Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles 190315345X, 9781903153451

Table of contents :
List of plates vi
Acknowledgements viii
Abbreviations ix
A note on quotations and translations x
Introduction 1
1. The rhetoric of confidence in the prologues to Anglo-Norman prose chronicles 26
2. The legendary history of Britain in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles 40
3. Legends of English heroes: Engel, Havelok, Constance 74
4. Representations of the Norman Conquest in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles 105
5. Family chronicles 141
Conclusions 162
Appendix: Two extracts from the "Scalacronica": texts and translations 165
Bibliography 174
Index 197

Citation preview

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS York Medieval Press is published by the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Limited. Our objective is the promotion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture. We have a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Centre’s belief that the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas in which its major constituent disciplines at once inform and challenge each other.

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Publications of York Medieval Press are listed at the back of this volume.

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles

John Spence

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS

© John Spence 2013 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of John Spence to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2013 A York Medieval Press publication in association with The Boydell Press an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com and with the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York ISBN 978-1-903153-45-1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

CONTENTS List of plates

vi

Acknowledgements

viii

Abbreviations

ix

A note on quotations and translations

x

Introduction

1

1.

The rhetoric of confidence in the prologues to Anglo-Norman prose chronicles

26

2. The legendary history of Britain in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles

40

3. Legends of English heroes: Engel, Havelok, Constance

74

4.

5.

Representations of the Norman Conquest in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles

105

Family chronicles

141

Conclusions

162

Appendix: Two extracts from the Scalacronica: texts and translations

165

Bibliography

174

Index

197

v

PLATES Plate 1: Roundels of kings Alfred and Arthur in London, British Library, MS Cotton Roll XV.7, m. 4r. © The British Library Board. MS Cotton Roll XV.7, m. 4r. All Rights Reserved. Plate 2: Depiction and account of the Norman Conquest in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII, fol. 3v. © The British Library Board. MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII, fol. 3v. All Rights Reserved.

vi

The publishers acknowledge the generous financial support of the Marc Fitch Fund in the production of this volume. The publication has been made possible by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation, in association with the Institute for Historical Research.

vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for providing the funding to support the early stages of this project. I am also grateful to the Members’ English Fund, Cambridge, and to the Jebb Fund, Cambridge, which both provided additional grants that enabled the early parts of my research. I gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of the Marc Fitch Fund and the Scouloudi Foundation. An earlier version of the material in the first half of Chapter 5 of this book appeared as ‘Genealogies of Noble Families in Anglo-Norman’, in Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain and France, ed. R. L. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 16 (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 63–77. I am grateful to Brepols Publishers for permission to reprint this. Without the guidance of Judith Weiss this book would not have been written. Without Jocelyn Wogan-Browne’s encouragement, it would not have been published. I have also benefited greatly from the advice of Marianne Ailes, Elizabeth Archibald, Laura Ashe, James Carley, Julia Crick, A. S. G. Edwards, Mary Flannery, Thelma Fenster, Sarah James, Edward Donald Kennedy, Erik Kooper, Olivier de Laborderie, Françoise Le Saux, Julia Marvin, Richard Moll, Victoria Moul, Heather Pagan, Christopher Page, Nick Paul, Lisa Ruch, Andrea Ruddick, Corinne Saunders, John Scattergood, Jean-Claude Thiolier, Elisabeth van Houts, Diane Vincent, Dan Wakelin, Paul Webster, Barry Windeatt and Neil Wright. The anonymous reader for York Medieval Press provided valuable suggestions and I am grateful to the editorial boards and staff of York Medieval Press and Boydell & Brewer for their support and hard work. I also thank the staff of all the libraries I visited during my research. The two images in the book are reproduced with the permission of the British Library. My beloved wife, Yu-Chiao Wang, supported me through the writing process both intellectually and emotionally: I owe her a great debt. I was also supported by the rest of my family: my children Beatrice and Edward, my sister Bex, her husband Joe and their daughter Kara Hogan, and George and Sue Spence, my parents. This book is dedicated to my mum and dad.

viii

ABBREVIATIONS Add. ANTS BL Bodl. CA

Additional Anglo-Norman Text Society London, British Library Oxford, Bodleian Library Confessio Amantis, in The English Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay, 2 vols, EETS e.s., 81–2 (London, New York and Toronto, 1900) Cam. Cambridge Cam., CCC Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Cam., Trin. Cambridge, Trinity College Crick, HRB, iv J. C. Crick, The Historia regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth: 4. Dissemination and Reception in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1991) CT Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, in The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. L. D. Benson (Oxford, 1987) CUL Cambridge, University Library Dean, ANL R. J. Dean with M. B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, ANTS Occasional Publications Series 3 (London, 1999) DNB Dictionary of National Biography, ed. L. Stephen et al., 66 vols. (Oxford, 1975; 1st edn 1885–1900) EETS Early English Text Society e.s. extra series FFW Fouke le Fitz Waryn, ed. by E. J. Hathaway, P. T. Ricketts, C. A. Robson and A. D. Wilshere, ANTS 26–8 (Oxford, 1976) GRA William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, completed, and with introduction and commentary, by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–9) HA Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. D. Greenway, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1996) HKB Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of the De Gestis Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae], ed. M. D. Reeve, trans. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 2009; repr. from 2007) HRB, i The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth I: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS. 568, ed. N. Wright (Cambridge, 1984) ix

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles HRB, ii

Ker, MLGB Ker, MMBL Legge, ANL LRB LRE ME n.s. o.s. Oxford DNB

Petit Bruit Polychronicon PL SEMC Wace, Brut Wace, Rou

The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth II: The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition, ed. N. Wright (Cambridge, 1988) N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn (London, 1964; 1st edn 1941) N. R. Ker et al., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1969–2002) M. D. Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford, 1963) Le Livere de Reis de Brittanie Le Livere de Reis de Engleterre Middle English new series original series Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, 60 vols. (Oxford, 2004), and in many cases updated online at http://www.oxforddnb.com, online version accessed during 2011 Rauf de Boun, Le Petit Bruit, ed. D. B. Tyson, ANTS Plain Texts Series 4 (London, 1987) Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, ed. C. Babington and J. R. Lumby, Rolls Series, 9 vols. (London, 1865–86) Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Latina, gen. ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–64) An Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle, ed. E. Zettl, EETS o.s. 196 (London, 1935) Wace’s Roman de Brut: A History of the British, [ed. I. Arnold, rev. J. Weiss,] trans. J. Weiss, 2nd edn (Exeter, 2002; 1st edn 1999) Le Roman de Rou de Wace, ed. A. J. Holden, 3 vols., Société des Anciens Textes Français (Paris, 1970–3)

A note on quotations and translations In quotations of Anglo-Norman works throughout this book, whether from editions, transcripts by others, or my own transcripts from manuscripts, I have regularised the language to conform to the editorial conventions adopted in the editions of the Anglo-Norman Text Society (although I have not supplied cedillas where these are not in the edition). I have frequently used published translations to accompany quotations; where no translation is attributed, I have prepared the translations of these quotations myself.

x

INTRODUCTION Adam, le premer homme qe unques fust, entendi et savoit bien de trois choses qe fussent a vener. C’est assavoir de deus jugementz par lesquels Dieux voleit le monde ajuger: le premer jugement par eve, qe vint en le tenps Noe; l’autre jugement par feu. Encontre cels deus jugementz il fist deus piliers: l’un de marbre, encontre l’eve; et l’autre de tighel ou de tai, encontre le feu. En lesquels pielers il escrit tote manere art, qe cels qe venissent aprés lui purroient savoir le cours de siecle et lui avoir plus frechement en memorie. Adam, the first man that ever was, knew and understood well three things that were to come. That is, he knew of the two judgements by which God wished to judge the world: the first judgement by water, which came in the time of Noah; the other judgement by fire. To guard against these two judgements he made two pillars: one of marble, against the water, and the  other of tile or of clay, against the fire. On these pillars he wrote all kinds of knowledge, so that those who came after him could know the course of the world, and to recall the knowledge more clearly in his own memory.

With this beginning to its prologue, the Mohun Chronicle starts to make the case for its own existence. Written in the 1330s or 1340s for a noble family from Somerset, apparently by the abbot of a small Cistercian monastery, the text is an abridgement of various earlier historical works. Through these opening lines, it situates itself in a tradition of writings which act to preserve the sum of human knowledge. It locates the origin of this tradition with the father of the human race and his undertaking to preserve all knowledge in the face of both the Flood and the Last Judgement. It then explicitly draws out the parallel with its own function to preserve ‘les featz, les ditz, les nouns, les successions, et les bons mours de noz amis’ (‘the deeds, the sayings, the names, the lines of succession and the virtues of our kin’) from the past.1 This is a striking comparison, with a level of confidence on display that seems entirely unmerited given the chronicle’s subsequent obscurity. It raises the question of how this work, so saturated with a sense of self-importance, could have been so little regarded in its own time and almost completely out of sight ever since. The answer lies in its position near the end of a lengthy tradition of historical writing in Anglo-Norman prose, albeit one that stretches back to the late twelfth century

1

J. Spence, ‘The Mohun Chronicle: an Introduction, Edition and Translation’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 55 (2011), 149–215 (pp. 170–1, ll. 2–8, 14–15).

1

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles rather than to Adam. Anglo-Norman prose chronicles were an important element of multilingual cultural production in late medieval England. Literary historians have increasingly emphasised that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were a period of continual interplay between the languages of medieval England. There was a thriving tradition of Latin literature and an already vibrant vernacular literature written in Anglo-Norman (the dialect of Old French written and spoken in England). Over these centuries this literary culture was supplemented by Middle English literary production, culminating in the writings of late medieval England’s most celebrated poets at the end of the period: Langland, Chaucer, Gower and the Gawainpoet. Anglo-Norman works circulating in this period have more often been objects of scholarly attention in the last few decades, as more scholars have argued that the study of medieval literature in England must pay close attention to Anglo-Norman writing. For instance, Susan Crane has remarked that in this period ‘Middle English is in fruitful dialogue with Anglo-Norman literature’,2 and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne has described how Anglo-Norman texts constituted the majority of women’s trilingual reading material during the thirteenth century.3 Anglo-Norman prose chronicles were a major element of this multilingual literary culture, as I will outline in this introduction. They drew on sources in Latin and French, but also sometimes in English. They contain important little-known analogues for works in Latin, Anglo-Norman verse and Middle English. Some of these Anglo-Norman chronicles were translated into Middle English and even Latin, and they also inspired poetry by later English writers, most famously Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale.

Choosing to write chronicles in Anglo-Norman prose There was no historical writing in Anglo-Norman prose until the end of the twelfth century, and little before the second half of the thirteenth, but the end of the thirteenth century and most of the fourteenth saw a great deal of such 2

3

S. Crane, ‘Anglo-Norman Cultures’, in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. D. Wallace (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 35–60 (p. 51). J. Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture c.1150–1300: Virginity and its Authorizations (Oxford, 2001), pp. 12–16. Recent works on Anglo-Norman’s significance include Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England c.1100–c.1500, ed. J. Wogan-Browne et al. (York, 2009); Medieval Multilingualism: The Francophone World and its Neighbours, ed. C. Kleinhenz and K. Busby (Turnhout, 2010), which provides a wider geographical context, looking at multilingual communities where French was used alongside Italian and other Romance dialects, as well as Dutch and Germanic languages, and even Hebrew; and A. Butterfield, The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language and Nation in the Hundred Years War (Oxford, 2009), which looks at it within a continuum of different dialects of both French and English between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.

2

Introduction literature produced. The increasing use of prose in Anglo-Norman literature was not confined to historical writing, as an examination of Ruth Dean’s catalogue of Anglo-Norman Literature demonstrates,4 but this development was particularly marked in the genre of historiography: only one widely read Anglo-Norman chronicle, Pierre de Langtoft’s Chronique, was written in verse after the twelfth century. The predominant view among linguists who study Anglo-Norman is that it was not a true vernacular in the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but rather a second learned language.5 However, Richard Ingham in particular has been challenging that view and arguing that Anglo-Norman may well have been a living language for the minority of English people who used it (albeit one heavily influenced by its close contact with English).6 Yet as the vitality of medieval literature in Latin illustrates, literature did not need to be written in a living vernacular to be valued and influential.7 Anglo-Norman was moreover used more frequently in legal and administrative documentation from the second half of the thirteenth century: a key factor in the later history of the language’s use. Helen Suggett surveyed this subject in the 1940s,8 and in the last few decades, linguists including William Rothwell, David Trotter and Laura Wright have carefully examined the development of later Anglo-Norman in the official documents of the day, demonstrating that it was still a developing technical language throughout the fourteenth century.9 4

5

6

7

8

9

R. J. Dean with M. B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, ANTS Occasional Publications Series 3 (London, 1999) (hereafter Dean, ANL). D. A. Kibbee, ‘Historical Perspectives on the Place of Anglo-Norman in the History of the French Language’, French Studies 54 (2000), 137–53, provides a survey of earlier debate on the topic and makes the consensus explicit; see further R. A. Lodge, ‘Language Attitudes and Linguistic Norms in France and England in the Thirteenth Century’, Thirteenth Century England 4 (1991), 73–83; S. Crane, ‘Social Aspects of Bilingualism in the Thirteenth Century’, Thirteenth Century England 6 (1997), 103–15; Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain, ed. D. A. Trotter (Cambridge, 2000). R. Ingham, ‘Later Anglo-Norman as a Contact Variety of French?’, in The AngloNorman Language and its Contexts, ed. R. Ingham (York, 2010), at pp. 8–25, is a challenge to the consensus which builds on much of Ingham’s earlier writing; cf. also H. Pagan, ‘The Later Anglo-Norman Language Paradox: A Vibrant Language in its Death Throes?’, Le Moyen Français 68 (2011), 95–106. See e.g. E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask, 7th edn (Princeton, NJ, 1990; 1st edn 1953; first printed in German in 1948); A. G. Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066–1422 (Cambridge, 1992). H. Suggett, ‘The Use of French in England in the Later Middle Ages’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, 28 (1946), 61–83. See e.g. W. Rothwell, ‘Language and Government in Medieval England’, Zeitschrift für französisches Sprache und Literatur 93 (1983), 258–70; W. Rothwell, ‘The “Faus Franceis d’Angleterre”: Later Anglo-Norman’, in Anglo-Norman Anniversary Essays, ed. I. Short, ANTS Occasional Publications Series 2 (London, 1993), pp. 309–26; D. A. Trotter, ‘“Mossenhor, fet metre aquestra letra en bon francés”: Anglo-French in Gascony’, in De mot en mot: Aspects of Medieval Linguistics. Essays in honour of

3

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles In the twelfth century, the use of Old French prose for administration in England had been sporadic. Some laws had been translated into AngloNorman, some even drafted in the language, and very occasionally charters and petitions had been written in Anglo-Norman as well.10 Over the course of the thirteenth century documents written in French grew in number.11 The diplomatic documents collected in Rymer’s Foedera show that over the third quarter of the thirteenth century, while the majority of documentation remained in Latin, French was used increasingly by the Crown for diplomacy and less official correspondence.12 As Rothwell has noted, in the second half of the thirteenth century Anglo-Norman became more common as a language of central government record, as it began appearing in statutes and parliamentary records late in Henry III’s reign.13 With Edward I’s accession to the throne, the production of records in Anglo-Norman continued to increase. Statutes were often made in AngloNorman instead of Latin from 1275, a practice which continued until late in the fifteenth century.14 Letters recorded on the Patent, Close and Plea Rolls began to be written in Anglo-Norman during Edward I’s reign.15 Legal proceedings were often recorded in Anglo-Norman, most famously in the Year Books, which originated in Edward I’s reign,16 but Anglo-Norman was also used to document other legal proceedings such as eyres17 and cases before the king’s council.18 By the early fourteenth century, Anglo-Norman was a lan-

10

11

12

13 14

15

16 17

18

William Rothwell, ed. S. Gregory and D. A. Trotter (Cardiff, 1997), pp. 199–222; L. Wright, ‘Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English in a London Text: An Inquisition of the River Thames, 1421’, in De Mot en Mot, ed. Gregory and Trotter, pp. 223–60. W. Rothwell, ‘The Role of French in Thirteenth-Century England’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 58:2 (spring 1976), 445–66 (p. 457); J. M. Beer, Early Prose in France: Contexts of Bilingualism and Authority (Kalamazoo, MI, 1992), Chapter 3, pp. 65–89; Rothwell, ‘Language and Government’, p. 262. This was of course part of the wider movement towards the use of written documents in law and administration, the process surveyed (with particular reference to England, although the same point could certainly be made of French-speaking countries on the Continent) in M. T. Clanchy’s major study From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1993; 1st edn 1979). Foedera, conventiones, literæ [. . .], ed. by T. Rymer, R. Sanderson and G. Holmes, 10 vols. (Farnborough, 1967; first printed 1739–45), I, part 2, pp. 13–167. Rothwell, ‘Language and Government’, p. 262. The Statutes of the Realm, 11 vols. (London, 1963; first printed 1810–28), I, from p. 26; II, 499–523. Published calendars of these rolls conceal this linguistic shift, but examples from Edward I’s reign can be found in Parliamentary Writs [. . .], ed. F. Palgrave, 4 vols. (London, 1827–34), I, 155, 160–1, 180, 284, 320–73, 381–404. J. Nicholson, Register of Manuscripts of Year Books Extant (London, 1956). See e.g. The Eyre of Northamptonshire 3–4 Edward III, ed. D. W. Sutherland, 2 vols., Selden Society 97–8 (London, 1983). Select Cases before the King’s Council 1243–1482, ed. I. S. Leadam and J. F. Baldwin, Selden Society 35 (Cambridge, MA, 1918), pp. 2–97.

4

Introduction guage of record for local as well as central administration. Correspondence was frequently written in Anglo-Norman, whether the recipient was the royal administration, a local official or landowner, or a member of the correspondent’s household.19 Anglo-Norman French continued to be used in all of these spheres during the fourteenth century.20 It was not until the end of the fourteenth century that the bilingual use of French and Latin in official records in England was modified by the increasing use of English. Up to this point, Middle English had not been an official language of record in any of these spheres of influence, even though it was in use orally in the English courts and in Parliament. However, from the beginning of the fifteenth century, English was increasingly used as an authoritative vernacular in the records of central government and then also in local administration.21 The development of Anglo-Norman prose historical writing not only reflected the development of the official use of the language in documents: the tone and style of historical works was also influenced by these documents. The Anglo-Norman chronicles of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries employed the lineaments of this new documentary language to create authority for their texts. The Anglo-Norman texts that would have been most familiar to the authors, scribes and readers of these chronicles were deeds, letters, statutes and administrative and legal treatises in Anglo-Norman.22 Phrases from these documents and handbooks are used to structure the Anglo-Norman historical writing of the later medieval period. This bolstered the authority of these texts in the same way as the documents copied into the Latin historical

19

20 21

22

For examples of such Anglo-Norman correspondence see Recueil des lettres anglofrançaises (1265–1399), ed. F. J. Tanquerey (Paris, 1916); Anglo-Norman Letters and Petitions from All Souls MS 182, ed. M. D. Legge, ANTS 3 (Oxford, 1941); The War of Saint-Sardos: Gascon Correspondence and Diplomatic Documents, ed. P. Chaplais, Camden Society, 3rd series 87 (London, 1954); Suggett, ‘Use of French’. As surveyed in Suggett, ‘Use of French’. J. H. Fisher, The Emergence of Standard English (Lexington, 1996), has argued for the adoption of English as an official written language by the Lancastrians; W. M.  Ormrod, ‘The Use of English: Language, Law, and Political Culture in Fourteenth-Century England’, Speculum 78 (2003), 750–87, suggests that its official use developed more slowly and uncertainly in the late fourteenth century, in both written and oral contexts; see now also G. Dodd, ‘The Spread of English in the Records of Central Government, 1400–1430’, in Vernacularity in England and Wales c.1300–1550, ed. E. Salter and H. Wicker, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 17 (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 225–66. The scribes who transcribed these chronicles also produced legal documents and cartularies: for the most prominent example, the celebrated scribe of MS Harley 2253, who also copied Fouke le Fitz Waryn, see C. Revard, ‘Scribe and Provenance’, in Studies in the Harley Manuscript: The Scribes, Contents, and Social Contexts of British Library MS Harley 2253, ed. S Fein (Kalamazoo, MI, 2000), pp. 21–109.

5

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles works by monastic writers.23 This is a fundamental difference from the earlier Anglo-Norman verse histories (which are in other respects models for these later works): while the earlier authors certainly drew attention to their use of historical sources, they were not interested in making their poems look like documents.24 Perhaps the most obvious borrowing is the use of stock phrases from documents such as charters. Many late medieval charters written in Latin begin with phrases such as ‘Sciant tam presentes quam futuri’,25 and this could appear translated as ‘Fet assavoir’ or ‘Faict a remembraunce’26 in AngloNorman charters or translated explanations of Latin charters. In the same way, Anglo-Norman prose chronicles announce key facts by prefacing them with ‘Fait assavoir’.27 In the same vein, the phrase ‘c’est assavoir’, meaning ‘that is to say’, is frequently used in translations of Latin documents,28 and so it is not surprising that it appears frequently in other translations (such as those from Latin historical texts) and in original Anglo-Norman compositions, including prose histories.29 By using these stock phrases at the beginning of many sentences, Anglo-Norman historical writing acquires an air of authority as it proclaims and glosses its narrative like a charter.30 The relationship between these two modes of writing went further than such echoes in vocabulary. Indeed, a distinction between documents and histories was not always maintained. The original version of the AngloNorman prose Brut, for example, includes in its account of King John’s reign 23

24

25

26 27

28 29

30

On the latter see A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 2 vols. (London, 1974– 82), I, 361–4, 367. Cf. P. Damian-Grint, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Inventing Vernacular Authority (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 105–14. This example is from Oxford, Bodleian Library (hereafter Bodl.), MS Dugdale 39, fol. 55r. Bodl. MS Dugdale 39, fol. 54v. For example, the Mohun Chronicle uses the phrase to announce the arrival of William the Conqueror and the Mohuns in England (cf. Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, p. 194, Extract I, ll. 1–2), while early examples in the Scalacronica are found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (hereafter Cam., CCC), MS 133, at fol. 4rb (announcing that all the Egyptian rulers were called pharoahs); fol. 5vb (announcing that there were several Sibyls); and fol. 6va (announcing the numbers of Trojans killed in the Trojan war). There is again an example on fol. 54v of Bodl. MS Dugdale 39. E.g. in Rauf de Boun, Le Petit Bruit, ed. D. B. Tyson, ANTS Plain Texts Series 4 (London, 1987) (hereafter Petit Bruit), at p. 22, l. 21; in Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’ (p. 170, l. 3); in the Scalacronica (Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 1vb). Middle English literature could similarly echo this documentary style as a literary effect, as in the works of Thomas Hoccleve and Piers Plowman: see e.g. E. Knapp, The Bureaucratic Muse: Thomas Hoccleve and the Literature of Late Medieval England (University Park, PA, 2001); E. Steiner, Documentary Culture and the Making of Middle English Literature (Cambridge, 2003).

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Introduction a translation of an entire royal charter.31 Later continuations of the prose Brut and other Anglo-Norman chronicles of English history sometimes incorporated large numbers of official documents in order to add weight to their historical accounts, occasionally overwhelming these accounts altogether.32 Even when the document was not transcribed, it could still be cited to verify the chronicle’s narrative, as in the case of a papal bull confirming the foundation of Newenham Abbey: we are told that Reynold de Mohun, returning from the papal court, ‘reporta bulles que enquore [aurent] en plomps’ (‘brought back bulls, which they still had in lead boxes’).33 Conversely, cartularies – books filled with copies of documents – belonging to aristocratic families or religious houses sometimes included passages of prose history written in Anglo-Norman. The cartulary and register of Newenham Abbey, for example, contain several passages of local history in Anglo-Norman prose.34 The fourteenth-century register of Crabhouse nunnery begins with a history of the foundation in Anglo-Norman, in a mixture of prose and verse: indeed, it is difficult to say where the history ends and the documents begin.35 At other times, Anglo-Norman chronicles were copied as integral parts of legal manuscripts.36 However, even though Anglo-Norman was established as a language of law and administration, it was not exactly interchangeable with Latin, which remained more authoritative but less familiar. Ad Putter notes, while discussing an intriguing fourteenth-century Anglo-Norman letter from an abbot to his lover, that in letter writing ‘French was the obvious language for secular business and the affairs of the noble household. French was therefore also the language par excellence of the love letter’.37 Some Anglo-Norman texts providing instruction in the language give conversational examples which are remarkably personal, the most striking being an exchange with a prostitute in

31

32

33

34 35

36 37

The Oldest Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle, ed. J. Marvin, Medieval Chronicles 4 (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 276–8, ll. 3868–910; see also the note at p. 341; cf. Prose Brut to 1332, ed. H. Pagan, ANTS 69 (Manchester, 2012 for 2011), pp. 165–6, ll. 4971–5029, and note at p. 235. See J. Spence, ‘Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles and Their Audiences’, English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700 14 (2008), 27–59 (at pp. 32, 41, 45–6). Quotation and translation from Spence ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 198–9, Extract IV, ll. 14–15. Bodl. MS Top. Devon. d.5: see Spence, ‘Audiences’, p. 33. M. Bateson, ‘The Register of Crabhouse Nunnery’, Norfolk Archæology 11 (1892), 1–71. For a discussion of cartulary-chronicles, see J.-P. Genet, ‘Cartulaires, registres et histoire: l’exemple anglais’, in Le Métier d’Historien au Moyen Âge: études sur l’historiographie médiévale, ed. B. Guenée, Publications de la Sorbonne, série ‘Études’ 13 (Paris, 1977), pp. 95–138. Spence, ‘Audiences’, p. 45. A. Putter, ‘The French of English Letters: Two Trilingual Verse Epistles in Context’, in Language and Culture, ed. Wogan-Browne et al., pp. 397–408 (p. 403).

7

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles the Manières de Langage.38 In the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, therefore, Anglo-Norman prose was not only a widespread language of official documentation; it was also one of intimate familiarity. Historians of this period found in Anglo-Norman a uniquely adaptable and liberating medium: a perfect vehicle, in fact, for rewriting history.

Anglo-Norman prose chronicles: their inheritance Anglo-Norman prose chronicles drew on, and formed part of, a distinctively insular culture of historical writing. The Latin chroniclers who provided the source material for most of these works were almost all from the British Isles. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history of British kings written between 1123 and 1139, the Historia Regum Britannie, was a direct or indirect source for nearly all the Anglo-Norman chronicles.39 William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum and Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, written at around the same time, provided information about the Anglo-Saxon period which was used by later historians writing in Anglo-Norman.40 All three of these Latin writers looked back to Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (written c.731) as a model, and this earlier work also exerted an influence on Anglo-Norman chroniclers, though usually this was less direct. The later medieval fashion for universal histories in Latin also altered the course of Anglo-Norman historical writing. One such Continental work, Martinus Polonus’s Chronicon Pontificium et Imperatorum, written in the mid-thirteenth century, found popularity in England and had some direct influence on Anglo-Norman historical literature.41 Ranulf Higden’s massive 38

39

40

41

W. Rothwell, ‘The Teaching of French in Medieval England’, Modern Language Review 63 (1968), 37–46 (p. 45). On this work see in particular The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth I: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS. 568, ed. N. Wright (Cambridge, 1984) (hereafter HRB, I), pp. ix–xx; J. C. Crick, The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 4, Dissemination and Reception in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1991) (hereafter Crick, HRB, IV), pp. 196–226; and the latest edition and translation, which is likely to become definitive: Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of the De Gestis Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae], ed. M. D. Reeve, trans. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 2009; repr. from 2007) (hereafter HKB). On the date of composition see HKB, p. vii. For fuller discussion see Chapter 2 below, pp. 40–73. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, completed, and with introduction and commentary, by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–9) (hereafter GRA); Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. D. Greenway, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1996) (hereafter HA). One Anglo-Norman prose chronicle, the Mohun Chronicle, used Martinus Polonus’s Chronicon as a major source: see below, pp. 18–19.

8

Introduction Polychronicon (c.1327),42 which incorporated much material from the five writers named above, came to enjoy great prominence in fourteenth-century England,43 and changed the course of Anglo-Norman prose historiography by popularising the genre of universal history, although only one AngloNorman prose chronicle names it as a direct source. Uniquely in Europe, England also had a distinguished tradition of vernacular historical literature stretching back beyond the Norman Conquest, in the form of the various versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.44 These early productions of prose vernacular historical writing in England may have been a factor in the later enthusiasm for historical literature in Anglo-Norman prose: at least one Anglo-Norman prose chronicle seems to have been aware of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which had indirectly become one of its main sources.45 The first historian known to have written in Anglo-Norman (indeed, in any dialect of Old French) was Geffrei Gaimar, who wrote his Estoire des Engleis in octosyllabic couplets between 1135 and 1140, basing it mainly on the AngloSaxon Chronicle. Only four manuscripts of the Estoire survive, but it served as the main source of the prose Brut’s account of Anglo-Saxon history, ensuring its narrative a much wider audience.46 All the manuscripts which preserve Gaimar’s Estoire also contain Wace’s Roman de Brut, a translation into Norman French of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie. Wace’s Brut enjoyed considerable popularity from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries both in England and on the Continent,

42

43

44

45

46

Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, ed. C. Babington and J. R. Lumby, Rolls Series, 9 vols. (London, 1865–86) (hereafter Polychronicon). See J. Taylor, The Universal Chronicle of Ranulf Higden (Oxford, 1966), pp. 106–9, 134–47, 152–9. For a brief overview, see D. G. Scragg, ‘Secular Prose’, in A Companion to AngloSaxon  Literature, ed. P. Pulsiano and E. Treharne (Oxford, 2001), pp. 268–80 (pp. 276–9). The prose Brut notes that Alfred the Great ‘fist escrivre un livre Engleis des aventures et des leis e des batailles de la terre’ (‘had an English book written concerning the happenings and laws and battles of the land’) (Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 206–7, at ll. 2528–9; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 120, ll. 3920–1), a comment taken verbatim from Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis: see Geffrei Gaimar: Estoire des Engleis (History of the English), ed. and trans. I. Short (Oxford, 2009) (hereafter Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short), ll. 3449–51; cf. Geffrei Gaimar, L’Estoire des Engleis, ed. A. Bell, ANTS 14–16 (Oxford, 1960) (hereafter Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell), ll. 3445–8. Dean, ANL, no. 1, pp. 1–2; Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, pp. ix–xxiii, li–lxxvii; I. Short, ‘Gaimar’s Epilogue and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Liber vetustissimus’, Speculum 69 (1994), 323–43 (pp. 333–8); M. D. Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford, 1963) (hereafter Legge, ANL), pp. 27–36; J. Gillingham, ‘Gaimar, the Prose Brut and the Making of English History’, in The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity and Political Values (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 113–22; J. Marvin, ‘Sources and Analogues of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle: New Findings’, Trivium 35 (2006 for 2005), 1–32 (p. 8): I am grateful to Dr Marvin who sent me a copy of this article prior to its publication.

9

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles as attested by the thirty-one extant manuscripts and fragments, and by its wider influence, both in historical writing (such as its translation by Layamon into Middle English) and in other genres, particularly romance. Although Wace himself was not an Anglo-Norman writer, approximately half the manuscripts of the Roman de Brut that survive are Anglo-Norman, and it was a key influence on Anglo-Norman prose chroniclers.47 His other chronicle, the unfinished Roman de Rou, which recounted the history of the Norman dukes, the Norman Conquest and the subsequent English kings, also had at least some influence on later Anglo-Norman chronicles.48 For over a century after their composition, Wace’s Brut and Gaimar’s Estoire remained the key texts in Anglo-Norman historiography.49 However, one of the last verse chronicles written in Anglo-Norman quickly came to rival these earlier works’ popularity. Pierre Langtoft, an Augustinian canon of Bridlington, in Yorkshire, wrote his Chronique in the early fourteenth century. This traced British and English history from legendary founder Brutus to the events of Edward I’s reign. His main source for the legendary history of Britain was Wace’s Brut; after this he drew on a number of Latin chronicles until the reign of Edward I, where his account is independent. There are nineteen manuscripts of part or all of Langtoft’s Chronique, most of which were written within a few years of the Chronique itself. Langtoft’s account of Edward I’s reign was to become the source for the first continuation of the Anglo-Norman prose Brut, gaining an even wider audience for centuries to come.50 47

48

49

50

See Wace’s Roman de Brut: A History of the British, [ed. I. Arnold, rev. J. Weiss,] trans. J. Weiss, 2nd edn (Exeter, 2002; 1st edn 1999) (hereafter Wace, Brut), pp. xxvii–xxix; Dean, ANL, no. 2, pp. 2–3. On its influence in Anglo-Norman prose historical writing, see below pp. 16, 22, and Chapter 2. Dean, ANL, no. 2.1, pp. 3–4; Le Roman de Rou de Wace, ed. A. J. Holden, 3 vols., Société des Anciens Textes Français (Paris, 1970–3) (hereafter Wace, Rou). Holden’s text is reprinted in Wace, The Roman de Rou, trans. G. S. Burgess, with notes by G. S. Burgess and E. van Houts (St Helier, Jersey, 2002). For the Mohun Chronicle’s use of the Rou, see Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 157–8, 200, 207. Although a number of other verse translations of Geoffrey’s Historia and at least one other verse history of English kings were composed, these seem to have been largely passed over by readers in favour of Gaimar and Wace: see Dean, ANL, nos. 3, 15, 16, 17, 24, 50, pp. 5, 15, 16, 20, 35, and Damian-Grint, New Historians, pp. 61–5, for these texts, and also I. Short, ‘Un Roman de Brut anglo-normand inédit’, Romania 126 (2008), 273–95. Other important works of Anglo-Norman verse historiography from the twelfth century include Jordan Fantosme’s account of the wars of 1173–4, the account of the first Anglo-Norman campaign in Ireland, known as The Song of Dermot and the Earl, and the account of the Third Crusade by Ambroise: see Dean, ANL, nos. 54, 55, 56.1, pp. 37, 38 for details. Although valued by modern historians, these works were not widely disseminated in the Middle Ages. Dean, ANL, nos. 66–8, pp. 43–6; Pierre de Langtoft: Le Règne d’Édouard Ier, ed. J.-C. Thiolier (Créteil, 1989); The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, ed. W. A. Wright, Rolls Series, 2 vols. (London, 1866); T. Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives: The Design of Past and Present in the early fourteenth-century verse chronicles by Pierre de Langtoft and Robert Mannyng (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA, 1998), Chapters 2–5, pp. 15–128.

10

Introduction Alongside Anglo-Norman verse chronicles, some Continental Old French prose chronicles also influenced Anglo-Norman prose historians, though their impact was comparatively slight. The Latin Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle was translated a number of times into Old French prose in the course of the thirteenth century.51 One of these translations was made by the Anglo-Norman writer William de Briane in the early thirteenth century, and was thus one of the earliest pieces of prose historical writing in Anglo-Norman.52 Over a century later, the author of the Mohun Chronicle raided a Continental Old French translation of the Pseudo-Turpin, attributed to Johannes, for a passage with which to conclude his prologue.53 Other Continental French historiography, such as chronicles of ancient history and French history, seems to have had even less overt influence on Anglo-Norman prose historiography. Some verse chronicles in Middle English appear to have had closer connections with Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, even if the nature of these connections is not always clear. No direct textual connections can be drawn between the earliest English verse chronicles by Layamon and ‘Robert of Gloucester’, although they can sometimes be found in the same manuscripts.54 However, the Short English Metrical Chronicle, dating from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, is closely related to the Anglo-Norman prose Brute Abregé.55 Robert Mannyng’s Chronicle (completed in 1338), although based mainly on Wace’s Brut and Langtoft’s Chronique, also includes material which is closer to prose chronicles in Anglo-Norman.56 Literature from other genres, particularly romances in both English and French, but also hagiography, also provided a source of content for Anglo-Norman prose chronicles.57

Anglo-Norman prose chronicles: the corpus Possibly the earliest extant prose chronicle written in Anglo-Norman was a short history of the kings of England from the later Anglo-Saxon period to its time of composition (the reign of Richard I).58 This particular work does 51

52

53 54 55 56 57

58

See G. M. Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 1993), pp. 69–73, 343–6 nn. 56–69. The Anglo-Norman Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle of William de Briane, ed. I. Short, ANTS 25 (Oxford, 1973), p. 3; Dean, ANL, no. 79, pp. 53–4. This translation is not discussed in Spiegel, Romancing the Past. See Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 158, 200–1. See Spence, ‘Audiences’, pp. 38–40. See below, p. 16 and n. 78. See below, Chapter 3, pp. 79–83, 92. For these chronicles’ use of romance and hagiographical material, see below, Chapters 2–5. D. Tyson, ‘An Early French Prose History of the Kings of England’, Romania 96 (1975),  1–26 (edited at pp. 10–13); Dean, ANL, no. 30, p. 22. There is another

11

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles not seem to have enjoyed widespread popularity (it survives in only one manuscript), but this kind of account of national history was to prove the most popular form for Anglo-Norman prose chronicles.59 In the reign of King John or Henry III, another short chronicle covering later Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest history was written: this is now known as the Livere de Reis de Brittanie (hereafter LRB).60 LRB provides a lively narrative of early English history (apparently drawn from Latin sources such as William of Malmesbury and Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon) and also gives brief details of post-Conquest kings.61 LRB gained great popularity and survives in at least twenty-eight manuscripts, almost all from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries.62 In some manuscripts LRB expands to include more details of recent history;63 in others, it acquires a ‘prequel’

59

60

61

62

63

twelfth-century Anglo-Norman prose history which may be earlier: see below, p. 19 and n. 92. I have used the term ‘national’ here and elsewhere to refer to something relating to the kingdom of England. In the ongoing debate over whether the term ‘nation’ is appropriate in referring to medieval countries, I find the arguments advanced for its use persuasive, albeit with the caveat that any medieval ‘nation’ has its own characteristics which are not those of a modern nation-state. For major discussions of this issue see Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. S. Forde, L. Johnson and A. V. Murray, Leeds Texts and Monographs n.s. 14 (Leeds, 1995); T. Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity, 1290–1340 (Oxford, 1996); Imagining a Medieval English Nation, ed. K. Lavezzo (Minneapolis, MN, 2004); and A. Ruddick, ‘National Sentiment and National Identity, c.1272–c.1377’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2005, which expands the discussion from literary to documentary sources. For an alternative view see Butterfield, Familiar Enemy, pp. xxviii–xxxix, 25–35, 131–5, who puts a vigorous case against using the terms ‘nation’ and ‘national’ in this way. Dean, ANL, no. 13, pp. 12–15; Le Livere de Reis de Brittanie e Le Livere de Reis de Engleterre, ed. and trans. J. Glover, Rolls Series (London, 1865), pp. 2–31; Kritische Ausgabe der Anglonormannischen Chroniken: Brutus, Li Rei de Engleterre, Le Livere de Reis de Engleterre, ed. C. Foltys (Berlin, 1962), pp. 45–114; Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, pp. 13–19. Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, pp. xvii, 11–27, identifies a large number of correspondences between William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum and LRB; for a correspondence with Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, see below, Chapter 3, p. 76 n. 11. Dean, ANL, no. 13, pp. 13–14, lists twenty-seven manuscripts. I have identified London, British Library, (hereafter BL) MS Cotton Nero D.II, fols. 242v–243v as a manuscript of LRB covering the period from the division of England into five kingdoms to the beginning of Edward I’s reign. Cam., CCC MS 405, fols. 6v–7r, contains a regnal list in Anglo-Norman which K. V. Sinclair believes may be related to LRB: see ‘Anglo-Norman at Waterford: The Mute Testimony of MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 405’, in Medieval French Textual Studies in Memory of T. B. W. Reid, ed. I. Short, ANTS Occasional Publications Series 1 (London, 1984), pp. 219–38 (p. 225). This is the case, for example, with the copy in Bodl. MS Top. Devon. d.5 (the cartulary of Newenham Abbey): on this manuscript, see Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 166–8.

12

Introduction which gives a version of the legendary history of Britain based ultimately on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie.64 LRB apparently also served as the source for the texts of genealogical rollchronicles of English kings which were produced from the reign of Edward I.65 These chronicles, dubbed ‘feudal manuals’ by Thomas Wright, add a genealogical diagram to accompany the text, and expand the accounts of Norman and Angevin kings. Most of these genealogical chronicles were written and drawn onto rolls, but some also survive in codices. Many feature one or more continuations, and some also have material on the legendary history of Britain added to the beginning of their text. The genealogical diagrams which accompany the text in these rolls appear to be indebted to similar diagrams incorporated into royal genealogies created by Matthew Paris, and the AngloNorman rolls share many features with a number of Latin and Middle English genealogical rolls.66 Like the LRB, the Anglo-Norman genealogical chronicles enjoyed great popularity, and at least thirty manuscripts are extant.67 One roll, 64 65

66

67

See Spence, ‘Audiences’, pp. 38–9, and Chapter 2, p. 47 below. On the close textual relationship between the texts, see C. Clark, ‘Appendix: The Anglo-Norman Chronicle’, in The Peterborough Chronicle (The Bodleian Manuscript Laud Misc. 636), ed. D. Whitelock, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 4 (Copenhagen, 1954), pp. 39–43. Notable studies of the genealogical rolls include D. Tyson, ‘The Manuscript Tradition of Old French Prose Brut Rolls’, Scriptorium 55:1 (2001), 107–18; W. H. Monroe, ’13th and Early 14th Century Illustrated Genealogical Manuscripts in Roll and Codex: Peter of Poitiers’ Compendium, Universal Histories and Chronicles of the Kings of England’, 3 vols., unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1989; O. de Laborderie, ‘Les généalogies des rois d’Angleterre sur rouleaux manuscrits (milieu XIIIe siècle– début XVe siècle). Conception, diffusion et fonctions’, in 120e congrès des sociétés historiques et scientifiques. Aix-en-Provence, 24–26 octobre 1995. Section anthropologie et ethnologie françaises, ed. T. Barthelemy and M. C. Pignaud (Paris, 1997), pp. 181–99; O. de Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”. Culture historique, répresentation du pouvoir royal et construction de la mémoire nationale en Angleterre à travers les généalogies royales en rouleau du milieu du XIIIe siècle au début du XVe siècle’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, EHESS, Paris, 2002. I am very grateful to Professeur de Laborderie for sending me an electronic copy of much of his dissertation (which offers many transcriptions and much analysis of the genealogical roll-chronicles which share the same textual tradition as LRB). O. de Laborderie, ‘A New Pattern for English History: The First Genealogical Rolls of the Kings of England’, in Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain and France, ed. R. L. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 16 (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 45–61 (pp. 48–9, 51–3). Dean, ANL, no. 6, pp. 7–8, lists eighteen extant medieval manuscripts and another copy, now lost, which belonged to Joseph Mayer and was edited in Feudal Manuals of English History, ed. T. Wright (London, 1872), pp. 1–37. At least another twelve surviving medieval manuscripts belong to the same textual tradition: I myself have examined Cambridge, University Library, (hereafter CUL) MS Dd.III.57, CUL MS Dd.III.58, CUL MS Oo.VII.32, BL MS Cotton Roll XIII.17 (an unusual version of the text), Bodl. MS Ashmole Roll 38 and Bodl. MS Broxbourne 112.3 (Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, independently reviewed these manuscripts and

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles dating from Edward III’s reign and now London, College of Arms, MS 20/2, also contains a full account of British history in Anglo-Norman prose from a separate textual tradition.68 The end of another account of English history in Anglo-Norman prose is preserved in a further roll, now London, College of Arms, MS 12/45B.69 At around the same time, longer national histories were also beginning to be written in Anglo-Norman prose. In the reign of Edward I, the Anglo-Norman prose Brut was written, drawing on Wace’s Brut, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie, Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis and a chronicle similar to those associated with Barlings Abbey in Lincolnshire and Waverley Abbey in Surrey.70 This recounts a narrative of British and English history from the arrival of Brutus to the death of Henry III. It exists in several redactions,71 attracted numerous continuations72 and acquired several versions of a prequel which explained how the indigenous giants who populated Albion before Brutus’s arrival were the descendants of the murderous princess Albine and her sisters (who, having been put adrift in a rudderless boat,

68

69 70

71

72

provided evidence for the same conclusion); the facsimiles of the ‘Chaworth Roll’ demonstrate that it is from the same tradition (see A. Bovey, The Chaworth Roll: A Fourteenth-Century Genealogy of the Kings of England (London, 2005)); London, College of Arms, MS 3/23 B can be identified as belonging to this tradition by information provided in Monroe, ‘Genealogical Manuscripts’, II, 552, and O. de Laborderie, J. R. Maddicott and D. A. Carpenter, ‘The Last Hours of Simon de Montfort: A New Account’, English Historical Review 115 (2000), 378–412 (pp. 383–4); Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, provides evidence that London, College of Arms, MS 20/5 also belongs to this tradition (pp. 1227–72), as does the last part of London, College of Arms, MS 12/45A (pp. 1206–14) and the last part of London, College of Arms, MS 20/2 (pp. 1109–21); and M. Lamont, ‘“Genealogical” History and the English Roll’, in Medieval Manuscripts, Their Makers and Users: A Special Issue of Viator in Honour of Richard and Mary Rouse (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 245–62, describes a further roll from this textual tradition, University of California, Los Angeles, MS Rouse 49. Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, gives a transcription of this MS at pp. 1080–121, and dates it to 1330–77, and probably 1341–4 (p. 277); D. B. Tyson, ‘The Old French Brut Rolls in the London College of Arms’, in Guerres, voyages et quêtes au Moyen Âge: Mélanges offerts à Jean-Claude Faucon, ed. A. Labbé, D. W. Lacroix and D. Quéruel, Colloques, congrès et conférences sur le Moyen Âge 2 (Paris, 2000), pp. 421–7, dates the roll to 1330–2 (p. 425). I have not seen this manuscript. See Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1334–7. Marvin, ‘Sources’; Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 20–41; Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 10–17. Julia Marvin views the Barlings chronicle as closer to the prose Brut’s source than the Waverley annals, but Heather Pagan has questioned this (p. 16). Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 47–52; Dean, ANL, nos. 36, 42, 44, 45, 46, pp. 24–7, 30, 31–3. A new edition of the version of the prose Brut where the narrative ends in 1332 has just been published: Prose Brut, ed. Pagan. The Anonimalle Chronicle 1307 to 1334 from Brotherton Collection MS 29, ed. W. R. Childs and J. Taylor, Yorkshire Archæological Society Record Series 147 (Leeds, 1991), pp. 15–24, 35–61; Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 47–9; Dean, ANL, nos. 36, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, pp. 24–7, 31–3, 34.

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Introduction had arrived on the island and mated with devils).73 Judging by the number of extant manuscripts, the prose Brut became the most popular of all AngloNorman chronicles: over fifty manuscripts or fragments survive.74 The prose Brut was twice translated into Latin and twice into Middle English: in the latter language it achieved even greater popularity during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and the most popular English translation survives in 181 manuscripts, as well as in thirteen printed editions made before 1530.75 The popularity of the prose Brut did not stop other long national histories from being produced at around the same time, although it may have limited their subsequent popularity. A history of English kings from the Anglo-Saxon period to 1274, now known as the Livere de Reis de Engleterre (hereafter LRE), was written during the reign of Edward I. It survives in three complete copies, two of which also include short and unique continuations.76 73

74

75

76

For a list of versions see Dean, ANL, nos. 37–41, pp. 27–30. The earliest version, which survives in nineteen manuscripts, was originally independent: see Des Grantz Geanz: An Anglo-Norman Poem, ed. G. E. Brereton, Medium Aevum Monographs 2 (Oxford, 1937), pp. vi–xxi. The other major version, surviving in ten manuscripts, is discussed, edited and translated in J. Marvin, ‘Albine and Isabelle: Regicidal Queens and the Historical Imagination of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicles’, Arthurian Literature 18 (2001), 143–91. See also Chapter 1, p. 27 below. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin corrects the classifications in Dean, ANL, nos. 36, 42, 44, 45, 46, pp. 24–7, 30–3 (Dean lists fifty-one manuscripts), and notes that Cambridge, Jesus College, MS Q. G. 10 (James 58) may be added: see also J.-C.  Thiolier, ‘La Scalacronica: Première Approche’, in Les manuscrits français de la bibliothèque Parker (Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge): Actes du Colloque 24–27 mars 1993, ed. N. Wilkins (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 121–55 (pp. 122–3). Marvin estimates that, depending on the classification of a prose Brut, between fifty-one and fifty-five manuscripts contain material from the chronicle (p. 1 n. 1). I believe I have identified two more manuscripts containing excerpts from the prose Brut and not mentioned in Marvin’s edition. The first is CUL MS Dd.X.32, fols. 63r–82r, covering the period between the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the death of Henry III: see Dean, ANL, no. 25, p. 21, which does not identify this text as a version of the prose Brut. I have made this identification by comparing the edition in Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 200 (cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 116–17), with the text on fol. 64r (the martyrdom of St Edmund): the two correspond closely. The second is Exeter Cathedral, MS 3514, p. 450, described in N. R. Ker et al., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1969–2002) (hereafter Ker, MMBL), II, 822–5 (p. 824). The incipit and explicit of the text, given by Ker, correspond to the text given in Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 256 (from the account of Henry II’s reign; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 152). L. M. Matheson, The prose Brut: the development of a Middle English chronicle (Tempe, AZ, 1998), pp. xxi–xxxvi, 6, 37–47. Dean, ANL, nos. 23, 26, 27, pp. 20, 21; Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, pp. 32–355; Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 115–235. Heather Pagan has suggested LRE may have been a source for the prose Brut: Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 15–16. Dean, ANL, no. 28, pp. 21–2, records an abridgement of LRE, which she dubs the Scottish Chronicle, preserved in Bodl. MS Rawlinson D.329. This has now been edited: ‘Scottish Chronicle’, in Three Anglo-Norman Chronicles, ed. P. T. Ricketts, ANTS Plain

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Another national history (albeit one which includes substantial passages of universal history as well), spanning the period between Brutus and the death of Edward I in 1307, survives in two complete manuscripts and one fragment. It is often referred to as the Anonimalle Chronicle, but I will follow John Taylor in calling this text the Anonimalle Brut, to distinguish it from the two continuations which follow it in one of the manuscripts (Leeds, University Library, Brotherton Collection MS 29). These continuations are a version of a prose Brut continuation for the years 1307–33 and a second, unique continuation which takes it up to the late fourteenth century.77 Other, shorter Anglo-Norman chronicles of English history survive only in a single manuscript. The Brute Abregé recounts British and English history from the arrival of Brutus to the death of Edward I: its version of this history diverges widely from mainstream accounts, and the only chronicle which it closely resembles is the Short English Metrical Chronicle, written in Middle English verse. The Brute Abregé derives from a metrical source, but it is not entirely clear whether the Brute Abregé was translated from the English poem or whether they share a common verse source in French.78 A late thirteenth century manuscript fragment contains a pictorial history of English kings from Edward the Confessor to Edward I – little more than a series of brief notices to accompany some beautiful images.79 Another, the Lignee des Bretons et des

77

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Texts Series 16 (Manchester, 2011), pp. 28–36. M. Fisher, ‘Genealogy Rewritten: Inheriting the Legendary in Insular Historiography’, in Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain and France, ed. R. L. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 16 (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 123–41, at p. 124, identifies this as an Anglo-Norman version of text from Edward I’s correspondence with Pope Boniface VIII over the English king’s claims of suzerainty over Scotland (on Edward’s claims see also below, Chapter 2). See Dean, ANL, no. 47, pp. 33–4; Anonimalle, ed. Childs and Taylor; The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333–1381, from a MS. written at St. Mary’s Abbey, York, ed. V. H. Galbraith (Manchester, 1927); J. Taylor, ‘The Origins of the Anonimalle Chronicle’, Northern History 31 (1995), 45–64. The editor of the Short English Metrical Chronicle and the Brute Abregé argued that the English poem was the source for the Brute Abregé: An Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle, ed. E. Zettl, EETS o.s. 196 (London, 1935) (hereafter SEMC), pp. xliii–xlv. Legge rejected Zettl’s claims, asserting that the works both derived from a common Anglo-Norman verse source: M. D. Legge, ‘The Brut Abridged, A Query’, Medium Ævum 16 (1947), 32–3; Legge, ANL, p. 280. Thorlac Turville-Petre believed Legge’s concerns were ‘without substance’: Turville-Petre, England the Nation, pp. 175, 180 n. 76. The latest editor of one manuscript of the Short English Metrical Chronicle suspected the English work had some French source: The Abridged English Metrical Brut, ed. U. O’Farrell Tate, Middle English Texts Series 32 (Heidelberg, 2002), pp. 44–6. P. Grund, ‘A Previously Unrecorded Fragment of the Middle English Short Metrical Chronicle in Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica M199’, English Studies 87 (2006), 277–93, prefers the hypothesis of an English original. Dean, ANL, no. 31, p. 23; the manuscript fragments are now reproduced in their entirety and discussed in J. Collard, ‘Effigies ad Regem Angliae and the Representation of Kingship in Thirteenth-Century English Royal Culture’, eBLJ: Electronic British

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Introduction Engleis, is little more than a regnal list from Brutus to Edward II, with a continuation to Richard II, containing only a few brief notes of events.80 Another regnal list down to Edward II also exists in Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, MS 43 (Δ.2.21.), possibly based on the copy of Langtoft in the same manuscript.81 These national histories do not, at least in their original form, indicate for whom they were written. Other chronicles written in Anglo-Norman prose, however, are known to have been produced for (or sometimes by) particular members of the nobility. These works included more local or even family history and legends. Although they circulated less widely than the most popular national histories, they represent a significant part of the tradition of Anglo-Norman prose historical writing. They could take the form of national history, as in the case of the Petit Bruit by meistre Rauf de Boun, a junior member of the Bohun family who were earls of Hereford and a canon at St Paul’s Cathedral. Rauf states in his prologue that he wrote the Petit Bruit in 1309 at the request of Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln (d.1311). This work claims to be an abridgement of an earlier ‘grant Bruit’ but despite borrowings from LRB its narrative does not bear a very strong resemblance to any known earlier chronicle, although it is clearly indebted to the legendary history of Britain and earlier historiography of Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest England. It ends in 1307, with the burial of Edward I at Westminster.82 Rauf’s work survives in full in only a single post-medieval transcript, but parts were apparently excerpted and appear in two fourteenth-century genealogical chronicle manuscripts. Another fragment preserving a short section of the Petit Bruit from a genealogical roll has also been discovered.83 National histories in Anglo-Norman continued to be well read through the fourteenth century and into the fifteenth, but the writing of universal history became increasingly popular in England in the fourteenth century. In Latin historical writing, Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon became the most widely read contemporary chronicle among those written in England. Several AngloNorman universal chronicles were also written. The Dominican friar Nicholas Trevet wrote one such work in AngloNorman, Les Cronicles.84 This universal history gives an account of biblical and

80 81

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Library Journal (2007), Article 9, pp. 1–26, online at www.bl.uk/eblj/2007articles/ article9.html. Dean, ANL, no. 29, p. 22; but see also Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Thiolier, p. 63. Dean, ANL, no. 29, p. 22 (in the discussion); see also Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Thiolier, pp. 128–30. See Petit Bruit, and J. Spence, ‘The Identity of Rauf de Boun, Author of the Petit Bruit’, Reading Medieval Studies 31 (2005), 57–76; Chapter 2, pp. 58–9 below. Spence, ‘Identity’, pp. 63–5; D. C. Skemer, ‘The Story of Engle and Scardyng: Fragment of an Anglo-Norman Chronicle Roll’, Viator 40:2 (2009), 255–75. Skemer does not identify this as an excerpt from the Petit Bruit, but cf. Petit Bruit, p. 10, l. 10–p. 11, l.18, and below, Chapter 3, pp. 79–80. On Trevet see R. J. Dean, ‘Nicholas Trevet, Historian’, in Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. J. J. G. Alexander and

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Christian history from the Creation to 1334, although with a particular focus on English history. Originally intended for Princess Mary, Edward I’s daughter and a nun at Amesbury, the chronicle found a wider audience. Nine manuscript copies survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; excerpts are found in two more fifteenth-century manuscripts; the work was translated into Middle English (a single manuscript of this translation survives); and Les Cronicles was known to both Chaucer and Gower.85 A contemporary of Trevet also wrote a universal history in Anglo-Norman. This was John of Canterbury, who wrote the Polistorie after 1313 at Christ Church, Canterbury, at the request of his ‘cher amy Johan’ (‘dear friend John’), who has not been identified but who was perhaps a layman.86 The Polistorie gives a detailed account of British and English history, as well as details of universal ecclesiastical history. It pays particular attention to Canterbury’s claims to primacy over the archbishopric of York. Only one complete manuscript survives, although a second fragment of the Polistorie apparently also exists.87 In the mid-fourteenth century the Mohun Chronicle was written for the Mohun family, lords of Dunster Castle in Somerset. After a prologue influenced by the Jewish Antiquities of Josephus, Wace’s Rou and the Johannes Pseudo-Turpin translation, this work gives a unique account of Albine’s arrival and lists of emperors and popes based on Martinus Polonus’s Chronicon. Its prologue also promises lists of the archbishops of Canterbury and English and French kings, as well as a history of the Mohuns from the Norman Conquest to the present day. Unfortunately, the only manuscript of the Mohun Chronicle breaks off in its account of the popes, and only a few short fragments of the

85

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M. T. Gibson (Oxford, 1976), pp. 328–52; J. G. Clark, ‘Trevet [Trivet], Nicholas, (b.1257×1265, d. in or after 1334)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H.  C.  G.   Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford, 2004, and in many cases updated online), 60 vols. (hereafter Oxford DNB), LV, 349–351. See Dean, ANL, no. 70, pp. 47–8; R. J. Dean, ‘The Manuscripts of Nicholas Trevet’s Anglo-Norman Cronicles’, Medievalia et Humanistica o.s. 14 (1962), 95–105; R. M. Correale, Introduction to ‘The Man of Law’s Prologue and Tale’, in Sources and Analogues of the Canterbury Tales, ed. R. M. Correale and M. Hamel (Cambridge, 2002–5), II, 279–93. W. N. Ferris, ‘Jehan de Caunterbire Polistorie: A Critical Edition’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1963, p. 1. On the possible lay patron see D. B. Tyson, ‘French Vernacular History Writers and their Patrons in the Fourteenth Century’, Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 14 (1986), 103–24 (pp. 106–7). As with the translation given above, all unattributed translations are my own. Dean, ANL, no. 53, p. 36; Legge, ANL, pp. 291–3; Ferris, ‘Polistorie’. BL MS Harley 636 is the only complete manuscript. However, Ker, MMBL, II, 305–6, describes Canterbury Cathedral, MS Additional 17, nine folios from a chronicle in French written in an Anglicana hand (that Ker dates to the late thirteenth century), and two quotations given by Ker on p. 305 (from p. 18 of these leaves – they are paginated rather than numbered as folios) correspond to phrases from the transcript in Ferris, ‘Polistorie’, p. 241.

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Introduction later material survive in subsequent transcripts.88 The Mohun Chronicle was not the only Anglo-Norman chronicle to be accompanied by a list of the kings of France. The Leeds manuscript of the Anonimalle Chronicle is preceded by a variety of Anglo-Norman and Latin texts, including an Anglo-Norman, proEnglish genealogical diagram and accompanying narrative about the kings of France.89 Another copy of this genealogy follows Trevet’s Cronicles in Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijkuniversiteit, MS Voss. Gall. F. 6.90 An unrelated genealogical narrative of the kings of France in Anglo-Norman appears in the cartulary of Newenham Abbey (conceivably the same text might have been used in the Mohun Chronicle, though there is no way to prove this), along with a copy of LRB.91 And a similarly brief genealogy of French kings in Anglo-Norman prose survives from the second half of the twelfth century in BL MS Cotton Appendix LVI, rivalling the chronicle of English kings from Richard I’s reign as possibly the earliest extant Anglo-Norman prose history.92 The latest universal history in Anglo-Norman is the Scalacronica, written between 1355 and 1369 by the Yorkshire knight Sir Thomas Gray (d.1369).93 This gives details of universal secular, biblical and ecclesiastical history from the Creation onwards, but devotes most of its bulk to a full narrative of British and English history down to 1363. Gray draws on a wide range of historical sources in his chronicle: some of the most heavily used include the Bible, a version of the history of Troy, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, Wace’s Brut, the prose Brut, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum, Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, a version of the universal chronicle written by Marianus Scotus (1028–82) and a lost chronicle by ‘Thomas de Otreburn’. Gray may have known some of the Latin works through two universal historical compilations he consulted, Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon and John of Tynemouth’s Historia Aurea. Gray supplements this with material from newsletters and eyewitness sources (including his own 88 89

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92 93

See Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’. Dean, ANL, no. 51, p. 35; D. B. Tyson, ‘Three Short Anglo-Norman Texts in Leeds University Library Brotherton Collection MS 29’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 52 (2008), 83–112 (discussed at pp. 93–8; edited at pp. 103–5). Jean de Montreuil, Opera, ed. E. Ornato et al., 4 vols. (Paris, 1963–86), IV, 17, 111. This has not previously been identified as the same text in the Leeds manuscript – a text which is also found in at least two other manuscripts, Bodl. MS Laud misc. 637 and BL MS Cotton Claudius D.VII (Tyson, ‘Three Short Anglo-Norman Texts’, p. 93). Bodl. MS Top. Devon. d. 5, fols. 98(numbered in MS as 88)v–99(numbered in MS as 89)r; see Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, p. 167 and n. 60. This text is not in Dean, ANL. I. Short, ‘Une généalogie hybride des rois de France’, Romania 123 (2005), 360–83. On Gray see J.-C. Thiolier, ‘Gray [Grey], Sir Thomas (d.1369)’, Oxford DNB, XXIII, 458–9; A. King, ‘Scaling the Ladder: The Rise and Rise of the Gray Family, c.1296– c.1415’, in North-East England in the Middle Ages, ed. C. D. Liddy and R. H. Britnell (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 57–73; Sir Thomas Gray, Scalacronica 1272–1363, ed. and trans. A. King, Surtees Society 209 (Woodbridge, 2005).

