National Chronicles Research Articles

The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani ed. by James G. Clark

Reviewed by: The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani ed. by James G. Clark Peter McDonald Clark, James G., ed., and David Preest, trans., The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2019; hardback; pp. xvii, 990; R.R.P. £150.00; ISBN: 9781783270767. The Gesta Abbatum of St Albans, from the foundation under King Offa until the death of Abbot Thomas de la Mare in 1396, is the longest continuous chronicle of an English monastery. H. T. Riley's Latin edition in the Rolls Series (1867–69) has shaped the work of historians of the abbey, such as James Clark and Michelle Still, and scholars of broader monastic history, especially David Knowles. But it has been available in English only in excerpts, by G. G. Coulton and Richard Vaughan, and has attracted less notice than St Albans's national chronicles by [End Page 204] Matthew Paris, Thomas Walsingham, and others. The present volume fills that gap admirably. The translation uses Riley's Latin, based on Walsingham's final ('C') version, as a starting point, but Clark and Preest have done the comparative work on the manuscripts necessary for a critical edition of the Latin. Each chapter has an annex with notes recording manuscript variants, in parallel with comprehensive footnotes that identify people, places, and subjects in the text and provide helpful commentary. Documents reproduced in the text appear in précis for brevity, but the work still runs to a thousand pages—a massive achievement in every sense. Only a few minor typographical errors have crept through. The translation is excellent. It is unfailingly accurate in the passages that I have checked against the original, but not slavishly literal. Rather, it is fluent and lively, recapturing the voice, mentality, and outlook of the authors and their community. A corporate work of many hands over more than 300 years, the Gesta conveys a sense of memory handed down. The thirty abbatial portraits are neither liturgical necrologies nor hagiographies. Indeed, each concludes with a reflection on the subject's faults and failings, for moral education and perhaps to put the incumbent's in perspective. They may have originated in a roll kept by the cellarer; by Walsingham's time the responsibility was the precentor's. The early entries are brief, formulaic, and sometimes inaccurate. But from the late eleventh century the detail and colour increase, reflecting the growing need for written historical validation. The hands of Paris and Walsingham are evident in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century entries (for example, some vintage Matthew Paris invective on pp. 484–88), and Walsingham draws extensively on the abbey's records. But even they keep to the inherited format, mute their personal styles, and look internally rather than out to the wider world. The insight into the inner life of the house is unrivalled among English monasteries. We have detailed accounts of liturgy, devotion, and observance of the Rule in the abbey and its cells and of the thinking behind the abbots' measures, which other houses' customaries lack. The tension between upholding the Rule and the humane urge to mitigate runs through the chronicle, including the sections on Michael of Mentmore and de la Mare as presidents of the provincial chapter. The portraits of the abbots are matched elsewhere only by Jocelin of Brakelond and Walter Daniel, and then only for one man. The chronicles detail not only the house's acquisition of liturgical items but also its interest in books and learning, in which St Albans stood out; the monastic school, the move into the universities and the achievements of university-educated abbots are documented. We also get rare glimpses of monastic preaching (pp. 769–70) and pastoral care. The text displays the tendency of St Albans, like other monasteries, to see the abbot's duty as building up the house's resources, to its glory and that of its patron saint. Each chapter proudly documents his acquisitions and catalogues his losses as failings, or even as sin. That mentality also shapes the chroniclers' dismissive [End Page 205] attitudes towards the townsmen and peasants, who rebel wickedly against...

