forms, which leads Mannyng to recommend that poets eschew complex literary forms.19 Nor is Mannyng’s keen understanding of literary theory and textual practice limited to his prologue. At one point, he demonstrates sophisticated understanding of the different literary forms employed by the English and French Arthurian traditions.20 Scholars have viewed this familiarity with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. Some have even wondered why Mannyng, a Gilbertine canon, and thus charged to write with the aesthetic simplicity preferred by his order, would have stretched his order’s rules so far as to produce a text as stylistically elaborate as the Story.21 However, there is no reason to equate sophisticated prosody with straying from the straight and narrow. After all, admonitions against pomposity aim to eradicate improper use of high literary style, not high style in and of itself.22 Even the notoriously austere Bernard of Clairvaux (1090– 1153) objected not to architectural flourishes per se, but rather to architectural flourishes that distracted clergy from religious devotion.23 When executed well, varietas of high and low style guides readers to wisdom; only when varietas is executed poorly does it divert attention from wisdom to pure entertainment. In this chapter, I argue that Mannyng frequently succeeds in using varietas to convey the meaning of history. Indeed, in the Story, formal variety appears at moments of political discontinuity – the sine qua non of historiographical varietas. For this reason, many of the Story’s purported oddities appear entirely normal when read from the perspective of the broader historiographical tradition examined in this book. Situating the Story within that tradition thus removes some of the mystery surrounding Mannyng’s seeming combination of poetic virtuosity and literary incompetence, by showing that there is method behind the madness of the Story’s verse forms. There can be little doubt that Mannyng’s Story descends from twelfthcentury Anglo-Latin historical writing. When summarizing Henry of 17 18

19 20 21 22 23

RM, Story I.15–20 (p. 91). Ibid. I.93–108 (p. 93). For discussion, see Coleman, ‘Strange’, pp. 1218–24; Nyffenegger, Authorising, pp. 46–8; and D. M. Symons, ‘Does Tristan Think, Or Doesn’t He? The Pleasures of the Middle English Sir Tristrem’, Arthuriana 11.4 (2001), 3–22 (pp. 8–9). RM, Story I.79–122 (pp. 93–4). Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 142–5; and Putter, ‘Time’, pp. 6–8, 12–13. Coleman, ‘Strange’, pp. 1226–7, 1234; Furrow, Expectations, pp. 13–22; and Summerfield, Matter, p. 134. Cf. above, pp. 25–7, 78–81. Carruthers, Experience, pp. 146–50.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Huntingdon’s account of the five plagues, or invasions, of Britain, Langtoft writes that England is ‘Repleny de pople de diverse nacioun’ (‘Filled with people of different nation’), thanks to invasions by the Romans, the Scots and Picts, the English, the Danes and the Normans.24 Mannyng translates this line closely: ‘þe folk þat is þerin, it is of diuers kynd’ (‘the people that are [in England] are comprised of many different groups’).25 The diversity of Britain’s peoples is thus one aspect of the varietas described in descriptiones Britanniae. However, unlike the island’s bountiful rivers and meadows, this diversity is not a sign of the island’s manifold blessings. Instead, it is the product of five historical fractures: He sais þis lond has suffred so many tyme wo, fiue sorowes he writes, withouten oþer mo. Þo ilk fiue sorowes he calles fiue woundes þat ere not ʒit haled, ne salle be many stoundes.26 ([Langtoft] says that this land has suffered woes on so many occasions, He writes of five sorrows, and no more. Those same five sorrows he calls five wounds That are not yet healed, nor shall be for many years.)

Thus, the island is full ‘of diuers kynd’ not because of some natural fertility of the land, as is true of its diverse landscape, but because the island has been physically harmed on several occasions. Despite its cause, that diversity is a source of awe. When translating Wace’s account of the foundation of New Troy, Mannyng divides readers’ attention between the rich diversity of Britain’s landscape (natural and man-made) and the rich diversity of Britain’s peoples: Þei multiplied & wele throfe & wex ryche, cante & kofe. In a fo ʒers, alle þe kynde of folk wex þei mykelle mynde. Brutus biheld þe mountayns & auysed hym on þe playnes, biheld þe wodes, water, & fen where was eyse wonnyng for men. […] 24

25

26

Unless otherwise noted, all text and translation from Peter Langtoft, The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, in French Verse, from the Earliest Period to the Death of King Edward I, ed. and trans. T. Wright, 2 vols. (London, 1866, 1868), I, 286–7. Because Wright does not use line numbers, subsequent quotations will follow the format Langtoft, Chronicle, followed by references to volume and page number. RM, Story II.100 (p. 489). All translations of Mannyng are mine. As throughout this book, I have opted for looser translations that, to paraphrase Jerome, proceed sense by sense rather than word for word. Ibid. II.101–4 (p. 489).

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande His folk wex fast þe lond to were, þouht in his hert he wald make a new biggyng for Troie sake.27 (They multiplied and prospered well, And grew rich, bold, and courageous. In a few years, all the groups Of people grew very large in number. Brutus beheld the mountains And observed the plains, Beheld the woods, waters, and fens Where men had a comfortable living. […] His people grew quickly to defend the land. He thought in his heart he would make A new city for Troy’s sake.)

Here, Mannyng depicts the landscape as an opportunity for ‘eyse wonnyng’ for many ‘kynde / of folk’. Mannyng’s descriptiones thus recognize multiplicity, especially of peoples, and his Story depicts that multiplicity as a source of both grief (because it exists) and pleasure (because it contributes to the island’s copia). These are the building blocks of varietas, and in this chapter, I reveal Mannyng’s formal variety to be an instantiation of the harmonious “fit” so prized by earlier historians. By tracing the similarities between Mannyng’s Story and the histories examined in previous chapters, I also show how Mannyng manages to bridge the divide between classical and Christian varietas – albeit by divorcing formal practices from their underlying philosophies. As is so often the case, the manuscript tradition of the Story complicates attempts to understand precisely what Mannyng’s poetry would have looked like. The Story survives in only three witnesses, all of which offer challenges to scholars seeking to understand Mannyng’s prosody.28 The sole complete manuscript, now London, Inner Temple Library, MS Petyt 511, Vol. 7 (henceforth the Petyt Story), is the earliest of the surviving witnesses, likely written at the very end of the fourteenth century. However, the scribes of the Petyt Story changed Mannyng’s wording in many places, with significant implications for our understanding of Mannyng’s poetic practice, as I discuss in greater detail below. The second witness, London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 131 (henceforth the Lambeth Story) was likely written c. 1450, over a century after Mannyng completed his Story in 1338. It is incomplete, as it lacks both the prologue and roughly half of the second part of Mannyng’s Story, and has been edited by later scribes, who eliminated some of the

27 28

Ibid. I.1881–8, I.92–4 (p. 135). For discussion of manuscripts, see ibid., pp. 2–5, 22–51, and Summerfield, Matter, pp. 138–40.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Story’s poetic variety (attested by the Petyt Story). However, it also preserves some of the variety that had been eliminated by the scribes who produced the P version of the text. Meanwhile, the last witness of Mannyng’s Story is a single folio preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Miscellany MS D. 913, written c. 1400. Given these limitations, it is difficult to determine when or why the Story acquired its varietas. Here, though, I will point out that the manuscripts of Mannyng’s Story present much the same problem as the manuscripts of Laʒamon’s Brut did in chapter 5: both the Brut and the Story survive in just two manuscripts, neither of which represents the text in its original form, and only one of which – in both cases, the earlier of the two manuscripts – engages in the fullest form of varietas. For this reason, I follow the same approach here as I did earlier: I focus primarily on the earlier, varius version of the work (in this case the Petyt Story), while referring as necessary to the Lambeth Story, and I address the other manuscript in my conclusion, as part of my larger examination of varietas’s decline.

Historiographical poetics Mannyng’s Story features a wide range of poetic forms across its roughly 24,000 lines, though Part II is more formally diverse on average than Part I. Overall, the Story employs three primary verse forms, by which I mean the forms that Mannyng uses for the main narrative of the text. The first of these, rhyming couplets with four stresses per line, is used throughout Part I. Mannyng likely chose this verse form for Part I for two reasons. First, it closely resembles the octosyllabic couplets which Wace used to write the Roman de Brut, of which Part I is a translation; and second, four-stress rhyming couplets were a common Middle English verse form with which Mannyng was already familiar.29 (He had used rhyming couplets of four stresses per line when writing his earlier work, Handlyng Synne.)30 When translating Langtoft’s Chronicle in Part II, Mannyng switches to a new verse form. This second primary form is also comprised of rhyming couplets, but it utilizes longer lines of five or six stresses per line.31 Again, ease 29

30 31

Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1234; Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 134–5; A. Putter, ‘The Metres and Stanza Forms of Popular Romance’, in A Companion to Medieval Popular Romance, ed. R. L. Radulescu and C. J. Rushton (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 111–31 (pp. 114–15); RM, Story, p. 54; and Summerfield, Matter, p. 151. RM, Story, p. 54. Some scholars refer to these lines as hexameters (Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1234; and Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 134–5), while others normalize the five-stress lines by referring to the form as containing ‘varying stresses’ (RM, Story, p. 62) or as being ‘more irregular’ than the consistent four-stress lines used for Part I (Summerfield, Matter, p. 151). Unfortunately, the paucity of manuscript evidence prevents us from knowing what Mannyng wrote. To accommodate the variety of

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande of translation likely contributed to Mannyng’s choice of verse form. Langtoft wrote in the meter of the Old French chanson de geste, using alexandrine (twelve-syllable) lines arranged into groups of lines, or laisses, rhyming on a single sound, prompting Mannyng to lengthen his lines, to make it easier to translate Langtoft’s work line-by-line.32 This line structure is Mannyng’s primary form in II.1–1702. At this point, Mannyng switches to a third and final primary form, nearly identical to the second, since it too consists of rhyming couplets made from lines of five or six stresses. However, this last primary form adds internal rhyme to this basic formula, by which I mean each couplet contains another set of rhyming words placed directly before the caesura in addition to the rhyming words that appear at the end of the line. Internal rhyme starts to appear early in Part II, but it only becomes a regularized primary form roughly 1,700 lines into Part II, for reasons I will discuss below.33 While the rhyming words at the end of the line are always aural rhymes, the internal rhyming words occasionally only look (rather than sound) similar, and sometimes rely on esoteric vocabulary or adjustments of spelling in order to create the rhyme.34 For example, Mannyng’s Story is responsible for all three appearances of the Middle English word ‘purale’ (which the Middle English Dictionary defines as ‘A royal or an official perambulation of a royal forest, a city, country, etc., to determine its bounds’).35 Two of those appearances rely on this word to create internal rhyme, as we see in the lines below: Erles & barons at þer first samnyng for many maner resons pleyned of þe kyng þat þe purale did not als he suld, ne þer chartre gaf fre, þe poyntes vse ne wuld, ne suffre þam to hold þat þe chartre of spake, þorgh mayntenours bold þe poyntes alle þei brake.36 (emphasis mine.) (Earls and barons, at their first assembly, Complained to the king for many sorts of reasons: That he did not perform the land survey as he should, Nor grant their charters without restriction, nor would he observe the terms,

32 33 34 35 36

Mannyng’s verse without applying value judgments to that variety, I opt for generic phrases such as “longer lines” in my discussion, even if they are less precise. Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1234; Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 134–5; RM, Story, pp. 61–2; and Summerfield, Matter, p. 151. Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1235; RM, Story, pp. 35, 62–3; and Summerfield, Matter, p. 152. RM, Story, pp. 62–3. For a more charitable reading of Mannyng’s rhymes, see Allen, ‘Long’, p. 72. MED, s.v. ‘purale’. RM, Story II.7617–22 (p. 675).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Nor permit [the nobility] to hold what the charters granted them, Because of bold maintainers who broke all the terms.)

Mannyng is not the only Middle English poet to rely on rhymes of this sort.37 Yet his poetic skills are on full display even in minor passages such as this: the rhyming pairs ‘purale’/‘fre’, ‘hold’/‘bold’, and even ‘suld’/‘wuld’ all develop a contrast between the way that Edward I conducts business and the way the barons think he should conduct business. Mannyng’s ability to imbue the practical (i.e., rhymes) with the political (i.e., his commentary on Edward I) in this passage suggests that, even if Mannyng changes from one verse form to another for practical reasons, he is nevertheless fully capable of giving his verse forms political meaning. This is true of the Story’s ancillary forms as well, that is, the forms it adopts only for a few lines here and there. Take Mannyng’s imitations of Langtoft’s laisses, for example. Laisses are groups of lines, variable in number, with either ten or twelve syllables per line, which are linked together by assonance or rhyme on a single sound.38 (Langtoft’s laisses employ alexandrines, i.e., lines of twelve syllables, and monorhymes, i.e., they all rhyme on a single sound.) Old French epic poems, the chansons de geste, employed this form. By adopting this form, Langtoft seeks to convey that British history, which for him culminates in the reign of Edward I, is also epic.39 For the most part, Mannyng does not try to create long monorhymed passages in the epic style of Langtoft. However, on several occasions in Part II, Mannyng shifts from his usual practice of rhyming couplets and instead creates long strings of monorhymes that echo Langtoft’s. In these passages, Mannyng invokes Langtoft and the chansons des geste more generally. His purpose for doing so becomes clearer when we recognize that Mannyng’s monorhymed passages cluster in and around the reign of Richard I, an exceedingly famous king by Mannyng’s day – so famous, in fact, that Mannyng incorporates parts of a romance about Richard when writing his Story.40 By employing the meter of Old French epic to describe Richard, Mannyng simultaneously adds excitement to his narrative and assigns Richard the same status as an Arthur or a Charlemagne. Mannyng’s pseudo-laisses are therefore a classic example of an author varying the form of his text in order to call attention to specific passages. These passages’ reflections on sovereignty show that their varietas is indebted to historiographical as well as rhetorical principles. They mix languages, combining a French verse form with Middle English words 37 38 39

40

Putter, ‘Adventures’, p. 150; and Putter, ‘Metres’, pp. 128–9. Putter, ‘Metres’, pp. 113–14. M. Ailes, ‘Au carrefour des genres: chansons de geste ou chroniques sous la forme de la chanson de geste’, in De la pensée de l’histoire au jeu littéraire: Études médiévales en l’honneur de Dominique Boutet, ed. S. Douchet et al. (Paris, 2019), pp. 448–57 (pp. 455–7); and Summerfield, Matter, pp. 20–1. Summerfield, Matter, pp. 181–5.

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande and sometimes even employing the same sound that Langtoft’s laisses had used.41 In addition, they make a virtue of multiplicity, since they delight in stringing together many rhyme words. Third, they appear at moments of political disruption, specifically around the issue of what precisely gives kings the right to rule. In this way, they layer formal discontinuity onto political discontinuity, forcing readers to think about what makes a king a king. Moreover, their appearance frequently concerns England’s relationship with the wider world, another standard feature of varietas. For example, a monorhymed passage appears within a dispute between Richard I and Philip of France over Richard’s refusal to marry Philip’s sister, on the grounds that Henry II, Richard’s father, had fathered a child with her.42 Philip speaks in monorhymed lines; Richard responds in Mannyng’s typical rhyming couplets. In this way, Mannyng juxtaposes French (laisses) and English (couplets) verse forms to represent the dialogue between these two kings – a dialogue provoked by issues surrounding the succession. They use multiplicity to push that dialogue forward, allowing Richard to set the terms upon which his dealings with the French king will proceed. Paradoxically, then, the text’s multiplicity of verse forms allows Richard to cast himself as an independent, emphatically English sovereign (despite his holdings in France). Political undercurrents are also visible in the monorhymed passages that Mannyng uses to bookend Richard’s exploits in Cyprus. The first relates how Isaac of Cyprus throws a trencher at Statin, Richard I’s steward.43 Richard of course avenges this insult in heroic fashion, winning sovereignty over Cyprus, and then granting the territory to Statin, who accepts the homage of Cyprus’s citizens in the monorhymed passage concluding this episode.44 Mannyng’s emulation of Langtoft’s laisses in this passage gives this story a vigorous, mock-epic tone. At the same time, it allows Mannyng to draw attention to the ways in which dynastic empires are established, and the political issues that emerge from such events. Is Cyprus under Statin’s or Richard’s authority? Does taking something make it yours? What gives a person the right to take something in the first place? Thus, we can say that these passages are not merely examples of stylistic amplification for the purpose of keeping readers engaged. The blurring of linguistic and formal boundaries in these passages guides readers through gnarly political issues, by helping them see the forest for the trees and by setting right and wrong beside each other. In other words, these passages are examples of varietas: they rely on a multiplicity of forms to help readers learn lessons from political discontinuities. Moreover, these passages rely on juxtaposition to forward their political arguments. The passages that precede and follow Richard’s death both 41 42 43 44

Ibid., pp. 152–3. RM, Story II.3847–54 (p. 585). Ibid. II.4097–114 (pp. 591–2). Ibid. II.4155–60 (p. 593).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century juxtapose Mannyng’s normal couplets with groups of monorhymed lines to show how the mighty can be laid low by greed, pride, and betrayal. First, Mannyng creates a string of monorhymed lines in II.4871–84 (rhyming on -ent, with half-rhymes on -nt in II.4867–8) and again in II.4891–902 (rhyming on -oun). The first of these passages recounts Richard’s address to the Christian aristocracy of the Crusader states after making peace with Saladin; the latter describes Richard’s transfer of power to these lords and the beginning of his journey home; the two sets of couplets that appear in the four lines separating these monorhyming passages coincide with the conclusion of Richard’s speech. Mannyng thus uses the juxtaposition of monorhymes and couplets to present Richard at the height of his power. This is not simply amplified language to heighten the drama of the passage – its varietas both marks and reflects on the transfer of authority from one king to another. That purpose becomes clear when we realize that Richard’s desire to seek vengeance on Philip of France – much like Arthur’s desire to seek vengeance on Modred – prompts his departure from the Holy Land, leading to his captivity and eventual death.45 The varietas funnels readers between high (Richard’s authority over the Crusader states) and low (captivity and death) to create an exemplum that teaches both moral virtues and political strategy. Moreover, Mannyng saves his most elaborate monorhymed sequences for the most severe challenges to political continuity, again indicating that it is varietas, not merely amplification, that undergirds Mannyng’s imitations of Langtoft’s laisses. For Mannyng, Richard’s transfer of authority over the Holy Land to the nobles of the Crusader states may have been disruptive, but John’s accession to the English crown was even more so. In lines II.5043–4 and 5047–52 (rhyming on -e), Mannyng explains how John leveraged his marriage to bypass his nephew Arthur and have himself anointed as king; in lines II.5053–62 (rhyming on -oun), Mannyng continues to discuss John’s coronation, explaining that although John was anointed king ‘þorgh resoun’, he was morally corrupt and guilty of murdering his nephew Arthur.46 Mannyng thus presents readers with juxtaposed sets of monorhymes, the first of which offers the reasons why John was crowned, and the second of which explains why that was a mistake. In other words, Mannyng uses several layers of formal variety – shifting from couplets to monorhymes, and then from one set of rhymes to another – to stage a debate about John’s legitimacy as king. Mannyng also uses formal variety to give us his opinion. The monorhymes in the passage offering the reasons why John was crowned are broken by a couplet (II.5045–6, rhyming on -if) that does not match the rhyme scheme in the rest of the sequence (which rhymes on -e). Mannyng’s editor suggests that these lines were transposed by a later scribe.47 Yet these lines are 45 46 47

See ibid. II.4903–16 and II.5025–40 (pp. 611–12 and 614–15, respectively). Ibid. II.5055 (p. 615). Ibid., p. 615.

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande perfectly logical where they are. Moreover, these are the lines that actually describe John’s seizure of the throne, a clear example of political discontinuity. In this way, Mannyng constructs layers of formal variety, whose task is to juxtapose ideas to guide readers through narrative and historiographical cruxes. By transposing Langtoft’s epic laisses into Middle English, Mannyng challenges readers to make the pieces “fit”, so that they can discern the meaning of history.

Imitating Langtoft Mannyng’s imitations of Langtoft are not limited to periodic emulations of Langtoft’s verse form. In the previous chapter, I showed how Laʒamon often restored to the Brut narrative some of the varietas lacking in Wace’s Roman de Brut. Mannyng is in a different position with respect to his sources: Wace (also a major source for Mannyng) may not employ much varietas, but Langtoft does.48 Langtoft is particularly fond of interpolations, adding texts – sometimes in Latin or even English – to his Chronicle. For example, Langtoft inserts Merlin’s prophecies, preserved in their original Latin prose, into his Chronicle, while Wace simply refused to include them at all, in whatever language or form.49 Langtoft’s interpolations display a high degree of artistry: for example, when he interpolates tail-rhyme songs into his regular laisses, he often uses the same rhyming sound across the two forms, creating a kind of harmonization of contrasting forms, much as Henry of Huntingdon did when inserting poems into his prose.50 Mannyng, as a faithful translator, follows Langtoft’s lead, and engages in varietas when Langtoft does. Langtoft’s tail-rhyme songs (made up of short lines of three stresses per line and end rhymes following the pattern 48

49 50

For discussions of various examples, see Summerfield, Matter, pp. 20–1; Summerfield, ‘The Political Songs in the Chronicles of Pierre de Langtoft and Robert Mannyng’, in The Court and Cultural Diversity: Selected Papers from the Eighth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 26 July–1 August 1995, ed. E. Mullally and J. Thompson (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 139–48; Summerfield, ‘The Testimony of Writing: Pierre de Langtoft and the Appeals to History, 1291–1306’, in The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend, ed. R. Purdie and N. Royan (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 25–41 (pp. 25–6, 36); and H. Young, ‘“Des Gestes Des Engles”: England and the English in Piers Langtoft’s Chronicle’, Viator 42.1 (2011), 309–27 (p. 319). Langtoft, Chronicle, I, 266–77. On Wace and the Prophetiae, see chapter 5, p. 158. For Langtoft, see T. Summerfield, ‘“‘Fi a debles,’ quath the king”: Language-Mixing in England’s Vernacular Historical Narratives, c. 1290–1340’, in Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England c. 1100–c. 1500, ed. J. Wogan-Browne et al. (York, 2009), pp. 68–80 (pp. 78–9); and Summerfield, ‘Songs’, pp. 144–5. For Henry of Huntingdon, see chapter 3, pp. 90–2, 99–101. For further discussion of Langtoft’s poetry, see Ailes, ‘Au carrefour’, pp. 455–7.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century AABCCBDDEFFE) clearly deviate from his main verse form (alexandrine laisses).51 They contain other hallmarks of varietas as well: since some are in Anglo-Norman French and others in Middle English, they juxtapose different languages; they also juxtapose tones (genteel and raucous) and political perspectives (English and Scottish), all for the sake of celebrating Edward I’s military achievements, which culminate in his victory over the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296.52 For Langtoft, this is a major (for him, joyous) discontinuity in history, because in defeating the Scots Edward I has fulfilled Merlin’s prophecies concerning the reunification of the British Isles under a single authority: Ha, Deus! ke Merlyn dist sovent veritez En ses prophecyes, [si]cum ws les lisez! Ore sunt les ii ewes en un aryvez, Ke par graunz mountaynes ount esté severez; Et une realme fet de [deus] diverse regnez Ke solaint par deus rays estre governez. Ore sunt les insulanes trestuz assemblez, Et Albanye rejoynte à les regaltez Des quels li rays Eduuard est seygnur clamez. Cornewaylle et Wales sunt en ses poustez, Et Irelaunde la graunde à ses voluntez. (Ah, God! how often Merlin said truth In his prophecies, if you read them! Now are the two waters united in one, Which have been separated by great mountains; And one realm made of two different kingdoms Which used to be governed by two kings. Now are the islanders all joined together, And Albany reunited to the royalties Of which King Edward is proclaimed lord. Cornwall and Wales are in his power, And Ireland the great at his will.)53

This laisse, inserted between some of Langtoft’s tail-rhyme songs, is analogous to Mannyng’s breaks in the middle of his monorhymes: it is variety within variety, intended to create even greater emphasis on a particular moment, in this case, Edward I’s control over the entirety of the British Isles. Langtoft’s Chronicle clearly provided Mannyng with an important model of historiographical varietas, and it is likely that Mannyng learned some of his techniques from Langtoft.