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles experiences). The Scalacronica also shows Gray’s wide-ranging familiarity with works of historical romance.94 The Scalacronica was not widely known to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century readers, and survives only in a single medieval manuscript, but is a valuable and under-studied text in the tradition of Anglo-Norman prose historical writing. Gray and the author of the Mohun Chronicle include information about the family and other local and regional history in their universal chronicles, but other chronicles focus exclusively on family or local history. While the tradition of writing local and family chronicles persisted throughout the period in which Anglo-Norman prose chronicles were composed, these works naturally had a more limited appeal than national or universal histories. I will discuss the writing of narrative genealogies or family chronicles in Anglo-Norman in Chapter 5: these works include the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock (written after 1233); the Delapré Chronicle (c.1237), which traces the descent of the earldom of Huntingdon; and Fouke le Fitz Waryn (early fourteenth century, based on a verse text from the second half of the thirteenth century), which recounts the history of the Fitz Warin family.95 The family history in the Mohun Chronicle also falls into this category. Some Anglo-Norman chronicles focus on the history of a religious house: the Wigmore Abbey Chronicle (surviving in a late fourteenth century manuscript, but possibly written much earlier) describes the foundation and early years of the abbey; the register of the Augustinian nunnery of Crabhouse begins with an Anglo-Norman account of the foundation’s history; and the Delapré Chronicle contains a short account of events relating to the nunnery of Delapré.96 Meanwhile, in London, a chronicle 94

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For fuller discussion of Gray’s sources, see Sir Thomas Gray, Scalacronica, ed. J. Stevenson (London, 1836), pp. iii–xii; Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 121, 123; R. J. Moll, Before Malory: Reading Arthur in Later Medieval England (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 2003), pp. 36–72; Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. xliv–liii; R. J. Moll, ‘“Nest pas autentik, mais apocrophum”: Haveloks and Their Reception in Medieval England’, Studies in Philology 105 (2008), 165–206; and Chapters 1–4 below. D. Tyson, ‘A Medieval Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 48 (2004), 1–14 (edited at pp. 8–13); the Delapré Chronicle is discussed and partly edited in N. Denholm-Young, ‘An Early Thirteenth-Century Anglo-Norman MS.’, Bodleian Quarterly Record 6 (1929–31), 225–30, and edited in full for the first time in ‘Delapré Chronicle’, in Three Anglo-Norman Chronicles, ed. Ricketts, pp. 20–7; Fouke le Fitz Waryn, ed. E. J. Hathaway, P. T. Ricketts, C. A. Robson and A. D. Wilshire, ANTS 26–8 (Oxford, 1976) (hereafter FFW). See Dean, ANL, nos. 62, 64, pp. 43–4; the Wigmore Abbey Chronicle was edited in ‘The Anglo-Norman Chronicle of Wigmore Abbey’, ed. and trans. J. C. Dickinson and P. T. Ricketts, in Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, Herefordshire 81 (1969), 413–46, and re-edited in ‘The Chronicle of Wigmore Abbey’, in Three Anglo-Norman Chronicles, ed. Ricketts, pp. 5–19; Denholm-Young, ‘Early ThirteenthCentury Anglo-Norman MS’ and ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts; Bateson, ‘Crabhouse’ (pp. 12–17). An Anglo-Norman chronicle in alexandrines similarly recounts part of the history of Peterborough Abbey: La Geste de Burch, ed. and trans. A. Bell, in The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. and trans. W. T. Mellows (London, 1949), pp.

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Introduction of recent events, with a strong local emphasis, was compiled in the course of the fourteenth century (now known as the French Chronicle of London).97 I have studied the readership and the manuscript contexts of these AngloNorman prose chronicles elsewhere.98 That research, as well as the discussion above, demonstrates that these works were almost exclusively read in England. The chronicles were widely read by members of the nobility, the gentry and the clergy – especially men, though some works were also written for women. The evidence from surviving copies suggests that these works were most popular in certain areas of the country: in south-east England, especially at some large monasteries; in the north of England, with a focus on English claims in Scotland; and also in the March of Wales, with a focus on Marcher lords. Judging by material preserved alongside the Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, they were primarily seen as serious historical writing and frequently circulated with complementary historical texts in Latin and Anglo-Norman.

Reimagining the past Historians have habitually understood that the writing of history might reveal more about the author’s present agenda than about the truth of past events: William of Newburgh’s attack on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie as Welsh propaganda is a well-known example from the twelfth century.99 Such an agenda does not have to have specific political objectives: Richard Southern’s essays on ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing’ show how generic factors can create very different perceptions of the past.100

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177–218; T. Hunt, ‘The “Geste de Burch”: A Manuscript’, Medium Ævum 67 (1998), 291–303; Dean, ANL, no. 63, pp. 41–2. The French Chronicle of London. Croniques de London [. . .], ed. G. J. Aungier, Camden Society 28 (London, 1846); D. C. Cox, ‘The French Chronicle of London’, Medium Ævum 45 (1976), 201–8; Dean, ANL, no. 71, p. 48. Although this is the only town chronicle in Anglo-Norman, the language was sporadically used for recordkeeping in urban settings: see R. Britnell, ‘Uses of French Language in Medieval English Towns’, in Language and Culture, ed. Wogan-Browne et al., pp. 81–9. Spence, ‘Audiences’. William of Newburgh, The History of English Affairs, Book 1, ed. and trans. P. G. Walsh and M. J. Kennedy (Warminster, 1988), pp. 28–37. William was writing between 1196 and 1198: see J. Taylor, ‘Newburgh, William of (b.1135/6, d. in or after 1198)’, Oxford DNB, online at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29470. R. W. Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 1. The Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 20 (1970), 173–96; ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of St Victor and the Idea of Historical Development’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 21 (1971), 159–79; ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 3. History as Prophecy’, Transactions

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles This process as manifested in twelfth- and early thirteenth century Latin and vernacular chronicles has attracted considerable scholarly analysis.101 The approach is mirrored to an extent in some criticism informed by postcolonial theory which has looked at the mingling of late medieval historical accounts with legendary material in representations of conquests and ethnic conflicts.102 However, in large part the focus of the study of later AngloNorman prose chronicles has been on the texts themselves and on examining them in their historical context.103 This book builds on that work by considering Anglo-Norman prose chronicles about the remote past in the light of their immediate historical context, an approach I believe is helpful in understanding both why and how these chronicles innovate in the use of their source material. As Spiegel has emphasised, the translation and redaction into prose from verse of any work is to a degree a reinterpretation.104 The same might even be said of copying an earlier chronicle verbatim. These acts place an older text in a new medium or context and testify to its continuing value as a representation of the past. However, my main concern here is with the alterations made by chroniclers to their

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of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 22 (1972), 159–80; ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 4. The Sense of the Past’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 23 (1973), 243–63. Notable works include N. F. Partner, Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England (Chicago and London, 1977); Spiegel, Romancing the Past; G. M. Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore and London, 1997), especially ‘History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text’, pp. 3–28; ‘Theory into Practice: Reading Medieval Chronicles’, in The Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, Drieburgen/Utrecht 13–16 July 1996, ed. E. Kooper (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA, 1999), pp. 1–12; J. Blacker, The Faces of Time: Portrayal of the Past in Old French and Latin Historical Narrative of the Anglo-Norman Regnum (Austin, TX, 1994); Damian-Grint, New Historians; L. Ashe, Fiction and History in England 1066–1200 (Cambridge, 2007). See in particular: The Postcolonial Middle Ages, ed. J. J. Cohen, The New Middle Ages (New York, 2000); M. Warren, History on the Edge: Excalibur and the Borders of Britain 1100–1300 (Minneapolis, 2000); P. C. Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies: Arthurian Romance and the Making of Britain (Philadelphia, 2001); G. M. Heng, Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (Columbia, 2003); Cultural Diversity in the British Middle Ages: Archipelago, Island, England, ed. J. J. Cohen, The New Middle Ages (New York, 2008). As well as the individual studies already referenced, there are surveys in Legge, ANL, pp. 276–310, and more briefly in A. Galloway, ‘Writing History in England’, in Cambridge History, ed. Wallace, pp. 255–83 (pp. 261, 270, 272, 273–4) and Crane, ‘Anglo-Norman Cultures’, pp. 50–1, 53–4. Gransden, Historical Writing, J. Taylor, English Historical Literature in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1987), and C. GivenWilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (London and New York, 2004), reference some Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, concentrating on those historical works, or parts of larger works, which give information about nearcontemporary events. Spiegel, Romancing the Past, pp. 2–5, 55–69.

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Introduction main sources. The changes in these passages can involve adding entirely new information; they can consist of rearranging or omitting significant material; or the chronicler can provide a commentary on events of the past and on his sources. These interventions can transform the chronicle’s depiction of the past, creating a distinctive version of history. In Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, the use of legendary and romance material is central to such additions and alterations. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia provided a legendary history for the British too potent for most subsequent medieval chroniclers in England to ignore. However, the chief response to Geoffrey’s work was not a slavish acceptance; in Anglo-Norman historiography, at least, the Historia’s legacy was rather the emergence of a mode of history in which the past could be continually reimagined through legends and romances in the way Geoffrey had done.105 Precisely because of the close relationship between romance and history in late medieval England, legendary and romance material provided a key way to reinvent the past, whether the source was Geoffrey’s Historia, a story about Havelok or legends around the outlawry of Fouke le Fitz Waryn. Because the subject of this book is the way these chronicles reimagine the past, I will not usually discuss material that appears to be original to the chronicle and that contains unique historical information, such as the continuations to the prose Brut and the Anonimalle Chronicle. Although the earlier, derivative portions of these and other chronicles are usually ignored by historians, a key advantage in attending to the authors’ treatments of their sources in these early parts is that, since the main sources are often limited, identifiable and extant, alterations to these sections can provide the clearest insights into the intentions and historical methods of their authors. Through this method I aim to gain a better understanding of how these historians were re-creating the past for their audiences in the service of national, religious, local or personal ends. I have chosen to focus on chronicles in Anglo-Norman prose which were written between the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the fifteenth. As argued above, I believe prose was deliberately chosen for its echoes of an authoritative documentary culture. Consequently, this book will not discuss Langtoft’s popular Chronique or other verse chronicles of the period in any detail.106 I use the term ‘chronicle’ to apply to any historical account which takes chronology as its organising principle and which covers more than one generation: for this reason, brief historical notes and accounts covering less than a generation, such as The Crusade and Death of Richard I and William de Briane’s translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, also lie beyond my 105

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As explored in e.g. R. Field, ‘Romance as History, History as Romance’, in Romance in Medieval England, ed. M. Mills, J. Fellows and C. Meale (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 163–73; Moll, Before Malory; see further below, Chapters 2–5. For other later verse chronicles see Dean, ANL, nos. 24, 50, 63, pp. 20, 35, 41–2.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles general scope here.107 Nevertheless, a wide range of works are discussed in detail: short national histories, such as the Livere de Reis de Britannie and Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit; longer national histories like the prose Brut; universal chronicles including Nicholas Trevet’s Cronicles and Gray’s Scalacronica; and family histories like the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock and Fouke le Fitz Waryn. My first chapter focuses its attention on the prologues of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, where these works present themselves as authoritative and valuable works of historiography but at the same time display a sophisticated and playful literary style. I focus in particular on the prologue to the Scalacronica. This begins with a dream-vision which appropriates motifs from religious literature to introduce a secular history: these enhance the status of Gray’s chronicle. Many of these chronicles included versions of the legendary history of Britain originally concocted by Geoffrey of Monmouth, but they tailored it to their personal and political agendas, most often to support Edward I’s territorial ambitions in Wales and Scotland. In my second chapter I consider several examples of this. The earliest prose chronicles were suspicious of the legendary history, using only a small part of it, but later revisers of these texts added more details. In Edward I’s reign, the author of the prose Brut carried out extensive revisions to the end of the legendary history, apparently to bolster Edward’s claims. Under Edward II, Rauf de Boun and the Brute Abregé rewrote the legendary history completely. Other chronicles borrowed from this legendary history for more local historical accounts. At the end of the tradition of Anglo-Norman historical writing, the Scalacronica made some politically motivated revisions, and defended the truthfulness of the legendary history even as it interpolated material fresh from French romances into its account of Arthur’s reign. In my third chapter, I examine how the Anglo-Saxon past provided a space where these chroniclers could express the ideals of their chronicles through legendary heroes – and heroines. I focus on three such figures: Engel, who supposedly gave England its name and provided a unitary founding narrative for the minor kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England; Havelok, who exemplifies the Scalacronica’s use of legendary heroes to depict a vision of Anglo-Saxon history in which martial chivalry is the preserve of knights as well as kings; and Constance, a suffering Christian who is responsible for converting the Anglo-Saxons. In my fourth chapter, I study the ways in which the more recent history of the Norman Conquest was also vigorously reinterpreted in these chronicles. The most popular national histories such as the prose Brut amended the accounts in their sources, eliding the Conquest and representing William’s accession as 107

The Crusade and Death of Richard I, ed. R. C. Johnston, ANTS 17 (Oxford, 1961); Briane, Pseudo-Turpin, ed. Short; Dean, ANL, nos. 56, 79, pp. 38, 53–4.

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Introduction a continuation of the status quo in order to link the present to a glorious, and politically useful, Anglo-Saxon and British past. However, chronicles written for particular members of the nobility recognised the Conquest instead as a moment of historic disruption and change. This was partly a question of self-aggrandisement: several of these chronicles located their families’ origins at this time. However, it also emerged out of an awareness of the Conquest’s effects gleaned from Latin historical writing. In my final chapter, I move from accounts of national history to look at the writing of family history in Anglo-Norman. After considering some short genealogies, I look at three ‘family chronicles’: the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock, the Delapré Chronicle and the Mohun Chronicle. Each enhances the genealogy of their family by including apocryphal legends which romanticise the family’s past. I then consider Fouke le Fitz Waryn, a text which has generated a great deal of debate over its place on the generic boundaries of romance and history. I examine how the romance material is used to invigorate the history the work recounts and to express its vision of the past, arguing that it typifies the approach of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles in utilising legends and romance. In retelling the past, Anglo-Norman prose chronicles differ from one another in the approaches they take and the stories they choose to include, but they all provide a narrative about the past which underpins their view of the present. Before they can deliver this, however, they must first position themselves as both a crafted work of literature and a reliable historical record – and often do so through their prologues.

25

1

The rhetoric of confidence in the prologues to Anglo-Norman prose chronicles A set of rhetorical commonplaces or topoi are shared by the prologues to classical and medieval works from many literary genres. Medieval chronicles are frequently introduced by prologues which draw on these topoi, taking as their examples the prologues of classical historians such as Sallust and Livy, and those of early Christian historians. The topoi include providing an outline of the work’s content; referring to the need for brevity; citing precedents to the work; a declaration of the modest status of the author or the work; and for historical texts, an assertion that the function of historical writing was to show God’s purpose in the world and to encourage righteous behaviour. E. R. Curtius enumerated these topoi, and their use in historical prologues has been examined by Bernard Guenée and Antonia Gransden.1 In this chapter, I will discuss the prologues to Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, focusing on one rhetorical commonplace, or rather its absence: an expression of modesty. As Curtius has noted, it was conventional for those medieval historians who wrote in Latin to express the relatively unimportant nature of their work in their prologues.2 William of Newburgh, in his introductory letter to his Historia Rerum Anglicanum, says that he is not going to devote himself ‘altis scrutandis mysticisque rimandis insistere, sed in narrationibus historicis praecipiat spatiari ad tempus tanquam pro quadam ex facilitate operis recreatione ingenii’ (‘to the investigation of lofty matters, nor to the exploration of the mysteries, but to stroll for a while in the paths of historical narrative, an easy task offering a form of mental recreation’).3 The historians might also highlight their own inadequacies as writers, sometimes presenting these quite literally as shortcomings: Ranulf Higden, echoing Bernard of Chartres, refers to himself as 1

2 3

Curtius, European Literature, trans. Trask, pp. 79–89; A. Gransden, ‘Prologues in the Historiography of Twelfth-Century England’, in her Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London and Rio Grande, 1992), pp. 125–51; B. Guenée, ‘Histoire, mémoire, écriture. Contribution à l’étude des lieux communs’, Comptes Rendus des Séances de l’année 1983, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1983), 441–56. Curtius, European Literature, trans. Trask, pp. 83–5. William of Newburgh, History of English Affairs, Book 1, ed. and trans. Walsh and Kennedy, pp. 26–7; also discussed in Gransden, ‘Prologues’, at p. 137.

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The rhetoric of confidence ‘nanus residens in humeris gigantis’ (‘a dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants’),4 while William of Newburgh makes punning references to his own name, ‘William Parvi’ (‘William the Small’).5 Curtius noted that these kind of self-deprecating references were more often rhetorical than heartfelt, and Guenée and Gransden have demonstrated that this is true of both Higden and William of Newburgh, who elsewhere compare themselves to great historians of the past such as Bede.6 But even so, some expression of modesty, however conventional and insincere, is usually included by historians in prologues to works in Latin. However, historians writing in Anglo-Norman do not follow this convention. In The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, Peter DamianGrint described how the first verse historians in Anglo-Norman and Old French, such as Wace and Benoît, omit any declaration of modesty, proclaiming their own role as auctores and presenting their texts as historically accurate and valuable.7 These early verse historians are important models for later Anglo-Norman historical writers of the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. The earliest versions of the most widely disseminated Anglo-Norman prose chronicles of the period – the prose Brut, the Livere de Reis de Britannie and the genealogical chronicle rolls – used these earlier works primarily as a source of historical data, and were not preceded by rhetorical prologues containing historiographical discussions. Slightly later chronicles, however, draw on the verse historians for their style as well as their content. Some later versions of the prose Brut acquired an account in octosyllabic verse, written out as prose in the manuscripts, of how Albine, her sisters and the giants descended from them first came to be in Albion before Brutus came to the land, which opened with lines that echoed Wace’s Brut.8 Several manuscripts of the genealogical chronicle rolls incorporated as a prologue some octosyllabic verses on Fortune, together with a depiction of her wheel, reinforcing 4

5

6

7 8

Polychronicon, I, 14; see ‘Bernard of Chartres, d. c.1130’, in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Elizabeth Knowles, 5th edn (Oxford, 1999), pp. 68–9. History of English Affairs, Book 1, ed. and trans. Walsh and Kennedy, pp. 26–7; discussed in Partner, Serious Entertainments, pp. 54–5. Gransden, ‘Prologues’, pp. 138–9; Guenée, ‘Les premiers pas de l’histoire de l’historiographie en Occident au XIIe siècle’, Comptes Rendus des Séances de l’année 1983, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1983), 136–52 (pp. 142–8). Damian-Grint, New Historians, pp. 85–7. Des Grantz Geanz, ed. Brereton, ll. 1–10, p. 3; cf. her note to ll. 1–4 on p. 42 for the parallel to Wace’s Brut, ll. 1–4, and pp. vi–xi for the manuscripts (at p. vii Brereton notes that these manuscripts present the verse as if it were prose); on the manuscript context see also Dean, ANL, nos. 36, 37, pp. 24–8. A. Bernau, ‘Beginning with Albina: Remembering the Nation’, Exemplaria 21:3 (Fall 2009), 247–73, makes the case for the whole Albine narrative as a prologue which provides a memorable and compelling beginning for the history of Britain and unsettles any attempt to read the narrative it precedes as a transparent factual account.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles the exemplary value for readers of the history that followed below.9 For the Mohun Chronicle, written in the 1330s or 1340s, Wace’s Roman de Rou is one of the key sources for its prologue.10 Others used verse chronicles as sources throughout. Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica, written between 1355 and 1369, incorporates passages verbatim from the Anglo-Norman prose Brut, which itself drew on Wace’s Brut and Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis, and Gray seems also to have used Wace’s Brut directly.11 Fouke le Fitz Waryn, a chronicle of the early fourteenth century, is in large part a mise en prose of an earlier verse chronicle from the thirteenth century.12 Like the earlier writers they drew on, the later Anglo-Norman historians express their confidence most forcefully in their prologues. For instance, the author of the Mohun Chronicle is certainly not concerned about omitting the modesty topos in his prologue when he compares his own act of composition to the myth (deriving ultimately from Josephus) about the creation of two pillars to preserve the sum of all human knowledge.13 The Mohun Chronicle then borrows from Wace’s Rou the idea that ‘totes choses tornerent en declin, et tote vif chose devoit morir’ (‘all things will come to an end, and every living thing must die’)14 and only historical writing can prevent all things from slipping into oblivion; this is followed by a catalogue of place names which have changed, again borrowed from the Rou and bringing its rhythm and rhyme into the prose prologue.15 Lastly, in a phrase lifted from a translation of the Pseudo-Turpin, the author concludes that his compendium of historical materials ‘deit estre cher tenuez et voluntiers oiez de touz hautz hommes’ (‘should be held dear and gladly heard by all noble men’).16 The idea that only historical writing can prevent valuable knowledge of the past from being lost also occurs in the brief prologue to the Anonimalle Brut.17 This begins: Plusures choses et aventures qe ount esté avaunt ces houres sount hors de memoyre par encheson q’ils ne furent mys en escript, dunt autres aprés poeynt aver esté enseniez.18 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17

18

Bovey, Chaworth Roll, pp. 14–17, 37 (images on pp. 14, 33). See Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 158, 200. See Moll, Before Malory, p. 45; Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. lv; and below, Chapters 2–4. FFW, pp. xix–xxvi; see also below, Chapter 5, pp. 153–4. Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, p. 162, n. 45; p. 170, ll. 2–8. See above, Introduction, pp. 1–2. Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, p. 170, ll. 9–10; see also p. 158. Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, p. 170, ll. 20–5; see also the note at p. 200 on these lines. Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, p. 172, ll. 52–7 (ll. 52–3); see also pp. 158, 200–1. The short prologue to the Anonimalle Brut was transcribed from BL MS Royal 20 A.XVIII in P. Meyer, ‘De quelques chroniques anglo-normandes qui ont porté le nom de Brut’, Bulletin de la Société des anciens textes français 4 (1878), 104–45 (p. 142); Taylor, ‘Origins’, p. 57, remarks that ‘initial examination suggests that the Royal manuscript preserves a better text than the [Leeds] Anonimalle version’. Meyer, ‘Brut’, p. 142.

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The rhetoric of confidence Many things and happenings that have been before these times are forgotten because they were not put into writing, with which others could afterwards have been taught.

As with the Mohun Chronicle’s declaration that ‘moltz des choses fussent obliez [. . .] sanz ceo qu’els ne soient par gent de religion mis en livere’ (‘many things may be forgotten [. . .] unless they are put in a book by men of religion’),19 writing, and in particular the chronicle itself, is for the Anonimalle Brut’s prologue the only defence against the corrosive effects of time. In contrast to the pessimistic tone of these prologues, Fouke le Fitz Waryn’s opening evokes a spring scene of renewed vitality, ‘quant [. . .] chescune chose vivaunte recovre vertue [. . .] e les vale[y]s retentissent des douce chauntz des oseylouns’ (‘when [. . .] every living thing recovers its strength [. . .] and the valleys resound to the sweet songs of the birds’).20 This invites comparison with the opening of works such as the Roman de la Rose and, to readers of later generations, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but in this work the arrival of spring does not incline men to think about love or go on pilgrimage, but to ‘remenbrer des aventures e pruesses nos auncestres [. . .] e de teles choses parler qe a plusours purra valer’ (‘recollect the adventures and the brave deeds of our ancestors [. . .] and [. . .] speak of such things as could be profitable for many people’).21 Despite the difference in approach from the Mohun Chronicle and the Anonimalle Brut, the ideas expressed are very similar: history is valuable, and its place in the natural order is a central one; readers should learn from the examples of their predecessors through these chronicles. The same emphasis on the value of historical writing appears in Nicholas Trevet’s prologue to his universal history, Les Cronicles, although his focus is more on learning than on moral improvement. He begins by saying that he is fulfilling the need of ‘ceux qe sont perceous en estudie’22 (‘those who are lazy in study’) by creating a new, and shorter, historical work: a criticism of those who, unlike Trevet, are too idle to read earlier, more lengthy histories. Trevet then asserts the revivifying qualities of his historical work, as the author of Fouke had done: Trevet claims that his Cronicles will allow people ‘plus legier entendre et retenir de plus vive memoire’ (‘to understand more easily and remember more freshly’) the history it recounts.23 Trevet’s confidence in the prologue to his Anglo-Norman Cronicles contrasts sharply with the tone of the 19

20

21 22

23

Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 170–1, ll. 17–19 (again echoing Wace’s Rou: cf. note on p. 200). FFW, p. 3, ll. 1–4; ‘The Romance of Fouke Fitz Waryn’, in Two Medieval Outlaws: Eustace the Monk and Fouke Fitz Waryn, trans. G. S. Burgess (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 91–198 (p. 132). FFW, p. 3, ll. 6–8; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 132. A. Rutherford, ‘The Anglo-Norman Chronicle of Nicolas Trivet’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1932, p. 1. Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, p. 1.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles dedicatory letter to the universal history he wrote in Latin, the Historia ab orbe condito, where he expresses doubts about the value of the work.24 John of Canterbury gives similarly bold assurances in the prologue to his chronicle, the Polistorie. As well as outlining the historical material which the Polistorie would include, he describes its process of composition: ‘jeo [. . .] de plusurs remembrances de auctorité graunde ey de latin en fraunceis translaté, pur iceo ke comunement la gent cel langage entendent’ (‘I [. . .] have translated from Latin into French from many records of great authority, because people usually understand this language’).25 Like Trevet’s Cronicles, then, the Polistorie would contribute to the vital dissemination of historical understanding, by providing more convenient access to such knowledge than its sources. John admits that his chronicle is written in a manner which is ‘simple et rude’ (‘plain and uncouth’),26 the closest any of these authors come to the modesty topos in their prologues, but even this is turned into an advantage for the chronicle, ‘kar haute manere de parler meyns plener entendement a la simple gent [durroyt], et aussi meyns bone volunté de ceo lire ou oyr’ (‘for a high style of speech must be less clearly understood by ordinary people, and also they must have less willingness to read or hear it’).27 Trevet and John of Canterbury’s belief in the factual value and utility of their works is similar to that of Rauf de Boun, who composed his short Anglo-Norman chronicle, the Petit Bruit, in 1309 and prefaces his account with a brief prologue describing the nature of the work and the reasons for its composition.28 In this prologue, he asserts that the Petit Bruit ‘vous dirra de roy en autre, pay[e]ne et chrestien, jekis roy Edward de Carnarvan qe ore est’ (‘will tell you of one king after another, pagan and Christian, up to King Edward of Caernarfon, who is king now’)29 and that it will focus on Edward I in particular: ‘vous troverez playne procés de tout sa vie’ (‘you will find a full account of his whole life’).30 Such comments indicate that Rauf de Boun regarded his work as comprehensive and authoritative. Like the prologues to the Polistorie and the Petit Bruit, the verse prologue to 24 25

26 27

28

29 30

Taylor, English Historical Literature, p. 97. The prologue is edited in G. P[aris], ‘Jean de Canterbury’, Histoire Littéraire de la France 28 (1878), 480–6 (p. 481). Paris, ‘Jean de Canterbury’, p. 481. Paris, ‘Jean de Canterbury’, p. 481. I have emended Gaston Paris’s edition here as the manuscript, BL MS Harley 636, fol. 1r, clearly reads ‘durroyt’: cf. the image in the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts online at www.bl.uk/ catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size5mid&IllID 5 24822 (accessed 16 April 2012). Petit Bruit, p. 5, ll. 1–8. The translations are mine but are indebted to the translations of the prologue in D. Speed, ‘Havelok’s Predecessor’, in Medieval Codicology, Iconography, Literature and Translation: Studies for Keith Val Sinclair, ed. P. R. Monks and D. D. R. Owen (Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1994), pp. 176–93 (p. 191). Petit Bruit, p. 5, ll. 1–2; my translation, but cf. Speed, ‘Havelok’s Predecessor’, p. 191. Petit Bruit, p. 5, ll. 6–8; my translation, but cf. Speed, ‘Havelok’s Predecessor’, p. 191.

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The rhetoric of confidence the prose chronicle of Crabhouse nunnery’s foundation is primarily concerned with describing the contents of the chronicle. This author also resembles John of Canterbury, however, in confidently imagining a large and diverse audience for the chronicle: Seniurs e dames, veus e jones, Francs e serfs e totes en communes, Ke voliunt oyer e entendre [. . .]31 lords and ladies, old and young, free and in service and all of you together, who wish to hear and understand [. . .]

To describe such an audience implies that the chronicle will provide an effective means of widening access to historical knowledge, and this is made explicit at the end of the prologue, which declares that the chronicle is written in prose, ‘Pur entendre apertement’ (‘in order to be clearly understood’).32 Another Anglo-Norman account of a religious house’s history, the Wigmore Abbey Chronicle, begins with a prologue which warns its readers that ‘negligence de escoter et en memoire retenier les eovres notables et profitables de antiquité est marastre dé vertues et destrueresse’ (‘[to] neglect to heed and remember the noteworthy and beneficial works of antiquity [. . .] is [a stepmother and destroyer] of virtues’), while to remember these things ‘est mere et norice de bons moeurs’ (‘is the mother and nurse of high principles’). This assertion of the ability of historical material to improve the morals of its readers is matched by a belief in its own accuracy, stating that as the chronicle records the names of those who provided the information in its account, ‘nus le pussums plus seurement a tote gentz avaunt mettre qe nus ne seiuns mescreuns’ (‘we can with all the more assurance put ourselves forward to every man as worthy of belief’).33 In these prologues, many of the conventions from earlier prologues to historical works are present. But one topos is lacking in all of them: the declaration of modesty by the author. In its place is a confident assertion of the value of the work. Damian-Grint attributed the similar situation in early Old French verse chronicles to their authors’ desire to claim a greater authority for themselves and their texts.34 The intention in the later prose chronicles 31 32

33

34

Bateson, ‘Crabhouse’, pp. 11–12. Bateson, ‘Crabhouse’, p. 12. The account is also discussed in R. June, ‘The Languages of Memory: The Crabhouse Nunnery Manuscript’, in Language and Culture, ed. Wogan-Browne et al., pp. 347–58. All quotations and translations are from ‘Wigmore’, ed. and trans. Dickinson and Ricketts, pp. 420–1 (cf. ‘Chronicle of Wigmore’, ed. Ricketts, p. 5, ll. 5–7, 8, 20–1). I have however rewritten their translation (in square brackets) to highlight the explicit mother/stepmother parallel which the Wigmore Abbey Chronicle deploys in its comparison. Damian-Grint, New Historians, p. 92.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles appears similar, but without the emphasis on claiming authority for the author: indeed, most of these later works are anonymous. This makes the claims of the later chronicles to authoritativeness seem less self-aggrandising and more assured than those of the earlier prologues.

The prologue to the Scalacronica Despite their distinctiveness, flourish and confidence, these other prologues are still situated in the mainstream tradition of historical writing. But the prologue of Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica is very different.35 It opens with a summary of what the chronicle will contain and its sources: a conventional enough beginning. However, it then goes on to give a cryptic description of the chronicler himself: Et sy ne voet pas au plain nomer soun noume, qe cest cronicle translata de ryme en prose, mais prisoner estoit, pris de guer, a l’hour q’il comensa cest tretice.36 And he would not openly name himself, the one who translated this chronicle from rhyme into prose, but he was a prisoner, captured in warfare, at the time that he began this text.

That the chronicler does not have any reason to conceal his identity is made clear when he provides a riddle in rhyming couplets which reveals that his name is Thomas Gray and that his father had the same name. These couplets, mostly octosyllabic, are written in prose in the unique manuscript; this reflects the format which has been described above for a number of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles which incorporated the rhythms and rhymes of their verse models into their prologues. The riddle clearly identifies the author as Sir Thomas Gray Jr from Heton in Northumbria, who fought the Scots and the French under Edward III in the mid-fourteenth century.37 His status as a knight, for example, is conveyed in the following way: 35

36

37

Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. 2–7; Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, pp. 1–4. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 37–44, and Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. xvii– xxi, 210–12, also discuss this prologue. I am also grateful to Jocelyn WoganBrowne and Thelma Fenster who shared with me an early draft of their edition and translation of the prologue to the Scalacronica for the forthcoming anthology The French of England: Vernacular Literary Theory and Practices of Medieval England, 1130–1450. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 2; King discusses this passage in his introduction at pp. xvii–xix. Cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 1. All the translations from the Scalacronica are my own unless otherwise stated. Thiolier, ‘Gray [Grey], Sir Thomas’; King, ‘Scaling the Ladder’; Gray, Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. xvii–xliv.

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The rhetoric of confidence Si estoit de l’ordre enluminé de bons morez, As veves, as pucelis et a saint eglise succours.38 He was of the order which is illuminated by good morals, [which gives] succour to widows, to maidens, and to holy church.

The authors of most other fourteenth-century Anglo-Norman chronicles choose to remain anonymous, and those who mention their name, such as Pierre Langtoft, John of Canterbury and Rauf de Boun, do so openly (even if these authors have not always been easy to identify). However, the author of one of Thomas Gray’s main sources, Ranulf Higden, plays a similar game with his audience in the first book of his Polychronicon, altering the first letter of each chapter to spell out his name.39 Similarly, John Erghome, an Augustinian friar from York, hides his name in an acrostic in his prose commentaries on the prophecies of ‘John of Bridlington’ (commentaries which are roughly contemporary with the Scalacronica, dating from the 1360s).40 Thus for Gray, including his name in an acrostic was perhaps a way of situating his chronicle within a contemporary literary style for historical works.41 The nature of Gray’s acrostic is unusual, however: another example of Gray’s innovation in his prologue. Instead of each line of poetry beginning with a letter of his name, the letters are given as numbers and the reader is invited to add them together. Gray may be indebted to an algorism for the form of this acrostic, and notably, the single copy of the only Anglo-Norman algorism survives in the unique manuscript of Gray’s Scalacronica.42 The prologue to the Scalacronica takes an even more unexpected turn when Gray tells us ‘coment ly surveint corage de cest matir a treter’43 (‘how the intention occurred to him to begin writing of this material’) in his chronicle while a knight-prisoner in Edinburgh Castle in 1355. Whilst in prison, Gray had been reading many chronicles: 38

39

40 41 42

43

Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 2, who prints these lines as prose; cf. however Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 1. Gransden, Historical Writing, II, 44 n. 6, 47; Taylor, Universal Chronicle, pp. 93–4. As Taylor notes, this acrostic was produced when Higden revised the Polychronicon. Gray, however, appears to use the earliest version of the Polychronicon as a source: Moll, Before Malory, p. 253 n. 92. It is possible, of course, that Gray had seen a copy of the later version of Higden’s chronicle, even though the earlier version was more accessible to him. Andy King also suggests that Gray’s acrostic may have been inspired by Higden’s: Gray, Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. xix and n. 7. Gransden, Historical Writing, II, 59 n. 4; Taylor, English Historical Writing, p. 240. On this subject, see also Given-Wilson, Chronicles, pp. 146–52. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. i va–iii ra, edited and translated in L. C. Karpinski and C.  N.  Staubach, ‘An Anglo-Norman Algorism of the Fourteenth Century’, Isis 23 (1935), 121–52; see Dean, ANL, no. 329, pp. 180–1. Edward III was the likely intended target audience (and possible patron) of this algorism: D. Howlett, ‘Gematria, Number and Name in Anglo-Norman’, French Studies Bulletin 60 (2006), 90–2. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 4; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 2.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Si deveint corious et pensive, com geris n’avoit en le hour autre chos a fair, a treter et a translater en plus court sentence lez cronicles, del Graunt Bretaigne, et lez gestez dez Englessez.44 Thus he became curious and thoughtful, since he had at the time scarcely anything else to do, about writing and translating the chronicles of Great Britain and the deeds of the English into a shorter form.

Here, Gray seems to echo the concern for brevity common in historical prologues since Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae.45 But then Gray goes on to recount how, after thinking about this, he had a dream-vision: ‘un nuyt en dormaunt [. . .] Sebile la sage [. . .] ly amena en un verger, ou encountre un mure haut, sur un peroun, troverent un eschel’ (‘One night, while sleeping [. . .] Sibyl the wise [. . .] took him into a garden, where against a high wall, on a stone, they found a ladder’).46 They climb the ladder together and Gray sees that each of the five rungs leads to a doorway where he observes a different chronicler in action: ‘Gauter erchedeken de Excestre’47 (‘Walter, archdeacon of Exeter’), Bede, Ranulf Higden and John of Tynemouth; the last rung, however, ‘signify lez avenementz futurs qe dez ascuns est ymaginé dez aunciens ditz’48 (‘signifies the future events that some have predicted in ancient sayings’). The Sibyl commands Gray to use the chroniclers he has seen to write his own work, and, if he can complete it, to entitle it the Scalacronica. Gray finishes his prologue by saying that he has followed ‘toz lez propretez devisez’49 (‘all the particulars given’) in his dream and by describing the content of his work. The idea of using a dream-vision to introduce a work of history was apparently Thomas Gray’s own innovation. It seems to look forward to Chaucer’s playful dream-visions in the House of Fame or the Legend of Good Women rather than resembling anything in the mainstream of historical writers Gray mentions as sources.50 Gray is implicitly making the claim that he is not just a

44 45

46 47

48 49 50

Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 4; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 2. Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, ed. and trans. T.E. Page et al., Loeb Classical Library (Harvard, MA, 1931), Chapter 4, p. 8; Gransden, ‘Prologues’, p. 138. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 4; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 2. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 4; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, pp. 2–3: this is an error for Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, who supposedly lent Geoffrey of Monmouth the ‘Britannici sermonis librum vetustissimum’ (‘very old book in the British tongue’): HKB, Prologue, Chapter 2, pp. 4–5. See Moll, Before Malory, pp. 43, 51 n. 80, and Gray, Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. 210–11, n. 3 to Prologue, Section 2, on the identification. Gray’s error is possibly due to Higden’s erroneous reference, in the prologue to the first version of the Polychronicon, to ‘Walterus Exoniensis archidiaconus’ (‘Walter, archdeacon of Exeter’): Polychronicon I, 24 n. 6. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 6; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 3. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 6; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 4. J. S. Russell, The English Dream Vision: Anatomy of a Form (Columbus, OH, 1988), pp. 102–14, provides a relevant discussion of how the parodic elements and ambigu-

34

The rhetoric of confidence successor to these great historians, but that he is also heir to a broader Classical and Christian tradition of great literature. While he is not, of course, stating this openly – he is not even explicitly identifying himself – he is indicating his wider knowledge of literature and suggesting that his writing might be regarded as more than merely a repository for information. Gray has been hinting at this from the very first words of the Scalacronica, with an invitation to read his work addressed to ‘Qi eit delite ou voet savoir’51 (‘whoever takes delight in or wishes to know’): the Scalacronica is designed to provide pleasure as well as impart knowledge. Gray also uses some of the literary conventions of the dream-vision tradition within his prologue. The appearance of a female guide in a prisoner’s dream-vision is reminiscent of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, which inspired numerous medieval dream-visions to include a woman in this role. Moreover, both Philosophy and Gray’s Sibyl use a ladder as an educational prop in their instruction of the narrator.52 The idea of using a ladder as a visual aid in a dream-vision went back further to Jacob’s dream in the Book of Genesis, where God stood atop a ladder (scalam) and promised that he would give the land of Canaan to Jacob and his descendants:53 Jacob’s ladder became a recurrent motif in Christian thought, where it frequently symbolised man’s spiritual path towards God.54 Jean-Claude Thiolier and Paula Leverage have drawn attention to the similarity between Thomas Gray’s ‘ladder of chronicles’ and the images of ladders which were frequently used as memory aids in religious texts such as the Rule of St Benedict, De Arca Noe mystica by Hugh of St Victor,55 and Guigo II’s Scala Claustralium (Ladder of

51

52

53

54

55

ity of the Roman de la Rose enabled similarly irreverent literary dream-visions to proliferate in the later Middle Ages. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. 2; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 1. The idea that history could be enjoyable recreational reading in the Middle Ages was not, of course, original to Gray: in addition to the reference to William of Newburgh’s prologue earlier in this chapter see especially Partner, Serious Entertainments, and also G. Olson, Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1982), pp. 115–16. The Consolation of Philosophy, ed. and trans. S. J. Tester, Book I prose 1, in Boethius, ed. and trans. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand and S. J. Tester, Loeb Classical Library (London, 1978), pp. 130–435, at pp. 132–7. Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, rev. ed. R. Webber (Stuttgart, 1975; 1st edn. 1969), Genesis 28. 10–19 (at verse 12), p. 41. C. Heck, ‘Du songe de Jacob aux visions des saints dans l’art médiéval’, Micrologus: Natura, scienze e società medievali, Nature, Sciences and Medieval Societies 6 (1998), 43–57; C. A. Patrides, ‘Renaissance Interpretations of Jacob’s Ladder’, Theologische Zeitschrift 18 (1962), 411–18 (pp. 415–18). Thiolier, ‘Gray [Grey], Sir Thomas’, p. 458; Dr Leverage discussed these examples in her paper ‘Translating the Scalacronica from the Perspective of Romance Epic’, given at the 39th Kalamazoo Medieval Congress, 8 May 2004. On these images see further M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 27, 236–7, 248, 253.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Monks).56 St Benedict’s ladder also makes a brief appearance in Guillaume de Deguileville’s dream-vision Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine,57 while images of ladders or stairways (scala, scale) are prominent throughout Dante’s Paradiso (as might be expected for a text so preoccupied with the ideas of climbing and ascending) and in making such references Dante also refers obliquely to the name and coat of arms of his patrons, Bartollomeo and Can Grande della Scala.58 Similarly, the ladder in the Scalacronica (and indeed the chronicle’s very name) recalls the appearance of a ladder in the Gray family’s coat of arms and puns on the meaning of gre (step, stair).59 Although these are analogues rather than sources for the Scalacronica, these works illustrate the web of literary references within which Gray situates his work through this prologue. Ladder imagery is not the only element from religious literature which Gray appropriates for a more secular purpose: focusing on the figure of the Sibyl, in particular, sheds more light on the subtext of Gray’s prologue. The presence of her name immediately recalls her appearances in Virgil. She is of course Aeneas’s guide to the underworld in the sixth book of the Aeneid,60 and she also figures in the legendary history of Britain thanks to Geoffrey of Monmouth, who incorporates references to her at the end of his Historia Regum Britannie, adding her authority to prophecies also attributed to Merlin and the Eagle of Shaftesbury.61 During Arthur’s reign, Hoel also makes reference to a prophecy of the Sibyl that a British king will conquer Rome again in the future.62 This puts Gray’s chronicle of English history back into the context of the Trojan foundation myth for Rome and Britain, which is especially pertinent because Gray begins his chronicle in earnest with an account of the destruction of Troy, the journey of Aeneas to Italy and his war with Turnus.63 56

57

58

59 60

61

62

63

Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks, A Letter on the Contemplative Life, and Twelve Meditations, trans. and intro. E. Colledge and J. Walsh (London and Oxford, 1978), pp. 25, 26. Guillaume de Deguileville, Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine, ed. J. J. Stürzinger (London, 1893), ll. 133–42. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, ed. and trans. J. D. Sinclair, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1946; 1st edn 1939), Paradiso, Canto XVII, ll. 58–72 (III, 244–6); Canto XXII, ll. 100–1 (III, 320). Thiolier, ‘Gray [Grey], Sir Thomas’, p. 458; King, ‘Scaling the Ladder’, p. 57. Virgil, Aeneid, Book VI, in Virgil, ed. and trans. H. R. Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols. (London, 1967–9), I, pp. 506–71. This is described in Gray’s Scalacronica: Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 10ra–10va. HKB, Book XI, Chapter 206, ll. 575–7, p. 281. This mention of the Sibyl is repeated in the corresponding section of the Scalacronica: Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 76ra. HKB, Book IX, Chapter 160, ll. 491–4, p. 219. This is also repeated in the Scalacronica: Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 96vb. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 7ra–12vb; 25ra–26rb. Gray introduces this account by declaring: ‘Si comence cel processe a la fynement du siege de Troy, de ou vindrent ceaux pur queux Bretaigne primes porta le noume’ (‘Here begins this account with the end of the siege of Troy, from where those from whom Britain first took the name came’) (Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 6vb).

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The rhetoric of confidence Given Gray’s concern in the Scalacronica with the wars between England and Scotland, it is also noteworthy that the Sibyl was the supposed co-author, with Merlin, of a prophecy on Anglo-Scottish relations.64 However, the Sibyl’s chief importance in medieval thought was in supposedly prophesying the birth of Christ. The beginning of Virgil’s fourth Eclogue had been read, from early in the Church’s history, as a prophecy of the birth of Christ, and Virgil states that this prophecy came from Cumae (home of the Sibyl in the Aeneid).65 Because of this, explicitly Christian prophecies also came to be attributed to the Sibyl. For instance, St Augustine, in the City of God, gives a Latin translation of a prophecy in Greek verse purportedly by the Erythraean Sibyl (a number of Sibyls were believed to have existed, as Gray knew).66 The first letters of this prophecy spelt out ‘Iesus Christus Dei filius salvator’ (‘Jesus Christ the son of God the Saviour’).67 In the thirteenth century, a story recounting how the Tiburtine Sibyl supposedly showed the Emperor Augustus a vision of the Christ-child became widely known through its inclusion in Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea.68 As Joseph Stevenson first suggested, it is most likely that Gray used the Sibyl as his dream-guide because of her appearance in John of Tynemouth’s Historia Aurea, a reworking and expansion of the Polychronicon which finishes in 1347.69 The Historia Aurea includes a version of the prophetic tract known as

64

65

66 67

68

69

See B. Smalley, English Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1960), p. 14 n. 2. On Gray’s concern with Anglo-Scottish affairs in his chronicle, see Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 130–8; Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. xlv–xlviii, li; and see below, Chapters 2 and 4, pp. 65–6, 131–2. Vergil, Eclogues, no. 4, ll. 4–10 in Virgil, ed. and trans. Fairclough, I, 28–9. See A. Waegeman, ‘The Medieval Sibyl’, in The Pagan Middle Ages, ed. L. J. R. Milis, trans. T. Guest (Woodbridge, 1998; first published in German 1991), pp. 83–107 (p.  86); B. McGinn, ‘Teste David cum Sibylla: The Significance of the Sibylline Tradition in the Middle Ages’, in Women of the Medieval World: Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy, ed. J. Kirshner and S. F. Wemple (Oxford, 1985), pp. 7–35 (pp. 13–21). McGinn, ‘Teste David cum Sibylla’, pp. 8–9; cf. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 5vb. The City of God against the Pagans, ed. and trans. G. E. McCracken et al., Loeb Classical Library, 7 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1957–72), V, 440–51 (Book 18, Chapter 23). Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. W. G. Ryan, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ, 1993), II, 40; McGinn, ‘Teste David cum Sibylla’, p. 21. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, includes the suggestion at p. iii. There is no full edition of John of Tynemouth’s Historia Aurea. For summaries of modern scholarship, see R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 1 (Turnhout, 1997), no. 949, pp. 333–4, and Taylor, English Historical Literature, pp. 103–5. For a discussion of the final portions of the Historia Aurea, see V. H. Galbraith, ‘Extracts from the Historia Aurea and a French ‘Brut’ (1317–47)’, English Historical Review 43 (1928), 203–17 (pp. 203–6). I have consulted the text in Cam., CCC MS 5, fols. 92va–93va (Part 1, Book 6, Chapters 47–9), a fifteenth-century manuscript which preserves the earlier version of the Historia Aurea, according to Sharpe (p. 334).

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles the Sibylla Tiburtina.70 The Sibylla Tiburtina dates back in some form to at least as early as the fourth century AD, but it was only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that it achieved popularity; it is preserved in about 130 medieval manuscripts, and was incorporated into works such as John of Salisbury’s Policratus and Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica.71 It was also translated into Anglo-Norman in the twelfth century.72 In the Sibylla Tiburtina, a hundred Roman senators have the same dream on the same night. In their dream nine suns appear in the sky, each of which has distinguishing characteristics. The Romans call on the Sibyl to help them understand the meaning of this dream, and she explains how each sun represents a historical age, whether in the past or yet to come. This interpretation is explicitly Christian: the fourth age is that of Christ, while the fifth is that of his first apostles, and the world ends with the Last Judgement and the creation of a new heaven and new earth. This progression from one sun to the next may have been a model for Thomas Gray’s rung-by-rung description of the Sibyl’s ladder. Gray’s acrostic may have been partly inspired by the Sibylla Tiburtina as well: its prophecies usually identify future kings by the initial letters of their names.73 A version of the acrostic poem which appeared in Augustine’s City of God was also usually incorporated into the Sibylla Tiburtina, as it was in the Historia Aurea.74 Moreover, John of Tynemouth apparently appended a passage from Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale to the Sibylla Tiburtina. This passage discussed how the first letter of each of the five words in the acrostic poem spelt out, in Greek, ikhthus, ‘piscis’, and how the image of a fish can symbolically stand for Christ.75 Reading this version of the Sibylla Tiburtina may well have led Gray to associate the figure of the Sibyl with such elaborate cryptograms and to include both in his own prologue. However, what is more striking is how far Gray moves away from the received medieval ideas of the Sibyl exemplified by this text. In contrast 70

71 72

73 74

75

A version of this text has been printed by E. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen. Pseudomethodius, Adso und die Tiburtinische Sibylle (Halle, 1898), pp. 177–87. The version in John of Tynemouth’s chronicle is not identical to that in Sackur’s edition: John’s Sibyl, for example, is the Erythraean, not the Tiburtine, Sibyl (Cam., CCC MS 5, fol. 92va: ‘Circa hec tempora floruit sibilla eritrea’). However, the two texts are very similar. McGinn, ‘Teste David cum Sibylla’, pp. 24–8. Le Livre de Sibile, ed. H. Shields, ANTS 37 (London, 1979); Dean, ANL, no. 383, pp. 207–8. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte, pp. 181–6; Cam., CCC MS 5, fols. 93ra–93va. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte, pp. 186–7; McGinn, ‘Teste David cum Sibylla’, p. 26; Cam., CCC MS 5, fol. 93va. Moll, Before Malory, compares Gray’s acrostic to ‘the elaborate acrostic poems common in Sibylline prophecy’ (p. 42), such as the acrostic from the City of God (p. 250 n. 71). Cam., CCC MS 5, fol. 93va; cf. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Majus, 4 vols. (Douai, 1624), IV, Book 2, Chapter 100, sig. G4r (p. 79).

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The rhetoric of confidence to most of the Sibylline material of the Middle Ages, including the Sibylla Tiburtina, the Scalacronica’s prologue puts no emphasis on Christ’s central role in history. There is not even an emphasis on prophecy: indeed the Sibyl says to Gray, ‘le scinkisme bastoun ne poez mounter, qar il signify lez avenementz futurs’ (‘you cannot climb up to the fifth rung, for it signifies future events’), and tells him to leave it to ‘devyns’ – the clergy – to predict the future.76 But while the Sibyl’s role has been downgraded from that of a Christian prophet to the advisor of a chronicler, the status of the Scalacronica is correspondingly enhanced. Gray is not just writing a chronicle at the command of a female guide in a dream-vision: the greatest pagan prophetess, who foresaw the coming of Christ, has taken the trouble to bring his work into being. Gray has even moved from an acrostic giving Christ’s name to one which gives his own. The confidence of Anglo-Norman historians has just reached its high point. Although Gray’s use of a verse riddle and of a dream-vision in his prologue is very unusual, many other Anglo-Norman prose chronicles do exhibit a similar confidence in their own merit. Their tone differs from the – admittedly not always sincere – modesty of those among their contemporaries who were writing in Latin. The tone contrasts even more sharply with the defensiveness of some roughly contemporary Middle English works.77 Anglo-Norman historical writing of the fourteenth century displays great confidence in its own worth, not only moral but also literary. Armed with this confidence, these chronicles were to put forward their distinctive accounts of the past.

76 77

Scalacronica, ed. and trans. Gray, p. 6; cf. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 3. For example, in the prologue to his Chronicle Robert Mannyng defends his decision to write in straightforward English so that English speakers may understand it, noting ‘I made it not forto be praysed, | bot at þe lewed men were aysed’, and goes on to declare ‘Of Brunne I am if any me blame | Robert Mannyng is my name’: Robert Mannyng of Brunne, The Chronicle, ed. I. Sullens, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 153 (New York, 1996), p. 91, part 1, ll. 1–144 (ll. 83–4, 135–6). The Auchinleck Arthour and Merlin defends its decision to present an English rather than a French text by saying, ‘Mani noble ich haue yseiye | Þat no Freynsche couþe seye’: Of Arthour and of Merlin, ed. O. D. Macrae-Gibson, EETS o.s. 268, 279, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1973–9), I, pp. 3–5, ll. 19–30 (ll. 25–6). Arthour and Merlin’s defensiveness appears to be an addition by the compilers of the Auchinleck manuscript, which is significant because this manuscript is the first extant major anthology of historical and romance texts in Middle English.

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2

The legendary history of Britain in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles In the previous chapter I described the confidence Anglo-Norman prose chroniclers displayed in their works through their prologues. Such confidence could enable them to present their histories in an authoritative manner. At the same time, it allowed these authors to make changes to their sources in order to create a narrative of the past which was more congenial to themselves and their imagined audience. In the next three chapters I will analyse a number of these transformations, focusing on some of the historical periods and events which occupy key positions within their accounts of the history of Britain and England. In this chapter, I will look at the way that the early history of the British Isles was continually rewritten and redeployed in these chronicles. Echoing the title of J. S. P. Tatlock’s foundational study, 1 I will refer to this material as the legendary history of Britain, since although these chronicles’ accounts were indebted to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie, they nevertheless encompass a great variety of different narratives about the British past. Three episodes in this legendary history were particularly significant within the interpretations of the British past circulating in late medieval England: the reign of the first British king, Brutus; the reign of King Arthur; and the ‘passage of dominion’ over the land from the British to the Anglo-Saxons. Despite Brutus’s importance in the use made of the legendary history, his part in the narrative was subject to fewer alterations in AngloNorman prose chronicles, and I will here focus mainly on Arthur’s reign and the ‘passage of dominion’.2 I will examine how these elements of the legendary history were handled by successive generations of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, as each of these presented its own version of the British past.

1

2

J. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie and Its Early Vernacular Versions (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1950). On the reason for Brutus’s importance, see below, p. 45. On the ‘passage of dominion’ see R. W. Leckie Jr, The Passage of Dominion: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the  Periodization of Insular History in the Twelfth Century (Toronto and London, 1981).

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The legendary history of Britain

The legendary history of Britain and English history Twelfth-century historians found it problematic to establish what could reasonably be held up as true about the Britons who had inhabited the British Isles prior to the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. In his Gesta Regum Anglorum (the first version of which was completed c.1126), William of Malmesbury criticised the ‘nugae’ (‘wild tales’) which were told about the British champion Arthur, whom William nevertheless regarded as having been a great warrior.3 Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie promised to dispel these concerns by giving an account of the history of the British kings who had ruled the country for over 2000 years. Supposedly taken from an ancient book in the British tongue, the Historia spanned the history of the Britons from their first leader, Brutus, grandson of Aeneas, to their last king, Cadwallader, who lost the British kingdom. The narrative of the rise of Britain to become a great empire rivalling Rome, first under Belinus and Brennius and again under Arthur, and the subsequent catastrophic loss of Britain to the Saxons, was compelling enough to ensure that for centuries its influence would dominate the historical literature concerned with early British history.4 A number of early readers expressed unease with the Historia, however. One problem was the question of its validity: it could not be easily reconciled with other historical accounts.5 Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon said that he was amazed (‘stupens’) to have discovered it, and treated it with some caution in his Epistola Warino.6 Alfred of Beverley repeated the Historia’s 3 4

5

6

GRA, I, Book 1, Chapter 8, pp. 26–7. On its influence in medieval Latin historical writing see Crick, HRB, IV; T.  D.  Kendrick, British Antiquity (London, 1950), pp. 1–37; L. Keeler, Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Late Latin Chroniclers 1300–1500 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1946). HKB, the latest edition and translation, suggests that Geoffrey’s work should be more properly known as De gestis Britonum (p. lix). For discussion, see C. Dean, Arthur of England: English Attitudes to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 1987), pp. 15–19; Gransden, Historical Writing, I, 200–1; and the subtle account by A. Putter, ‘Latin Historiography after Geoffrey of Monmouth’, in The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature: The Development and Dissemination of the Arthurian Legend in Medieval Latin, ed. S. Echard (Cardiff, 2011), pp. 85–108, at pp. 85–91: Putter notes that despite some scepticism, the Historia’s account exercised a powerful hold over the imagination of twelfth-century writers of history. On Henry’s attitude, see N. Wright, ‘The place of Henry of Huntingdon’s Epistola ad Warinum in the text-history of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie: a preliminary investigation’, in France and the British Isles in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Essays in Memory of Ruth Morgan, ed. G. Jondorf and D. N. Dumville (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 71–113, which gives an edition of the text at pp. 92–113. Another edition and translation of the Epistola is given in HA, pp. 558–83. The Epistola was written after 1139 and before Henry’s death in 1157: see D. E. Greenway, ‘Henry [Henry of Huntingdon], c.1088–c.1157’, Oxford DNB, online at www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/12970.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles account in his Annales but expressed concern that no contemporary Saxon or Roman historians had remarked on Arthur’s sixth-century conquests of Europe.7 Gerald of Wales suggested that the Historia was full of lies.8 William of Newburgh made a stinging attack on the Historia as mendacious British propaganda.9 A second problem was with other material related to Arthur. William of Malmesbury’s unease with the ‘nugae’ which circulated about Arthur may refer to some of the legends which Geoffrey codified, but it may also refer to other stories. In his translation of Geoffrey’s Historia, Wace discusses the first, twelve-year period of peace under Arthur, and notes that during this time Furent les merveilles pruvees E les aventures truvees Ki d’Artur sunt tant recuntees Ke a fable sunt aturnees: Ne tut mençunge, ne tut veir, Ne tut folie ne tut saveir. the wondrous events appeared and the adventures were sought out which [. . .] are so often told about Arthur that they have become the stuff of fiction: not all lies, not all truth, neither total folly nor total wisdom.10

Even if Geoffrey’s Historia is accepted as accurate, Wace suggests, there is other material about Arthur in which fact and fiction are too closely intertwined to be distinguishable. A third and perhaps even more crucial problem was with the so-called ‘British hope’ that the descendants of the Britons might one day reconquer England, perhaps even led by an Arthur who had survived his final battle.11 William of Malmesbury had already been aware of this ‘British hope’ of Arthur’s survival when he wrote his Gesta Regum.12 While all versions of Geoffrey’s Historia reported that Arthur was mortally wounded before he 7

8

9 10 11

12

Aluredi Beverlacensis, Annales sive Historia de Gestis Regum Britanniae, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford, 1716), Book 5, p. 76. Alfred wrote the Annales c.1143: see S. Lee, revised by J. C. Crick, ‘Beverley, Alfred of (d.1154×7?)’, Oxford DNB, online at www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/344. Gerald of Wales, Itinerarium Kambriæ, in Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock and G. F. Warner, 8 vols. (London, 1861–91), VI, 3–152, in Book 1, Chapter 5, at p. 58; Gerald of Wales, The Journey Through Wales, in The Journey Through Wales and the Description of Wales, trans. L. Thorpe (Harmondsworth, 1978), pp. 116–17. The Itinerarium was written between 1188 and 1223: see R. Bartlett, ‘Gerald of Wales (c.1146–1220×3)’, Oxford DNB, updated October 2006, online at www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/10769. See above, Introduction, p. 21 and n. 99. Wace, Brut, ll. 9789–94; translation, p. 247. R. S. Loomis, ‘The Legend of Arthur’s Survival’, in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. R. S. Loomis (Oxford, 1959), pp. 64–71. GRA, I, Chapter 287, p. 520.