Літературні пам'ятки Київської Русі в контексті правової культури

Legal culture at the present historical stage is considered an important factor in the development of state relations and the legal system of Ukraine. Its potential is not limited to the processes of modernization of the legal system, it extends to the processes of formation and development of state and social institutions, legal socialization of an individual, including ethics of education and ethics of organizations, stability of law and legal order and more. In this regard, by studying the origins of modern legal culture, one can provide answers to the question of why in the modern Ukrainian society legal culture is of such a nature that differs in contradictions and extremes, in a variety of forms and methods of assessing the legal order, and features a high degree of abstraction and, at the same time, growing legal consciousness coupled with increasing understanding of the need for legal education. To do this, one should turn to the analysis of the legal culture of the Kyivan Rus' period – the emergence of the first statehood in our national history, reflected in the legal and literary landmarks of that time. The article analyzes the literary and legal landmarks of Kyivan Rus' in the context of the legal culture of the pre-feudal period and the beginning of the feudal fragmentation of the ancient Rus' state. On the example of literary, literary-legal and legal monuments the article explores the features of the nature of the legal culture of then Rus', characteristics of its formation and specificity of its manifestation. Philosophical and legal analysis of the texts of literary landmarks of Kyivan Rus' allows us to identify the features of the legal culture of that time reflected in those works. This study will help us to investigate, through the analysis of the peculiarities of the national chronicle, the nature of the legal culture of pre-feudal Kyivan Rus', as well as to analyze the mechanisms of composition of legal documents of Kyivan Rus' through the prism of legal culture and legal consciousness of that period.

Patientia et misericordia, poena et signum. The picture of a diseased person and the disease in Mediaeval narrative sources

The article presents the manner of showing disease and the suffering of a person by Mediaeval narrative sources. The basis for the article are various national chronicles, monastic historiography and hagiography written in the Middle Ages. The analysed works are the lives of Saint Kinga of Poland, Anne of Bohemia, Salomea of Poland and Saint Francis of Assisi, three monastic chronicles written by canons regulars in the monasteries in Kłodzko, Żagań and Wrocław, and chronicles describing the Polish history by Gallus Anonymous, Jan Długosz and Jan of Czarnków. The author describes the attitude of the society towards the ill person and the attitude of the ill towards their suffering. The article presents also the description of disease and the attempt (or the lack of attempt) to provide medical causes of the illnesses. The indication of pathogenesis of the disease is very rare in the medieval narrative sources. The authors of these works often appeal to God in this matter, they look for an explanation in the Lord’s wrath or divine providence. The author of the article shows the differences in presenting the disease in the sources given in the article depending on the kind of works and its purposes.

Н. Д. Ахшарумов в роли редактора газеты «Народная летопись»: к вопросу о символическом капитале имени

Purpose. The article analyzes the editorial and publishing strategies and tactics of the newspaper ‘Narodnaya Letopis’ (‘National Chronicle’) due to a social and literary reputation of Nikolay D. Akhsharumov. Akhsharumov was a massfiction writer, contemporary of Goncharov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He was the author of authority conception of enslavement art (1858). The author of the stories (“Double” (1850), “Player” (1858)), novels (“Alien name” (1861) and “Strange case” (1864), he was so-called conservator (anti-radical and anti-nihilist) writer. Particular attention is paid to the circumstance that the reputation of this publication had a direct impact on the “social and literary prestige” (by P. Bourdieu). Results. General attention is paid to the entry of the ‘National Chronicle’ into the journal and newspaper environment of 1865. Program and content of the newspaper are investigated with a comparison of the individual program of Akhsharumov. The main problem, in any case, is the anonymity of the majority of the materials published in the “National Chronicle”. So, in fact, ‘Akhsharumov’ was a single name, who was formally responsible for the content of each article, was listed in each issue. Nevertheless, a brief episode of such a nominal editorial board did not affect the literary reputation of the writer – the article made an assumption as to the communicative nature of the periodical (G. Zykova, I. Silantev and other). The article is based on the testimonies of memoirists (E. Zhukovskaya, A. V. Nikitenko) and archival materials, the newspaper’s reflection in the public consciousness of the period under consideration is reconstructed. Conclusion. The examined case demonstrates specific character of the formation of symbolic capital of the mass-fiction writer, who participates in newspaper and magazine projects of his time. Apparently, it is possible to state the operation of the hierarchy principle: an article in a thick magazine, which in its time caused controversy and discussion, affects the literary reputation much more than the editorial and publication of a newspaper whose communicative nature presupposes an almost instantaneous change of ideological vectors and orientations. Moreover, the study of the “People’s Chronicle” is of interest not only in the history of journalism, but also in the sociology of literature, and also, in the light of the writer’s role behavior, the so-called ‘history of ideas’.