51 52 53

Putter, ‘Metres’, pp. 121–6; and Summerfield, ‘Songs’, pp. 139–41. Summerfield, ‘Songs’, pp. 140–6. Langtoft, Chronicle, II, 264–5.

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande Mannyng also diverges from his source by eliminating some of the layers of varietas from Langtoft’s work, even as he emphasizes the prophecies’ disruption more than his source. Much of Langtoft’s Chronicle is dedicated to forwarding the vision of historical continuity and insular unity we see in this passage.54 For example, Langtoft includes the full prophecies of Merlin earlier in the Chronicle for the express purpose of ensuring that they are not forgotten, so that they can serve as a foundation for interpreting the reign of Edward I.55 There is, therefore, a new degree of continuity in Langtoft’s use of the prophecies. For Geoffrey of Monmouth, Merlin’s prophecies were speculative, and their enigmatic imagery reflected the uncertainties of the future. Of course, Geoffrey tailored many of the prophecies so that they would reflect the narrative of his own Historia and the events of post-Galfridian history, to make the prophecies appear true. Nevertheless, they were meant to be puzzling, to make readers work to recognize that truth. In contrast, for Langtoft, the prophecies have already been proven true. Their value lies not in their ability to challenge readers’ interpretation but rather in their interpretability, which can be used to support Edward I’s political claims. Mannyng, in contrast, foregrounds the prophecies’ inscrutability, as Geoffrey had. Writing approximately thirty years after Langtoft completed his Chronicle, Mannyng had to contend with the fact that the English crown no longer held sway as it had under the height of Edward I’s control, rendering Langtoft’s triumphant claim that Merlin’s prophecies had been fulfilled a false statement. For this reason, Mannyng inserts a commentary of his own on Langtoft’s triumphalism. After faithfully translating the tail-rhyme song that precedes this laisse, Mannyng informs readers that the harmonious varietas described by Langtoft is not the whole story: Now tels Pers . on his maners . a grete selcouth. He takis witnes . þat it soth es . of Merlyn mouth, a wondere were . tuo watres þer er . togidir gon, & tuo kyngdames . with tuo names . now er on; þe ildes aboute . alle salle loute . vnto þat lond of whilk Edward . is iustise hard . þat so þam bond. He sais he has wonnen . & þorgh ronnen . many lands; alle salle þei loute . tille him for doute . & dede of handes, he sais Scotland . is in his hand . for now & ay. At myn inwitte . it is not ȝit . alle at our fay. He sais Merlyn . in his deuyn . of him has said þat þre regions . in his bandons . salle be laid, Scotland & Wales . þise er his tales . þis lond al on was Brutus wayn . & cald Bretayn . first Albion. 54 55

Young, ‘England’, pp. 311–23. See Summerfield, ‘Testimony’, pp. 25–6, esp. p. 25 n. 2.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century I calle þerto . it is no so . þei er o sundere; þat he has spoken . it is now broken . with mykelle wondere.56 (Now Peter speaks, in his way, of a marvelous achievement. He swears that [the words] of Merlin’s mouth are true. A wondrous thing happened: there are two waters that have joined together, And two kingdoms, with two names, are now one; The surrounding islands shall all kneel unto that land Of which Edward, who has bound them so, is the hard ruler. He says he has won and overrun many lands, And that they shall all kneel before him because of their fear and the deeds of his hands. He says that Scotland is in his hand now and always. But to my mind it is not yet entirely under our authority. He says that Merlin, in his prophecy, has said of him That three regions shall be placed into his control, Scotland and Wales. These are his assertions. This whole land Was Brutus’s spoils, and called Britain, originally Albion. Concerning this matter, I declare it is not so. They are asunder. That he spoke of has been broken in a remarkable way.)

Although he reports what Langtoft writes, Mannyng tells readers outright that he objects to Langtoft’s interpretation. For Mannyng, Langtoft spoke too soon, because the English do not have control over Scotland ‘for now & ay’. Mannyng continues in this vein for another ten lines, explaining that while Edward I may have temporarily subjugated Scotland, there is also another prophecy that says Scotland will enjoy a renewal of its fortunes after Edward’s death, and that Robert Bruce’s kingship proves that to be true.57 There is, then, a greater speculative quality to Mannyng’s prophecies than Langtoft’s. Those ambiguities are reinforced by the multiple referents for the pronouns ‘he’ – at times it is difficult to know whether Mannyng refers to Langtoft, Merlin, or Edward. There are similar ambiguities around ‘it’, which at times could refer to the prophecy or to the island itself. Furthermore, whereas Langtoft uses variety-within-variety to emphasize continuity, here Mannyng eliminates one of Langtoft’s layers of variety to reinforce his reading of the prophecies’ confusion. Remember, more formal variety offers more signposting, and hence more historical clarity at moments that challenge narrative cohesion; less formal variety would leave readers wandering in the midst of uncertainty. Tellingly, while Langtoft switches to and from tail-rhyme in this passage on the prophecies, Mannyng simply switches to tail-rhyme and stays in this form until the end of this

56 57

RM, Story II.6827–42 (pp. 656–7). Ibid. II.6843–52 (p. 657).

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande passage.58 Mannyng thus provides less formal variety and hence interpretive signposting precisely because the prophecies are not yet clear. Mannyng’s version still contains some varietas – after all, he followed Langtoft into tailrhyme in the first place – but he declines to follow Langtoft through all of the latter’s formal variety, breaking with his usual pattern of following Langtoft’s formal lead. As a result, Mannyng essentially undermines Langtoft’s attempts to present British history as settled. Thus, while Mannyng often follows Langtoft, he is also capable of going his own way. Moreover, the formal choices he makes reveal something of his own preferences for varietas. As I have already mentioned, Langtoft (unlike Wace) is fond of creating varietas by interpolating other texts into his main narrative. His tail-rhyme songs are only one example of this phenomenon.59 For example, Langtoft also copies the poetic dialogue between Brutus and the goddess Diana and the prose prophecies of Merlin from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae into his work, without translating them from Latin to French.60 In French, he also transmits a verse version of Henry II’s will in rhymed couplets rather than laisses and copies the homage oath of Jon Balliol, a prose text.61 Mannyng, following Wace, omits Merlin’s prophecies.62 Yet Mannyng does include excerpts from Latin poetry in his work: for example, Mannyng inserts two lines of Brutus’s prayer to Diana in Latin poetry, organized in such a way to create rhyme, as well as several short excerpts from Christian hymns.63 At one point, he skillfully incorporates the title and several lines from a psalm (in Latin) into his own (English) couplet rhymes, so that there is no break in the text.64 In all of these cases, Mannyng displays a willingness to integrate Latin poetry into his own verses, rather than keep it separate from his own narrative. Moreover, whereas Langtoft, when translating Henry II’s will, had moved from laisses to rhyming couplets to mark his movement into “documentary” mode, Mannyng uses anaphora to emphasize his couplets and thus signify the legal language of this passage, e.g., To ladies of habite, Vilers & Mortayn, he gaf tuo hundreth mark (I trowe þei were fayn). To þo religiouses þat were in Gascoyne, he gaf a þousand mark withouten essoyne.65

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Summerfield, Matter, p. 153. For discussion of other examples, see ibid., p. 21; and Summerfield, ‘Testimony’, pp. 25–6, 36. See, respectively, Langtoft, Chronicle, I, 12–13 and I, 266–77. See, respectively, ibid., II, 14–19 and II, 192–5. RM, Story I.8099–114 (p. 285). For Brutus’s prayer, see ibid. I.1364 (p. 123). For discussion of these passages, see Summerfield, ‘Language-Mixing’, pp. 71–2. RM, Story I.15705–12 (p. 480). Ibid. II.3330–3 (p. 573).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century (To the cloistered nuns at Villiers and Mortain He gave two hundred marks (I daresay they were delighted). To those members of religious orders that were in Gascony He gave a thousand marks without delay.)

Meanwhile, he translates Balliol’s oath from Langtoft’s Anglo-Norman French prose into Middle English verse.66 However, he translates the oath not into the long lines he employs for the vast majority of Part II, but rather, into fourstress lines, to preserve the formal variation of Langtoft’s text. The common feature shared by all of these adaptations is that Mannyng prefers his varietas to rely exclusively on verse forms and poetic devices. As a result, different verse forms bear a greater responsibility for historiographical meaning than in Langtoft’s Chronicle. Take, for instance, Mannyng’s translation of Balliol’s homage oath from prose to verse. The form Mannyng adopts, four-stress couplets, is reminiscent of the verse form he had employed when translating Wace in Part I. By returning to this form, Mannyng imbues Balliol’s oath with a sense of sobriety and even antiquity, hearkening back to the days when Britain was ruled under a single crown. Balliol’s oath thus returns Britain to its ancient state – but only for a little while, as Mannyng’s tail-rhyme continuation of Langtoft’s song will later reveal. Here, long before Balliol’s betrayal, Mannyng uses the verse form his text associates with antiquity to play up the ancient origins and larger significance of the moment. Historical accuracy, that is, the degree to which this form is actually ancient, is irrelevant – Mannyng is concerned with the way that verse forms facilitate historiographical interpretation. Mannyng’s periodic use of alliteration paints a similar picture. Alliteration is, of course, clearly associated with Old English poetry, and like Laʒamon before him, Mannyng uses periodic alliteration to give his text an “epic” quality at crucial moments in British history, particularly around the issue of sovereignty. For example, Mannyng uses alliteration to describe the wrestling match between Gogmagog and Corrineus, which marked the beginning of British sovereignty over Britain: in one line, for example, Mannyng explains that the opponents manhandled each other’s ‘chynnes, chokes, gaf hard chekkes’ (‘chins [and] cheeks, [and] gave hard blows’, emphasis mine).67 He also uses alliteration to describe the violent quarrel between two noblemen that enables Julius Caesar to finally conquer Britain.68

66 67 68

Ibid. II.6049–68 (pp. 638–9). For discussion, see Summerfield, Matter, p. 153; and Turville-Petre, ‘Politics’, p. 9. RM, Story I.1808–21, quote I.1816 (p. 133). Cf. Allen, who concludes that this alliteration is a sign of Mannyng’s lack of poetic control (‘Long’, p. 83).

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande Yet Mannyng’s alliteration is sparked not by violence, as in Laʒamon’s Brut, but rather by moments when sovereignty is at stake. For this reason, allusions to Old English alliteration sometimes appear even in non-violent scenes, if authority over the island of Britain is at stake. For example, at the beginning of his account of English history in Part II, Mannyng describes how Ine, king of Wessex, resisted the Britons’ attempts to retake the island. Ine sends messengers to the other English kings ‘& teld how þe Bretons, men of mykelle might, / þe lond wild wynne ageyn þorh force & fyght’ (‘and told how the Britons, men of great strength, / intended to win the land again through force and battle’, emphasis mine).69 Yet there is also alliteration outside of battle sequences: in the first line of Part II, we are told that ‘[I]n saynt Bede bokes writen er stories olde’ (‘In Saint Bede’s books are written old stories’, emphasis mine); only a few lines later, we are informed ‘& þe Kyng Cadwaldre þis lond had alle lorn (‘& King Cadwaladr had lost all this land’, emphasis mine).70 There is no warfare, yet alliteration and assonance appear at the moment when Mannyng notes the shift in sovereignty from the Britons to the English. Likewise, problems in Ine’s succession are described with alliteration: ‘sorow & site he made, þer was non oþer rede, / for his sonne & heyre þat so sone was dede’ (‘he expressed sorrow and anguish – there was no other course of action – / for his son and heir, who so soon was dead’, emphasis mine).71 Clearly, Mannyng is not emulating the specific forms of Old English alliterative verse: his alliteration does not always fall on stressed syllables, nor does it follow recognized patterns, or even a system internal to the text. Sometimes Mannyng’s alliteration resembles common poetic formulas (‘men of mykelle might’); at other times it relies on names (‘Bedes bokes’), titles (‘Kyng Cadwaldre’), or is purely situational (‘þis lond had alle lorn’). Yet for our purposes, it does not matter whether Mannyng understands Old English prosody to the degree that Laʒamon does. Rather, it is important that Mannyng recognizes alliteration’s cultural associations with battle poetry, and that he expands that association to include succession crises of any sort. This association of alliteration with sovereignty demonstrates Mannyng’s willingness to use verse forms originating from any linguistic tradition at crucial narrative junctures, if they can help his readers understand the events taking place in the main narrative. Rather than being transgressive or arbitrary, then, the variety of Mannyng’s verse forms emerges both from Langtoft’s own varietas and Mannyng’s preference for varietas in verse alone. Though it may possess some unusual features in comparison with other Middle English poetry, when read in

69 70 71

RM, Story II.21–2 (p. 487). Ibid. II.1, II.4 (p. 487). Ibid. II.69–70 (p. 488).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century the context of the longer historiographical tradition, the peculiarities of Mannyng’s Story begin to appear quite ordinary.

Not a poet-philosopher Thus far, we have seen how Mannyng develops his own habits of varietas, as other historians do. Yet Mannyng’s Story begins to veer from historiographical convention when it deconstructs the relationship between varietas’s formal practices and its underlying philosophy. As the examples above demonstrate, Mannyng mixes verse forms and languages in a manner more akin to Christian than classical varietas. Like Henry of Huntingdon and Laʒamon, Mannyng uses the connotations of various verse forms – sequences of monorhymes, tailrhyme songs, alliteration, and so forth – to help readers discern the meaning of his varietas. He also mixes languages (French verse forms in Middle English) and the styles characteristic of different eras (Old English and Middle English). His alliteration is a kind of archaism, and his formal innovation is its own kind of encyclopedism and mixture of genres. Moreover, he practices formal variety, rather than simply gesturing towards it. Juxtaposition plays a large role in his writing, but not as a balance of “high” and “low” verse forms but instead as a way to create dialogue between different perspectives. All of this signals the affinities between Mannyng’s Story and Christian varietas. However, Mannyng’s varietas is mostly emptied of the religious impetus that spurred Henry and Laʒamon. This does not mean that the Story lacks spirituality, but rather that the Story’s reasons for using devices associated with Christian varietas lack theological heft. For example, in one description of his translation practice, Mannyng uses imagery strikingly similar to Laʒamon’s in service of an entirely different message: I fond in maistre Wace boke, of Pers of Langtoft also I toke, & of Gildas þer to I laid right as Pers þerof said. Of alle þre bryng y to place Gyldas Peres & Maister Wace.72 (I found in Master Wace’s book, And I also took [the book] of Peter Langtoft,

72

Ibid. I.14121–4 (p. 439). The last two lines of this quote appear only in the Lambeth Story (and thus are not assigned line numbers in the modern critical edition of Mannyng’s work). The Lambeth Story preserves many lines that the scribes of the Petyt Story (or its exemplar) seem to have thought redundant, and hence eliminated (ibid., pp. 37–8). For this reason, it is likely that these last two lines are Mannyng’s, rather than later interpolations.

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande And [the book] of Gildas I laid alongside, Just as Peter said of it. I bring [the books] of all three into place, Gildas, Peter, and Master Wace.)

Laʒamon, we will recall, had pressed three books into one at the altar, thus portraying compilation as an act of religious devotion.73 This passage also shows an author combining three books. It even suggests that the books selected can represent British history from numerous perspectives, since Mannyng goes out of his way to include Gildas, even though his use of Gildas follows Langtoft’s. Yet Mannyng is far less concerned with the materiality of the books – in the lines above, the only indication that he refers to physical books rather than (or perhaps, in addition to) texts in the abstract is by attending to the implied physicality of ‘laid’ and ‘bryng […] to place’. Unlike Laʒamon, Mannyng thus declines the opportunity to connect the work of history-writing with transubstantiation or trinitarian theology. Instead, he gives us a historiographical, rather than a divine, trinity. At the same time, the Story’s main verse forms underscore the text’s adherence to the techniques, if not the principles, of Christian varietas. As I mentioned above, the Story has three primary forms: end-rhyming couplets with four stresses per line, end-rhyming couplets with five or six stresses per line, and finally internal- and end-rhyming couplets, again with five or six (increasingly, six) stresses per line. The switch from the first to the second form is unmistakable, because it aligns with Mannyng’s shift from relying on Wace’s Roman de Brut to relying on Langtoft’s Chronicle, and because the length of the longer lines in Part II necessitates the adoption of a new manuscript layout.74 The conspicuousness of this metrical change – aided by the alliteration in the opening lines of Part II – allows Mannyng to forward his periodization of British history, which recognizes two eras: the British period, when Britons had sovereignty over Britain, which Mannyng calls ‘þe ryght Brute’ (‘the Brut proper’); and the ‘þe Inglis gest’ (‘the English history’), when the English and then the Normans possess sovereignty over the island.75 This is a classic example of varietas’s association of political discontinuity with formal variety, which aims to mend the past while leaving a scar visible to readers. The shift from the second to the third main verse form is far less obvious to readers, because it takes place gradually. Internal rhyme (located directly before each line’s caesura) appears periodically in the first several hundred lines, then increases in frequency as the narrative approaches the Norman Conquest. Finally, as Mannyng describes the circumstances leading up to

73 74 75

See chapter 5, pp. 162–3. Summerfield, Matter, pp. 151–2. RM, Story I.33, I.38 (p. 94).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century William’s invasion, this shift becomes permanent, and the lines that had previously been variable in their number of stressed syllables solidify into hexameters, with each half-line containing three of the lines’ six stresses.76 Unfortunately, the extant manuscripts of the Story make it impossible to determine how much of this gradual shift is the product of Mannyng’s pen, and how much of it is due to scribes who originally wished to eliminate the internal rhyme in the early lines, but who eventually abandoned that project.77 Since several Middle English poets become more innovative as they write, Mannyng may well be responsible for this change in verse form.78 For simplicity’s sake, I shall assume (as I tend to believe) that Mannyng is responsible for this shift, but in reality, it does not matter who is responsible for this formal variety. What matters is the way this shift from occasional to standardized internal rhyme illuminates the Story’s disinterest in the spiritual underpinnings of his varietas, even as it relies on the practices we have come to associate with Christian varietas. Contrary to what previous scholars have suggested, the shift from the second to the third primary verse form is carefully chosen and highly significant.79 Mannyng permanently adopts internal rhyme just when Harold, speaking with Duke William of Normandy, pledges to help the duke take the throne of England after Edward the Confessor’s death: “Harald, whan þou ses tyme, do þi help þerto; I salle delyuer þ broþer & þi neuow also, & Marie, my douhter, to wife I will þe gyue. A man I salle þe make richely forto lyue, or my chefe iustise, þe lawes to mend & right. Þi sistere I salle gyue a riche prince of myght.” “Sire”, said Harald, “I salle, if þat I may, help þe þe coroun to hald & euer I se þat day. My broþer delyuer þou me, my neuow þou me grante, & hold þi certeynte & salle hold couenante.”80 (emphasis mine) (“Harold, when you see an opportunity, help me in this cause; I shall deliver your brother and also your nephew to you, And Marie, my daughter, I will give you as a wife. I will make you a very rich man, Or my Chief Justice, to mend and correct the laws.

76 77 78 79 80

For a helpful summary (with examples), see Summerfield, Matter, p. 152. RM, Story, p. 35. Kooper, ‘Development’, pp. 118–23; and Kooper, ‘Prosody’, pp. 430–5. E.g., Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1235; RM, Story, pp. 35, 62–3; and Summerfield, Matter, p. 152. RM, Story II.1696–1705 (pp. 531–2). In one publication, Summerfield erroneously pinpointed the shift at II.1720 (‘Songs’, p. 146). Her Matter refers to the correct line, however (p. 152).

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande Your sister I will give to a rich and powerful prince.” “Sire,” Harold said, “I shall, if I can, Help you to acquire the crown if ever I see that day. Deliver my brother to me, give me my nephew, And keep your pledge, and I shall hold to the agreement.”)

