Latin histories and vernacular epic in twelfth-century Spain: similarities of spirit and style

Abstract

The Latin histories of the first half of the twelfth century in Spain—-notably the Historia Roderici, the Silense and the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, and in a lesser way the Chronicon of Pelayo and the Historia Compostellana—have not, in my view, received the attention which they deserve from students of literature. To say this is not to make the typical claim when resurrecting some justly forgotten third-rate writer, but to suggest that a much graver error than mere neglect has been committed: that of adopting a concept of the literature of a past age which is completely invalid for its own time. Historians have of course used the works mentioned extensively; the Silense and the CAI have been edited recently (and very well too) by historians, and it was as a historian chiefly that Menendez Pidal edited the HR and used it for work on the Cid's life. It is not my purpose here to dwell on the literary merits of these works, but it would be wrong to relegate these to an aside; all these texts have some at...