ДМИТРО ЧИЖЕВСЬКИЙ ЯК ІСТОРИК НАЦІОНАЛЬНОГО ЛІТОПИСАННЯ

The article is devoted to the study of D.Chyzhevsky’s contribution to the analysis of the artistic filling of ancient chronicles through the use of the stylistic method of analysis. An important conclusion is the assertion of the national chronicles of the eleventh and thirteenth centuries that their authors are highly educated, good connoisseurs of the Bible, ancient, Byzantine literatures, works by Homer, Joseph Flavius, George Hamartol, Joan Malalai, the Byzantine chronograph, Alexandria, especially popular in the princely environment, and the images of Alexander of Macedon, Darius, reproduced in it, as well as the image of Hercules, were close and exemplary for our princes. As for the brief history of national writing, D.Chyzhevsky, analyzing the historical and aesthetic canvas of the chronicles of the eleventh and eighteenth centuries, adequately and convincingly characterized the artistic value and originality of memorials, revealed the crucial importance in their creation of the high erudition available to the authors, the thorough knowledge of the history of Ukrainian and foreign, in particular of ancient, literatures; emphasized in the chroniclers the literary ability, heroic and patriotic abilities, national centrism and moral and religious nobility, attachment to traditions, a part of the literary and chronicles, which contributed to the writing of majestic epic paintings addressed to the depicted and described heroes of works. The historian of literature has convincingly proved that such a long-term development of the genre of the chronicles (XI-XVIII centuries) was facilitated by the content-artistic perfection of «The Tale of the Past Years», the talent of its founders, Nikon, Nestor, Sylvester, whose own work, the idea of unity of Russia in the struggle against internal and external enemies, which remained urgent throughout all subsequent centuries, and a significant conservatism of the genre, focused on the upbringing of historical generic, national, cultural memories, laid the solid foundations for the development of our entire national first literature which convincingly demonstrate chronicles, historical fiction themes XIX-XXI centuries. The own «History of Ukrainian Literature», the level and conclusions of the analysis of the chronicles D.Chyzhevsky scientifically reasonably developed the principle of national centrist, founded in his medieval works by M.Maksymovych and confirmed by the formation and development of our literary thought. In them, the doctrine proved that in the analysis of ancient writing, chronicles must use a stylistic approach to express their artistic, their aesthetic nature and value. The new thought of the scientist was his noteworthy that the chronicles have signs of the classical direction, characteristic of the works of the elite princely-Sarmatian and Cossack-Kozar tribes.

Intersections of History, Media, and Culture

Intersections of History, Media, and Culture

Shame, Masculinity, and the Death of Thomas Becket

On the day before Christmas, 1170, Robert de Broc, member of a family of royal servants that had taken up King Henry II's fierce opposition to Thomas Becket, seized a horse bringing goods to the archbishop and cut off its tail. The next day, Archbishop Thomas noted this incident after his Christmas sermon when renewing his excommunication of Robert and several others, and he discussed it again four days later in his initial meeting with the men who would shortly murder him. The excision of the horse's tail appears in five of the biographies of the martyr and subsequently in the national chronicles of Roger of Howden and Ralph of Diceto. Why did a minor act of cruelty inflicted on a horse seem so noteworthy to contemporaries? The sources recording it resound with the rich Latin vocabulary of shame: “dedecus, contemptus, ignominia, dehonestatio, opprobrium.” Robert's highly symbolic act, part of a pattern of harassment by the Brocs, was designed not just to threaten Becket but also to humiliate him.