As my italicizing of the rhyming pairs shows, Mannyng chooses to make internal rhyme a permanent addition to his poetry in the exact line when Harold agrees to this deal and refers to William as his ‘sire’. This is no accident. Here, as elsewhere, Mannyng overlaps formal and political discontinuity, to argue that this moment – not Harold’s seizure of the crown nor the Battle of Hastings – marks the transfer of sovereignty over England from the English to the Normans. As we have seen countless times before, varietas – the careful construction of formal variety – forwards an individual writer’s interpretation of history. It is striking, though, that Mannyng should forward this particular message with this particular set of techniques. This passage shows an author actually using (rather than simply referring to) formal variety. It also contains direct speech organized in dialogue, showing how two different people work together to come to a resolution (albeit an imperfect one, though that too is a technique we have seen before). Finally, this passage also reflects on the relationship between the individual and the universal, since Harold is a single man who (in Mannyng’s eyes) brings ruin upon his entire people. These are all features of Christian varietas of the sort we have seen elsewhere in the Story. Yet as we also saw in the passage depicting Mannyng’s historiographical trinity, these lines contain absolutely no sense of the idea that a divine hand is behind these events. Instead, in this passage, Mannyng makes Harold the person who takes the English past the point of no return, dooming his entire people with his own individual sin.81 In this moment of Christian varietas that Mannyng has constructed, Christ is nowhere to be seen. Like every other example of varietas, then, this formal variation uses the style and structure of a text to forward a political argument and to find a way through narrative challenges. What is distinct is the way that Mannyng has used verse to find a way to create different degrees of discontinuity. This testifies to Mannyng’s preference for using verse to create varietas, as mentioned above; but it also suggests that the force behind Mannyng’s theorizing is political, not spiritual. Thus, even though Mannyng’s use of verse forms suggests a historian partial to Christian varietas, Mannyng’s actual practice of formal discontinuity is driven by his interest in political history rather than religious devotion. Moreover, there are parts of the Story that seem more indebted to classical than Christian varietas, raising further

81

Moffat, ‘Sin’, pp. 162–5.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century questions about just what Mannyng hopes to accomplish through the formal variety of his Story.

Mannyng’s series temporum William of Malmesbury’s sense of varietas drove him to adopt some historiographical methods for which he is best known today: stylistic and structural analyses of his sources, the juxtaposition of opposing historical interpretations, digressions, and, of course, a presentation of himself as Bede’s heir. Hence, his conception of the series temporum is inextricably tied to the principles of classical varietas.82 Interestingly, Mannyng’s Story employs nearly the same techniques as William, although Mannyng’s status as a translator and a compiler has largely obscured the similarities. Although William’s actual work as a historian involved compiling sources like gathering flowers from a meadow, he preferred to present himself as one flower in that garland. For William, the insular historiographical tradition is more like a series of courses on a fixed menu, rather than the tapas epitomized by Henry of Huntingdon’s here-and-there gathering of sources for his Historia Anglorum. At first glance, Mannyng seems to follow Henry’s line of thinking, insofar as he praises Henry for his skill as a compiler. When noting the death of King Adelard (Æthelheard) of Wessex, Mannyng adds, Þe holy man, Saynt Bede, died a ʒere beforn. Henry of Huntyngton, sen þat day & þat ʒere, to write Inglis gestes, fond he non his pere. A bisshop of Lincoln, Alisandre he hight, praied him to write þe gestes þat were right; þerfor þis Henry is cald a compiloure. He wrote þe Englis gestes whilom of honoure, þus wrote to þe bisshop Henry þe same.83 (The holy man, Saint Bede, died a year before. Henry of Huntingdon, since that day and year, To write English history, found no one [Bede’s] peer. A bishop of Lincoln, Alexander was his name, Begged [Henry] to write the histories that were accurate; Therefore this Henry is called a compiler. [Bede] wrote English history for someone of rank, So Henry wrote to the bishop in the same way.)

Yet there are signs, even here, that Mannyng is also keen to construct a series temporum in the manner of classical (rather than Christian) varietas. 82 83

See chapter 2, pp. 52–7. RM, Story II.90–7 (p. 489).

208

Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande Mannyng’s phrasing here draws a clear connection between Bede and Henry of Huntingdon: their names are paralleled in Mannyng’s a-lines, and like Bede, Henry writes for a high-ranking person who had requested his text. Mannyng’s ‘þus’ even implies a causal relationship between these two historians: Bede wrote to someone of high position, so Henry does the same. His characterization of Henry as a ‘compiloure’ registers the extent to which Henry compiled his material from several works by Bede. Even his act of compilation emulates Bede. Mannyng also paints Bede as a gatherer of information about the early English kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Mannyng writes that ‘Ilk a kyng diuersed his lawe, / of alle mot no man say no sawe’ (‘Each king developed his own set of laws, / [and] no one could say something about all of them’).84 The only historian who could gather such diversity of information into a history was Bede. For Mannyng, Bede is the fount from which all English historiography flows: no one would know anything about any of the laws of any early English king, ‘Bot þat Saynt Bede of þam sais’ (‘Except that Saint Bede speaks of them’).85 This sentiment is a close translation from Langtoft’s Chronicle.86 Moreover, the structure of the Story, which follows the model of a series temporum, is indebted to Langtoft. Langtoft’s Chronicle contains three books in total, one on British history, one on English history, and one on recent history (i.e., the reign of Edward I).87 As noted earlier, Mannyng’s Story is divided into two parts: Part I, his translation of Wace’s Roman de Brut, covers what Mannyng calls ‘þe ryght Brute’, i.e., the period of British sovereignty over Britain; Part II, his translation of Langtoft’s Chronicle, covers ‘þe Inglis gest’, i.e., the period of English sovereignty, which for Mannyng extends from the death of Cadwaladr to the death of Edward I. The only difference between Langtoft’s and Mannyng’s organization of material is that Mannyng, who was writing decades after the death of Edward I, treats Edward’s reign as part of the past (rather than the present, as it was for Langtoft). Yet Mannyng shares Langtoft’s (and others’) sense that history is a sequence of time periods and the historians who wrote about them.88 For one thing, Mannyng strengthens the connection between Bede’s and Henry’s work. It is Mannyng who notes that, as Bede wrote, so did Henry. Mannyng also praises Langtoft specifically for his use of Bede. Langtoft marks his Chronicle’s transition from British (Galfridian) to English (Bedan) history with the following incipit: Incipiunt gesta quae sunt Anglis manifesta, Beda, pater, praesta Petro quod dicat honesta.

84 85 86 87 88

Ibid. I.14159–60 (p. 440). Ibid. I.14163 (p. 440). Langtoft, Chronicle, I, 286–7. Summerfield, Matter, p. 153. Cf. Nyffenegger, Authorising, pp. 81–2.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Lector narrabit id quod scriptura parabit, Petrus dictabit quod sibi Beda dabit.89 (Here begin the deeds which are unmistakably English. Father Bede, furnish Peter with something he may call worthy. As reader, he will recount what the writing will provide, Peter will speak what Bede will give to him.)

At the end of Part I, Mannyng tells readers of Langtoft’s pious prayer for Bede’s historiographical grace.90 Langtoft’s invocation to Britain’s historiographical muse prompts Mannyng to add his own prayer: ‘I salle praie him þat ilk wais / als he holy & curtais’ (‘I shall pray to [Bede] in the same manner, / since he is holy and courteous’).91 Mannyng then proceeds to ask Bede for the ability to translate Langtoft’s history well.92 In this way, Mannyng builds on Langtoft’s praise of Bede and Henry of Huntingdon, creating a linear historiographical trajectory from Bede to Henry to Langtoft to Mannyng himself.93 This concept of the garland of history and historians shapes Mannyng’s account of British historical writing as well. Mannyng’s prologue describes a sequence of historians: it starts with Dares Phrygius, then moves to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ancient British book, Geoffrey’s purported translation of that book into Latin, Wace’s translation of Geoffrey’s Latin into Anglo-Norman French, then Langtoft’s re-translation and continuation of that narrative in Anglo-Norman French, and finally, to his own translation of Wace and Langtoft into English.94 Mannyng thus treats both history and historiography as series temporum, just as William of Malmesbury had, though he follows Geoffrey of Monmouth in creating two parallel chains for English and British history. This kind of parallelism is in its own way an application of classical varietas, since it relies on the premise that the juxtaposition of historical narratives creates a harmonious balance that increases rather than destabilizes our knowledge of the past.95 Moreover, Mannyng is committed to the same comprehensive, stylistically attuned continuity to which William also aspired. As his famous statement of historiographical purpose (quoted above) reveals, William valued histories that left no gaps in the historical record, and that were written in a clean, simple Latin style in the manner of, say, Cicero or Vergil (rather than an Aldhelm or an Ausonius). As a vernacular writer, Mannyng of course does not dismiss vernacular historiography, as William did. Still, many of his

89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Langtoft, Chronicle, I, 278. Langtoft’s editor did not translate Langtoft’s Latin; the accompanying translation is mine. RM, Story I.15935–40 (p. 486). Ibid. I.15941–2 (p. 486). Ibid. I.15943–6 (p. 486). Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, p. 131. RM, Story I.145–98 (p. 94–5). For discussion, see also Summerfield, Matter, p. 140. See chapter 4, pp. 126–7.

210

Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande general comments on the style and content of his sources echo William’s. For example, Mannyng heaps praise on Langtoft at the end of Part I, just as he moves from translating Wace to translating Langtoft. He extols Langtoft as ‘quaynt in spech & wys’ (‘charming in speech, and wise’), and he marvels that Langtoft ‘gadred þe stories alle tille one / þat neuer ore was mad for none’ (‘gathered all the histories together into a single text / which never before had been made for anyone’).96 We might say, then, that Mannyng appreciates the varietas of Langtoft’s work. Nevertheless, he declines to use Langtoft as his source for the whole of the Story. As Mannyng explains in his prologue, he chooses to use Wace as his source for British history, ffor mayster Wace þe Latyn alle rymes þat Pers ouerhippis many tymes. Mayster Wace þe Brute all redes, & Pers tellis alle þe Inglis dedes.97 (Master Wace versifies all the Latin, Which Peter [Langtoft] often omits. Master Wace recounts all the Brut, And Peter relates all the doings of the English.)

Mannyng’s opinion that Langtoft skips over too much of history is actually drawn from a marginal comment left by a scribe on the copy of Langtoft’s Chronicle that Mannyng used for his translation.98 But while the scribe was content to simply criticize Langtoft for his omissions, Mannyng went so far as to replace Langtoft with Wace for ‘þe ryght Brute’.99 For Mannyng, it seems, varietas without complete coverage of the series temporum is missing part of the picture, hence his decision to do some compiling of his own by piecing together Wace and Langtoft. Mannyng also considers style of equal importance to comprehensiveness. He says that Dares Phrygius’s De excidio Troiae historia is a work of eyewitness history, but that it contains an extremely large amount of detail, so þat it were oure long to telle; & many wald not þerin duelle þare names alle forto here, bot þe Latyn is fayre to lere.100

96

RM, Story I.15931, I.15933–4 (p. 485). Ibid. I.63–6 (p. 92). 98 Fisher, Authorship, pp. 8–11; and RM, Story, pp. 52–3. 99 RM, Story I.33 (p. 91). For discussion, see Summerfield, Matter, pp. 137–8. Mannyng is not alone in making this replacement; some manuscripts of Langtoft replace his account of the Brut with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s or Wace’s versions (ibid., p. 22). Mannyng also fleshes out some of Wace’s narrative with further details (Allen, ‘Long’, p. 72). 100 RM, Story I.159–62 (p. 94). 97

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century (that it would be too long to tell, and many would not remain long enough to hear all their names, unless the Latin is attractive to learn from.)

Mannyng thus considers both content and delivery crucial to effective history. Perhaps for this reason, Mannyng frequently adopts a utilitarian approach to literary style. Much of Mannyng’s prologue is dedicated to enumerating the practical reasons for writing in a simple style. Some authors, Mannyng says, utilize a style of English so ornate that even he has trouble understanding it.101 For this reason, people around him kept asking him to turne it bot in light ryme; þai sayd if I in strange it turne, to here it manyon suld skurne, ffor it ere names fulle selcouth þat ere not vsed now in mouth.102 (to translate it, but in simple poetry; they said that if I translated it into an unfamiliar sort of poetry, many people would shrink away from listening to it, because it contains very striking names that are not now used in spoken English.)

The crucial word here is ‘light’, the same word that Mannyng uses to describe the language of those who simplify Brutus’s original name for London, ‘Newe Troie’, into ‘Trinouanute’.103 The repetition of this word suggests that Mannyng desires a simple style, stripped of archaic pretensions. In other words, he seems to be rejecting poetry of the sort that Laʒamon employed.104 Indeed, in these lines, Mannyng almost sounds like William of Malmesbury describing his reasons for emulating the timelessly elegant simplicity of Bede’s Latin, rather than the bombast-laden hermeneutic Latin of Æthelweard. Like William, then, Mannyng prefers histories that are historically comprehensive and stylistically simple. Both preferences are historiographically-motivated: like William, Mannyng seeks to continue the series temporum, by using enough “salt” to keep readers’ interest, but not so much that he overwhelms their palate.105 Mannyng may not use the word varietas to describe what his text seeks to achieve, but his adherence to the same values that drive how William

101 Ibid.

I.109–16 (p. 93). I.118–23 (pp. 93–4). 103 Ibid. I.1904–6 (p. 135). 104 Allen, ‘Long’, pp. 71–88; Summerfield, Matter, p. 141; and Summerfield, ‘Synthesis’, p. 149. 105 Cf. chapter 2, pp. 56–7, 71. 102 Ibid.

212

Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande writes his Gesta regum – values based explicitly on classical varietas – suggests that the same ideas drive how Mannyng writes his Story. Moreover, as in William’s Gesta regum, these preferences shape Mannyng’s historiographical practice. William’s Gesta regum, we will recall, relies heavily on juxtapositions – of historical accounts, of narrative threads, of high and low – to create the overall sense of well-balanced historical narrative whose fitting parts construct a specific image of what William hopes England will become. In the Gesta regum, the challenges to historical narrative posed by the various transfers of sovereignty provide the fulcrum of this historiographical balancing act. Mannyng’s Story pursues a similar course. For example, Mannyng struggles to reconcile the story of Engle and Scardyng, a now-lost story about the foundation of England, with stories about Gurmund’s Donation and the conversion of the English by Gildas, Bede and Wace.106 However, he includes all these stories among the several different events that can be said to mark the foundation of England.107 There are other occasions when such competing narratives detail straight linearity. For example, Mannyng begins his narrative by enumerating the genealogical connection between the biblical figure Noah and Locrinus, the son of Brutus who first ruled over the part of Britain that would eventually be called England, in two ways: first, in chronological order from Noah to Locrinus, and then in backwards chronological order from Locrinus to Noah.108 His account of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Britain makes a point of offering numerous perspectives on events, from different characters.109 Later, Mannyng also attempts to harmonize conflicting stories about Arthur.110 All these ruptures of straightforward narrative occur at moments of discontinuity. There are many competing versions, hence the varietas, the jumping back and forth between these sources, in Mannyng’s Story. Mannyng, like Langtoft before him, prefers to cite his sources; but he also likes to make it clear that his sources sometimes offer different, even conflicting, interpretations of history.111 Calling attention to this fact allows him to send readers’ gaze here and there, to create the continuity lacking in the historical record. Mannyng’s use of source criticism to create varietas thus echoes William of Malmesbury’s. The similarities between Mannyng and William are interesting on their own merits, though perhaps not surprising, given Mannyng’s explicit use 106 RM,

Story I.14121–343 (pp. 439–44).

107 M. Fisher, ‘Genealogy Rewritten: Inheriting the Legendary in Insular Historiography’,

in Broken Lines, ed. Radulescu and Kennedy, pp. 123–41 (pp. 139–41); D. C. Skemer, ‘The Story of Engle and Scardyng: Fragment of an Anglo-Norman Chronicle Roll’, Viator 40.2 (2009), 255–75 (pp. 257–61); and Turville-Petre, England, pp. 30, 79, 85–9. 108 Nyffenegger, Authorising, pp. 58–9. 109 Allen, ‘Long’, pp. 81–2. Allen makes this point implicitly (rather than explicitly) in her discussion of characters offering different interpretations of events. 110 Putter, ‘Time’, pp. 6–8, 12–13. 111 Turville-Petre, England, pp. 76–80.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of William’s work. More interesting for our purposes is the way that these similarities reveal how Mannyng layers classical and Christian varietas atop each other. Earlier, I argued that Mannyng’s account of the Norman Conquest possesses many of the hallmarks of Christian varietas. That same event is also told using the devices of classical varietas. Recall that, for William, the Norman Conquest was a moment of both continuity and discontinuity. On the one hand, it was a disaster that completely upended every aspect of English life. On the other hand, William also portrays the Carolingian renaissance and subsequent Romanitas of the French as a product of earlier English cultural domination, epitomized by Bede, making the Norman Conquest itself a restoration of the true English culture that had been living in exile in France since the death of Bede.112 Mannyng also views the Norman Conquest as both a significant rupture and as a moment of continuity.113 Earlier, I emphasized Mannyng’s perception of the continuity underlying the Norman Conquest, to explain why his treatment of the transfer of sovereignty to the Normans was less metrically disruptive than the transfer of sovereignty from the Britons to the English. However, it would be a mistake to discount Mannyng’s oft-noted comments about how the English lost their ‘fredam’ (‘freedom’) as a result of the Norman Conquest.114 Both historians’ texts are full of contradictions, but that is precisely the point. Ultimately, the impetus behind historiographical varietas is the desire to find some way to recognize that both of these interpretations are true. Because William and Mannyng are both adhering to this general principle, both employ similar tactics when narrating their way through the Norman Conquest. William, we will recall, pursued an extremely circuitous narrative thread through the Norman Conquest, replete with fantastical digressions, narrative repetition, discussion of his sources, the juxtaposition of interpretations and perspectives, and other non-linear narrative techniques. Mannyng does not use all of the same techniques, but the same principle – non-linear narratives – drives his account. Mannyng ties the uncertainty of his sources to the uncertainty of who exactly is responsible for the Norman Conquest. His narrative proceeds in a non-linear fashion, with the tale of Harold’s oath supporting William’s claim appearing as a flashback, and with a pair of letters providing Harold’s and William’s perspectives on the proper succession, in which William defends his claim on the grounds of Harold’s oath, and Harold on the grounds that he has won the right to England by winning the Battle of Stamford Bridge.115 This kind of circuitous narrative is in keeping with varius

112 See

chapter 2, pp. 72–3. Matter, pp. 175–80, 197. 114 RM, Story II.1762 (p. 533). 115 Langtoft, Chronicle, I, 402–5; and RM, Story II.1666–709, II.1714–25 (pp. 531–2 and 532, respectively). For discussion, see Young, ‘England’, p. 319; cf. Summerfield, Matter, p. 174. 113 Summerfield,

214

Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande historiography, exemplified by William’s Gesta regum and Geoffrey’s Historia, in which non-linearity of this sort is a mechanism for rethreading the fraying fabric of historical continuity. The role of letters in these historians’ narratives is particularly important, because it allows them to juxtapose Harold’s and William the Conqueror’s perspectives, in the manner of classical varietas. I mentioned above that Mannyng (like other historians) makes Harold the ‘scapegoat’ for the Norman Conquest.116 Indeed, Mannyng places a greater emphasis on Harold’s perjury than Langtoft.117 Yet by permitting Harold to defend himself in his letter to William, Mannyng also creates space for Harold’s perspective to be heard. Indeed, since Harold’s claim to the throne rests on his military triumph, and William the Conqueror eventually accedes to the throne through force of arms rather than written or oral promises, Mannyng actually suggests that Harold’s perspective – namely, might makes right – is in fact the correct one. Harold simply fails to be the mightiest, consigning him to the role of villain in this history written by the victors. To be sure, Mannyng makes it clear that Harold is responsible for the Norman Conquest: ‘Our fredom þat day for euer toke þe leue; / for Harald it went away, his falshed did vs greue’ (‘Our freedom forever on that day departed; / because of Harald it went away, his falsehood did harm us’).118 At the same time, Mannyng’s explicit negativity concerning the arrival of the Normans hardly paints William the Conqueror in a positive light.119 These kinds of comments are part of Mannyng’s greater interest in the complexities rather than the continuities of history. Certainly, some of these comments are derived from his sources. Many of the examples I discussed above also appear in Langtoft’s Chronicle, and Langtoft himself probably based his non-chronological account of the Norman Conquest on Roger of Howden (died c. 1201).120 In many ways, Langtoft opened the door to Mannyng’s multi-faceted analysis of the Norman Conquest by noting the mistakes of Edward and Harold, and by minimizing the providential interpretation of history that saw the Norman Conquest as God’s punishment of a sinful people.121 Mannyng’s contribution is combining these features with the elements of Christian varietas, as I mentioned above. Moreover, Langtoft seems to be genuinely seeking continuity in a way that other historians, including Mannyng, are not.122 For Mannyng, the performance of continuity – rather than continuity itself – seems to be more

116 Moffat,

‘Sin’, pp. 162–5, quote p. 165. Authorising, pp. 92–4; and Summerfield, Matter, p. 176. 118 RM, Story II.1762–3 (p. 533). For discussion, see Coleman, ‘Strange’, p. 1228; and Moffat, ‘Sin’, pp. 162–5. 119 Summerfield, Matter, pp. 177–8; and Turville-Petre, ‘Politics’, pp. 14–16. 120 Young, ‘England’, pp. 314–19. 121 Ibid., pp. 314–18. 122 Ibid., pp. 311–23. 117 Nyffenegger,

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century important. We see this in his constant reminders of the comprehensiveness and stylistic excellence of his work; and we see it even in Mannyng’s account of the Norman Conquest, which he, like William of Malmesbury, turns into an opportunity to engage in source criticism, ostensibly to figure out what really happened, but in practice, as a way of presenting alternative viewpoints, as a varius historian would. Commenting on Edward the Confessor’s decision to name Harold his heir, Mannyng writes, ‘Me meruailes of my boke, I trowe he wrote not right / þat he forgate Wiliam’ (‘I marvel at my book, I believe [Langtoft] wrote incorrectly / that [Edward] forgot William’).123 Yet this is not the first time Edward conveniently ‘forgot’ his oath to William: when naming his nephew as his heir a few years earlier, ‘for þat childes luf, forgeten was William; / þouht he not of þe trouth þat he to William plight’ (‘because of his love for that young man, William was forgotten; / [Edward] did not think of the oath he had pledged to William’).124 There, at least, Mannyng can find a reasonable excuse: familial affection. Yet when this situation arises again, Mannyng is unable to explain Edward’s supposed forgetfulness except by concluding (somewhat unsatisfactorily) that all of these events must have been ordained by God so that the English would suffer at the hands of their Norman oppressors.125 Evidently, Mannyng expects his historical sources to be logical, and England’s heroes to be suitably heroic. Unfortunately, history is not always willing to oblige. Mannyng’s marveling at Edward the Confessor thus pins some of the blame for the Norman Conquest on Edward, and Mannyng underscores this interpretation by writing that Saint Edward’s prayers that God might stop the coming griefs were in vain.126 Ironically, Edward dies ‘þe soner for þo affrayes’ (‘the sooner because of his fears’).127 Clearly, Mannyng’s work is full of internal contradictions, even more than Langtoft’s. In Mannyng’s Story, the English have been oppressed and the Normans are rightful rulers; the English deserve their punishment and are victims of Harold’s crime; and so forth. Furthermore, his tendency to engage in source criticism and “both-sides-ism” gives his work the air of William’s Gesta regum. His portrayal of the Norman Conquest also echoes William’s attempts to label this event as a moment of discontinuity (the loss of English sovereignty) and continuity (the Normans are also English in some fashion). Mannyng’s much-analyzed attitude towards the Scots displays similar contradictoriness: the Scots are wicked, and Edward I unrealistic; tail-rhyme songs

123 RM,

Story II.1594–5 (pp. 528–9). Turville-Petre suggests that Mannyng disagrees with Langtoft because of his reading of Ailred of Rievaulx (England, p. 79). 124 RM, Story II.1499–500 (p. 526). 125 Ibid. II.1597–621 (p. 529). 126 Ibid. II.1608–13 (p. 529). 127 Ibid. II.1622 (p. 529).

