Universal Chronicle Research Articles

Bernard Gui historien du Midi

Bernard Gui : Southern France historian. Dominican Bernard Gui’s historical study (1261-1331) reflects the author’s particular interest in the events that took place in Southern France. He showed particular interest in the different king’s actions in his Chronicle of French Kings, inserting detailed developments (as far as documents allowed him to do so). He gave large coverage to the Albigensian Crusade in his universal chronicle. As a witness, he described in details the trouble caused by the Inquisition in Albi, Carcassonne and Toulouse. He is also author of a Chronicle of the Counts of Toulouse and a Catalogue of the Bishops in Toulouse. His attachment to the Southern part of the kingdom and the public to which his work was meant (his Southern Convent Brothers), lead him to tell these events with much precision and to set them precisely in Time and Space, offering his readers a learned compilation.

La traduction indirecte de la Chronique d'Isidore de Séville

The universal chronicle of Isidore of Seville was abundantly used as a source during the Middle Ages. This article studies 37 works from the seventh to the fifteenth century in which extracts of the work appear, identifying in each case the branch of the manuscript tradition to which it belongs.

L’Epitome des roys de France (Lyon, 1546) : un nouveau mode d’illustration

The Epitome des roys de France (Lyons, 1546) : a new kind of illustration. The Epitome des roys de France was published in Lyons, in 1546, by Balthazar Arnoullet. It consists in a summary of the lives of the fifty-eight first French sovereigns, accompanied by their effigies in the shape of engraved oval medallions. These are ascribed to the anonymous engraver working in Lyons around 1550 : the Maître CC. The Epitome des roys de France provides perfect evidence for the evolution of illustrated books in France in the middle of the 16th century, wavering between tradition — as regards illuminated portraits such as those appearing in the various genealogies and universal chronicles — and innovation, especially with the clarity of their lay out as well as with the preference for copperplate rather than wood engraving. This work also allows for an interrogation about the notion of likenesses in the 16th century. The anonymous author of the Epitome indeed maintains that all the Kings portraits are depicted « as true as possible to nature ». At the time, such intentions are frequent, as for instance with Vasari ; nevertheless, be it with one author or the other, iconography and portrait merge together, and the alleged likeness proves to be hypothetical.

La Chronique universelle d’Orléans : un manuscrit d’histoire enluminé

The Universal Chronicle of Orleans : an illuminated historical manuscript. During the reign of Charles VII, after the one hundred years’ War, the production of works of history witnessed a considerable revival. Between 1457 and 1520-21, some twenty Universal Chronicles on scrolls were written and illuminated. The manuscript no. 470 at the Orleans Municipal Library is representative of such historical compilations of the period. It may be dated from the third quarter of the fifteenth century and probably comes from northern France, but we know nothing about who commissioned it, who produced it or who owned it. The chronicle deals first of all with the Old Testament, Ancient History and the life of Christ and then goes on to the succession of Popes, emperors of Rome, French kings, Breton kings and kings of Great Britain. Sixty-four miniatures in the form of medallions feature in the text at its articulations, sometimes in direct illustration of the text itself, sometimes adding information which is not to be found in the text. The illuminator uses the technique of « pourtraits », which allows him to use physionomies, backgrounds and costumes which are practically identical, repeating scenes and character types with only slight variations. Several of the medallions are analysed here : a representation of the infant Jesus with a cross announcing the Redemption, the murder of the Giants by Bruit (the origin of the foundation of Great Britain), the construction of different cities... The Universal Chronicle of Orleans allows for an in-depth study of the relations between image and text. It also raises the problem of the didactic or propagandist role of such texts. The genealogies and the description of the birth of nations are by no means innocent at this time when memories of the Anglo-French conflict were still fresh. Finally, the narrative confirms an idea of history which is still medieval, that is to say the facts and personalities — even contemporary ones — are always compared with the events and figures of Bible history.

The "Pharaoh" Anecdote in Pre-Modern Arabic Historiography

This article examines the development of the pharaoh as a literary figure in Arabic historiography between the third/ninth and the ninth/fifteenth centuries. The first aim is to reflect upon the changing narrative structure of such anecdotes in texts ranging from the universal chronicle of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) to the regional chronicle of al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442). The article’s second concern is to evaluate the plurality of meanings that emerged from these changes. This discussion is then linked to detailed consideration of the authors’ social contexts, with particular focus on that of al-Maqrīzī. The nexus between literary approach and social history that is proposed here offers a deeper understanding of the function of narrative resources that moved from text to text. Not only was this a salient feature of Arabic historiography, but also it allows us to reconsider the repeated appearance of such elements beyond describing them as simply ‘borrowing’ or ‘copying’. Indeed, the discussion concludes that authors skilfully drew from a pool of narrative devices and artfully established intertextual allusions across both time and genres.

Biblical Chronology in the Hellenistic World Chronicles

Chronography became a discipline of its own during the Alexandrian age. Herodotus and Thucydides still reckoned the remote past by generations. But from 300 B.C. onward learned men of Alexandria attempted to assign more or less precise dates for notable events. Homeric scholars dated the fall of Troy 407 years prior to the first Olympic games in 776 B.C., i.e., 1184 B.C. Eratosthenes of Cyrene asserted that this was the first datable event of human history, giving an unmistakable demarcation line between mythology and history. For the Orientals, whose records reputedly went back to the time when gods and semi-gods held sway over man, Eratosthenes' Greek-colored view of ancient history appeared myopic. Perhaps to match the Orientals, Greek writers manufactured genealogical tables which traced the pedigrees of famous Greek cities to remote antiquity with their autochthonous progenitors. To create order among the conflicting claims, during the second century B.C., the universal chronicle made its appearance. In the universal chronicles the Greek and Oriental genealogical lists followed each other, were synchronized, or even tabulated.

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access The Universal Chronicle of Ranulf Higden. By JOHN TAYLOR. Pp. xii + 198. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966. 35s. net. ANNE HUDSON ANNE HUDSON Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume XVIII, Issue 70, May 1967, Pages 185–187, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XVIII.70.185 Published: 01 May 1967