BORN MODERN: ANTIPODEAN VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Making peoples: a history of the New Zealanders from Polynesian settlement to the end of the nineteenth century. By James Belich. London: Penguin, 2001. Pp. 497. ISBN 0-14-100639-0. £9.99.Paradise reforged: a history of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000. By James Belich. London: Allen Lane, 2002. Pp. 606. ISBN 0-7139-9172-0. £25.00.The Enlightenment and the origins of European Australia. By John Gascoigne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xviii+233. ISBN 0-521-80343-80. £45.00.Australian ways of death: a social and cultural history, 1840–1918. By Pat Jalland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. Pp. vi+378. ISBN 0-19-550754-1. £15.99.White flour, white power: from rations to citizenship in central Australia. By Tim Rowse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xiii+255. ISBN 0-521-62457-6. £40.00.The five books covered here might seem a random sample: antipodean oddments from the edge of a review editor's desk. Their subject matter – from ‘ways of death’ in Australia to rationing policies for indigenous Australians – is diverse, as are their approaches: a scholarly assessment of the influence of Enlightenment ideas in the Australian colonies through to a massive two-volume general history of New Zealand to 2000. Yet even in this eclectic mix there are common themes, reflecting current interests and models in the writing of history in both countries. For some time, Australia and New Zealand have been productively positioned in relation to European social change as ‘born modern’ experiments, or at least as colonies which forced or anticipated aspects of the modernity shaping metropolitan centres. There have been several phases of historiography advancing this thesis, each reflecting a desire on the part of historians ‘down under’ to relate their account to wider dynamics, or to incorporate models that redress or refute the ‘isolation’ of their history by exploring categories extending beyond the national chronicle. More recently, historians of post-colonialism have returned the interest. They have traced in the extension of colonialism many of the crucial factors shaping core elements of nineteenth-century European nationalism, even the concept of Europe itself. In complex patterns of interdependence within ‘empire’, these historians have also identified several themes of ‘modernity’: reflexive approaches to ‘self’ and identity; discursive matrices of liberal government; the application and testing of the Enlightenment project of ‘reason’ and the ‘disenchantment’ of scientific knowledge and classification.

Historiography in the Middle Ages by Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (review)