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande about the Scots should be both repeated and repressed; etc.128 Such features give his work the both/and quality of varius historiography, which relies on the notion that continuity and discontinuity are mutually constitutive, rather than mutually incompatible.129 Mannyng’s Story, like William’s Gesta regum, expresses that idea through its desire for a seemingly fair and balanced political perspective. Examining these two works side-by-side reveals the extent to which Mannyng has translated the principles of classical varietas into Middle English verse.

Hollow history Nevertheless, as is the case with his use of Christian varietas, Mannyng’s adherence to the practices of classical varietas – epitomized by William’s Gesta regum – is emptied of its philosophical core. Thus, even as Mannyng’s Story represents an important high-water mark for the practice of varietas in Middle English historiography, it also represents the slow obsolescence of the ideas that led to that practice in the first place. The distinctions between William of Malmesbury’s and Mannyng’s treatments of digressions make that clear. For William, historiographical varietas is a cousin of satirical varietas, and therefore it rests on a fitting balance of high and low; in historical writing, that means chronological and non-chronological narrative structures, the sprinkling of quotations from Latin auctores, and so forth. Even William’s digressions offer entertaining exempla, what we might now call “human interest stories”, which dress the same moral messages of the Gesta regum’s central narrative in more casual garb. Mannyng also offers digressions, typically in the form of historical romances essentially inserted into the main narrative of his text. For example, his account of the reign of Richard I relies on a romance about Richard’s life.130 Similarly, the beginning of the Story uses an account of the Trojan War and the foundation of Britain drawn from texts similar to the Historia Brittonum and the Seege of Troye (c. 1300–25), though Mannyng’s exact sources are unknown.131 In practice, these digressions perform the same function as, say, William’s witch of Berkeley: they provide balance at moments of narrative instability, both positive (the outstanding triumphs of Richard I) and negative (the sack of Troy that leads to Britain’s founding).

128 Cf.

Coleman, who considers Mannyng’s contradictoriness regarding the Scots the result of his need to hide his political opinions from his Anglo-Norman patrons (‘Strange’, pp. 1236–8). 129 On continuity and discontinuity in Mannyng’s Story, see Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, pp. 130–1; and Summerfield, ‘Synthesis’, pp. 148–9. 130 RM, Story, pp. 72–3. 131 E. B. Atwood, ‘Robert Mannyng’s Version of the Troy Story’, Studies in English 18 (1938), 5–13; and Turville-Petre, England, pp. 78–9.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century In Mannyng’s Story, digressions do not function as light entertainment to whet the appetite of readers with short attention spans, nor are they standalone exempla whose meaning reflects the history conveyed in the main narrative. Instead, Mannyng specifically chooses digressions drawn from texts set in the past, such as historical romances. Like Langtoft, Mannyng incorporates Guy of Warwick into his account of the reign of Athelstan.132 He also goes further than Langtoft, adding to Langtoft’s account stories from a romance about Richard I and a genealogy of Henry I’s wife Matilda.133 He even includes an alternative foundation myth for England, concerning the legendary figures Engle and Scardyng, which Mannyng considers plausible because he could find mention of it in written sources.134 These are all digressions. Yet Mannyng, unlike William, insists that his digressions must be more than simply entertaining and morally exemplary to merit inclusion in his Story. Mannyng will only accept historically accurate content into his history, as his well-known discussion of the late thirteenthcentury romance Havelok the Dane reveals. At the end of his account of King Alfred’s reign, Mannyng notes that Gunter, one of Alfred’s enemies, was the father of the romance hero Havelok.135 However, Mannyng struggles to locate a chronicle that can back up this story: Bot I haf grete ferly þat I fynd no man þat has writen in story how Hauelok þis lond wan: noiþer Gildas, no Bede, no Henry of Huntynton, no William of Malmesbiri, ne Pers of Bridlynton writes not in þer bokes of no Kyng Athelwold, ne Goldeburgh, his douhtere, ne Hauelok not of told.136 (But I am very astonished that I have found no one Who has written in his history how Havelok won this land: Neither Gildas, nor Bede, nor Henry of Huntingdon, Nor William of Malmesbury, nor Peter [Langtoft] of Bridlington Writes in their books about any King Athelwold, Nor about Goldborw, his daughter, nor have they spoken about Havelok.)

If Mannyng had chosen to include the tale of Havelok in his Story, that tale would function as a digression, a parallel narrative that reflects back on the main narrative of the text. In fact, this is precisely how that tale appears in the Lambeth Story, where a later scribe has interpolated a short version of

132 Furrow,

Expectations, p. 15. Story, pp. 72–3; and Summerfield, Matter, pp. 181–5. 134 RM, Story I.14173–214 (pp. 440–1). On this story in Mannyng, see Skemer, ‘Story’, pp. 257–61. 135 RM, Story II.507 (p. 499). 136 Ibid. II.519–24 (pp. 499–500). 133 RM,

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande the Havelok narrative into Mannyng’s text.137 This later addition provides a useful insight into what exactly Mannyng is avoiding – and as it turns out, he seems to be avoiding a digression like that interpolated into narratives of other important events, such as the conquest of Britain by Julius Caesar and the reign of Richard I. Rather than writing such a digression, Mannyng tells his readers that, in addition to finding no written histories that include this story, he cannot make the story of Havelok fit within the story of Alfred the Great. According to Mannyng, many men in England can point to physical artifacts of Havelok’s existence, such as the stone Havelok threw and the chapel where he was married. Yet no written history can back up these claims. Mannyng says only that ‘Men sais’ (‘People say’) this is true, and that a written romance proclaims that the town of Grimsby is named after Grim, a character in Havelok the Dane.138 The latter alone would be less convincing, but the existence of physical artifacts differentiates the story of Havelok from purely oral, onomastic stories such as that of the maiden Inge (which Mannyng rejects outright), because the physicality of these objects gives credibility that ever-changing place names cannot.139 A similar principle lies behind Mannyng’s treatment of King Athelstan’s body. Mannyng accepts the oral tradition that Athelstan is buried at Hexham because ‘Men say he was fonden in þe north cuntre / at Hexham now late’ (‘People say [Athelstan’s body] was discovered in the north country / at Hexham only recently’).140 As we see above, there is the potential for physical verification of this story – that is the feature that distinguishes reputable oral tradition from mere rumor. Evidently, Mannyng gives credence primarily to stories set in the past that have been written down and included in a history, though he does not rule out the possibility that oral tradition can be an accurate source of information.141 But written verification is necessary, especially when dealing with digressions and parallel narratives that would amount to a major recalibration of English history, as the story of Havelok would, if it were accepted as truth. As his scrupulous listing of historians and physical artifacts shows, Mannyng is keen to treat the story of Havelok as historical fact.142 Even though he searched hard for a history that incorporated the story of Havelok into its narrative, he could not find anything.143 137 Ibid.,

p. 31. II.525–34 (p. 500), quote II.529. Mannyng apparently does not know Gaimar’s L’Estoire des Engleis, which integrates the story of Havelok into its narrative (Furrow, Expectations, p. 15). 139 RM, Story I.14215–18 (p. 441). Mannyng is also apparently unaware that the story of Inge was indeed written down (Skemer, ‘Story’, p. 259). 140 RM, Story II.707–8 (p. 506). 141 Summerfield, ‘Synthesis’, pp. 149–50. 142 For a different interpretation of Mannyng’s approach to this story, see TurvillePetre, England, pp. 30, 145–7. 143 RM, Story II.535–6 (p. 500). 138 Ibid.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century His phrasing here is even reminiscent of Geoffrey of Monmouth expressing surprise at the silence of Bede and Gildas on British history. Eventually, though, he concludes, ‘Sen I fynd non redy þat tellis of Hauelok kynde, / turne we to þat story þat we writen fynde’ (‘Since I cannot find a source that tells of noble Havelok, / let us return to the narrative that we find in our written sources’).144 Unlike Geoffrey, Mannyng does not receive an ancient work of history that can give him the answers. As a result, Mannyng ultimately declines to engage in the major rewriting of English history that would be required by the inclusion of the Havelok narrative because, unlike the story of Engle and Scardyng, the Havelok story can only be affirmed by physical artifacts rather than by a written text; and unlike the story about Athelstan, the stakes are too high to get it wrong. Thus, Mannyng admits into his history only those digressions that can prove their historical accuracy and value beyond a reasonable doubt. Mannyng absolutely believes that romances, like histories, have ethical value, but that is not enough to grant them a place in history.145 If a romance (such as Guy of Warwick, c. 1300) has been incorporated into historical narratives by previous historians, it has historical value and can therefore be incorporated into a historical narrative like the Story. However, if a romance has only physical artifacts and oral tradition to back up its truth (as is the case with Havelok the Dane), and if it does not align with written sources, that romance possesses verisimilitude but has not yet undergone complete historicization, and therefore does not belong in the Story. By those standards, a marvelous exemplum such as the witch of Berkeley – or the dancers of Colbek, one of the exempla in his Handlyng Synne – has no chance of appearing in a verse chronicle like the Story. Mannyng is more than capable of writing non-historical digressions. However, he avowedly shuns that possibility in the Story. In Mannyng’s Story, then, digressions into romance cannot be “low entertainment” intended to balance the dignity of the central narrative. On the contrary, Mannyng’s digressions into romance add their own historiographical dignity to the narrative. To be clear, William did not think that his own digressions were lacking in historical or ethical value, nor does Mannyng object to ahistorical exempla in other texts. However, Mannyng’s digressions must meet a higher bar in terms of their overt historical content than William’s. Thus, as much as Mannyng’s Story possesses the same central features of varietas – the overlap of formal and political discontinuity, the preoccupation with conquest, an appreciation of the way that multiplicity and fragmentation can be valuable tools for mending the holes in historical narratives, and even a special interest in Britain’s relationship with Rome – it lacks the framework that classical varietas had provided to William’s Gesta regum.

144 Ibid.

II.537–8 (p. 500). Expectations, pp. 16–22; and Johnson, ‘Mannyng’s History’, p. 140.

145 Furrow,

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Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande 111 Mannyng’s Story, like Geoffrey’s Historia, is therefore full of varietas. Yet while Mannyng practices nearly every kind of varietas examined in earlier chapters, he does so at the expense of the deeper meaning of those different practices. There is no debate over whether renewal or preservation is the best stance to take towards the past, or whether juxtaposition or mixture is the best way to combine different structures and styles. Whether the lack of concern for these issues derives from a lack of awareness or simply a lack of interest is unclear. What is clear is that Mannyng’s Story represents an attempt at creating a historiographical varietas founded entirely on formal practices, rather than a union of formal variety and historiographical philosophy. If the Story’s reception history is any indication, Mannyng’s literary experiment seems to have fallen on mostly deaf ears, as I discuss next.

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Conclusion: The Rhetoric of Discontinuity Historiographical varietas grew in popularity across the long twelfth century for several reasons. As a rhetorical idea, it resonated with the intellectual climate of the twelfth century; as a way of normalizing historical discontinuity, it appealed to historians who (for whatever reason) felt uncomfortable with the historical record; and as a political metaphor, it provided a framework for thinking about the relationship between Britain’s many peoples and between Britain and Europe more broadly. Yet by the middle of the fourteenth century, varietas, for the most part, had lost its grip on the historiographical imagination. In this concluding reflection, I will offer some reasons for that decline. My comments must necessarily be limited; no single chapter can offer a full reckoning of the reasons behind centuries’ worth of changing historiographical tastes, or account for every factor that influences historical culture, and it would be foolhardy to try. I therefore provide in these final pages not a comprehensive argument, but rather a series of observations and speculations about late medieval shifts in historians’ understanding of continuity and how to create it. Still, I hope that even this brief examination of the reasons for varietas’s decline will help crystallize what twelfth-century varietas can teach modern scholars about the medieval past.

Losing the thread I begin by returning to Mannyng’s Story. In the previous chapter, I showed how Mannyng employs the practices of both classical and Christian varietas, while showing little interest in the philosophical perspectives that undergirded those practices in earlier historians’ works. Here I will go further, and suggest that Mannyng’s decoupling of formal practice and historiographical philosophy is a sign that varietas has lost some of its grip on the British historiographical imagination. It may seem strange to realize that the Story’s union of classical and Christian varietas should result in the elimination rather than the amplification of varietas’s philosophical underpinnings. Yet varietas is full of such paradoxes, and Mannyng was writing for a very different audience than his predecessors had been. Geoffrey completed his Historia (c. 1138) precisely two hundred years before Mannyng finished the Story (c. 1338), and while I have included Mannyng in this book on the “long twelfth century”, I have done so because Mannyng’s Story essentially marks the end of varietas’s aesthetic and hermeneutic prominence in British historiography. Comparing Mannyng’s prologue to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s is particularly illustrative of this point. Geoffrey, we will recall, claimed to write in 222

Conclusion a simple style for the benefit of his readers.1 Mannyng’s prologue echoes these sentiments: Als þai haf wryten & sayd haf I alle in myn Inglis layd in symple speche as I couth þat is lightest in mannes mouth […] I made it not forto be praysed, bot at þe lewed men were aysed.2 (Just as they have written and said, I have laid it all in my English, In simple speech, to the best of my ability, Which is easiest in a man’s mouth […] I made [this poem] not to be praised, But rather that the uneducated might be refreshed.)

Note the resonances between Geoffrey’s purported rusticity and Mannyng’s concern for refreshing his readers. Both Geoffrey and Mannyng focus on their audiences’ need for simple writing; and both envision such simplicity as pleasurable, in the way that a garden’s simple delights might be. Of course, both historians also violate the formal principles they lay out in their respective prologues. Geoffrey extols the virtues of his single British book, and then proceeds to suggest that his book is a varietas-filled compilation. Mannyng’s prologue is similarly self-contradictory at best. He does not deceive his readers in the way that Geoffrey does (even if he does misleadingly suggest he has used Dares Phrygius’s work directly).3 Instead, Mannyng’s contradictions emerge from his rejection and subsequent use of specific verse forms. After applauding the notion of writing in a simple style for simple people, Mannyng offers examples of the kinds of poetry that are unsuitable for a history like his Story: If it were made in ryme couwee, or in strangere or enterlace, þat rede Inglis it ere inowe þat couthe not haf coppled a kowe; þat outhere in couwee or in baston, som suld haf ben fordon, so þat fele men þat it herde suld not witte howe þat it ferde.4

1 2 3 4

See chapter 4, p. 129. RM, Story I.71–4, I.83–4 (pp. 92, 93, respectively). Atwood, ‘Troy’, pp. 5–13. RM, Story I.85–92 (p. 93).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century (If [my poem] were made in tail-rhyme, Or in some exotic verse form, or with some interlocking rhyme scheme, There are many who read English Who would not know how to match up the tail-rhymes; Some of what was composed in tail-rhyme or in stanzas Would have been destroyed, So that many of the men who heard it Would not understand how the narrative proceeded.)

Mannyng is our only source for some of these Middle English poetic terms, making it difficult to understand precisely what he means.5 Yet it is clear that, for each of these inappropriate types of poetry, the Story contains a verse form that could conceivably fall under that category. ‘Strangere’ refers to an unfamiliar verse form or a verse form derived from another language; Mannyng’s imitations of Langtoft’s laisses would qualify as ‘strangere’ regardless. ‘Enterlace’ denotes a verse form with an interlaced rhyme scheme; Mannyng uses an interlaced rhyme scheme when he writes in tail-rhyme, and the internal rhyme of his last primary form also creates an interlacing rhyme pattern. ‘Baston’ most likely denotes a stanza, possibly with a wheel; Mannyng does not use wheels, but he does employ stanzas when writing in tail-rhyme. Furthermore, the irregular verse forms at the beginning of Part II occasionally create de facto wheels. For example, the story of Edmund the Martyr concludes with three sets of half-rhyming couplets, while the passage recounting the death of Æthelred possesses internal rhyme.6 In both cases, Mannyng marks the end of an early English king’s life with a different kind of verse form. If a poetic wheel’s function is to wrap up one stanza and pivot to the next, and if we think of each king’s life as a “stanza”, then we can see how this form might also appear in Mannyng’s Story. If nothing else, we are certain that ‘ryme couwee’ refers to tail-rhyme, and that Mannyng repeatedly employs this form. Nor did his readers fail to recognize this: the scribe of the Petyt Story, our only source for the latter parts of the Story, wrote ‘Couwe’ in the margin of the manuscript next to most of the tail-rhyme songs.7 There is, therefore, nothing accidental or subtle in Mannyng’s self-contradictory stance, and it is all the more striking in the context of Geoffrey’s similarly inconsistent history, which might very well have been the inspiration for Mannyng’s. Yet the differences between their prologues are revealing as well. Geoffrey’s reasoning for his (purported) lack of varietas is his concern that ‘taedium legentibus ingererem, dum magis in exponendis uerbis quam 5

6 7

For discussion of these terms, see the relevant entries in the MED as well as Coleman, ‘Strange’, pp. 1217–21, 1235–7; Furrow, Expectations, pp. 20–1; Putter, ‘Metres’, pp. 121–3; Summerfield, Matter, p. 141; Summerfield, ‘Songs’, pp. 144–6; and Turville-Petre, England, pp. 36–7. RM, Story II.441–6, 467–8 (p. 498). Ibid., p. 59.

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Conclusion in historia intelligenda ipsos commorari oporteret’ (‘I would tire my readers with the need to linger over understanding my words rather than following my narrative’).8 The crucial part of this phrase is Geoffrey’s contrast between the labor put in by readers ‘in exponendis uerbis’ (more literally, ‘in exposing [or expounding] the words’) versus ‘in historia intelligenda’ (‘in understanding the history’). The former preoccupies readers with the surface of the text, and prevents them from true understanding. Likewise, varietas is always in danger of falling into mere entertainment and distraction, but aspires to enable deep comprehension of a text’s inner meaning. Geoffrey here states his commitment to the latter, rather than the former. Mannyng shares that sentiment, but the contrast he uses to make that argument is very different from Geoffrey’s. The passage in Mannyng’s Story quoted above rejects inappropriate verse forms (rather than words) in favor of those that allow readers to understand ‘howe þat it ferde’, that is, how the narrative ‘fared’, or ‘proceeded’. This verb connotes traveling or moving through a text. In other words, it refers to the concept of rhetorical ductus, that is, the path that readers follow to find their way through a text to its meaning. Recall that, in classical and medieval rhetorical theory, the signage that directs readers along that path, that ductus, is formal variety, that is, varietas. Thus, this sentence could be paraphrased as ‘If I had written this text using exotic verse forms, readers would not be able to follow the ductus.’ Mannyng thus contrasts verse forms with ductus, rather than entertainment with enlightenment, as Geoffrey did. Mannyng’s concerns are thus much more fundamental than Geoffrey’s. While Geoffrey worries that his readers will not grow in the right kind of wisdom, Mannyng fears that his audience will not be able to understand even the surface of the text. Then, Mannyng adds an opinion absent from Geoffrey’s prologue: ‘And bot þai wist what it mente, / ellis me thoght it were all schente’ (‘And unless they understand what it means, / It seems to me it would be entirely spoiled’).9 The diction he uses to imagine what would have happened had he pursued a more complex verse form is incredibly strong, even violent: ‘schente’ has a range of meanings, including ‘destroy’, ‘corrupt’, ‘defile’, ‘mutilate’ and even ‘kill’.10 Similarly, ‘fordon’ (in the passage quoted earlier) can mean anything from ‘annihilate’ or ‘obliterate’ to ‘render (something) useless’ or ‘ruin’.11 These words might be called Middle English equivalents of the Latin word ‘delere’, the word used by Henry of Huntingdon and Geoffrey of Monmouth to describe the erasure of the past that occurs when people do not preserve their history.12 For Mannyng, the stakes of failure are much higher than they 8 9 10 11 12

GM, HRB Prol.2 (pp. 4–5). RM, Story I.81–2 (p. 93). MED, s.v. ‘shenden (v.)’. Ibid., s.v. ‘fordon (v.)’. See chapters 3 (p. 110) and 4 (pp. 139–40).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century were for other historians. If a reader learns the wrong lesson, or is simply entertained rather than educated by history, that is unfortunate, but there is no real harm done. However, if a reader cannot even understand historical writing in the first place, then history-writing, and hence history itself, has been ‘defiled’ and ‘obliterated’. I would suggest that Mannyng’s disavowal of elaborate verse forms reveals varietas’s Achilles heel. Mannyng rejects certain verse forms, not because there is anything inherently wrong with them, but rather because they might cause readers to lose the ductus, that is, to be unable to follow how the text ‘ferde’. Of course, medieval authors commonly express concern for their audiences, just as they commonly claim to write in a simple style. Yet underneath these tropes lies an important point. Varietas only works when audiences can recognize it as such. To read and understand the varietas of the historians I have examined in this book, audiences must possess an in-depth knowledge of literary forms, the philosophical underpinnings of different kinds of varietas, and the history of the language in which the work is written, and sometimes the history of other languages as well. These authors demand much from their audiences, and as their reception history indicates, audiences have not always been able to interpret these texts in the way their authors expected. Were William of Malmesbury’s readers able to truly grasp his allusions to Suetonian ordo? Did not the later histories that used Henry of Huntingdon’s work frequently omit his invocations of contemptus mundi? Might Geoffrey have eschewed the possibility of writing in a British sort of hermeneutic Latin style because he doubted whether his audiences would even recognize it as such? Was Laʒamon’s association of transubstantiation with varietas an attempt to render an unfamiliar concept in familiar terms for his audience? Could Mannyng have really expected his readers to know the difference between classical and Christian varietas? From this perspective, Mannyng’s lack of engagement with varietas’s philosophical underpinnings looks less like an innovation, and more like a recognition that varietas’s power had started to wane. Indeed, I would suggest that Mannyng’s attempt to convince his readers of the formal simplicity of his Story – an entirely inaccurate assertion – reflects the conflict between the kind of history he wished to write, and the kind of history that his sources and audiences permitted him to write. Ultimately, Mannyng chooses to practice varietas in accessible ways, that is, in verse forms familiar to audiences or already present in his sources (or both). Yet he also seems to recognize that the audience for British historical writing had changed by the fourteenth century, and that this new audience – whom he calls ‘þe lewed’ (‘the common folk’) – is moved less by the rhetorical complexities of varietas and more by ‘symple speche’ (‘simple speech’) they can understand.13

13

RM, Story I.6, I.73 (pp. 91, 92, respectively).