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The legendary history of Britain was taken to Avalon, only some copies made clear that Arthur had actually died.13 Henry of Huntingdon’s Epistola Warino noted that the Bretons believed Arthur was still alive and awaited his return, but declared that Arthur had fallen.14 Wace reported a prophecy by Merlin that Arthur’s death would be ‘dutuse’ (‘doubtful’), and said that, indeed, people would always wonder whether Arthur was dead or alive.15 Moreover, a prophecy from the account of Cadwallader’s reign at the end of Geoffrey’s Historia stated that the British would one day retake their island.16 This ‘British hope’ could be ridiculed, as it was in the Draco Normannicus, but it was also apparently the focus of genuine passions and concern in Brittany and Wales.17 William of Newburgh’s attack on Geoffrey’s Historia as British propaganda reinforces that the concerns over the truth of the Historia and its potential to cause trouble for the rulers of England in the present were related.18 Seen in this light, the fact that Geoffrey’s Historia became the most influential account of early British history within medieval English historical writing could be seen as a triumph of narrative appeal over both historical fact and political convenience. Despite the associations of the legendary history with Welsh and Breton identity, Henry II and Richard I may at times have used elements from the legendary history of Britain to enhance their prestige. In 1191, the monks of Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have discovered the graves of Arthur and Guinevere. No earlier text had mentioned Arthur’s burial-place, and the association of Glastonbury with Avalon, to which Arthur was taken when mortally wounded, is first recorded around this time by Gerald of Wales. This certainly represented an attempt to appropriate Arthur’s fame on behalf of the abbey; however, there may also have been another reason for the claim. Gerald of Wales reports that Henry II had ordered the exhumation, and Antonia Gransden has taken this to suggest that it may have been politically motivated: 13

14

15 16 17

18

The phrase ‘Anime eius in pace quiescat’ (‘May his soul rest in peace’) follows Arthur’s reign in some manuscripts: see for example HRB, I, Chapter 178, p. 132. However, in others it does not appear: Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. L. Thorpe (London, 1966), p. 261; The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth II: The First Variant Version: A Critical Edition, ed. N. Wright (Cambridge, 1988) (hereafter HRB, II), Chapter 178, p. 174; Crick, HRB, IV, 106; HKB, Book XI, Chapter 178, l. 84, p. 253. ‘Epistola Warino’ in HA, p. 580. Henry does not mention the related prophecy in Cadwallader’s reign referenced at n. 16 below (pp. 582–3). Wace, Brut, ll. 13282–90 (13286); translation at p. 333. HKB, Book XI, Chapter 205, ll. 568–72, p. 279. J. E. C. Williams, ‘Brittany and the Arthurian Legend’, in The Arthur of the Welsh, ed. R. Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman and B. F. Roberts (Cardiff, 1991), pp. 249–72, at p.  262; R. R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063–1415 (Oxford, 2000; 1st edn 1987), p. 79. See the Introduction above, p. 21.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles It would [. . .] be useful to him [Henry II] politically because it would publicise that king Arthur was actually dead: in current folklore it was believed that he merely slept on the Isle of Avalon and would one day awaken and again lead the Britons to victory. Such a view was politically damaging to a king trying to subdue the Welsh.19

The exhumation at Glastonbury actually took place after Henry’s death, in Richard I’s reign, and in the context of the debate over who should succeed Richard. One contender was Richard’s nephew Arthur of Brittany, whose name was well-suited for capitalising on the British hope to the Plantagenets’ advantage.20 Ultimately, however, Richard’s brother John secured the kingdom and Arthur of Brittany died in suspicious circumstances whilst he was John’s prisoner. In such a context, the Arthurian associations of the legendary history of Britain were likely to become unwelcome in contemporary politics. However, in the second half of the thirteenth century, another English monarch became interested in appropriating this history for himself.21 Edward I showed an interest in Arthurian romances, and Arthurian material provided a popular theme for the entertainments of this king and his barons.22 The legendary history of Britain was also put to wider use as propaganda in the conflicts with the Welsh and the Scots. In 1278, Arthur and Guinevere’s graves at Glastonbury were reopened by Edward I, in a reprise of the exhumation in the 1190s. But whereas the earlier exhumation seemed designed to quash the Arthurian ardour of the Welsh, in 1278 the purpose seemed to be to reawaken memories of Arthur as the predecessor of the English king.23 The memory 19

20

21

22

23

A. Gransden, ‘Glastonbury Traditions and Legends’, in Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition, ed. J. P. Carley, Arthurian Studies 45 (Cambridge, 2001), pp.  29–53 (p. 49). Gransden discusses the exhumation on pp. 43–52. (An earlier version of this article appeared in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976), 337– 58). See also J. Carley, ‘Arthur in English History’, in The Arthur of the English, ed. W. R. J. Barron (Cardiff, 1999), pp. 47–57 (pp. 48–9). E. D. Kennedy, ‘Glastonbury’, in Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature, ed. Echard, pp. 109–31, also surveys medieval Glastonbury’s contribution to Arthurian legend. C. T. Wood, ‘Guenevere at Glastonbury: A Problem in Translation(s)’, Arthurian Literature 16 (1998), 23–40 (pp. 28–9) (this is reprinted in Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Carley, pp. 83–100); R. Bromwich, ‘First Transmission to England and France’, in Arthur of the Welsh, ed. Bromwich, Jarman and Roberts, pp. 273–98, at p. 275. M. Prestwich, Edward I (New Haven and London, 1997; 1st edn 1988), pp. 120–2, provides a summary of the material discussed here, though he presents a more sceptical view of Edward’s Arthurian interests. See J. Vale, Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and its Context 1270–1350 (Woodbridge, 1982), pp. 17–24; R. S. Loomis, ‘Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast’, Speculum 28 (1953), 114–27; and R. S. Loomis, ‘Arthurian Influence on Sport and Spectacle’, in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Loomis, pp. 553–9 (pp. 558–9), which also places the Arthurian allusions made by such events within a pan-European tradition originating in the early thirteenth century (p. 553). On the second exhumation see J. C. Parsons, ‘The Second Exhumation of King Arthur’s Remains at Glastonbury, 19 April 1278’, Arthurian Literature 12 (1993),

44

The legendary history of Britain of Arthur was appropriated again by Edward I in 1283–4, shortly after he completed his conquest of Wales: a Welsh crown identified as Arthur’s was handed over to Edward and presented before the altar at Westminster.24 Most notably, the legendary history of Britain was co-opted in the service of English claims to overlordship in Scotland. When Edward I appealed to the English monasteries for information on the subject in 1291, as he considered the questions of who should succeed to the Scottish throne and his own role in that kingdom, at least two monasteries, Faversham and Waltham, cited a precedent for his overlordship from British history: Brutus, the first king of the land, had ruled over it all before dividing it into England, Scotland and Wales, giving these to his three sons.25 Edward’s officials did not cite this precedent often, but in a letter sent by Edward I to the pope in 1301 concerning the issue, Brutus’s suzerainty over Scotland was noted as a precedent to Edward’s own. Moreover, this letter noted, other British kings, including Arthur, had also had overlordship of the Scots.26 Felicity Riddy has described the overall effect of these appropriations as a ‘self-conscious Arthurianizing of Edward I’s reign’,27 and indeed, after such developments, it is not surprising that one of the most widely disseminated contemporary vernacular accounts of Edward’s reign, in Pierre Langtoft’s Chronique, should consistently parallel the achievements of the king with those of Arthur.28 After Edward I’s reign, royal interest in the legendary history of Britain waned, but it did not disappear. Edward III’s tournaments used Arthurian literature as a source of inspiration and he may even have considered the idea of founding a chivalric order based around Arthurian themes, eventually choosing instead St George as the patron for his Order of the Garter.29 James Carley and Julia Crick have argued that Edward III’s 1331 visit to Glastonbury to view its relics was connected to the ‘renewed tensions on the Scottish front in the 1330s’,

24

25

26

27

28

29

173–7 (reprinted in Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Carley, pp. 179–83); Carley, ‘Arthur in English History’, pp. 50–1. Vale, Edward III and Chivalry, pp. 17–18; Carley, ‘Arthur in English History’, p. 50; Davies, Age of Conquest, pp. 355–6. E. L. G. Stones and G. G. Simpson, Edward I and the Throne of Scotland 1290–1296: An edition of the record sources for the Great Cause, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1978), I, 148; J. P. Carley and J. Crick, ‘Constructing Albion’s Past: An Annotated Edition of De origine gigantum’, Arthurian Literature 13 (1995), 41–114 (pp. 56–7) (a revised version of this article was printed in Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Carley, pp. 347–418). Carley, ‘Arthur in English History’, pp. 51–2; for the relevant passage in the letter, see Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174–1328: Some Selected Documents, ed. and trans. E. L. G. Stones (Edinburgh and London, 1965), no. 30, pp. 96–109 (pp. 97–8); this is discussed in Stones and Simpson, Edward I, I, 156–7. F. Riddy, ‘Reading for England: Arthurian Literature and National Consciousness’, Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society 43 (1991), 314–32 (p. 325). T. Summerfield, ‘The Arthurian References in Pierre de Langtoft’s Chronicle’, in Text and Intertext in Medieval Arthurian Literature, ed. N. Lacy (New York, 1996), pp. 187–208; Summerfield, Matter of Kings’ Lives, Chapter 3, pp. 29–68. Vale, Edward III and Chivalry, pp. 66–8, 76–7.

45

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles and that the abbey’s interest in the legendary history of Britain may have been revitalised, prompting it to produce De origine gigantum, a Latin prose translation of the popular Anglo-Norman poem containing the story about Albine, in order to help justify ‘English overlordship of Scotland’.30 If interest in the legendary history of Britain began to be less politically urgent after Edward I’s reign, it did not disappear from the rhetoric surrounding the ongoing Scottish conflict. This period, when English interest in the legendary history of Britain was at its most politically charged, was also the time when most of the AngloNorman prose chronicles were produced. In this chapter I will examine their handling of this legendary history and study how it was repeatedly transformed as political circumstances changed. Far from being a stable historical tradition which merely repeated Geoffrey’s Historia, the legendary history of Britain as told by these chronicles was constantly shifting.

Early Anglo-Norman prose chronicles Geoffrey’s Historia was much read in England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, both in Latin and in translations into French and even, occasionally, English verse.31 By contrast, Anglo-Norman prose chronicles were slow to show an interest in the legendary history of Britain. The earliest national histories of England in Anglo-Norman prose focused on Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman history. The first such text began with King Edgar and ended contemporaneously with Richard I.32 LRB, which was probably first written during Henry III’s reign, appears to have initially begun with a description of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England.33 Most of the genealogical rollchronicles of English history also begin at this point.34

30

31

32 33

34

Carley and Crick, ‘Constructing Albion’s Past’, pp. 61–8 (p. 66); see also Carley, ‘Arthur in English History’, pp. 52–4. On the story of Albine, see above, Introduction, pp. 14–15 and n. 73. See Crick, HRB, IV, 206–7, 209–10, 214–17; W. R. J. Barron, F. Le Saux and L. Johnson, ‘Dynastic Chronicles’, in Arthur of the English, ed. Barron, pp. 11–46; see also above, Introduction, pp. 8–11. Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, pp. 10–13. All the earliest manuscripts begin at or after this: see Dean, ANL, no. 13, pp. 13–14. Although Dean dates the copy of LRB in Harvard, Law School Library, MS 1 (which begins with Brutus) to the early thirteenth century, the entire manuscript dates from the end of that century: see J. H. Baker, English Legal Manuscripts in the United States of America, Part I: Medieval and Renaissance (London, 1985), p. 14, and the online description by the Harvard Law School Library, hlsl5.law.harvard.edu/bracton/ ManuscriptEdPage.htm (consulted on 31 January 2011). I am also very grateful to David A. Ferris, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Harvard Law School Library, for advising me on the date of the scribe’s hand in this copy (email, 22 June 2004). See Dean, ANL, no. 6, pp. 7–8.

46

The legendary history of Britain It is during the reign of Edward I that LRB seems to have acquired a prequel which recounted some of the legendary history of Britain. This prequel also became attached to some of the genealogical roll-chronicles in the same textual tradition.35 The most common version of this prequel (on the evidence of published editions, which admittedly do not take in all the manuscripts now known) gives only fragments from Geoffrey’s narrative. It begins with Brutus and gives a summary of some reigns of the more extraordinary British kings, notably Eboracus, Bladud and Lear, and also notes Belinus’s conquests in Europe and Lucius’s conversion to Christianity. After Lucius, the text turns to King Vortigern, and from here on it seems to use Bede as its main source, mentioning only the British Vortigern’s loss of ‘la seignurie de Engleterre’ (‘the sovereignty of England’) to the Saxons Hengist and Horsa,36 with no mention of Aurelius Ambrosius, Uther Pendragon or Merlin. The only further reference in this preface to LRB which is indebted to Geoffrey’s Historia is a mention of the invasion of Britain by Gormund, king of Africa. King Arthur is not present; also missing are all subsequent British kings named by Geoffrey, including the last British king, Cadwallader. The omission of the information from the later portions of Geoffrey’s Historia, as well as the radical abridgement of the earlier sections, suggests that the author was sceptical about the truth of the legendary history of Britain. While some of the early parts of its account could be included, perhaps because of their appeal as narrative, any suggestion of the ‘British hope’ has been expunged, and indeed Arthur himself no longer figures. At around the same time, another Anglo-Norman prose chronicle, LRE, was written. This began its history of England with some brief references to the legendary history of Britain. LRE mentions how Brutus first conquered the land, defeating the giants that had previously inhabited it; it records that Lucius was the first Christian king; it gives an account of Vortigern’s marriage to Hengist’s daughter; and it mentions Cadwallader as the last king of the Britons. No other British kings, including Arthur, are mentioned. LRE makes quite clear that its version of the legendary history locates the ‘passage of dominion’ at an earlier point than Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia had done: immediately after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons it declares that the English ‘plus graunt mestres furent’ (‘had the mastery’) over the land, while ‘les Bretons regnassent par entre en Cornewaillie et en Wales, dekes al tens Cadwaladre, que fu le dreyn rey de Bretons’ (‘the Britons were reigning in Cornwall and in Wales until the time of Cadwallader, who was the last king of the Britons’).37 Despite including these references to the legendary history of Britain, the author clearly regarded it as inaccurate. 35 36

37

See Spence, ‘Audiences’, p. 39 and n. 76. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 55; translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 9. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 116–18 (at p. 118); translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 41.

47

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Such minimalist retellings of the legendary history of Britain did not appeal to all those who made copies of these texts. In one manuscript copy of the LRE, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R. 14. 7, the standard prequel to LRB was added to provide a more complete account of the legendary history.38 Some scribes of LRB and the related genealogical roll-chronicles, meanwhile, included a lengthier account of British history which followed the outline of events in Geoffrey’s Historia more closely. One copy of LRB in the early fourteenth century manuscript that is now Bodl. MS Tanner 195 contained an expanded version of the prequel, beginning in the same way as the original but containing additional details on the legendary British kings and carrying its account of them down to Cadwallader, who ‘fui hors de Engleterre e gist a Rome’ (‘fled from England and lies at Rome’). The author of this expanded account acknowledges Wace’s Brut as his source: ‘Pus le Incarnacion nostre Seygnur Jhesu Crist m. e c. e l. anz translata mestre Wace cete romance’ (‘Master Wace translated this narrative in the year 1150 after the Incarnation of Our Lord’).39 The details of individual reigns are still extremely brief. For example, following an account of Arthur’s conception (which does not mention Merlin’s role), Arthur’s reign is summarised in this way: Pus regna Arthur le fiz Uther le bons e prus, ke conquist xxx. regions e fu rey longement, e fu naufré en le batayle sur le ewe de Cambre en Corwayle e morust e gist a Glastinberi, le an nostre Seygnour v. cens e xii.40 Then Arthur, the good and brave son of Uther, reigned, who conquered 30 regions and was king for a long time, and was wounded in the battle by the river of Cambre in Cornwall and died in the year of our Lord 512, and lies at Glastonbury.

This summary reflects information from another source apart from Wace, who says that Arthur is taken to Avalon but does not identify it with Glastonbury, and who leaves some ambiguity as to whether Arthur is really dead.41 Arthur’s conquests are reduced to a number of ‘regions’, perhaps indicating that same uneasiness expressed earlier by Alfred of Beverley that the conquests described in Geoffrey’s Historia went unnoticed by Continental chroniclers. Nevertheless, whatever concerns this reviser may have felt about Wace’s account of Arthur’s reign, he clearly felt Arthur should at least be noted as one of the British kings. 38 39

40 41

See Spence, ‘Audiences’, p. 39 n. 76. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, MS B, pp. 45–56 (p. 53). On the manuscript, see J.  C.  Crick, The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 3, A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 248–9; Crick, HRB, IV, 121 n. 2; Dean, ANL, no. 13, p. 14; R. H. Fletcher, The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles (New York, 1906), p. 210. Wace himself says that he wrote in 1155: Wace, Brut, ll. 14865–6. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, MS B, at p. 53. Wace, Brut, ll. 13275–93. The date of Arthur’s death is given in this edition of Wace’s Brut as 542 AD (l. 13293).

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The legendary history of Britain Some scribes who copied the genealogical roll-chronicles which shared a common textual origin with LRB apparently had a similar desire to include a more complete legendary history of Britain. One genealogical roll, Bodl. MS Add. E. 14, written during the reign of Edward I, begins with a lengthy account of this history, tracing it from Brutus down to Gormund.42 Here, after Uther sires Arthur ‘par le art Merlyn’ (‘through Merlin’s magic’), Arthur’s reign is treated in some detail: Aprés ly regna Arthur son fiz, ky conquist Escoce, Yrlande, e Norweye; Man e tote les ylles de la mer; Denemarche, France, Gaschoyne, Peytewe e Normandie, e tutes les terres deça les mouns de Lumbardi ly porterent truage. E venqui en batayle Lucy le empereur de Rome ove tut son ost. Au derayn revynt en Engleterre pur venger le traysun de son neveu Modred e Wenheure sa royne. En cele batayle pres de Cornewayle fu Arthur a la mort naufré e ensevely a Glastynbyri, le an de l’Incarnacion Deu cync cenz e quarante deuz anz.43 After him, Arthur his son reigned, who conquered Scotland, Ireland and Norway; Man, and all the islands of the sea; Denmark, France, Gascony, Poitou and Normandy, and all the lands on this side of the mountains of Lombardy brought him tribute. And he vanquished Lucius, the Emperor of Rome, with all his army, in battle. Eventually he returned to England to avenge the treason of his nephew, Mordred, and Guinevere, his queen. In this battle near Cornwall Arthur was mortally wounded, the year of our Lord 542, and lies at Glastonbury.

Here Arthur’s conquests are treated at greater length, and again, the burial at Glastonbury is mentioned, despite not appearing in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia or Wace’s Brut. Sometimes, even though the creators of these manuscripts did not wish to produce an entirely new account of the legendary history of Britain, the omission of King Arthur was keenly felt. Several rolls from this textual tradition which began with a description of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms nevertheless made a comparison between Cnut and Arthur, remarking that ‘unkes devant li, puis le tens au grant Arthur, ne fu rei d’Engletere de si grant poer; car il fu seinor de Denmarche, et de Norway, e d’Escoce, e de Engletere’ (‘never before him, since the time of the great Arthur, was there a king of England of such great power; for he was lord of Denmark, and of Norway, and of Scotland, and of England’).44 Even where Arthur did not feature in the account of English history, his achievements were not necessarily forgotten. 42

43 44

Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, gives a transcription of this MS supplemented by material from a second manuscript, BL MS Add. 11713, which apparently contains the same text, at pp. 1202–10. Bodl. MS Add. E. 14, m. 3r. Feudal Manuals, ed. Wright, p. 18 (my translation); cf. pp. 51–2, 77, and cf. Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1064, 1077, 1223, 1274, 1288 and 1306 for transcriptions of

49

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles In at least one case an account of Arthur’s reign was added into a genealogical roll’s account of later history. British Library MS Cotton Roll XV.7, which was apparently created in the later thirteenth century,45 begins with the standard LRB prequel, with no mention of Arthur. It then continues with a genealogical roll-chronicle text which is almost identical to LRB (in the section recounting events before the Norman Conquest), depicting each king in a roundel and linking these together with a connecting line to show the descent of the royal line. However, after the reign of Alfred the Great is recounted, a roundel depicting ‘Artur’ appears, standing alone, the line of descent avoiding this roundel to link instead to that below it depicting ‘Edward le fiz Alred’ (‘Edward son of Alfred’) (see Plate 1). The text around the Arthur roundel reads: Icest Artur fu le plus renomé roi qe onqes fust. Il engeta Engletere hors de truage de Rome, e desconfit l’emperere de Rome e conquist desqes a l’issue de Lombardie, e eust conquis Rome. Mes il retorna quant il oi dire que Mordret son neveu le voloit tolir Engletere. Idonc trova l’en les chevaleries e les aventures dont vus oez conter. Al tens son pere fu Merlin qui parla des rois Engleis. Cil Artur regna xxiij. anz e v. mois, e gist a Glastingbir.46 This Arthur was the most renowned king who ever lived. He released England from paying tribute to Rome, and defeated the Emperor of Rome, and conquered lands as far as the edge of Lombardy, and would have conquered Rome. But he returned when he heard word that Mordred, his nephew, wished to take England from him. At that time one found the knightly deeds and events which you hear told. In the time of his father lived Merlin, who spoke of the English kings. This Arthur reigned 23 years and 5 months and lies at Glastonbury.

It is clear that the author believed his audience would at least know something of Arthur’s life from the ‘aventures’ (‘events’) of which he assumes they had heard, and this passage consequently ends rather elliptically: it does not refer to Arthur’s final battle. Like the other supplementary material on Arthur, however, it does declare that Arthur is buried at Glastonbury, implying that he is dead. A related text appears in the copy of LRB found in Bodl. MS Selden supra 74. Again, this copy contains the standard prequel to LRB, recounting the legendary history of Britain without Arthur, Cadwallader and others. It then moves on to the main text of LRB, its version ending in 1306.47 However, on

45 46 47

the passage from rolls that do not feature an account of Arthur’s reign, as well as pp. 1114, 1209–10, 1216 and 1253 for transcriptions from rolls which do. By contrast the manuscripts of LRB represented in Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 100, do not contain the comparison. Dean, ANL, no. 6, p. 8. BL MS Cotton Roll XV.7, m. 4r. F. Madan et al., A Summary Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 7 vols. in 8 (Oxford, 1895–1953), II, part 1, p. 644.

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The legendary history of Britain

Plate 1: Roundels of kings Alfred and Arthur in London, British Library, MS Cotton Roll XV.7, m. 4r. © The British Library Board. MS Cotton Roll XV.7, m. 4r. All Rights Reserved.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles reaching the reign of King Alfred, who is lauded for his military achievements, piety and generosity, this manuscript tempers its praise by pointing out that Alfred was only the second best king of England: ‘Cil fu le meudre, saunz Arthur qi fu devaunt Uter Pendragon’ (‘He was the greatest, except for Arthur who lived before Uther Pendragon’). A version of the same passage as that in BL MS Cotton Roll XV.7 then follows. This text lacks the carefulness of that in the Cotton roll: that Arthur is said to have lived before Uther, for example, seems very likely to be an error. This version of Arthur’s life is also unusual in failing to mention Arthur’s grave at Glastonbury, and a note of caution is introduced by remarks on the magical nature of the legends around Arthur: ‘Idunc trovoit l’em les aventures faies dunt vous orez conter’ (‘At that time one would find the fairy adventures which you hear told’).48 Yet for the creators of these manuscripts, the complete omission of Arthur, the most renowned king of the land, from an account of English history was too much to bear in silence. A similar motivation may have lain behind the inclusion of an account of Arthur’s reign at the end of London, College of Arms MS 20/5, another genealogical roll of the kings of Britain and England probably dating from during Edward I’s reign.49 This roll includes a lengthy retelling of the whole span of the legendary history of Britain down to Cadwallader (a distinct text from both the standard prequel and the version found in Bodl. MS Add. E. 14). However, upon reaching Arthur, the reader finds only the direction: ‘De Arthur, querez d’autre part de la roule’ (‘Concerning Arthur, look at the other side of the roll’).50 On the other side of the roll there is indeed a lengthy account of Arthur’s reign, focusing squarely on his victories over the Saxons; his conquests in Britain, other islands and peninsulas, and in France; his war with the Romans (Lucius is identified as the emperor); and his battle against Mordred. Arthur’s death is described in more ambiguous terms in this account: [. . .] quant le roi vist q’il deust morir, la terre a Constentin, filz a Cador, rois de Cornewaille, lessa, et il pur ses plaies saner en l’isle d’Avalum fust porté, qi unque puis ne fust veu. 48

49

50

For this passage, see Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, MS E, at p. 75 (for this manuscript’s prequel, see pp. 45–56 of this edition). This roll is transcribed in Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1227–72, supplemented with material from BL MS Add. 8101, which Laborderie states contains a version of the same text. My discussion only takes into account the College of Arms MS 20/5 text; I have not consulted BL MS Add. 8101 myself and Laborderie does not include a full transcription of BL MS Add. 8101. Tyson, ‘College of Arms’, refers to ‘the date of compilation, 1296, [. . .] given at the end of the text’ in College of Arms MS 20/5 (p. 425). Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, p. 252, points out, however, that this date is shared by the text of both College of Arms MS 20/5 and BL MS Add. 8101; Laborderie tentatively dates the former to Edward II’s reign (1307–27) and the latter to the fourteenth or fifteenth century on palaeographical grounds (pp. 276–7). Transcribed in Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, p. 1241.

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The legendary history of Britain [. . .] when the king saw that he must die, he left the land to Constantine, the son of Cador king of Cornwall, and he was taken to the isle of Avalon in order for his wounds to heal, and was never seen again.

The roll’s text, however, immediately moves to place a distance between itself and the account it has given: De Arthur le noble roi vous ai dit ce que escrit en la geste des Bretuns trovai, ou toutz ses faitz ne sont mie. Mes qi vuelt plus pleinement enquere en les gestes que de li sont faitz et de la rounde table et de sa noble chivalerie, illoques les lise qar trop serroit enuy en si petit lieu toutz ses faitz counter. I have told you what I found written about Arthur in the Deeds of the Britons, where not all his deeds are. But whoever wishes to enquire more fully into the deeds that were done by him and about the Round Table and about his noble knights, read them there, for it would be too troublesome to recount all their deeds in so small a space.51

Unusually for this chronicle, the anonymous author emphasises his role here in including information taken from ‘la geste des Bretuns’, and makes clear that he has been selective in what he has included here by referring his readers back to his source text. He underscores his own text’s distance from the ‘geste des Bretuns’ by characterising the prospect of giving an equally full account as ‘enuy’ – troublesome, or tedious, or an annoyance. The author also undercuts his account of Arthur’s conquests with his summary of the disappointing legacy Arthur left for the Britons: although they continued to war against the West Saxons ‘poi lor vaut, qar totdis le pis a eux avient’ (‘it benefited them little, for they always had the worst of it’). For all Arthur’s conquests, his legacy is identified as a problematic one for the Britons. Instead of Arthur being forgotten, revisions such as these insist that he should be remembered as a great king, even greater indeed than Alfred in one text. The most important facts about his reign are his conquests and his subsequent betrayal by Mordred. He is described as a king of ‘Engletere’ (‘England’), as indeed he occasionally was by Wace,52 but the contemporary relevance of making Arthur a predecessor to Edward I makes such references more politically charged. He is almost always also, of course, dead and buried at Glastonbury, clearing the way for Edward. But these various accounts of Arthur, and his omission from the standard legendary history of Britain prequel to LRB, also indicate the fluidity of this material in the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, as do the differences between texts over when the ‘passage of dominion’ occurred. 51 52

Transcribed in Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, p. 1260. Wace, Brut, ll. 9729, 10174.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles

The prose Brut Compared with LRB and its standard prequel, the prose Brut (which was written at around the same time) regards the legendary history of Britain with great enthusiasm. Almost half of the original version of the Anglo-Norman prose Brut was devoted to an account of this legendary history based primarily on Wace’s Brut, with some use of Geoffrey’s Historia.53 The author of the prose Brut does not, however, restrict himself to a faithful mise en prose of Wace’s poem, but often abridges, omits and adds to his source according to his own agenda. This agenda was to represent the British past as an era in which some kings, above all Arthur, achieved great things, and as a past to which England’s current monarch could still be linked despite the ‘passage of dominion’ from the British to the English. The prose Brut’s account of Arthur, for example, gives a similar picture to that presented by some of the LRB’s revisers. Arthur is a great military leader, and most of his conquests from Geoffrey’s Historia are enumerated, although the battles he fights are only described very briefly. Although he is depicted as a great king, the legendary elements of the Arthurian account are downplayed. Echoing Wace, the prose Brut states that, during the first period of peace, ‘furent les merveilles provez e les aventures trovez dont homme ad sovent counté e oi’ (‘the marvels were manifested and the adventures encountered of which one has often told and heard’); Wace’s subsequent reference to fictions emerging around these events is, however, omitted.54 The British hope of Arthur’s survival is discussed by the prose Brut, but it is rejected. The author repeats Wace’s comment that people wonder whether Arthur is dead because of Merlin’s prophecy that his death will be doubtful.55 The reader, however, is left in no doubt about Arthur’s ultimate fate: the prose Brut states that his successor Constantine ‘regna aprés la mort Arthur’ (‘reigned after the death of Arthur’).56 The prose Brut’s alterations to the accounts of Arthur’s reign found in its sources consist mainly of changes in emphasis, but its description of the ‘passage of dominion’ in parts of the British Isles from the British to the English reworks its sources more substantially. R. William Leckie Jr has examined how important the idea of such a ‘passage of dominion’ was in historical writing of the twelfth century;57 its continuing importance to the author of the prose Brut is indicated by the handling of this part of his narrative. The 53 54

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Marvin, ‘Sources’, pp. 3–7. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 162–3, ll. 1731–2; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 93, ll. 2256–8; and cf. Wace, Brut, ll. 9789–94 (quoted above, p. 42). Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 178–9, ll. 2022–4; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 103, ll. 2636–8. Cf. above, p. 43 and n. 15. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 180–1, l. 2033; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 103, l. 2560. Leckie Jr, Passage of Dominion.

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The legendary history of Britain prose Brut’s representation differs dramatically from the earlier works: while in the twelfth-century histories this transfer was a violent rupture with the past following a long struggle between the British and the English, in the prose Brut the tensions between these groups are concealed towards the end of this period to give an impression of continuity between British and English history. Both LRE and the standard prequel to LRB follow Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and represent the ‘passage of dominion’ from the British to the English as occurring after the arrival of Hengist and Horsa, in Vortigern’s reign. The prose Brut, however, chooses to paraphrase Wace’s version of British history more closely and fully than these earlier texts, and does not leave out the material after Hengist and Horsa make their appearance; instead, it remains largely faithful to Wace’s account up to the death of Arthur. In its account of events from the death of Arthur to the emergence of multiple Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the prose Brut relies on two sources, Wace’s Brut and Gaimar’s Estoire.58 Both poems follow Geoffrey of Monmouth in presenting British kings as having suzerainty over the Saxon kings after Arthur’s reign. Gaimar presents Constantine, Arthur’s successor, as warring against the English, while in Wace Cadwallader is the last British king over the whole island, ruling in the time of Æthelstan.59 The prose Brut largely follows Wace’s outline, but does insert into its account of Constantine’s reign the story of the Danish Havelok, abridged from the account which Gaimar gives (although with some details which are closer to other versions).60 Gaimar used his story of ‘Haveloc’ to usher in his account of the wars between Anglo-Saxon kings, but the prose Brut, after telling us that details of the story of Havelok are ‘trové plus pleinement en l’estorie’ (‘found more fully in the history’) (perhaps a reference to the title of Gaimar’s Estoire), returns to Wace’s account of the British kings after Constantine, describing the reigns of Malgo and Cerdik, and the latter’s defeats at the hands of the African prince Gormund.61

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All four known extant manuscripts of Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis also include a copy of Wace’s Brut. In two of these manuscripts the text of Wace has been substantially replaced or supplemented; however, none of these manuscripts merge Gaimar’s narrative with Wace’s in the manner of the prose Brut. See Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, pp. xv–xix; Marvin, ‘Sources’, pp. 6–8, 27–9. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, ll. 1–40; cf. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, ll. 1–38; Wace, Brut, ll. 14657–60. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 180–1, ll. 2040–67, and cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 104, ll. 2661–94; Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, ll. 41–818; cf. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, ll. 39–816; Wace, Brut, ll. 13299–330. For further discussion of the prose Brut’s treatment of Havelok, see J. Marvin, ‘Havelok in the Prose Brut Tradition’, Studies in Philology 102 (2005), 280–306, and below, Chapter 3, pp. 85–6. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 180–5, ll. 2040–136, at pp. 180–1, l. 2067; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 104–7, ll. 2661–778, at p. 104, ll. 2963–4; and cf. Wace, Brut, ll. 13331–674.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles The prose Brut’s account of the Saxons’ conversion to Christianity and the war between Edwine and Cadwalein also relies wholly on Wace’s account.62 Julia Marvin and Alan MacColl have both examined how after this point the prose Brut handles the transition from British to English rule, creating a sense of continuity through a series of omissions and a reshaping of the work’s sources.63 The next event recounted is the war between two minor English kings, Peanda and Oswi, which is again drawn from Wace. However, the author of the prose Brut carefully avoids the racial hostility between the British and the English that is central to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s and Wace’s accounts.64 This is a contrast to the prose Brut’s fuller descriptions of tensions between the British and the Saxon invaders earlier in its account of Cadwalein’s reign. Marvin suggests that this is a sign of the text moving ‘away from nation, and towards piety, as the factor directing the sympathy of the reader’.65 After removing the suggestion of a continuing enmity between the two peoples from its account, the prose Brut relates the ‘passage of dominion’ in an opaque manner, describing kings warring upon one another without identifying these as either British or English: Avint issint en cel temps qe tretuz les rois qe furent en la terre – come celi de Westsexe, Merceneriche, Est Angle, de Kent, e de Sussexe, e de toutz les autres – chesqun guerra autre, e le plus fort tolli terre e regne au plus feble. Mes il i avoit un roi entre eux qe avoit a noun Offa, e fu le frere Seint Oswald e le frere Oswy. Cesti conquist tretuz les rois e les regnez de la terre e regna sur tuz. It so happened in that time that all the kings there were in the land – such as those of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Sussex, and all the others – warred on one another, and the stronger took land and dominion from the weaker. But there was a king among them who was named Offa, and he was the brother of Saint Oswald and the brother of Oswy. He conquered all the kings and realms of the land and reigned over all.66

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Wace, Brut, ll. 13683–4424; Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 184–93, ll. 2139–292; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 107–12, ll. 2781–975. A. MacColl, ‘Rhetoric, Narrative, and Conceptions of History in the French Prose Brut’, Medium Ævum 74 (2005), 288–310, at pp. 297–304; J. Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession in the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle’, in Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain and France, ed. R. L. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 16 (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 205–20, at pp. 210–11, 214–17. Cf. e.g. the hostility of Peanda’s overlord Chadwalein towards the English in Wace, Brut, ll. 14595–602. Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession’, p. 210. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 194–5, ll. 2318–23; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 113, ll. 3010–17. MacColl, ‘Rhetoric’, pp. 298–9, 309 nn. 39–42, and Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession’, p. 215 n. 31, note the similarities between this passage of the text and a number of earlier chronicles.

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The legendary history of Britain The British king Cadwalein, who at the start of his reign was the overlord of all the other kings, disappears from the narrative and Offa emerges instead as a new overlord: no mention is made of the fact that Cadwalein was supposedly a British king and Offa an Anglo-Saxon king.67 The prose Brut does not provide more information on Offa after this; instead the work goes on to recount how the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, to which its account of the period is ultimately indebted, was written in the time of King Alfred.68 After this, its narrative draws solely – but selectively – from Gaimar’s Estoire for its account of English history, resuming with the lengthy description of the English king Osbrith’s rape of his nobleman Buern Bocard’s wife.69 The prose Brut has concealed the end of the line of British kings with a series of omissions. The prose Brut’s fidelity to the legendary history of Britain up to the reign of Cadwalein – further than LRE, Gaimar’s Estoire, or most LRB and genealogical roll-chronicle texts follow Geoffrey and Wace’s accounts – could be taken to signify that for the first time in the composition of an Anglo-Norman prose chronicle, and indeed in any Anglo-Norman history, the pseudo-historical account of British history is being treated with equal reverence to AngloSaxon history. Indeed, the prose Brut is careful for the most part to preserve the legendary portions of its source material largely intact. However, the prose Brut’s omission of the reign of Cadwallader indicates that this explanation cannot fully account for the chronicle’s treatment of its sources. As Marvin has noted, the compiler of the prose Brut was using both Wace’s Brut and a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, so that the omission of any account of Cadwallader is almost certainly a conscious choice.70 In Geoffrey and Wace’s accounts, Cadwallader’s reign ends in exile, and he loses his kingdom. The prose Brut seems to want to avoid such a major disruption to the line of royal descent: as Marvin puts it, one of the prose Brut’s ‘main, if unstated, goals is to give its readers a sense of essentially unbroken lineage 67

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It is not clear how the author of the prose Brut came to identify this Offa as the brother of kings Oswald and Oswi. It is likely, though, that the prose Brut’s author is thinking of Offa, king of Mercia. Gaimar describes Offa’s hatred for Æthelred, who usurps Osred, supposedly Offa’s nephew: Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, ll. 2126–32; cf. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, ll. 2124–30. Both MacColl, ‘Rhetoric’, pp. 299–300, and Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession’, pp. 215–16, see this move to acknowledge the textuality of a historical narrative for the first time in the prose Brut as significant, coming as it does at a point when the prose Brut is so heavily engaged in revising the accounts given in its sources. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 194–9, ll. 2325–407; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 113–16, ll. 3019–126; Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, ll. 2319–38, 2342–674; cf. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, ll. 2317–36, 2340–672. Marvin, ‘Sources’, pp. 3–4, 7; Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 24, 322 note to l. 2317; J. Marvin, ‘The Prose Brut Chronicle and the Lessons of Vernacular History’, 2 vols., unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1997, I, 190.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles from the time of Brut straight through to that of the Plantagenets in power when the chronicle was composed’.71 Marvin and MacColl both argue that the prose Brut creates an impression of the continuity of the royal line (if perhaps not an entirely convincing one), through its suppression of Cadwallader’s reign and the muddled account of English history from Oswi, through Offa, to Osbrith. I agree, and I would note that in doing so the prose Brut builds upon the precedent of those earlier AngloNorman chronicles that refashioned themselves in an imaginative variety of ways to incorporate elements of the legendary history of Britain. Writing at a time when the claims of England’s current king to dominion over Wales and Scotland were bound up with the legendary history of Britain, the author of the original prose Brut apparently viewed a rupture between the British past and the English present as problematic, and he tried to efface it. By downplaying the break between the British and English kings, he could link Edward I more closely to those earlier overlords of Britain, notably Brutus and especially Arthur, whom the prose Brut presents as such an admirable predecessor. The prose Brut could treat the legendary history of Britain with reverence – but it did not hesitate to rewrite this past when to do so suited its purpose.

Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit and the Brute Abregé In mid-1309, Rauf de Boun wrote his Petit Bruit, a national history from Brutus’s arrival ‘en Engleterre’ (‘in England’) to the death of Edward I. Rauf de Boun claimed that the Petit Bruit was ‘abbreggé hors du grant Bruit’ (‘abridged out of the large Brut’), but no work close enough to be such a source has been identified.72 Rauf’s numerous discussions about how he has revised his sources suggest that he himself played a significant role in shaping  the Petit Bruit’s narrative. Like earlier prose chronicles, the Petit Bruit rewrites the legendary history of Britain, apparently for similar reasons: to appropriate the British past, and especially Arthur, for the English. However, its revisions are more extensive than those of earlier works. A second chronicle, the Brute Abregé, written at around the same time, shows some of the same tendencies. The Petit Bruit’s account of the legendary history of Britain differs substantially from the outline in Geoffrey’s Historia, and is somewhat nearer to LRB’s standard prequel in outline than to other texts: all of the kings mentioned by LRB from Brutus to Cassibalan are named in the same order by Rauf, although Rauf states that each is the son of the last, while the standard prequel to LRB leaves their relationships open (as the author was perhaps aware that he was 71 72

Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession’, p. 207. Petit Bruit, p. 5, l. 4. The question of Rauf de Boun’s sources is discussed in D. B. Tyson, ‘Problem People in the Petit Bruit by Rauf de Boun’, Journal of Medieval History 16 (1990), 351–61.

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The legendary history of Britain skipping several generations).73 However, Rauf de Boun also includes much material which is not found in the prequel to LRB or anywhere else, although the names recall those from Geoffrey’s Historia: during the reign of king ‘Rubundibraz’, for instance, a giant called Loud gives his name to Ludgate, while Leirius (Lear) is poisoned by his son Belin.74 After this, the Petit Bruit starts to introduce additional kings, such as the half-Danish son of Belin, Gurmound, and Gurmound’s son Frederik.75 Later, the land is invaded by ‘un Breton hors de Bretaigne’ (‘a Breton from Brittany’) called Engel who bestows his name on the land.76 However, some time after the country becomes ‘Engelaund’,77 its king, Adeluf II, dies only a year after acceding to the throne, and his younger brother, ‘Uterpendragon’, succeeds him.78 This king, like the Uther of Geoffrey’s Historia, develops a burning desire for the earl of Cornwall’s wife, and, ‘par la queyntyse un Merleyne nigramouncien a l’hour’ (‘by the trickery of one Merlin, a necromancer of that time’), dupes her and sires Arthur. Arthur accedes to the throne after his father’s death, and ‘devynt si gracious de guere q’il conquist Gales, Ireland et Escose tout en sa protection’ (‘became so skilful in war that he conquered Wales, Ireland and Scotland, placing all under his protection’).79 Arthur, the Petit Bruit is alone in telling us, has three sons: Adeluf III, the eldest (who resembles the historical Æthelwulf), who goes on to become the next king of England after Arthur’s death; Morgan le Noir, who is given Wales; and Patrikes le Rous, the youngest, who is given Scotland. This threefold division between Arthur’s children recalls Brutus’s earlier division of Britain between his three sons in Geoffrey’s Historia (a story also told, with some changes, by Rauf de Boun).80 Alongside this highly unusual account of Arthur’s reign there is some, admittedly puzzling, evidence of the influence of romances on the Petit Bruit. For the death of King Eboracus in Scotland Rauf de Boun cites ‘la testemoinaunce Seint Graal’ (‘the testimony of the Holy Grail’) and for the account of a tax resembling Peter’s pence set up in Arthur’s son Adeluf III’s reign he cites ‘la testemoynaunce Launcelet du Lake’ (‘the testimony of Lancelot of the Lake’), though it does not seem that these correspond to either of the extant Vulgate prose romances which share these names.81 In Arthur’s reign, we are told that: 73

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Livere, ed. Glover, pp. 2–6; Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 46–52; Petit Bruit, p. 5, l. 9–p. 8, l. 7. Petit Bruit, p. 6, ll. 19–34; p. 7, ll. 3–19. In Geoffrey’s Historia, Lud is a king who gives his name to Ludgate, while Lear and Belinus are separated by a number of generations: Tyson, ‘Problem People’, pp. 352–3. Petit Bruit, p. 8, ll. 8–30; see Tyson, ‘Problem People’, p. 355. On this part of the narrative, see below, Chapter 3, pp. 79–83. Petit Bruit, p. 10, l. 20. The reigns of Uther and Arthur in the Petit Bruit are discussed in Fletcher, Arthurian Material, pp. 210–12. Petit Bruit, p. 12, ll. 32–3. Petit Bruit, p. 5, ll. 13–29; Tyson, ‘Problem People’, pp. 356, 358. Petit Bruit, p. 6, l. 15; p. 13, ll. 26–7; Tyson, ‘Problem People’, p. 352.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Cil Roy Artour en son temps tint la graunt renomé chevalrie come de sir Perseval et de monseignur Gawayne et de mult des aultres qi vous sont nomez e[n] l’autre Bruit. This King Arthur in his time retained the most renowned knights like Sir Perceval and Sir Gawain and many others who are named for you in the other Brut.82

Diana Tyson has described the Petit Bruit’s chronology as an ‘astonishing jumble of rulers’ that bears little resemblance either to historical fact or to any other chronicle containing the legendary history of Britain.83 Yet Rauf de Boun was not alone in reorganising British history so substantially. Another chronicle which seems to have been written during Edward II’s reign, the Brute Abregé, showed a similar enthusiasm for legendary British history, whilst doing equal violence to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s chronology (its distinctive account is shared only by the closely related Short English Metrical Chronicle). Vortigern (Fortiger) is the son of Bladuk, and Merlin builds Stonehenge in the time of King Dunwolde, father of Belinus and Brennius – all long before the Romans come to Britain.84 Uther Pendragon and Arthur, meanwhile, rule before Lucius, who is described as the first Christian king of ‘Engletere’ (‘England’).85 The legendary history of Britain then ends with an account of how one ‘Inge’ from ‘Saxanye en Espaigne’ (‘Saxony in Spain’) arrived with ‘mut de gent’ (‘many people’), killed the king and renamed the land ‘Engletere’ and divided it among five kings.86 These works may constitute the most extensive transformations of the legendary history of Britain in Anglo-Norman, but as we have seen, they were not alone in rewriting this past. From early retellings such as Henry of Huntingdon’s Epistola to the standard prequel to LRB and the earliest Anglo-Norman prose Brut, this narrative had been continually reshaped. Significantly, the transformations in the Petit Bruit and the Brute Abregé seem to reflect some of the same concerns that drove the revisions in earlier AngloNorman prose chronicles. Both texts suggest the identity of Britain with England. The prose Brut twice makes the point explicitly that the realm of Britain is identical with that 82

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Petit Bruit, p. 12, ll. 30–2. Gawain appears in Geoffrey’s Historia and subsequent texts, but the name Perceval does not appear in earlier chronicles. However, Wace refers to one ‘Peredur’ as an Arthurian lord (Wace, Brut, l. 10281, pp. 258–9 and n. 2) and the Welsh version of Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval, the Historia Peredur ab Efrawg, indicates that Perceval was identified with Peredur: see I. Lovecy, ‘Historia Peredur ab Efrawg’, in Arthur of the Welsh, ed. Bromwich, Jarman and Roberts, pp. 171–82, at pp. 175–6. Tyson, ‘Problem People’, p. 358. SEMC, part 3, p. 95, ll. 130, 136–42. SEMC, part 3, p. 96, ll. 162–77. It is also notable that here, as in Wace and the revised versions of the prequel to LRB, England is ‘Engletere’ before it acquires the name. SEMC, part 3, pp. 96–8, ll. 186–213. On this legend, see below, Chapter 3, pp. 81–3.

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The legendary history of Britain of England;87 again, in the Petit Bruit and the Brute Abregé, it is the name which is described as changing, not the geographical area. At the same time, both texts play down the wider territorial claims made for the later British kings by earlier versions of the legendary history of Britain: both mention only Belinus’s conquests in Europe, not Arthur’s.88 As noted above, the Petit Bruit describes Arthur’s British conquests, but it does not mention any European ones. In the Brute Abregé, Arthur is not described as a conqueror at all, but Uther is said to have ‘out toute en sa main Engletere e Gales, Escote e Irlaunde’ (‘had in his possession all England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland’).89 Asserting Arthur’s and Uther’s rule over Scotland in particular recalls the claims of the current English kings to be overlords of that country, just as in Edward I’s 1301 letter. Moreover, in their responses to Edward’s letter, the Scots had made much of the fact that Arthur had died without an heir, and so Scotland had reverted to its independent status after his death. Giving Arthur three sons, as Rauf de Boun does, might be intended to address such arguments.90 In the case of the Petit Bruit in particular the failure to mention Arthur’s European wars suggests some scepticism over other accounts of Arthur’s reign which recount further conquests: Et ne amerveillez vous mye de ceo q’il ne vous fait mencion, si en ceo petit Bruit, de conquest le roy Artour, pour ceo qe i avoit taunt de sa pruese a parler qe trop miettroit home pessaunt hestorie a cel liverez taunt de parollis enfretter; et d’autre part ensement par la reson q’il estoit en amour de la dame de faierie, et la vertue q’il avoit vint auxi come chose faé, a ceo qe dit l’autre Bruit; pur ce n’est pas joce amiable de mettre fayer[i]e en escripture auxi come avaunt[dite] choce dount i ad certeyne autorité.91 And you should not be surprised that it does not tell you, in this Petit Bruit, of the conquest of King Arthur, because there is so much to say of his prowess that a man might add a weighty account to these books, to load them with so many words; and on the other hand similarly for the reason that he was in love with the fairy lady, and the strength that he had came thus as a fairy thing, as the other Brut says; for this reason it is not a likable thing to put fairy [matters] into writing just like the aforesaid thing for which there is a reliable authority.

As in Alfred of Beverley and William of Newburgh’s chronicles and some of the genealogical roll-chronicles, there is a suspicion over the veracity of Arthur’s European conquests; as in Wace’s Brut and Bodl. MS Selden supra 87

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Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 138–9, ll. 1238–40, and pp. 184–5, ll. 2142–5; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 76, ll. 1627–30, p. 107, ll. 2784–9. Petit Bruit, p. 7, ll. 25–31; SEMC, part 3, p. 95, ll. 142–5, cf. p. 96, ll. 166–8. SEMC, part 3, p. 96, ll. 163–4. On the Scottish responses to Edward’s letter, see Carley and Crick, ‘Constructing Albion’s Past’, p. 58. Petit Bruit, p. 13, ll. 11–17.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles 74’s copy of LRB, there is an awareness of the fairy stories which accrued around Arthur and which threatened to undermine his historical credibility. For the first time, however, these two suspicions are explicitly combined together by Rauf de Boun. Yet as Rauf rejects these more outlandish elements of Arthurian legend, he also claims an authority for his own, highly unusual, text. Also notable is the unprecedented extent to which Rauf brings Arthur into English history. Wace’s Brut had referred to the realm of the British kings as ‘Engleterre’; the creators of BL MS Cotton Roll XV.7 and Bodl. MS Selden supra 74 had placed Arthur alongside Alfred the Great in their narratives, if not chronologically; and the prose Brut had sought to blur the line between British and English history. But only Rauf makes Arthur the successor of Engel (founder of England) and the father of Adeluf III, who can be identified with Æthelwulf, thus appropriating Arthur completely for England. Arthur is also definitely dead: the one statement Rauf de Boun makes about his reign after asserting the ‘certeyne autorité’ of his account is that ‘Artour regna vint et vii. aunz, si morust al chastell de Kerliouns, si feut le cors porté a Glastinbers’ (‘Arthur reigned 27 years: he died at the castle of Caerleon and his body was taken to Glastonbury’).92 The Brute Abregé similarly notes that Arthur ‘gist a Glastingbere’ (‘lies at Glastonbury’).93 Whatever their differences from other historical narratives, in their assertion of Arthur’s death and burial at Glastonbury they fall into the mainstream of Anglo-Norman prose historiography. Despite the unique nature of their narratives, these texts nevertheless share common features with earlier Anglo-Norman prose chronicles. Their rewritings of the legendary history of Britain were more extensive than those of the standard prequel to LRB or the prose Brut. Rauf de Boun, in particular, all but eliminated the ‘passage of dominion’ by making the founder of England a Breton, and he placed Arthur among his English kings. Such revisions, however, differed in degree, not in kind. Moreover, as in earlier chronicles, many of these revisions seem to have been driven by anxiety over the truth of the legendary history and by an awareness of its contemporary political resonance in England.

Later Anglo-Norman prose chronicles For a long time after Rauf de Boun and the Brute Abregé’s reworkings of the legendary history of Britain were created, no major new chronicle composed in Anglo-Norman prose diverged substantially from pre-existing accounts. The prose Brut and the prequel to LRB continued to be copied throughout the 92 93

Petit Bruit, p. 13, ll. 18–19. SEMC, part 3, p. 96, l. 168.

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The legendary history of Britain fourteenth century, but the need for new versions of the British past seemed to diminish. Although a popular later version of the prose Brut produced in the 1330s (known as the Long Version) does incorporate the name of Cadwallader towards the end of its account of British history, it does not draw on Geoffrey of Monmouth or Wace; instead, it substitutes the name of Cadwallader for Cadwan, Cadwalein’s predecessor and preserves the prose Brut’s own narrative.94 Trevet’s Cronicles interweaves short accounts of the British kings into its account of universal history; these notices become increasingly brief as the text summarises the reign of Arthur and the ‘passage of dominion’ from earlier sources such as the Historia Regum Britannie and the Historia Brittonum attributed to Nennius, and Les Cronicles focuses more on Anglo-Saxon history during this period.95 The Anonimalle Brut gives a more extensive account of Arthur’s reign and the ‘passage of dominion’, closely drawn from Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace’s Brut.96 This is again interwoven with Anglo-Saxon and universal history. The Polistorie of John of Canterbury draws again on Geoffrey and Wace to provide its account of British history, and for the later stages of this goes back and forth between material drawn ultimately from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and from the legendary history of Britain without attempting to analyse the relationships between the two accounts.97 A unique genealogical roll-chronicle account of British and English history in London, College of Arms, MS 20/2, a roll which dates from Edward III’s reign, also gives an account that closely follows Geoffrey of Monmouth.98 At this point, though, some Anglo-Norman chroniclers did begin to appropriate elements of this legendary history to enhance the past of an institution, a locality or a family. Glastonbury Abbey had appropriated elements of Arthurian legend for its own benefit as early as the twelfth century, but tracing the history of a religious foundation back to the British past was not unique to Glastonbury. A history of the priory of St Martin’s, Dover, from Edward II’s reign traces the origins of Dover Castle to the time of Julius Caesar’s war with Cassibalan, and claims that in 166 AD Lucius, the first Christian king according to Geoffrey’s Historia, ‘fist une eglise en le dit chastell ou les gentz de la ville puissant aver son sacraments, et pertant est l’eglise la primere eglise du Rome’ (‘made a church in the said castle where the men of the town might 94

95

96

97

98

See J. Marvin, ‘Arthur Authorized: The Prophecies of the Prose Brut Chronicle’, Arthurian Literature 22 (2005), 84–99 (pp. 86–7, n. 9). Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, pp. 191–2 (Arthur’s reign), 194–5 (the ‘passage of dominion’), 234–5 (a second discussion of the ‘passage of dominion’). Les Cronicles omits reference to Cadwallader as the last king of Britain. BL MS Royal 20 A. XVIII, fols. 62r–79r (Arthur’s reign, which is also briefly discussed in Fletcher, Arthurian Material, at p. 212); fols. 86r–87r (Cadwallader’s reign). Ferris, ‘Polistorie’, pp. 3–196; for the material in its account of Arthur’s reign which does not come from Geoffrey of Monmouth see Fletcher, Arthurian Material, pp. 212–13. For this roll and its date of production, see above, Introduction, pp. 13–14 and n. 68.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles receive their sacraments, and therefore this church is the first Roman church’): St Martin’s thus acquires a far greater antiquity than its near-neighbour, Canterbury. Arthur also plays a part in this history: ‘Arthour le Glorious [. . .] amenda le dit chastiel en plusieurs choses, et fist la sale que ore est appellé Artoursale; et la chambre sa femme est appellé Guaonebour’ (‘Arthur the Glorious [. . .] improved the said castle in several ways, and made the hall which is now called Arthur’s Hall, and his wife’s room is called Guinevere’s Chamber’).99 Similarly, Fouke le Fitz Waryn borrows elements from the legendary history of Britain to enhance the prestige of the Fitz Warin family, even though the narrative begins long after the legendary history is supposed to have ended. The giant Geomagog, who in Geoffrey’s Historia is killed by Brutus’s champion Corineus in a wrestling match, makes an appearance in Fouke. After Geomagog’s death, his body is possessed by a devil who terrorises the Welsh March until the reign of William the Conqueror, when Payn Peverel vanquishes him through the power of his Christian faith. The devil then predicts how Payn’s descendant Fouke will eventually overcome King John and reclaim his ancestral lands.100 At the end of Fouke, the narrative returns to the British past, relating a prophecy about Fouke which is attributed to Merlin and which mentions Arthur.101 Topping and tailing the history of the Fitz Warins with material drawn from the legendary history of Britain and Arthurian romance lends the family both a mysterious and a chivalric aura.102

The Scalacronica’s account of British history One last major retelling of the legendary history of Britain in Anglo-Norman prose does exist, however, in Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica (written 1355– 69). Like earlier versions, this legendary history again rewrites this past while attempting to present itself as an authoritative version. In the main, Gray seems to have tried to produce a faithful account of the legendary history of Britain. His main sources for this section of the Scalacronica are Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, Wace’s Brut and the prose Brut, and he privileges Geoffrey’s account, mentioning it in his prologue as one of the four rungs of the ladder of chronicles he describes in the dream-vision.103 Where the prose Brut contradicted the earlier works, Gray ignores it: he passes over the prose Brut’s account of the ‘passage 99

100 101 102 103

This account in Anglo-Norman prose is found in a royal writ of Edward II’s reign. It is edited in W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum [. . .], rev. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, 6 vols. (London, 1817–30; 1st edn 1655–61), IV, 533–4 (p. 533). FFW, pp. 4–7. FFW, pp. 59–61. See also below, Chapter 5, p. 155. See above, Chapter 1, p. 34.

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The legendary history of Britain of dominion’ and restores Cadwallader to the position of the last British king.104 Gray does not pretend that the later parts of his legendary history of Britain neatly  dovetail  with his subsequent account of Anglo-Saxon history. Instead, he argues that such conflicting accounts of history are to be expected from two peoples at war: such is the case in France, Scotland and Sicily even now, he points out.105 Consequently, he presents a ‘British’ version of history, followed by a ‘Saxon’ one. He does not share the desire of the prose Brut’s author to obscure the narrative of the ‘passage of dominion’. Elsewhere, however, Gray permits himself some liberties with the version of events in Geoffrey’s Historia. For instance, he makes some changes to the account of Brutus’s origins. In the Scalacronica, Brutus’s grandfather Ascanius (son of Aeneas) has two younger half-brothers: Romulus and Remus.106 By tying the origin myths of Rome and Britain more closely together, Gray emphasises the comparisons between the British and Roman empires which had been so central to Geoffrey’s Historia. Some of the changes made to Geoffrey’s account appear to be prompted by an awareness of the connection between the legendary history of Britain and current English claims to Scotland. The Scalacronica is coloured by Gray’s personal and familial involvement in the wars against Scotland and France in recent decades: as a Northumbrian knight Gray was heavily involved in fighting against the Scots, and the Scalacronica gives details of battles in which he fought against both Scotland and France and also describes Gray’s father’s participation in the wars with the Scots.107 Gray shows his sensitivity to the connection between the legendary history and Edward I’s claims to Scotland in the Scalacronica, describing how Edward’s letter to the pope in 1301 declared ‘par le usage de l’yel de Bretaigne, en tot temps puis le hour Brutus, qe la soveraineté d’Escoce apartenoit au regauté d’Engleter’ (‘by the custom of the Isle of Britain at all times since the era of Brutus, [that] the sovereignty of Scotland pertained to the kingship of England’).108 Gray makes a notable change in his account of the events following the death of Aurelius Ambrosius. At this point in the prose Brut, which was Gray’s source for this episode, a dragon’s head appears in the sky, signifying that Aurelius’s brother Uther Pendragon is now king, and from the dragon’s mouth come two flames. One flame is pointing towards France and the other towards Ireland. Merlin reveals that the two flames signify the expansion of British rule into France

104 105

106 107 108

Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 95vb–97ra. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 100va–102vb, at fols. 100vb–101rb. Moll, Before Malory, p. 70, also notes this passage. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 26va–28rb. See King, ‘Scaling the Ladder’, pp. 58–9. Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. 44–5 (I have used King’s translation of this passage above).

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles and Ireland which will take place in Arthur’s reign.109 The Scalacronica’s account of this episode corresponds almost word for word with that of the prose Brut, and the first flame is still headed towards France, but according to Gray, the second flame ‘extendy [. . .] outre Ireland devers Escoce’ (‘extended beyond Ireland towards Scotland’).110 Gray also follows Geoffrey’s account of Arthur’s subsequent conquest of Scotland. However, the Scottish submission to Arthur elicits comment: Arthur prist lez homages de lez Escoces, qe envice le firent; com tesmoigne Bede, qe meutz voloint murrir qe estre sutzgis.111 Arthur received homage from the Scots, who paid homage reluctantly; as Bede testifies, they would rather die than be subjects.

Yet although Edward III’s wars with Scotland and France were both a national issue and a personal concern for Gray, and these minor alterations of the legendary history seem likely to have been inspired by his involvement in these conflicts, such changes are remarkably few. Unlike some earlier AngloNorman prose chronicles, Gray’s Scalacronica does not make large-scale revisions of the legendary history of Britain to justify English territorial claims. The accounts of Arthur’s conquests in Geoffrey’s and Wace’s works, however, were sufficiently comprehensive to provide Gray with plenty of material on how far Britain had extended its dominion under Arthur’s rule. Where the earlier prose Brut had reduced the list of conquests by omitting some events (apparently on grounds of brevity rather than scepticism), Gray went back to its sources to reinsert these. A section of the Scalacronica describing Arthur’s conquest of Norway (ahead of Arthur’s war with Frollo, king of France) has no parallel in the prose Brut but is taken from Geoffrey’s Historia and Wace’s Brut.112 The prose Brut included only a brief account of Arthur’s campaign against Lucius; Gray brought a wealth of detail into his version of these events directly from Geoffrey and Wace, making this war once again the 109

110 111

112

Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 150–1, ll. 1465–85; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 84–5, ll. 1914–43. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 66vb. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 71rb; transcribed in R. J. Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions: Chronicle, Romance, and Arthurian Narrative in England 1300–1470’, much of the dissertation was published in Moll, Before Malory – but not the part I cite here!) Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1999, Appendix A, ‘Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica’ [a transcript of his account of Arthur’s reign and related material], pp. 322–56, at p. 331. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 72ra–b, transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 333; cf. HKB, Book IX, Chapter 154, ll. 225–49, p. 207; HRB, II, Chapter 154, pp. 145–6; Wace, Brut, ll. 9799–862; cf. the absence of this conquest in Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 162–4, ll. 1714–35; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 92–3, ll. 2233–61. However, the king of Norway is mentioned as coming to Arthur’s coronation in Caerleon: Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 166, l. 1790; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 95, l. 2333.