468 Reviews Historiography in theMiddle Ages. Ed. by Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis. Leiden and Boston: Brill. 2002. vi + 464pp. ?159. ISBN 90-04-11881-0. Given the recent surge of interest in medieval historiography, the appearance of a new handbook is greatly to be welcomed. The book is divided into two broad sections on the early and later Middle Ages, and subdivided into twelve chapters on various genres. In the prologue, Deborah Deliyannis highlights the question of genre, and the structure of the volume forces the contributors to think in genre categories, which can be fruitful,though it possibly veils the degree to which medieval historical writing often defies such categories. The twelve authors seek to provide an introduction to their respective subtopics, either by focusing on exemplary works or by attempting an overview. Sometimes the focus is a little too narrow, as in Rolf Sprandel's article on late medieval world chronicles, which focuses solely on Germany, albeit very competently, and thus misses much ofthe variety ofthis vast international tradition. By contrast, Norbert Kersken' s chapter nimbly shows the development of the national chronicle running in parallel right across the continent. The principal aim of the volume is to introduce the subject forthe uninitiated, and the authors do not necessarily claim to produce new research. For example, Joaquin Pizzaro's article on early medieval ethnic history is clearly con? ceived as a beginner's guide, documenting landmarks and developments, with a very useful appendix outlining the contents of the main works, which is ideal for students. Likewise, Augusto Vasina's piece on urban historiography is, as he himself says, in principle an annotated 'list' (p. 327) surveying the output firstof Italy and then of the rest of Europe. However, several of the contributors offerwhat appear to me to be entirely new perspectives, such as Kersken's fascinating thesis that the transition from medieval to modern ethnic historiography fails at the point where foreigners start writing the histories of nations (p. 215). A strength of many of the presentations in this volume is their thoughtful handling of very complex discussions. Here we might highlight Thomas Heffernan's chapter on biography, which in the Middle Ages usually means hagiography. Heffernan does not always make life easy for the reader, throwing around words like 'epideixis' and 'mimesis' without explanations, and quoting chunks of (almost) untranslated Greek, but his insights into the theology of Christian biographical writing make it worth persevering. From a characterization of Jewish and classical Greek approaches he shows Christian biography to be a hybrid of the two, which takes its tone from the literary form of the four Gospels and lays its focus on the imitation of Christ. Spandel's survey of German world chronicles contains an interesting digression on continuations, and the rather provocative statement that most late medieval chroniclers saw themselves as continuators (p. 164). Here we have to be careful: a continuatio is an extension afhxed to the end of a chronicle to bring the chronological sequence up to date. Clearly Spandel cannot mean that most chroniclers of this period thought they were writing continuationes. But they certainly continued (in the sense ofbuilt on) the work of their predecessors by plundering sources and constructing them afresh. Other useful sections include Michel Sot's demonstration that early medieval ac? counts of local history always have a universal dimension and thus that the ethnic and world-chronicle traditions are interlinked; Leah Shopkow's argument that dy? nastic history did not arise, as has been claimed, from the new noble self-awareness, so much as from institutional needs?recording property rights, for example; Bert Roest's chapter on institutional history, focusing as it does on Franciscan and Dominican traditions; and Michael Goodich's account of late medieval biography, which includes some interesting remarks on tensions between the monastery and the school (p. 357), as well as a good analysis of topoi (p. 363) and an interesting section on the beginnings of autobiography. MLR, 100.2, 2005 469 Peter Ainsworth's two chapters are different from the rest in that they are not genre-specific. Both are concerned with more abstract questions of historicity. The firstfocuses on the rise of the...

Corporeal Politics and the Body Politic: the re-presentation of Louis Riel in Canadian identity

Louis Riel was the leader of the Métis uprisings of 1869 and 1885. The trajectory of Riel's dynamic memory from 1885 to 2001 is marked by his characterization as charismatic national leader, state traitor, cultural hero, symbol of reconciliation, and icon of 'postnationalism'. The initially simple metanarrative of a conflict between a proto-Métis-nation and an expansive proto-Canadian-state has been loaded with several discourses. Métis identity; Aboriginal rights; Western alienation; French-Canadian identity; state-nationbuilding. These may be discerned in the tensions permeating the commemoration of Riel's role in Canadian history at various sites throughout Canada over time. This paper will demonstrate the power of 'corporeal politics' as nationalizing-states approach the reconstruction of national eidolons, national chronicles, and national identities.

The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways.... Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak by Balázs s> Nagy Marcell Sebők (review)