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Conclusion

Materializing continuity Further evidence of varietas’s decline appears in the manuscripts of the histories I examined in earlier chapters. Of course, the many factors that govern manuscript production and survival make it impossible to draw absolute conclusions about the influence of medieval texts from extant manuscripts. Nevertheless, historiographical manuscripts form a pattern that points to the diminishing appeal of varietas among late medieval readers. It is hard to overstate Geoffrey of Monmouth’s place in British historical culture: in addition to providing the foundation narrative accepted by historians until the sixteenth century, Geoffrey’s Historia was obviously the foundation of the Matter of Britain romances, and his work survives in over 200 manuscripts.14 William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon can hardly lay claim to legacies like Geoffrey’s, but their histories survive in relatively high numbers: twenty-nine copies of William’s Gesta regum and forty-five of Henry’s Historia are now extant (not including fragments).15 Moreover, since later historians employed both texts as sources, these writers exerted important if indirect influence on late medieval historical culture. Meanwhile, Laʒamon’s Brut and Mannyng’s Story are arguably the most varietas-filled Middle English histories of Britain. Yet neither text enjoyed wide circulation. Laʒamon’s Brut only survives in two manuscripts, and Mannyng’s Story in three, of which only one is complete (and one consists of nothing more than a single folio).16 Even among Middle English verse chronicles, Laʒamon’s Brut and Mannyng’s Story are fairly obscure, in comparison with Robert of Gloucester’s late thirteenth-century Chronicle, which survives in fifteen manuscripts.17 The number of copies of Laʒamon and Mannyng is even more striking when placed in the context of the vast popularity of the Middle English Prose Brut. This text, probably translated from the Long Version of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut (which typically ends with the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333) in the late fourteenth century and then updated by later writers, now survives in over 180 manuscripts, more than any Middle English text aside from the Wycliffite Bible.18 14 15 16

17 18

See Crick, Summary Catalogue and ‘Two Newly Located Manuscripts’; and Tahkokallio, ‘Update’ and ‘Dissemination’, p. 155 n. 1. For manuscripts of William’s Gesta regum, see WM, GRA I, xiii–xxi. For manuscripts of Henry’s Historia, see HH, HA, pp. cxvii–cxliv, 839. For manuscripts of the Brut, see Le Saux, Poem, pp. 10–13. For manuscripts of the Story, see RM, Story, pp. 2–5, 22–34. For further discussion of both texts’ manuscripts, see below (as well as chapter 5, pp. 155–7, and chapter 6, pp. 191–2). On the dating and manuscripts of Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, see Fisher, Authorship, pp. 94–6. J. Marvin, The Construction of Vernacular History in the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Tradition: The Manuscript Culture of Late Medieval England, Writing History in the

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Moreover, in the later Middle Ages, both Laʒamon’s Brut and Mannyng’s Story underwent significant revision aimed at reducing their varietas, which suggests the waning of varietas’s appeal to late medieval audiences. Although the physical manuscripts containing the Caligula Brut and the Otho Brut were both produced in the third quarter of the thirteenth century, the Caligula Brut is usually considered closer to Laʒamon’s original text.19 To be clear, I call attention to these two texts’ relative proximity to the original text not because I am following earlier generations of scholars in placing greater value on the Caligula Brut’s poetry, or in thinking that the Caligula Brut is more authoritative.20 Instead, my point is that the Brut originally contained a great deal of varietas, and that someone, at some point, removed much of that varietas to make the Otho Brut. The Otho Brut is far shorter than the Caligula Brut.21 It offers a more streamlined account of history – that is, an account without the overt poeticisms of the Caligula. For example, the Otho Brut contains fewer short similes and poetic compounds, which means that readers are not asked to juxtapose concepts – the vehicle and tenor of a simile, or the two words of a compound – as often.22 Similarly, the Otho Brut employs less direct speech overall, while frequently replacing the Caligula Brut’s indirect speech with direct speech, or eliminating the ambiguity that a character introduced into his or her speech (or both).23 As a result, the Otho Brut contains less of the multiperspectival quality that characterizes the Caligula Brut’s approach to dialogue. The Otho Brut prioritizes contemporary language and style over a mixture of ancient and modern. There is a greater reliance on words derived from French, and less stylistic variety in the Otho Brut’s vocabulary (i.e., it repeatedly employs the same word to refer to a concept, where the Caligula Brut might have alternated between several different synonyms).24 It alliterates less and rhymes more.25 Thus, what was once a poem filled with varietas becomes through revision a more clinical verse chronicle like that of Robert of Gloucester. Of course, there are things that the Otho Brut leaves mostly intact – the extended similes,

19 20

21 22 23 24 25

Middle Ages 5 (York, 2017), pp. 6–10, 16; and L. M. Matheson, The Prose Brut: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle (Tempe, 1998), pp. 6–9, 47–9. On the dating of the manuscripts, see Bryan, Collaborative, pp. 183–90; and Le Saux, Poem, pp. 10–13. This tendency has been the object of Otho scholars’ frustration. See, for instance, Bryan, Collaborative, pp. 47–50; Cannon, ‘Style’, pp. 187–200; and L. Perry, ‘Origins and Originality: Reading Lawman’s Brut and the Rejection of British Library MS Cotton Otho C.xiii’, Arthuriana 10.2 (2000), 66–84 (pp. 66–72, 82). Bryan, Collaborative, p. 48. On similes, see Burek, ‘Aeneas’, pp. 233–4; on compounds, see Davis-Secord, ‘Revising’, pp. 158–9, 173–4, 177–81. Perry, ‘Direct’, pp. 523–43; and Perry, ‘Origins’, pp. 74–82. Cannon, ‘Style’, pp. 188–93, 196–9. Ibid., pp. 194–6.

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Conclusion for instance – but the general tendency is towards stylistic streamlining.26 That principle extends to the layout of the manuscript as well: the Otho Brut contains a variety of visual markers, ranging from scribal rubrication to readers’ annotations, which foreground the central regnal line and minimize any hints of discontinuity.27 It would seem, then, that the Brut originally contained a great deal of varietas, but that it lost some of that varietas through the interventions of later readers and scribes. In short, the Otho Brut has its own historiographical goals, and it employs poetic forms that enable this text to forward its vision of history. Unlike the Caligula Brut, the Otho Brut emphasizes the political and ethnic cohesion of Britain.28 Its manuscript foregrounds the sequence of kings rather than meditating on disruptions to that sequence.29 Finally, it tends to give a single perspective on events, rather than juxtaposing several different perspectives.30 It even minimizes the juxtaposition between Britain and Rome.31 The Otho Brut prefers cohesion, and that preference finds its expression in the formal homogeneity of the text. Mannyng’s Story experienced a very similar reception.32 It too underwent a process of revision that stripped the text of its earlier varietas.33 The Petyt Story, produced c. 1375–1400, is closest to Mannyng’s original text, but its main scribe shortened many of Mannyng’s passages, frequently eliminating lines containing details that go beyond the basic narrative of the text. Nevertheless, the Petyt scribe is careful to preserve Mannyng’s elaborate rhyme scheme. In comparison, the Lambeth Story, the other major witness to the text, was produced c. 1425–50. This manuscript preserves lines that the Petyt scribe eliminated, but its text frequently lacks the medial rhymes that appear in Part II. This removal of Mannyng’s medial rhymes might seem at first to be a product of the process of translating Mannyng’s text from a Lincolnshire dialect (represented by the Petyt Story) to a South West Midlands dialect (the dialect of the Lambeth Story). However, the end-rhymes are not affected by this translation. Instead, the removal seems to be part of a larger modernizing revision, the goal of which was to provide greater clarity for readers: the revision undertaken to produce the Lambeth Story (or its exemplar) adds words or lines to provide further explanation where confusion might arise, and simplifies Mannyng’s poetry by reworking his phrasing and replacing archaic diction. The result is the removal of many of the features that had given the text its varietas, such as its diction, its rhyme scheme, and its 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Burek, ‘Aeneas’, pp. 233–4. See also Cannon, ‘Style’, pp. 201–2. Bryan, Collaborative, pp. 77, 80–8, 106, 123–8. Davis-Secord, ‘Revising’, pp. 173–81. Bryan, Collaborative, pp. 77, 80–8, 106, 123–8. Perry, ‘Origins’, pp. 74–82. Bryan, Collaborative, pp. 92–5, 111; and Perry, ‘Origins’, pp. 79–82. Bryan, Collaborative, p. 106. This analysis is based on the description of the Story’s manuscripts in RM, Story, pp. 2–6, 23, 26, 28–39, 50. The argument, however, is mine.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century meter (which the Lambeth Story sometimes renders into phrases approximating prose). The Lambeth Story also begins with a newfound emphasis on continuity, because it opens with a visual representation of the genealogy recounted at the beginning of Mannyng’s text.34 The common thread between the revisions made to both the Brut and the Story is that the linguistic and stylistic elements of the texts’ varietas are most likely to be removed. These similarities suggest that later readers did not appreciate the varietas of these texts as much as their authors might have wanted, and that some scribes sought to remove that varietas to help these texts appeal more to their fourteenth-century readers. This process of modernization is markedly different from what we find in the reception of varius Anglo-Latin historiography. Certainly, the Anglo-Latin histories of William, Henry, and Geoffrey also underwent revision, sometimes at the hand of their author, and sometimes at the hand of later scribes. But William’s revisions tend to focus on adding new information, toning down his criticisms of important political figures and on improving the style of certain passages, rather than revamping his entire approach to historical writing through large-scale revisions to the very fabric of the text, as we see in the Otho Brut and the Lambeth Story.35 Meanwhile, Henry’s Historia actually grows in varietas over time.36 By the time Mannyng was producing his Story, then, the taste for varietas, visible across the long twelfth century from William of Malmesbury to Laʒamon, had begun to fade, and texts with echoes of varietas – rather than varietas itself – were becoming more desirable. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, a scribe might still be interested in producing a manuscript like the Caligula Brut, and a writer like Mannyng might still see value in the project of varietas. However, the Otho Brut – more stylistically homogenous than the Caligula Brut – represented the future of historical writing, as did the First Variant Version’s simplification of the Historia’s structural complexity. By the time the Lambeth Story was copied in the fifteenth century, tastes had undergone a vast transformation, with the stylistic and structural varietas of the long twelfth century giving way to a preference for narrative and formal homogeneity. Ultimately, though, the same pattern lies beneath the production of varius and non-varius historiography alike. In both cases, literary form represents the political argument of a text in that text’s very fabric. One does not cause the other; in the words of one recent critic, ‘aesthetic and political forms emerge as comparable patterns that operate on a common plane’.37 This does not mean that literary forms and political arguments cannot be at odds or work to cross purposes, even when they appear in the same text; Geoffrey’s Historia 34 35 36 37

Ibid., p. 28. See discussion in WM, GRA, II, xvii–xxxv. See chapter 3, pp. 104–5. Levine, Forms, p. 16.

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Conclusion exemplifies just that. Yet it is useful for modern scholarship on medieval historiography to recognize that a historian’s rhetorical choices are connected to his politics, and that the range of rhetorical expressions a historian may choose to employ are determined by a number of factors ranging from intellectual context to rhetorical education to contemporary politics. It is therefore unwise to assume that all medieval historians write history in the same way, even if they would all agree on the central role of rhetoric in historical writing.

Regularizing discontinuity Manuscript evidence thus suggests that varietas declined c. 1300, an idea which finds further support in histories produced later in the twelfth century. William of Newburgh’s digressions about various supernatural occurrences, like William of Malmesbury’s, tend to appear at moments of political discontinuity.38 The proliferation of documents in the works of late twelfth-century historians, such as Roger of Howden and Ralph de Diceto, is similarly driven by rhetoric as much as it is by political concerns or the desire to prove the authenticity of history.39 Letters, like digressions, are units of text, which can be juxtaposed with the main narrative and with each other to guide readers to the meaning of history. Even Matthew Paris’s thirteenth-century images can be understood as functioning in much the same way.40 In contrast, histories written from c. 1300 onward tend not to use the rhetorical devices that we have come to recognize as common markers of varietas. Moreover, late medieval histories tend to emphasize continuity over discontinuity, a feature visible in the rhetorical techniques that tend to proliferate in the late Middle Ages. One of the complaints leveled against Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle is the absence of a clear authorial voice – a feature that has frustrated attempts to understand the development of the text, which must rely on a single self-referential line from the purported author.41 But the absence of an authorial voice is the opposite of a varius historian’s powerful voice, which contributes, in one way or another, to his history’s varietas, whether as a source of hybridity (as classically-inclined historians such as William and Geoffrey tend to do) or as one voice in dialogue with others’ (as we find in the Christian varietas of Henry and Laʒamon). By doing the opposite, Robert’s Chronicle strips its sources

38

39 40 41

Cf. J. J. Cohen, ‘Green Children from Another World, or the Archipelago in England’, in Cultural Diversity in the British Middle Ages, ed. J. J. Cohen (New York, 2008), pp. 75–94. Bainton, ‘Documents’, pp. 9–38. Cf. Lewis, Art, esp. pp. 50–2, 75–91, 135–6, 165–97, 243–55, 291–320, 364–72. For the complaint, see Turville-Petre, England, p. 80; for the debate about Robert’s identity, see Shaw, ‘Robert of Gloucester’, pp. 700–2.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century of their narrative voices, allowing history to simply be, rather than be performed, as we find in varius historiography. The Middle English Prose Brut also permits history to unfold of its own accord, sublimating its authorial voice rather than relying on that voice to direct readers through history. However, it achieves that effect by redefining the process of writing history. Some versions of the Middle English Prose Brut include an exordium that describes the construction of history in these words: And þis boke made & compiled men of religioun & oþer good clerkes þat wreten þat bifell in her tymes and made þerof grete bokes and remembraunce to men þat comen aftir hem to heere and to see what bifell in þe londe afore tyme and called hem Cronycles.42 (And men of religion and other good clerks made and compiled this book. [Those men] wrote what happened in their times, and made out of [these writings] great books and remembrance for the people who would come after them, [so that subsequent ages could] hear and see what happened in the land before [their own] time; and [those men] called [these records] Chronicles.)

This exordium characterizes the Middle English Prose Brut as the product of the collective effort of countless unnamed historians across the centuries, who were bound together not by political perspective or theological motivations, but rather by a simple goal: to preserve the memory of the past for the benefit of future generations. This is history for the sake of history, rather than history for the sake of continuity. In other words, continuity is presumed within the string of historians who created and compiled this set of records. To be clear, the act of compilation is not new: most of the historians I discussed in this book either described themselves as compilers or essentially functioned in that capacity, whether they acknowledged it or not. This exordium differs from, say, William of Malmesbury’s prologue not because it emphasizes the process of compilation, but because it creates a different impression of what a compilation looks like. William claims to make a whole, cohesive text out of his compilation. He therefore sets up an expectation for formal consistency, which makes his formal variety all the more noticeable, giving him the opportunity to perform continuity. In contrast, the Middle English Prose Brut is billed as the product of many voices. Consequently, readers expect it to contain formal discontinuities. The exordium thus normalizes the Middle English Prose Brut’s formal variety, stripping it of its shock value and, by extension, eliminating the opportunity to perform continuity. The growing popularity of other historiographical genres also shaped readers’ expectations of what history should look like. Universal history 42

Text from Matheson, Development, pp. 64–5. In my translation, I have aimed to clarify who did what rather than to follow the text word-for-word.

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Conclusion was not new in fourteenth-century Britain, yet it enjoyed new popularity, as witnessed by universal histories such as Ranulph Higden’s Polychronicon (first written c. 1340, and revised until c. 1352), later translated into Middle English by John Trevisa (c. 1387).43 Higden’s Polychronicon survives in over 120 manuscripts; Trevisa’s, in fourteen.44 In both languages, the Polychronicon is marked by encyclopedism: it consists of quotations gathered from a wide variety of auctores, covering all of human history (albeit with a heavy focus on Britain). This feature might at first seem to give the Polychronicon a degree of varietas, since the compilation of so many voices inevitably gives it a high amount of formal variety. However, like the Middle English Prose Brut, the overtness of its compilation gives readers of the Polychronicon (in either Latin or Middle English) the expectation of variety throughout the entire text, thus making its appearance at moments of political discontinuity less noteworthy. Unlike varietas-driven historians, Higden and Trevisa do not perform continuity by promising (and then failing to provide) a seamless narrative. Instead, they perform accumulation and compilation, making the disruptive nature of their narratives entirely expected.45 This is true even though Higden and Trevisa, unlike the writers of the Middle English Prose Brut, make their authorial voices highly visible. When Higden and Trevisa add their own comments to their respective histories, they label their own contributions in the same way that they label the contributions of other auctores, in the manner of an encyclopedia or a florilegium.46 While this certainly gives them a stronger authorial presence than the writers of the Middle English Prose Brut, both historians nevertheless function as just one voice among the chorus of auctores gathered by their texts. Certainly, some of this regularization of the process of compilation can be attributed in part to the increasing number of sources to which historians had access. The process of assembling sources, so central to earlier centuries’ emphasis on the fragmentation of insular history, might have seemed less worthy of note to later historians, for whom the multiplicity of sources was a given, so much so that it would have been impossible to compile them all into a single text. Yet there are signs that a paradigm shift accompanied these changes to historians’ work. In chapter 1, for example, I showed how Robert of Gloucester’s monotone style was reflected in his Chronicle’s descriptio 43

44 45 46

On the dating of these works, see P. Brown, ‘Higden’s Britain’, in Medieval Europeans: Studies in Ethnic Identity and National Perspectives in Medieval Europe, ed. A. P. Smyth (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 103–18 (pp. 103–5). On Higden’s popularity, see A. S. G. Edwards, ‘The Influence and Audience of the Polychronicon: Some Observations’, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section 17.6 (1980), 113–19. Brown, ‘Higden’s Britain’, p. 105. Cf. E. Steiner, ‘Compendious Genres: Higden, Trevisa, and the Medieval Encyclopedia’, Exemplaria 27.1–2 (2015), 73–92. Fisher, Authorship, p. 70.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Britanniae, which extolled the virtues of Britain’s purity, and I contrasted that late medieval attitude with earlier descriptiones, which emphasize Britain’s diversity. Robert’s quiescent narrative voice, his stylistic and structural uniformity, and his descriptio’s valuing of homogeneity are all indications of a philosophy of history that esteems aesthetic and historiographical unity over kintsugi-like varietas.47 Higden and Trevisa may seem to foreground the fragmentation of their sources, but when we examine their treatment of key sites of varietas, it becomes clear that both historians share Robert’s viewpoint, even if they express it in very different ways. At the end of book I (a description and ethnography of the world, concluding with an examination of the cultures of England’s different regions), both Higden and Trevisa remark that England’s regional dialects are so diverse that it is difficult for people from the south to understand those in the north.48 Similarly, the English do not clearly demarcate different social classes through their clothing. Higden’s comments on this issue are translated closely by Trevisa: Sed et in cunctis passim Angligenis tanta vestium varietas et apparatus multiformitas inolevit, ut neutri jam generis quilibet paene censeatur. De qua re prophetavit quidam sanctus anachorita temporibus regis Egelfredi in hunc modum. Henricus, libro sexto. Angli quia proditioni, ebrietati, et negligentiae domus Dei dediti sunt, primo per Danos, deinde per Normannos, tertio per Scotos, quos vilissimos reputant, erunt conterendi; adeoque tunc varium erit saeculum, ut varietas mentium multimoda vestium variatione designetur.49 But among alle Englische i-medled to giders is so grete chaungynge and diuersite [of cloþinge and] of array [and so many manere and dyuerse shapes, that wel nyghe is there ony man knowen by his clothynge and his arraye] of what degre he is. Þerof prophecied an holy anker to kyng Egilred his tyme in þis manere. Henricus, libro sexto. Englisshe men for þey woneþ hem to dronkelewnesse, to tresoun, and to rechelesnesse of Goddes hous, first by Danes and þanne by Normans, and at þe þridde tyme by Scottes, þat þey holdeþ most wrecches and leste worþ of alle, þey schulleþ be ouercome; þan þe worlde schal be so vnstable and so dyuers and variable þat þe vnstabilnesse of þouʒtes schal be bytokened by many manere dyuersite of cloþinge.50

47 48

49 50

On varietas and kintsugi, see my introduction, p. 13. Higden’s and Trevisa’s discussions appear alongside each other in Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden monachi Cestrensis; Together with the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century, ed. C. Babington (vols. 1–2) and J. R. Lumby (vols. 3–9), 9 vols. (London, 1865–86), I.59 (II, 156–63). Higden, Polychronicon I.60 (ed. Babington, II, 172, 174). Trevisa, Polychronicon I.60 (ed. Babington, II, 173, 175).