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The legendary history of Britain centre of the historical narrative for Arthur’s reign. This focus may have been related to the fact that Gray had fought for his king in Northern Europe, in Flanders in 1338–40.113 Gray’s awareness of Arthur’s political value may have led him to include a defence of the veracity of Arthurian history. Since the beginning of the fourteenth century, more Latin chroniclers had expressed doubts over the account of Arthur’s reign from Geoffrey’s Historia and particularly Arthur’s wars abroad. In his Polychronicon (c.1327), Ranulf Higden had questioned the truth of Geoffrey’s account of Arthur’s conquests, prompted by the doubts of William of Malmesbury and perhaps also those of Alfred of Beverley, whose Annales he had used as a source.114 It seemed implausible, argued Higden, that Arthur could have conquered thirty kingdoms as Geoffrey described when the Roman, French and Saxon historians did not mention him, and he concluded that Arthur had been praised excessively, in the way each nation praises its greatest hero.115 In his Historia Aurea, John of Tynemouth repeated Higden’s comments on Arthur verbatim.116 However, despite expressing doubts over the accuracy of Geoffrey’s Historia, both chroniclers used it elsewhere as a source.117 Having narrated Arthur’s reign in great detail, recounting his European conquests in full, in a coda to the reign the Scalacronica responds to the doubts expressed by Higden and John of Tynemouth.118 Gray begins by saying that, although some chronicles do not mention Arthur, many more, from many countries, do recount his deeds. He then gives several reasons why Bede may not have wished to record Arthur’s deeds. His first reason returns to the anxiety about Arthur’s connection to fairy stories and the marvellous previously expressed by William of Malmesbury, Wace and Rauf de Boun: ‘bien pust estre qe Bede ne voloit rementouier sez gestez pur ceo qe 113

114

115

116 117

118

Gray, Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, pp. xxxv–xxxvi. A. King, ‘War and Peace: A Knight’s Tale. The Ethics of War in Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica’, in War, Government and Aristocracy in the British Isles, c.1150–1500. Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich, ed. C. Given-Wilson, A. Kettle and L. Scales (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 148–62, notes, however, that Gray made ‘caustic comments’ regarding Edward III’s failure to engage in combat during this campaign (p. 156). Polychronicon, V, 312–14, 330–8. On Higden’s use of Alfred of Beverley’s Annales, see Taylor, Universal Chronicle, p. 85. Polychronicon, V, 332–4. Putter, ‘Latin Historiography’, pp. 94–5, discusses this passage and notes that to an extent this was a defence of Arthur’s historicity. Cam., CCC MS 6, fol. 150ra–b. For Higden’s use of Geoffrey’s Historia see Dean, Arthur of England, p. 19; Moll, Before Malory, p. 66. John of Tynemouth’s Historia Aurea follows Higden in this respect: see for instance Cam., CCC MS 6, fol. 131vb, which mentions Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 81ra–82va; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, pp.  351–4. For a perceptive reading of this passage which focuses more on the extent to which Gray advances a critical model of historical writing, see Moll, Before Malory, pp. 67–72.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles tauntz estoient vayns fayes et mervaillous’ (‘it could well be that Bede did not wish to record his deeds because so many were worthless and marvellous fairy [stories]’).119 Bede may also not have wanted to write about Arthur as he was a historian of the Saxons, not the Britons. Thirdly, Bede couldn’t read Walter of Oxford’s ancient British book: ‘Bede ne en fist mencioun, pusqe du dit langage n’avoit conisaunce’ (‘Bede didn’t make mention of him because he did not know the said language’).120 As Gray challenges Bede’s authority and the doubts of Higden and John of Tynemouth, he simultaneously asserts the reliability of his own account, based as it ultimately is on Walter’s liber vetustissimus. Yet even though Gray defended the historicity of the greatest British king, Arthur, so vigorously, his account of Arthur’s reign is perhaps most notable for introducing swathes of material gathered from romances, as is ably demonstrated in Richard Moll’s valuable survey of the Scalacronica’s borrowings from Arthurian romance.121 Moll has examined how the Scalacronica borrows most heavily from the Vulgate prose romances: it describes how, after Uther’s death, Arthur is only recognised as king after he miraculously pulls a sword from a stone;122 and how, at the end of his life, Arthur asks a knight to cast his sword into a nearby lake, where it is received by a mysterious arm.123 Gray also builds on Wace’s references to the marvellous things that occurred during the two periods of peace in Arthur’s reign, referring to the events described in romances, events he twice describes as ‘chos fayez’ (‘magical happenings’).124 Gray even acknowledges the idea that Arthur might not be dead. He picks up on the remark made in Wace’s Brut, stating that ‘Merlin prophetiza de Arthur qe sa morte serroit doutous, par qoy toutdiz puis lez Bretouns et lez Galoys out creaunz q’il revendra’ (‘Merlin prophesied about Arthur that his death would be doubtful, for which reason ever since the Bretons [or Britons] and the Welsh have believed that he will 119 120

121

122

123

124

Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 81rb; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 351. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 82rb; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 353; cf. Moll, Before Malory, p. 69. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 46–63, 254–62 nn. 105–98. See also Fletcher, Arthurian Material, pp. 224–5; M. L. Meneghetti, I Fatti di Bretagna: Cronache Genealogiche Anglo-Normanne dal XII al XIV Secolo (Padua, 1979), pp. lix–lxii, 49–51, 67–8. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 68vb–69va; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, pp. 326–8; discussed in Moll, Before Malory, p. 53. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 80vb–81ra; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, pp. 350–1; discussed in Moll, Before Malory, pp. 54–7; and see also below, pp. 70–1. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 46, 49. For the handling of these two periods of peace by Wace and in Robert Mannyng’s Chronicle, see L. Johnson, ‘Robert Mannyng’s History of Arthurian Literature’, in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages, ed. I. Wood and G. A. Loud (London, 1991), pp. 129–47; A. Putter, ‘Finding Time for Romance: Mediaeval Arthurian Literary History’, Medium Ævum 63 (1994), 1–16; and Moll, Before Malory, pp. 11–30. On Gray’s handling of these periods, see Moll, Before Malory, pp. 46–9.

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The legendary history of Britain return’). He does not take this literally, but suggests that ‘par aventure cest parol purra estre pris en figure’ (‘this saying could perhaps be read metaphorically’) as predicting that another leader like Arthur would one day rule them.125 Gray does not mention Arthur’s burial at Glastonbury at the end of his reign, or state categorically that Arthur is dead; he says only that Constantine reigned ‘[a]prés Arthure’ (‘after Arthur’).126 However, in his account of Henry II’s reign, he recounts the exhumation of Arthur’s body at Glastonbury.127 Unlike Rauf de Boun, who argued that treating such fairy matters as genuine would undermine the veracity of his account, Gray seems to use this romance material, as Moll has argued, to enhance the chivalric aura of Arthur’s reign. Gray does not, though, allow these romance elements to obscure that version of the Arthurian past cited on behalf of England’s current claims. While Gray uses elements of romance material, the shape of his narrative is determined by the legendary history of Britain inherited ultimately from Geoffrey of Monmouth, but which had by now been utilised for generations to justify English claims over Scotland. Arthur, for all the ‘chos fayez’ (‘magical happenings’) associated with his reign, ultimately needed to be a glorious but dead predecessor to the English kings. There is therefore an apparent discrepancy: Gray’s chronicle introduces more legendary material into its account of Arthur’s reign, while at the same time defending Arthur’s historical veracity. I believe that the key to understanding Gray’s seemingly contradictory approach is to be found in the vision of Arthur’s reign as an ideal time in British history – an ideal that Gray explicitly associates with the place of knights within the realm. After Arthur has conquered Scotland and established peace in Britain for a time, he celebrates chivalric prowess by adopting the customs of the Round Table.128 Gray recounts some topoi familiar from Arthurian romance, stating for instance that the king would not sit down to eat without ‘novels estraunges’ (‘marvellous news’).129 The period is explicitly presented as one in which morals improve and take on a particularly chivalric bent: En cel temps n’estoit chery nul fors pur vertu soulement. Losengery, covartise ne engine nul ne pooit avauncere nuly en cel hour, fors decert soulement, et nomiement en lez armes. Et pur ceo chescun y en desiroit a valoir en eles, pur queux les gentz estoient honourez et cheriez du roy, ensaumple as touz autres.130

125

126 127 128 129 130

Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 81ra; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 351; see also Moll, Before Malory, p. 67. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 82vb; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 354. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 37. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 71va; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 332. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 72ra; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 333. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 72ra; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 333.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles In this time no-one was admired except on account of virtue alone. Neither lying, covetousness, nor cunning could advance anyone at this time, but only merit, and especially in feats of arms. And for this reason each one desired to prove themselves there in this way, for which reason the people were honoured and cherished by the king – an example to all others.

Notably, Gray’s emphasis here is on Arthur cherishing his knights. The importance of this is highlighted again when Arthur rewards those knights who have served him in his conquest of Gaul. Gray augments the earlier chronicle accounts here by identifying additional knights who were rewarded for their contributions, and concludes the scene by remarking, ‘Il reguerdona touz qe bien ly avoint servy, qe trope serroit a tout counter’ (‘He rewarded all who had served him well, which would be too much to recount in full’).131 Gray also includes a full account of Arthur rewarding his knights ‘solom q’ils avoint deservy’ (‘according to what they deserved’) during his coronation at Caerleon before the arrival of unwelcome messengers from Rome – drawing on Wace’s lengthy account for detailed particulars of the gifts which were not included in Geoffrey’s Historia or the prose Brut.132 If Arthur’s generosity in rewarding his knights is emphasised, however, equally prominent in Gray’s account is the value of the service rendered by the most distinguished of this group. The importance of key knights – especially Gawain and Hiwayn – is highlighted by Moll’s analysis of Arthur’s reign in the Scalacronica. The reason Moll advances is that Gray seeks to ‘enhance the chivalric nature of Arthur’s reign’ to ‘act as a model, and a warning for contemporary courtly society’.133 While agreeing with Moll’s assessment, I would suggest that the more political elements of this representation should not be underestimated. Gray seeks throughout his text to highlight the importance to the ruler of support from key knights.134 Within Arthur’s reign in the Scalacronica, unlike in the Historia, Wace’s Brut or any other Anglo-Norman chronicle, it is Gawain who first warns Arthur of the threat from Rome, ahead of Lucius’s messengers arriving: Meisme cel hour revenit Gawain de Rome, apert bachilere et renomez, a qy le roy demaunda novels. ‘Sire’, fesoit il, ‘al hour qe jeo estoi a Rome il y out graunt renoum de vous, com de cely de qy ils en seroint volountiers vengez,

131 132

133 134

Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 73rb; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 335. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 74rb; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 337. Cf. Wace, Brut, ll. 10589–620; and for less detailed versions, HKB, Book IX, Chapter 157, ll. 398–403, p. 215, and Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 166–9, ll. 1783–808; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 95, ll. 2323–52. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 62–3. See below, Chapters 3 and 4, pp. 94–7, 120–1, 133–5; and see also Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 137–8; A.  King, ‘A Helm with a Crest of Gold: The Order of Chivalry in Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica’, in Fourteenth Century England I, ed. N. Saul (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 21–35; and King, ‘War and Peace’.

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The legendary history of Britain qe grauncement avez enlesez lour seignourye, mais jeo n’estoy my ceux dieus auns.’135 At this time Gawain, the valiant and renowned knight, returned from Rome, from whom the king demanded news. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘at the time when I was in Rome, there was great talk of you, as of someone on whom they would gladly be avenged, as you have greatly overlooked their lordship [over you], but I have not been there these two years.’

Arthur heeds this warning and returns to Britain for his coronation – explicitly making the ceremony at Caerleon a preparation for the possibility of war with Rome. Following the Britons’ defeat of Lucius, Gray inserts a short episode where Arthur holds a Round Table and Gawain excels himself.136 Gawain’s role in the battles with Lucius137 and Mordred (including Gawain’s death during the latter conflict) is also restored to the prominence it had in Wace’s Brut.138 Another key knight, Hiwayn (i.e. Yvain), is also given an important role in Gray’s narrative following Gawain’s death. He is made ruler of Scotland during the campaign against Mordred, as in Wace’s Brut.139 Hiwayn is also given a central role in the battle against Mordred which is not paralleled in Geoffrey, Wace or the prose Brut: he destroys Mordred’s banner and presents it to Arthur, then follows this by killing Mordred himself and bringing his body to the king.140 Lastly, Gray also gives Hiwayn the role of the knight who goes with Arthur to Avalon, and who eventually has to cast 135 136

137

138

139

140

Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 73rb; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 335. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 79va–b; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 348. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 48, 256 n. 122, notes that Gray also describes how Gawain  similarly excels himself at an earlier tournament in Arthur’s reign (from  Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 73va, transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 336). Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 76vb–77vb; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, pp. 342–4; cf. Wace, Brut, ll. 11650–12082; Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 172–4, ll. 1912–47; Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 99–100, ll. 2491–539. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 80ra; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 349. Cf. Wace, Brut, ll. 13100–2; Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 176, ll. 1986–92; Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 102, ll. 2589–97. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 54–5, 259 nn. 157–67, describes how Gray’s description of Gawain’s death appears to be a unique fusion of elements from the romance and the chronicle traditions. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 80rb, transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 349; cf. Wace, Brut, ll. 13187–96. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 80va; transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, p. 350. Richard Moll’s paper ‘Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica: A Source for the Alliterative Morte Arthure?’, given at the 39th Kalamazoo Medieval Congress, Western Michigan University, 8 May 2004, noted that there was a parallel between Hiwayn’s destruction of Mordred’s banner in the Scalacronica and a similar incident at ll. 361–2 of the alliterative Morte Arthure. In Before Malory, pp. 55–61, 260–2 nn. 168–92, Moll also notes parallels with Yvain’s role in both the Parlement of the Thre Ages and a manuscript of the Chronicle of ‘Robert of Gloucester’. These are not, however, close enough to be compelling evidence for a direct textual relationship.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Arthur’s sword into the water.141 Gawain and Hiwayn’s exemplary service to Arthur illustrates how the king has cultivated a reciprocally beneficial relationship with his knights and usefully demonstrates that Mordred’s treachery is an aberration. Standing at the end of Anglo-Norman accounts of the legendary history of Britain, Gray’s Scalacronica continues to struggle with many of the same issues that had troubled earlier chroniclers about this material. Like the author of the prose Brut, he is still aware of the political usefulness of the legendary history to England, especially in its troubled relationship with Scotland. Yet he does not attempt to revise the legendary history substantially in order to make it more politically convenient, as the prose Brut, the Petit Bruit and the Brute Abregé had done. Gray is also sensitive to the way that some sought to write Arthur out of history, whether partially, like Higden, or completely, as the author of the standard prequel to LRB had done. Like the revisers of LRB, Gray reasserts what he believes is the truth of Arthur’s achievements. He is also aware of how the links between unreliable fables and romances on the one hand and the legendary history of Britain on the other made some historians question the veracity of the latter. Yet even though he admits this, he revises his own account of Arthur’s reign to incorporate whole episodes culled from romances. He does so in order to place the relationships of mutual respect and advantage between Arthur and his knights at the centre of his account of the reign: an element crucial to his account of history throughout the Scalacronica.

Conclusion: Anglo-Norman prose chronicles and the legendary history of Britain Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of the legendary history of Britain was received sceptically by English historians, but was nevertheless incorporated into the mainstream of historical writing in later medieval England. AngloNorman prose chronicles reflect this ambiguity, displaying many different approaches to the legendary history: at first tending to treat it as unimportant or inaccurate, but increasingly seeking to give it a significant place within their accounts. At the same time, the Anglo-Norman prose chronicles are wary of compromising their own credibility, and frequently take steps to make clear that they do not endorse wilder legends about, for instance, Arthur’s conquests in Europe, the magical adventures in Arthurian romances, or the possibility that Arthur had survived his final battle. They also try to align their narratives with the claims that Edward I had inherited suzerainty over 141

Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 80vb–81ra, transcribed in Moll, ‘Facts and Fictions’, pp. 350–1; Moll, Before Malory, pp. 57–61, examines the analogues for this episode in detail (no one text can be identified as its source).

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The legendary history of Britain all of Britain from the British kings, at times making major changes to their sources in the way in which the ‘passage of dominion’ from British to English kings is presented and deliberately conflating Britain with England in their accounts.142 Finally, some accounts tailor the legendary history to suit a more local or personal agenda, by identifying a British provenance for particular places or events, or in the case of Gray’s Scalacronica by ensuring Arthur’s reign reflected Gray’s own views on the proper relationships between kings and their knights. For the authors of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, writing history was a balancing act, in which their works needed to take account of three main factors: the expectations of the authors and their contemporary readers, historical credibility and narrative appeal. Their accounts of the legendary history of Britain reveal the interaction between these three factors very clearly.

142

On the conflation of Britain and England in English documents and other chronicles of the period, see Ruddick, ‘National Sentiment and National Identity’, Chapter 2, pp. 40–75.

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3

Legends of English heroes: Engel, Havelok, Constance If some Anglo-Norman prose chronicles drew on the legendary matter of the Historia Regum Britannie for their account of British history, most relied on more sober sources to provide the spine of their narratives of AngloSaxon England before the Norman Conquest. Bede, Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury and Ranulf Higden were all heavily used by Anglo-Norman chronicle writers. However, these canonical works did not always satisfy the authors of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles. In this chapter, I will consider these works’ approach to Anglo-Saxon history through one method by which they reconstruct this past for their own time: their incorporation of legends about English heroes. These heroes were Anglo-Norman inventions or elaborations, such as Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hampton and Havelok, and the stories told about them were not part of most earlier canonical histories.1 Although the canonical works were the main source of historical information for these Anglo-Norman chronicles’ accounts of the Anglo-Saxon period, the names and deeds of legendary figures were frequently added into the vernacular works. Incorporating these heroes into their narratives of pre-Conquest England was therefore a deliberate attempt by the chronicles to augment their authoritative sources. Analysis of attitudes towards the Anglo-Saxon period in post-Conquest England has focused increasingly on investigating the process by which the Anglo-Norman aristocracy assimilated themselves to England and its preConquest past. Ian Short has given a valuable account of this process, focusing on attitudes to the English and their language in Anglo-Norman England.2

1

2

A few manuscripts of Higden’s Polychronicon featured an account of Havelok translated from the prose Brut and this was also included in John of Tynemouth’s Historia Aurea: see Moll, ‘“Nest pas authentik”’, p. 185 n. 49. I have consulted the Historia Aurea’s account of Havelok in Cam., CCC MS 6, fol. 150va, which gives a close translation of the corresponding passage in the prose Brut, even falling into the same error as some later scribes and readers of the prose Brut in believing that the final sentence in the prose Brut’s account of Constantine’s reign (describing his death at the hands of Saxons and Danes, and his burial at Stonehenge) referred not to Constantine but to Havelok. Cf. Marvin, ‘Havelok’, pp. 297–9, for this error in manuscripts of the prose Brut. I. Short, ‘Tam Angli quam Franci: Self-Definition in Anglo-Norman England’, AngloNorman Studies 18 (1995), 153–75.

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Legends of English heroes John Gillingham has looked at the increasing identification of the AngloNorman aristocracy with Englishness during the twelfth century.3 Hugh Thomas has made a detailed study of the extent to which this aristocracy and those who served them increasingly identified themselves as English over the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.4 Literary historians have also found evidence for the enthusiastic appropriation of this earlier history during the same timeframe. Rosalind Field and Robert Rouse have studied the popularity of Anglo-Norman romances set in the Anglo-Saxon past; Rouse has also noted that the belief that an exemplary Anglo-Saxon legal code underpinned post-Conquest law was an important factor in the enthusiasm for the pre-Conquest past.5 In her study of hagiography from twelfth- and thirteenth-century England, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne noted that ‘the people most anxious to assert English origins and continuities were the Anglo-Normans’, a statement borne out by the focus on AngloSaxon saints in hagiography from the period.6 Other literary scholars have traced the persistence of Englishness as an important issue and perhaps as a controversial topic into the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Susan Crane has traced the continuous concerns over land and Englishness from Anglo-Norman insular romances into their Middle English descendants, and has argued that the pro-English sentiment of these works is made to align with support for the aristocracy’s claims over their lands.7 Thorlac TurvillePetre has explored the manner in which the Anglo-Saxon past was repeatedly redefined as ideas about what it meant to be English fluctuated during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.8 3 4

5

6

7

8

Gillingham, English in the Twelfth Century, especially pp. 123–44, 145–60. H. M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066–c.1220 (Oxford, 2003). For a longer view of interpretations of the Anglo-Saxon past, M. Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest (Manchester and New York, 1999), pp. 28–68, gives an overview of historiography from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Field, ‘Romance as History’, and R. Field, ‘Waldef and the Matter of/with England’, in Medieval Insular Romance: Translation and Innovation, ed. J. Weiss, J. Fellows and M.  Dickson (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 25–39; also her paper ‘Nos Englois: AngloNorman narrative and the construction of Englishness’, delivered at the Cambridge Medieval Literature Graduate Seminar, 21 May 2003; R. A. Rouse, The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance, Studies in Medieval Romance 3 (Cambridge, 2005). Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives, p. 13. See also Thomas, English and the Normans, pp. 253–6, 283–96. S. Crane, Insular Romance: Politics, Faith and Culture in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1986), pp. 13–91 (especially pp. 65, 84). Turville-Petre, England the Nation, especially pp. 1–10, 85–91, 114–20, 143–55; see also D. Speed, ‘The Construction of the Nation in Medieval English Romance’, in Readings in Medieval English Romance, ed. C. M. Meale (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 135–57.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles This chapter explores the work that the legends of heroes from England’s early past perform when they are deliberately placed into the historical narratives of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles. They provide a means to understand the circumstances of Anglo-Saxon history which these chronicles found most challenging to recount – England’s origin from a fragmented island; its defeats at the hands of invaders; and its paganism.

Legends of English origins Anglo-Norman prose chronicles can appear uncertain how to handle early Anglo-Saxon history with its multiple, warring kingdoms rather than a unified England. The earliest Anglo-Norman prose chronicle of English kings does not begin until after the unification of these kingdoms.9 LRB, although it provides lengthy descriptions of each kingdom, then chooses not to give an account of their separate histories, instead starting its narrative at the point of unification under Egbert (d.839) (here named as Aethelbrith).10 Some later manuscripts of the genealogical roll-chronicles try to rectify this – a challenging task. In almost all the complete surviving manuscripts of these roll-chronicles, the approach taken is to preface their narrative with a circular diagram representing the Heptarchy.11 One roll which contains an unusual text, London, College of Arms, MS 20/2, following its account of British history, even has a set of separate accounts in seven columns for the early Anglo-Saxon period, each describing a history of one kingdom. By contrast, the account found in London, College of Arms, MS 20/5 prioritises the history of the kings of Wessex, but makes reference to other AngloSaxon kings in the text.12 In other chronicles, such as Trevet’s Cronicles, the Polistorie and the Scalacronica, a single narrative goes back and forth, alternating between several accounts of different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms over the period.13 The prose Brut, which begins its narrative with the ‘legendary history of Britain’, dispenses with any attempt to recount the history of these minor kings: as described in the previous chapter, it simply notes that 9 10 11

12 13

Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, p. 10. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 64. Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 800–3; as Laborderie notes, in a few cases the diagram only depicts five kingdoms. Laborderie suggests the choice to identify Egbert as the first king of England followed Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon: see HA, Book IV, Chapters 28–34, pp. 260–71, especially Chapter 30, pp. 264–5, where Egbert is identified as ‘rex et monarcha Britannie’ (‘king and monarch of Britain’). Egbert did extend his territories to include much of what became England: see H. Edwards, ‘Ecgberht (d.839)’, Oxford DNB, online at www.oxforddnb.com/view/ article/8581. Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1100–9; 1242–5. Trevet, Cronicles, ed. Rutherford, e.g. pp. 182, 189–91, 196–9; Ferris, ‘Polistorie’, pp. 155–213; Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 104rb–115ra.

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Legends of English heroes ‘chesqun guerra autre’ (‘all [. . .] warred on one another’) until one king, Offa, supposedly conquered them all.14 LRE does not give much information either on early Anglo-Saxon history: although it gives a brief account of the arrival of the Saxons and then the arrival of Christianity in England, the text swiftly moves to the subjugation of other kings under Egbert (named here as Edbrith or Edelbrith).15 Without the clear unifying figure of a single king in early Anglo-Saxon history, one approach to providing a unity for the history of England shared by several chronicles is the introduction of a legendary founder of England (as opposed to Britain) who provided a single point of origin for all the kingdoms. Hengist and Horsa had provided potential founder-figures for the English since Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, and this role had been expanded upon in the Historia Brittonum and further in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia.16 Some Anglo-Norman prose chronicles do pick up on this: for example, the standard prologue to LRB does mention the arrival of Hengist and Horsa, and LRE describes their arrival as being the first time the English came to the island.17 The prose Brut even elaborates on its sources to identify Hengist as giving his name to England: E Engist ala parmi la terre e seisist en sa mayn villes, chastels, burghes, e citéz, e fist tut abatre esglises e mesouns de religiouns, e destrute la crestienité parmi ceste terre, [e fyt changer le noun de la tere] issint qe nul 14

15 16

17

Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 194–5, l. 2320; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 113, ll. 3012–13. For discussion of this passage, see above, Chapter 2. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 117–20. A discussion of the early sources of information about Hengist and Horsa can be found in B. Yorke, ‘Kent, kings of  (act.  c.450–c.590)’, Oxford DNB, online at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12925; another discussion of the early development of the stories around these figures is R. Sowerby, ‘Hengist and Horsa: the Manipulation of History and Myth from the adventus Saxonum to Historia Brittonum’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 51 (2007), 1–19. Bede is the first historian to mention Hengist and Horsa as the leaders of the first Saxons to arrive in the country during Vortigern’s reign: see Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1969), Book 1, Chapter 15, pp. 48–50. N. Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven and London, 1990), argues strongly for ‘the possibility that there existed an enduring and inspiring myth of migration among the Anglo-Saxons’ (p. 3), reflected in Bede’s account (pp. 49–71). The Historia Brittonum greatly expands on Bede’s account of Hengist and Horsa (The Historia Brittonum. 3. The ‘Vatican’ Recension, ed. D. N. Dumville (Cambridge, 1985), Chapters 19–27, pp. 82–105), which Geoffrey of Monmouth then builds upon; the parts of Geoffrey’s Historia which give an account of Hengist and Horsa are HKB, Books VI–VIII, Chapters 98–125, pp. 123–69. Hengist and Horsa also feature in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, trans. M. A. J. Swanton (London, 2000; 1st edn, 1988), MS A, sub annis 449, 455, 457, 465, 473 (pp. 12, 14); MS E, sub annis 449, 455, 456, 465, 473 (pp. 13, 15); MS F, sub annis 448, 482 (pp. 12, 14). Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 55, 117–18.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles homme des soens ne fu si hardi de appeller de cel jour enavant Bretaine, mes Engistlonde, qe ore est appellé Engleterre communement. And Hengist went throughout the land and took into his hand towns, castles, boroughs and cities, and he had churches and houses of religion torn down everywhere, and he destroyed Christianity throughout this land, and he had the name of the land changed, so that from that day forward no man of his was so bold as to call it Britain, but Engistland, which is now commonly called England.18

The prose Brut also changes the name of Hengist’s brother Horsa to Horn, which may be a scribal error, but could be an attempt to make a link between the English founding narrative and the hero of the Roman de Horn and King Horn.19 However, Hengist and his brother as presented in these chronicles were far from exemplary founder figures for England. In the Historia Regum Britannie’s account, Hengist repeatedly deceives Vortigern and the Britons, and murders those Britons who oppose him.20 Consequently, other founding figures sometimes emerged in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles’ accounts of the formation of England.21 18

19

20

21

Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 138, ll. 1236–40 (I have changed the personal name from Engist to Hengist in the translation); cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 76, ll. 1624–30. Marvin describes how the prose Brut adds to its sources at this point in her note to ll. 1235–49 at p. 310. Cf. also Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 184, ll. 2139–45 (Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 107, ll. 2784–9), which gives a slightly different explanation, implying that Hengist’s descendants generally named themselves and the land after Hengist following Gormund of Africa’s invasion; Marvin in her note to ll. 2137–49 at p. 319 explains that this later passage follows a similar passage in Wace’s Brut but that the mention of Hengist is an elaboration. The first reference to the Horsa character as Horn in the prose Brut is Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 132, l. 1120 (cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 73, l. 1479). The earliest version of the Horn romance is Thomas, Le Roman de Horn, ed. M. K. Pope, AngloNorman Text Society 9–10, 12–13, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1955–64), translated in The Birth of Romance in England, trans. J. Weiss, The French of England Translation Series 4, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 344 (Tempe, AZ, 2009; 1st edn 1992), pp. 45–137. Middle English versions of the romance are edited in Four Romances of England: King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Bevis of Hampton, Athelston, ed. R. G. Herzman, G. Drake and E. Salisbury (Kalamazoo, MI, 1999), pp. 11–70, and online at www.lib. rochester.edu/camelot/teams/hornfrm.htm, and Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild, ed. from the Auchinleck MS, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ MS 19.2.1, ed. M. Mills (Heidelberg, 1988). Horsa’s actions as described in Geoffrey’s Historia and the prose Brut do not resemble the Roman de Horn or King Horn narratives, however. HKB, Book VI, Chapters 98–101, ll. 248–412, pp. 123–33; Chapter 104, ll. 459–70, p. 135. A similar point is made with reference to Robert Mannyng’s Chronicle in TurvillePetre, England the Nation, p. 87. Helen Young has noted that Langtoft in his Chronique distinguishes between the deceitful Saxons led by Hengist and the Angles, from whom the English are descended: H. Young, ‘“Des Gestes des Englays”: England and the English in Piers Langtoft’s Chronicle’, Viator 42:1 (2011), 309–28, at pp. 312–13.

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Legends of English heroes One of the most surprising episodes within the narrative of Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit is the arrival of the king who is to give England its name, ‘un Breton hors de Bretaigne qi out a noun Engel’ (‘a Breton from Brittany who was called Engel’). He arrives with ‘un geaunt [. . .] qi fu nomé Scardius’ (‘a giant [. . .] who was named Scardius’), who helps him to conquer the entire land of Britain, ‘jekis en sa ly est remys teu noun, Engelaund, a touts jours’ (‘until in its place such a name, England, has replaced it [i.e. Britain] for ever’). In gratitude for his help, Engel gives Scardius the site where they came ashore, which will be named ‘Scardisbornz’. Engel has seventeen sons, and so divides England into seventeen parts. One of the rulers at the end of this period is St Edmund, king of East Anglia, although he has arrived not from Brittany but from Saxony.22 The Petit Bruit’s editor could not find any other version of the story of Engel and Scardius,23 but an analogue does exist in Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s Middle English verse Chronicle. After an account (based on Wace’s Brut) of Gormound’s invasion of Britain, in which the Angles give their name to East Anglia,24 Mannyng advances an alternative etymology for the name of England: Long after þis, writen I fond, how a Breton chalanged þis lond. Engel, þe story sais he hight, he brouht a champion to fight. Skardyng hight þis champion [. . .]25

The confusion over national identity present in Rauf’s account is even more evident here, as Engel is portrayed as the avenger of the British: his auncessours wild he venge & tak vengeaunce of þe Englis þat chaced þe Bretons out [. . .]26

Scardyng, meanwhile, is ‘ferly strong | als a geant grete & long’ and ‘non for drede durst auenture on him’,27 just as in Rauf’s account ‘un seul homme ne trovast en la realme qi atendre le osout si lez oilz un foys par male talent sour ly roillast’ (‘not a single man could be found in the kingdom who dared to await him lest the rolling eyes [of Scardius] ever alighted with ill-will 22 23 24 25

26 27

All quotations from Petit Bruit, p. 10, ll. 10–45 (ll. 11, 12, 19–20, 25). Tyson, ‘Problem People’, pp. 355–6. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll. 14119–20. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll. 14173–7. These and the following lines (to l. 14218) are discussed briefly in R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England (London, 1970; 1st edn 1952), pp. 39–40, who was not aware of the passage from the Petit Bruit. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll. 14180–2. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll. 14191–2, 14193.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles upon him’).28 As in the Petit Bruit, Engel becomes king and gives ‘Skardyng Skarburgh’,29 while he gives his own name to England: for þis Engle þe lond þus wan, England cald it ilk a man. [. . .] Þis is þat oþer skille I fond whi it is called Inglond.30

Mannyng names two sources which relate to his account. The first contains information relating to Skardyng: ‘fflayn was his broþer, so sais a tale | þat Thomas mad of Kendale’.31 Following E. V. Gordon, R. M. Wilson convincingly draws parallels between these two names and an account of Viking invasions and the foundation of Scarborough in Kormáks saga, suggesting that the two brothers were actually the Viking warriors and brothers Thorgils, also known as Skarthi,32 and Kormák Qgmundarsynir, whom he speculates may have been known as ‘fflayn’ and may have been claimed as the eponymous founder of Flamborough in an earlier version of the story.33 Mannyng’s second source is a ‘Maistre Edmunde’, who describes how the land was divided between Engel’s nineteen sons after his death, and that one of these portions ‘longed to Saynt Edmund þe kyng’.34 Apart from Engel acquiring two additional sons (the difference possibly being the result of a scribal error), Master Edmund’s account also seems to correspond closely to Rauf de Boun’s.35 Rauf de Boun completed his chronicle in 1309 and Mannyng his in 1338, but it is clear from Mannyng’s account of Engel and the references he gives to other sources that the Petit Bruit was not his direct or unique source here. It seems more likely that both writers drew on local tradition, which as Mannyng makes clear had also been codified by others. Rauf seems to have held benefices in the diocese of Lincoln; he wrote the Petit Bruit for Henry

28

29 30 31 32

33

34 35

Petit Bruit, p. 10, ll. 13–14. There is a parallel here with the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, rev. N. Davis (Oxford, 1967; 1st edn 1925), another gigantic challenger who all (except Arthur and Gawain) are too afraid to face, and who ‘runischly his rede yyen he reled aboute’ (l. 304). Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, l. 14200. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll.14197–8, 14213–14. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll.14203–4. The Lambeth manuscript of Mannyng’s Chronicle gives ‘Scarthe’ as an alternative name for Skardyng: Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, l. 14204a (p. 441); Wilson, Lost Literature, p. 39. Wilson, Lost Literature, p. 40; cf. E. V. Gordon, ‘Scarborough and Flamborough’, Acta Philologica Scandinavica 1 (1926–7), 320–3. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll. 14205, 14212. Engel has seventeen sons in the only full manuscript of the Petit Bruit, BL MS Harley 902, as well as in the fragment of the text in Princeton University Library: see Petit Bruit, ed. Tyson, p. 10, l. 26; Skemer, ‘Engle and Scardyng’, p. 273, l. 15.

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Legends of English heroes de Lacy, earl of Lincoln;36 and as I will discuss below he includes a version of the story of Havelok, which was well known in and around Lincolnshire at this time.37 Mannyng came from Lincolnshire, wrote his chronicle for the Gilbertine house of Sixhills there and also knew stories such as that of Havelok.38 Scarborough and Flamborough are in the East Riding of Yorkshire, just north of Lincolnshire. If both were drawing on material known in northeast England at the time, rather than on an invention by Rauf, the additional details in Mannyng’s Chronicle can be more easily explained. Engel also seems to make an appearance in Gray’s Scalacronica (1355– 69), after Gray’s account of the African giant Gormund’s invasion.39 Gray’s version of the Engel story, however, bears little resemblance to those found in the Petit Bruit and Mannyng’s Chronicle. As it has not been noted before, I provide a transcription of the passage in an appendix to this book.40 Gray’s version does not feature Engel the Breton but Ingil the Saxon, and indeed Ingil is the surname which belongs to ‘touz lez gentz d’un pays de Saxsoun’ (‘all the people of one country of Saxony’) (l. 5), as well as a name which still identifies an individual. Moreover, in a comment which mirrors the ‘Engistlonde’ of the prose Brut, by using Ingil’s name for the land the Saxons are also commemorating Hengist as Ingil’s kinsman (ll. 16–17). Although Ingil is ‘un vaillaunt prus chivaler’ (‘a worthy and valiant knight’) (l. 2), he is no longer a conqueror, and although he gives his name to the land, he does not become the ruler of the whole of it, coming across as a less significant figure than in the Petit Bruit or Mannyng’s Chronicle.41 Scardius and ‘fflayn’ do not feature at all. Ingil also has a daughter in the Scalacronica, Ingele. It seems possible that Ingele may be a version of the character Inge, who features in several manuscripts of the Short English Metrical Chronicle as well as in the closely related Anglo-Norman prose Brute Abregé. In both the Middle English chronicle and the Brute Abregé, Inge performs a similar trick to that used by Hengist to build Thongcaster in the Historia Regum Britannie, and Inge also introduces the custom of Wassail and Drinkhail, as Hengist’s daughter Ronwein did in the Historia.42 Inge then murders the British king and divides the kingdom. This 36 37

38 39

40 41

42

See Spence, ‘Identity’. S. Kleinman, ‘The Legend of Havelok the Dane and the Historiography of East Anglia’, Studies in Philology 100 (2003), 245–77, discusses this story’s early circulation in the area. See Mannyng, Chronicle, ‘Introduction’, pp. 15–16; part 2, ll. 519–38. Gray’s account of Gormund’s invasion derives from the Historia Regum Britannie: cf. HKB, Book XI, Chapter 184, p. 256. References to this passage are given by line number. Gray’s reference to Ingil as ‘Elee’ in Bede’s writings (l. 16) may be meant to identify him with Ælle, king of Deira; cf Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, Book 2, Chapter 1, p. 134. For Ælle, see further below, pp. 99–101. See SEMC, part 1, pp. 13–14, ll. 275–320 (Short English Metrical Chronicle); part 3, pp. 96–7, ll. 181–213 (Brute Abregé). For the passages in the Historia, see HKB, Book VI, Chapter 99, ll. 299–337, pp. 127–9 (Hengist’s trick); Chapter 100, ll. 338–68, pp.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles story has been seen as a ‘late concoction’ dependent on the Historia,43 with Ronwein’s name changed to Inge, possibly to provide an explanation for the land’s renaming.44 There may also be a link to the story of Engle, however, as after Mannyng recounts the latter in his Chronicle, he follows it by remarking that a legend about Inge has no authority: Bot of Inge sauh I neuer nouht in boke writen ne wrouht; bot lewed men þer of crie & maynten þat ilk lie.45

That Mannyng knew a version of the story about Inge which corresponds closely to that in the Short English Metrical Chronicle and the Brute Abregé is clear from his reference earlier in his Chronicle, where he says that the stories about Inge actually apply to Hengist’s daughter, ‘Bonewenne’ or ‘Ronewenne’,46 and he may simply have been reminded of Inge by Engle, who provides an alternative explanation for the name of England. However, it is possible that Inge may also be connected to the figure of Gray’s Ingele. Ingele is ‘de tres grant beauté’ (‘of very great beauty’) (ll. 3–4) while Inge is ‘bryyt & schene’,47 admittedly a common trait among female literary characters; more unusual, however, given Inge’s murderous cruelty, is the manner in which she is repeatedly identified as a ‘maide’,48 while Ingele, we are told, ‘pur vertu soulement toutdice teint virginité’ (‘on account of virtue alone kept her virginity forever’) (l. 4). The unclear origins, gaps in transmission and differences between versions for the stories of Engel, Scardius and Inge in the Petit Bruit, Mannyng’s Chronicle, the Short English Metrical Chronicle, the Brute Abregé and the Scalacronica reflect their status as accounts based on local and fluid legends about the origins both of England and of particular settlements. The way in which these legends provided a unitary origin for a divided Anglo-Saxon England seems to have appealed most: this feature is common to all the

43 44

45 46 47 48

129–31 (Ronwein). Hengist’s trick (taking advantage of a rash promise to build on as much ground as a bull’s hide would cover by making the hide into a lengthy thong) had a long ancestry: the trick was attributed to Dido in Virgil, Aeneid, Book I, ll. 365–8, and Tatlock, Legendary History, pp. 384–7, collects many other examples. Wilson, Lost Literature, pp. 40–1 (p. 41). The Inge story in several manuscripts of the Short English Metrical Chronicle emphasises that ‘nou Engelon icluped [hit] is | After maide Inge iwis’: SEMC, part 1, p. 13, ll. 285–6; cf. also the Brute Abregé’s statement ‘aprés le non de li ceste tere est apelé Engletere’ (‘following her name this land is called England’): SEMC, part 3, p. 97, ll. 212–13. Moll, Before Malory, p. 239 n. 48 makes the intriguing suggestion that ‘Inge’ may simply be a corrupted version of the name ‘Hengist’. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll. 14215–18. Mannyng, Chronicle, part 1, ll. 7427–30. SEMC, part 1, l. 278; cf. part 2, MS A, l. 1280, p. 76: ‘Jn þat time non feirer nas’. SEMC, part 1, ll. 278, 279, 286.

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Legends of English heroes versions of these stories. But they differ in how they treat this origin story, some texts emphasising continuity between the British and English past and others recognising the transition to a period of Anglo-Saxon rule.

Other English heroes in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles Origin stories are not the only insertions into these works’ accounts of AngloSaxon history. The authors also incorporate other Anglo-Norman romance heroes who supposedly lived in the Anglo-Saxon period into their histories in a piecemeal fashion. Such references and episodes are concentrated in parts of the works that describe invasions of Anglo-Saxon England. There was an early precedent for including legends and romance in AngloNorman histories – Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis, which was apparently revised to include several legends that enlivened the narrative and illustrated the view of history put forward by the chronicle, most famously the story of Havelok. The prose Brut, Rauf de Boun and Sir Thomas Gray follow Gaimar’s lead and insert accounts of Havelok’s life into their narratives as well as incorporating other legendary material. Gaimar’s account of Havelok – the earliest surviving version of the story – functions as a transition narrative to move from the legendary British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Anglo-Saxon period where his main source is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Gaimar’s account of Havelok also supports his later defence of Danish kings’ claims in England and provides an entertaining, attention-grabbing episode in a chronicle that is sometimes more prosaic.49 Gaimar describes how there were two kings in Britain in the time of Constantine, who ruled after King Arthur. In his account these kings, the Danish Athelbright (Adelbriht in the text) and the Saxon Edelsi, become close friends despite their peoples having been at war. Athelbright marries Edelsi’s sister and has a daughter, Argentille; and when Athelbright and his wife die Edelsi becomes Argentille’s guardian. To deprive Argentille of her inheritance Edelsi marries her to a kitchen-hand called Cuaran. However, after Argentille sees a flame coming from Cuaran’s mouth as he sleeps, they learn that he is actually Havelok, rightful heir to the throne of Denmark. Havelok and Argentille travel to Denmark where Havelok has to defend his wife from knights who attempt to abduct her. Due to the flame, Havelok is recognised as the heir by Sigar, a lord who was his father’s steward. Danish lords pledge their loyalty to Havelok and he overthrows Edulf, who has usurped the Danish throne. Havelok then returns to England to challenge Edelsi and after an initial battle fools Edelsi’s forces into conceding defeat, by propping dead

49

For discussion of the Havelok episode see Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, pp. xl–xliii, 358–68.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles soldiers on stakes to give the impression of having a great army. Havelok becomes king and Edelsi dies soon after.50 The prose Brut also gives a version of Havelok’s story, drawn mainly from the account in Gaimar’s Estoire.51 Following Gaimar, the prose Brut locates the narrative in the reign of King Arthur’s successor, Constantine, and the two kings Athelbright (Adelbriht in Gaimar) and Edelfi (Edelsi in Gaimar) are two other kings in Britain ruling at the same time as Constantine.52 However, some details included in the prose Brut’s account do not come from Gaimar. Julia Marvin has noted strong verbal parallels between the Anglo-Norman Lai d’Haveloc and the prose Brut in the oath sworn by Edelfi when he becomes Argentille’s guardian.53 The name ‘Birkebein’ is used for Havelok’s father in the prose Brut’s account, and G.V. Smithers has also noted a reference to Havelok’s wife as ‘Goldeburgh’ earlier in the chronicle – both names are also used in the Middle English (ME) Havelok and Rauf de Boun’s later Petit Bruit, but not in the Lai or Gaimar’s Estoire.54 However, it is difficult to draw a direct source relationship between either of these texts and the prose Brut. As Marvin has noted, the focus of the Havelok narrative in the prose Brut is not Havelok himself or his exploits, but rather the treachery of Edelfi in seeking to take power for himself and his subsequent downfall when Havelok returns to the kingdom to overthrow him. This is a striking contrast to Gaimar’s more expansive treatment of the episode, which gives a great deal of detail about how Havelok came to arrive in England with Grim and Havelok’s adventures on his return to Denmark. The political significance of the account is also minimised in the prose Brut in comparison with the role it played in the Estoire. Gaimar used Havelok’s tale to introduce the transition 50

51

52

53

54

For the Havelok passage itself see Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, pp. 4–46, ll. 41–818; cf. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, pp. 2–25, ll. 40–816. F. Brie, ‘Zum fortleben der Havelok-sage’, Englische Studien 35 (1905), 359–71 (p. 363); Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 25, 318–19 n. to ll. 2040–67; Marvin, ‘Havelok’, p. 283; Gillingham, ‘Gaimar, the Prose Brut’; Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 13–14. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 180, ll. 2040–3; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 104, ll. 2661–5, and cf. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, ll. 35–54, p. 4; Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, ll. 33–52. In neither the prose Brut nor Gaimar’s Estoire is it explicitly stated that these two kings are subject to Constantine – the relationship is left ambiguous. The prose Brut also contains an ambiguity over the relationships between the kings in the Havelok story and Constantine in the first reference to Havelok at the time of Belinus and Brennius, where it is implied that Havelok’s authority extended over the whole land: Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 100, ll. 517–19; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 51, ll. 679–83. Marvin, ‘Havelok’, pp. 289–91; Lai d’Haveloc, in Le Lai d’Haveloc and Gaimar’s Haveloc Episode, ed. A. Bell (Manchester, 1925), pp. 176–220 (ll. 213–28); ‘The Lai d’Haveloc’, in Birth of Romance in England, trans. Weiss, pp. 155–69 (p. 159). See Havelok, ed. G. V. Smithers (Oxford, 1987), pp. xxxi, lxviii–lxix; Marvin, ‘Havelok’, pp. 292–4; for the passage in the prose Brut see Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 100, l. 519; Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 51, l. 682.

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Legends of English heroes from the legendary history of Britain to the period when there were multiple Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, as well as laying the foundation for later accounts of Danish raids and conquests in England. In the prose Brut, by contrast, the episode only involves minor kings living in the time of the British king Constantine and no later consequences are explicitly mentioned in the chronicle. The only other reference to the episode in the prose Brut comes much earlier, during the reigns of Belinus and Brennius (the two British kings who made war on the Roman Empire after conquering most of Europe); Havelok’s conquest is cited as explaining why the Danes stopped paying the tribute due to the Britons which they had provided since the time of Belinus. In the prose Brut, then, Havelok’s actions serve as an explanation for a minor change to earlier circumstances, rather than ushering in a major new stage in the country’s history as they do in Gaimar’s Estoire. Though it does not mention Havelok, the Brute Abregé also incorporates legends about heroes from Anglo-Norman and Middle English romances into its account of Anglo-Saxon history. As already discussed, this work provides its own distinctive account of legendary British history, and gives a description of the founding of England which features the apocryphal Inge. It also incorporates an episode from the legend of Guy of Warwick into its narrative of the reign of Æthelstan (and a version of this account also appears in four manuscripts of the closely related Short English Metrical Chronicle): En le tens cele rei Athelstoun, Gui de Warwich le bon chivaler pruz, hardiz e vaillanz combati od un geaunt a Wincestre, qe out a noun Colebrande pur la necessité d’Engletere. La bataille fu a Wincestre fet e aprés unques ne fist Gwi bataille.55 In the time of this King Æthelstan, the good knight Guy of Warwick, bold, brave and valiant, fought with a giant named Colbrond at Winchester for England’s sake. The battle was held at Winchester, and Guy never fought a battle afterwards.

This episode in which Guy fights the giant Colbrond on behalf of Æthelstan appears in the original Anglo-Norman romance of Gui de Warewic as well as the Middle English translation.56 However it also enjoyed some popularity 55

56

SEMC, part 3, ll. 359–65; for the corresponding text in the Short English Metrical Chronicle see SEMC, part 1, ll. 595–602. Gui de Warewic: roman du XIIIe siècle, ed. A. Ewert, Classiques Français du Moyen Âge 74–5, 2 vols. (Paris, 1932–3), II, 123–38 (ll. 10775–1278); The Romance of Guy of Warwick: the first or 14th-century version, ed. from the Auchinleck MS in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, and from MS 107 in Caius College, Cambridge, ed. J. Zupitza, 3 vols., EETS e.s. 42, 49 and 59 (London, 1883–91), III, 576–605, stanzas 233–69, ll. 10284–773; the Auchinleck manuscript’s version of this episode is now re-edited in Stanzaic Guy of Warwick, ed. Alison Wiggins, TEAMS Middle English Texts Series (Kalamazoo, MI, 2004), at ll. 2790–3327, available online at www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/ teams/guywfrm.htm. The Anglo-Norman Gui has now been translated: Boeve

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles as an episode which circulated independently.57 Pierre Langtoft’s Chronique described Guy of Warwick’s battle with the Danish giant Colbrond.58 Guy also featured in a Latin chronicle by Gerard of Cornwall, the relevant part of which apparently survives in two medieval manuscripts.59 Gerard’s account was the source for John Lydgate’s ‘Guy of Warwick’,60 and another Middle English poem also gave an account of this episode.61 Guy and Colbrond’s combat was frequently stated to have taken place at Winchester and, as Robert Rouse has described, was memorialised in Winchester between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.62 The account in the Brute Abregé, like these other self-contained versions of the episode, focuses solely on the combat with Colbrond. Guy’s actions here, however, are not given any wider context, and the reference seems mainly to serve to allow readers who are familiar with a romance account of Guy of Warwick to situate him as a real individual at a fixed point in the Anglo-Saxon past. A similar intention seems to lie behind the second reference to a hero of Anglo-Norman romance during the Anglo-Saxon period in the Brute Abregé. This reference occurs during the reign of King Edgar: En le tens de celui Edgard, Boefs de Hamptoun avoit un destrere mult fort e ignel, lequel destrer out le fiz Edgard, par quei Boefs fut exilé hors de ceste terre dunt le rei si repenti aprés quant il out defaut de teu chivaler cum Boefs fust.63

57

58

59

60

61

62

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de Haumtone and Gui de Warewic: Two Anglo-Norman Romances, trans. J.  Weiss, The French of England Translation Series 3, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 332 (Tempe, AZ, 2008). P. Lendinara, ‘The Battle of Brunanburh in Later Histories and Romances’, Anglia 117 (1999), 201–35, also discusses several versions of the narrative at pp. 224–8. Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Wright, i, 330–2; V. B. Richmond, The Legend of Guy of Warwick (New York and London, 1996), pp. 66–8. Richmond, Legend of Guy, p. 69; G. Schleich, ‘Lydgates Quelle zu seinem Guy of Warwick’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 146 (1923), pp. 49–52, from Oxford, Magdalen College, MS 147. John Lydgate, ‘Guy of Warwick’, in The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. H.  N.  MacCracken, 2 vols. (London, 1934), ii, 516–38. D. Pearsall, John Lydgate, Medieval Authors (London, 1970), p. 167, dates this poem to c.1425. The poem in BL MS Add. 27879 (the Percy Folio manuscript) called Guy and Colbrond which also focuses on their combat is probably fifteenth century (see Richmond, Legend of Guy, pp. 137–40). Rouse, Idea of Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 138–48. The story of Guy and Colbrond was, however, well known in many parts of England: as well as Guy’s enduring popularity in Warwickshire, the Pastons had a copy of a Guy and Colbrond and a Guy of Warwick in their library (Richmond, Legend of Guy, p. 137); and Colbrond was familiar to the Cornish and the Bretons as well: see O. J. Padel, ‘Oral and Literary Culture in Medieval Cornwall’, in Medieval Celtic Literature and Society, ed. H. Fulton (Dublin, 2005), pp. 95–116, at pp. 111–12, nn. 59–63. SEMC, part 3, p. 103, ll. 429–34. This passage does not appear in the Short English Metrical Chronicle.

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Legends of English heroes In the time of this Edgar, Bevis of Hampton had a very strong and swift warhorse, which warhorse Edgar’s son had, for which reason Bevis was exiled from this land, of which the king so repented afterwards, when he had need of a knight such as Bevis was.

As in the earlier description of Guy, this account latches on to one episode from the romance – in this case apparently not one that circulated independently – and uses it to situate the hero in a historical context. This interpolation, which does not occur in any of the Middle English manuscripts of the closely related Short English Metrical Chronicle, is not as smooth as that provided for Guy, as the episode does not seem tied to particular national events: there is no equivalent need for Edgar to ask Bevis to return for any particular battle or challenge. This suggests that the main purpose of the insertion is to enhance the Anglo-Saxon past with an aura of heroism bestowed upon it by the inclusions of Guy and Bevis. The Short English Metrical Chronicle and the Brute Abregé were not alone in seeking to enhance a description of Æthelstan’s reign by inserting the battle between Guy of Warwick and Colbrond. A fourteenth- or fifteenthcentury reader added the following passage at the bottom of two folios of one manuscript of the Anonimalle Brut to supplement its account of the period: En son temps, le roy de Danmarke vient en Engletere et amena grante oste aveuc li et le plus hides jaiant du monde, en temps de Athelston roy d’Engleter. Si demanda il homage du dit roy d’Engleter ou qu’il feroit combatre l’un de ses gens contre le jaiant, et se le jaiant estoit descomfié le di roy de Danmarke se partireit. Angle s’aparuit au roy d’Engleter jesant en son lit a Vynchestur disant, ‘Le premer pelerin que vous troverez a la porte li prierez de emprendre a fair la batayle,’ et lendmayns il trouva monseigneour Guy de Warwyke et li pria de fair la batailz et monseigneour Guy moult volentierz li ottroia.64 In his [i.e. Æthelstan’s] time the king of Denmark came to England and brought a great army with him and the most hideous giant in the world, in the time of Æthelstan, king of England. And he asked homage of that king of England or that he should have one of his people fight against the giant, and if the giant was defeated this king of Denmark would depart. An angel appeared to the king of England lying in his bed at Winchester, saying, ‘The first pilgrim that you will find at the gate, you will ask to undertake to fight the battle’, and the next day he found Sir Guy of Warwick and asked him to fight the battle and Sir Guy very willingly granted the request.

The addition appears to serve a very similar purpose to that in the Brute Abregé: to locate Guy at a particular point in Anglo-Saxon history, and to give him a crucial role in events of national significance. Like the Brute Abregé’s account of this battle, the description here is allusive. It does not explain 64

BL MS Royal 20 A. XVIII, fols. 126v–127r.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles why Guy is a pilgrim at this point (he has repented of all his earlier, secular knightly deeds), nor does it complete its account by describing the outcome of the battle. Readers are apparently expected to know the story of Guy, or at least of his battle with Colbrond, and to use this information to situate him in his historical context. In this manuscript of the Anonimalle Brut, as in the Brute Abregé, Guy is included apparently because it is inconceivable that an account of Æthelstan’s reign should exclude him.

Havelok in the Petit Bruit The prose Brut, the Brute Abregé and the annotator of the Anonimalle Brut in BL MS Royal 20 A. XVIII all place heroes such as Havelok, Guy or Bevis into the context of a wider historical narrative. However, the Petit Bruit of Rauf de Boun goes much further, with what appears to be a full-blooded reworking of a large section of its historical narrative to incorporate the stories of Havelok and Guy. By making these romance heroes integral to its overall account, the Petit Bruit gives an extremely distinctive version of the conflict between the English and the Danes. The legend of Havelok is first foreshadowed in the Petit Bruit in the reigns of Gurmound and his son Frederik, Danish invaders who claim the English throne. Frederik’s favouritism towards his countrymen causes the English to drive him out, but Rauf de Boun notes that this incident is only the first in a long line of attempts by the Danes to claim the English throne ‘jekis a la venue Havelokes’ (‘up to the coming of Havelok’).65 Havelok’s own reign later in the chronicle is set firmly in the succession of English kings. Adelwold, Goldeburgh’s father, is clearly king of England, and is son of a king Edmound and grandson of Adelstan II.66 The Petit Bruit’s account of Havelok’s reign is, as the prose Brut’s was, focused not on the heroic, martial or fantastic elements of the story, but the political implications: the treachery of Goldeburgh’s guardian, here identified as Godric, the earl of Cornwall; and Havelok becoming ruler of Denmark in his own right and overthrowing Godric to become ruler of England ‘par mariage, de sa femme’ (‘by marriage, through his wife’).67 Havelok himself is the father of Knout, i.e. Cnut, and the grandfather of Hardknout, i.e. Harthacnut. The tensions between the Danes who become kings of England and their subjects are a recurrent focus in Rauf’s account of 65 66

67

Petit Bruit, p. 8, l. 29; Speed, ‘Havelok’s Predecessor’, p. 192. Some of the description of Adelstan II’s victories against the Welsh mirrors that from the accounts of Æthelstan’s reign in LRB and genealogical roll-chronicles: Petit Bruit, p. 14, ll. 38–40; cf. e.g. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 80; Feudal Manuals, ed. Wright, p. 9. Petit Bruit, p. 15, ll. 18–19; my translation, but cf. Speed, ‘Havelok’s Predecessor’, p. 192.

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Legends of English heroes this period. The Petit Bruit notes in its account of Havelok’s life that through Havelok’s marriage to Goldeburgh, ‘les Daneis [a]queillerunt greindre mestrie en Engleterre e long temps puis le tindrent’ (‘the Danes acquired great power in England and they held it for a long time afterwards’).68 In Hardknout’s reign, as in Frederik’s, the king places Danes in positions of authority, going even further than Frederik: [. . .] en chescun meson d’Engleterre y avoit un Dane soveraine et mestre sur toutz les autres de meson; si affolerunt nos femmez en despit de nous et a meint aultre servage nous chaserount a nostre tres graundyme hountage [. . .]69 [. . .] in each house of England there was a Dane, lord and master over all the others of the house; they seduced our women to spite us and hounded us with much other harshness to our very great shame [. . .]

Like Frederik, Hardknout is driven out, in this case by an English army known as ‘Hounhere’ – the meaning of this name is not clear, but it may indicate something like ‘army of shame’.70 However Hardknout’s son Gurmound (the second) then becomes king and again desires to have ‘ceste terre reamplé de la nacion de Danes’ (‘refilled this land with the Danish people’);71 Gurmound is killed. Gurmound’s son is Edmound Irensyde, i.e. Edmund Ironside, who also becomes king only to be murdered by English barons who are fearful that he is ‘trop enclinant a Danes’ (‘too favourable towards the Danes’).72 These ethnic tensions are not, however, mentioned again during the reigns of Edmound Irensyde’s son and grandson. Then Edmound Irensyde’s greatgrandson in the Petit Bruit, ‘Adelstanus quartus et ultimus’ (‘Æthelstan the fourth and final’), comes to the throne and is cast as an English defender fighting off an invasion from both King Gunelafes of Denmark and King Anelaf of Norway, who cite Frederik’s claim to the English throne as the reason for 68 69 70

71 72

Petit Bruit, p. 15, ll. 12–13; Speed, ‘Havelok’s Predecessor’, p. 192. Petit Bruit, p. 16, ll. 22–5; my translation. Cf. Petit Bruit, p. 16, ll. 21–8. Hardknout’s oppression of the English leads to an uprising: ‘nos gentz se pristrent a un assaut, et de homme et de femme leverunt grant host qe home appelloit “Hounhere”, si occistrent les Danes et les chaserunt a grant vergoyne’ (ll. 25–7) (‘Our people went on the attack, and raised a great army of men and women, that men called “Hounhere”, and killed the Danes and drove them out with great shame’). This is the only recorded use of ‘hounhere’ in the Anglo-Norman Dictionary, compiled by W. Rothwell et al. (London, 1977–92), and under revision online since 2004 at www.anglo-norman.net, gen ed. W. Rothwell, ed. D. Trotter. However, cf. the Lignee des Bretons et des Engleis below, pp. 90–1. ‘Hounhere’ perhaps means ‘army of shame’: here is frequently used to mean ‘army’ in Old English (cf. e.g. Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, trans. Swanton, pp. xxxiii–xxxiv), while houn perhaps comes from Anglo-Norman hunir, to shame (cf. Anglo-Norman Dictionary, gen. ed. Rothwell, s.v. hunir). Petit Bruit, p. 16, ll. 33–4; Speed, ‘Havelok’s Predecessor’, p. 192. Petit Bruit, p. 16, l. 40; my translation.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles their claim to the country. The conflict between the Danes and the English is brought to an end at this point in the Petit Bruit in the following decisive manner: Mes sachez qe cel accion fuit destruit en seync par un batail, qi fuit a Wincestre, d’un noble chevaller, Guy de Warwikes nomé a l’houre, qi par son corps soul fenissa ceste chose vers un geaunt Colebraund, a qi le chevaler Guy se combati a l’houre e defit cel accion a toutz jours.73 But let it be known that this claim was defeated in blood through a battle, which was at Winchester, through a noble knight at that time called Guy of Warwick, who finished this thing with his own body alone against a giant Colbrond, with whom the knight Guy fought at the time and defeated this claim for all time.

Guy’s single combat with Colbrond here is given its most prominent role in any Anglo-Norman prose chronicle. Not only is it a decisive victory against the Danes in its own right, it is the final and triumphant resolution of a contested claim (described as an ‘accion’, i.e. the subject of a legal dispute) over which a bloody conflict had been intermittently fought for generations, since the time of Havelok, and which had its roots even further in the past with the reigns of Gurmound and Frederik.74 A further Anglo-Norman prose account of Havelok’s reign, albeit a very brief one, is found in the Lignee des Bretons et des Engleis: Edelwin regna xviii. anz. Athelwold avoit une fille Goldeburgh et il regna vi. anz. Haveloc esposa meisme cele Goldeburgh et regna iii. anz. Alfred le frere le Roi Atherwold enchaca Haveloc par hunehere et il fut le primer roi coroné de l’apostoille et il regna xxx. anz. Edelwin reigned eighteen years. Athelwold had a daughter Goldeburgh and he reigned six years. Havelok married that same Goldeburgh and reigned three years. Alfred, the brother of King Athelwold, drove Havelok out with an ‘army of shame’ and he was the first king crowned by the pope and he reigned thirty years.75

73

74

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Petit Bruit, p. 17, ll. 19–22; my translation. The Petit Bruit looks forward to these events in its account of Havelok’s reign (p. 15, ll. 36–9) in language that closely parallels this later description, reinforcing the significance of this encounter. A brief discussion of the Petit Bruit’s handling of conflicts between the English and the Danes is found in Lendinara, ‘Brunanburh’, at p. 219 – the article also mentions Henry Knighton’s accounts of Havelok’s and Guy’s reigns, which are substantially based on the material in the Petit Bruit, at pp. 233–5. Edited and translated in Moll, ‘“Nest pas authentik”’, p. 185 n. 48, from London, College of Arms, Arundel MS 14, fol. 149r. I have amended Moll’s translation of ‘hunehere’ in light of the parallel with the text of the Petit Bruit.

