THE TROIA CHRONICLE AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PRODUCTION IN MEDIEVAL PUGLIA

Abstract

Historiographical production within twelfth-century Puglia seems to have been markedly limited, and this frustrates attempts to access internal perspectives on a region which played a pivotal socio-political and economic role within southern Italy as it fell under Norman rule, and was subsequently absorbed into the new Kingdom of Sicily in 1130. It might, however, be possible to bolster the region's twelfth-century historiographical outputs if we were to include a largely overlooked and problematic source, the so-called Fragmentary Troia Chronicle. It is a short, hybridized and fragmented Latin text usually assumed to be late twelfth-century as a result of its chronological coverage. It consists of an annalistic-style account of political and religious events mostly of relevance to the northern Pugliese city of Troia and its bishopric, and ostensibly covers 1014 to 1124/7. It is accompanied by what also seems to be an appendix of documents (some dated later than the annalistic section) associated with the city's bishopric. This article therefore offers the first extended analysis of the Troia Chronicle's place within Pugliese historiographical production. It revisits questions around its authenticity, examines potential contexts surrounding its production and content, and provides the first English translation of the narrative section of the chronicle. In so doing, it argues that we must tread carefully when using this source, but that the Troia Chronicle's existence and its main chronological focus could at the very least hold significance as a marker of an enduring remembrance of a vibrant era of episcopal, literary and urban development in this Pugliese city in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.