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Conclusion (But among all the English mixed together there is such great inconstancy and diversity of clothing and array, and so many types and diverse shapes, that there is hardly any man whose status can be known by his clothing and his array. For this reason, a hermit prophesied to King Æthelred during his reign in this manner. Henry [of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum], book six. ‘English men, because they are accustomed to drunkenness, to treason, and to negligence of God’s house, shall be overcome first by Danes, and then by Normans, and thirdly by Scots, whom they consider the most vile people, and of the least value of all; then the world shall be so changeable, and so diverse and variable, that the changeableness of thoughts shall be symbolized by many kinds of diversity of clothing’.)51

Both Higden and Trevisa are troubled by the prospect of diversity among the island’s inhabitants. Their concern with maintaining social classes is clearly at odds with Christian varietas, which delights in mixture of precisely the sort these historians criticize. Yet it also conflicts with classical varietas: neither historian seems excited by the possibility of creating a harmonious “fit” from differently attired social classes. Instead, they seem to think that the mere availability of diverse clothing is an invitation to both moral and political disorder.52 Moreover, instead of seizing the opportunity to offer competing perspectives, they simply rope their sources into forwarding a single argument (namely, their own argument against diverse types of clothing). The text thus creates the possibility of classical varietas, but it fails to pursue that idea. Furthermore, although Higden and Trevisa use words such as ‘varietas’ and ‘diuersite’, they pay little attention to the philosophical core that had colored the appearance of these terms in earlier histories. Notably, they make that argument by referring specifically to the prophecy of Dunstan in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, which I discussed earlier.53 Although they share with Henry a dislike for earthly vanity, there is no hint of contemptus mundi in their passage. Instead, their focus is entirely on the things of this world. Indeed, Higden’s phrasing may very well have shaped political discourse on sumptuary law in the mid-fourteenth century.54 Higden and Trevisa thus strip the theological implications of Henry’s varietas from Dunstan’s prophecy, and put it at the service of their broader narrative. In this way, Higden and Trevisa’s treatment of Dunstan’s prophecy favors homogeneity over variety. Formally, they create a straightforward 51

52 53 54

To avoid redundancy (and because Trevisa translates Higden fairly closely here), I have opted to translate only Trevisa’s version. As in my translations throughout this book, I have opted for a looser translation that better conveys the passage’s meaning in modern English. Cf. A. Galloway, ‘Langland and the Reinvention of Array in Late-Medieval England’, RES 71.301 (2020), 607–29 (pp. 609–11). See chapter 3, pp. 84–5 and chapter 4, p. 138. Galloway, ‘Langland’, p. 610.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century narrative that flattens, rather than amplifies, their use of source materials; philosophically, they pass over the deeper meaning that earlier historians had associated with varietas; historiographically, they forward their view of events through uniform opinions, rather than the juxtaposition or mixture of various perspectives. Thus, while Higden’s and Trevisa’s versions of the Polychronicon look very different from Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, all of these texts share a similar outlook, in that they privilege continuity of form, argument, and history. Historians of the late Middle Ages used many kinds of formal practices to rein in political discontinuities. For example, the Middle English verse Castleford’s Chronicle (c. 1327) opens with the potential for varietas. It begins with a version of the Albina story, an alternative origin story added to the Brut narrative to explain the giants that originally populated the island. The text therefore has the potential for competing origin narratives, like Mannyng’s Story. Its Brut narrative is preceded by a descriptio Britanniae, explicitly modeled on the descriptiones of Gildas, Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth.55 However, the text’s structure emphasizes the linearity of history over the interplay of continuity and discontinuity. It achieves this by breaking up its 39,439 lines into distinct narrative units, each of which has its own de facto chapter heading. There is nothing particularly striking about breaking up long narratives with labels directing readers to specific passages – scribes had been doing that to long histories for centuries. However, Castleford’s Chronicle incorporates those chapter descriptions into its very fabric by writing them as rhyming couplets. In this way, the division of history into narrative units is part of the narrative. Discontinuities that once would have seemed striking are now just labeled as discontinuities like any other. Even the Albina narrative loses its capacity for causing disruption by being sidelined as ‘þe Prolog Olbyon’ (‘the Albion Prologue’), which immediately gives way to ‘þe Boke of Brut’ (‘the Book of Brutus’), the first king to rule over the whole island.56 These chapter headings thus function much like Higden’s and Trevisa’s labeling of their sources: narrative fragmentation has become a feature of the narrative itself, rather than seeming to pose a challenge to it. The same can be said of the so-called series temporum. The same basic periodization structure – British time, English time, Anglo-Norman time – appears in nearly every history of Britain produced during the Middle Ages. But the underlying conceptualization of periodization differs between texts, with earlier histories tending to view individual periods of history and the larger sweep of human affairs as a kind of hall of mirrors, each reflecting and 55

56

Castleford’s Chronicle, or The Boke of Brut, ed. C. D. Eckhardt, 2 vols., EETS OS 305, 306 (Oxford, 1996). For the dating of Castleford’s Chronicle, see p. xi. For the descriptio, see ll. 235–334 (pp. 7–10); for Gildas and Bede, see l. 263 (p. 8); for Geoffrey of Monmouth, see l. 267 (p. 8). Ibid. ll. 227, 229 (ed. Eckhardt, I, 7).

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Conclusion refracting the other, and later histories tending to think of individual periods simply as discrete entities that can be assembled in a continuous series, with less emphasis on the ways that each period distinguishes each other. In other words, earlier histories tend to view smaller and larger units of time as clarifying each other, whereas later histories tend to think of smaller units of time as a subset of a larger unit. The division of knowledge – into periods of history, or historical sources, or lists of Britain’s natural resources or bishoprics – was not new to British historiography in the fourteenth century. What differentiates the varius historiography of the long twelfth century from the continuity-driven narratives of the later Middle Ages is the way that, in varius historiography, these different ways of dividing knowledge exist in tension with the narrative, while in late medieval narratives, these divisions have been pulled into the narrative. Recall that varietas is at its heart the simultaneous differentiation and fittingness of individual things, whether links in a chain, flowers in a meadow, or units of text within a larger narrative.57 In later medieval histories, differentiation remains crucial, but the value once placed on fittingness has been transferred to continuity (Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle and Castleford’s Chronicle) and the boundless accumulation of ever-increasing amounts of information (both versions of the Polychronicon and the Middle English Prose Brut). This does not mean that there are no discontinuities with which late medieval historians needed to grapple; it simply means that the idea that varietas could aid in that process has been supplanted by the idea that rendering history continuous is more effective at grappling with challenges to narrative stability.

Reflecting history This book has, for the sake of space, prioritized connections between Latin and Middle English historiography. However, here I will briefly discuss historical writing in other languages, because these texts are particularly helpful for situating the decline of varietas within its political context. We have already seen how Wace and Langtoft adopt two very different approaches to the varietas of their sources. One way to understand those differences is to think of the relative political position of these two authors. ‘Wace wrote for a Norman public which had a strong interest in the history and legends of their adopted country’, and he presented his Roman de Brut to Eleanor of Aquitaine, before embarking on another (ultimately failed) poetic project for the Norman court.58 In contrast, Langtoft was likely commissioned to write his history by Anthony Bek, bishop of Durham; his Chronicle therefore tends to align with

57 58

See chapter 1, pp. 24–5, 28. Wace, RB, pp. xii–xiii, quote p. xiii.

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Bek’s politics, and argues that the country will be restored if only the quarrel between Bek and Edward I could be resolved.59 For this reason, it is not too hard to envision that Wace’s courtly audience might be less interested in the beauty of fragmentation than Langtoft’s, and that, as a result, Wace might have been less attracted to the concept of varietas than Langtoft, who had been encouraged by his patron to make the act of repair aesthetically, politically, and historiographically valuable. Of course, writers of political history are always thinking of their contemporary political moment. Yet it is worth stating this obvious fact, if only to make it clear that varietas’s fortunes would have been inextricably tied to the realities of late medieval politics. Interestingly, it seems as though later French vernacular chronicles are less likely to include varietas than even their sources. Instead, they tend to emphasize the overall continuity of history, setting aside the philosophical question of how continuity might be perceived from fragments and focusing instead on simply creating that continuity and presenting it as such to readers. This is true whether the chronicle in question is discussing the Heptarchy or the Norman Conquest.60 For example, the Oldest Version of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut subtly shifts the narrative it inherited from its sources to emphasize the continuity of the royal genealogical line and the unity of the island’s people.61 It also minimizes Rome’s presence in the narrative and shrinks the amount of detail in varius scenes, such as battle sequences and Arthur’s crown-wearing feast, in ways that diminish the viewers’ ability to gaze here and there.62 It even goes so far as to omit Cadwaladr’s reign, thus providing even greater continuity between the periods of British and English.63 Later redactions sometimes complicate this smooth continuity, by prefacing the Brut narrative with the Albina story (as in the Short Version of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut, which covers insular history up to the early 1330s) or by eventually restoring the story of Cadwaladr to the main thread of insular history (as, for example, in the Long Version of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut).64 But even these revisions, despite opening up the potential for varietas, often result in continuity. The Long Version, for example, simply swaps the name of one of Geoffrey’s other British kings for Cadwaladr, while adding other hints of continuity between 59 60 61

62 63

64

Summerfield, Matter, pp. 69–98. J. Spence, Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles (York, 2013), pp. 76–83, 108–21. Marvin, Construction, pp. 113–28; and Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession in the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle’, in Broken Lines, ed. Radulescu and Kennedy, pp. 205–20 (pp. 206–17). Marvin, Construction, pp. 28–9, 32–46, 61, 99–100. J. Rajsic, ‘The Brut: Legendary British History’, in Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500, ed. J. Jahner, E. Steiner, and E. M. Tyler (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 67–83 (pp. 76–8). Marvin, ‘Narrative’, pp. 217–18.

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Conclusion British and English history.65 The texts accompanying Anglo-Norman genealogical rolls likewise recognize yet ultimately smooth over the possibility of discontinuity in William the Conqueror’s accession to the throne, through a combination of visual cues and verbal justifications of William’s actions.66 Over time, as these texts continue to develop and are translated into Middle English, they become increasingly continuous. As noted above, Castleford’s Chronicle minimizes the disruption of the Albina prologue. Meanwhile, the Middle English Prose Brut has Cadwaladr invite outsiders (including the French) to Britain, and adds a new figure to the narrative, a Germanic queen named Seaxburh, who leads her people into England and then colonizes parts of the island.67 These changes interpret the Heptarchy and shifts in insular sovereignty not as signs of cultural or political fragmentation (the building blocks of varietas), but rather as the fulfillment of the wishes of a king who has sovereignty over the island, and whose authority has transferred directly to the contemporary English kings, who similarly have power over the whole island. In this way, the text loses the sense of balance between continuity and discontinuity in earlier narratives, replacing it with a more vibrant emphasis on continuity alone. This growing focus on continuity in Anglo-Norman French historical writing, coupled with the growth of a similar mindset among Middle English writers, might be a symptom of the same historical circumstances that contributed to genealogy’s popularity in the later Middle Ages. Meanwhile, although Welsh vernacular historiography does not seem to have experienced the same vogue for varietas in the long twelfth century, it is possible to discern increasing interest in continuity in late medieval Wales. I have suggested that Britain’s history of repeated conquests sparked interest in varietas among twelfth-century historians in England. Certainly, Wales shared that history; but what it did not share was its timeline. Wales was not brought firmly under English control until the defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last prince of Gwynedd, in 1282. During the period when varietas flourished, then, England’s conquest of Wales was not yet certain; by 1282, the general trend among historians had already shifted from varietas to continuity. This may explain why ‘What is lacking [in Welsh historical writing] […] by comparison with William of Malmesbury or Henry of Huntingdon in AngloNorman England, are attempts to create histories linking pre-Conquest past to post-Conquest present.’68 When intellectual culture encouraged varietas, Welsh historians had less need of the concept; when they did, varietas was no longer animating historical writing, rendering it a less likely resource for 65 66 67 68

Ibid. Spence, Reimagining, pp. 110–11. Rajsic, ‘Brut’, pp. 78–81. O. W. Jones and H. Pryce, ‘Historical Writing in Medieval Wales’, in Medieval Historical Writing, ed. Jahner, Steiner, and Tyler, pp. 208–24 (pp. 212–13).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Welsh historians. Moreover, the Welsh could – and did – maintain plausible deniability concerning the permanence of the Britons’ (i.e., the Welsh) loss of sovereignty, thanks to concepts such as the ‘British hope’ that Arthur, or some other ancient hero, would restore the Welsh to their previous state.69 The ‘British hope’ essentially offers a different approach to the problem of conquest: rather than using discontinuities to create a ductus through unstable narratives, as in varius histories, the British hope promises a typological reversal of discontinuity. As Christ undid the sin of Adam, so too could Henry VII regain what Cadwaladr had lost. That said, there are hints of a similar trajectory from varietas to continuity in Welsh historical writing. First, there are countless examples of varietas in the strictly rhetorical sense of the word. The first narrative history of Britain written in Middle Welsh was the Brut y Brenhinedd (History of the Kings). First translated in the early thirteenth century and translated and copied many times thereafter, the Brut y Brenhinedd enjoyed lasting popularity throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages.70 Close translations of Geoffrey’s Historia, such as the Brut y Brenhinedd in Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Llanstephan 1, often maintain the varietas of their source text. For example, the description of Arthur’s crown-wearing at Caerleon repeats Geoffrey’s varietas-laden comments on the suitability of the city’s location: O’r neyll parth y’r dynas er redey er avon vonhedyc honno ac ar hyt honno e gellynt e brenyned a delhynt tros e moroed dyvot en ev llonghev hyt ydy, ac o’r parth arall, gweyrglodyev a fforestev en y thekav. Ac y gyt a henny adeyladev a llyssoed brenhy[n]avl endy o’y mevn a they evreyt megys nat oed en e teyrnassoed tref a kynhebykyt y Rvueyn or ryodres namyn hy. (On one side of the city a noble river ran, along which could be brought kings who might come across the seas traveling on their boats up to the city; and on the other side, the city was adorned with meadows and forests. And the buildings and the royal courts inside the city were entirely stone, and the houses golden, so that nowhere in the kingdoms was there a city comparable to Rome in ostentation besides Caerleon.)71

69

70

71

B. F. Roberts, ‘Testunau Hanes Cymraeg Canol’, in Y Traddodiad Rhyddiaith yn yr Oesau Canol (Llandysul, 1974), pp. 278–9; and J. B. Smith, The Sense of History in Medieval Wales: An Inaugural Lecture (Aberystwyth, 1989), pp. 15–16. Jones and Pryce, ‘Historical Writing’, p. 211; and Smith, Sense, p. 5. The use of a single title, Brut y Brenhinedd, is somewhat misleading, because there are six different versions of the text, some independently executed and some dependent on others. For a fuller discussion of these various versions, see Roberts, ‘Testunau’, pp. 288–93. An English-language description of the six different recensions can be found in Roberts, Brut y Brenhinedd: Llanstephan MS. 1 Version (Dublin, 1971), pp. xxviii–xxx. Brut y Brenhinedd ix.12 (ed. Roberts, p. 28). Translation mine. As elsewhere, I have sacrificed verbatim precision in favor of conveying the meaning clearly.

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Conclusion The potential for varietas was therefore present. The other influential vernacular chronicle is the Brut y Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes), a Middle Welsh translation of a late thirteenth-century Latin monastic chronicle.72 Stylistically, this text is more annalistic; but in a few places, the Brut y Tywysogion veers into varietas by employing elaborate rhetorical devices. Tellingly, the passages containing these devices – for example, the mixture of verse and prose in the passage mourning the death of Lord Rhys (d. 1197) in Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 20 – are most likely to have been written at various points throughout the twelfth or early thirteenth centuries, soon after the events they describe occurred.73 The translation of the Brut y Brenhinedd and the hints of varietas in certain sections of the Brut y Tywysogion thus suggest familiarity with and occasional use of historiographical varietas in high medieval Wales. However, these glimmers of varietas are relatively few, and there is little sign of their long-lasting influence. Instead, continuity comes to the fore, especially in the manuscript compilation some modern scholars have dubbed ‘the Welsh Historical Continuum’.74 In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Brut y Brenhinedd and the Brut y Tywysogion were often combined in manuscripts, together with the Ystoria Dared, a translation of Dares Phrygius’s De excidio Troiae historia into Welsh. This ‘Continuum’ applies the basic concept of the series temporum to Geoffrey’s narrative, assembling texts to convey Welsh history across three ages: Trojan, British and Welsh. However, rather than juxtaposing these periods of time, as Geoffrey did in setting up competing historical narratives, this collection of texts simply seeks to create a continuous history of the Welsh from their origins to (roughly) the present day. Indeed, the Brut y Brenhinedd likely prompted the creation of the Ystoria Dared, as it did the Brut y Tywysogion, to attain that flawless continuity.75 Of course, this combination of Trojan and medieval history is not unique to 72

73

74 75

For an overview of the origin and style of this text, Jones and Pryce, ‘Historical Writing’, pp. 214–18. Three different basic versions of the Brut y Tywysogion survive, all of which display signs of having been executed by numerous translators at different points. As with the Brut y Brenhinedd, then, we must be careful to avoid giving the impression that all copies of the Brut y Tywysogion are essentially the same. Ibid., pp. 215–16; and D. Stephenson, ‘The “Resurgence” of Powys in the Late Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries’, in Anglo-Norman Studies, XXX: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2007, ed. C. P. Lewis (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 182–95 (pp. 184–9). For an edition of this manuscript, see Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth MS. 20, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1941). Jones and Pryce, ‘Historical Writing’, pp. 218–21. For recent iterations of this oft-repeated idea, see Fulton, ‘Troy Story’, pp. 137, 141–2, 146; and C. Lloyd-Morgan, ‘Writing Without Borders: Multilingual Content in Welsh Miscellanies from Wales, the Marches, and Beyond’, in Insular Books: Vernacular Manuscript Miscellanies in Late Medieval Britain, ed. M. Connolly and R. L. Radulescu, PBA 201 (2015), pp. 175–91 (p. 179).

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Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century Middle Welsh manuscripts, or to the later Middle Ages; in France, the De excidio Troiae historia was used as a historical preface as early as the eighth century.76 Still, the emergence and popularity of this combination in late medieval Wales suggests that Welsh historical culture in this period increasingly prioritized continuity over varietas, just as in England. Generally speaking – and we can only speak in general terms – British historiography, in all languages, seems to have shifted slowly from valuing to obscuring its fragmentary nature. Importantly, this does not mean that either rhetorical or historiographical varietas entirely disappeared. Varietas simply ceased to be a governing paradigm for historical writing around the year 1300. Varietas had started among Anglo-Latin historians, and from there moved to British historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth. The English experience of fragmentation was thus crucial to the development of this idea. Yet from the twelfth century onwards, the distinction between English and Norman was continually declining, with elite families of Anglo-Norman origin increasingly asserting their Englishness and learning English rather than French as their first language.77 At the same time, England’s wars against its neighbors – both on the island of Britain and beyond it – encouraged historians to think of the differentiation of peoples less as a source of insular polyphony and more as an impediment to English hegemony. In many ways, fourteenthcentury Britain bore little resemblance to twelfth-century Britain. In 1138, when Geoffrey of Monmouth was completing the Historia regum Britanniae, Wales was still independent and England was ensnared in civil war. In 1338, when Robert Mannyng was completing his Story, Wales was firmly under the authority of the English, and England territorial ambitions were now trained on Scotland and France. By the time the possibility of Welsh independence re-emerged in the early fifteenth century, genealogy had become a driving force in insular historical writing. This, too, had political origins: dynastic controversies over royal succession in England, France, Scotland, and (to a lesser extent) Wales encouraged the adoption of genealogical thinking among historians. While writers can shape political history, they are also shaped by it; and varietas seems, at least in part, to have been diminished by political shifts in late medieval Britain. It is difficult to trace the history of historiographical varietas, because rhetorical varietas (that is, the use of formal variety for avoiding tedium)

76 77

Clark, ‘Reading’, p. 205. The literature on this phenomenon is vast. For some examples, see R. R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles, 1093–1343 (Oxford, 2003); L. Hennings, ‘Simon de Montfort and the Ambiguity of Ethnicity in ThirteenthCentury Politics’, in Thirteenth Century England XVI: Proceedings of the Cambridge Conference, 2015, ed. A. M. Spencer and C. Watkins (Woodbridge, 2017), pp. 137–52; H. M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation and Identity, 1066–c. 1220 (Oxford, 2003); and Turville-Petre, England.