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Legends of English heroes The Lignee’s account resembles the Petit Bruit in focusing on the political implications of Havelok’s reign. Havelok becomes king by marrying Goldeburgh, not in his own right, and is driven out by Alfred. Although there is no explicit mention here that Havelok is a Dane, the historical Alfred’s success against the Danes was well attested by other Anglo-Norman prose chronicles.76 The reference to ‘hunehere’ also echoes the name of an English army called ‘Hounhere’ that drove out Hardknout in the Petit Bruit. Within the Lignee’s radically abbreviated account of Havelok’s reign, then, it is still possible to discern a reading of Havelok’s story not dissimilar from that of the Petit Bruit, as one of a Dane who claims England’s throne, only for the Danes to be driven out by the English. Both the Lignee and the Petit Bruit play up the political and (apparently in the case of the Lignee) ethnic dimensions of the Havelok narrative and the invasions of the Danes. This corresponds with some earlier representations in other Anglo-Norman texts of Danes who invaded Anglo-Saxon England as wicked, savage pagans.77 Yet although other Anglo-Norman prose chronicles could depict Danish invaders in this manner when drawing on other sources, only the Petit Bruit and the Lignee linked Havelok’s legend to such representations.78

Havelok and other English heroes in the Scalacronica A later reaction to the desire to put Anglo-Norman romance heroes and legendary material into Anglo-Saxon history can be seen in Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica. Gray’s chronicle also includes an account of Havelok’s story, but 76

77

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See e.g. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 202–6, ll. 2460–531; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 118–20, ll. 3201–95. Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, p. 711 has noted, however, that Alfred’s campaigns against the Danes during his reign are omitted from the core genealogical roll-chronicle textual tradition, an omission mirrored in the related LRB textual tradition (Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 71–5). In the Auchinleck Manuscript’s version of the Short English Metrical Chronicle, Alfred is identified as the brother of Athelbright and described as defeating Havelok and killing the Danes: The Auchinleck Manuscript website, ed. D. Burnley and A. Wiggins, hosted by the National Library of Scotland, created 5 July 2003, accessed 6 September 2011, online at auchinleck.nls.uk, relevant page online at auchinleck.nls.uk/mss/ smc.htm. B. J. Levy, ‘The Image of the Viking in Anglo-Norman Literature’, in Scandinavia and Europe 800–1350: Contact, Conflict, and Coexistence, ed. J. Adams and K. Holman, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 4 (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 269–88, at pp. 274–84. One notable depiction of Danish violence is the martyrdom of St Edmund, included in Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 200–1, ll. 2414–35, cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 116–7, ll. 3135–63; Marvin comments at p. 324 in her note on these lines that here the prose Brut is closely following Gaimar’s Estoire, the main source for this part of its narrative (cf. also Pagan’s comments at p. 226).

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles here Havelok is not as politically significant as he is in Gaimar’s Estoire, Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit and the Lignee. Notwithstanding this, Gray presents Havelok as a notable warrior. Gray also refers to other notable and important romance figures from the Anglo-Saxon period, remarking that they are sidelined by the most authoritative accounts. Gray says that he notes their deeds – but does not record them. Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica includes the lengthiest account of Havelok’s life in any chronicle except for Gaimar’s Estoire, but it has not attracted much attention among modern scholars.79 However, Richard Moll, who briefly discussed the beginning of the Havelok story in 2003, has since considered the full narrative in relation to the other extant versions of Havelok.80 Moll noted in his study that Gray’s account of the Havelok story draws on the prose Brut for its framework. Moll’s analysis also makes clear (and it is evident from my transcript, included in an appendix to this book)81 that Gray’s version of Havelok’s life gives a far fuller account than the prose Brut. Gray draws on one or more versions of an ‘estoir de Havelok’ which reflect a mixture of details familiar from Gaimar and the Anglo-Norman Lai d’Haveloc on the one hand and on the other hand the ME Havelok, as well as an account of Havelok which was known to Robert Mannyng and referred to in his Chronicle but which he chose not to include. Whether the ‘estoir de Havelok’ was a lost text, an oral retelling or Gray’s composite recollection of multiple versions, Moll convincingly argues that the Scalacronica seamlessly integrates its sources into a coherent new narrative. Since no version of the Havelok story which precisely corresponds to Gray’s ‘estoir de Havelok’ survives, an analysis of Gray’s treatment of his source material is necessarily provisional, but it does offer insight into Gray’s attitude and approach towards the legends he encountered of the English past. Gray here tries to make sense of what is ‘autentik’ and what is ‘apocrophum’ in versions of the Havelok story (l. 93), just as he had defended the historical accuracy of Arthurian history by weighing the English accounts of the period by Bede and other chroniclers against the British book which Geoffrey of Monmouth purported to translate.82 Gray’s method of evaluation is not argued for here, as it is in his defence of Arthur’s historicity, but it can be seen to emerge from his method. Moll has examined Gray’s handling of his sources to show how Gray prioritises the frame he inherits from the prose Brut over the content of the ‘estoir de Havelok’. He describes how the account works to make sense of itself through a series of historiographical interjections 79

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For nineteenth- and early twentieth century discussions of Gray’s account of Havelok in the Scalacronica, based on John Leland’s notes on the Scalacronica in his Collectanea, see H. A. Heyman, Studies on the Havelok-Tale (Uppsala, 1903), pp. 115–18; Brie, ‘Havelok-sage’, p. 365. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 71–2; Moll, ‘“Nest pas autentik”’. References here to this passage are given by line number. On this see Moll, Before Malory, pp. 67–72, and Chapter 2 above, pp. 67–8.

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Legends of English heroes – reading Havelok as a minor king, as in the prose Brut, rather than a ruler of England, despite conflicting messages from other sources.83 However, it is Gray’s reasons for choosing to take this approach to his sources which interest me here. Gray plays down Havelok’s political importance by playing his sources off against one another and at the same time playing up his role as a great warrior from pre-Conquest history. For the context of the Havelok story, Gray depends on the setting described by the prose Brut, in which Athelbright and Edelsy are two minor kings ruling during the reign of Constantine. Having just worked hard to explain why Arthur is not mentioned by English historians, Gray is alert to the fact that tout ne soient lez nouns de ceux ii. roys especifiez en lez cronicles qe ensuount, qe sount memoir du ligné et regne dez roys saxsouns qi regnerent succiement tancom durerent lez vii. realmes qe Hengist en departist. (ll. 5–8) the names of the two kings are not mentioned at all in the chronicles that follow, which are the memory of the line and the kingdom of the Saxon kings who reigned successively while the seven realms that Hengist divided for them endured.

This, he suggests at the beginning of his account, is perhaps due to the Germanic custom of dividing kingdoms among several sons, all of whom might set themselves up as a king but without being sufficiently important to merit inclusion in later histories. Gray returns to the idea that these two rulers were petty kings towards the end of his account of Havelok’s life, when he notes that his source, the ‘gest’ (l. 80), records that the Danes paid tribute to the Britons from the time of Belinus and Brennius until the time of Havelok. While the prose Brut merely stated this fact without further discussion, Gray points out that (unlike Belinus and Brennius), Havelok’s father-in-law had only been ‘un dez petitez roys, qi se clamoit sire d’un pays par soy, endementers qe la riote durast de Mordret et de sez fitz’ (‘one of the minor kings who called himself lord of a country on his own account while the rebellion of Mordred and of his sons lasted’) (ll. 82–4). Havelok is here presented in a somewhat critical light, taking advantage of the civil war in Britain to forgo Danish obligations: the reason for Havelok’s conquest, the rights of his wife, is described by Gray as a ‘colour’ (l. 82) (a pretext, or possibly a reason) for withholding this tribute. Gray is equally critical of the use later Danes supposedly made of Havelok’s legacy. Gray notes that a connection has been suggested between Havelok’s reign and the claims of Cnut (d.1035): Gray says that Havelok’s conquest ‘com est dit en ascuns cronicles estoit colour et sours du primer aryvail Swyn, le pier Knout’ (‘as is said in some chronicles was the pretext and the reason for the first arrival of Swein, Cnut’s father’) (ll. 85–6). There is no mention of any such 83

Moll, ‘“Nest pas autentik”’, pp. 195–202.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles connection in Havelok or the prose Brut. In Gaimar’s Estoire it is perhaps hinted at in a passage in which Cnut is said to have declared that the Danish conquered England almost a thousand years ago.84 That reference in turn reminds Gaimar’s readers of his previous assertion that earlier Danish kings, including Havelok, legitimised later Danish claims in England.85 Gray also repeats the claim, common to both his source and the ME Havelok, that Goldeburgh’s father was king of all England, and then rejects its validity, in order to diminish the Havelok story’s impact on the larger historical narrative of his chronicle: [. . .] l’estoir de Havelok devise qe le pier sa femme fust roy d’Engleter et qe Havelok le conquist, mes n’est pas autentik, mais apocrophum. (ll. 92–3) [. . .] the account of Havelok claims that the father of his wife was king of England and that Havelok conquered it; but this is not authentic, but apocryphal.

Havelok himself is, for Gray, a legitimate ruler who overthrows a usurper. But his historical place (in English, though not necessarily in Danish, history) was only that of a minor king, and the ‘autentik’ history has been misconstrued, both by Havelok himself and by Swein or Cnut for political advantage. Gray draws attention to his multiple sources in order to weigh one against the other, reaching a conclusion in which aspects of ‘l’estoir de Havelok’ that do not fit his interpretation of wider historical events are disproved by the testimony of the prose Brut. Gray’s approach to reconciling his sources rejects the greater significance given to Havelok in other AngloNorman chronicles, notably Gaimar’s Estoire, Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit and the Lignee. Meanwhile, Gray is able to restore to the chronicle tradition the picture from the ‘estoir’ of a dynamic hero, whose exploits had been largely excluded from the dry political narratives of the prose Brut, the Petit Bruit and the Lignee. Most of the additional episodes which Gray relates focus on combat, whether it is Havelok’s triumph in feats of strength at Edelsi’s court (ll. 29–32), his single-handed defence against Danish townsmen who attack him and Goldeburgh (ll. 46–51), or his final battle against Edelsi’s forces (ll. 70–9). The other key episode which Gray takes care to include is when the castellan of the Danish town discovers that a light emanates from Havelok’s mouth while he sleeps, showing that he is the true king of Denmark (ll. 56–62).86 Havelok 84

85

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Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, ll. 4309–18 (l. 4316) (my translation); cf. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, pp. 234–6, ll. 4317–24. See Heyman, Studies, p. 86 n. 1; A. Bell, ‘Gaimar’s Early “Danish” Kings’, PMLA 65 (1950), 601–40 (p. 629). The textual tradition of this passage in Gaimar’s Estoire is confused: see Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, p. 256. Gaimar, Estoire, ed. and trans. Short, pp. 114–15, ll. 2065–92; Gaimar, Estoire, ed. Bell, ll. 2063–90; discussed in Lendinara, ‘Brunanburh’, p. 229. In contrast to the ME Havelok, there is no second supernatural mark to indicate that Havelok is also the rightful king of England: see Havelok, ed. Smithers, pp. xli–xlii,

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Legends of English heroes emerges as a formidable warrior, marked out by a supernatural sign for greatness and as the Danish king, even as the Scalacronica minimises his political importance in England’s history. To play down Havelok’s political importance in English history while emphasising his role as a warrior from the Anglo-Saxon and Danish past might appear contradictory, but the Scalacronica does have a purpose here. Gray similarly includes other romance narratives with a historical setting in his chronicle. As noted in the previous chapter, Moll has traced the manner in which an awareness of Arthurian romance weaves its way through the Scalacronica’s account of Arthur’s reign, even as Gray explicitly argues for a historical Arthur whose deeds can be read in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia.87 Moll has also pointed out other narratives familiar from romance which Gray narrates in detail: accounts concerning the fall of Troy and the lives of Aeneas and Alexander the Great.88 There were, however, other romances and heroic narratives which Gray knew but chose not to include. Foremost among these was the life of Guy of Warwick: En quelis estoirs ne sount a payn rementoyuez nuls gestes dez autres fors dez roys. Tout estoint en le hour mayntz vaillauntz chevalers, auxi bien dez Bretouns com dez Englés ou dé Saxsouns, com puscedy de Gy de Warwik et des tiels plusours autres, dez queux de lour amys estoint faitz grauntz romaunz, qe tout soit recordé en le lyvir du dit Gy de Warwyk, qe il estoit en le temps le roy Athilstan. Uncor ne touchent lez cronicles du dit Athilstan plus de ly, qe lez autres cronicles ne fount dez autres tiels menuz gentz.89 In such histories [i.e. chronicles concerning Anglo-Saxon history] scarcely any deeds of others except for kings are remembered. Certainly there were at that time many brave knights, as much among the Britons as among the Angles or the Saxons, as afterwards Guy of Warwick (and many such others), about whom great romances were written by their friends, that are all recorded in the book of this Guy of Warwick, who lived in the time of King Æthelstan. Yet the chronicles of this Æthelstan say nothing more of him, just as the other chronicles do not make mention of other such lesser people.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this discussion, which appears at the start of the Scalacronica’s second book, on Anglo-Saxon history, Gray’s account of Æthelstan’s reign does not include any mention of Guy or his deeds.90 Shortly

87 88 89 90

xliv. This would of course suit Gray’s wider political arguments, but it is also possible that Gray’s ‘estoir de Havelok’ did not contain this second mark, as it does not feature in any other surviving version of the Havelok story. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 45–63, 67–72. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 37, 247 nn. 37–9. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 101va–b. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 122ra–123ra.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles before this in the text, Gray has declared his intention to privilege the writings of English and Saxon historians in this second book, just as he privileged the putative account of a British writer in his first.91 Even though Gray voices his support for the historical importance of Guy of Warwick, his judgements on which sources to privilege lead him to omit Guy’s exploits from his own account. Guy of Warwick is not the only English hero whom Gray seems reluctant either to entirely exclude from his account of Anglo-Saxon history or to wholeheartedly include. Earlier in the Scalacronica, shortly after he tells the story of Havelok, Gray includes his account of Ingil. As we have seen, in Gray’s version Ingil is not made king but is notable for being ‘un vaillant prus chevaler’. As with the Havelok story, the political implications for English history are minimised at the same time as Ingil’s chivalric prowess is celebrated. After the discussion of Ingil, Gray goes on to give a description of the Heptarchy, noting that during the time when England was divided among warring kings, there were many heroic warriors: En cest mene temps avindrent lez grantz mervaillez de Unwyn, Wade, et de Sigrun, et de plusours autres, dez queux lez ministreaux chauntount lours gestes, com par le Bruyt.92 During this time, the great marvels of Unwine, Wade, and of Sigrun, and of many others, occurred, of which the minstrels sing their songs, as in the Brut.

I have found no mention of these figures’ names in Gray’s main sources. Unwine and Wade are two heroes from Germanic legends who were sometimes still mentioned in later medieval literature from England as valiant warriors. No account of Unwine’s deeds survives; the only detailed description of Wade’s adventures is found in Walter Map’s De nugis curialium. Sometimes, as in the Fasciculus Morum, Unwine and Wade’s names are found together, and both Unwine and Wade are mentioned (at different times) in the alliterative Morte Arthure, which has other interesting parallels with the Scalacronica.93 The name ‘Sigrun’ is less familiar from literature in England. 91 92 93

Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 97rb–97va. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 88vb. On lost legends about Unwine and Wade respectively, see Wilson, Lost Literature, pp. 7–8, 14–16, and on Wade see also K. P. Wentersdorf, ‘Chaucer and the Lost Tale of Wade’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 65 (1966), 274–86, and S. Trigg, ‘The Injuries of Time: Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Speght, and Wade’s Boat’, The La Trobe Journal 81 (2008), 106–17. Walter Map’s story of the warrior ‘Gado’ has usually been taken to refer to Wade: for this see Walter Map, De nugis curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. and trans. M. R. James, rev. C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1983; 1st edn 1914), pp. 166–75. Richard Moll’s paper ‘Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica: A Source for the Alliterative Morte Arthure?’, given at the 39th Kalamazoo Medieval Congress, Western Michigan University, 8 May

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Legends of English heroes In two poems within the Poetic Edda, there is a Sigrun, a Valkyrie who is the lover of Helgi Hundingsbani.94 If this figure can be identified with Gray’s Sigrun, it seems unlikely that he could have known much more about the figure than the name: Sigrun certainly seems a strange choice to place alongside these two male Germanic heroes. However, it is also possible that the name ‘Sigrun’ is a corrupted form of another name, which may now be impossible to identify. Although these figures remain shadowy, they help Sir Thomas Gray to paint a picture of an Anglo-Saxon England replete with heroic forebears. Jean-Claude Thiolier has seen the ideal of chivalric behaviour represented in the later portions of the Scalacronica as stemming from ‘une ardeur guerrière particulièrement forte’, without any of chivalry’s later, romance-influenced connotations.95 Thiolier cites several knights who embody this chivalric ideal in the Scalacronica, the chronicle’s author and his father being among the more important examples. Looking earlier in the Scalacronica,  Moll also  found that Gray’s ‘version of Arthurian history is infused with a chivalric mood’ in its focus on both courtly and military activities, on the  part not just of Arthur himself, but also of the knights of his Round Table.96 The legends of Havelok, Guy of Warwick, Unwine, Wade, Sigrun ‘et de plusours autres’ provide a missing link in Gray’s vision of a history in which military heroism is not limited only to kings, but can be, and is, practised as often by ‘menuz gentz’. Not only the British but also the AngloSaxons and the Danes were chivalrous in the times after they first arrived on this island. At the same time, Gray is conscious of a hierarchy of authority within his sources and does not want to include this more romance-oriented material in full. Instead, he balances his treatment by including the references to these legendary heroes and in some cases their chivalric exploits whilst playing down or omitting the wider implications that their actions are sometimes given in some other accounts.

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2004, examined parallels between the Scalacronica and the alliterative Morte. For the names of the two heroes in the English poem, see Alliterative Morte Arthure, in King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Alliterative Morte Arthure, ed. L. D. Benson (Exeter, 1986), ll. 964 (Wade), 2868 (Unwine). The Poetic Edda, trans. C. Larrington, Oxford World Classics (Oxford, 1996), pp. 114–22, 132–41, 278–81. Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 137–8 (p. 138). Andy King has reinforced this point, analysing the Scalacronica’s account of fourteenth-century history to discover that ‘for Gray, chivalry remained a thoroughly pragmatic (and entirely unromantic) arrangement, a medieval equivalent of the Geneva Convention’: King, ‘Helm with a Crest of Gold’, p. 35. Moll, Before Malory, pp. 48–50 (p. 49).

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles

The beginnings of English Christianity: Constance in Les Cronicles A different kind of heroic figure is introduced into Anglo-Saxon history in Trevet’s Cronicles. The figure of Constance is given a central role in the text, reintroducing Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. This fits with Trevet’s vision in his work, distinct as it is from other Anglo-Norman prose chronicles of national and universal history in focusing so heavily on religious history. Trevet’s account of Constance is well known as the main source for the versions of this story in Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale and Gower’s Confessio Amantis, and as such has been the object of significant scholarly attention, but Trevet’s version has rarely been considered in the context of the Cronicles themselves.97 John Frankis, however, has examined this issue and has rightly noted that while Trevet’s Cronicles are elsewhere marked by ‘brevity of narrative’, the story of Constance alone is twenty times longer than any other single narrative in the text, and ‘thus stands out as the most conspicuous story in the whole of history as recorded by Trevet’. Readers could scarcely have missed the importance of this narrative within the structure of the Cronicles.98 The central role of the Constance story is all the more striking because it does not come from any identifiable historical source,99 another departure from Trevet’s usual method of composition in the Cronicles. Frankis argues that it was probably Trevet himself who ‘substantially devised’ the historical setting for an ‘accused queen’ story existing in many versions, and that he

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Surviving manuscripts suggest that Trevet’s Constance story always circulated as part of the Cronicles: cf. Dean, ANL, no. 70, pp. 47–8. Trevet also makes several references during the Constance story to earlier parts of his chronicle, tying the narrative into his wider account: Nicholas Trevet, ‘De la noble femme Constance’, ed. and trans. R. M. Correale, in R. M. Correale, ‘The Man of Law’s Prologue and Tale’, in Sources and Analogues of the Canterbury Tales, ed. R. M. Correale and M. Hamel (Cambridge, 2002–5), II, 296–329, at p. 297, ll. 10–12; p. 303, ll. 25–6 (this edition and translation now supersedes M. Schlauch, ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’, in Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ed. W. F. Bryan and G. Dempster (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1958; first printed 1941), pp. 155–206). Chaucer and Gower certainly seem to have read it as part of this text: see R. A. Pratt, ‘Chaucer and Les Cronicles of Nicholas Trevet’, in Studies in Language, Literature, and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later, ed. E. B. Atwood and A. A. Hill (Austin, TX, 1969), pp. 303–11; R. M. Correale, ‘Chaucer’s Manuscript of Nicholas Trevet’s Les Cronicles’, Chaucer Review 25 (1990– 1), 238–65; R. M. Correale, ‘Gower’s Source Manuscript of Nicholas Trevet’s Les Cronicles’, in John Gower: Recent Readings, ed. R. F. Yeager (Kalamazoo, MI, 1989), pp. 133–57. J. Frankis, ‘King Ælle and the conversion of the English: the development of a legend from Bede to Chaucer’, in Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. D. Scragg and C. Weinberg, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 29 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 74–92 (p. 85). Frankis, ‘King Ælle’, p. 76. Trevet says that the story is taken from ‘les aunciens croniqes des Sessouns’ (‘the old Saxon chronicles’): Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, p. 297, ll. 1–2.

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Legends of English heroes created it ‘as a historical fiction devised to give new insights into history’, specifically ‘as a conversion-legend’.100 While Frankis and the majority of scholars who have written on the Constance story in Les Cronicles have seen Trevet’s hand in the creation of the episode, others such as Philip Wynn have argued that Trevet did not add any ‘intentional fictions’ elsewhere in his history, and that the hypothesis of a ‘“lost original” [for the Constance story] remains the preferred one’.101 Yet whether or not Trevet composed his version of the ‘accused queen’ story himself, it was certainly his design that made the narrative stand out: it was central to the vision of history he was presenting in Les Cronicles. The story of Constance in Trevet’s Cronicles, and as followed by Chaucer and Gower, contains many familiar hagiographic motifs as well as a doubled exile-and-return framework familiar from romance stories (not least that of Havelok).102 Constance, daughter of the Emperor Tiberius Constantine, converts Saracens visiting Rome and their reports of her make their sultan fall in love with her unseen. He asks to marry her and the emperor, on the pope’s advice, consents on the condition that the sultan and his people convert to Christianity. With this agreement in place, Constance travels to the East for the wedding. Unfortunately the sultan’s mother conspires to murder her son and those loyal to him. Constance is then set adrift in a rudderless boat and after over three years arrives in Northumbria. There she is cared for by a Saxon noble called Olda and Hermengild his wife, and she converts them to Christianity. The king of Northumbria, Alla, learns about Constance and then decides to convert and to marry her too (despite a plot by a knight who attempts to frame Constance for Hermengild’s murder after Constance spurns his advances). Alla’s mother, however, contrives to falsify a letter from Alla so that Constance is set adrift again, this time with her newborn son Maurice. While at sea Constance has to fight off another lustful knight before she arrives back in the Roman Empire and is cared for by Arsenius of Cappadocia, who is ignorant of her true identity. Eventually, after a lengthy set-up, Constance is reunited with first her husband and then her father. Trevet ends by recounting the good deaths of Constance, Alla and the emperor. This is quite different from the stories of Engel, Havelok, Guy or Bevis. It is not an account of conquest or of chivalric feats, but a hagiographical narrative where the focus is on Constance’s importance in the history of Christianity. Indeed, within his account of Constance Trevet highlights the significance 100 101

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Frankis, ‘King Ælle’, pp. 76, 85. P. Wynn, ‘The Conversion Story in Nicholas Trevet’s “Tale of Constance”’, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 13 (1982), 259–74 (pp. 261, 262). On the ‘exile-and-return’ motif see R. Field, ‘The King Over the Water: Exile-andReturn Revisited’, in Cultural Encounters in the Romance of Medieval England, ed. C. Saunders, Studies in Medieval Romance (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 41–53; L. Ashe, ‘“Exile-and-Return” and English Law: The Anglo-Saxon Inheritance of Insular Romance’, Literature Compass 6 (2006), 300–17.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles of its Christian message even more than Chaucer and Gower were to do in their later retellings. As the account in Les Cronicles is the least familiar of these three versions, these differences have not attracted much attention, but they are significant.103 Trevet’s Constance converts the Saracen merchants to Christianity,104 a detail preserved by Gower but not by Chaucer, where the merchants only hear others speaking about Constance and are not themselves converted.105 Neither Chaucer nor Gower includes the detailed description of the liberties that Trevet’s ‘soudan’ grants to Christians in the Holy Land. Both poets follow Trevet in including the sultan’s promise that he will convert to Christianity, and Chaucer also echoes Trevet’s account with the sultan’s promise that he will convert his people.106 However, in Les Cronicles the sultan also promises bone et entiere pees entre touz Cristiens et touz Sarrasins, et fraunch passage de aler fraunchement de marchaunder, et pur visiter les seintz lieus del Sepulture et del mount de Calvarie et de Bethleem et de Nazareth et del vaal de Josephat et tous autres seintz deinz les marches de son pouer. Et la cité de Jerusalem abandona a la seignurie des Cristiens pur enhabiter, et fraunchises as evesqes Cristiens et a lour clergie de precher et enseigner les gentz de sa terre la droite foi, et de baptize, et de esglises faire et les temples de maunetz destrure. good and entire peace between all Christians and Saracens, and free passage to travel freely for trade, and to visit all the holy places of the Sepulchre, Mount Calvary, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and all the other holy places within the boundaries of his control. And he surrendered the city of Jerusalem to the lordship of the Christians to live in, and gave liberty to the Christian bishops and their clergy to preach and to instruct the people of his land in the true faith, and to baptize, to build churches, and to destroy the temples of idols.107

The overthrow of these plans by the sultan’s mother is therefore, in Trevet, not only a personal tragedy for Constance or even a national disaster: it has profound consequences for all of Christendom. 103

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Useful earlier discussions appear in M. Schlauch, Chaucer’s Constance and Accused Queens (New York, 1927), and R. Ellis, Patterns of Religious Narrative in the Canterbury Tales (London and Sydney, 1986), pp. 119–68. Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, pp. 296–7, ll. 21–4; Schlauch, ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’, p. 165. Confessio Amantis, in The English Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay, 2 vols., EETS, e.s. 81–2 (London, New York and Toronto, 1900), i, Book 2, ll. 597–610 (hereafter CA); Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, II.148–69, in The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. L. D. Benson (Oxford, 1987) (hereafter CT). CA, Book 2, ll. 627–9; CT, II.239–41. Cf. Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, pp. 298–9, ll. 53–62. Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, pp. 298–9, ll. 55–62. Notably, only Chaucer’s Constance is reluctant to marry the sultan (CT, II.274–87).

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Legends of English heroes Later in Trevet’s story, Olda and Hermengild, two Saxons who have been converted by Constance, are baptised by the Welsh bishop Lucius, an episode passed over by both Chaucer and Gower.108 Then, after Hermengild is murdered, God identifies the culprit by speaking in Latin.109 Trevet’s linguistic shift here is particularly significant because most of the earlier Latin phrases introduced into Les Cronicles are taken directly from the Bible,110 creating a parallel between this incident and his account of biblical history. The level of detailed description throughout the whole story, and the all-encompassing geographical scope of the narrative as Constance moves between Christian Rome, a Holy Land under Saracen rule and pagan Anglo-Saxon England, both imbue the tale with thematic significance for the rest of Les Cronicles. In the second half of the Constance story, however, Trevet moves the focus away from the wider ramifications of these events to concentrate on Constance’s own journeys and tribulations, and he lingers over her personal experiences of reconciliation. For example, while they are adrift, an untrustworthy companion, Telous, tries to persuade Constance to sleep with him, and she pushes him into the sea.111 Once she reaches Italy again, Constance goes to live with Arsenius, but does not reveal her true identity; only after her husband’s arrival does she stage elaborate scenes of recognition and reconciliation with her husband and father, sending her son Maurice ahead to be recognised as looking very like her in both cases.112 Trevet’s text here performs, in its way, a similar move to the one Gray makes with Havelok – it moves away from deploying legends in explanation of major changes and presents a legendary figure instead as a model of behaviour, in this case displaying virtue and patience in the face of hardships. Even though the focus of the narrative moves away from tracing its wider historical significance in favour of using the story to exemplify moral and religious behaviours, examining Trevet’s story of Constance in its context within Les Cronicles provides further reason to emphasise the weight it gives to the text’s focus on religious themes, and particularly on the conversion of the English and others to Christianity. Frankis looked at the immediate context of the Constance episode and noted that it follows the well known account of Gregory and the English slaves (supposedly from Alla’s kingdom) and precedes the account of St Augustine’s mission to England.113 108 109

110

111 112

113

Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, pp. 306–7, ll. 192–202. Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, pp. 308–11, ll. 246–52; cf. CA, Book 2, ll. 880–3; Chaucer, CT, II.674–6. For examples from the first seventy pages of the only full edition of Les Cronicles, see Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, at pp. 14, 27, 36, 43, 44, 46, 60, 62, 66, 68; an exception is found on p. 31, where Trevet quotes the Latin name of a classical work. Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, p. 317, ll. 360–94. Trevet, ‘Constance’, ed. and trans. Correale, pp. 323–5, ll. 446–83; pp. 325–7, ll. 496–577. Frankis, ‘King Ælle’, pp. 85–6.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Considering the wider context further confirms the fundamental importance of Constance’s conversion of the English to the chronicle. Trevet is the only Anglo-Norman chronicler to write a universal history which focuses so intensively on biblical history. The first third of his work is largely devoted to an account of history based on the Old Testament and the Gospels: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s legendary history of Britain and classical or pseudo-classical history is only included in brief, fragmentary detail.114 This contrasts sharply with another Anglo-Norman universal history of comparable scale, Gray’s Scalacronica. Trevet’s description of Joshua’s life covers almost three full pages in the only (densely presented) edition.115 The Scalacronica’s account of Joshua, by contrast, is limited to two sentences.116 Conversely, while Trevet only mentions the fall of Troy in passing – ‘Le tiertz an qe Abdon estoit juge de Israel fu Troye prise’117 (‘the third year that Abdon was judge of Israel, Troy was captured’) – Gray devotes a large section of his narrative to the subject, covering almost three full folios in the unique manuscript.118 Once Gray reaches the legendary history of Britain, he switches his primary focus to the British Isles, while Trevet provides only brief summaries of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia alongside much longer passages of biblical history.119 The difference between their priorities is not surprising: Gray, after all, was a knight, while Trevet was a friar writing initially for a nun. A fairer comparison might be with John of Canterbury’s Polistorie, a universal history written by a monk at the priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, where a copy remained until the Reformation.120 Yet, like the Scalacronica, the Polistorie devotes much longer to the legendary history of Britain than it does to biblical and early ecclesiastical history.121 Trevet’s Cronicles is unique among Anglo-Norman prose chronicles in placing such emphasis on biblical and early Christian history. Trevet returns to the theme of English Christianity during his later account of Anglo-Saxon history. Two later episodes, while not on the same scale as his story of Constance, nevertheless stand out amongst his concise account of this period. The first is a vision of the afterlife experienced by an Englishman from Northumbria (named as Dryhthelm by Bede); the second is the story of an unrepentant sinner from Mercia who has a vision of devils cutting 114

115 116 117 118 119

120 121

For the examples from the first seventy pages of Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, see pp. 34, 36–8, 47, 54, 57–9, 62–4. Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, pp. 28–31. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 5rb. Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, p. 34. Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 6ra–9va. Cf. e.g. Gray’s full account of Belinus and Brennius (Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 34vb–36vb) with the abridged version in Trevet (Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, p. 63). See Spence, ‘Audiences’, pp. 32–3, 51 n. 18. See Ferris, ‘Polistorie’, pp. 3–185 (legendary history of Britain), 241–85 (biblical and early ecclesiastical history).

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Legends of English heroes him apart with ‘furches’ (prongs or possibly pitchforks).122 Both of these episodes first appear in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica,123 but both resemble the story of Constance in being extraneous to the larger historical narrative and in being included apparently as exemplary histories about the importance of Christianity. The different interests of Trevet’s Cronicles, when compared to other Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, seem to help explain why Trevet gave such prominence to the story of Constance. A narrative of an exemplary Christian converting the English suited a chronicle which sought to place English history in the framework of biblical and Christian history, as exemplified by a genealogy it included in which Edward I’s ancestry was traced back to Adam.124 If Trevet’s heroine, Constance, seems far removed from Engel or Havelok, it is because Trevet’s Cronicles is equally distant in its vision of history from the Petit Bruit or the Scalacronica.

Conclusion: English heroes in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles Challenges posed to late medieval historians by the nature of Anglo-Saxon history slowly led Anglo-Norman prose chronicles to use legends of English heroes as material to explain some of the events they found problematic. England’s identity was forming during this period, and these heroes were cast as agents in that process. In Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit, the story of Engel offers a single originator for a set of divided English kingdoms; a version of this narrative is used by Robert Mannyng and Sir Thomas Gray for a similar purpose, but not without difficulty, as it conflicts with more widely disseminated and authoritative accounts. Rauf de Boun reworks the history of Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavian invasions extensively to provide a new account which describes the difficult integration of the Danes into both England and an English identity, and places the legendary figures of Havelok and Guy of Warwick at the heart of this narrative. When Gray turns to the story of Havelok for an exemplary warrior from the English past, however, he refuses to rewrite his larger historical narrative to make Havelok the king of England. Gray keeps other legendary English heroes at the edge of his account of Anglo-Saxon history, borrowing the connotations of their names without confirming the historical validity of their supposed deeds, in order to preserve the credibility of his 122 123

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Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, pp. 234–5, 240–1. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, Book 5, Chapters 12, 13, pp. 488–97, 498–503; see also J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1988), pp. 185–6. In Bede, the unrepentant Saxon is cut apart by ‘vomeres’ or ‘cultra’ (p. 500 and n. 2), i.e. ploughshares, coulters, blades, or possibly daggers. Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, pp. 344–5.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles own chronicle. In Les Cronicles, meanwhile, Nicholas Trevet includes the story of Constance at length, intensifying his readers’ awareness of the central role of Christianity and of conversion within the world history he recounts. While the chronicles themselves take divergent approaches to the AngloSaxon past, there is one important point of similarity between most of the major legendary figures I have discussed here. Engel, Havelok and Constance are not native to England, yet through their actions they come to embody or even introduce key aspects of Englishness. While sometimes these legendary heroes do have to block negative outside influences, as with the English nobleman Guy of Warwick preventing a Danish invasion, those narratives of Anglo-Saxon legendary heroes which hold greatest significance for AngloNorman prose chronicles tend to present a vision of English history in which Englishness can be renewed and redeemed by foreigners. Such a vision can of course suggest parallels between these figures and the arrival of the Normans on English shores.

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4

Representations of the Norman Conquest in Anglo-Norman prose chronicles Legends about Britain and Anglo-Saxon England were incorporated into Anglo-Norman chronicles, as described in the last two chapters, demonstrating the interest that the authors of these chronicles took in that past. Yet they wrote in a language that had only been in widespread use in England, whether for literature or administration, since the Norman Conquest. It seems to me essential, as part of the process of understanding how these chronicles fashion their narratives, to ask how these authors understood the event that ultimately determined the choice of language for their chronicles. This is especially the case since the Conquest was recognised as a decisive moment in English history from the time the historians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries first described it. The Conquest’s vital importance in popular history from the Renaissance to the present has been outlined in several important studies.1 By contrast, the treatment of the Norman Conquest in historical writing during the later Middle Ages in England has not attracted as much critical attention. Yet it seems unlikely that during this period the Conquest lacked the significance for most historians which it had possessed in the twelfth century and which it would hold again after the Reformation. The attitudes of some later medieval Latin authors, notably Matthew Paris and Ranulf Higden, to the Conquest have been examined, as have accounts of the Conquest in the works of Gaimar, Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and in some Middle English verse chroniclers, including Robert of Gloucester, Robert Mannyng and Thomas Castleford. However, this chapter is the first survey of later accounts of the Conquest in Anglo-Norman prose.2 1

2

Chibnall, Debate; L. Georgianna, ‘Coming to Terms with the Norman Conquest: Nationalism and English Literary History’, REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 14 (1998), 33–53; R. Barber, ‘The Norman Conquest and the Media’, Anglo-Norman Studies 26 (2003), 1–20. For Matthew Paris see R. Reader, ‘Matthew Paris and the Norman Conquest’, in The Cloister and the World: Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. J. Blair and B. Golding (Oxford, 1996), pp. 118–47; for Higden, see Chibnall, Debate, pp. 20–1, and Barber, ‘Norman Conquest’, pp. 5–6; for Gaimar, Wace and Benoît see P. Eley and P. E. Bennett, ‘The Battle of Hastings according to Gaimar, Wace and Benoît: rhetoric and politics’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 43 (1999), 47–78. For Middle English chroniclers, see below. For an examination of the Anglo-Norman

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles The process by which those who arrived with William I assimilated into English society, and the length of time which it took, have been the subject of a long historical debate which continues to be hotly contested. For instance, John Gillingham has argued for a rapid assimilation of the Normans3 in England, by the mid-twelfth century, while Hugh Thomas would place it later, at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century.4 Yet the terms ‘assimilation’ or even ‘integration’ seem inapplicable for a process which transformed the whole of England and English society so radically and permanently. At the other extreme, some contemporary literary critics, such as Elaine Treharne, have seen hostility between the Normans and the English festering throughout the twelfth century, encoded in the act and process of copying and composing Old English texts.5 Resentment from the lower, Englishspeaking classes continued to exist even in the fourteenth century, according to Thorlac Turville-Petre’s interpretation of comments in Mannyng’s Chronicle and Thomas Castleford’s Chronicle. Arguing that ‘[t]o write in French or English [in the early fourteenth century] is fundamentally a political decision – whether to address the rulers or the ruled’, Turville-Petre examines several passages which describe how the English, put into ‘servage’ by the Normans, are still subjugated, concluding: Received opinion about the happy state of racial harmony in late medieval England must be reassessed in the light of the unanimity of these comments. It is quite clear – and indeed it is entirely natural – that a large section of the population regarded the post-Conquest nobility as foreigners holding the English nation in subjection.6

Douglas Moffat expands on Turville-Petre’s conclusions in his analysis of Mannyng’s and Castleford’s comments, alongside those in the Chronicle of ‘Robert of Gloucester’ and the Short English Metrical Chronicle,7 and Turville-

3

4

5

6

7

prose Brut’s account of the Conquest, however, see Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession’, pp. 212–14. I use the term ‘Normans’ for convenience, but not all who arrived after the Conquest were Norman: see below, pp. 135–7 and n. 130. Gillingham, English in the Twelfth Century, pp. 123–42; Thomas, English and the Normans, especially pp. 56–69. E. Treharne, ‘English in the Post-Conquest Period’, in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. P. Pulsiano and E. Treharne (Oxford, 2001), pp. 403–14, especially pp.  406–8, and E. Treharne, ‘Categorization, Periodization: The Silence of (the) English in the Twelfth Century’, in  New Medieval Literatures 8, ed. R. Copeland, W. Scase and D. Lawton (Brepols, 2007), pp. 248–73. T. Turville-Petre, ‘Politics and Poetry in the Early Fourteenth Century: The Case of Robert Manning’s Chronicle’, Review of English Studies, n.s. 39 (1988), 1–28 (pp. 1, 17). D. Moffat, ‘Sin, Conquest, Servitude: English Self-Image in the Chronicles of the Early Fourteenth Century’, in The Work of Work: Servitude, Slavery and Labor in Medieval England, ed. A. J. Frantzen and D. Moffat (Glasgow, 1994), pp. 146–68.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest Petre re-examines the chronicles of Mannyng and ‘Robert of Gloucester’ in his book England the Nation.8 These writings nuance Turville-Petre’s earlier arguments, but his original emphasis on these texts as witnesses to racial tensions in later medieval England remains. Thea Summerfield and Joyce Coleman have, however, argued against such interpretations of these early English verse chronicles. Summerfield emphasises that these chroniclers took their laments from William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, both of whom bemoaned the oppression of the English that occurred during the reign of William the Conqueror. Far from providing evidence of English hostility towards Norman overlords, for Summerfield ‘the verse chronicles are in effect evidence of their authors’ multi-cultural and multi-lingual backgrounds and outlook’, since they draw on Latin and French sources, and the laments over the Norman Conquest ‘are to a certain extent invalidated by actual practice, in life and in literature’ as descendants of Normans or later settlers are celebrated as English heroes elsewhere in these works.9 Coleman refutes Turville-Petre’s interpretation of Mannyng’s interjections about the Norman Conquest, arguing that Mannyng felt the nature of this disaster was ‘not rule by a Norman but rule won through conquest – with the consequent punitive forms of “seruage”’.10 Taken together, these critics warn against reading too much racial tension into the early English verse chronicles. Drawing conclusions about the views of ‘a large section of the population’ from comments in Robert Mannyng and Thomas Castleford’s chronicles (preserved in two manuscripts and one manuscript respectively) seems incautious, especially when these chronicles are primarily translations of earlier Latin and French works.11 Before attempting any such evaluation, it is surely worth studying other, more widely disseminated vernacular accounts of the Norman Conquest.

William, rightful heir to the English throne The legitimacy or otherwise of William I’s rule has always been a crux in the historiography of the Norman Conquest. Norman historians, writing mainly in Latin, usually insisted forcefully on William’s right to the English 8 9

10

11

Turville-Petre, England the Nation, pp. 93–8. T. Summerfield, ‘Synthesis and Tradition in the Early Fourteenth-Century Verse Chronicles in English’, in Thirteenth Century England 7, ed. M Prestwich, R. Britnell and R. Frame (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 143–52, at pp. 144, 151. J. Coleman, ‘Strange Rhyme: Prosody and Nationhood in Robert Mannyng’s Story of England’, Speculum 78 (2003), 1214–38, at p. 1228. On the manuscripts of these chronicles see E. D. Kennedy, Chronicles and Other Historical Writing. A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, Volume 8 (New Haven, CT, 1989), nos. 7, 8, pp. 2624, 2627–8.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles throne.12 Some early English historians, writing in English and Latin, lamented the Conquest; but they did not often discuss the merits of Earl Harold Godwineson and Duke William of Normandy’s claims.13 By the end of the twelfth century, a consensus had emerged among historians in England, now writing almost exclusively in Latin and French, that the invasion had been legitimate. Edward the Confessor had appointed William as his successor; Harold, who had initially agreed to this arrangement, was a perjurer and a usurper, and had been justly killed. This idea was expressed by historians such as William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon in the twelfth century, and later by Matthew Paris and Ranulf Higden.14 In view of the concern shown by some Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, such as the prose Brut, to emphasise the continuity between British and English kings,15 it might be expected that they would place a similar emphasis on the continuity between English and Norman monarchs. The most popular chronicles bear this out. The earliest extant Anglo-Norman prose chronicle of English kings, written during the reign of Richard I, closely follows the consensus outlined above,16 as does one of the earliest Anglo-Norman prose chronicles to achieve significant popularity, the core text of the genealogical chronicle rolls.17 Yet these works do hint at an anxiety over the legitimacy of the Conquest: in the texts these anxieties centre on the circumstances of Harold’s oath to William and on the figure of Edgar Ætheling. The surviving copy of the earliest chronicle of English kings in AngloNorman, preserved in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ee.I.1 along with other historical material in the manuscript, powerfully witnesses to the uncertainty over how to present William’s taking of the English throne. The 12

13

14 15 16 17

Chibnall, Debate, pp. 9–10; The Norman Conquest, ed. and trans. R. A. Brown, Documents of Medieval History (London, 1984), pp. 13–14 (William of Jumièges), 22–4, 26, 30–1, 36 (William of Poitiers). Chibnall, Debate, p. 10. Some chronicles did touch on the subject. MS C of the AngloSaxon Chronicle includes under 1066 verses which state that Edward the Confessor entrusted the realm to Harold. The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk, trans. J. Bray and P. McGurk, 3 vols., in progress, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1995–), II, 601, contains under 1066 a justification of Harold’s claims and praise for Harold’s initial actions as king. Edgar Ætheling’s claims are also taken seriously: MS D of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says under 1066 that ‘Archbishop Ealdred and the citizens of London wanted to have Edgar Cild as king, as was his proper due’ (Norman Conquest, ed. and trans. Brown, p. 71), and John of Worcester’s Chronicle under 1057 says that Edward had decided to make Edgar Ætheling the heir to the kingdom (II, 582). Cf. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, gen. ed. D. Dumville and S. Keynes, 23 vols., in progress (Cambridge, 1983–), 5: MS C, ed. K. O’Brien O’Keeffe (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 34–5 and 6: MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin (Cambridge, 1996), p. 80. See Chibnall, Debate, pp. 10–21. See above, Chapter 2, pp. 54–8. Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, pp. 10–11, ll. 23–43. See Feudal Manuals, ed. Wright, pp. 79–81, for an example.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest chronicle, written during Richard I’s reign, gives an account which describes Edward the Confessor making William his heir; Harold swearing fealty to William and then breaking his oath; and William’s conquest: Li rei Edward fist sun eir del regne Willame Bastard, le duc de Normendie, ke esteit fiz sun uncle; e li quen Horod, le fiz le cunte Godewine, vint a lui en Normendie e devint sis hom e lui jura feelté; mes ne tint pru le serment, kar si tost cum li reis Edward fu mort ne volt pas lesser le regne al duc de Normendie, a ki li reis seint Edward le aveit devisé, mes retint le a sun eos pres un an, tant ke li ducs Willame vint e le conquist sur luy a force e armes.18 King Edward made William Bastard, the duke of Normandy, who was the son of his uncle, the heir to the kingdom; and Earl Harold, son of Earl Godwin, came to him in Normandy and became his man and swore fealty to him; but he did not at all keep his oath, for as soon as King Edward died, he did not wish to leave the kingdom to the duke of Normandy, to whom Saint Edward, the king, had bequeathed it, but kept it for himself nearly a year, until Duke William came and conquered it from him by military force.

However, the historical material in the manuscript keeps circling back to consider the justification for William’s conquest. The second section of the text in MS Ee.I.1 then traces the descendants of Edmund Ironside, and includes a detailed description of how Edward the Confessor first wished for his kinsman Edgar Ætheling to inherit the kingdom,19 but then, faced with Godwin and his sons, instead chose to name William as his heir: pur le grant orgoil des filz le cunte Godwine Harod (ceo est a saver ke aprés luy se fist rei si cum il nul dreit n’i ot) [. . .] vit le reis Edward ke sa volenté ne poet fere de Edgar Eþeling, ke plus dreit eir esteit, envead il ses messages en Normendie a Willame Bastard [. . .] e de luy fist sun eir [. . .]20 because of the great pride of Harold, son of Earl Godwin (that is to say, he who after him [i.e. Edward] made himself king although he had no right) [. . .] King Edward saw that his will could not make Edgar Ætheling [king], who was the more rightful heir, [and] sent his messengers to William Bastard in Normandy [. . .] and made him his heir [. . .]

This text and the account of the Norman dukes which follows it were regarded by Diana Tyson as part of the earliest chronicle of English kings in Anglo-Norman. However, there are close textual similarities between the text 18 19

20

Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, pp. 10–11, ll. 36–42. On the historical Edgar Ætheling, see N. Hooper, ‘Edgar the Aetheling: AngloSaxon prince, rebel and crusader’, Anglo-Saxon England 14 (1985), 197–214; N. Hooper, ‘Edgar Ætheling (b. 1052?, d. in or after 1125)’, Oxford DNB, online at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8465. Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, p. 11, ll. 70–2, 74–6, 77 (the whole passage covers ll. 67–81). Similar sentiments had been expressed in earlier Latin historiography: see e.g. GRA, I, Book 2, Chapter 228.1–2, p. 416.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles quoted above from the second section of the historical material in CUL MS Ee.I.1 and parts of the genealogical roll-chronicles – which in other respects share a textual tradition with LRB, a version of which is also found in the manuscript after the account of the Norman dukes.21 The parallel account in a number of genealogical roll-chronicles is fuller but the text clearly derives from the same source.22 It outlines that Edward sent for Edgar with the intention of making him his heir but that Edgar, seeing the troubled state of the country, wished to leave again – in effect creating the vacancy for William and explaining Edward’s change of intention. In the roll-chronicles the episode is preceded in the description of Edmund Ironside’s reign by a passage tracing Edmund’s descendants from his son Edward the Exile, father of Edgar and also of Margaret – who married into the Scottish royal family and (as the roll-chronicles explain) was the ancestor of Henry II.23 By describing how Edmund Ironside’s line of descent rejoined that of the post-Conquest kings of England, the roll-chronicles seek to regularise and minimise the disruptive effect of the Conquest on their narratives, which trace the English royal line of descent. Notably, however, the large majority of these rolls break their narrative to provide a genealogical diagram of the descent of the dukes of Normandy down to Duke William, largely free of accompanying text – silently but strikingly inserting one genealogy alongside another.24 21 22

23

24

Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, pp. 4–6, 8. Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1078–9 for the passage in Bodl. MS Ashmole Rolls 38; cf. his transcripts of comparable texts at pp. 1115–16 (London, College of Arms MS 20/2); 1210–11 (College of Arms MS 12/45A); 1217 (Bodl. MS Add. E. 14); 1224 (Cam., Emmanuel College, MS 232); 1254–5 (College of Arms MS 20/5); 1275–6 (College of Arms MS 3/23B); 1289–90 (BL MS Cotton Rolls XV.7); 1307–8 (BL MS Royal 14.B.VI). Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1076–7 for the passage in Bodl. MS Ashmole Rolls 38; cf. his transcripts of comparable texts at pp. 1113–14 (London, College of Arms MS 20/2); 1209–10 (College of Arms MS 12/45A); 1215–16 (Bodl. MS Add. E. 14); 1222–3 (Cam., Emmanuel College, MS 232); 1252–3 (College of Arms MS 20/5); 1274 (College of Arms MS 3/23B); 1288 (BL MS Cotton Rolls XV.7); 1306 (BL MS Royal 14.B.VI). I have also consulted Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 11, m. 3r, which contains a version of this account; similar passages also appear in all three of the rolls in Feudal Manuals, ed. Wright (pp. 19–21, 50–1, 76–7); and BL MS Harley 1348, fol. 13rb, places a similar explanation in Harold’s reign. This feature of the layouts of these roll-chronicles, and its significance as an interruption to the continuity of the genealogy, is discussed in O. de Laborderie, ‘La mémoire des origines normandes des rois d’Angleterre dans les généalogies en rouleau des XIIIe et XIVe siècles’, in La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Âge, ed. P. Bouzet and V. Gazeau (Caen, 2003), pp. 211–31 (at pp. 218–19). For an image of this diagram within one roll, see Bovey, Chaworth Roll, p. 7, col. 1. Laborderie also notes that some of these genealogies make William appear to be the legitimate son of Maud, daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy (pp. 221–2); he also notes that one such genealogical roll, BL MS Royal 14. B. V, even visually represents the

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Representations of the Norman Conquest Perhaps to redress this apparent disruption to the genealogical continuity of the English kings, it is common for the genealogical roll-chronicles’ texts to state within their brief accounts of William I’s reign that William ‘conquist la reaume par bataille de Haraud ke la teint a tort’ (‘conquered the realm from Harold, who wrongfully held it, by battle’).25 A similar claim is also made in the brief illustrated chronicle in BL MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII: Aprés seynt Edward regna Harald le fiz Godewyn, count de Kent, a forz e a tort ix. moys. Dunkes veent William Bastard e ly tolyst la vye e le regne e conquist la tere.26 After Saint Edward Harold son of Godwin, earl of Kent reigned by force and wrongfully for nine months. Then William Bastard came and took from him his life and the kingdom and conquered the land.

This text accompanies an image of the battle of Hastings which shows two groups of mounted knights encountering one another and appears to depict Harold being stabbed with a lance by William, as both these figures wear a crown (see Plate 2). Surprisingly, given this rather anachronistic depiction of the battle, the manuscript page echoes, intentionally or not, the layout of the Bayeux Tapestry by placing a small scene below the main image, depicting men among the dead bodies after the battle, apparently searching for spoils. In this primarily visual and impressionistic account, the Conquest is presented as a violent but justified action. To come back to CUL MS Ee.I.1, the third piece of narrative history it contains, although ostensibly an account of the dukes of Normandy, also interweaves a detailed account of the English kings. This does not mention Edgar, but again refers to Edward the Confessor naming William as heir, Harold’s oath and his subsequent breaking of it, and William’s victory in battle at Hastings.27 Lastly, the brief version of LRB in CUL MS Ee.I.1 lists Edward the Confessor’s, Harold’s and William’s reigns with minimal commentary.28 By revisiting the subject and providing multiple justifications for the Conquest, the manuscript reveals an underlying unease with the accounts it is able to offer. By contrast with CUL MS Ee.I.1 and the genealogical roll-chronicles, the widely disseminated LRB (despite being closely related textually to the

25

26 27 28

Norman dukes as crowned and seated on thrones in the roundels where they are depicted (p. 223). Cf. also the discussion of University of California, Los Angeles, MS Rouse 49, in Lamont, ‘“Genealogical” History’, pp. 256–8, where in addition to the roll’s layout and the depictions within its roundels, the colours of the lines linking the roundels also indicate different bloodlines. Harvard, Houghton Library, MS Typ 11, m. 4r. Cf. Feudal Manuals, ed. Wright, pp. 80–1; BL MS Harley 1348, fol. 14rb; Bovey, Chaworth Roll, p. 7. BL MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII, fol. 3v. Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, p.13, ll. 138–51. Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, p. 19, ll. 373–6.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles

Plate 2: Depiction and account of the Norman Conquest in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII, fol. 3v. © The British Library Board. MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII, fol. 3v. All Rights Reserved.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest genealogical roll-chronicles) avoids expressing any such anxieties, providing a very minimal account of the Conquest. All the texts I have consulted make no mention of the Ætheling or the circumstances of the succession: Bodl. MS Laud Misc. 636 is typical in stating only that after Edward the Confessor ‘fu Haroud le fiz Godwine, e il out le regne ix. meis. Si vint Willime le Bastard e li toli le regne e la vie. Si gist a Wautham’ (‘was Harold the son of Godwine, and he held the kingdom nine months. Then came William Bastard and took his kingdom and life. Thus he [i.e. Harold] lies at Waltham’).29 This brevity sets the tone for the post-Conquest portion of LRB, which in many manuscripts only gives such minimal details for each king’s reign. It also avoids passing comment on the Conquest itself. In the prose Brut, Edgar Ætheling does figure, but is a more shadowy presence than in the genealogical roll-chronicles. He is mentioned as the son of Edward the Exile (son of Edmund Ironside) without any discussion of his claims to the throne, but the descent of Maud, mother of Henry II, is traced from Edgar’s sister Margaret, so making the connection from the preConquest line of kings to the Angevins.30 Julia Marvin has noted that this is a ‘most unusual moment in the prose Brut’ for its attention to descent through the female line – the reason for this attention being, as Marvin argues, to demonstrate that the pre-Conquest kings are indeed direct ancestors of Henry II and subsequent English kings.31 After Edward the Confessor’s death, Edgar Ætheling reappears in the prose Brut, not as the dead king’s choice but as that of the barons: [. . .] les barouns de la terre voleient aver eu Edgar Hethelyng, fiz Edward le Exile, qe fu fiz Edmund Ireneside, pur ceo q’il estoit de naturel sanc real. Mais Harald le fiz Godwyn le counte, par aide e force de son per e des autres graunz seignurs de la terre, qe li furent parenz e amis, [seysyt] tute Engleterre en sa main e fu roi. [. . .] the barons of the land wished to have Edgar Ætheling, son of Edward the Exile, who was son of Edmund Ironside, because he was of rightful royal blood. But Harold son of Earl Godwin, by the help and strength of his father and of other great lords of the land, who were his kinsmen and friends, took all England into his hand and was king.32 29

30

31 32

From fol. 90r, transcribed from Peterborough Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, p. 179. For variants from nine other manuscripts which provide no more detail on the subject, see Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 104–6. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 220, ll. 2798–804; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 130, ll. 3639–49. Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession’, p. 212. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 236–7, ll. 3097–101 (I have altered the spelling of Ætheling and Godwin in the translation for consistency in this book); cf.  Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 140, ll. 4024–9. The text here clearly follows that of Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon: HA, Book 6, Chapter 27, p. 384. Marvin’s note on the passage (Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, note to ll. 3096–102, p. 332) discusses

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles This is a less forceful assertion of the validity of Edgar Ætheling’s claim to the English throne than that in the CUL MS Ee.I.1 text and the genealogical roll-chronicles. Edgar may have ‘sanc real’, but he is not necessarily a ‘plus dreit eir’ than William, as he is in the CUL MS Ee.I.1 text and the genealogical roll-chronicles. As in the prose Brut’s description of the ‘passage of dominion’ from the Britons to the Saxons, events are related with a minimum of commentary, concealing historiographical problems which would cast doubt on the legitimacy of the succession – Marvin has perceptively noted that this passage actually turns ‘an episode that might otherwise call William’s claim into question’ into ‘further evidence against Harold’.33 In contrast to the early chronicle in CUL MS Ee.I.1 and the genealogical roll-chronicles, the prose Brut contains no mention of an initiative by Edward the Confessor to make William his heir. Instead, Harold’s oath to William and his subsequent perjury form the main focus of the account, which derives ultimately from Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum.34 The focus is on William’s noble treatment of Harold: whilst someone (either Harold or the count of Ponthieu) thinks that William will try and take revenge for the death of Edward the Confessor’s brother Alfred at the hands of Godwin, Harold’s father, in fact William ‘ne li voleit maufere’ (‘did not wish to do him harm’).35 As for the content of Harold’s oath, the passage is carefully worded to allow room to understand both William’s interpretation and Harold’s misinterpretation: Harald de sa bone volenté jura sur seinz e sur seinz reliques q’il prendroit sa file a femme, e qe aprés la mort seint Edward il se entremettroit loiaument a tut son poer de sauver e garder le roialme d’Engleterre a son oeps. E quant il avoit fet cest serment, le duc William li lessa aler a tres grant honur, e li dona riches douns a grant plenté, e pus prist coungé de li e s’en parti e revint en Engleterre. E en ceste manere, meintenant aprés la mort seint Edward, encountre son serment com homme parjurs, se fist coroner roi d’Engleterre e enfreint tut outre le serment e la covenaunte q’il avoit fet au duc Williame, paront il se coruca vers li trop malement e juroit Deu e ses nuns, e quanqe il savoit, q’il se vengeroit de li queiqe avendroit.

33 34

35

this as probably the first use of a source close to the Barlings Chronicle; the Barlings Chronicle used HA as a major source. Marvin, ‘Narrative, Lineage, and Succession’, pp. 213–14 (p. 214). Marvin, ‘Sources’ pp. 15–19, at pp. 18, 19, and the very similar discussion in Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 31–5, at pp. 34, 35; and p. 332, notes to lines 3105–21, 3122–8. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 231, notes to line 4026, draws parallels with William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum and LRE as well as HA. For the corresponding passage, see HA, Book 6, Chapter 27, pp. 380–2, 384. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 236–7, l. 3114; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 140, ll. 4044–5.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest Harold of his own free will swore by saints and holy relics that he would marry his daughter, and that after the death of Saint Edward he would faithfully exert himself with all his might to protect and preserve the realm of England to his advantage. And when he had made his oath, Duke William let him go with very great honour, and he gave him rich gifts in great plenty, and then he took leave of him and departed and came back to England. And in this way, immediately after the death of Saint Edward, against his oath like a man forsworn, he had himself crowned king of England and utterly violated the oath and the covenant that he had made with Duke William, so that he was most terribly enraged against him and swore by God and His names, and whatever he knew of, that he would be avenged on him whatever might come of it.36

The passage incorporates ambiguities which could suggest that Harold is attempting to find a loophole in his oath: he has promised ‘de sauver e garder le roialme d’Engleterre a son oeps’ (‘to protect and preserve the realm of England to his advantage’), but that ‘son’ refers back to William can only be deduced from the context. There is also some ambiguity over how freely Harold makes this oath: the author explicitly states that he did so ‘de sa bone volenté’ (‘of his own free will’), but reports that ‘William li lessa aler’ (‘William let him go’) only after the oath. Overall, however, William is represented as the wronged party, justifying his invasion and conquest, an impression confirmed by the prose Brut’s subsequent positive account of his reign. The ambiguities may explain Harold’s actions, but do not excuse them. Another quite widely circulated Anglo-Norman chronicle, Trevet’s Cronicles, gives a similar description of William’s claim to the throne to that of the prose Brut: Cist seint Edward, roi et confessour Dieux, pur ceo qe virge vivoit, pur ceo morust saunz heir de son corps, et pur ceo par testament ordina qe Willam duc de Normaundie, nomé Bastard come avant est dit, son cosin de part sa mere, fust son heir et rois d’Engleterre, noun pas solonc lei par descend de heritage mes par conqueste, qar le counte Harold avant nomé, le fitz Godwine, passer voleit en [Flaundres], mes chacé par tempeste ariva en Pontif, et, pris par le queons de Pontif, presenté fu al avaunt dit Willam Bastard, et il honurablement lui resceut, et de grantz dons le honura; et Harold lui jura sur totes les reliqes eslite de Normaundie qe sa fille a femme prendroit et qe le roialme d’Engleterre aprés la mort le rois Edward lui sauveroit.37 36

37

Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 236–9, ll. 3115–26 (I have changed the American spelling ‘honor’ in Marvin’s translation). Cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp.  140–1, ll. 4046–60. Marvin’s discussion in footnotes at p. 332 indicates the text is closest to the Barlings Chronicle here (note to ll. 3105–21) and notes HA as the ultimate source; however, the description of William’s wrath (note to ll. 3122–8) is not taken from any close analogue or source of the prose Brut. Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, pp. 289–90. I have emended ‘Fflaundres’ to ‘Flaundres’.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles This Saint Edward, king and confessor to God, because he lived as a virgin, died without an heir of his own body for that reason, and for that reason ordained by his testament that William duke of Normandy, called Bastard as is said above, his cousin on his mother’s side, was his heir and king of England, not according to the law of the descent of inheritance but by conquest; for the Earl Harold mentioned above, the son of Godwin, wished to go to Flanders, but driven by a storm arrived in Ponthieu, and, captured by the count of Ponthieu, was presented to the aforesaid William Bastard, and he received him honourably, and honoured him with great gifts; and Harold swore to him on all the distinguished relics of Normandy that he would take his daughter as his wife and that he would preserve the realm of England for him after the death of King Edward.