344 SEER, 79, 2, 200 I National Chronicle', 'Dlugosz and the Buda Chronicle' (in French) and the 'FirstHungarian Historians'. He took a freshlook at the narrativetexts, re-examining their composition and sourcesin a detail that nobody else has, before or since. Veryprobablyhe was provokedby the older conservativephilology in Hungary, and indeed his excellent criticalabilityensured him a much better graspof textual problems than many of his Hungarian counterparts.Today, it is a communis opinio that it was a mistake to attribute the differentchronicle continuations 'to a single brain','alost gestatheory',as suggestedby ProfessorBalintH6man. In search of these alternative national traditionsMacartney analysed all the chronicle variants (Chronicon Budense, Posoniense, Zagrabiense, Varadiense, and so on) and the most influentiallegends (St Stephen, St Gerard).He purposefully concentratedhis researcheson the Hunnish-Hungariantradition,formulated by Simon of Keza in the second half of the thirteenthcentury. This is a story almost totally bound up in the western literary tradition (Nibelungenlied, Attila saga, and so on) and historicalsources (Jordanes, Martin of Troppau, and so on). Macartney's unmatched literary knowledge gave him a sound basisfor criticizingearlierHungarian research,but he was certainlytoo strict with two outstanding researchers,SAndorDomanovszky and Sandor Eckhardt , and he undoubtedly over-complicatedthe derivationof texts from each other. But Macartney's work is still the most complete compilation of a definitiveline of Central-Europeanhistoriography,and no Hungarianhasyet attempted to produce anythingsimilar.The book startsoffwith two excellent biographicaland life'sworkessays,writtenby the editors,Czigany and Peter, and by G. H. N. Seton-Watson (pp. ix-xxxv), followed by a selected bibliographyof Macartney'sworks(pp. xxxvii-xliii). However, readingof the book is hampered by the lack of the source texts, a list of abbreviationsof the quoted source texts, and a brief summaryof the main historiographicalwork since Macartney. The book will certainly cause many surprisesfor historians of medieval Central Europe. Since its component essayswere designed to form a bridge between the literature of small nations and history as written in world languages,thisbook now fulfilsMacartney'swishes:understandingtheMiddle Ages is the route to the understandingand acceptance of the roots of today's multiculturalrealityin CentralEurope. Department ofMedieval Studies L. M. VESZPREMY Central European University, Budapest Nagy, Balazs and Seb8k, Marcell (eds). ... TheMan of ManyDevices,WAho Wandered FullManyWays. . .. Festschrift inHonorofJdnos M.Bak.Central EuropeanUniversityPress,Budapest, I999. xvii + 708 pp. Notes. Tables. Figures.Illustrations.Bibliography.?44-95 SOMEFestschriftsare organized around a central theme, while the other, and more common type simplyconsistsof a varietyof articlesto honour a scholar, without trying to achieve any real unity. This book falls into the second category;althoughthe contributionsaredividedinto nine sections(Personalia, REVIEWS 345 Artes, Rebelliones, Majestas, Hagiographica, Quotidiana, VariaMedievalia, Hungarica, Historiographica), there is no attempt at either thematic or chronological unity in the volume as a whole. Indeed, as both the title, a quotation from Homer's Odyssey, and the section headings indicate, diversity was one of the aims of the editors.Through thisvariety,they emphasizeJanos Bak's own experiences (he has lived and worked in several countries), and reflecthis own interests. The book consists of sixty-six articles (all written in English, German, or French)on Western-and East-CentralEuropeantopics fromlate Antiquityto the twentieth century. It also contains the full bibliography of Bak's own works.The articlesin any one section are only very loosely connected to each other through a broadly defined main theme. For example, the section 'Rebelliones' includes a piece by John C. Parsonson the real and perceived power of twelfth-centuryFrenchqueens to endanger the social orderthrough revealing their body; a second by Piotr G6recki on social violence and its remedies (punishment rather than arbitration)in lower Silesia; a third by Hanna Zaremska on cases of litigation by fifteenth-centuryJews before the Christian authorities in Krak6w; a fourth by Gabor Klaniczay on the characterizationsof rebelliouspeasantsinlatemedievalHungary,highlighting the birth of various stereotypes; and a fifth on Central European ideas linkingsocial criticism,Utopian social models and Reformationby Ferdinand Seibt. Most of the articlesin the volume are specificcase studies.As the following examples show, they will be of interest to specialists. Maria Dobozy demonstrates that Gottfried von Strassburg'sidea of rulershipin Tristan did not focus on the individual's virtues and vices, but instead on the social dynamics of the court. Andras Kubinyi examines the political role...

Canadian History in the

remarked in 1948 that Canadians were especially endowed by nature with long arms for patting themselves on the back. 1 For historians of new nations are expected to do just that: to peer into the past and to discern in the shadows the shape of great things to come, to weave scattered incidents into a tapestry revealing the more flattering characteristics of the national life. This is not just a matter of praising famous men and 'our fathers that begat us': it involves the simultaneous creation of a national chronicle and the