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Conclusion was an important literary device throughout the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, evidence of historiographical varietas’s decline – and of the reasons for it – becomes visible if we simultaneously pursue several tacks. In this brief conclusion, for instance, I have analyzed histories written after varietas’s heyday (such as Mannyng’s Story), compared the manuscripts and reception history of varius historiography with other kinds of histories, looked for new historiographical paradigms in histories, and situated histories in their political context. When examined together, the evidence suggests that historiographical varietas’s pre-eminence among British historians was chiefly limited to the long twelfth century, and that while it continued to appear in later works, its grip on British historians had largely faded by 1300. It seems that, as the memory of the upheavals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries faded, historians dedicated less energy to theorizing historical discontinuity. Late medieval Britain did not lack historical ruptures for historians to analyze, yet late medieval historians seem to have lost interest in making their repair work a visible, performative, or otherwise meaning-creating feature of their writing. Instead, they seem to have chosen to hide their labor under the veil of truly seamless continuity. 111 Twelfth-century British historians’ desire for historical continuity has often been understood as a pragmatic reaction to the realities of the historical record, or a mode of propaganda that exploits teleology to achieve some political end, or even as a reaction to trauma. In contrast, this book has argued that these historians’ performative forging of continuity is part of a larger philosophy of history, grounded on the mutually constitutive relationship between continuity and discontinuity. This idea, derived from the classical rhetorical concept known as varietas, functioned as an aesthetic inclination, formal practice, and historiographical hermeneutic for writers of insular history in Britain’s long twelfth century. Faced with the realities of an oft-broken historical record, these writers came to value both the appearance and the experience of repair, and they imbued these two qualities into their histories, so that their readers could gain both from their narrative. As a rhetorical concept dealing both with a text’s outward complexion and with the process of finding that text’s inner meaning, form – or more specifically, varietas – became a convenient vehicle for creating histories that considered fragmentation a source of moral benefit. This appreciation of variety’s virtues permeated historical interpretations as well. Once historians had come to value varietas, they sought to imbue Britain with the same quality, emphasizing its diverse landscape, periodizing its history into distinct eras that illuminate (rather than obscure) the progression of history, and even visualizing political society as a harmonious “fit” of various languages, peoples, and outlooks. In this way, varietas 243

Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain’s Long Twelfth Century transformed from an oft-recommended rhetorical practice into a framework for analyzing the past and a vehicle for conveying historians’ interpretations of history to their readers. This book has revealed this interplay of aesthetic, rhetorical, and historiographical concerns in the works of five historians, all of whom are well-known for some aspect of their literary variety. In this way, I have shown how their formal practices, which have provoked everything from confusion to derision, can be understood as historiographical varietas – that is, as literary variety that functions simultaneously as a rhetorical technique and a tool for interpreting history. Yet I have admittedly only taken the first step towards understanding the role of literary variety in medieval British historiography. As I mentioned earlier, much work needs to be done on varietas in Britain’s other vernaculars and on varietas in history produced during the Angevin era. It might be worth thinking, too, about whether varietas varies by nation or region – I have only considered Scotland and Wales in the briefest of terms, while entirely neglecting the regional considerations that might have shaped historians’ formal (and hence political) choices. There are also other genres of history beyond the large-scale narratives I have examined here, which might engage in varietas and thus shed further light on the relationship between rhetoric and history-writing in this period. Clearly, there is much to do. Every medieval historian whose formal choices have puzzled modern scholars is a potential practitioner of historiographical varietas. In this book, I have aimed not to be comprehensive, but rather to draw new connections between historians and cultural traditions that are typically treated separately or viewed as somehow at odds with each other, in the hopes of revealing the rich discourse of varietas that exists in twelfth-century British historiography. My choice of authors has succeeded in uncovering some aspects of historiographical varietas that might give some direction to future studies. I have demonstrated that medieval historians tended to prefer either classical or Christian conceptualizations of varietas, not both. Indeed, historians who adhere to one or the other, even in an adapted way, tend to reflect openly on the role of varietas in constructing history, thus demonstrating its importance in their own work. Furthermore, I have shown how Middle English verse chroniclers recognize that varietas was both a historiographical theory and a set of related formal practices, and they transpose both into their works. I have also identified the kinds of passages that are most likely to attract varietas: descriptiones Britanniae, reflections on literary style, narratives dealing with sovereignty or the royal succession, and comments on the morality (or lack thereof) of Britain’s inhabitants. Finally, I have been able to show how varietas could thrive with equal ease in poetry or prose (or, indeed, in prosimetrum). The historians who embraced varietas made series of choices related to the language, style, structure, and philosophy of their works. Each choice opened up some doors while closing others. Nevertheless, it is possible

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Conclusion to discern in their works a common appreciation for fragmentation’s ability to transmute into new texts and new historiographical perspectives. Ultimately, though, whether they lean towards classical or Christian varietas, or even towards continuity, at least one principle remains the same: their rhetorical choices are the product of their cultural context, political beliefs, and philosophy of history. Medieval historians were fully capable of developing their own understanding of rhetorical theory, whether that means taking a stance in debates about the definition of that theory (i.e., classical versus Christian varietas) or innovating ways to apply that theory to historical writing in particular (e.g., using dating systems or different ways of writing biographies to manifest rhetorical principles). If anything, I hope I have shown that medieval historians had their own sense of historiographical rhetoric, and that they were not content to simply read and use rhetorical ideas passively. Instead, they conceptualized the past by thinking about and through rhetorical principles. In other words, for medieval historians, historiographical theorizing is a kind of rhetorical theorizing, and we will understand medieval historiography better when we recognize it as such. Inevitably, the interests of the present drive how historians write about the past, and high medieval Britain was a time of great energy around the idea of discontinuity. Eventually, that energy faded. But it left its mark on British history-writing, in the form of formal variety, whose ductus we can still trace today. That, in its own way, is varietas in action.

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Index abbreviation  125–6, 132, 133 Adelard of Bath, De eodem et diverso 86 Adeliza of Louvain, queen of England  90, 99 Æscwine, king of Wessex  81 Æthelbald, king of Wessex  59 Æthelbert, king of Kent  112 Æthelflæd, lady of the Mercians  91, 99 Æthelred II, king of the English  60–1, 114, 224, 234–5 Æthelstan (Athelstan), king of the English  78–9, 82, 91, 176, 218, 219–20 Æthelthryth, abbess of Ely  89 n. 17 Æthelweard, Chronicon  77–8, 79, 130, 143, 212 Æthelwulf, king of Wessex  59, 60 Ailred of Rievaulx  216 n. 123 Alan of Lille  74 Elucidatio in Cantica canticorum 74 Albany see Scotland (kingdom) Albina (legendary founder of Albion)  236, 238, 239 Albinus of Angers  39, 98 Alcuin  72–3, 82 Enchiridion in Psalmos  86, 87 Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury  72, 79–80, 82, 143, 210 Alexander, bishop of Lincoln  90, 208–9 Alfred (the Great), king of Wessex  15, 59, 91, 112, 218–19 alliteration  77–9, 100, 169, 178, 202–3, 204, 228. See also poetry; wordplay amplification  30, 88, 92, 105, 124–5, 126, 132, 133, 174, 195, 196 annals  10, 67, 125, 149, 180–3, 241. See also ordo naturalis Androgeus, British nobleman  134, 137, 141, 142 Anglo-Norman French  16–17, 132, 155, 157, 161, 165, 168–9, 173, 183–4, 186, 188, 194–5, 198, 201–2, 210, 228, 237–9 Anglo-Norman Prose Brut  227, 238–9 Long Version  227, 238–9 Oldest Version  238 Short Version  238

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle  9–10, 32, 63, 66–7, 81, 82, 89, 90, 91, 114 archaism  5, 94, 157, 169, 204, 212, 229 Arthur, duke of Brittany  196 Arthur, king of Britain  15, 194, 196, 240 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  32, 122, 124–5, 134, 135–6, 137, 145 in Laʒamon  153, 156, 158–9, 176, 177–8 Arviragus, king of Britain  146–7, 171 Athelwold (character in Havelok the Dane) 218 Augustine of Canterbury  137, 162 Augustine of Hippo  83 Enarrationes in Psalmos  42–3, 45, 74, 84 Aurelius, king of Britain  134 Ausonius (Roman poet)  210 balance  42, 45–6, 51–2, 55, 62, 67–9, 75–7, 81, 113, 127, 133–7, 138, 142–3, 150, 163–4, 179, 204, 210, 217. See also under varietas Baldwin FitzGilbert de Clare  102–3 Balliol, Jon, king of Scots  201, 202 Battle of Brémule (1119)  90 Battle of Brunanburh (poem)  16, 90, 108–10, 116 Battle of Dunbar (1296)  198 Battle of Halidon Hill (1333)  227 Battle of Hastings (1066)  15, 16, 61–3, 64, 72, 91, 207. See also Norman Conquest Battle of Lincoln (1141)  102–3 Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066)  214 Bede  6, 10, 60, 64, 69–73, 74, 76, 82, 89, 126–7, 130, 162, 165, 187, 203, 208–10, 212, 213, 214, 218, 220, 236 Expositio super Acta Apostolorum 75 Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum  18, 33, 43, 45–6, 63–9, 72, 88–9, 111, 113–14, 126, 161 see also under Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury Bek, Anthony, bishop of Durham  237–8 Belinus, king of Britain  134, 137, 145 Berengar of Tours  67 Bernard of Clairvaux  189

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Index Bernard of Cluny, De contemptu mundi 86 Bible, the (biblical allusions, biblical history)  42–5, 64–5, 71, 74–5, 83, 86, 88, 123–4, 155, 179, 213 Wycliffite  155, 227 biography (genre)  15, 53, 63, 66–9, 72, 124, 149 Bladud, king of Britain  160 Boethius 95 De consolatione philosophiae  86, 94, 98 Brennius, British nobleman and contender for the throne of Britain  134, 137, 145 Brianus, British nobleman  134 Britain (island)  41–3, 45, 110, 124, 130–1, 135, 141, 145, 172, 174, 175–6, 183–4, 186, 190, 198, 202, 205, 217, 220, 222, 229, 234, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244. See also descriptio Britanniae British (language)  128, 131–2, 226 Britons (people)  123–4, 127, 128, 131–2, 134–7, 139–42, 145–50, 164, 172, 177, 179, 180, 203, 205, 209, 211, 214, 238–42. See also Welsh (people) Brut y Brenhinedd (History of the Kings)  8, 240–2 Brut y Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes)  8, 241–2 Brutus, founder and king of Britain  199–200, 212, 213, 236 conversation with goddess Diana  89 n. 17, 148, 201 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  11, 122, 123, 125, 134, 135, 139, 147–8 in Henry of Huntingdon  89 n. 17 in Laʒamon  153, 166–7, 176 in Robert Mannyng  190–1, 199–200, 212 Cadualadrus (Cadwaldre, Cadwaladr), king of Britain  11, 126, 203, 209, 238, 239, 240 Caduallo, king of Britain  11, 134 Cædmon’s Hymn  89 n. 17 Cædwalla, king of Wessex  81–2, 89 n. 17, 126 Caerleon  135–6, 240–1 Caradoc of Llancarfan  127 Cassibellaunus, king of Britain  124, 134, 137, 139, 141 Castleford’s Chronicle  236, 237, 239

Cato the Younger  52–4, 64 Centwine, king of Wessex  81 Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria  72 chanson de geste  193, 194 Charlemagne, king of the Franks and Lombards, and Holy Roman Emperor  72, 194 Christian varietas see under varietas chronological order see ordo naturalis Cicero  32, 40, 75, 210 De finibus 24 De inventione 40 De oratore  26, 40 Orator 29–31 classical varietas see under varietas Claudius (Roman emperor)  171 Constans, king of Britain  134 contemptus mundi (contempt for the world)  18, 86–7, 97, 180, 226, 235 in Henry of Huntingdon  18, 87, 91, 97–9, 103–5, 106, 111–12, 114–17, 180, 226 in Laʒamon  170, 172–3, 180 continuity (in historical writing)  7–8, 63, 110, 118–19, 185, 215, 230, 232–4, 236, 237, 239, 243 in British histories  7–9, 10, 41, 118–22, 161, 183–4, 205–7, 214, 215, 229, 230, 236, 238–42 desire for  6–9, 16, 48–50, 55, 97–8, 120–1, 215, 229, 236 performance of  10–11, 50, 122, 215–16, 232, 233, 243 relationship with discontinuity  12–13, 38, 41, 121–2, 183–4, 214, 216–17, 232–4, 236–7, 239, 243 see also discontinuity Corineus (Corrineus), companion of Brutus and founder of Cornwall  134, 202 Cornwall  158, 198 Cowper, William  1 Crusade, First  59, 64, 68, 82, 114 Crusade, Third  195–6 Cunedagius (Cunedag), king of Britain  125, 126, 180–2 Cymbeline see Kimbelinus Cynegils, king of Wessex  112 Danes (people)  70, 85, 114, 190, 234–5 Dares Phrygius, De excidio Troiae historia  8, 210, 211–12, 223, 241–2

272

Index descriptio Britanniae (description of Britain tradition)  23, 41–3, 44–6, 48–50, 65, 101, 105, 180, 233–4, 236, 244 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  49, 130–1, 236 in Henry of Huntingdon  49, 101–2, 104 in Laʒamon  164, 174, 175–6, 180 in Robert Mannyng  190–1 dialogue  50, 95–6, 207, 231 in Henry of Huntingdon  100–3, 106–8 in Laʒamon  172, 173–5, 228 in Robert Mannyng  195, 204, 207, 214–15 digression  11, 30, 32, 33, 34, 50, 58, 158, 218, 231 in Laʒamon 158–60 in Robert Mannyng  217–20 in William of Malmesbury  15, 36, 57–63, 65, 73, 91, 138, 208, 214, 217 discontinuity (in historical writing)  15, 20, 60, 121, 138, 142, 161, 178, 185, 222, 231–3, 236–7, 240, 243, 244 in British history  9–10, 11, 38, 41, 43, 72, 85, 121, 161, 176, 184, 197, 198, 207, 214, 220, 229, 236–7, 239, 240 and formal variety  13–15, 44, 83, 85, 87, 89, 122–6, 158, 176, 185, 189, 195, 197, 205–7, 213, 220, 231–4, 236–7, 240 relationship with continuity  12–13, 38, 41, 183–4, 214, 216–17, 229, 236–7, 239, 243 see also continuity Dubricius, bishop of Caerleon  135 ductus (pathway through text)  3, 34–7, 38, 47–8, 75, 96, 185, 225, 231, 240, 245 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  126–7, 135, 138 in Henry of Huntingdon  35–6, 85, 87, 115, 116 in Laʒamon  159–60, 163 in Robert Mannyng  197, 225–6 in William of Malmesbury  35–6, 54, 57, 61–2, 116 see also under varietas Dudo of St Quentin, Historia Normannorum 99 Dunstan, saint  84–85, 87, 138, 235

Dunuallo Molmutius, king of Britain  122, 125–6 Ecgberht, archbishop of York  72 Ecgberht (Eadberht), king of Northumbria 72 Ecgberht, king of Wessex  65, 68 Edgar, king of the English  66, 91 Edmund II (Ironside), king of the English 121–2 Edmund the Martyr, king of East Anglia 224 Edward (the Confessor), king of the English  15, 60, 61, 62, 63, 112, 206, 215–16 Edward I, king of England  186, 194, 198–200, 209, 216, 238 Edwinus (Edwin of Northumbria)  134 Eldol, duke of Gloucester (legendary) 134 Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of England  161, 237 Emma of Normandy, queen of the English 59 England (kingdom)  67–8, 85, 89, 91–2, 98, 99, 101, 112–14, 140, 165, 175, 190, 199, 203, 206–7, 209, 213, 214–16, 218–20, 239, 242 Engle (legendary Briton and namesake of England)  213, 218, 220 English (language)  55, 128, 132, 153, 161, 165, 168, 176, 183–4, 188, 197, 201, 210, 212, 223, 234 Middle English  17, 120, 153, 155–7, 167–8, 169, 171, 179, 183–4, 185, 188, 194–5, 197, 198, 202, 217, 225, 233, 239, 244 Old English  18, 79, 91, 109–10, 168, 184, 202–3 in Henry of Huntingdon  32, 90, 91, 108–9, 128, 140, 178, 184 in Laʒamon  157, 169–70, 173, 178, 184 in Robert Mannyng  202–3 in William of Malmesbury  67, 82 English (people)  8, 10, 48–50, 234–5, 238–9, 242 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  123, 128, 131–2, 134, 136–7 in Henry of Huntingdon  84–5, 111, 113, 114 in Laʒamon  164, 166–7, 176

273

Index English (people) (cont’d) in Robert Mannyng  190, 198, 203, 205, 207, 209, 213, 214–16, 219–20 in William of Malmesbury  64, 72, 75–83, 133, 140, 177, 214 epic (genre)  77, 81, 136, 147–9, 176–8, 179, 194, 197, 202 exemplum (exempla, exemplarity)  30, 99, 114, 178, 188, 196, 217–18, 220 Ferreux, British nobleman and contender for throne of Britain  122, 125–6, 145 First Variant Version  129 n. 47, 153, 156, 158–61, 163, 165, 167, 172, 174, 181, 182, 230 First Worcester Fragment  9 FitzGilbert, Baldwin see Baldwin FitzGilbert de Clare Folcard of St Bertin, Vita Ædwardi Regis  14, 32, 98 form  3–4, 14, 187, 194, 204, 221, 225, 226, 230 and New Formalism  3–5, 48 formal variety see varietas France (kingdom)  72–3, 98, 195, 214, 242 Franks (people)  59–60, 72–3, 108, 214, 239 French (language) see Anglo-Norman French Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana 82 Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis  16, 219 n. 138 garland model see under varietas Gawain  67, 68 genealogy  10, 118, 120–3, 161, 238, 239, 242 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  119–20, 122–7 in Henry of Huntingdon  108 in Laʒamon 157 in Robert Mannyng  213, 230 in William of Malmesbury  59 Geoffrey of Monmouth  3, 4, 19, 32, 38, 39, 48, 89, 177, 183, 185, 199, 209, 210, 211 n. 99, 225, 226, 231, 236, 238 civil war in  125–6, 134–5, 145 conception of historical writing  126–7, 130–5, 137, 138, 142–5, 147–50, 223–5

and English historiography  18, 118–20, 126–7, 133, 137–42, 160, 220 Historia regum Britanniae (De gestis Britonum)  11, 18, 104, 107, 111, 118–50, 180–1, 201, 210, 221, 222–5, 227, 230, 242 in Laʒamon  153–4, 156, 157–67, 174, 180–3 in Robert Mannyng  187, 201, 210, 220, 222–5 and Roman culture  135–7, 145–8, 177 see also Henry of Huntingdon; William of Malmesbury Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova 40–1 geography  43, 101 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  124, 135, 149 in Henry of Huntingdon  101, 175 in Laʒamon 175 in William of Malmesbury  66 see also descriptio Britanniae Gerald of Wales  143 Gerbert of Aurillac (Sylvester II, pope)  58, 60, 61 Gildas  123, 142–4, 204–5, 213, 218, 220, 236 De excidio Britonum  33, 41–3, 44–6, 130 Godwine, earl of Wessex  15, 63 Gogmagog 202 Goldeburgh (Goldborw, character in Havelok the Dane) 218 Gorbodugo (Gorbodiagnes, Gorbodiago, Gorbodiagus), king of Britain  125, 126, 181–2 Gormundus (Gurmund)’s Donation  123, 135–6, 213 Gregory I (the Great), pope  89 n. 17, 113 Gregory VI, pope  63 Grim (character in Havelok the Dane) 219 Guider, king of Britain  124, 128 Guinevere, queen of Britain  159 Gunter (character in Havelok the Dane) 218 Gurgustius, king of Britain  125, 181–2 Guy of Warwick 220 Guy of Warwick (legendary hero)  218 Harold Godwinson, earl of Wessex and king of the English  7, 206–7, 214–16

274

Index Havelok the Dane  187, 218–20 Havelok the Dane (legendary hero) 218–20 Hengest, Saxon leader  128 Henry I, king of England and duke of Normandy  66, 68, 90, 92, 104 n. 73, 107 n. 84, 108, 114, 138, 218 Henry II, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou and Maine, and king of England  90, 99, 116, 161, 195, 201 Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor  60 Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor  68 Henry VII, king of England  240 Henry of Huntingdon  3, 4, 18, 32, 38, 39, 48, 119–20, 127, 128, 137–42, 148, 150, 161, 165, 177, 183, 185, 204, 208, 218, 225, 226, 231 and Bede  10–11, 208–10 conception of historical writing  89, 107, 108–12, 115, 183, 208 Historia Anglorum  10, 18, 19, 47, 84–93, 96–117, 126, 138, 179–80, 184–5, 208, 227, 230, 234–5 and Laʒamon  153, 165, 167–8, 171–8, 179–80, 184–5 and Robert Mannyng  187, 189–90, 204, 208–10, 218, 225 personal relationships with subjects of history  90, 99, 100–1, 106–7, 111, 116 as poet  18, 89–92, 98–9, 128, 177, 179 see also Geoffrey of Monmouth; William of Malmesbury Herbert, bishop of Norwich  108 hermeneutic Latin see under Latin (language) Heptarchy (term for the seven kingdoms of early England)  35, 112–13, 209, 238, 239 Higden, Ranulph, Polychronicon 233–6, 237 Hildebert of Lavardin  98 De querimonia  86, 98 history-writing (historical writing, historiography)  3, 5–7, 11, 16–20, 29–31, 37–8, 41, 55–60, 88, 97, 101–3, 105, 106, 109, 110, 119, 123–4, 137, 144, 149–150, 168, 176, 205, 209, 210, 219–20, 222, 225–6, 230–45 moral quality of  30, 32, 54, 59, 97, 109, 125, 143, 146, 149, 161, 177, 196, 217, 218, 220, 225–6, 244

practice of  29–31, 37–8, 49, 62–3, 64, 66, 72–4, 89, 104–5, 108–9, 111, 124–5, 162, 189, 208, 214, 218, 219 see also under varietas homogeneity  48–50, 230, 233–6 Horace  40, 75, 144 Ars poetica  26–7, 39, 79, 82, 143 Satires 39 Howel, king of Brittany  159 hybridity  18, 38, 85, 143, 231 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  136–7, 138, 163 in Henry of Huntingdon  91, 95 n. 39 in Laʒamon  164–5, 170 in William of Malmesbury  18, 75–7, 133 Iago (Lago), king of Britain  125, 181–2 Igerna, queen of Britain  144 Ine, king of Wessex  203 Inge (legendary namesake of England) 219 investiture controversy  64, 68 Ireland 198 Isaac of Cyprus  195 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX  24, 28 n. 21, 40, 47, 55, 149 n. 134 John of Crema  111 John, king of England  196–7 John the Scot  82 Judith, queen of Wessex  59, 60 Julius Caesar  81, 136, 139, 141, 146, 163–4, 174, 176, 179, 202, 213, 219 Justinus, Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi 55–6 Juvenal, Satires  27–8, 39, 54 n. 15, 146–7 juxtaposition  26–7, 32, 38, 52–4, 94, 210, 231, 235, 236 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  126, 130, 133–7, 144–5, 241 in Henry of Huntingdon  90–2, 100–5 in Laʒamon  158–60, 174–6, 228, 229 in Robert Mannyng  195–7, 198, 204, 210, 215–17 in William of Malmesbury  54–5, 67–9, 75–7, 80–3, 116, 208, 210, 213, 214 Kaerlud see London Kimbelinus (Cymbeline), king of Britain  124, 175