Trevet’s account of events is ambiguous enough to allow the possibility that William had not been chosen by Edward the Confessor prior to Harold’s ill-fated trip to the Continent, but was only selected after Harold’s oath to William made the succession a fait accompli. Although to some extent paralleling other accounts, such as that in the prose Brut, Trevet highlights William’s agency in securing the English throne for himself rather than his right to it. Again, though, the text does establish William as Edward’s legitimate successor (however unsatisfactorily) and presents Harold as the perjurer and usurper. Edgar Ætheling does not play a part in Trevet’s Cronicles. LRE, like the prose Brut and Trevet, describes Harold’s oath to William in a close translation (not apparently related to that in the prose Brut) of the relevant passage from Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon.38 Curiously, this is placed before the statement that Edward the Confessor made William his heir late in his reign, to prevent England from falling into the hands of Godwin’s sons.39 Like Trevet’s Cronicles, LRE seems here to introduce an ambiguity over whether the ultimate reason for William’s succession lay with Edward the Confessor’s choice of heir or Harold’s oath and subsequent perjury. LRE also relates a prophetic dream of Edward the Confessor concerning a tree that represents the English royal line and the interpretation of it derived from Ailred of Rievaulx’s life of Edward the Confessor, which set out that 38

39

Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 145; cf. HA, pp. 380–2. Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 125, cites Ralph Diceto’s Abbreviationes Chronicorum as the source since LRE omits some of the same details as Diceto, but Henry’s account is certainly the common source and neither LRE nor Diceto add any details. For Diceto’s account, see Ralph Diceto, Abbreviationes Chronicorum, in Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1876), I, 3–263, at p. 193. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 145. LRE follows Diceto’s Abbreviationes in giving the story twice, once before and once after the battle of Hastings (the second time at pp. 149–51): cf. Diceto, Abbreviationes, ed. Stubbs, I, 193, 198–9. Diceto does not make any mention of Edward naming William his heir but does include John of Worcester’s remark about Edward wanting Edgar Ætheling to be his heir (p. 192).

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Representations of the Norman Conquest Henry I’s marriage to Matilda reunited the English and Norman dynasties.40 With its suggestion that not only Harold but also William the Conqueror and William Rufus represented a traumatic break with the English past, this could be considered critical, but it also points to a merging of Norman and English royal blood during Henry I’s reign, long before LRE was written. In LRE Edgar Ætheling’s role is the same as in the prose Brut: mentioned early on as the son of Edward the Exile,41 he appears later as ‘Edgar, que les Engleys aveyent en pensé de fere rey aprés Harald’ (‘Edgar, whom the English had thought to make king after Harold’), submitting with other English nobles to William’s authority: ‘vindrent al duk William [. . .] e luy jurrerent leauté e luy donerent bons hostages’ (‘[they] came to duke William [. . .] and swore allegiances to him and gave him good hostages’).42 Significantly, Edgar’s claim to the throne is represented here as an idea that arises only after Harold’s death.43 The final word on William’s succession in LRE comes down firmly in favour of the Norman king when the author retells the story of Harold’s oath again in more detail, introducing it with the words: Coment cestui rey Willem vint al reaume de Engleterre, non pas par cas ne par aventure, mes par la purveance de Deu, jeo le vus conterey. How it was that this king William came to the throne of England, not by chance, nor by adventure, but by the providence of God, I will now tell you.44

In the same way, the Polistorie also focuses on Harold’s oath as the key justification for the Conquest. John of Canterbury retells the account from Eadmer’s Historia Novorum in Anglia of Harold’s ill-fated journey across the Channel, in which Harold takes his oath to Duke William under duress: Kaun ensi tut out dist Gwilleame se purpensa Heraud, e peril vist tote pars, si ne [soit] nule roye dunt par respuns suffisaunt se puist beau demettre e fraunc eschaper; si graunta pleynement sa demaunde.45 40

41 42

43

44

45

Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 146. Cf. Ailred of Rievaulx, Vita S. Edwardi Regis, in Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Latina, gen. ed. J.–P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–64) (hereafter PL), CXCV, cols. 737–90, at cols. 772–3 (for a translation, see Life of St. Edward, by Aelred of Rievaulx, trans. J. Bertram (Guildford, 1990), pp. 102–8). Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 144–5. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 148–9; translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 137. Edgar Ætheling’s involvement in the 1069–70 rebellion is also mentioned: Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 152. On these events see A. Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 24–44. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 149; translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 141. This passage is translated from Diceto, Abbreviationes, ed. Stubbs, I, 198–9. BL MS Harley 636, fol. 48vb. I have emended ‘sont’ to ‘soit’. The full account follows its source: Eadmer, Historia Novorum, in Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles When William had said all in this way Harold thought to himself, and saw danger on all sides if he were not a king who with an adequate reply could easily withdraw and escape free, so he fully granted his request.

Notably, in the Polistorie as in Eadmer, Harold asks Edward the Confessor for permission to make his voyage in order to seek the release of his brother and another kinsman and Edward warns Harold that the consequences may be disastrous: Nun pas pur ceo jeo ne voi autre chose en vostre aler for ke depressiun du reaume de Engletere e a vostre graunt deshonur, qar le cunte Gwilleame taunt bien conus ke ja ne les lerra si pur la deliveraunce ne voye pleynement l’avauntage.46 Nonetheless, I see nothing in your journey except disadvantage to the kingdom of England and your great dishonor, for I know Duke William well enough, that indeed he will not release them if he does not clearly see profit in their release.

Edward, once proven right, does not miss the opportunity to drive home his point.47 The episode presents a portrait of Harold as unwise and arrogant. However, William does not come out of this version of events well either: he appears cunning, ruthless and wholly self-interested. The Polistorie then recounts Eadmer’s sequel to these events, in which Harold, once king, dismisses his outstanding obligations under the oath.48 The ensuing battle at Hastings is described briefly and without the moralising gloss that Eadmer provides which attributes the Normans’ victory to a divine punishment for Harold’s perjury; nonetheless, the account as a whole clearly presents this as the key reason for the Conquest.49 The Anonimalle Brut’s handling of the Norman Conquest presents it in a similar way to many of the other Anglo-Norman prose accounts. Well before the Conquest itself is described, Edgar Ætheling’s claim is mentioned and its significance minimised in the same sentence: ‘Cesty Edgar Adelyng, le fiz Edward, fust fond et musard, qar ile vendy son droit heritage d’Engleterre a William Bastard, duk de Normaundie, pur xx. solidi prendre chescun jour de sa vie’ (‘This Edgar Ætheling, Edward’s son, was simple and foolish, for he sold his rightful inheritance of England to William Bastard, duke of Normandy,

46 47 48 49

et opuscula duo de vita Sancti Anselmi et quibusdam miraculis ejus, ed. M. Rule, Rolls Series 84 (London, 1884), pp. 1–216, in Book I, at pp. 6–8; translated in Eadmer’s History of Recent Events in England: Historia Novorum in Anglia, trans. G. Bosanquet, with a foreword by R. W. Southern (London, 1964), at pp. 6–8. BL MS Harley 636, fols. 48rb–48va. BL MS Harley 636, fol. 48vb. BL MS Harley 636, fol. 49ra–b. The battle is described at BL MS Harley 636, fols. 49rb–49va; for Eadmer’s description and gloss, see Eadmeri Historia Novorum, ed. Rule, pp. 8–9; Eadmer’s, History of Recent Events, trans. Bosanquet, p. 9.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest in order to take twenty shillings every day of his life’).50 The legitimacy of Harold’s assumption of the throne is likewise undermined ahead of the event itself, when the story of his oath to William in Normandy is recounted during the description of Edward the Confessor’s reign, broadly following Henry of Huntingdon’s account as the prose Brut, Trevet and LRE had done.51 However, the account of 1066 itself praises Harold’s good qualities – ‘Harald fust vailliaunt chevaler des armes, vigrous de corps. Ile se mout delita en chevalerie’52 (‘Harold was a valiant warrior knight, strong in body. He took great delight in knightly deeds’) – and describes events from the English point of view; closely following Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, it recounts how Harold received the news of William’s invasion after the battle of Stamford Bridge, and the battle at Hastings is described as starting ‘mout horriblement’ (‘most horribly’).53 As in the Historia Anglorum, however, William gives a rousing speech ahead of the battle, inspiring the Normans to victory. The overall impression is of a regrettable but justified conquest by the Normans. The Scalacronica’s version of events surrounding the Norman Conquest relies primarily, like most of the other Anglo-Norman prose chronicles mentioned above, on William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum and Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum (perhaps in Gray’s case via Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon and John of Tynemouth’s Historia Aurea, both of which incorporated many large extracts from the two twelfth-century chronicles). Gray’s account of Edward the Confessor’s and Harold’s reigns also draws on the Anglo-Norman prose Brut.54 Gray includes similar material to that found in the other lengthy chronicles I have examined here. William’s status as the rightful heir is asserted, although only indirectly, as Gray attributes it to other chroniclers: Cesti Edward devaunt sa mort, com ascuns croniclis deviser, devisa la successioun de soun realme a William, duk de Normendy, fitz de soun uncle, en qy bien ly sembla enploie de valour et maner, mort Edward fitz Edmound Irnesid, qi nul autre vist de soun sank apparaunt.55

50

51 52 53 54

55

BL MS Royal 20. A. XVIII, fols. 140v–141r. In disparaging Edgar Ætheling in this way, the Anonimalle Brut echoes the tenor of William of Malmesbury’s account of Edgar, though not the specific language of his criticism: cf. GRA, I, Book 3, Chapter 251, pp. 464–6. BL MS Royal 20. A. XVIII, fols. 145v–146r. BL MS Royal 20. A. XVIII, fol. 146v. BL MS Royal 20. A. XVIII, fols. 148r–148v (148v). For examples of this in his account of Edward’s reign, Cam., CCC MS 133, text from fol. 136ra corresponds closely to that in Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 228 (cf.  Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 135), and text from fols. 137va–138ra corresponds to Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 232–4 (cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 137–9). For an example from Harold’s reign, see below, p. 120 and n. 58. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 139vb. Cf. GRA, I, Book 2, Chapter 228.2, p. 416, for a similar passage.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles This Edward, before his death, according to what some chronicles say, bequeathed the succession to his realm to William Duke of Normandy, son of his uncle, in whom he saw valour and good conduct used to good purpose, [and], once Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, was dead, saw no other heir apparent of his blood.

Gray also includes an account of Harold’s oath to William and subsequent perjury, following Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon (perhaps via Higden).56 In his account of William the Conqueror’s reign, Gray gives a translation of the ‘iii. movementz pur quoi il s’entremist au conquest d’Engleter’ (‘three reasons why he [i.e. William] concerned himself with the conquest of England’), again deriving ultimately from Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon (the three reasons being the murder of Alfred, Edward the Confessor’s brother; Harold’s perjury; and the persecution of Norman clerics in England).57 However, Gray was less interested in representing the Conquest as ‘the restoration of a rightful heir’ in the way the prose Brut had, and more interested in the military reasons behind Harold’s defeat. Gray gives a detailed account of Harold’s reign, the battle of Stamford Bridge and the battle of Hastings, for which William of Malmesbury and Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon were the main sources. As discussed in earlier chapters, Gray’s Scalacronica reflects throughout the author’s interest in combat and chivalry, so his detailed account of King Harold’s two major battles is consistent with this emphasis. Gray does not just recount the information he has gathered from his sources, however. He repeats the prose Brut’s statement that many men left Harold’s army after the battle of Stamford Bridge because he was not generous in sharing the spoils with them,58 but then adds his own commentary on this: Qe tout pensa cesti roy Harald d’avoir a fair de tresor encountre la guer, de quoi il se douta a mover du duk Willam de Normendy. Uncor ne fist il my sagement en le hour a retenir devers ly soulement chosis ensi conquys par descert dez soens en desplesauns de eaux. Qar amour dez chivalers et de gentz d’armes, et bien voillaunz du comune, est le greindre tresor dez roys, sanz quoi nuls roi longment ne purra enricher.59 56 57

58

59

Cam., CCC, MS 133, fols. 140vb–141ra; cf. HA, pp. 380–2; Polychronicon, VII, 214–16. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, pp. 9–10; cf HA, Book 6, Chapter 27, pp. 384–6; cf. also Polychronicon, VII, 232–4. Laborderie, ‘Mémoire des origines normandes’, pp. 215–16 and n. 14, notes that these three reasons also appear in the Anglo-Norman genealogical roll-chronicle London, College of Arms, MS 12/45B. The text of this roll, as Laborderie notes, is not typical of the roll-chronicle tradition (cf. Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1334–7). Cam, CCC MS 133, fol. 141va; cf. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, p. 238, ll. 3141–5; Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 141, ll. 4075–80. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 141va. Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 136–7, also notes the relevance of the end of this passage to Gray’s concerns elsewhere in the Scalacronica.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest For this King Harold certainly thought he would need treasure in preparation for war, for which reason he feared to fight Duke William of Normandy. Yet he did not act wisely at that time to retain for himself alone things thus gained by the merits of his men, to their displeasure. For the love of knights and of men of arms, and the support of the common people, is the greatest treasure of kings, without which no king is long able to enrich [himself].

As I have described in the previous two chapters, the ‘chivalers’ and ‘gentz d’armes’ of England’s past are of great interest to Sir Thomas Gray, and it is surely no coincidence that it is this failing of Harold’s which attracts his attention. Gray notes that William I, by contrast, ‘departy la tere a sez chivalers’ (‘shared the land among his knights’) after his arrival in England, and that he gave land to ‘gentz de parage qe n’avoint autre part heritages’ (‘men of worth who had no other inheritance’).60 William’s attention to his knights and Harold’s neglect figure as prominently in the Scalacronica as the entitlement of either to the English throne. Against all these works which treat the Conquest as the action of a rightful heir claiming his throne, only one prose history in Anglo-Norman directly criticises William’s deposition of Harold. This is the Brute Abregé, extant in a single manuscript and outside the mainstream of Anglo-Norman historiography. The account of the Conquest in the Brute Abregé is confused, but highly critical of William: Aprés lui regna Edward le fiz Knoud bastard, prodhome, qe fu apelé Harald le fiz Godwyn. Il fu apelé Harefot autresi pur ceo qu’il fu bon corur. Il ne regna qe ix. moys de un an, pur ceo qe Willeam Bastard de Normandie li occist e ceo fu grant vilainie. Harald gist a Waltham. E Guilleam Bastard qe ceste tere gaigna, il regna xxii. anz e puis morrust a Cham en Normandie.61 After him [i.e. Harthacnut] reigned Edward, a worthy man, the bastard son of Cnut, who was called Harold Godwinson. He was called Harefoot because he was a good runner. He reigned only nine months of one year, because William Bastard of Normandy killed him, and this was a great wrong. Harold lies at Waltham. And William Bastard who conquered this land reigned 22 years and then died at Caen in Normandy.

In its narrative, and especially in referring to the killing of Harold as a ‘vilainie’, the Brute Abregé differs markedly from other Anglo-Norman chronicles. Yet notably, the five versions of the closely related Short English Metrical Chronicle containing the section which covers the Norman Conquest parallel this account, confusing Edward the Confessor with Edmund Ironside, Harold Harefoot and Harold Godwinson. Four of these five also retain the significant 60 61

Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, pp. 5, 10. SEMC, part 3, p. 104, ll. 482–91.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles couplet criticising William for killing Harold, the version in the Auchinleck Manuscript (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ MS 19.2.1) for example stating Willam bastard of Normondye Him slouy, & þat was vilanie.62

It is not clear whether these works’ common source was in French or English.63 Whatever the case, their strong criticism of the Conqueror in these lines is striking. As discussed earlier, Rauf de Boun’s Le Petit Bruit resembles the Brute Abregé in differing greatly from most other Anglo-Norman prose accounts of British and English history.64 Similarly, the account of events leading up to the Norman Conquest given in Le Petit Bruit is unlike anything I am aware of in the historiographical tradition that precedes it. According to Rauf, St Edward (apparently the Confessor), his fictional brother Miles and ‘Harauld le Mauvays’ were the three sons of a king Edgar. After Edgar’s death, Edward and Miles were both murdered by Harold: Miles, then, somewhat resembles Edward the Confessor’s elder brother Alfred, who was reported in many sources to have been murdered by Godwin, Harold’s father.65 Harold then seized the throne and ruled badly for six years, until William invaded: Et fait a savoir, par ce qe les uns se merveillent quel maner accion il mist a la terre quaunt il vint si le desheritoit cum desus est dit, respound l’avauntdit autour qe unques n’avoit autre coulour si non par le resoun qe le quynt an de son coronument entraunt y avoy entre eus un emparlaunce de mariage pur la sour meyme cely William, quel covenaunt cely roy Harold par ma[l] dedeine pus refusoit, par quoy surda la rancour, jekis a sa venue q’il vint si le desheritoit com desus est dit. Et ceo fuit l’encheson principall de sa venu, a se qe dient les uns, mes le Bruit nequident ne le dit point.66 And let it be known, because some wonder what kind of dispute he took about the land when he came and disinherited him, as is said above, the aforesaid author [i.e. Rauf de Boun] replies that there would never have been other reason except that early in the fifth year of his reign there was between them discussion of marriage for the sister of this same William, which agreement this king Harold with evil disdain then refused, for which reason the rancour arose, until his coming when he came and disinherited him as is said above. And this was the principal reason for his 62

63 64 65

66

Auchinleck Manuscript website, ed. Burnley and Wiggins, relevant page online at auchinleck.nls.uk/mss/smc.htm, fol. 135ra, ll. 1975–6. Cf. SEMC, part 1, ll. 864–5: ‘Willam bastard of Normandye | Hym cant þat was vilanye’. See above, Introduction, p. 16 and n. 78. See above, Introduction and Chapter 2, pp. 17, 58–62. Petit Bruit, p. 17 l. 37–p. 18 l. 16. On Alfred see S. Keynes, ‘The Æthelings in Normandy’, Anglo-Norman Studies 13 (1990), 175–203 (pp. 195–6). Petit Bruit, p. 18 ll. 21–9 (Tyson’s emendation in square brackets).

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Representations of the Norman Conquest arrival, according to what some say, but nevertheless the Brut does not mention it.

Harold’s oath that he should help William to secure the English throne and that he would marry William’s daughter (who becomes here William’s sister) is referred to in other Anglo-Norman chronicles such as the prose Brut and LRE, but I am not aware of any other work in any language where the agreement is presented in this way, as something which, while representing Harold in a bad light, nevertheless makes him a legitimate king.67 It has been suggested that there might ultimately have been an Old English source for some part of this account;68 if so, it might go some way to explaining this account’s more favourable view of Harold’s claims, though not his characterisation. The Brute Abregé and the Petit Bruit, however, are anomalous, and the extent to which they differ from the other chronicles highlights what the rest have in common. Other Anglo-Norman prose chronicles all represented William as the legitimate heir to the throne.69 Nonetheless, the significant differences between their accounts, and the anxieties expressed over the roles of Edgar Ætheling and Harold’s oath, suggest that even by this stage, despite the strong desire to depict the Norman Conquest as a legitimate transfer of power, no consensus had emerged on how to represent it.

The reign of William the Conqueror William I’s reign was marked by brutal acts of repression against the conquered English.70 His actions were heavily criticised by those Latin historians of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries who had celebrated the Norman Conquest, as well as by English chroniclers who lamented it.71 This is not the impression, however, given in the more widely read Anglo-Norman prose chronicles. Having represented the Conquest as effectively the suppression of a usurper, they went on to depict William’s reign in a positive manner, often without describing the rebellions and the subsequent Norman reprisals. 67

68

69

70

71

Cf., however, Eadmeri Historia Novorum, ed. Rule, Book I, p. 8 (Eadmer’s History of Recent Events, trans. Bosanquet, pp. 8–9), where Harold is asked whether, even if he will not honour the other aspects of his oath, he will fulfil his oath to marry William’s daughter – which Harold refuses to do. The Polistorie follows Eadmer here (BL MS Harley 636, fol. 49ra–b). D. B. Tyson and J. Roberts, ‘More About Milde as a Royal Honorific’, Notes and Queries n.s. 36 [continuous series 234] (1989), 299–300. Young, ‘“Des Gestes des Englays”’, p. 315, reaches a similar conclusion with regard to Langtoft’s Chronique. See Williams, English and the Norman Conquest, esp. pp. 24–70; Thomas, English and the Normans, pp. 105–37. Chibnall, Debate, pp. 11–14, 16, 18–20; E. van Houts, ‘The Memory of 1066 in Written and Oral Traditions’, Anglo-Norman Studies 19 (1997), 167–79.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles As mentioned earlier, many manuscripts of LRB confine themselves to giving the regnal years of post-Conquest English kings, with only a few extra details about the reigns of Richard I and John.72 The genealogical rollchronicles generally contain longer accounts of post-Conquest kings than LRB, but William’s reign gets only a brief entry in the manuscripts of those I have consulted, with details of his coronation, years reigned, age at death and year of death.73 The early prose chronicle of English kings written in Richard I’s reign similarly gives only the length of William I’s reign, not commenting on its events.74 The prose Brut is slightly more forthcoming with details of William’s reign. It briefly describes the manner in which he ruled England, saying that he ‘regna noblement e dona les terres des Engleis a ses chivalers’ (‘reigned nobly, and gave the lands of the English to his knights’).75 There is no suggestion here that the reallocation of wealth and power under William I had any negative effects. The prose Brut also recounts William’s wars against Scotland and France, and describes the pious bequests William made when he died.76 As one might expect in a work written for Princess Mary, Edward I’s daughter and so a direct descendant of William I, Nicholas Trevet’s characterisation of William’s reign in his Cronicles is also very positive: Willam le Conquerour, roi d’Engleterre, estoit chivaler nobles, pruz et hardiz, et par plusours batailles gardi sa marche, et la defendi encountre Philipe, roi de France, qe mouz de fetz torcenousement le molesta.77 William the Conqueror, King of England, was a noble, worthy and brave knight, and protected his border with many battles, and defended it against Philip, King of France, who attacked him violently many times.

As in the prose Brut, William is celebrated for defending the realm vigorously. Trevet also describes the enterprise of compiling Domesday Book, 72 73

74 75

76

77

Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 106. Feudal Manuals, ed. Wright, pp. 27, 55, 81; Laborderie, ‘“Ligne des reis”’, pp. 1078–9 for the passage in Bodl. MS Ashmole Rolls 38; cf. his transcripts of comparable texts at p. 1116 (London, College of Arms MS 20/2,); 1211 (College of Arms MS 12/45A); 1217 (Bodl. MS Add. E. 14); 1224 (Cam., Emmanuel College, MS 232); 1255 (College of Arms MS 20/5); 1276 (College of Arms MS 3/23B); 1290 (BL MS Cotton Rolls XV.7); 1308 (BL MS Royal 14.B.VI). Tyson, ‘Early French Prose History’, p. 13, ll. 42–3. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 240–1, l. 3169; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 142, ll. 4108–9. Prose Brut, ed. and trans. Marvin, pp. 240–2, ll. 3173–209; cf. Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, pp. 142–3, ll. 4114–58. Marvin’s footnotes on p. 333 suggest that sources here may include the source close to the Barlings Chronicle, which was probably drawing on the Gesta Regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury as well as other sources, and Gaimar’s Estoire, as well as possibly a lost king-list; Pagan, pp. 231–2, suggests LRE and the Gesta Regum Anglorum as possible sources. Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, p. 294.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest which ‘est ore apelé l’aunciene chartre’ (‘is now called the old charter’).78 Although he gives a clear statement of its level of detail, there is no evaluation of its political significance in strengthening the power of the Norman kings as there is in some Latin historiography.79 There are, in Trevet, two episodes that could conceivably have been used to criticise William. The first is the legend of King Harold’s survival. A number of historians writing between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries preserve or show knowledge of a rumour that Harold had survived the battle of Hastings and had lived as a hermit for many years afterwards.80 As Alan Thacker has noted, ‘[s]uch survival stories are [. . .] frequently attributed to admired leaders by peoples who have experienced some overwhelming disaster’.81 However, unlike for comparable survival stories, such as those of King Arthur and of Richard II,82 there is little evidence that the legend of Harold’s survival was used to undermine Norman rule, although the fullest version of the legend, found in the Vita Haroldi, does contain some remarks critical of William I and the Normans.83 Trevet may have been sensitive to the possibility that this legend undermined the legitimacy of William and subsequent kings, for when he makes reference to this rumour, he is quick to dismiss it as a fiction: Et ascuns dient qe Harold de ceste bataille eschapa vifs, et qe grant temps privement se musca, et qe plusours anz vivoit aprés, mes plus certeine chose 78 79 80

81 82

83

Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, p. 293. E.g. GRA, I, Chapter 258.2, pp. 476–7. See M. Cohen, ‘From Throndheim to Waltham to Chester: Viking- and postViking-Age attitudes in the survival legends of Óláfr Tryggvason and Harold Godwinson’, and A. Thacker, ‘The cult of King Harold at Chester’, both in The Middle Ages in the North-West, ed. T. Scott and P. Starkey (Oxford, 1995), pp. 143–53, 155–76; also G. Fellows-Jensen, ‘The Myth of Harold II’s Survival in the Scandinavian Sources’, in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. G. Owen-Crocker, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 3 (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 53–64. Thacker, ‘Harold at Chester’, p. 155. On the survival stories surrounding Richard II’s death, and their use in political resistance, see P. Strohm, ‘The Trouble with Richard: The Reburial of Richard II and Lancastrian Symbolic Strategy’, Speculum 71 (1996), 87–111. On survival stories around Arthur, see above, Chapter 2, pp. 42–4, 68–9. By contrast, Thacker, ‘Harold at Chester’, p. 158, notes that ‘Harold is not depicted as a lost leader who will return to bring victory to his people.’ Vita Haroldi: the Romance of the Life of Harold, King of England [. . .], ed. and trans. W. De Gray Birch (London, 1885), Chapters 3, 10, pp. 24–5, 54, 124–5,155; see S. Matthews, ‘The Content and Construction of the Vita Haroldi’, in King Harold, ed. Owen-Crocker, pp. 65–73 (p. 70). L. Ashe, ‘Mutatio dexteræ Excelsi: Narratives of Transformation after the Conquest’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 110:2 (March 2011), 141–72, provides a reading of the Vita Haroldi which places it squarely as an account of the ‘transformation’ of an individual, that is, a case of character development.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles est q’il estoit en la teste naufré d’une seet taunqe a [l’atamure] de la cervele, et issint morut parjurs par la vengaunce Dieux en la bataille.84 And some say that Harold escaped from this battle alive, and that he concealed himself secretly for a long time, and that he lived for many years afterwards, but the more certain truth is that he was wounded in the head by an arrow to the membrane of the brain and that he died a perjurer, through the vengeance of God, in the battle.

Trevet comes closer to criticising William when he recounts a legend about St Wulfstan of Worcester: En le temps cist Willam Bastard estoit seint Wlstan evesqe de Wyrecestre, qi estoit fait evesqe en le temps seint Edward, le roi et confessour, et par son assent et sa volenté, mes quant cist Willam le Conquerour, roi d’Engleterre, aparceut la grande simplesce de cist evesqe Wlstan, lui voleit toler la croce de l’evesche, mes seint Wlstan ne lui voleit pas la croce bailler, einz ala a la toumbe seint Edward a Loundres, et fichi la croce en la dure marbre, qe la resceut et fermement la retient, entaunt qe nul homme la poeit estrere; et le rois, veiaunt la miracle, lui soeffri l’evesche, et mes ne lui voleit molester; et l’evesqe ove leger moevement tolit sa croce, qe nul autre faire poeit. Cist Wlstan estoit homme simple et devoute et moyne de Wircestre, et pur sa seinteté fu fait evesqe de Wircestre.85 In the time of this William Bastard Saint Wulfstan was bishop of Worcester. He had been made bishop in the time of Saint Edward, king and confessor, and with his assent and by his will; but when this William the Conqueror, King of England, perceived the great simplicity of this bishop Wulfstan,  he  wished to take the bishop’s crozier from him. But Saint Wulfstan did not wish to give him the crozier, so he went to Saint Edward’s tomb in London, and fixed the crozier in the hard marble, which received it and held it firmly, to such a degree that no man could pull it out. And the king, seeing the miracle, tolerated the bishop, and never again wished to trouble him. And the bishop with a swift movement took his crozier, which no-one else could do. This Wulfstan was a simple and devout man, and a monk of Worcester, and because of his holiness was made bishop of Worcester.

This legend about St Wulfstan first appeared in Osbert de Clare’s Vita Beati Edwardi Regis Anglorum of c.1138, from where it was incorporated into Ailred of Rievaulx’s life of Edward, and the story was well known in Latin and Anglo-Norman versions during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.86 In other versions of the story, Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, is partly 84

85 86

Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, p. 292. I have adopted the emendation proposed in AngloNorman Dictionary, gen. ed. Rothwell, s.v. tamure. Rutherford, ‘Chronicle’, pp. 293–4. See E. Mason, ‘St Wulfstan’s Staff: A Legend and its Uses’, Medium Ævum 53 (1984), 157–79 (pp. 159, 161–3).

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Representations of the Norman Conquest or wholly responsible for the initiative to try and deprive St Wulfstan of his bishopric, but here the sole culprit is William I. As in other versions, though, William is responsible for ultimately allowing Wulfstan to stay in post after the miracle. Although these changes emphasise William’s culpability by removing Lanfranc, this story is less a criticism of the king than a reminder of the need for secular rulers to conform to God’s will.87 The picture of William I in Les Cronicles remains overwhelmingly positive. To judge by the number of manuscripts which survive, then, all the most widely known Anglo-Norman prose chronicles of English history represented William’s reign in an extremely positive light. They departed from both their Latin and English contemporaries and predecessors to give a more positive vision of this period, omitting most material that would have darkened the picture. This reinforced the impression of continuity between English and Norman kings which their accounts of the Norman Conquest had tried to convey, and concealed the extent to which William’s conquest and reign had altered the established order in England. However, these more widely copied texts are not the only Anglo-Norman histories to provide information about William I’s reign. Some less widely disseminated works, such as LRE, the Anonimalle Brut, John of Canterbury’s Polistorie, Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit or Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica, also provide accounts of this period of English history, while family chronicles such as Fouke le Fitz Waryn and the Mohun Chronicle also intersect with the history of the Norman Conquest. Where the more popular works are concerned to express the continuity between English and Norman kingship, these less widely read chronicles sometimes approach the Conquest quite differently: as a time of violence and oppression, a moment of great change, or a new beginning for England and for those who arrived with William, and even perhaps in some cases as a parallel to present-day challenges faced by the country. To look at the example of LRE first, there is some criticism of William’s rule. In particular, William’s ill-treatment of the clergy is given attention. An entry for 1069 mentions how while famine afflicted the country, partly because of the Norman Conquest, William ransacked all the churches of England and stole their silver for himself; under 1070, LRE notes that William removed Archbishop Stigand and many other abbots and bishops from office, even placing some in prison, ‘e neckedent, ne par le ley de seynte eglise, ne par ley de la terre, deut ceo aver fet’ (‘and yet neither by the law of Holy Church, nor by the law of the land, ought he to have done this’).88 William’s general treatment of the English also attracts some negative comment: in 1067 William is 87

88

Cf. above, Chapter 3, pp. 98–103, for Trevet’s emphasis on Christianity in his chronicle. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 152; translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 147.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles said to have ‘mist sur eus grant taillage’ (‘laid on the people heavy taxation’),89 and it is reported that ‘il fust mut blasmé’ (‘he was much blamed’) for the death of the English earl Waltheof following the earl’s limited involvement in the rebellion of 1075.90 LRE also relates the legend of Harold’s survival, although it does not evaluate the merits of conflicting historical accounts as Trevet’s Cronicles does. Having narrated Harold’s death at the battle of Hastings and his burial at Waltham,91 LRE continues: Aucons dient que cestui Harald e [Girthe], soen frer, ne furent pas tuwez a cele bataillie, mes il furent durement naufrez, e hom quideyt que il fussent mors entre les autres, e tapirent entre les autres, e tapirent la dekes a la neyre nuyt, e pus s’en alerent privément e vindrent a Cestre, e vesquirent la longement cum heremites dekes al tens le rey Henri le Secunde, que ne voleyt unkes estre aconissaunt qui il esteyent, dekes a la fine de lur vie.92 Some say that this Harold and Gyrth his brother were not killed at that battle, but they were severely wounded, and people thought they were dead among the rest[, and were hidden there among the others]; so they [were hidden] there until it was black night, and then stole away secretly and came to Chester, and lived there a long while [as hermits], until the time of the king Henry the Second, and did not wish that it should ever come to be known who they were until the end of their [lives].93

Unlike Trevet, LRE incorporates a religious dimension here, noting that Harold and Gyrth were supposed to have become hermits. Given the criticism elsewhere in LRE for his treatment of clerics, Harold’s survival as a pious hermit here might just contain an implicit criticism of William.94 One manuscript of LRE resembles Les Cronicles in including the legend of Wulfstan’s crozier.95 LRE draws upon a verse source for this narrative, which was originally in alexandrine couplets, and this reviser of LRE was interested enough in his verse source to preserve it almost verbatim.96 In this version, however, William I is not present; instead, the story is recounted as 89

90

91 92 93

94

95 96

Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 151; translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 145. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 154; translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 155. For other accounts of Waltheof see below, pp. 137–8. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 149. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 149. (I have emended ‘Girche’ to ‘Girthe’.) Translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 139 (with my emendations in square brackets). Livere, ed. and trans. Glover p. 139, identifies the source as Ralph Niger’s Chronicon II [from the Incarnation to the time of Henry II]: see Radulfi Nigri Chronica: The Chronicles of Ralph Niger, ed. Lt.-Col. R. Anstruther (London, 1851), pp. 105–91 (pp. 161–2). Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 152–3. Legge, ANL, p. 247; Mason, ‘St Wulfstan’s Staff’, pp. 162, 174 nn. 70–5.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest a confrontation between Lanfranc and Wulfstan, with some moving dialogue as Wulfstan pleads his case and as Lanfranc gives him back his crozier after the miracle. William escapes censure, at least directly, but the story does add to the sometimes critical attitude of the text in this manuscript towards William’s rule. However, the final summary of William I’s life better represents LRE’s general view of the king: Cestuy rey Willame fust large sur tuz, kar chescon jour voleyt il fere un que fust povre asez riche. Il fust suget a luy Breteygne la Menure e Escoce e Wales, sicum il est counté desus. This king William was generous beyond all men, for every day he liked to make some poor man sufficiently rich. He [made subject to] himself Brittany, Scotland and Wales, as has been related above.97

LRE’s presentation of William is broadly favourable, although it permits itself to criticise him, particularly in his dealings with the Church. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that LRE seems to have had a largely religious readership: two of the three complete extant manuscripts (including that which added the story of Wulfstan) are known to have belonged to religious houses in the fourteenth century.98 If LRE’s summary of William I’s reign was more positive than some of the details it provided, the opposite is true of the Polistorie. William’s reign is summed up early here in the account of the years it spanned with some harsh words. Indeed, like Harold, William is presented as a perjurer: he is shown as breaking his coronation oath to protect the people, uphold law in the kingdom, and thus prevent injustice. After describing this oath, the text delivers an uncompromising verdict – which unlike much of the account of Harold’s and William’s reigns is not taken from Eadmer: Puis kaunt en teu manere lye la coroune out ressu, a les grauns du reaume, ja a tus, ad lures teres tolets e lur seygnurie, si les ad a autres donees, tus les plus as Normauns e as Fraunceis ke ove ly vindrent. E les Engloys s’en vunt povres e revilys en la tere ou desherites sunt en exil comaundes. A les uns sunt les oils creves, des autres les membere copes: ensi spettacles fut fest a la gent e totes pars sunt cheytisement flaeles e plusurs de lur vies sunt prives. Sur ceo, les usages e les leyes ke ly e ses auncestres unt eu e usees en Normaundie voloit e fist comaunder ke en Engletere puplies fusent e gardes.99 97

98

99

Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, p. 156; translation from Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, p. 159 (with my emendations in square brackets). See Spence, ‘Audiences’, p. 33. Norwich Cathedral Priory owned the manuscript which contained the verses about Wulfstan: Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Foltys, pp. 13–14, 152–3. The other religious house known to have owned a copy of LRE was the Gilbertine priory of Sempringham in Lincolnshire. BL MS Harley 636, fol. 50ra.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Then, when he had received the crown bound in such a way, he took from the great lords of the kingdom, indeed from everyone, all their lands and their lordship, and he gave them all to others, mostly to Normans and to the French who had come with him. And the English went away poor and despised in the land, or they were sent into exile, disinherited. The eyes of some were put out; the limbs of others cut off: thus spectacles were made for the people and on all sides they were wretchedly punished and several had their lives taken from them. Moreover, he wished, and he commanded, that the customs and the laws that he and his ancestors had had and followed in Normandy should be made known and kept in England.

However, most of the account which the Polistorie gives of the reign focuses on the deposition of Stigand as archbishop of Canterbury and his replacement, Lanfranc. In particular, Lanfranc’s subsequent defence of Canterbury’s rights, its primacy in England and the archbishop’s contribution to the religious community at Canterbury are central to the work’s account of the reign.100 This again follows the path laid down by Eadmer’s Historia Novorum, and Eadmer is the only source named by John of Canterbury for this section, though his account of the debate over the primacy also appears indebted to William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum.101 Consequently, despite the initial criticism of William I himself, the Polistorie presents quite a positive image of the Norman Conquest’s impact through its focus on the changes it led to within the English Church. The Anonimalle Brut’s account of William I’s reign goes further than LRE in recounting the violence and brutality of the period. It largely offers a translation of Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon’s account in the Historia Anglorum, describing the various rebellions of his reign, together with the reprisals by the Normans.102 In a very few places the account of Norman atrocities is more detailed than Henry’s descriptions, notably the elaboration of the punishments of those involved in the 1075 rebellion: Et a Nouwel tynt son parlement a Westmouster et de ceux qe firent la conspiracioun, les uns furent exilez, les uns crevez les oeez, les uns coupez les mayns, mes le conte Waltheu par comandement le roy aprés l’an passé fust decolé dehors la cité de Wincestre et illoqe enterré com treiter, desi come il ne fust pas assentaunt a la conspiracioun, et de ceo estoit testemoigne l’ercevesqe Lanfrank a qi il fust confes. Mes puys le corps fust pris sus et enterré a Croyland ove grant honeur.103 And at Christmas he held his parliament at Westminster and of those who had conspired, some were exiled, some had their eyes put out, some had 100 101 102 103

BL MS Harley 636, fols. 50rb–55ra. Cf. GRA, Book 3, Chapters 294–304, pp. 528–38. BL MS Royal 20. A. XVIII, fols. 150v–156v. BL MS Royal 20. A. XVIII, fol. 154v.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest their hands cut off; but Earl Waltheof, by the king’s command, after the year had passed, was beheaded outside the city of Winchester and was buried there as a traitor, even though he had not agreed to the conspiracy, and Archbishop Lanfranc, to whom he had confessed, was a witness to this. But afterwards the body was taken up and buried at Crowland with great honour.

Like the Polistorie, the Anonimalle Brut deploys the detail of William having the eyes of his enemies put out, and although it appears in a very different context, this again serves to illustrate William’s brutal repression of rebellion following the Norman Conquest.104 The Anonimalle Brut is not, however, significantly more critical of William than Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon. Simply by following Henry’s lead in such detail, though, the Anonimalle Brut provides one of the least flattering accounts of William’s reign among the Anglo-Norman prose chronicles. LRE, the Anonimalle Brut and the Polistorie, which did not achieve the same level of popularity as the most widely read Anglo-Norman prose chronicles, therefore translated extracts (mainly from Latin chronicles by monks or secular clergy)105 which gave less idealised accounts of William I’s reign than those in the prose Brut, genealogical rolls or Trevet’s Cronicles. Some of the same trends found in these works from a clerical milieu are also evident in the Scalacronica’s account. When Gray describes William I’s reign, he also draws heavily on William of Malmesbury and Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, probably through Higden’s Polychronicon and John of Tynemouth’s Historia Aurea, but he abridges heavily and moves back and forth through time and through his sources. This results in a rather disjointed account, but certain preoccupations emerge. One focus is William’s intermittent conflict with Scotland. At the end of Edward the Confessor’s reign, Gray repeats Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon’s description of an earlier prophecy, that as a punishment for the earlier sins of the English, ‘[l]our fust deistiné a estre seignouré dez Francés en temps avenir’ (‘it was destined for them to be ruled by the French in times to come’), and, Gray does not forget to add, the English would be subjugated ‘nounpas de eaux soulement, mais de gentz escotois, qi treviles sount tenuz dez Englés’ (‘not only by them, but by the Scottish people, who were regarded as very vile by the English’).106 Gray’s accounts of Anglo-Scottish wars in William’s reign, although usually abridged, are at times fuller than 104

105

106

Both the Polistorie and the Anonimalle Brut may be echoing Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, in HA, Book 6, Chapter 39, pp. 402–4, who made reference to William’s willingness to put out the eyes of anyone who dared to poach from the royal forests; Greenway (p. 404 n. 214) notes that this is a rearranged version of the obituary in MS E of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 1087 (1086). See Livere, ed. and trans. Glover, pp. 138–59, for further provisional identification of the sources for LRE. Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 140rb. Cf. HA, Book 6, Chapter 1, pp. 338–41.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles the parallel passages in the Polychronicon; in particular, there is more detail on fighting in Northumbria, taken from the Historia Aurea.107 At the end of William’s reign, Gray translates Henry of Huntingdon’s remark that ‘hom avoit hount d’estre apellé Englés, taunt furount surmountez dez Normauns’108 (‘men were ashamed to be called English, so greatly were they oppressed by the Normans’); however, earlier in his account, when the Scots invade Northumberland, Gray translates the comment that ‘amena ove ly en Escoce tauntes dez prisouners captives qe apayn ny avoit mesoun hu pays qe y ny out hom ou femme englés en servitude’109 (‘he [i.e. King Malcolm of Scotland] took with him into Scotland so many captive prisoners that there was scarcely a house in the country that did not have an Englishman or Englishwoman in service’). In this way, Gray balances the idea of any ‘Norman yoke’ against that of a ‘Scottish yoke’. Gray also includes material on Northumbrian saints and bishops, much of it critical of the Normans: as Jean-Claude Thiolier says, ‘Gray semble prendre plaisir à narrer les interventions miraculeuses des vieux saints anglais [. . .] qui mettent le nouveau roi ou ses chevaliers en déroute.’110 Thiolier also remarks on several comments in this part of the Scalacronica where Gray laments the expulsion of English clergy by William and the Normans. Although Gray took these from his sources, the Polychronicon and the Historia Aurea, Thiolier is still surely right that their inclusion casts a shadow over the Norman Conquest. Similarly, Gray includes a version of the legend about St Wulfstan’s staff where the king himself is criticised by Wulfstan.111 Like Thomas Castleford’s Middle English Chronicle (and Wace’s Roman de Rou), the Scalacronica also shows an interest in the linguistic consequences of the Conquest: Cesty Willam le conquerour fist examyner lez loys usez en le tems saint Edward, lez trovoist foundez de resoun et droiturelis, si lez fist establir et en plesaunce du poeple lez fist tenir; mais ordeyna q’ils fussent pledez en fraunceis patoys normaund. Si fist enfourmer lez enfauntz en latine par francés, pur ceo qe volountiers ust mue le langage, mais ne pooit pur la multitude del comune.112 This William the Conqueror had the laws used in Saint Edward [the Confessor]’s time examined, and found them to be founded upon reason

107

108

109 110 111 112

Cf. e.g. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 6, with Polychronicon, VII, 254–6, and the abridged version of the Historia Aurea, Book 2, Chapters 42–3 (CUL MS Dd.X.22, fols. 30v–31v). Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 12. Cf. HA, Book 6, Chapter 37, pp. 402–3; Polychronicon, VII, 318. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 6; cf. Polychronicon, VII, 256. Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, p. 146. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 7. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 9.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest and right; so he had them established and with the assent of the people he had them upheld. But he ordained that they should be argued in the Norman French vernacular. So he had children taught Latin in French, because they willingly changed their language, but could not for the multitude of the common people.

Gray seems to observe these developments rather than criticise them, especially when compared with Thomas Castleford, who remarks that: Schrefes he sette and ek iustise [. . .] Þe domes to saie in Frankisse toung, [. . .] Fore þe bondes of Englisse linage Salde not witte, bi þe langage, How þai [i.e. the sheriffs] þam dampnede, wele oþer ille, Bot als bestes stande to þar wille.113

Gray’s account of William’s reign, then, like LRE, mixes praise for the Conqueror with sensitivity to some of the changes the Norman Conquest brought for the English. Gray concludes his account, however, on a more celebratory note. He includes a lengthy list of 501 surnames, prefacing it with the declaration: ‘fait a savoir qe toutz cestes gentez [. . .] vindrent ove Willam le conquerour’114 (‘let it be known that all these people [. . .] came with William the Conqueror’). Jean-Claude Thiolier has seen in this list a demonstration of ‘l’unité de la noblesse anglaise depuis Hastings’.115 However, it may have appealed to Gray mainly because it embodies that central theme of the Scalacronica, the importance of knights and men of arms in making history, accounts of which often give more weight to the deeds of kings. Although, as Thiolier notes, such lists of the companions of the Conqueror were popular in later medieval England,116 they were not usually found in Anglo-Norman chronicles. Only one other Anglo-Norman prose chronicle featured a list of names of those who came to England during the Conquest, 113

114 115 116

Castleford’s Chronicle or the Boke of Brut, ed. C. D. Eckhardt, 2 vols., EETS o.s. 305–6 (Oxford, 1996), II, ll. 31943, 31945, 31947–50; cf. Moffat, ‘Sin, Conquest, Servitude’, p. 154. Cf. also HA, Prologue, p. 4, where Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, argues that beasts and brutish men are united in not knowing or wishing to know about their history; Greenway (p. 10 n. 4) notes that this passage echoes Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, I. Scalacronica, ed. Stevenson, p. 12. Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, p. 139. Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 139–40, 153 nn. 69–80. See further The Duchess of Cleveland [C. L. W. Stanhope Powell], The Battle Abbey Roll, 3 vols. (London, 1889); H. M. Smyser, ‘The List of Norman Names in the Auchinleck MS. (Battle Abbey Roll)’, in Medieval Studies in Honor of Jeremiah Denis Matthias Ford, ed. U. T. Holmes Jr and A. J. Denomy CSB (Cambridge, MA, 1948), pp. 259–87.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles and like the Scalacronica, its production was closely linked to an important family. The Mohun Chronicle promises in its prologue to describe coment la noble lignage des Mohuns vint odve William, Conquerour d’Engleterre, et combien des grandz seignurs William le Moion le veil aveit a sa retenance adonqes; et puis del decent des Mohuns jusqes a cesti jour. how the noble family of the Mohuns came with William, Conqueror of England, and how many great lords William the Mohun the elder had in his retinue then; and then the line of descent of the Mohuns to this day.117

Most of the account of the Mohun family has been lost, but the beginning was preserved in several later transcripts.118 This tells how when William, duke of Normandy, arrived in England in 1066, he did not defeat King Harold on his own but with the help of [. . .] Normannez et aultres gentz de divers terres. Entre quils vint ovesque luy monsieur William de Moion le veil, le plus noble de tout l’oste. Cist William de Moion avoit de sa retenaunce en l’ost tous les grauntz seignurs aprés nomez, sicome il est escript en le liver des conquerours. [. . .] Normans and other people from various lands. Among these came with him Sir William de Moion the elder, the noblest man in the whole army. This William de Moion had, in his retinue in the army, all the great knights named hereafter, as it is written in the book of the conquerors.119

The Mohun Chronicle goes on to provide a list of fifty-seven names, including some of the more distinguished nobles from William’s army. The Mohun Chronicle, however, identifies them by picking up on two lines from the list of William the Conqueror’s companions in Wace’s Rou, ‘Li viel Willame de Moion | out ovoc lui maint compaignon’120 (‘William de Moion the elder had many companions with him’). From these lines the chronicler reaches the unwarranted conclusion that the fifty-seven names which follow in Wace’s Rou refer to these companions.121 For this author, the Norman Conquest provides an ideal opportunity to glorify the family whose history he is recording: a moment of military prowess and dramatic change which led to the founding of a great dynasty. As I will describe in the next chapter, a similar motivation underpins the beginning of Fouke le Fitz Waryn, which begins with Fouke’s ancestor, Payn Peverel, acting as William the Conqueror’s champion as the king seeks to establish control over the Welsh borderlands.122 Notably, the unique manuscript of Fouke includes the only extant version of the Short English Metrical 117 118 119 120 121 122

See the edition and translation in Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 172–3, ll. 48–51. See Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 152–4. See Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, Extract I, ll. 4–8, pp. 194–5. Wace, Rou, part 3, ll. 8487–8. See Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 157–8. See above, Chapter 2, p. 64, and below, Chapter 5, p. 155.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest Chronicle mentioned above in which William’s deposition of Harold is not described as a ‘vilanye’; the parallel line here tells us instead that William ‘Þo com wiþ gret cheualerie’.123 Sir Thomas Gray was not as brazen as the author of the Mohun Chronicle: he appears to have preserved his list largely as it was. Jean-Claude Thiolier identified the Scalacronica as the text from which Leland copied this list into his Collectanea. In 1948 H. M. Smyser identified a closely related version in the Auchinleck manuscript (fols.105v–107r).124 The Auchinleck manuscript has been convincingly dated to c.1330–40,125 and a comparison of Gray’s list with the Auchinleck’s indicates that Gray largely preserved the list as it was. Thiolier speculated that Gray might have altered the arrangement of names to enhance his version, but as the Auchinleck version has the same arrangement this was apparently not the case.126 Gray may, however, have made one significant change in orthography: where the Auchinleck manuscript mentions a ‘Grey’, the Scalacronica includes a ‘Gray’ in its list of the Conqueror’s companions, the form consistently used in the unique manuscript of the Scalacronica to refer to the author and his father (although given the limited manuscript evidence, Gray’s agency cannot be proven).127 It is unlikely to be coincidence that the only other items of Anglo-Norman historical prose to be accompanied by lists of the Conqueror’s companions are genealogies extracted and continued from Trevet’s Cronicles, found in two fifteenth-century manuscripts.128 Clearly, a place among the companions of the Conqueror could enhance a noble family’s history. Conversely, the exclusion of such lists from most national histories in Anglo-Norman suggests that the lists conflicted with these chronicles’ central theme of continuity between Anglo-Saxon and Norman rule. One other Anglo-Norman chronicler is also interested in the Conqueror’s companions, and he too writes with a particular member of the nobility in mind. Yet Rauf de Boun’s description of these companions in the Petit Bruit he wrote at Henry de Lacy’s request is anything but celebratory: Et fait a savoir qe a la venu cely William si ariva ou ly en Engleterre taunt de manere de people de taunt diverse nacionz qe a ly avoit saudiez a l’houre, 123 124 125

126 127

128

Abridged English Metrical Brut, ed. O’ Farrell Tate, l. 904; and cf. FFW, p. 3, ll. 9–11. Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 139–41; Smyser, ‘Norman Names’, pp. 263, 265–8. See D. Pearsall and I. C. Cunningham, The Auchinleck Manuscript: National Library of Scotland Advocates’ MS 19.2.1 (London, 1977), pp. vii–xi; Auchinleck Manuscript website, ed. Burnley and Wiggins, relevant page online at auchinleck.nls.uk/ editorial/history.html. Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, p. 143. Scalacronica, p. 16; Thiolier, ‘Scalacronica’, pp. 143–4, discusses the orthography of the name, and Scalacronica, ed. and trans. King, p. xviii n. 4, notes the spelling preference in the manuscript and that this is not mirrored in other documentary evidence about the Gray family. See Spence, ‘Audiences’, pp. 34, 52 n. 38; Dean, ANL, no. 70, p. 47.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles cum Normaunz, Bretouns, Borgoillouns, Cessouns, Tulusaunz, Brabans; de queux diverse nacions il remist graunt partie en Engleterre, les uns come de son feoffement, les autrez cum de colour achaté, si sunt si enheritez jekis ensa; pus n’ad gueires de mervayle, puis qe Engleterre est ore en tiel maner de sankes entermellez, si le meins d’amour parmy la terre se pregne par la grauntdime variaunce de sankes qi entre nous est si diversement esparpleiez, et dount mervaile avendrez si plus d’envie n’i habitast qe ne fesoit s’il ne feussent toutz d’une sankes.129 And let it be known that at the arrival of this William there arrived with him in England so many types of people from so many diverse peoples that had joined him at the time, such as Normans, Bretons, Burgundians, Saxons, Toulousans, Brabanters; to these various peoples he gave great parts of England, some as fiefs, others apparently being bought, and they were so inherited down to the present day; then it is scarcely to be wondered at, since England is now in such a way composed of mixed blood, if the less love arises through the land because of the very great difference in blood which is so variously spread between us, and from which it would be astonishing if more ill-will did not exist here than would if they were all of the same blood.

Rauf de Boun’s description of the diverse origins of William the Conqueror’s companions is reminiscent of the description by R. L. Graeme Ritchie of ‘Duke William’s Breton, Lotharingian, Flemish, Picard, Artesian, Cenomannian, Angevin, general-French and Norman Conquest’.130 Even more surprising, Rauf de Boun’s comments on racial tensions in England stemming from the Conquest recall at first sight Turville-Petre’s reading of Mannyng’s Chronicle quoted at the beginning of this chapter. However, Rauf de Boun does not describe one ethnic group subjugating another; he depicts instead fighting between a large number of different groups, and all the groups he names only became established in England after the Conquest. There was some tension between these different groups in the decade after the Conquest, in particular during the 1075 uprising, when Earl Ralph of East Anglia, the son of a Breton, rebelled against William and many other Bretons rebelled alongside him. Yet I am not aware of any other evidence that there were further racial tensions between the different groups who arrived in England after the Conquest.131 129 130

131

Petit Bruit, p. 18, ll. 33–42. R. L. G. Ritchie, The Normans in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1954), p. 157, quoted in Chibnall, Debate, pp. 127–8. Cf. also Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Wright, I, 410–11, quoted in Young, ‘“Des Gestes des Englays”’, p. 321; and K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, ‘William I and the Breton Contingent in the Non-Norman Conquest 1060–1087’, AngloNorman Studies 13 (1991), 157–72. See Thomas, English and the Normans, pp. 40–1. On the uprising, see F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1971; 1st edn 1943), pp. 610–12. K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, ‘The Bretons and Normans of England 1066–1154: the family, the fief and the family monarchy’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 36 (1992), 42–78, identifies

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Representations of the Norman Conquest Rauf’s comments should perhaps be read as echoes of more recent concerns: hostility towards foreigners wielding influence in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries132 and in particular the highly contentious role of Piers de Gaveston in the early years of Edward II’s rule, when the Petit Bruit was written.133 There might even be an echo of Edward II’s preferment of Gaveston in William’s supposed treatment of his nephew, ‘qi de ly estoit plus privee, et plus tendrement ly amoit qe nul autre de sa meynie’ (‘who was closest to him, and whom he loved more dearly than any other of his followers’), and to whom William gives not only ‘Merchancie’ (‘Mercia’) but also, ‘par afinité de graunt amour qe vers ly avoit ne volloit q’il feu si simple avauncé’ (‘because of the feeling of great love which he felt for him, did not wish that he should be so poorly advanced’), most of Norfolk and Suffolk.134 The only chronicle written with a particular noble family in mind to treat the Norman Conquest in a more low-key manner is the Delapré Chronicle. Its account of Earl Siward of Northumbria (d.1055) corresponds closely with that in the Latin Vita et Passio Sancti Waldevi, which was written at Crowland Abbey. However, despite containing some of the same information, the two works differ substantially in their account of Siward’s son, Earl Waltheof. Waltheof’s body was buried at Crowland Abbey and the earl was regarded as a saint there in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The Latin work expanded on Orderic Vitalis’s description of Waltheof’s life and death to portray the earl as a martyr, excusing his involvement in the 1075 rebellion alongside Earl Ralph and Earl Roger of Hereford, and even described the miracles for which Waltheof was posthumously responsible.135 The emphasis in the Anglo-Norman chronicle could hardly be more different. Waltheof is relatively unimportant in the Delapré Chronicle: we are told that he succeeded Siward, Et quant le roy William le Bastard vint si la terre conquere, et il se combati as Engleis et les venqui, [i ne fu pas] le conte Waldef. Et quant le roy William

132

133

134 135

notable Breton traits of behaviour into the civil war of Stephen’s reign but these do not take the form of ethnic conflict. See e.g. M. T. Clanchy, England and its Rulers 1066–1272, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1998; 1st edn 1983), pp. 173–5, 187–9. See e.g. M. Prestwich, The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272–1377 (London, 1980), pp. 82–3. Petit Bruit, p. 18, l. 43–p. 19, l. 5 (p. 18, l. 43; p. 19, l. 1; p. 19, ll. 2–3). Vita et Passio Waldevi Comitis, in Chroniques anglo-normandes, ed. F. Michel, 3 vols. (Rouen, 1836–40), II, 99–142, at pp. 111–23 (life and death), 131–42 (miracles); C. Watkins, ‘The Cult of Earl Waltheof at Crowland’, Hagiographica 3 (1996), 95–111, at pp. 96–7. For the relationship between the Vita Waldevi and the Delapré Chronicle see below, Chapter 5, pp. 148–50. J. Huntington, ‘The Taming of the Laity: Writing Waltheof and Rebellion in the Twelfth Century’, Anglo–Norman Studies 32 (2010), 79–95, has argued that legends around Waltheof were depoliticised and understood more in the context of a pure hagiography. However, the nature of the Delapré Chronicle’s account of Waltheof presents a challenge to that argument.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles eust la terre appesee, se accorda a luy le conte Waldef, et ly roy luy laissa sa terre. Et pur ceo qu’il n’avoit esté a la bataille, et il estoit le plus riche homme et le plus vaillaunt de la terre, luy dona la contesse Ivete, sa niece [. . .]136 And when King William Bastard came to conquer the land, and he fought with the English, and defeated them, Earl Waltheof was not there. And when King William had pacified the land, he reconciled himself with Earl Waltheof, and the king allowed him to keep his land. And because he had not been at the battle [i.e. the battle of Hastings], and he was the richest man in the country, and the most worthy, he gave to him Countess Judith, his niece [. . .]

The Delapré Chronicle follows this with a long exposition of the rights and privileges which William granted Waltheof over his land. When the chronicle returns to deal with the end of Waltheof’s life, it is as succinct and circumspect as it can be about this well-known episode: Aprés ceo, le conte Waldef, par l’encusement de sa femme, rettez fu et ateint, ove moultz des autres barons d’Engleterre, de la trayson le roy William. Et par jugement de la court le roy, a Wynchestre fu decollé et a Croyland enselevy.137 After this, Earl Waltheof, by the accusation of his wife, was found guilty and attainted of treason against King William together with many other English barons; and by the judgement of the king’s court, he was beheaded at Winchester, and buried at Crowland.

There is no celebration of Waltheof’s death as a martyrdom here. Waltheof’s execution does not even appear to have individual significance at a national level, since he is arrested and attainted alongside ‘moultz des autres’ (‘many others’). The tone is not even as sympathetic as the account in the Anonimalle Brut. N. Denholm-Young has plausibly suggested that the extant text was written in 1237 on behalf of King Alexander II of Scotland, who was at the time presenting his claim to the earldom of Huntingdon to Henry III’s council.138 If so, the author would surely not have wished to draw attention to Waltheof’s importance as an opponent of the English king; this would also help to explain the inclusion of the information on Waltheof’s rights over his lands. Yet the contrast with the Latin Vita Waldevi is still striking, and the Delapré Chronicle is further evidence of the predisposition towards giving a positive interpretation of William I’s reign in Anglo-Norman prose histories, even in a family history where this was extremely difficult. 136

137 138

‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 22, ll. 85–91; my emendation of the edition in square brackets. In Bodl. MS Dugdale 18, fol. 28ra the text reads ‘in fu pas’. This is given as ‘in su pas’ in Ricketts’ edition and emended by Ricketts to ‘isnelepas’, i.e. ‘quickly, hastily’. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 23, ll. 115–18. Denholm-Young, ‘Anglo-Norman MS’, p. 225; see also below, Chapter 5, pp. 147–9.

