Cosmas of Prague: Narrative, Classicism, Politics by Lisa Wolverton

Abstract

Cosmas of Prague: Narrative, Classicism, Politics. By Lisa Wolverton. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. 2014. Pp. xviii, 307. S65.00 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-8132-2691-0; ISBN 978-0-8132-2692-7 e-book.)This book is second monograph about Cosmas (c. 1045-1125), oldest Czech chronicler and canon of Chapter of Prague; it also is first written by a non-Czech author. Lisa Wolverton, author and associate professor of at University of Oregon, aims at offering a reinterpretation of main piece of Czech medieval historiography, which has been reached by author during her work on an English translation of Cosmas's chronicle. She is particularly interested story, narrative shape and style of Cosmas' history (p. 2). She offers a detailed analysis of language, way of expression, intentions, and content of chronicle; at same time, she contextualizes and compares it works of some contemporary historians of Latin Europe. She wants read Cosmas chronicle in all its fullness with new eyes (p. 18).The book is composed of seven chapters. In introduction, author gives fundamental information about present study of Cosmas's work, its author, and chronicle itself, as well as discusses her book's goals. Her work is motivated by tendency Anglo-Saxon world overlook Cosmas's chronicle or consider it only relation chroniclers' view on women. Wolverton wants bring the text into interpretative frame of Anglophone medievalists (p. 3). At same time, she would like correct supposed absence of Czech (and Polish) literature, with only a handful of articles and one monograph trying to analyze text on its own terms (p. 3). However, Wolverton neglects several recent works by Czech historians (such as Martin Wihoda, Petr Kopal, Josef Zemlicka, and this reviewer) that analyze problems similar those examined by author.In second chapter, The Historian's Craft, she analyzes sources of Cosmas's narrative detail, examines method of composition, and successfully reconstructs Cosmas's procedures for work. Using a detailed analysis of Cosmas's text, she disproves Dusan Trestik's hypothesis that Annales Pragenses served as Cosmas's source and considers other sources. She states that Regino of Prum deeply influenced Cosmas because of language, way of expression, source of information about past events, and especially craft of history.The third chapter, The Pessimistic Theory of Power, is dedicated Cosmas's political opinions on politics and functions of law, appointment and position of monarch, and critique of political power. …