275

Index Kinmarcus (Kimare, Kine Mark), king of Britain  125, 181–2 Lago see Iago (Lago), king of Britain laisse see under rhyme Langtoft, Peter (Pierre de Langtoft), Chronicle  16, 186, 188, 197–200, 201, 204–5, 209–10, 213, 215, 218, 237–8 in Robert Mannyng  186–7, 189–90, 192–5, 197–202, 204–5, 209–10, 211, 213, 215–16, 218, 224 see also laisse under rhyme language  42–3, 44, 74–5, 110, 128–33, 162–3, 179, 183–4, 210, 226, 242, 244. See also linguistic mixing Latin (language)  17, 43, 80, 109, 124, 128–30, 131–2, 140, 148, 153, 155, 157, 161, 165, 168, 179, 184, 189, 197, 201, 211–12, 225, 242 classical  55–6, 80–3, 109, 146–9, 154, 176–8, 179, 217 hermeneutic  77–80, 82, 128–9, 140, 212, 226 Lawrence of Durham, Consolatio de morte amici 98 Lay le Freine 188–9 Laʒamon (Lawman)  3, 4, 39, 48, 187, 188, 203, 204, 226, 227–8, 230, 231 Brut  19, 153–85, 227–9 conception of historical writing  153–4, 160, 164–5, 168, 171–3, 175–7, 183–4 and Geoffrey of Monmouth  19, 153–4, 156, 157–67, 174, 180–3 and Henry of Huntingdon  19, 153, 165, 167–8, 171–8, 179–80, 184–5 and Latin historiography  19, 153–4, 158–68, 171–2, 173–8, 179–85 poetics of  168–71, 173, 176–8, 179–85, 188, 203, 212 religious quality of  160, 162–8, 170–8, 183, 226 and Robert Mannyng  186–8, 192, 202–3, 204–5, 212 and Wace  19, 153, 156, 157–67, 172–6, 179–83, 197 see also Caligula Brut and Otho Brut under manuscripts letters (epistolography)  107, 215, 231 in Henry of Huntingdon  101–2, 104, 105, 107–8, 111, 174 in Robert Mannyng  214–15

in William of Malmesbury  65, 72, 82 linguistic mixing  18, 188, 195 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  128–33, 226 in Henry of Huntingdon  91, 109–10, 172 in Laʒamon  162–3, 172, 173 in Robert Mannyng  194, 201–3, 204 in William of Malmesbury  18, 77–8 listing  43, 46, 135, 180 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  125, 135–6, 149, 180–1 in Henry of Huntingdon  35–6, 103–4 in Laʒamon literary form see form literary structure see structure literary style see style literary variety see varietas, variety Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, prince of Gwynedd 239 Locrinus, king of Britain  134, 213 London (New Troie, New Troy, Trinouanute, Trinovantum)  136, 138–42, 148, 165–8, 172–3, 176, 184, 190 Lucan  81, 89, 146, 148, 149, 179 De bello civili  81, 146 Lud, king of Britain  138–42, 143, 165–8, 172–3 Lydgate, John, ‘Kings of England’  121–2 Mannyng, Robert  3, 4, 39, 186–9, 222–6, 227 conception of historical writing  194–5, 197, 201–4, 204–5, 207–8, 212–20, 221, 222–6 Handlyng Synne  192, 220 and Latin historiography  19, 187, 189–91, 203–17, 218 and Geoffrey of Monmouth  19, 187, 201, 210, 220, 222–5 and Henry of Huntingdon  19, 187, 189–90, 204, 208–10, 218, 225 and William of Malmesbury  19, 187, 208, 210–18, 220 and Laʒamon  186–8, 192, 202–3, 204–5, 212 and Peter Langtoft  186–7, 189–90, 192–5, 197–202, 204–5, 209–10, 211, 213, 215–16, 218, 224 poetics of  19, 187–9, 192–7, 201–4, 205–7, 223–5

276

Index source criticism of  187, 208–13, 216, 219–20, 223–4 Story of Inglande  19, 185, 186–221, 222–5, 227, 229–30, 242, 243 and Wace  186, 190, 192, 201, 202, 204–5, 209, 210, 211 manuscripts  8, 46–8, 52, 88, 118, 121, 123, 191–2, 211, 227–31, 239, 240–2, 243 Auchinleck Manuscript (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates MS 19.2.1)  188–9 Brut y Brenhinedd (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Llanstephan 1)  240–1 Brut y Tywysogion (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 20)  241 Caligula Brut (London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A. ix)  155–7, 170–1, 174, 192, 228–9, 230 Lambeth Story (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 131)  191–2, 204 n. 72, 218–19, 229–30 Otho Brut (London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho C. xiii)  155–7, 164 n. 57, 171, 174, 192, 228–9, 230 Petyt Story (London, Inner Temple Library, MS Petyt 511, Vol. 7)  191–2, 204 n. 72, 224, 229 Rawlinson Story (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Miscellany MS D. 913)  192 Marius Victorinus, Commenta in Ciceronis Rhetorica 40 Martial, Epigrams  52–4, 72, 75 Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii  34–5, 94 Matilda (Edith), queen of England and duchess of Normandy  90, 107 n. 84, 218 Matilda, Holy Roman Empress, countess of Anjou, and lady of the English  15, 102–3 Matthew Paris  47, 231 Chronica maiora 47 meadow model see under varietas Menippus (satirist)  93 Merlin  122, 134, 138, 144, 148–9, 158, 170–1, 197–200, 201 Middle English see under English (language)

Middle English Prose Brut  227, 232–3, 237, 239 Middle Welsh see Welsh (language) Milton, John, The History of Britain  51, 63 mixture (blending)  18, 27, 41, 74–7, 88, 93–8, 133, 150, 164, 175, 185, 221, 236 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  128, 130, 131, 133, 144 in Henry of Huntingdon  18, 88, 99–108, 110, 112–15, 150, 172, 174, 184 in Laʒamon  163–78, 228 in Robert Mannyng  201–5 in William of Malmesbury  18, 62, 76, 80, 82 see also linguistic mixing Modred, British nobleman  159, 196 multiplicity  2, 32, 36–8, 44, 46, 50, 74–5, 170, 185, 191, 209, 232–3, 237 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  127, 130–2, 135 in Henry of Huntingdon  85, 112–16 in Laʒamon  170, 172, 175, 185 in Robert Mannyng  190–1, 195, 220 in William of Malmesbury  57–63 see also copia (multiplicity) under varietas Nennius, British nobleman  138–42, 143, 165–8 Nero (Roman emperor)  147 New Troy see London non-chronological order see ordo artificialis Norman Conquest  43, 138, 169, 205, 239 in Henry of Huntingdon  84–5, 87, 114 as historical rupture  7, 11–12, 184 in historical writing  15, 44, 238 in Robert Mannyng  190, 205–7, 214–16 in William of Malmesbury  9, 36, 61–3, 72–3, 133, 214 see also Battle of Hastings; discontinuity Normandy (duchy)  58, 59, 61, 75–6, 113, 206 Normans (people)  10, 63, 73, 75–7, 85, 113–14, 131–2, 133, 166–7, 190, 205, 207, 214–16, 234–5, 237, 242 Northumbria (kingdom)  65, 67, 73 occasional poetry see under poetry

277

Index Old English see under English (language) ordo artificialis (non-chronological order)  5, 32–3, 50, 66, 215, 217, 226 in Henry of Huntingdon  105, 114–15 in Robert Mannyng  214–15 in William of Malmesbury  33, 65–9, 214, 215, 217, 226 see also ordo naturalis ordo naturalis (chronological order)  5, 32–3, 66, 81, 217 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  120–6 in Henry of Huntingdon  112–15 in Robert Mannyng  213 in William of Malmesbury  33, 65, 66–7, 69, 217 see also ordo artificialis organization see structure

prosimetrum (verse with prose)  87–8, 92–7, 100, 106, 111–12, 174, 244 in Henry of Huntingdon  87–8, 92–3, 99–116, 174 pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium  23 n. 1, 25, 40, 78–9 pseudo-Nennius 140 Historia Brittonum  46, 129, 217 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria  2, 24, 40, 47

parataxis  28, 32, 121–2, 125. See also juxtaposition Paris, Matthew see Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora Paul the Deacon, Historia Romana 104 Penda, king of Mercia  177–8, 179 Petronius, Satyricon 94 Philip II, king of France  195–6 Picts (people)  110, 114, 131, 140, 190 poetry  4, 33, 92–3, 95–6, 140, 176–8, 179–83, 187–8, 203, 212, 223–4, 244 in Henry of Huntingdon  15, 88–92, 97–8, 99–101, 103, 105, 177, 184 occasional  18, 33, 88–91, 92, 100, 103, 105, 198, 241 structure of lines in  100, 177, 178, 179–83, 192–3, 197, 203, 205–6, 208–9 see also poetics under Laʒamon and Robert Mannyng; prosimetrum Porrex, British nobleman and contender for throne of Britain  122, 125–6, 145 Procopius of Caesarea, Buildings 27 prophecy  15, 158, 181, 197–201, 234–5 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  135, 138, 147, 148–9, 158–9, 199 in Henry of Huntingdon  84–5 in Laʒamon  158–60, 175, 182–3 in Robert Mannyng  199–201 prose  4, 5, 19, 32, 33, 34, 50, 51, 72 n. 101, 81, 82–3, 87–9, 91–6, 99–104, 107–9, 129, 142–3, 153, 157, 161, 169, 179–80, 184, 185, 197, 201–2, 230, 241, 244

Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi 99 Ralph de Diceto  231 Ranulph, earl of Chester  102–3 Reginald of Canterbury, Vita Sancti Malchi 56 repetition  15, 32–3, 158, 180, 181 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  158 in Henry of Huntingdon  36, 90–1, 100–5, 180 in Laʒamon  158–60, 180 in Robert Mannyng  212 in William of Malmesbury  62–3, 73, 214 rhetoric  3, 6, 13, 15–19, 23–50, 57, 69, 71, 74, 78–80, 84, 87, 89, 124, 125, 129, 133, 135, 138, 148, 153–4, 155, 179, 194, 225, 226, 231, 242–5 historians’ facility with  6, 13, 15–16, 39, 69, 71, 78–9, 85, 91, 98–9, 124, 154, 161 n. 45, 189–91, 225–6, 231, 244–5 historians’ practice of  4, 5, 6, 13, 15–19, 29–34, 38–44, 58, 60–1, 71, 82, 84–5, 88, 91–2, 100–1, 116, 133, 156, 164, 166, 168, 180, 226, 231, 241, 243–5 rhyme  100, 169, 171, 179, 183, 192–7, 201, 204, 205–7, 223–4, 228, 229 couplets  90, 91, 192–6, 201, 202, 205, 224, 236 internal (medial)  179, 193–4, 205–7, 224, 229 laisse  193, 194–9, 201, 224 see also Langtoft, Peter (Pierre de Langtoft) tail-rhyme  197–201, 202, 204, 223–4 Richard I, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou and Maine, and king of England  194–6, 217, 218, 219

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Index Rivallo (Rival, Riwald), king of Britain  125, 181–2 Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln  90, 99, 106 Robert I (Bruce), king of Scots  200 Robert II (Curthose), duke of Normandy 69 Robert, earl of Gloucester  102–3 Robert of Gloucester, Chronicle  9, 48–50, 227, 228, 231–2, 233–4, 237 Robert of Malton  186 Robert Mannyng see Mannyng, Robert Roger of Howden  215, 231 Rollo, duke of Normandy  73 n. 110, 113 Roman de Brut see under Wace romance (genre)  10, 14 n. 46, 19, 28, 120, 133, 188–9, 194, 217–19, 220, 227 Roman culture (Roman identity, Romanitas)  69–72, 83, 133, 135–7, 140–1, 145–8, 176–8, 214 see also Latin; Roman culture under Geoffrey of Monmouth and William of Malmesbury Roman invasion of Britain  6, 44, 65, 112, 124, 134, 136, 141, 145, 190, 213, 219 Romans (people)  65, 69–70, 113, 114, 123–4, 128, 135–6, 141, 145, 148, 171, 190 Rome (Roman empire)  69, 70, 79, 83, 104, 112, 124, 134, 137, 145, 148, 159, 220, 229, 238, 240 Rud Hudibras (Ruhhudibras), king of Britain  131, 160 Rufus see William II (William Rufus) Ruin, The (poem)  139 Saladin (Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb) 196 Sallust, Bellum Catilinae  29, 32 satire (genre)  27–8, 39, 52–4, 87, 93–4, 130, 149, 176, 217 Saxons see English (people) Scardyng (legendary Briton and namesake of Scarborough)  213, 218, 220 Scotland (kingdom)  175, 198–200, 242, 244 Scots (people)  114, 131, 190, 198, 216–17, 234–5 Seaxburh (legendary Germanic queen) 239 Seege of Troy 217

Seneca the Younger  94, 114 Apocolocyntosis 94 Epistulae 144 simile  176–7, 179 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  179 in Henry of Huntingdon  177–8, 179 in Laʒamon  176–80, 228–9 Sir Orfeo 188 Sir Tristrem 189 Sisillius, king of Britain  125, 181–2 speech  15, 24, 26, 29, 30, 33, 40, 102 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  124 in Henry of Huntingdon  102–4, 105, 108 in Laʒamon  164, 174–5, 228 in Robert Mannyng  187, 196, 207, 211, 223, 226 St Erkenwald (poem)  139 Statin, steward of Richard I  195 Statius  89, 177 Stephen of Blois, count of Boulogne, duke of Normandy, and king of England  15, 47, 102–3 structural variety  18–19, 87, 93–6, 138, 158, 180, 217, 230 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  120, 122–7, 133 in Henry of Huntingdon  35–6, 104–8, 112–15 in Laʒamon  157–60, 162, 174–5 in Robert Mannyng  208–10, 213–16, 218–20 in William of Malmesbury  36, 51–2, 57–69, 214–17 structure  48, 126, 208, 244 as component of varietas  23, 31–2 in historical writing  5, 32–6, 121–2 relationship with style  31 rhetorical theory of  31–5 see also ordo artificialis; ordo naturalis style  48, 126, 143–4, 189, 208, 211–12, 244 as component of varietas  23, 31–2 elevated (high)  78–9, 124, 176, 189, 212 in historical writing  5, 32–4, 212 levels of (low, middle, high)  25–6, 41, 80, 126, 189 relationship with structure  31 rhetorical theory of  31–5 simple (low)  64, 81, 125, 189, 210, 212, 223, 226

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Index stylistic variety  11, 18–19, 87, 93–6, 105, 138, 158, 180, 217, 228, 230 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  120, 123–6 in Henry of Huntingdon  88–92, 99–104, 109–10 in Laʒamon  158–60, 162, 168–78 in Robert Mannyng  187–9, 192–7, 201–4, 205–7 in William of Malmesbury  80–3, 217 Suetonius, De vita Caesarum  33, 63, 65–9, 226 synchronism  112, 123, 179 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  123–4 in Henry of Huntingdon  112–13 in Laʒamon 179 Taliesin 175 trauma (trauma narratives, trauma writing)  12, 13–16, 61, 243 Trevisa, John, Polychronicon  233–6, 237 Trinovantum see London Trojan culture (Trojan identity, Trojanitas)  136–7, 139–42, 145, 147–9, 163, 241–2 Troy  8, 89, 124, 139, 176, 217 Uther, king of Britain  134, 144 Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia 52 varietas  1–3, 15–16, 17, 20, 23–38, 41, 74–5, 84–5, 94–7, 116, 120, 122, 126, 137–45, 153, 168, 179–85, 186, 216–17, 220, 222, 225, 226, 230, 234, 237, 239–40, 242–5 as action  24, 47–8, 51, 78, 79, 80, 155 n. 11, 168, 240 and balance  18, 26–7, 30, 37, 42, 45–6, 54, 58, 62, 75–6, 94, 133–7, 185, 196, 204, 210, 217, 220 and boredom  24, 26, 28, 29, 41, 78, 133, 195, 218, 224–5, 242–3 Christian  18–19, 37, 74–5, 87–8, 93, 94–8, 109–10, 113, 116, 128–33, 138–42, 150, 154, 162–8, 170–8, 185, 191, 204–8, 214, 215, 221, 222, 226, 235, 244–5 and Christian theology  36–7, 42–3, 74–5, 86–7, 97–8, 163, 170, 189, 205, 226, 240 classical  18–19, 37, 52–4, 62, 74–5, 81, 87–8, 93, 109–10, 116, 130, 133,

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138–42, 150, 154, 163–5, 185, 191, 207, 208–17, 220, 221, 222, 226, 235, 244–5 as compositeness  25, 55–6, 63, 122–3 and concordia discors  36, 46, 94–5, 155, 156 and copia (multiplicity)  2, 36–8, 44, 48, 74–5, 87, 94–5, 115, 130–1, 135, 191, 220, 233, 237 decline of (in British historiography)  19, 48–50, 217, 221, 222–45 and ductus  34–8, 41, 47, 57, 96, 120, 189, 225, 240 and fittingness (distinctio, dignitas) 18, 25, 37, 42, 52, 55–6, 74–5, 82–3, 95, 133–4, 191, 213, 217, 235, 237, 243 genres associated with  27–8, 29–30, 52–4, 87, 170, 217 and historical writing  29–34, 35–6, 37–8, 41–4, 55, 62, 122, 137–8, 145, 153–4, 166, 173, 179–85, 189, 213, 220, 238 limits of  44–50, 179–85, 226 and literary ornament  24, 26, 37–8, 39, 100, 143, 189 metaphors for  23, 27–9, 41, 42, 55–7, 85, 115, 130, 133, 137–42, 143, 161, 237, 240 clothing  42–3, 53, 74, 84, 135, 138, 156, 234–5 flowers  27, 28, 31, 33, 38, 41, 42–3, 55–6, 63, 74, 81, 130, 143–4, 208, 237 food  1, 2, 27, 28, 56–7, 71, 208, 212, 218 garland model  28–9, 31, 38, 43–4, 55, 63, 113, 122, 126, 166–7, 208, 210 meadow model  28–9, 41–3, 58, 63, 81, 113, 166–7, 208, 237 as quality  24–6, 28, 47–8, 75–6, 87, 125, 168 relationship between part and whole in  36–8, 42–3, 44, 46, 74–5, 94–7, 106, 135, 178, 179, 185, 207 rhetorical theory of  23–9, 31–2, 34–8, 125, 166, 189 similarity to modern kintsugi  13, 234 as variegation  25, 42–3, 56–7, 58, 80 see also abbreviation; alliteration; archaism; balance; continuity (in historical writing); descriptio

Index Britanniae; dialogue; digression; discontinuity (in historical writing); ductus; genealogy; geography; hybridity; juxtaposition; letters (epistolography); linguistic mixing; listing; mixture; multiplicity; parataxis; poetry; prophecy; prosimetrum; repetition; rhetoric; rhyme; simile; structural variety; stylistic variety; synchronism; voice; wordplay variety  1–2, 20, 23, 44–6, 74, 234 and modern concept of diversity  44–6, 48–50, 234–5 see also varietas Varro 94 Vergil  81, 89, 177, 210 Aeneid  89, 136, 147–8, 149 Vita Ædwardi Regis  see Folcard of St Bertin Vita Griffini filii Conani  32, 33 voice (individual, universal)  1, 14, 28, 231–4 in Geoffrey of Monmouth  120, 124, 138, 140–4, 150, 161 in Henry of Huntingdon  92, 95–101, 106–10, 173 in Laʒamon 173–6 in Robert Mannyng  195, 206–7 in William of Malmesbury  75, 82–3 Vortigern, king of Britain  134, 149, 158 Wace  19, 162, 187, 188, 210, 213, 237–8 Roman de Brut  16, 19, 153, 167, 179–83, 184, 186, 192, 197, 204–5, 209, 237 in Laʒamon  153, 156, 157–67, 172–6, 179–83, 197 in Robert Mannyng  186, 190, 192, 201, 202, 204–5, 209, 210, 211 Roman de Rou 16 Wales  8, 32, 198–200, 239, 242, 244 Welsh (language)  8, 165, 240–2 Welsh (people)  127, 136, 145, 239–42 Welsh Historical Continuum  8, 241–2 Wessex (kingdom)  35–6, 65, 67, 112–13 White Ship disaster  90, 99, 114

Whitsuntide feast  135–6, 156, 238 William I (the Conqueror), duke of Normandy and king of England  7, 15, 76, 239 in Henry of Huntingdon  112, 113 in Robert Mannyng  206–7, 214–16 in William of Malmesbury  61, 62, 66–8 William II (William Rufus), king of England  59, 66, 68–9, 81, 114 William of Malmesbury  3, 4, 38, 39, 48, 51, 84–5, 88, 104 n. 73, 109, 116, 127, 129–30, 133, 143, 148, 150, 161, 177, 185, 208, 214, 216, 218, 226, 230, 231 and Bede  10, 18, 56, 63–73, 74, 76–7, 83, 208, 212, 214, 232 conception of historical writing  18, 56, 62–3, 76–7, 83, 88, 116, 208, 210, 213–16, 220 Gesta pontificum Anglorum  80, 140 n. 93 Gesta regum Anglorum  10, 17–18, 51–83, 88, 109, 113, 116, 133, 139, 140, 153, 213, 216–17, 220, 227, 230 and Geoffrey of Monmouth  119–20, 127, 129–30, 137–42, 150 and Henry of Huntingdon  84–5, 87, 89, 91, 104 n. 73, 108–9, 116 and Laʒamon 164 and Robert Mannyng  187, 208, 210–18, 220 and Roman culture  18, 51–4, 56–7, 62, 69–73, 75–7, 80–3, 87–8, 89, 91, 133, 140, 147, 177, 208, 210, 214, 226 Vita Wulfstani 14–15 William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum  32, 33, 143, 231 wordplay  30, 32, 34, 94 in Henry of Huntingdon  84–5, 90, 100–1, 109–11 in Laʒamon 170–4 in Robert Mannyng  193–4 in William of Malmesbury  77–9 Wycliffite Bible see under Bible, the Ystoria Dared  8, 241–2

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Writing History in the Middle Ages 1  Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s Historia Normannorum: Tradition, Innovation and Memory, Benjamin Pohl (2015) 2  The Classicist Writings of Thomas Walsingham: ‘Worldly Cares’ at St Albans Abbey in the Fourteenth Century, Sylvia Federico (2016) 3  Medieval Cantors and their Craft: Music, Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, edited by Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, A. B. Kraebel and Margot E. Fassler (2017) 4  Universal Chronicles in the Middle Ages, edited by Michele Campopiano and Henry Bainton (2017) 5  The Construction of Vernacular History in the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle: The Manuscript Culture of Late Medieval England, Julia Marvin (2017) 6  Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World: Manuscripts, Makers and Readers, c.1066–c.1250, edited by Laura Cleaver and Andrea Worm (2018) 7  Writing History in the Community of St Cuthbert, c.700–1130: From Bede to Symeon of Durham, Charles C. Rozier (2020) 8  Lost Artefacts from Medieval England and France: Representation, Reimagination, Recovery, edited by Laura Cleaver and Kathryn Gerry (2022) 9  Constructing History across the Norman Conquest: Worcester, c.1050–c.1150, edited by Francesca Tinti and D. A. Woodman (2022)