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Representations of the Norman Conquest

Conclusion: representations of the Norman Conquest Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Anglo-Norman prose chronicles represented the Norman Conquest in a broadly similar manner. With one exception, they depicted the invasion of England as an appropriate response to Harold’s usurpation and perjury by the rightful heir to the throne. There were nonetheless differences. Many chronicles struggled to incorporate the claims of Edgar Ætheling seamlessly into their accounts; and the extent to which Harold’s oath to William was presented as willingly given also varied. In the most popular chronicles, William’s reign was described in glowing terms, but some works, such as LRE and the Scalacronica, pointed out negative consequences of the Conquest which had attracted opprobrium in earlier Latin histories. AngloNorman chronicles written for noble families were inclined to emphasise the importance of the Conquest in order to enhance the reputations of the family’s ancestors who served William (the only exception was the Delapré Chronicle). Conversely, the more widely copied chronicles of national history tended to emphasise the continuity between Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest England. However, the differences between the views expressed by Mannyng, Castleford, ‘Robert of Gloucester’ and even the Short English Metrical Chronicle and those found in the Anglo-Norman chronicles are really very slight. All rely on the same sources and repeat the same range of observations, although within this general framework writers can place the emphasis on different subjects. With the exceptions of the Short English Metrical Chronicle and the Brute Abregé, both the Anglo-Norman prose chronicles and those early Middle English verse chronicles discussed by Turville-Petre and Moffat declare that William was the rightful heir to the English throne and portray Harold as a usurper and perjurer. As the text of the Brute Abregé strikingly demonstrates, it was not only English chronicles that criticised William, but the most strident denunciations always came from the marginal texts of vernacular historiography. If the audience of the Middle English verse chronicles was truly ‘a large section of the population’ for whom the Norman Conquest still seemed a cause of their woes, then it might be expected that this would be reflected in descriptions of rebellions such as the Peasants’ Revolt. Yet the Conquest was not apparently mentioned among the reported grievances of these rebels; neither is it significant in earlier political verse criticising the royal government.139 Nor did Lollards contrast the post-Conquest Church with an idealised Anglo-Saxon one, as Protestants were to do after the Reformation.140 139

140

I have found no such references to the Norman Conquest in the collections of sources compiled by R. B. Dobson, The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, 2nd edn (London, 1983; 1st edn 1970). Nor have I found any in Thomas Wright’s Political Songs of England from the Reign of John to that of Edward II, intro. P. Coss (Cambridge, 1996; first printed in 1839). For early Protestant views of the Conquest, see Chibnall, Debate, pp. 28–30.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles The English verse chronicles contain memorable passages lamenting the aftermath of the Conquest and some negative comments on William the Conqueror’s actions. Yet Mannyng, ‘Robert of Gloucester’ and even Thomas Castleford seem closer in tone to LRE and Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica in their description of the Norman Conquest’s impact on the English population than they do to the description in the Brute Abregé of the Norman Conquest as an act of ‘vilainie’. Both the Middle English and Anglo-Norman writers look back to the Conquest not as the point of origin for a continuing grievance, but with an empathy for the suffering of earlier generations. As in so many cases, examining Anglo-Norman chronicles enables a fuller, more accurate assessment of contemporaneous Middle English texts and of how the past was understood in the vernacular literature of later medieval England.

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5

Family chronicles

In the preceding three chapters, I have looked at representations of different periods of national history in Anglo-Norman chronicles. But not all history was national history – Anglo-Norman historical works also recounted universal history, histories of religious institutions and histories of noble families. In this chapter, I will consider those works written in Anglo-Norman which aimed primarily to give an account of family history. I will discuss the fullest examples of these: the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock, the Delapré Chronicle, the Mohun Chronicle and Fouke le Fitz Waryn. In each case the family’s genealogy determined the basic structure of these works, and they appear to have served pragmatic purposes, such as asserting ownership of inherited lands. However, in support of such purposes family chronicles were willing, like the chronicles of national history, to absorb legendary material and romance elements as a means of creating a vivid, dramatic account of the family’s past.

Family genealogies Genealogies were not the invention of the Middle Ages, but they did enjoy great popularity in medieval Europe. However, most genealogies in Europe before the second half of the eleventh century described only the lineage of royal families. Gradually, between the late eleventh and the thirteenth century, noble families, and then those of more humble status, increasingly became the subject of genealogies as well.1 The reasons for this great proliferation of genealogical writing are not fully understood: factors that played a part include changes in the way lands were inherited2 and a desire to heed the Church’s prohibitions on incest.3 Legends and romance motifs were frequently incorporated into narrative genealogies. In twelfth-century France, for example, a history of the lords of Amboise identified King Arthur as

1

2

3

L. Genicot, Les Généalogies, Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental, fascicule 15 (Turnhout, 1975), pp. 14–24. G. Duby, ‘French genealogical literature: the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, in his The Chivalrous Society, trans. C. Postan (London, 1977), pp. 149–57 (p. 152). G. Croenen, ‘Princely and Noble Genealogies, Twelfth to Fourteenth Century: Form and Function’, in Medieval Chronicle, ed. Kooper, pp. 84–95.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles indirectly responsible for creating the lordship, and the counts of Boulogne acquired the ‘Knight of the Swan’ as their ancestor.4 From the twelfth century on, genealogies in continental Europe were written in romance vernaculars as well as Latin.5 With a few exceptions, genealogies of English noble families have not attracted a great deal of scholarly interest. There are a large number of surviving Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English genealogies of families from the nobility and the gentry.6 However, the main surveys of medieval England’s historical literature contain only brief discussions of Latin genealogies.7 Genealogies in Middle English fare somewhat better: for example, the Rous Roll and the genealogical tables in the Pageants of Richard Beauchamp, both written for the Beauchamp family who were earls of Warwick, and genealogies of the Percy family have all drawn the attention of scholars.8 As for genealogies in Anglo-Norman, several family chronicles or genealogies are included in Ruth Dean’s catalogue of Anglo-Norman Literature. However, while William Monroe, Olivier de Laborderie and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber have examined in detail the Anglo-Norman genealogical roll-chronicles of English kings,9 genealogies of noble families have not attracted as much attention. 4

5

6

7

8

9

J. Dunbabin, ‘Discovering a Past for the French Aristocracy’, in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. P. Magdalino (London and Rio Grande, 1992), pp. 1–14 (pp. 9, 12). See also N. L. Paul, ‘Crusade and Family Memory before 1225’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2005, Chapter 1, pp. 19–69. Genicot, Généalogies, pp. 43–4. See also Mise à Jour du fascicule no. 15, L. Genicot, Les Genealogies, in Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental (Turnhout, 1985), and Croenen, ‘Princely and Noble Genealogies’. Many of these genealogies are unedited, or printed only in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel. S. Wood, English Monasteries and their Patrons in the Thirteenth Century (London, 1955), pp. 122–35, discusses a number of such texts. See now also E. Jamroziak, ‘Genealogy in Monastic Chronicles in England’ and J. Denton, ‘Genealogy and Gentility: Social Status in Provincial England’, both in Broken Lines: Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain and France, ed. R. L. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 103–22, 143–58. Gransden, Historical Writing, II, mentions some genealogies within larger chronicles (pp. 65, 312, 332, 370–1), a lost genealogy (p. 81) and the genealogy of the Mortimers in the ‘Wigmore manuscript’ (p. 61). Taylor, English Historical Literature, mentions only the Mortimer genealogy, at pp. 286–7, 289. Given-Wilson, Chronicles, pp. 79–85, gives a fuller discussion of genealogies. Kennedy, Manual, VIII, nos. 78, 79, pp. 2707–11; no. 49, pp. 2677–8. The Rous Roll and the Percy genealogies have continued to attract discussion: see e.g. M. J. Holford, ‘Family, Lineage and Society: Medieval Pedigrees of the Percy Family’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 52 (2008), 165–90; A. S. G. Edwards, ‘A Verse Chronicle of the House of Percy’, Studies in Philology 105 (2008), 226–43; Y. Liu, ‘Building History in the English Rous Roll’, Viator 42.2 (2011), 307–19. In particular Monroe, ‘Genealogical Manuscripts’; Laborderie, ‘Généalogies des rois’ and ‘“Ligne des reis”’; C. Klapisch-Zuber, L’Ombre des Ancêtres: Essai sur

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Family chronicles The reasons for this are not hard to guess. The texts preserved in genealogies are usually terse explanations of familial relationships, and it is often difficult to make a case for them as literary artefacts. However, they are not quite documents either: made long after the lives of the earliest family members they describe, they reconstruct a past for a family rather than record it. Given the enthusiastic production of noble genealogies in later medieval England, omitting to study this strand of historical writing threatens to seriously distort our perceptions of how the past was understood in this period.10 Some of the genealogies composed in Anglo-Norman were brief historical notes apparently intended to record a family’s claim to property. For example, one short genealogy in Anglo-Norman which traces the ownership of certain lands by the Paynel and Gant families from the Norman Conquest to the midthirteenth century was preserved in a register of Croxton Abbey.11 Barlings Abbey, which Julia Marvin has suggested may have produced the original Anglo-Norman prose Brut,12 also preserved in its register (now BL MS Cotton Faustina B.I) a genealogy in Anglo-Norman tracing the ownership of lands through numerous families, again including the Paynels.13 Genealogies could also be found in letters, as in the case of a letter from John Plaiz to Edward III pleading his rights to certain lands.14 All these genealogies were most immediately concerned with establishing a claim to inherited property.15 However, sometimes glorifying the family was also a factor. A cartulary written for the Pedwardine family c.1395 begins with a genealogy in AngloNorman tracing their descent from the Croun family. While the text provides only basic genealogical details, it is accompanied by numerous illustrations of

10

11 12 13

14

15

l’imaginaire médiéval de la Parenté (Paris, 2000), pp. 180–5; further studies are cited above in my Introduction, pp. 13–14, and nn. 65–69, and see also J. Collard, ‘Gender and Genealogy in English Illuminated Royal Genealogical Rolls from the Thirteenth Century’, Parergon 17:2 (January 2000), 11–34. If R. Howard Bloch is right in asserting that genealogy is one of the most pervasive and deeply ingrained modes of thought in this period, ignoring genealogies themselves also impairs our criticism of every kind of literature: Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages (Chicago and London, 1983); ‘Genealogy as a Medieval Mental Structure and Textual Form’, in Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters volume XI/1: La Littérature Historiographique des Origines à 1500 (Heidelberg, 1986), pp. 135–56. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, VI, p. 878, no. 6. Marvin, ‘Sources’, pp. 29–31; cf. however, Prose Brut, ed. Pagan, p. 16. Edited in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, VI, p. 917, no. 4. On the register, see G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain: A Short Catalogue (London, New York and Toronto, 1958), no. 19, p. 4. Edited in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, VI, pp.  76–7, no. 2. On John Plaiz, 5th Lord Plaiz, see G. E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, rev. V. Gibbs et al., 12 vols. (London, 1910–59), X, 541–2. Jamroziak, ‘Genealogy in Monastic Chronicles’, reaches a similar conclusion about the genealogies incorporated into the Latin chronicles examined there.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles the coats of arms of the earlier family members: a celebration of the family’s heraldic as well as genealogical inheritance.16 Diana Tyson has suggested that a similar motive may perhaps lie behind the design of Cam., CCC MS 98, a genealogical roll-chronicle of British and English kings, with accompanying text based partly on the prose Brut, which depicts the genealogies of several prominent English noble families, most prominently the earls of March, alongside the royal line.17 There is also genealogical material in Anglo-Norman relating to the Bohuns who were earls of Hereford which is preserved in a post-medieval transcript in Bodl. MS Dugdale 18, fols. 29vb–30va.18 Such genealogical writings in the vernacular did not disappear as Anglo-Norman became less used as a language of record but began to be written in Middle English: as well as the examples mentioned above, notes and genealogies concerning the Anlaby family’s history are found in the family’s cartulary from the second half of the fifteenth century,19 while the cartulary of the Woodford family opens with a narrative account of its founder, ‘olde John off Woodford’.20 Some accounts of family history in the vernacular were more detailed than these short genealogies and historical notes, and it is to these more substantial genealogies, or family chronicles, that I will now turn. These expand on their skeleton of genealogical material and details about land ownership by incorporating stories, both historical and legendary, about their families, and situate them in the context of national history. I will examine the four AngloNorman works which seem to closely fit this definition of a family chronicle: the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock, the Delapré Chronicle, the Mohun Chronicle and Fouke le Fitz Waryn.

The Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock The Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock is a short Anglo-Norman text which recounts the descent of the lordship of Brecknock (Brecon) from the late elev16

17

18 19

20

This is transcribed in Genet, ‘Cartulaires’, in Appendix III, pp. 136–8 (photographs of the genealogy are included as Plates 2–4); Genet comments on the genealogy at p. 127. D. B. Tyson, ‘The Adam and Eve Roll: Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 98’, Scriptorium 52 (1998), 301–16 (p. 308). Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 7 n. 27. M. R. James, ‘The Anlaby Chartulary’, Yorkshire Archæological Journal 16 (1932–4), 337–47 (pp. 340, 343, 345). The cartulary is now Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 329 (K. A. Rand, The Index of Middle English Prose. Handlist XVIII: Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 55–6). BL MS Cotton Claudius A.XIII: see Genet, ‘Cartulaires’, p. 127; also J. Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, 4 vols. (London, 1795–1811; repr. Menston, Yorkshire, 1971), II, part 1, pp. 373–4.

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Family chronicles enth century to 1232.21 The first half of the text seems to be a translation into Anglo-Norman of a passage from Gerald of Wales’s Itinerarium Kambriæ.22 In this work Gerald recounts his version of the history of the lordship from Bernard de Neufmarché (d. between 1121 and 1125), who had captured the territory early in the reign of William Rufus, to his grandson Mahel (d.1165), son of Miles of Gloucester, earl of Hereford (d.1143).23 The Anglo-Norman genealogy then traces the descent of the lordship further, down to the siege of Brecknock, reportedly in 1232, although the narrative loses some of its colourful character once Gerald’s influence disappears. It is found in only one manuscript, BL MS Cotton Julius D.X, which may have belonged to the Augustinian priory of Llanthony Prima in Monmouthshire, or more likely to that of Llanthony Secunda in Gloucestershire,24 as it also contains the only known copy of a Latin chronicle of Llanthony Priory (and a copy of the life of Robert of Béthune, bishop of Hereford, a former prior of Llanthony).25 The Genealogy bears witness to a desire for genealogical information about noble families in the vernacular from the thirteenth century (the text must post-date 1232 and is written in a late thirteenth century Anglicana hand). However, in preserving Gerald’s account of the early lords of Brecknock, the narrative genealogy also retains two colourful episodes. In the first of these, Mahel, son of Bernard de Neufmarché, beats his mother Nest’s lover; angered by this, Nest uses her reputation for infidelity to take her revenge on Mahel, by testifying that Mahel is not Bernard’s son, and Mahel is disinherited by Henry I. The Genealogy leaves out the lengthy sequence of anti-feminist authorities that Gerald goes on to cite in condemning Nest,26 but does not let the episode pass without some moral commentary: Henry disinherits Mahel ‘plus par volunté qe par dreyture’ (‘more by will than by right’),27 and gives his lands to Miles of Gloucester. The second story concerns Miles’s youngest son, William, whose persecution of the bishop of St David’s is speedily 21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Dean, ANL, no. 9, p. 11. The text was edited (with several errors) in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, III, 263–4. There is now a modern edition: Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, pp. 8–13. As noted by Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 5 and n. 17. For the corresponding passage, see Gerald of Wales, Itinerarium Kambriæ, VI, Book 1, Chapter 2, at pp. 28–31; Gerald of Wales, Journey, trans. Thorpe, pp. 88–91. On these historical figures see K. L. Maund, ‘Neufmarché, Bernard de’, Oxford DNB, XL, 459; D. Walker, ‘Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford’, Oxford DNB, XXII, 481–3. Cf. N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn (London, 1964), p. 108. Most of the Llanthony Abbey chronicle is edited in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, VI, 128–34; see also R. W. Hunt, ‘The Preface to the “Speculum Ecclesiae” of Giraldus Cambrensis’, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 8 (1977), 189–213 (p. 193 n. 23). Gerald of Wales, Itinerarium Kambriæ, VI, Book 1, Chapter 2, p. 30; Gerald, Journey, trans. Thorpe, p. 90. Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 8, l. 12.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles avenged by God when the castle that William is staying in catches fire. A stone falls on William’s head, and as he lies dying he sends a message to the bishop in which he recognises the error of his ways: ‘E ben, pere esveske, cruelement se venge de mey Nostre Seynur, e ne atent pas la conversion al pecheur mes haste la morte a perdition.’28 ‘Father bishop, very cruelly Our Lord avenges himself on me, and does not wait for the conversion of the sinner, but hastens death and damnation.’

The second half of the Genealogy, which shares some of its information with a second Latin chronicle of Llanthony Priory,29 relates its material more concisely than the first half, but continues to provide a commentary on events. Brecknock passes into the hands of William de Briouze (Braose) III, the powerful magnate of the Welsh and Irish Marches who fell dramatically out of favour with King John in 1208 and fled to Ireland and then France, where he died in 1211.30 The Genealogy describes how William (who seems here to be conflated with his father, William II) fought a battle ‘ou esteynt ocis plus ke treys mil Waleys’ (‘where more than three thousand Welshmen were killed’),31 but also how, ten years later, ‘le rey Johan Willame de Breuse e ses eyrs saunz acheson e par sa volunté e sanz jugement engeta de Engletere’ (‘King John, without reason and by his will and without judgement, cast William de Briouze and his heirs out of England’).32 After John’s death, the Briouze family manages to reclaim its inheritance in Brecknock, and William III’s grandson, also called William, holds the lordship until ‘fu meme celi Willame convié de Lewylyn, seygnur de Gales, a feste e par treyson ocis’ (‘this same William was taken to Llywelyn lord of Wales with ceremony, and treacherously killed’).33 Llywelyn ap Iorweth, prince of Gwynedd (also known as Llywelyn Fawr), is the villain of the final stages of this account, and, when he becomes envious of the new lord of Brecknock, Humphrey de Bohun the sixth (son of the earl of Hereford), Llywelyn besieges Brecknock Castle in 1232 with the help of

28 29

30

31 32 33

Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 9, ll. 33–4. This is printed in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, vi, 134–5, from a transcript by the herald Robert Glover (1544–88); I am not aware of any surviving medieval manuscript. R. V. Turner, ‘Briouze [Braose], William (III) de’, Oxford DNB, vii, pp. 674–7, or online edn, October 2008, at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3283, accessed 28 Nov 2011; I. W. Rowlands, ‘William de Braose and the lordship of Brecon’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 30 (1982–3), 122–33. Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 10, ll. 49–50. Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 10, ll. 47–8. Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 11, ll. 68–9. William de Briouze V was hanged by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, prince of Gwynedd, on 2 May 1230: see A. D. Carr, ‘Llywelyn ap Iorwerth’, Oxford DNB, xxxiv, 180–5 (p. 185), or online at www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/16874, accessed 28 Nov 2011.

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Family chronicles Earl Richard the Marshal.34 The mention of Humphrey de Bohun the sixth, and of his first wife Eleanor de Briouze (by whom he received the lordship of Brecknock), perhaps suggests a context for the Genealogy: according to the second Latin chronicle of Llanthony, Eleanor de Briouze was buried at Llanthony Secunda in Gloucester after her death (which was between 1252 and 1264),35 as were many of the earls of Hereford (although Humphrey the sixth was not, probably because he died while a prisoner of the king during the Barons’ War). The Genealogy may have been produced in Anglo-Norman for the benefit of Humphrey and Eleanor as benefactors of Llanthony or for their son, Humphrey the seventh, earl of Hereford; it is certainly evidence of the priory’s interest in the family. Another member of the Bohun family was later to take a keen interest in Anglo-Norman historiography: Rauf de Boun, who wrote the Petit Bruit in 1309, is likely to have been either the brother or son of Humphrey de Bohun the sixth.36 The Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock does not contain the quantity of apocryphal legends and historical distortion that the Petit Bruit does, but in the inclusion of Gerald of Wales’s stories, and other accounts of battles, murder and wicked kings, it goes beyond simple genealogy to become a family chronicle in which legendary material plays an important part in imagining a family’s past.

The Delapré Chronicle Another account of a noble family’s history written in Anglo-Norman is found in the Delapré Chronicle. This text is apparently preserved only in Bodl. MS Dugdale 18, fols. 27rb–29rb, a transcript in the hand of William Dugdale, according to whom it was taken ‘Ex pervetusto codice MS. pergamenaceo’ (‘from a very old parchment manuscript book’).37 The modern name for the chronicle was taken from its apparent place of origin as the earls of Huntingdon were patrons of the nunnery of Delapré in Northampton and the chronicle gives an account of how lands in ‘Hardingesthorn’ (Hardingstone, where the nunnery was located) were given to the nunnery by Earl David of Huntingdon (d.1153), and how, although these were taken out of the hands 34

35

36 37

Brecknock was not besieged in 1232 but was besieged in both 1231 and 1233 by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, on the second occasion as an ally of Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke, in his 1233–1234 rebellion: see R. F. Walker, ‘The supporters of Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke, in the rebellion of 1233–1234’, Welsh History Review / Cylchgrawn Hanes Cymru 17 (1994–5), 41–65; J. E. Lloyd, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest, 2 vols., 3rd edn (London, New York and Toronto, 1939; 1st edn 1911), pp. 674 and n. 107, 679 and n. 139). Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, vi, 135. For the date of Eleanor’s death, see Spence, ‘Identity’, p. 71 n. 21. Spence, ‘Identity’, pp. 58–62. Bodl. MS Dugdale 18, fol. 27rb.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles of the nunnery for a while, they were eventually restored to it.38 The Delapré Chronicle was dated by N. Denholm-Young (who edited parts of it) to c.1237, on the basis of passages that conclude the work’s two sections which state that the earldom of Huntingdon was held of the king of Scotland, not of the king of England. These statements indicate that this chronicle was probably produced by Delapré Abbey as part of a (largely successful) attempt to secure the lands of the earldom for King Alexander II of Scotland after the death of John le Scot, earl of Huntingdon and Chester, in 1237.39 As indicated by the discussion of Hardingstone, this claim was connected to the nunnery’s own claim over disputed lands, a dispute with William de Vieuxpont (‘William de Wespund’) which had first arisen in 1219 but which flared up again in 1236 and was still a live issue in 1253: thus, the extant version of the Delapré Chronicle was probably produced both to aid the nunnery’s patrons and out of the nunnery’s self-interest.40 As extant, the first section of the chronicle gives an account of the lives of Siward and Waltheof, earls of Huntingdon and Northumbria in the eleventh century. As described in the previous chapter, this section contains much of the same material as the Latin Vita Waldevi which was written at Crowland Abbey where Waltheof’s body was buried and where the earl was regarded as a saint in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, though the Delapré Chronicle’s account of Waltheof’s death has a very different tone. DenholmYoung believed that for this first section there was a ‘probability that the Latin was taken from the French (though not from the MS. whence Dugdale derived his transcript)’.41 However, Carl Watkins has dated the extant Vita Waldevi as having been written c.1219, which would make it earlier than the extant Delapré Chronicle.42 The second, independent section of the Delapré Chronicle describes part of the history of Delapré Abbey. The surviving transcript of the Delapré Chronicle begins with a lengthy account of the life of Siward, earl of Northumbria (d.1055), who may also have been earl of Huntingdon.43 The narrative dealing with Siward is replete with Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon narrative motifs and legendary material. Denholm-Young notes a reference in the Delapré Chronicle (which is not 38 39

40

41 42 43

‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, pp. 26–7, 11. 249–96. See R. S. Brown, ‘The End of the Norman Earldom of Chester’, English Historical Review 35 (1920), 26–51 (p. 47); Curia Regis Rolls of the Reign of Henry III, volume XVI: 21 to 26 Henry III (1237–1242), ed. L. C. Hector (London, 1979), no. 18, p. 6. For the legal background to this passage, see The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Northamptonshire, ed. W. R. D. Atkins et al., 6 vols, in progress (London, 1902–), iv, 255 and nn. 6–11; K. J. Stringer, Earl David of Huntingdon 1152–1219: A Study in Anglo-Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1985), pp. 144–5, 306 n. 116. Denholm-Young, ‘Anglo-Norman MS’, p. 226. Watkins, ‘Cult of Earl Waltheof’, pp. 96–7. See Cockayne, Complete Peerage, rev. Gibbs et al., vi, 638; W. M. Aird, ‘Siward, earl of Northumbria (d.1055)’, Oxford DNB, online at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/ article/25652, accessed 28 November 2011.

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Family chronicles in the Vita Waldevi) to ‘les lyveres as Engleis, que est en Notynghamsyre, que Richard le Chauntour de Notyngham eut, que counte sa vie et ces feetz’ (‘the books of the English, which are in Nottinghamshire, which Richard the Cantor of Nottingham had, which recount his [i.e. Siward’s] life and his deeds’).44 These ‘lyveres as Engleys’ may have been the original source for the section of the Anglo-Norman text which dealt with Siward. The genealogy of Siward’s ancestors, which survives in full in the Latin Vita Waldevi, but of which only the end is preserved in the extant Anglo-Norman fragment, identifies his father as a ‘cont Beern qi l’urs aveit engendré en la fille au plus haut homme de Denemarche’ (‘Earl Beern, whom the bear had engendered on the daughter of the most noble man in Denmark’).45 Tracing the ancestry of a warrior hero to a bear was a widespread motif but it was especially popular in Danish literature.46 The early adventures of Siward, who fights a dragon in the Orkneys and meets a man there who gives him a banner named ‘Ravenlaundeye’, also incorporate recurring motifs from Scandinavian literature.47 The second incident is particularly similar to an episode from the Orkneyinga Saga which involves Jarl Sigurð Digre: the adventure may have been transferred from Sigurð to Siward due to the similarity between their names.48 After Siward arrives in England, he kills Tosti, earl of Huntingdon, an enemy of Edward the Confessor. Edward gives Siward the earldom as a reward. On the Confessor’s behalf, Siward then battles Norwegians and Scots, 44

45

46

47

48

‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 21, ll. 63–5, quoted also in Denholm-Young, ‘AngloNorman MS’, p. 228. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 20, ll. 1–2; cf. Denholm-Young, ‘Anglo-Norman MS’, p. 227. A. Olrik, ‘Siward Digri of Northumberland: A Viking-Saga of the Danes in England’, Saga-Book of the Viking Club 6 (1908–9), 212–37 (pp. 213, 218–20, 233–7); see also C. E. Wright, The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (Edinburgh and London, 1939), pp. 127–33 (p. 133). T. Bolton, ‘Was the Family of Earl Siward and Earl Waltheof a Lost Line of the Ancestors of the Danish Royal Family?’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 51 (2007), 41–71, re-examines and supports earlier scholars’ claims that this bear-origin story reflected Scandinavian family traditions kept alive by Siward following his arrival in England. For a discussion of Scandinavian motifs in the literature of medieval England, see S. Kleinman, ‘Animal Imagery and Oral Discourse in Havelok’s First Fight’, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 35 (2004), 311–27. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 20, ll. 3–26; the name of the banner is given correctly on p. 22, l. 75. On this section see Olrik, ‘Siward Digri’, pp. 220–5. See A. H. Smith, ‘The Early Literary Relations of England and Scandinavia’, SagaBook of the Viking Society for Northern Research (formerly the Saga-Book of the Viking Club) 11 (1936), 215–32 (pp. 224–6). For the relevant passage, see Orkneyinga Saga, ed. F. Guðmundsson, Íslensk fornrit, 34 (Reykjavik, 1965), Chapter 11, pp. 24–5; Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney, trans. H. Pálsson and P. Edwards (London, 1978), Chapter 11, p. 38. However, the name of the banner also resembles one mentioned in traditions concerning the sons of Ragnar Lothbrog: see Wilson, Lost Literature, pp. 36–8.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles before falling ill and dying in his armour at York, in an episode which also appears in Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum.49 The possibility that these episodes are based on a narrative in Old English involving the historical Siward’s later life has also been suggested, though this is not certain.50 It is striking that this chronicle of a noble family, written in Anglo-Norman, should trace their insular roots back before the Norman Conquest: the Mohun Chronicle’s family history was intended to begin with the Conquest, as the account in Fouke le Fitz Waryn does, while the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock begins during the reign of William Rufus. This is in part a question of opportunity: Waltheof was one of the most prominent noblemen of English descent during William the Conqueror’s reign, while his father Siward was of equal importance during Edward the Confessor’s. Including this ancestry surely enhances the prestige of the family. However, the level of detail about Siward’s deeds indicates more than this. It suggests a genuine willingness to identify the current heirs with a semi-legendary hero from pre-Conquest England: an AngloDanish parallel to the legendary English heroes who figure in national histories in Anglo-Norman written during the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.51 The rest of the first part of the chronicle contains a less sensational history of Siward’s descendants and the earls of Huntingdon down to the midthirteenth century. The account of Waltheof’s life, as noted in the previous chapter, is brief and shows no sign of the hagiographical influences of the Latin Vita Waldevi. The account of the earls of Huntingdon which follows resembles the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock in its lively retelling of the complex history of the earldom. Waltheof’s eldest daughter, Maud (d.1130/1), married twice: the first time to Simon de Seintliz I (d. c.1111), and after his death to David I of Scotland, later king of Scotland (d.1153). Both men held the earldom of Huntingdon as a result of their marriages.52 For the rest of the twelfth century, the earldom passed back and forth between the descendants of Simon de Seintliz I and the Scottish royal family, depending on the state of the relationship between England and Scotland.53 The Delapré Chronicle traces this complex sequence of events in an engaging manner. It begins by relating how William I originally intends to marry Waltheof’s widow to Simon de Seintliz, but she rejects him for a very personal reason: ‘pour ce qu’il estoit clop’ (‘because he was lame’).54 King William ‘de ceo 49 50

51 52 53 54

‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, pp. 20–2, ll. 26–82; cf. HA, p. 378. Wright, Cultivation of Saga, pp. 127–32, argues for the existence of a lost Anglo-Saxon Siwards Saga, a claim noted by Diana Greenway: see HA, p. 378 n. 129. Wright appears to have been unaware of the earlier research into the Scandinavian material by Smith and Olrik. See above, Chapter 3. Cockayne, Complete Peerage, rev. Gibbs et al., vi, 640–2. Cockayne, Complete Peerage, rev. Gibbs et al., vi, 642–6. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 23, l. 130.

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Family chronicles se corrousa’ (‘grew angry at this’)55 and gives Simon the earldom of Huntingdon that had been her dowry, forcing her and her daughters into hiding ‘par le mareys de Ely’ (‘among the marshes of Ely’) until ‘talent prist al conte Symon de femme prendre’ (‘Earl Simon felt the desire to take a wife’).56 Asking his retinue for advice at this point in the narrative, Simon is advised that he should marry la fille as Engleis, a ly la terre avoit esté que le roy ly avoist doné, car si per aventure les Engleis eussent la seigneurie de la terre, la terre luy remansist del don le roy. Et issy espousa Mahud le einnez, et de cele terre feffa ces quaraunte chivaliers [. . .]57 the daughter of the Englishman, whose the land had been that the king had given him, for if by chance the English had the lordship of the land, the land would remain with him by the king’s gift. And thus he married Maud the eldest, and from this land he enfeoffed these forty knights [. . .]

Simon I is a pious man: he twice goes on crusade, dying en route the second time. He and Maud have three children, but after his death, David, brother of King Alexander I of Scotland and of Henry I’s wife Matilda, asks Henry if he can marry Simon’s widow Maud, ‘[e]t le roy, par la requeste la royne, luy dona, et il la epousa, et issy out il la femme et la terre et la garde des enfans’ (‘and the king, at the request of the queen, gave [her] to him, and he married her, and thus he had the wife and the land and the wardship of the children’).58 David, who soon becomes king of Scotland, sends Simon de Seintliz II (d.1153) (Simon I’s son) to his great-uncle’s household in Normandy, because of which ‘le roy Henry se corrusa moult’ (‘King Henry grew very angry’),59 not wanting Simon II to become earl. Simon II only manages to reclaim his inheritance after Henry I’s death. When Simon II dies, his son Simon III is still a minor and he becomes a ward of Henry II. Henry, however, gives the earldom of Huntingdon to King Malcolm IV of Scotland (d.1165). After Malcolm’s death, King William the Lion inherits the earldom of Huntingdon, but loses it after he sides with Henry the Young King in the rebellion of 1173–4. Simon de Seintliz III (d.1184) finally gains possession of the earldom again after English forces besiege the castle at Huntingdon, and the restoration is described enthusiastically by the Delapré Chronicle: Et le conte Simon alla a ces terres et feffa ces chivaliers, et rendi ces hommes leurs services, rendi les terres a ses hommes, a qui les Escoz les eurent toleites, si out et tint le honeur de Huntingdon tout son vivant [. . .]60 55 56 57 58 59 60

‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 23, l. 130. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 23, ll. 134, 136. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 23, ll. 137–41. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 24, ll. 154–6. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 24, l. 162. ‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, p. 25, ll. 200–3.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles And Earl Simon went to these lands and enfeoffed his knights, and gave these men their recompense, gave the lands to his men, from whom the Scots had taken them, and had and held the honour of Huntingdon his whole life [. . .]

This restoration is a return to the status quo, but after Simon III dies without an heir, Henry II reinstates William the Lion as earl of Huntingdon, and William immediately resigns the honour in favour of his brother David (d.1219), Et tout issi, et en ceste maniere, vindrent ceulx d’Escoce a le honour de Huntingdon par defalte que le conte Simon n’avoit heir de sei. Et par ceste raison tenent les heirs le conte David del roy d’Escoce, et nient del roy d’Angleterre.61 And just so, and in this way, those of Scotland came to the honour of Huntingdon by the lack that Earl Simon did not have an heir of his own body. And for this reason the heirs of Earl David hold [the earldom] of the king of Scotland, and not of the king of England.

Like the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock, the family history of the earls of Huntingdon in the Delapré Chronicle is one in which, despite the periodic intervention of angry kings and interruptions to the inheritance through deaths and an absence of direct male heirs, a line can clearly be traced back to the first earl, Siward. Meanwhile, Siward’s deeds as a warrior at the beginning of the narrative demonstrate the military importance of the earls of Huntingdon to England. The legends and the colourful narrative as a whole are deployed in the service of specific land claims of urgent relevance to the family and the abbey, in a way that seems quite alien to modern historians.62 Indeed, the Delapré Chronicle’s approach, deploying the family history and legends of the earls of Huntingdon in the service of the Scottish royal family, does in miniature what the continual rewriting of the legendary history of Britain in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to justify English claims of overlordship in Scotland was to attempt on a national scale.63

The Mohun Chronicle Written about a hundred years after the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock and the Delapré Chronicle, the Mohun Chronicle is the latest example of such a full genealogical narrative in Anglo-Norman. The chronicle of the Mohun family was, however, only one part of a larger work, which, as described in its 61 62

63

‘Delapré’, ed. Ricketts, pp. 25–6, ll. 225–9. This aspect of family history is discussed in relation to twelfth-century French noble families in Dunbabin, ‘Discovering a Past’, pp. 8–14. Cf. above, Chapter 2.

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Family chronicles prologue, was to have contained histories of the emperors, popes, archbishops of Canterbury, kings of England and kings of France, before proceeding to describe how the Mohuns arrived in England during the Norman Conquest and their subsequent family history.64 Unfortunately, the unique medieval manuscript of the chronicle breaks off in the middle of the history of the popes. Only two fragments of the family history have been preserved, in transcripts by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century antiquaries. In the previous chapter, I examined the first of these fragments, which recounts William de Moion I’s arrival with William the Conqueror and gives a spurious list of the lords in his retinue, based on a misinterpretation of a passage in Wace’s Rou. Seen alongside the account of Siward in the Delapré Chronicle, it is clear that part of the appeal of this passage is its celebration of the extraordinary – indeed, incredible – importance and prowess of the family’s founder, who both won the land which the family has inherited and also proved himself, and by extension his family, invaluable to the monarchy. The second surviving fragment appears to be part of a larger description of Reynold de Mohun II’s founding of the Cistercian abbey of Newenham in the thirteenth century. In this passage, Reynold travels to the papal court at Lyons to seek papal confirmation of the new foundation. Not only does Reynold secure the papal bull, he is also elected the ‘plus valiant et [. . .] plus honorable home qui puit estre trovez en la deste courte’ (‘most valiant and most honourable man who could be found in that court’), and the pope makes him ‘le counte de Est, ceo est, Somerset’ (‘the earl of Est, that is, Somerset’), giving him an annual allowance of 200 marks from papal revenues to help him sustain the title.65 Whatever the rest of this narrative described, securing an earldom from God’s representative on Earth was surely a high point in the Mohun family’s fortunes. Like the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock and the Delapré Chronicle, the Mohun Chronicle draws on legends in order to glorify the family that forms its focus and to underpin their claims to titles and to contributions to other important enterprises – the Norman Conquest and the foundation of an abbey.

Fouke le Fitz Waryn While modern knowledge of the Mohun Chronicle’s bombastic family history is limited to a few fragments, a second late account of a family’s story, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, written a few years earlier, still survives in full. The text of Fouke is extant only in an Anglo-Norman prose version (based on an earlier verse text) preserved in a single manuscript, BL MS Royal 12 C.XII.66 Most of this 64 65 66

Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 150, 172, ll. 39–51. Spence, ‘Mohun Chronicle’, pp. 196–9, Extract IV, ll. 5–6, 12. For a description of the manuscript, see FFW, pp. xxxvii–liii.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles manuscript, including the entire text of Fouke, was written by the celebrated main scribe of BL MS Harley 2253.67 However, the antiquary John Leland also made notes from lost English and French verse texts of Fouke;68 in the early fourteenth century a continuator of Pierre Langtoft’s Chronique mentions a ‘livre’ (‘book’) which seems to have described the outlawry of ‘daun Waryn’ (‘Sir Waryn’);69 and ‘un veile livre de fraunceys appellez la gest de Fouke filtz Waryn’ (‘an old book in French called the story of Fouke filtz Waryn’) belonged to Thomas, duke of Gloucester, before his arrest in 1397.70 The narrative of Fouke le Fitz Waryn falls into two halves. The first traces the history of the Fitz Warin family from Payn Peverel, a champion of William the Conqueror, down to Fouke (the third), who lived in the reign of King John. The second half of the work describes the period when Fouke was outlawed by John, concentrating on his legendary adventures.71 The poem ends with the reconciliation of Fouke and John, as Fouke reclaims his ancestral lands and is reassimilated into the English nobility. Fouke resembles family chronicles such as the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock, the Delapré Chronicle and the Mohun Chronicle, treating its subjectmatter in a similar way to the Delapré Chronicle’s approach to the legends about Siward or the Mohun Chronicle’s treatment of Wace’s Rou: as a source for material that heaps praise on, and attributes great deeds to, family members.72 Fouke also resembles these works in emphasising the family’s importance in 67

68

69

70

71

72

The definitive study of this scribe is Revard, ‘Scribe and Provenance’: see above, Introduction, p. 5, n. 22. Leland’s notes were last edited in L. Brandin, ‘Nouvelles Recherches sur Fouke Fitz Warin’, Romania 55 (1929), 17–44 (pp. 26–32). ‘Suite de la Rédaction II’, in Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Thiolier, pp. 365–429, at p. 424, ll. 2475–80 (ll. 2475, 2480). The passage is discussed in Wilson, Lost Literature, p. 116. See also below, pp. 157–8. Viscount, Dillon and W. H. St. John Hope, ‘Inventory of Goods and Chattels Belonging to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester’, The Archæological Journal 54 (1897), 274–308 (p. 301). The suggestion that Fouke may have been a model for Robin Hood has been made many times: see e.g. J. C. Holt, Robin Hood (London, 1982), p. 62. Errors in Fouke have led scholars to question its connection to the Fitz Warins: while early editors generally assumed that it was written for the family, in the twentieth century this assumption was sometimes questioned: see e.g. S. Painter, ‘The Sources of Fouke Fitz Warin’, Modern Language Notes 50 (1935), 13–15 (p. 14); J. Meisel, Barons of the Welsh Frontier: The Corbet, Pantulf, and Fitz Warin Families, 1066–1272 (Lincoln, NE, and London, 1980), pp. 132–8 (p. 133); Crane, Insular Romance, pp. 16–17, first set out in S. Dannenbaum [5Crane], ‘Anglo-Norman Romances of English Heroes: “Ancestral Romance”?’, Romance Philology 35:4 (May 1982), 601–8 (p. 602); J. O’Rourke, ‘British Library MS. Royal 12 C. xii and the Problems of Patronage’, Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 3 (2000), 216–26 (p. 220). Yet in the light of the errors, misrepresentations and legends found in the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock, the Delapré Chronicle and the Mohun Chronicle, such concerns may be unfounded. For a thought-provoking discussion of Fouke le Fitz Waryn considering this issue, see R. Hanna, ‘The Matter of Fulk:

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Family chronicles national history. From the first page to the last, the family’s relationship to the Norman and Angevin kings is of paramount importance. Fouke le Fitz Waryn opens with the exploits of William I’s champion Payn Peverel, from whom the Fitz Warins inherit their lands. The yoking together of family history with national and royal history is indicated by the first lines of the narrative proper in the prose version which echo the account of the Norman Conquest in a national history found elsewhere in the Royal manuscript, a version of the Short English Metrical Chronicle.73 In Fouke, William the Conqueror is described as going on to invade Wales, where Payn Peverel defeats a devil who has possessed the body of the legendary giant Geomagog and has been terrorising the Welsh.74 This episode is indebted to a series of romance topoi, and draws directly on both Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie75 and on the romance Perlesvaus,76 but essentially its function is the same as that of William de Moion’s appearance in the Mohun Chronicle. Both knights are champions of the Conqueror: in certain respects their achievements even surpass the king’s. Their service in enforcing the Conqueror’s claim over the land entitles them, and their descendants, to a share in that land. Siward’s service to Edward the Confessor in the Delapré Chronicle similarly parallels Payn Peverel’s actions. From the beginning of Fouke le Fitz Waryn, the king’s destiny and that of the noble family are inextricably entwined. This connection continues into the second part of the narrative where from their early years the future King John’s destiny is entangled with that of Fouke Fitz Warin. The first time we encounter Fouke he is a boy, playing chess with the young Prince John. Without provocation, John picks up the chessboard and strikes Fouke with it, starting a fight which Fouke finishes. When John goes to his father Henry II to complain, he himself is beaten on account of his poor behaviour.77

73

74 75

76

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Romance and History in the Marches’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 110:3 (July 2011), 337–58. FFW, p. 3, ll. 9–14; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 132; see also above, Chapter 4, pp. 134–5 and n. 123. According to Revard, ‘Scribe and Provenance’, pp. 70–3, it was written by the Harley scribe c. 1316, several years before the first part of Fouke (c.1321–c.1327). FFW, p. 3, l. 14–p. 7, l. 7; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 132–5. The borrowings from the Historia are noted in FFW, pp. 66–7; T. Jones, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, and National Mythology’, Studies in Philology 91 (1994), 233–49, discusses them in detail (see also above, Chapter 2, p. 64). For Fouke’s debt to Perlesvaus, see R. S. Loomis, ‘Chastiel Bran, Dinas Brân, and the Grail Castle’, in his Wales and the Arthurian Legend (Cardiff, 1956), pp. 42–52 (pp. 44–8), revised from the version in Miscellany of Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures in Honour of Leon E. Kastner, ed. M. Williams and J. A. de Rothschild (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 342–50; M. Zink, ‘Le rêve avéré. La mort de Cahus et la langeur d’Arthur du Perlesvaus à Fouke le Fitz Waryn’, Littératures 9–10, Mélanges offerts à Professeur René Fromilhague (spring 1984), pp. 31–8. FFW, p. 22, l. 32–p. 23, l. 4; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 149. FFW, p. xxxiii, notes a similar incident in the chanson de geste known as either Les Quatre Fils Aymon or Renaud de Montauban: see La Chanson des Quatre Fils Aymon, d’après le manuscrit La

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles After this humiliation, John nurses a grudge against Fouke, and this is part of the reason why Fouke eventually ends up an outlaw.78 While Fouke is an outlaw, the king is his main target: indeed, we are told that ‘Fouke [. . .] a nul home voleit fere mal si noun al roy Johan’ (‘Fouke [. . .] had no wish to harm anyone other than King John’).79 In fact, the point is made twice: ‘Fouke ne nul dé suens, de tot le tens qu’il fust exilee, unqe ne voleint damage fere a nully si noun al roy e a ces chevalers’ (‘During the whole period of his exile, neither Fouke nor any of his men ever attempted to harm anyone other than the king and his knights’).80 Fouke manages several times to thwart John, for example stealing from merchants who are transporting ‘le tresour le roy’ (‘the king’s treasure’).81 Eventually, King John is captured by Fouke and his men and taken to Fouke’s ship. ‘Le roy e tous les suens furent molt esbays’ (‘The king and all his men were very much afraid’),82 and John is forced to make peace with Fouke under duress. While in this history the destiny of the noble family and of royalty may be bound together, when the two come into conflict, the noble family comes out on top. A monarch is no match for a Fitz Warin. But in Fouke, the family ultimately profits by championing the cause of kingship. Fouke’s outlawry can be seen as a defence of the ideals of kingship which John has let down so badly: Le roy Johan fust home santz conscience, mavois, contrarious e hay de tote bone gent e lecherous [. . .] pur cele encheson plusours grantz seignours d’Engleterre aveyent rendu al roy lur homages [. . .] King John was a man without a conscience, wicked, quarrelsome, hated by all good people and lecherous [. . .] this is why many great English lords had renounced their homage to the king [. . .]83

When Fouke himself relinquishes his homage to King John, he tells him: ‘vous me dussez meyntenir en resoun, e vous me faylez de resoun e commun[e] ley, e unqe ne fust bon rey qe deneya a ces franke tenauntz ley en

78

79 80 81 82 83

Vallière, ed. F. Castets, Publications de la Société pour l’Étude des Langues Romanes 24 (Montpellier, 1909), pp. 19–20, 331–2 (ll. 1905–56). Another such episode, in which King Triamour’s son Fabur kills the Sultan’s son Sadoine with a chessboard in a quarrel, occurs in Gui de Warewic, ed. Ewert, ll. 7979–8014: I am grateful to Dr Judith Weiss for this reference. FFW, p. 23, ll. 4–5; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 149. See also FFW, p. 24, ll. 4–6; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 150. FFW, p. 43, ll. 6–7; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 167. FFW, p. 27, ll. 26–7; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 153. FFW, p. 26, l. 27–p. 27, l. 25 (p. 26, l. 34); ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 153. FFW, p. 57, ll. 25–6; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 180. FFW, p. 35, l. 34–p. 36, l. 2; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 161. As FFW, pp. xxix–xxx, notes, these criticisms reflect those made by many contemporary historians of John’s reign.

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Family chronicles sa court’ (‘You ought to maintain my rights, and yet you fail me both in rights and in common law. He was never a good king who denied justice to his freeborn tenants in his court’).84 This criticism of royal failures to live up to the ideal of kingship also has parallels in the other family chronicles. As we have seen, Henry I is driven ‘plus par volunté qe par dreyture’ (‘more by will than by right’) and King John acts ‘saunz acheson e par sa volunté e sanz jugement’ (‘without reason and by his will and without judgement’) in the Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock.85 Meanwhile in the Delapré Chronicle, William I’s anger is directed at Judith, Waltheof’s widow, when she refuses to marry Simon de Seintliz I, while Henry I’s is aroused by King David of Scotland’s gentle treatment of Simon de Seintliz II. The conservatism of Fouke is reflected at the end of the text, which describes Fouke’s reintegration into English society. After Fouke and his brothers are pardoned, King John ‘lur rendy quanqe lur fust en Engleterre’ (‘restored to them all their holdings in England’).86 Having re-established his ancient claims to his ancestral lands, Fouke secures additional privileges for his family, such as the right to establish a market in one of his towns, Wantage.87 Like Reynold de Mohun II in the Mohun Chronicle and Simon de Seintliz I in the Delapré Chronicle, Fouke is also recorded as founding an abbey.88 In addition, Fouke accompanies Ranulf, earl of Chester, on a campaign in Ireland and defeats a huge Irish giant there.89 This enables Ranulf to conquer ‘tous ces terres e chastiels en Irlaund’ (‘all his lands and castles in Ireland’), while Fouke returns home and builds ‘un chastel fort e bel’ (‘a strong and handsome castle’).90 With the vanquishing of a second giant, the text invites us to draw a comparison between the achievements of two true servants of the crown: Payn Peverel, who defeated the possessed giant Geomagog, and his heir Fouke. Counter-intuitively for a text so concerned with rebellion, the ‘happy ending’ for the work is the ongoing accumulation of achievements by, and privileges for, the noble family through their service to the monarchy.91 84 85 86 87 88 89

90 91

FFW, p. 24, ll. 29–31; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 151. Tyson, ‘Genealogy’, p. 8, l. 12; p. 10, ll. 47–8. FFW, p. 58, l. 6; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 181. FFW, p. 58, ll. 10–14; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 181. FFW, p. 59, l. 10; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 181. FFW, p. 58, ll. 15–38; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 181. For Ranulf III, earl of Chester’s appearances as a literary figure, and their connection to the tantalising reference to the ‘rymes of [. . .] Randolf Erl of Chestre’ in Piers Plowman, see G. S. Burgess, ‘“I kan rymes of Robyn Hood, and Randolf Erl of Chestre”’, in ‘De sens rassis’: Essays in Honor of Rupert T. Pickens, ed. K. Busby, B. Guidot and L. E. Whelan (Amsterdam and New York, 2005), pp. 51–84, and J. Spence, ‘A Lost Manuscript of the “Rymes [. . .] of Randolf Erl of Chestre”’, EBLJ: Electronic British Library Journal, Article 6 (2010), online at www.bl.uk/eblj/2010articles/article6.html. FFW, p. 58, ll. 36, 35; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 181. J. Marvin, ‘Anglo-Norman Narrative as History or Fable: Judging by Appearances’, in The Medieval Chronicle III, ed. E. Kooper (Amsterdam and New York, 2004),

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Yet despite the way that Fouke frames its narrative as a chronicle of the Fitz Warin family, it is happy to retain those legendary and outlandish elements that have caused modern scholars to debate it as a romance.92 Its main protagonist, Fouke III, seems very much to have been thought of as a larger-thanlife hero akin to the protagonists of romances, both in the wider culture and in this text. It is surely Fouke’s romanticised outlawry that the continuator of Langtoft’s Chronique refers to when he describes Robert the Bruce’s time in hiding:93 Du boyvre daun Waryn ly roy Robyn ad bu, Qe citez et viles perdist par l’escu, Aprés en la foreste, forsenez et nu, Se pesceyt ove la beste de cel erbe cru; Son livre le temoygne, lyquels de ly est lu.94 King Robert has drunk of the drink of Sir Waryn; he who lost cities and towns in battle, afterwards, in the forest, mad and naked, he ate with the beasts, lived on this grass; his book, which is read about him, witnesses to it.

This reference to the narrative and the book which contains it is ambiguous: it could refer to an account of Robert’s life, such as John Barbour’s later Bruce, but given that the continuation was written so soon after these events, a reference to a version of Fouke seems more likely. This is certainly how Robert Mannyng, who picked up and expanded this reference in his translation of Langtoft’s Chronique, understood it: & wele I vnderstonde þat þe Kyng Robyn has dronken of þat blode, þe drink of Dan Waryn. Dan Waryn he les tounes þat he held, with wrong he mad a res & misberyng of scheld; siþen in to þe forest he yede, naked & wode,

92

93

94

pp.  116–34, notes that the surviving manuscript of Fouke le Fitz Waryn has been annotated by at least one reader who was interested in the historical content of the text and made notes on subjects including ‘land transfers and a marriage’ (p. 123), suggesting that for this reader at least it was the acquisitions of the Fitz Warins which held the greatest interest within the narrative. Cf. in particular Legge, ANL, pp. 139–75; Dannebaum, ‘Anglo-Norman Romances’; and Crane, Insular Romance, pp. 18, 53–91. FFW, p. xxxvii, and Field, ‘Romance as history’ provide helpful discussions of the blurred line between historical and romance writing in the later medieval period. As Alison Williams notes, the romance elements of the tale have actually reinforced the identification of modern communities around Ludlow and Whittington with the Fitz Warins: A. Williams, ‘Stories Within Stories: Writing History in Fouke le Fitz Waryn’, Medium Ævum 81 (2012), 70–87. Robert the Bruce was in hiding in the winter of 1306–7: see Prestwich, Three Edwards, p. 53. ‘Suite de la Rédaction II’, in Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Thiolier, p. 424, ll. 2475–9.

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Family chronicles als a wilde beste ete of þe gres þat stode. Þus of Dan Waryn in his boke men rede. God gyf þe Kyng Robyn þat alle his kynde so spede!95

Fouke’s name also appears in the works of numerous Welsh court poets from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century: Dafydd ap Gwilym, Gruffudd ap Maredudd, Iolo Goch, Guto’r Glyn, Dafydd Nanmor, Tudur Aled and William ˆ all mention ‘Syr Ffwg’ as an example of a great knight.96 That this is Llyn Fouke Fitz Warin is made clear by Guto’r Glyn’s reference to him at one point as ‘Ffwg Warin’.97 In this poetry ‘Ffwg’ is usually associated with romance heroes: in another reference to ‘Sir Ffwg’ Guto’r Glyn mentions him alongside ‘Syr Gai’ (Guy of Warwick), ‘Syr Gawen’ (Gawain), ‘Syr Liwnel’ (Lionel), ‘Syr Libius Diggwynus’ (Libeaus Desconnus) and ‘Syr Befus’ (Bevis of Hampton).98 Especially among poets writing in Welsh, then, an association between Fouke Fitz Warin and the heroes of romance was widespread late in the Middle Ages. Moreover, while Leland omitted the majority of Fouke’s more unlikely adventures from his notes, the author of the fourteenth-century prose Fouke felt no need to tone down those elements in the legends from Fouke’s time as an outlaw which stem from the romance tradition.99 Thus, in an episode reminiscent of the rough justice meted out in Gamelyn,100 Fouke mercilessly avenges himself on a band of vagabonds, led by one Peter de Brubille who has been impersonating Fouke: the real Fouke forces Peter to cut off the head of each member of his robber band and then decapitates the impersonator himself.101 Next, Fouke sails with the mariner Mador del Mont de Russie: they first visit the Orkneys, then Fouke fights dragons in Sweden and on the Iberian peninsula,102 and he then encounters Saracens in Africa.103 And Fouke’s last adventure, of course, is killing the Irish giant.104 95 96

97

98

99 100

101 102

103 104

Mannyng, Chronicle, part 2, ll. 8203–10. R. T. Jenkins, ‘Fitz Warin, lords of Whittington [. . .]’, in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, ed. Sir J. E. Lloyd and R. T. Jenkins (London, 1959), pp.  264–5; ‘Fitzwarine, Fulk’, in The New Companion to the Literature of Wales, ed. M. Stephens (Cardiff, 1998), pp. 247–8. Gwaith Guto’r Glyn, ed. J. L. Williams and I. Williams (Cardiff, 1939), no. 22, ‘I Ofyn Ebol’, pp. 59–61 (p. 60, l. 49). Gwaith Guto’r Glyn, ed. Williams and Williams, no. 45, ‘I Siôn Bwrch Arglwydd Mawddwy’, pp. 121–2 (p. 122, ll. 35–9). E. Poppe, ‘Beues of Hamtoun in Welsh Bardic Poetry’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 43 (summer 2002), 49–57, gives other examples. See FFW, pp. xxii–xxiii. ‘The Tale of Gamelyn’, in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, ed. S. Knight and T. Ohlgren (Kalamazoo, MI, 2000), pp. 184–226 (ll. 799–822). FFW, pp. 30, l. 32–32, l. 3; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 156–7. FFW, p. 45, ll. 19–26; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 169. FFW, pp. 46, l. 9–48, l. 23; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 170–2. FFW, pp. 55, l. 6–56, l. 3; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 178–9. See above, p. 157.

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Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles Perhaps the most common romance and folklore motif of them all is that of the hero disguising himself.105 This disguise topos is utilised repeatedly in Fouke. Shortly after he becomes an outlaw, Fouke disguises himself firstly as an aged monk in order to evade capture106 and secondly as Amys del Bois when he seeks refuge with Philippe Auguste, king of France.107 Then, in a scene which recalls the Roman de Horn, Fouke exchanges his clothes with a charcoal-burner in order to trick and capture King John,108 while in a later episode, reminiscent of the combat between Yvain and Gawain in Chrétien de Troyes’s Chevalier au Lion, Fouke fights as the champion of a Saracen king, unaware that his opponent is his brother Philip the Red.109 Fouke’s companion John de Rampaigne, meanwhile, disguises himself no fewer than three times in order to infiltrate their enemies’ courts: on one occasion John even chews a herb so that ‘sa face comença d’engroser e emflyr moult gros’ (‘[h]is face began to swell and to become grossly puffed up’), in order to facilitate his disguise.110 Whereas Leland in his abstract filtered out the dragons and giants, apparently in order to give the historical portions of Fouke more credibility, the fourteenth-century prose Fouke was concerned more with presenting the members of its chosen family as heroically as possible than with strict verisimilitude. Ultimately the romance material served, like the stories and legends in the other family chronicles, to demonstrate that the family in question played an important role in history. So, although Fouke le Fitz Waryn incorporated this romance material into its family history, this was not a move away from writing a historical account. The Anglo-Norman genealogical narratives of noble families discussed in this chapter did have practical purposes, such as supporting the family’s claims to inherited lands. But they also served to enhance the family’s prestige: by situating the families in the context of national history; by providing a moral 105

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Appearing in (among many texts) Anglo-Norman romances such as Thomas, Le Roman de Tristan, in Tristan et Iseut: Les poèmes français, la saga norroise, ed. D. Lacroix and P. Walter (Paris, 1989), pp. 330–481 (ll. 504–646, 791–6), and Gui de Warewic (see below, n. 109). FFW, p. 29, ll. 6–28; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, p. 155. FFW, pp. 40, l. 4–41, l. 31; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 164–6. FFW, p. 49, ll. 3–31; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 172–3. In the Roman de Horn, Horn exchanges outfits with a pilgrim to visit his beloved, Rigmel, when she is being held by his envious rival Wikele: Thomas, Roman de Horn, ed. Pope, laisses 188–205, ll. 3945–4354; Birth of Romance in England, trans. Weiss, pp. 115–22. FFW, pp. 55, l. 6–56, l. 3; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 178–9. Cf. Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), ed. D. F. Hult, in Chrétien de Troyes, Romans (Paris, 1994), pp. 705–936, at pp. 909–21 (ll. 5987–6361). Gui de Warewic meanwhile also fights as a pagan king’s champion: Gui de Warewic, ed. Ewert, ll. 8419–880. FFW, pp. 32, l. 11–33, l. 9 (p. 32, ll. 17–18); ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 157–9 (p.  158);  for the other occasions, see FFW, pp. 37, l. 8–38, l. 23; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 162–3; FFW, pp. 56, l. 8–57, l. 18; ‘Fouke’, trans. Burgess, pp. 179–80.

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Family chronicles commentary on the actions and treatment of the families; and by incorporating legendary and romance elements into their account. These strategies made the narrative of the family’s rise a memorable one. Fouke le Fitz Waryn exemplifies the extent to which these family chronicles pursued these strategies in order to enhance their histories and to express their vision of the past.

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CONCLUSIONS My aim in this book has been to create a fuller understanding of AngloNorman prose chronicles as a distinctive genre within the literary culture of late medieval England. In this conclusion, I will attempt to re-evaluate that place in the light of the information presented in previous chapters. To begin with, it is clear that Anglo-Norman prose chronicles occupied a distinct space in that literary culture. Anglo-Norman was an authoritative language of official records, and it was also the main language of private correspondence: an intimate language which could allow chroniclers to engage directly with their audiences. At the same time, the language had a distinguished literary past, including in the genre of historical writing. AngloNorman prose chroniclers fused the directness of an everyday language with the rhetorical flourish and imagination of earlier verse histories. As I described in my first chapter, this allowed the chroniclers to articulate with confidence in their prologues that their works were definitive historical accounts clearly presented. Having established their own authority, these chronicles began to recount their version of the past. In my analysis I have concentrated on their presentation of key ideas and episodes from national history: the legendary British past, legends about heroes of Anglo-Saxon England, and the Norman Conquest. From a comparison of their treatment of these three subjects, a common approach to their representations of the past emerges. Even though these chronicles were forceful in asserting their own veracity, their authors felt able to rewrite their sources’ accounts of history. A key feature of this approach is the incorporation of legendary material into their accounts. Arthurian romances preoccupied Rauf de Boun and Gray in their Petit Bruit and Scalacronica, even though they insisted that their accounts were historically accurate. Romance heroes appeared in the Anglo-Saxon Englands of almost all these chronicles. Despite potentially running counter to the predominant interpretation of the Norman Conquest, legends such as those about Harold’s survival after Hastings and about St Wulfstan’s resistance to an attempt to remove him during William’s reign (as part of a wider policy to install Norman clerics) appeared repeatedly. Such legends were an integral part of the historical imagination of these chroniclers. Whether they believed them or not – and they often expressed scepticism – these stories played a central role in how they conceived of the past. These legends are not simply repeated from the chronicles’ sources but are deployed in an innovative manner to reinforce the vision of history which a text seeks to articulate. For instance, the prose Brut is determined to present 162

Conclusions a version of national history in which British, and English, and Norman kings seem bound together in a single regnal line, even if not by blood. Consequently, the importance of moments when this continuity seems to be ruptured – the ‘passage of dominion’ to the English, the Norman Conquest – is minimised by the prose Brut. Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica presents a very different vision of national history (despite using the prose Brut as a major source). Here, knights and soldiers are given a crucial part to play alongside kings in making history, whether these are the knights of Arthur’s Round Table, warriors from Anglo-Saxon England such as Havelok, Guy of Warwick, Unwine, Wade and Sigrun, or the armies of Harold and William I. Meanwhile, works from a more clerical background such as LRE and Trevet’s Cronicles emphasise the central importance of Christianity and the Church throughout national history. It is perhaps surprising, then, given the variety of these interpretations, and the willingness of the chronicles to rewrite the accounts of the past available to them, that a broad consensus emerges between these works. The ‘legendary history of Britain’ is understood as a glorious antecedent to English history. The extraordinary heroes of the Anglo-Saxon period established an England resembling that of contemporary readers. The Norman Conquest was not a disaster which overturned England’s established order; rather, it restored this order after Harold usurped the throne. Such conclusions insist on continuity between history and the current state of affairs: the past is important because it is connected to the present. At the same time as emphasising this continuity, the chronicles portray England as receptive to influences from beyond its borders. In these chronicles, the most significant heroes of Anglo-Saxon England come from abroad yet they renew and enhance Englishness, just as Duke William of Normandy restores the English polity in 1066. The consensus between these chronicles is not, however, reached without anxieties. Doubts are expressed over the historical accuracy of accounts of Arthur’s reign and other aspects of the legendary history of Britain. Describing the heroes of early English history uncovers troubling conflicts between multiple sources. The spectre of Edgar Ætheling’s claim to the throne is raised in many accounts of the Norman Conquest in these chronicles. A clear feature of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles is the reflective treatment these works give to their source material and their own accounts. Some chronicles deviated from the consensus. Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit completely rearranged the legendary history of Britain and Anglo-Saxon history, providing an English Arthur for his audience. In its account of the Norman Conquest the Brute Abregé even championed Harold’s cause and described William’s seizure of the kingdom as a ‘vilainie’. Despite the general consistency in their approach, Anglo-Norman prose chronicles could nevertheless contain diverse views about the past. The approach is not unique to those works focused on recounting histories of England. I have also analysed Anglo-Norman prose chronicles which 163

Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles recount the history of noble families. These share with national histories a desire to make legends and romance material part of their pasts. These works glorify family members by representing them as heroes. To emphasise the importance of these families the chronicles also focus on their role in national history, representing it rather differently from histories of England. The Norman Conquest, in particular, becomes a dramatic break with the past in the Mohun Chronicle and Fouke le Fitz Waryn in order to glorify the founders of the Mohun and Fitz Warin dynasties by depicting William de Moion I and Payn Peverel as champions of William the Conqueror. The families around which these historical narratives are based, however, tend to remain as stable as the nation does in the national histories, despite any temporary reversals of fortune. Both national and family chronicles assert an essential continuity between past and present. From the thirteenth century to the fifteenth, and beyond, Anglo-Norman prose chronicles were to permeate many aspects of England’s literary and historical culture through later translations and use as source material.1 They are a distinctive genre with a shared approach to constructing their accounts. They provide attractive and compelling reimaginings of the past, tailored to their areas of focus and their own audiences, but employing a similar approach to creating their narratives in the use of legendary material. In the study of the literary and historical culture of later medieval England, AngloNorman prose chronicles are valuable sources for understanding how their writers and readers thought about the past, and there is still a lot to learn from them.

1

For example, Chaucer and Gower did not only take the story of Constance from Trevet’s Cronicles: both authors make references to other historical details from Les Cronicles elsewhere in their poetry (Pratt, ‘Chaucer and Les Cronicles’; Correale, ‘Chaucer’s Manuscript’; Correale, ‘Gower’s Source Manuscript’). Similarly, John Hardyng’s Chronicle draws on some version of the prose Brut for a number of details (Fletcher, Arthurian Material, pp. 251–3).

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APPENDIX

Two Extracts from the Scalacronica: Texts and Translations In this appendix, I provide edited transcripts of two passages from the Scalacronica which I discuss above in Chapter 3. I have edited these passages in line with the conventions applied to transcripts elsewhere in this book and with my edition of the Mohun Chronicle (although I have not indicated folio numbers within the text). As an aid to readers, I provide translations.

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Appendix

Gray’s story of Ingil (from Cam., CCC MS 133, fol. 88ra–b)

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Les Saxsouns sez entrecounsaillerent de l’establicement de lour tere. Il y avoit entre eaux un vaillaunt prus chivaler, le plus grant sires de touz, qi estoit de bon age, quy out a surenoun Ingel. Cesti out un feile de tres grant beauté, qe pur vertu soulement toutdice teint virginité: cesti puscel out autresy a noun Ingele, com touz lez gentz d’un pays de Saxsoun estoint nomez, dez queuz cesti estoit chevetain, qe si nettement voiderent lour pays od femmes et enfauntes a cest conquest, qe grant temps aprés lour pays, un party de Saxsoun, estoit desert, desenhabitez. Ascuns cronicles tesmoignent q’il est unqor gast. Aprés cest nacioun, le plus grant poeple qe vindrent dez Saxsoins, et qe plus multiplierent, et plus durerent outre touz lours adversités de batail et de pestilence, hurent lez plusours du poeple primerment a noune Engleses, qi voroint qe cesti Ingil ust esté roys, pur ceo qe par ly estoint ils touz honourez. Mais a ceo ne voroint lez autres acorder qe un soul en fust roy, issint q’ils en fussent touz a un sutzgiz, mais qe la terre en fust departy a la maner com Hengist la voit disseveré. Mais ils sez acorderent bien qe la nacioun en fust nomez aprés Ingil, le prus chevaler, et en remembrance de Hengist, a qy il estoit parent. Lez gestis de Saxsouns volount dire qe cesti qi en cest Bruyt est apellez Ingil est nomé par les ditez de Bede Elee. Ensy perdist Bretaigne soun noun, qe touz jours puis ad esté apellez Ingland.

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Two extracts from the Scalacronica: texts and translations

The Saxons discussed amongst themselves about the establishment of their land. There was among them a worthy and valiant knight, the greatest lord of them all, who was of full age, whose surname was Ingil. He had a daughter of very great beauty, who on account of virtue alone kept her virginity forever. This maiden also had the name Ingele, as all the people of a country of Saxony were named, of whom this one was the chieftain. They had so completely left their country, with women and children, in this conquest, that for long after their country, a part of Saxony, was deserted, uninhabited. Some chronicles witness that it is still empty. After this nation, the largest nation that came among the Saxons, and that multiplied the most, and moreover endured more in all their adversities in battle and in disease, were the majority of the people primarily called Angles by name, who wanted Ingil to be king, because by him they were all honoured. But the others would not agree to that, that one alone should be king, so that they were all subject to one, but [said] that the land should be divided in the way that Hengist had wanted to divide it. But they certainly agreed that the nation should be named after Ingil, the worthy knight, and in remembrance of Hengist, to whom he was a kinsman. The histories of the Saxons say that this one who in this Brut is called Ingil is called Elee in the writings of Bede. Thus Britain lost its name, which has always since been called England.

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Gray’s story of Havelok (from Cam., CCC MS 133, fols. 84ra-85va)

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En quel temps, pur diversete du siecle, com dit est apocrofum par ditez dez ascuns qi del Bruyt sez entremistrent, estoint deus petitz roys desoutz Costantyn. L’un se disoit roys de Northfolk et Southfolk, qi out a noun Athelbright. L’autre avoit a noun Edelsy, qi se disoit roys de Nichol et de Lindesey. Qe tout ne soient lez nouns de ceux ii. roys especifiez en lez cronicles qe ensuount, qe sount memoir du ligné et regne dez roys Saxsouns qi regnerent succiement tancom durerent lez vii. realmes qe Hengist en departist. Purra estre solonc le usage de lour Ties paiis de Allemain, com touz lez fitz dez seignours, dez dukes et countes, com bien q’ils soient, departerount le heritage, et chescun portera le noun de duk ou count aprés discese lour piers. Pur quoi plusours seignours de l’empire vount en declin, qe lez ditz cronicles n’en toucherent memoir, fors de lez principalles roys. Tout fust ceo ensi, solonc lour custom de Saxsoin, qe ascun foitz ascun pusne fitz en cas dez roys sez clamoient regner en ascun parcel de l’heritage lours piers, com en cest cas par aventure firent ceux dieus roys. Lez queux fortement sez entreguerroient, mais au dareyn sez entrepeiserent par mariage: Athelbright prist a femme la sore Edelsi, qe out a noun Orewen, de qey il engendra un feil q’avoit a noun Argentile en Bretoun, Goldeburgh en Saxsoun. Athelbright se lessa murre, et devaunt sa mort baillast sa feil a Edelsy le uncle la damoisel a nurre, sur condicioun par soun serement q’il la deveroit marier, quant el serroit parcru, a le plus fort et a le plus apert hom q’il poait nul part trover. La damoisel deveint la plus bele creature du mounde. Aveint ensi en le hour q’en la court le roy Edelsy estoit venuz un juvencel graunt et membrous, parcru, mervaillousement de graunt force et beauté, mais durement povrs. Lez cowes le roy pristrent le dit juvencel au cosyn pur tourner lour broches qi ly demaunderent de soun estre. Il lour disoit q’il avoit a noun Cuaran et fust fitz Gryme un peschour, qi plus ne ly pooit sustenir, taunt fesoit cher ane de blé. Le dist Cuaran deveint fort et apert, issi qe nuls de la court le roy ne ly pooit countrevaloir en toutes assayes de force. Lez cows envyeret tout la remenaunt de la mené le roy od lour tournebroche en toutes proves de forz: en jue de lute, cour, en sautes, et ruer dez peres. Le roy Edelsy, qi ceo aperceyvoit, ly fist baillere a femme sa nece Goldeburgh, en pensaunt q’il avoit sauvé soun serement q’il la marriroit a le plus apert q’il troveroit, mes le ne fist pas pur tiel caus, mais pur ceo q’il pensoit a tenir sa tere saunz chalange de nuly qe serroit a redouter. Mais en cel la estoit disceu, qar ou il quidoit de la avoir marié a un failly, il la dona a Havelok le fitz Birkebayn roy de Denemark, qi le sensechal soun pier avoit fait bailler aprés discesse le roy a Gryme un peschour de le avoir fet noier, a devenir meismes roys. Qi Gryme en out pité, si ne le voloit faire; mais se movoit od

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Two extracts from the Scalacronica: texts and translations

In which time, because of the diversity of the world, as is said apocryphally, by the sayings of some, who concern themselves with the Brut, there were two minor kings under Constantine. One, who had the name Athelbright, called himself king of Norfolk and Suffolk. The other, who called himself king of Lincoln and of Lindsey, had the name Edelsi. The names of the two kings are not mentioned at all in the chronicles that follow, which are the memory of the line and the kingdom of the Saxon kings who reigned in succession while the seven realms that Hengist divided for them endured. This could be because of the practice of their Teutonic land of Germany, since all the sons of lords, of dukes and earls, however many there were, divided their inheritance, and each bore the title of duke or earl after the death of their fathers. For which reason many lords of the empire declined, on whose memories these chronicles do not touch, except for the major kings. All was thus like this, according to their custom of Saxony, that each time each younger son (in the case of kings) claimed himself to be king in each part of the inheritance from their fathers, as in this case perhaps these two kings did. These kings warred mightily with one another, but eventually made peace with a marriage: Athelbright took Edelsi’s sister, who was called Orewen, as his wife, on whom he engendered a daughter who was called Argentille in British, Goldeburgh in Saxon. Athelbright gave himself up to death, and before his death entrusted his daughter to Edelsi, the uncle of the young lady, to bring her up, on condition that, by his oath, he ought to have her married, when she was fully grown, to the strongest and the most valiant man that he could find anywhere. The damsel became the most beautiful creature in the world. Thus it happened at that time that a young man came into the court of King Edelsi, large and strong, fully grown, of astonishingly great strength and beauty, but extremely poor. The cooks of the king took this young man to the kitchen to turn their spits, [and] asked him who he was. He said to them that he was called Cuaran and was the son of Grim, a fisherman, who could no longer support him, because corn was so expensive that year. This Cuaran became strong and valiant, so that none in the king’s court could equal him in all trials of strength. The cooks pitted all the rest of the king’s household against their spit-turner in every test of strength, in wrestling contests, running, in jumping, and throwing of stones. King Edelsi, who noticed this, gave his niece Goldeburgh to him as his wife, thinking that in this way he would have kept his oath that he would marry her to the most valiant that he could find, but it was not done for this reason, but because he thought to keep his land unchallenged by anyone who would be feared. But in this he was frustrated, for when he sought to have her married to one who was weak, he gave her to Havelok, the son of Birkebayn king of Denmark, whom the seneschal of his father had entrusted after the death of the king to Grim, a fisherman, to have him drowned, in order to become king himself. This Grim had pity 169

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le dit enfaunt hors de la tere; qi aryva en Lindesay, ou est ore Grimesby, pur qi le lieu avoit cel noune. Le dit Havelok estoit convayé od sa dit femme hors de la court le roy. Se treya devers Grimysby, ou lui fust dit q’il estoit de Denemark neez, et fitz le roi. Pur quoi en le houre il repaira en Denemark od sa femme, qi se herbisa la primer nuyt q’il y veint en un grant cité de la tere, Aet,1 un graunt burges. Et com il estoit couché od sa femme en un chaumber vindrent sauvagez juvenceaux, fitz dez burges, pur debriser la mesoun, de ly avoir tollu sa femme, qi la avoint aparsu de si tres mervaillous beauté. Il sailly sus vigorousement et od un bastoun lez artourna a la gyse, qe a payne ne ly eschapa nuls saunz mort ou mahayn. Recloist le huse et se recoucha a dormire. Le capitayn du chastel de la cité en oy parler de cest mellé: si en veint au matyn qe en fist enquer la maner. Et quant il aparceust qe ceo estoit en le outrage dez assaillours et en defens Havelok, il ly fist amener od sa mulier au chastel pur sauveté de eaux, pur ceo qe gentz resembloient estiens de haut ligné. Il lour fist eiser; a sair lour fist couchere en un chaumbre pres ou meismes gisoit. Entour my nuit, le dit chastelayn aparceust clareté de lumer dedenz la chaumbre ou Havelok gisoit. Se trey al hus de la chaumbre, lez trovoit en dormaunt, si vist, com tesmoigne l’estoir de Havelok, un ray de lumier isser du lite. Aparceust qe ceo issoit du bouche Havelok. Il fist quer lez plus pussantz de la cité a tesmoigner cest chos, qe grantement sez mervaillerent, qi disoient: ‘il est dit,’ firent ils, ‘qe ceo est le signe real de droit heir de Denemark’. Au matin ils mistrent Havelok a resoun, qi bien aparcevrent par sez ditez et par la maner de Grime le pescheour, qe bien conerent, qe ceo estoit Havelok le fitz lour roy, qe osté estoit par le seneschal qi meismes desiroit a estre roys, com pres cosyn le roy; de quoi bien estoit murmur, mes le certayn n’estoit [pas]2 sceu devaunt cest hour. Ils li reconustrent pur seignour, par eide dez queux il reconquist Denemark, tout la maner coment apirt plus pleinement en les gestes de ly. Il envoyast quer lez fitz Grime, qi riches lour fist fair, a repaira en Bretaigne et recounquist l’eritage sa femme, et tua Edelsy le uncle sa fem en batail, mais il ne y en demurast geris. Mais com tesmoigne l’estore de Havelok, qe plus au plain count sez journés en Denemark et autre part, qe le jour de la batail ou Edelsy fust mort estoint tauntz dez gentz Havelok tuez qe a payn ne ly remyst la sisme party. Ses enemys qi ceo aparscevrent ly voroint avoire surcurru l’endemeyne, de quoy Havelok se douta. Si fist redresser lez mortez homs tout armez, fichez sure puces en conray de batail, qi au vieu dez enemys au matyn resemblerent moultz plus qe le jour passé. Pur quoy lez enemys s’en alerent lour voy saunz plus fair. Havelok se retourna en Denemark, qe plus ne en parole cest gest, fors en taunt: qe toutdis puis le temps Belyn Bren, la truage de Denemark fust demaundé dez Bretons, tanqe le temps The town is not named in Gaimar’s Estoire, the Lai d’Haveloc, or the ME Havelok. MS ps.

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Two extracts from the Scalacronica: texts and translations on him, and he did not wish to do it, but left the land with this child, and arrived in Lindsey, where Grimsby is now, for whom the place was named. This Havelok was escorted with his wife out of the king’s court. He came to Grimsby where it was told to him that he was of Danish birth and the king’s son. For which reason he went at that time to Denmark with his wife, and lodged himself the first night when he came to a great city of the country, Aet, a great town. And as he was in bed with his wife in a bedroom, wild young men came, sons of the townsmen, to break into the house in order to abduct his wife, whom they had noticed on account of her very marvellous beauty. He [Havelok] came out vigorously and with a staff dealt with them in such a way that scarcely any escaped unless dead or injured. He closed the door again and went back to bed to sleep. The governor of the city’s castle heard word of this brawl, so he came there in the morning so that he might enquire about its nature. And when he learned that it was because of the outrage on the part of the assailants and in defence on Havelok’s side, he had him brought with his wife to the castle for their safety, because they seemed like people of high birth. He made them comfortable; in the evening he had them sleep in a chamber near to where he himself lay. Around midnight this castellan noticed brightness of light in the chamber where Havelok lay. He went to the door of the bedroom, found them sleeping, and he saw, as the story of Havelok testifies, a ray of light come from the bed. He noticed that it came from Havelok’s mouth. He had the most powerful people of the city sought out in order to witness this thing, who were greatly astonished, who said: ‘It is said,’ said they, ‘that this is the royal sign of the rightful heir of Denmark.’ In the morning they talked with Havelok, whom they perceived with certainty by his words and by the behaviour of Grim the fisherman, whom they knew well, to be Havelok the son of their king, who had been deposed by the seneschal who himself wished to be king, as a close relation of the king: about which there was certainly rumour, but the certain truth was not known before this time. They acknowledged him as their lord, with whose aid he reconquered Denmark: all the manner in which [he did so] appears more clearly in the account of his deeds. He sent for the sons of Grim, to whom he had riches given, and returned to Britain, and reconquered the inheritance of his wife and killed Edelsi the uncle of his wife in battle, but he did not remain there long. But as the account of Havelok witnesses, that more fully describes his days in Denmark and elsewhere, the day of the battle where Edelsi was killed, there were so many of Havelok’s men killed, that scarcely a sixth of them remained. His enemies who saw this wished to overrun him the next day, for which reason Havelok was afraid. Thus he had the dead men lifted up in all their armour, fixed on poles in battle array; who, in the morning, to the eyes of the enemies, looked like many more than the day before. For which reason the enemies went on their way without doing any more. Havelok returned to Denmark, of which this account says no more except for this: that always since the time of Belinus and Brennius, the tribute of Denmark was demanded by the Britons, until the time of this Havelok, who on the 171

Appendix cesti Havelok, qi en colour du droit sa femme, qe n’estoit fors feil de un dez petitez roys qi se clamoit sire d’un pays par soy endementers qe la riote durast de Mordret et de sez fitz, deteint cel truage par cel cause. Laquel, 85 com est dit en ascuns cronicles, estoit colour et sours du primer aryvail Swyn, le pier Knout. Cest aventure de Havelok en le temps Costantyn le fitz Cador en le comencement du regne Conanus, nevewe Costantin, com ascuns cronicles devisent. Mes pur ceo qe Havelok ne fist perseveraunz entour la conquest et droit possessioun de l’heritage sa fem, mais se retrey 90 en Denemark, pur ceo lez entrepretours Saxsouns en cas ne luy appellerent pas roys de nul dez parcelez dez ditz vii. reaumes. Ja le maynz l’estoir de Havelok devise qe le pier sa femme fust roy d’Engleter et qe Havelok le conquist; mes n’est pas autentik, mais apocrophum.

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Two extracts from the Scalacronica: texts and translations pretext of the right of his wife, who was only daughter of one of the minor kings who called himself lord of a country on his own account while the rebellion of Mordred and of his sons lasted, withheld this tribute for this reason. This, as is said in some chronicles, was the pretext and the reason for the first arrival of Swein, Cnut’s father. These events concerning Havelok [happened] in the time of Constantine, Cador’s son, [or] in the beginning of Constantine’s nephew Conanus’s reign as some chronicles claim. But because Havelok did not persevere with the conquest and the rightful possession of his wife’s inheritance, but returned to Denmark, for this reason perhaps the Saxon historians do not call him king of any of the portions of the aforesaid seven realms. Nevertheless the account of Havelok claims that the father of his wife was king of England and that Havelok conquered it; but this is not authentic, but apocryphal.

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INDEX Abdon, judge of Israel 102 acrostics 33, 37–9 Adam 1–2, 103, 144 n. 17 Adelbriht see under Athelbright Adelstan II, legendary king of England in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 88 and n. 66 Adelstan IV, legendary king of England in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 89 Adeluf II, legendary king of Britain in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59 Adeluf III, legendary king of Britain in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59, 62 Adelwold, legendary king of England and father of Havelok’s wife Goldeburgh in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 88; see also under Athelbright for other versions of this character Ælle, an Anglo-Saxon king: as Alla in story of Constance 99, 101 as Elee in Grays’s Scalacronica 81 n. 41, 166–7; see also under Ingil Aeneas 36, 41, 65, 95 Aet, a town in Denmark 170–1 Aethelbrith see under Egbert Æthelred, an Anglo-Saxon king possibly based on Æthelred I of Northumbria (d. 796) 57 n. 67 Æthelstan, king of England: asks Guy of Warwick for aid 85, 87–8, 95 Wace makes Cadwallader his contemporary 55 resembles Adelstan II in the Petit Bruit 88 n. 66 Æthelwulf, king (of the West Saxons) 59, 62

Africa 47, 55, 78 n. 18, 81, 159; see also under Gormund Ailred of Rievaulx: Vita S. Edwardi Regis [Life of Saint Edward] 116–17 and n. 40, 126 Albina, Albine 14–15, 18, 27, 46 Albion 14, 27 Aled, Tudur 159 Alexander I, king of Scotland (d. 1124) 151 Alexander II, king of Scotland (d. 1249) 138, 148 Alexander the Great 95 Alfred Ætheling, brother of Edward the Confessor 114, 120, 122 Alfred of Beverley: Annales sive Historia de Gestis Regum Britanniae 41–2, 48, 61, 67 Alfred the Great, king (of the West Saxons and of the AngloSaxons): compared with Arthur 50–3, 62 described as defeating Havelok 90–1 had the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written 9 n. 45, 57 algorisms 33 Amboise, lords of 141–2 Amesbury Priory (Benedictine nunnery), Wiltshire 18 Amys del Bois see under Fouke Fitz Waryn Anelaf, legendary king of Norway in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 89 angel, an 87 anger, of kings 115, 145–6, 150–2, 156–7 Angevins 113, 136: Angevin kings 13, 154; see also under Henry II, Henry the Young King, Richard I, John

197

Index Angles 78 n. 21, 79, 95, 166–7 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: as model for vernacular prose history writing 9 commissioned by King Alfred the Great 9 n. 45, 57 Hengist and Horsa in 77 n. 16 Norman Conquest in 108 n. 13 source for Geffrei Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis 9, 83 William I in 131 n. 104 Anglo-Saxons: Anglo-Saxon kingdoms 46, 49, 55, 76–7 Anglo-Saxon kings see under Ælle; Æthelred; Æthelwulf; Alfred; Egbert; Edward the Elder; Offa; Osbrith; Peanda and see also under England, kings of Anglo-Saxon narrative motifs 140 Anglo-Saxon period 8–9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 24, 25, 41, 46, 57, 63, 65, 74–6, 82, 83, 86–7, 91–2, 95–7, 98–104, 135, 139, 162–3 arrival of Anglo-Saxons 46–7, 76–83 lost Anglo-Saxon Siwards Saga 150 n. 50 wars between Anglo-Saxon kings 55, 83–4 see also under ‘passage of dominion’ Anlaby family 144 Anonimalle Brut: as a national history with universal elements 16 Guy of Warwick in 87–8 legendary history of Britain in 63 Norman Conquest in 118–19 preceded by various texts in one manuscript, including historical and genealogical notes 19 prologue to 28–9 William I’s reign in 127, 130–1, 138 see also under Anonimalle Chronicle Anonimalle Chronicle: continuations not discussed in this book 24

includes a Prose Brut continuation 14 n 72, 16 unique continuation of Anonimalle Brut 16 see also under Anonimalle Brut antiquaries 92 n. 79, 135, 146 n. 29, 147–8, 153, 154, 160 ap Gwilym, Dafydd 159 ap Maredudd, Gruffudd 159 Argentille (also known as Goldeburgh), wife of Havelok 83–4, 88–91, 93–4, 168–173; see also under Goldeburgh Arsenius of Cappadocia 99, 101 Artesians, the 136 Arthour and Merlin (Of Arthour and of Merlin) 39 n. 77 Arthur, legendary king of Britain: ancestor of the lords of Amboise 141–2 and Dover Castle 64 as part of the legendary history of Britain 40, 63 compared with Alfred the Great 50–2, 62 compared with Cnut 49 conquests of Europe 41, 42, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 61–2, 65–7, 69–72 conquests used to support claims of overlordship 44–5, 58, 65–6, 71–3, 163 entertainments based on his romances 44, 45 fairy matters and fabulous tales about 41, 42, 50, 52, 54, 61–2, 67–9, 71–2 historical accuracy of 41, 42, 61–2, 67–9, 71, 92–3, 163 his conception 48, 49, 59 his place of burial 43–4, 48, 49, 50, 52, 62, 69 his battles in Britain 52–3, 54, 59, 65–6, 71–2 his reign as a time of chivalry 42, 50, 52–4, 60, 69–73, 97, 163 his sons in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59

198

Index in the Brute Abregé 60–2 in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 80 n. 28 his Round Table 53, 69–71, 97, 163 omitted from some chronicles 47, 49 and prophecies 36, 64 pulls sword from stone 68 romances about as a source for historical writing 24, 59–60, 69–72, 95, 162 Welsh crown of in 1278 45 whether he died 42–3, 48, 49, 50, 52–3, 54, 55, 62, 68–9, 72, 125 Arthur of Brittany, nephew of King John 44 Ascanius, son of Aeneas 65 Athelbright, legendary king and father of Goldeburgh / Argentille, Havelok’s wife 83–4, 91 n. 76, 93, 168–9 Athelwold, legendary king and father of Goldeburgh, Havelok’s wife in the Lignee des Bretons et des Engleis 90–1 Auchinleck Manuscript see under Manuscripts, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ MS 19.2.1 Augustine, St, of Hippo: City of God 37–8 Augustine, St, of Canterbury 101 Augustinians 10, 20, 33, 145; see also under Bridlington Priory; Crabhouse Priory; Llanthony Prima; Llanthony Secunda; Waltham Abbey; Wigmore Abbey Chronicle Augustus, emperor of Rome 37 Aurelius Ambrosius, legendary king of Britain 47, 65–6, 67 n. 117 Avalon 42–4, 48, 52–3, 71 Barbour, John: Bruce, the 158 Barlings Abbey (Premonstratensian house), Lincolnshire 14, 143

Barlings Chronicle, the 14, 114 n. 32, 115 n. 36, 124 n. 76, 143 Bartolomeo della Scala 36 battle of Hastings see under Norman Conquest Bayeux Tapestry 111 bears in origin stories 149 Beauchamp family, earls of Warwick 142 Bede Historia Ecclesiastica 8, 27, 47, 55, 63, 74, 77, 102–3 cited in Gray’s Scalacronica 19, 34, 66–8, 81 n. 41, 92, 166–7 Belinus and Brennius, legendary British kings: Belinus as son of Leirius (Lear) in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59 conquests of Europe 41, 47, 61, 102 n. 119 establish tribute from Denmark which Havelok ends 84–85, 93, 170–3 fathered by Dunwolde in Brute Abregé 60 Benedict, St: Rule of St. Benedict (Regula Benedicti) 35–6 Benedictines see under Amesbury Priory; Benedict, St; Crowland Abbey; Faversham Abbey; Glastonbury Abbey; Westminster Abbey Benoît de Sainte-Maure 27, 105 Berkshire see under Wantage Bernard de Neufmarché (d. between 1121 and 1125) 144–5 Bernard of Chartres 26–7 Bernau, Anke 27 n. 8 Bethlehem 100 Bevis of Hampton, legendary English knight 74, 86–7, 88, 99, 159 Bible, the: Biblical history 17–18, 19, 101–3 Book of Genesis 35 Birkebayn or Birkebein, father of Havelok 84, 168–9

199

Index bishops 18, 100–1, 127, 132, 145–6, 153; see also under Ealdred, Lanfranc, Robert of Béthune, Stigand, Wulfstan blades 103 n. 123 Bladud, legendary king of Britain and founder of Bath 47, 60 Bloch, R. Howard 143 n. 10 Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy 35 Bohuns, earls of Hereford: Introduction 17, 144, 147; see also under Eleanor de Briouze; Humphrey de Bohun the sixth; Humphrey de Bohun the seventh; and Rauf de Boun Boniface VIII, pope 16 n. 76, 45, 65 Boulogne, counts of 142 Boun, Rauf de see under Rauf de Boun Brabanters, the 136 Brecon (or Brecknock) 144–7 Brecon, lords of 144–7 Brecknock Castle 146–7 Brereton, Georgina E. 27 n. 8 Bretons 43, 59, 62, 68, 79, 81, 86 n. 62, 136–7; see also under Britain Bridlington Priory, Yorkshire (Augustinian priory) 10, 33 Britain: ‘British hope’ see under Arthur, whether he died legendary history of 8–10, 12–14, 16–19, 23–5, 27 n. 8, 34, 36, 40–74, 76–9, 81–5, 92–3, 96–7, 102, 105, 108, 122, 144, 152, 162–3, 166–7, 168–73 legendary kings of see under Arthur, Aurelius Ambrosius, Belinus and Brennius, Bladud, Cadwalein, Cadwallader, Cassibalan, Cerdik, Conanus, Constantine, Dunwolde, Eboracus, Lear, Lucius, Malgo, Uther Pendragon, Vortigern as synonymous with England 47–53, 58–61, 73, 77–9, 163, 166–7 British, the see under Britain

British Isles see under Britain Britons see under Bretons; Britain Brittany 43–4, 59, 79, 129; see also under Bretons; Britain; Hoel Brunne, Robert Mannyng of see under Mannyng, Robert Brut (unidentified) 58, 60–1, 96, 122–3, 166–9 Brute Abregé: Bevis of Hampton and Guy of Warwick in 85–8 Inge in 81–3 its relationship to the Short English Metrical Chronicle 11, 16, 81–2, 121–2 legendary history of Britain in 24, 60–2, 72 Norman Conquest in 121–3, 139–40, 163 Brutus: as first British ruler 10, 14, 16, 17, 40–1, 45–7, 49, 58–9 his origins 64–5 preceded by Albine 27 Buern Bocard 57 Burgundians 136 Busby, Keith 2 n. 3 Cador, legendary ruler of Cornwall and father of Constantine (heir to King Arthur) 52, 172–3 Cadwalein, legendary king of Britain (Cadwallo in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Brittanie) 56–7, 63 Cadwallader, legendary last king of the British: in Anonimalle Brut 63 n. 96 in Bodl. MS Tanner 195’s copy of LRB 48 in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britannie 41, 43 in London, College of Arms MS 20/5 52 in Long Version of the prose Brut 63 in LRE 47 in Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica 64–5

200

Index omitted from various chronicles 47, 50, 56–8, 63 n. 95 Wace makes Æthelstan his contemporary 55 Caerleon 62, 66 n. 112, 70–1 Caesar see under Augustus; Julius Calvary 100 ‘Cambre’, supposed site of King Arthur’s last battle 48 Canaan 35 Can Grande della Scala 36 Canterbury: archbishopric and archbishops of 18, 64, 130, 152–3; see also under Lanfranc, Stigand see also under Christ Church Priory Carley, James viii, 45–6 cartularies 5 n. 22, 7, 12 n. 63, 19–20, 143–4 Cassibalan, legendary king of Britain 58, 63 Castleford, Thomas: Chronicle 105–7, 132–3, 139–40 castles 18, 33, 62, 63–4, 77–8, 145–7, 151, 157, 170–1 Cenomannians, the 136 Cerdik, legendary king of Britain (Keredic in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Brittanie) 55 chansons de geste see under Quatre Fils Aymon, Les Chaucer, Geoffrey 2, 18, 96 n. 93, 164 n. 1 Canterbury Tales 29 ‘Man of Law’s Tale’ 2, 98–101, 164 n. 1 House of Fame 34 Legend of Good Women 34 chess 155–6 Chester 125 n. 80, 128, 148, 157 and n. 89 chivalry: chivalric order founded by Edward III 45 in Anonimalle Brut 119 in BL MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII 111

in Fouke le Fitz Waryn 64, 155–7, 159 in genealogical roll-chronicles 50, 53 in Gray’s Scalacronica 24, 32–3, 69–73, 81, 94–7, 120–1, 133–5, 166–7 in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59–61, 90 in the Brute Abregé 85–8 in the Mohun Chronicle 134 in Trevet’s Cronicles 99–102, 124 Chrétien de Troyes: Le Chevalier au Lion 160 Perceval 60 n. 82 Christianity: Christian faith 64, 99–103 Christian history and historians 17–18, 26, 101–4, 127 n. 87, 163 Christian kings 30 Christian writings 35–9 Lucius’s conversion to 47, 60, 63–4 Saracens’ conversion to 99–100 Saxons’ conversion to 24, 55–6, 77, 98–9, 101 Saxons’ persecution of 77–8 Christ Church Priory, Canterbury 18, 102 Cistercians 1, 153; see also under Newenham Abbey clergy 21, 39, 100, 120, 127–8, 131–2, 162–3 Cluniac order see under Delapré Abbey Cnut, king of England, Denmark and Norway: compared with King Arthur 49 supposed father of Harold Godwinson / Harold Harefoot 121 supposedly relied on Havelok’s claim to the English throne 88, 93–4, 172–3 Colbrond, legendary Danish giant defeated by Guy of Warwick 85–8, 90 Coleman, Joyce 107 Conanus, legendary king of Britain 172–3

201

Index Constance, legendary figure 24, 98–104, 164 n. 1 Constantine, legendary king of Britain and heir to King Arthur: becomes king after Arthur 52–5, 69, 83–4 reigns in the time of Havelok 55, 74 n. 1, 83–5, 93, 168–9, 172–3 Corineus, legendary champion of Brutus 64 Cornwall: Arthur’s last battle in 48–9 Britons in 47 Colbrond known in 86 and n. 62 wife of the earl of Cornwall desired by Uther Pendragon in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59 see also under Cador, legendary ruler of Cornwall; Gerard of Cornwall; Godric, earl of Cornwall; Piers de Gaveston, earl of Cornwall correspondence 4–5, 7, 15–16 n. 76, 19–20, 26, 29–30, 45, 61, 65, 99, 143, 162 Crabhouse Priory (Augustinian nunnery), Norfolk 7, 20, 31 Crane, Susan 2, 75, 154 n. 72, 158 n. 92 Creation, the 1–2, 18–19 Crick, Julia viii, 45–6 Croun family 143 Croxton Abbey (Premonstratensian house), Leicestershire 143 Crowland Abbey (Benedictine monastery), Lincolnshire 130–1, 137, 148 Crusade and Death of Richard I, The 23–4 crusade 10 n. 49, 151 Cuaran see under Havelok Cumae, home of the Sibyl 37 Curtius, E. R. 3 n. 7, 26–7 daggers 103 n. 123 Damian-Grint, Peter 6 n. 24, 10 n. 49, 22 n. 101, 27, 31

Danes: kill Constantine with Saxons 74 n. 1 paid tribute to Britons 85, 93 conflict with the English 59, 83–91, 93–5, 103–4 Havelok’s dealings with 83–5, 93–5, 170–3 their chivalry 97 their literature 149 Dante Alighieri: Paradiso 36 David I, earl of Huntingdon and later king of Scotland (d. 1153) 147, 150–1 David, earl of Huntingdon (d. 1219), brother of King William the Lion 152 Dean, Ruth 3, 12 n. 62, 13 n. 67, 15 nn. 73, 74, 76, 19 n. 91, 23 n. 106, 27 n. 8, 46 n. 33, 98 n. 97, 142 Delapré Abbey (Cluniac nunnery), Northamptonshire 20, 147–8 Delapré Chronicle 20, 25, 137–9, 141, 144, 147–52, 153, 154, 155, 157 Denholm-Young, N. 138, 148 Denmark: conquered by Arthur 49 kings of 87–9, 94–5, 168–71; see also under Cnut; Edulf; Swein Havelok’s time in 83–5, 94–5, 168–71 Siward’s links to 149–50 De origine gigantum see under Albina, Albine Des Grantz Geanz see under Albina, Albine devils 14–15, 64, 102–3, 155 Diceto, Ralph: Abbreviationes Chronicorum 116 nn. 38, 39, 117 n. 44 Dido, queen of Carthage in Virgil’s Aeneid 81–2 n. 42 documents 3–8, 12 n. 59, 21 n. 97, 23, 73 n. 142, 124–5, 135 n. 127, 143–4, 162 Domesday Book 124–5 dowry 150–1

202

Index dream-visions 24, 34–8, 64, 116–7 Dryhtelm 102–3 Dugdale, Sir William 147–8 Dunbabin, Jean 152 n. 62 Dunster Castle, Somerset 18 Dunwolde, legendary king of Britain (Dunvallo in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Brittanie) 60 Dutch (language) 2 n. 3 Eadmer: Historia Novorum in Anglia 117–18, 123 n. 67, 129–30 Eagle of Shaftesbury 36 Ealdred, archbishop of York (d. 1069) 108 n. 13 East Anglia: kings of 56, 79; see also under Edmund, St see also under Ralph the Breton, earl of East Anglia Eboracus, legendary king of Britain and founder of York 47, 59 Ecgberht see under Egbert Edbrith, Edelbrith see under Egbert Edelfi see under Edelsi Edelsi, legendary king and enemy of Havelok 83–4, 94, 168–71; see also under Godric, earl of Cornwall Edelwin, English king mentioned in Lignee des Bretons et des Engleis 90 Edgar, father of Edward the Confessor in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 122 Edgar, king of England 46, 86–7 Edgar Ætheling 108–11, 113–14, 116–19, 123, 139, 163 Edinburgh Castle 33 Edmound Irensyde, king of England in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit (presumably based on Edmund Ironside) 89 Edmund II (Edmund Ironside), king of England 89, 109–10, 113, 120–1

Edmund, St, king (of the East Angles) 15 n. 74, 79, 91 n. 78 Edmunde, Maistre 80 Edulf, legendary king of Denmark and enemy of Havelok 83 Edward the Elder, Anglo-Saxon king, son of King Alfred the Great 50–1 Edward I , king of England: chronicles covering his reign 10, 12 n. 62, 15–18, 30, 58 chronicles produced in his reign 13–15, 47, 49, 52 father of Mary 18, 124 genealogy of 103 interest in romances 44 sought overlordship of Scotland 15–16 n. 76, 24, 45–6, 53, 58, 61, 65, 72–3 use of Anglo-Norman in his reign 4–5 wars in Wales 44–5 Edward II, king of England: chronicles covering his reign 16–17 chronicles produced in his reign 24, 30, 52 n. 49, 58, 60, 63 conflict during his reign 137 his preferential treatment of favourites 137 Edward III, king of England: as target audience 33 n. 42 chronicles produced in his reign 13–14, 63 letter to 143 interest in Arthurian matters 45–6 wars in France 32, 65–7 wars with Scotland 32, 45–6, 65–6 Edward the Confessor, king of England: his dealings with Siward 149–50, 155 his view on his successor 108–11, 113–22 his tomb 126 laws used in his time 132–3 picture and account of him in BL MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII 16

203

Index Edward the Exile (Edward Ætheling), son of Edmund Ironside and father of Edgar Ætheling 110, 113, 117 Edwine, legendary Saxon 56 Egbert, king (of the West Saxons) (d. 839) 76–7 Eleanor de Briouze, first wife of Humphrey de Bohun the sixth 147 Elee see under Ælle Ely 151 Engel, legendary male namesake of England 24, 59, 62, 79–83, 103–4; see also under Ingil England: Anglo-Saxon period see under AngloSaxons as nation 12 n. 59 as Engistlonde 77–8 as synonymous with Britain see under Britain, as synonymous with England barons of 44, 89, 113, 138, 147 culture of, in the late medieval period 1–7, 21, 40–6, 74–5, 96, 105–7, 142–4, 162–4 Danish encounters with see under Danes, conflict with the English exile from 146 genealogies in 142–4 historical accounts of 8–20, 23–5, 40–53, 74–140, 142–3, 162–4, 166–73 kings of 148, 152, 153; see also under Æthelstan, Cnut, Edgar, Edmund II (Edmund Ironside), Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Edward the Confessor, Harold I (Harold Harefoot), Harold II (Harold Godwinson), Henry I, Henry II, Henry III, Henry the Young King, John, Richard I, Richard II, Stephen, William I, William II (William Rufus) and under Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon kings

Norman Conquest of see under Norman Conquest wars with Scotland see under Scotland wars with France see under France Erythraean Sibyl see under Sibyl, Sibyls Essex see under Waltham; Waltham Abbey Est, earl of see under Mohun family Étienne of Rouen: Draco Normannicus 43 eyres 4 Fasciculus Morum 96 Faversham Abbey (Benedictine monastery), Kent 45 Fenster, Thelma viii, 32 n. 35 Ferris, David A. 46 n. 33 Fisher, Matthew 16 n. 76 Fitz Waryn family 64, 153–5, 164; see also under Fouke Fitz Waryn; Payn Peverel Flamborough, Yorkshire 80–1 Flanders 67, 115–16 Flayn, legendary figure 80 Flemish, the 136 Flood, the 1 Fouke Fitz Waryn: as a boy 155 as an outlaw 23, 156–60 in other works apart from Fouke le Fitz Waryn 158–9 prophecy and 64 Fouke le Fitz Waryn: as family chronicle 20, 24–5, 64, 127, 141, 144, 153–61, 164 and William I’s reign 127, 134–5, 150, 154, 155 based on an earlier verse chronicle 28, 154 its prologue 29 the manuscript 5 n. 22, 134–5, 153–4, 157–8 n. 91 France: as place of refuge 146 conquered by Arthur 49, 52, 65–6 genealogies in 141–2

204

Index kings of 18–19, 153 wars with 32, 65, 124 See also under Frollo; Philip I; Philippe Auguste (Philip II Augustus); French, the; French (language) Frankis, John 98–9, 101 Frederik, son of Gurmound in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59, 88–90 French, the 67, 130–1, 136, 141–2, 152 n. 62; see also under France French (language) 2–8, 9–11, 16, 27, 30, 31, 39 n. 77, 46, 106–8, 122, 132–3, 148, 154 French Chronicle of London 20–1 Frollo, legendary king of France 66 Gado see under Wade Gaimar, Geffrei: Estoire des Engleis 9–10 as a source for the prose Brut 14, 28, 55, 57, 84–5, 124 n. 76 Danes in 83, 85, 94 Havelok in 83–5, 91–2, 94, 170 n. 1 Norman Conquest in 105 ‘passage of dominion’ in 55, 57 St Edmund in 91 n. 78 William I’s reign in 124 n. 76 Gamelyn (Middle English romance) 159 Gant family 143 Garter see under Order of the Garter Gascony 49 Gaveston, Piers de see under Piers de Gaveston Gawain-poet, the 2, 80 n. 28 Gawain, Sir, legendary Arthurian knight 60 and n. 82, 70–2, 80 n. 28, 159, 160 genealogical chronicle rolls (AngloNorman) 13–14, 142, 144 Æthelstan in 88 n. 66 Alfred the Great in 50–2, 62, 91 n. 76 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 46, 50–3, 76, 88 n. 66

Arthur and the legendary history of Britain in 46–53, 57, 61, 62, 63 Cnut in 49 Norman Conquest in 108, 110–11, 113, 114, 120 n. 57 prologue material for 27 Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit in 17 sources for 13 William I’s reign in 124, 131 Genealogy of the Lords of Brecknock 20, 24–5, 144–7, 150, 152, 153, 154, 157 gentry 21, 142–4 Geoffrey of Monmouth: Historia Regum Britannie 8, 23–4, 34 n. 47, 36, 40–4, 78 n. 19 criticised by others 21, 41–3, 47–8, 67, 72 material from, used elsewhere 9–10, 13–14, 19, 23–4, 40–73, 77, 83, 92, 95, 102, 155 Geomagog, legendary giant 64, 155, 157 Gerald of Wales: Itinerarium Kambriæ 42–4, 145–7 Gerard of Cornwall 86 Germany 168–9 its customs 93 its languages 2 n. 3 its legends 96–7 Geste de Burch, La 20–1 n. 96 giants 14, 26–7, 45–6, 47, 59, 64, 79–80, 81, 85–8, 90, 155, 157, 159, 160; see also under Albine, Colbrond, Geomagog, Gormund, Loud, Scardius Gilbertines see under Sixhills Priory Gillingham, John 75, 106 Given-Wilson, Chris 22 n. 103, 33 n. 41, 142 n. 7 Glastonbury Abbey (Benedictine monastery), Somerset: Arthurian interest at 43–6, 63 as King Arthur’s supposed burialplace 43–5, 48–52, 53, 62, 69

205

Index Gloucestershire see under Llanthony Secunda, ‘Robert of Gloucester’, Thomas (Thomas of Woodstock) Glover, Robert, herald (1544–88) 146 n. 29 Glyn, Guto’r 159 Goch, Iolo 159 God 1, 26, 35, 37, 101, 114–15, 115–16, 117, 126, 127, 145–6, 153, 159 Godric, earl of Cornwall and enemy of Havelok in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 88 Godwin, earl of Wessex and father of Harold II 109, 111, 113–16, 122 Goldeburgh, name of Havelok’s wife in several chronicles and romances 84, 88–91, 94, 168–9; see also under Argentille Gordon, E. V. 80 Gormund, legendary invader of Britain in various texts 47, 49, 55, 78 n. 18, 79, 81; see also under Gurmound, Gurmound II Gower, John 2, 18, 98–100, 164 n. 1 Gransden, Antonia 6 n. 23, 22 n. 103, 26–7, 43–4, 142 n. 7 Gray, Sir Thomas: Scalacronica 19–20: Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 76, 93–4 Arthur in 24, 36, 66–72, 162 Biblical history in 102 borrowings from romances in 20, 68–72, 91–7, 162 classical history in 36–9, 65, 102 chivalry in 32–3, 69–73, 92, 94–7, 120–1, 133–5, 163 Guy of Warwick in 95–7 Havelok in 24, 91–5, 103, 168–73 Ingil in 81–3, 103, 166–7 other Anglo-Saxon heroes in 96–7, 103–4 ‘passage of dominion’ in 64–5 prologue to 24, 32–9 Norman Conquest in 119–21

sources for 19–20, 28, 33, 34, 36, 37–8, 64–72, 81–3, 91–7, 119–21, 131–5 style in 6 nn. 27 and 29, 32–9 wars with France in 65–6 wars with Scotland in 37, 65–6, 72, 131–2 William I’s reign in 127, 131–5, 139–40 Greek 37, 38 Green Knight see under Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Greenway, Diana 131 n. 104, 133 n. 113, 150 n. 50 Gregory the Great (Gregory I), pope 101 Grim 84, 168–74 Guenée, Bernard 26–7 Gunelafes, legendary king of Denmark in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 89–90 Gui de Warewic, Anglo-Norman romance 85–6 and n. 56, 156 n. 77, 160 nn. 105, 109 Guigo II: Scala Claustralium (Ladder of Monks) 35–6 Guillaume de Deguileville: Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine 36 Guinevere, legendary queen of England 43–4, 49, 64 Gurmound, legendary king of England in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59, 88, 90 Gurmound II, legendary king of England in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 89 Guy and Colbrond, a Middle English romance 86 and n. 61 Guy I, count of Ponthieu see under Ponthieu, count of Guy of Warwick, legendary English knight 74, 85–8, 95–7, 103–4, 159, 163 Guy of Warwick, Middle English romance 85–6

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Index Gyrth, brother of Harold II, king of England 128 hagiography 11, 37, 75, 99–101, 125–7, 128–9, 132, 137 n. 135, 148, 150 Hampshire see under Winchester Hanna, Ralph 154–5, n. 72 Hardingstone, location of Delapré Abbey in Northamptonshire 147–8 Hardknout, king of England in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit (presumably based on Harthacnut) 8–9, 91 Hardyng, John: Chronicle 164 n. 1 Harold I (Harold Harefoot), king of England 121 Harold II (Harold Godwinson), king of England: claim to the throne and his oath to William, Duke of Normandy 108–23, 129, 139, 163 defeated and killed by William 108–9, 111–13, 117–23, 125–6, 128, 134–5 his covetousness 120–1, 163 legend of his survival after the Battle of Hastings 125–6, 128, 162 as ‘Harauld le Mauvays’ in Le Petit Bruit by Rauf de Boun 122–3 in the Brute Abregé 121–2 praised in the Anonimalle Brut 119 agrees to marry William Duke of Normandy’s daughter 122–3 and n. 67 see also under Vita Haroldi Hastings see under Norman Conquest Havelok, legendary hero and king, also known as Cuaran 23–4, 74, 99, 103–4, 163 in Geffrei Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis 55, 83–5, 92, 94, 170 n. 1 in the Lignee des Bretons et des Engleis 90–1, 92 in the prose Brut 55, 74 n. 1, 84–5, 92–4

in Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica 91–5, 96, 97, 101, 103, 168–73 in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 81, 85, 88–91, 92, 103 in the Short English Metrical Chronicle 91 n. 76 in Robert Mannyng’s Chronicle 81, 92 Havelok, Middle English romance 84–5, 92, 94, 170 n. 1 Hebrew 2 n. 3 Hengist and Horsa, legendary Saxons 47, 55, 77–8, 81–2, 93, 166–7, 168–9; see also under Ronewenne, Inge Henry I, king of England 116–17: featured in family chronicles 145, 151, 157 Henry II, king of England: featured in chronicles 15 n. 74, 69, 110, 113, 128, 151–2, 155 use of the legendary history of Britain 43–4 Henry III, king of England: chronicles (possibly) written in his reign 12, 46 considered claims to the earldom of Huntingdon 138, 148 featured in chronicles 14, 15 n. 74 use of Anglo-Norman in his reign 4, 12, 46 Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum: 8 as a source for Gray’s Scalacronica 19, 119–20, 131–2, 133 n. 113 as a source for John of Canterbury’s Polistorie 131 and n. 104 as a source for LRB 12, 76 n. 11 as a source for LRE 116 and n. 38 as a source for the Anonimalle Brut 119, 130–1 as a source for the prose Brut 113–14 and n. 32 as a source for Trevet’s Cronicles 115–16

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Index Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: (cont.) as a source for various works 74, 107, 120 n. 57, 133 n. 113 as a possible source for the Delapre Chronicle 150 and nn. 49, 50 its sources 8, 150 and n. 50 its account of the Norman Conquest 108, 113–14 and n. 32, 115–16 and n. 38, 119–20, 131–2 Epistola Warino (also known as Epistola ad Warinum) 41, 43, 60 Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln (d.1311) 17, 80–1, 135 Henry the Young King, son of Henry II 151 Heptarchy, the 76–7, 96; see also under Anglo-Saxons heraldry 143–4; for heralds see also under antiquaries Hereford see under Bohuns, earls of Hereford; Humphrey de Bohun the sixth; Humphrey de Bohun the seventh; Miles of Gloucester; Robert of Béthune; Roger (Roger de Breteuil); Wigmore Abbey Chronicle Hermengild 99, 101 Higden, Ranulf: Polychronicon 8–9, 17, 26–7, 33, 34, 37, 67, 74 n. 1, 105, 108: as a source for Sir Thomas Gray’s Scalacronica 19, 33, 34, 67–8, 72, 74, 119, 120, 131–2 Historia Brittonum attributed to Nennius 63, 77 n. 16 Hiwayn, legendary Arthurian knight 70, 71–2; see also under Yvain Hoccleve, Thomas 6 n. 30 Hoel, legendary king of Brittany 36 Holy Grail see under Seint Graal Holy Land 100–1 Horsa see under Hengist and Horsa Horn, romance hero 78 and n. 19, 160 n. 108; see also under Hengist and Horsa

Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild 78 n. 19 ‘Hounhere’ 89–91 Hugh of Saint-Victor: De Arca Noe mystica (attributed) 35 Humphrey de Bohun the sixth, son of the earl of Hereford and lord of Brecon (Brecknock) 146–7 Humphrey de Bohun the seventh, Earl of Hereford 147 ‘hunehere’ see under ‘Hounhere’ Huntingdon, earls of see under David I; David, earl of Huntingdon (d. 1219); John le Scot; Judith; Malcolm IV; Maud, daughter of Waltheof; Simon de Seintliz I; Simon de Seintliz II; Simon de Seintliz III; Siward; Tosti; Waltheof; William the Lion Huntington, Joanna 137 n. 135 Iberian peninsula, the 159; see also under Spain Ingham, Richard 3 Inge, legendary female namesake of England 60, 81–3 Ingil, legendary male namesake of England 81–3, 96, 166–7; see also under Engel Ingele, daughter of Ingil 81–3, 166–7 Ireland 10 n. 49, 49, 59, 61, 65–6, 146, 157, 159 Irish, the 157, 159 Italian 2 n. 3 Ivete, name provided in Delapré Chronicle for niece of William I and wife of Waltheof, earl of Northumbria and Huntingdon see under Judith Jacob 35 Jacobus de Voragine: Legenda Aurea 37 Jehoshaphat, Valley of 100 Jerusalem 100 Jesus Christ 37–9

208

Index Johannes: translation of Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle 11, 18, 28 John de Rampaigne, companion of Fouke Fitz Waryn 160 John Erghome 33 John, king of England 6–7, 12, 44, 64, 124, 146, 154, 155–7, 160 John le Scot, earl of Huntingdon and Chester 148 ‘John of Bridlington’ 33 John of Canterbury: Polistorie 18, 33: Anglo-Saxon kings in 76 Biblical and Christian history in 102 legendary history in 63, 102 prologue to 30, 31, 33 Norman Conquest in 117–18, 123 n. 67 William I’s reign in 127, 129–30, 131 John of Salisbury: Policratus 38 John of Tynemouth: Historia Aurea 19, 34, 37–8, 67–8, 74 n. 1, 119, 131–2 John of Woodford see under Woodford family John of Worcester: Chronicle 108 n. 13, 116 n. 39 Jones, Timothy 155 n. 75 Josephus: Jewish Antiquities 18, 28 Joshua 102 Judith, niece of William I and wife of Waltheof, earl of Northumbria and Huntingdon 137–8, 150–1, 157 Julius Caesar 63 Kent: kings of 56 see also under Canterbury; Christ Church Priory; Faversham Abbey; Norman Conquest, battle of Hastings; St. Martin’s Priory

Kibbee, Douglas 3 n. 5 King, Andy 33 n. 39, 97 n. 95 King Horn 78 and n. 19 king’s council 4 Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane 142 Kleinhenz, Christopher 2 n. 3 ‘Knight of the Swan’, the 142 Knighton, Henry 90 n. 74 Kormák Qgmundarsynir, legendary Viking warrior 80 Laborderie, Olivier de viii, 13 n. 65, 14 nn. 67 and 68, 52 n. 49, 76 n. 11, 91 n. 76, 110–11 n. 24, 120 n. 57, 142 ladders 34–6, 38, 64 Lai d’Haveloc, Anglo-Norman romance or lai 84–5, 92, 170 n. 1 Layamon: Brut 9–10, 11 Lamont, Margaret 14 n. 67, 111 n. 24 Lancelot of the Lake see under Launcelet du Lake Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury 126–7, 128–9, 130–1 Langland, William 2 Piers Plowman 6 n. 30, 157 n. 89 Langtoft, Pierre: Chronique 10, 23: Anglo-Saxons in 78 n. 21 Arthur in 45 Brutus in 10 Edward I in 10, 45 continuation of which mentions Fouke Fitz Waryn 154, 158 Guy of Warwick in 86 manuscripts containing 10, 17 names Langtoft as author 33 Norman Conquest in 123 n. 69, 136 n. 130 sources for 10 used as a source for a prose Brut continuation 10 used as a source for Robert Mannyng’s Chronicle 11, 158 written in verse 3 Last Judgement, the 1, 38

209

Index Latin (language specifically mentioned or foregrounded by chroniclers) 30, 101, 132–3 Launcelet du Lake 59 Lear, legendary king of Britain (Leirius in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit) 47, 59 Leckie Jr., R. William 40 n. 2, 54 Legge, M. Dominica 16 n. 78, 22 n. 103, 158 n. 92 Leicestershire see under Croxton Abbey Leirius see under Lear Leland, John: Collectanea 92 n. 79, 135, 154, 160 Leverage, Paula 35 Libeaus Desconnus, legendary Arthurian knight 159 Lignee des Bretons et des Engleis 16–17, 89 n. 70, 90–1, 92, 94 Lincoln, diocese of 80–1 Lincoln, earl of see under Henry de Lacy Lincolnshire 14, 80–1, 129 n. 98, 168–9; see also under Barlings Abbey; Crowland Abbey; Sixhills Priory Lindsey 168–9 Lionel, Sir, legendary Arthurian knight 159 Livere de Reis de Brittanie (LRB) 12–13: Æthelstan in 88 n. 66 Alfred the Great in 91 n. 76 Anglo-Saxon kings in 12, 46–7, 76–7 as a source for Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 17, 58–9 Arthur and legendary history of Britain in 46–8, 50, 52, 54, 60 and n. 85, 62, 72 manuscripts of 12 and n. 62, 19, 46 n. 33, 50, 52, 62 Norman Conquest in 110, 111, 113 ‘passage of dominion’ in 47, 55, 57 sources for 12 shared a textual tradition with genealogical roll-chronicles 13–14, 49–50, 91 n. 76, 110 William I’s reign in 111, 113, 124

Livere de Reis de Engleterre (LRE) 15: Anglo-Saxon kings in 47, 77 Church in 127–9, 163 continuations of 15 legendary history of Britain in 47–8 manuscripts of 15–16 and n. 76, 48, 129 and n. 98 Norman Conquest in 116–17, 119, 123 ‘passage of dominion’ in 47, 55, 57 possible source for prose Brut 15 n. 76, 114 n. 34, 124 n. 76 sources for 116 nn. 38, 39, 128–9 and nn. 94, 96, 131 n. 105 William I’s reign in 127–9, 130, 131, 133, 139–40 Livy 26 Llanthony Abbey chronicles 145 and n. 25, 146, 147 Llanthony Prima (Augustinian priory), Monmouthshire 145 Llanthony Secunda (Augustinian priory), Gloucestershire 145, 147 Llywelyn ap Iorweth, prince of Gwynedd (Llywelyn Fawr) 146–7 ˆ William 159 Llyn, Lollards 139 Lombardy 49, 50 London 20–1, 126; see also under French Chronicle of London; St. Paul’s Cathedral Lorris, Guillaume de: Roman de la Rose 29, 34–5 n. 50 Lotharingians 136 Lothbrog, Ragnar 149 n. 48 Loud, giant in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59 LRB see under Livere de Reis de Brittanie LRE see under Livere de Reis de Engleterre Lucius, legendary king of Britain 47, 60, 63 Lucius, legendary emperor of Rome defeated by King Arthur 49, 52, 66, 70, 71 Lucius, a British bishop 101

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Index Lud see Loud Ludgate 59 Ludlow, Shropshire 158 n. 92 Lydgate, John: ‘Guy of Warwick’ 86 Lyons 153 MacColl, Alan 56, 57 n. 68, 58 Mador del Mont de Russie 159 Mahel, son of Bernard de Neufmarché and Nest 145 Mahel (d. 1165), son of Miles of Gloucester and lord of Brecon 145 Malcolm III, king of Scotland (d. 1093) 132 Malcolm IV, king of Scotland and earl of Huntingdon (d. 1165) 151 Malgo, legendary king of Britain 55 Man, Isle of 49 Manières de Langage 7–8 Mannyng, Robert, of Brunne: Chronicle 11: Arthurian periods of peace in 68 n. 124 defends its composition in Middle English 39 n. 77 Engel and Inge in 78 n. 21, 79–83, 103 Fouke Fitz Waryn in 158–9 Havelok in 81, 92 Norman Conquest in 105–7, 136, 139–40 Manuscripts: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 5 37 n. 69, 38 nn. 70, 73, 74, 75 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 6 67 nn. 116–17, 74 n. 1 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 98 144 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 133 6 nn. 27 and 29, 20, 32, 33 n. 42, 36 nn. 60–3, 37 n. 66, 65–72, 76 n. 13, 95–6, 102 nn. 116, 118 and 119, 119–21, 166–73 Cam., CCC MS 405 12 n. 62

211

Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 232 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 329 144 n. 19 Cambridge, Jesus College, MS Q. G. 10 (James 58) 15 n. 74 Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, MS 43 (Δ.2.21) 17 Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R. 14. 7 48 Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.III.57 13 n. 67 Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.III.58 13 n. 67 Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.X.22 132 n. 107 Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.X.32 15 n. 74 Cambridge, University Library, MS Ee.I.1 10–11, 108–10, 111, 113, 114 Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.I.1 16 Cambridge, University Library, MS Oo.VII.32 13 n. 67 Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 11 110 n. 23, 111 n. 25 Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Law School Library, MS 1 46 n. 33 Canterbury Cathedral, MS Additional 17 18 n. 87 ‘Chaworth Roll’ 14 n. 67, 28 n. 9, 110 n. 24, 111 n. 25 Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Library, MS 224 (the ‘Wigmore manuscript’) 20, 142 n. 7 Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ MS 19.2.1 (the Auchinleck Manuscript) 39 n. 77, 78 n. 19, 85 n. 56, 91 n. 76, 121–2, 135 Exeter Cathedral, MS 3514 15 n. 74 Leeds, University Library, Brotherton Collection MS 29 16, 19, 28 n. 17

Index London, British Library, MS Royal 20 A.XVIII 28 n. 17, 63 n. 96, 87–8, 118–19, 130–1 London, College of Arms, MS 3/23 B 14 n. 67, 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 London, College of Arms, MS 12/45A 14 n. 67, 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 London, College of Arms, MS 12/45B 14, 120 n. 57 London, College of Arms, MS 20/2 14 and n. 67, 63, 76, 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 London, College of Arms, MS 20/5 14 n. 67, 52–3, 76, 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 London, College of Arms, MS Arundel 14 90–1 London, Lambeth Palace, MS 131 80 n. 32 Los Angeles, University of California, MS Rouse 49 14 n. 67, 111 n. 24 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Add. E. 14 49, 52, 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole Roll 38 13 n. 67, 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Broxbourne 112.3 13 n. 67 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Dugdale 18 138 n. 136, 144, 147 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Dugdale 39 6 nn. 25, 26 and 29 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 636 13 n. 65, 113 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 637 19 n. 90 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson D.329 15–16 n. 76 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Selden supra 74 50, 52, 61–2

Manuscripts: (cont.) Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijkuniversiteit, MS Voss. Gall F. 6 19 London, British Library, MS Add. 8101 52 n. 49 London, British Library, MS Add. 11713 49 n. 42 London, British Library, MS Add. 27879 (the Percy Folio manuscript) 86 n. 61 London, British Library, MS Cotton Appendix LVI 19 London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius A.XIII 144 n. 20 London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius D.VII 19 n. 90 London, British Library, MS Cotton Faustina B.I 143 London, British Library, MS Cotton Julius D.X 145 London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.II 12 n. 62 London, British Library, MS Cotton Roll XIII.17 13 n. 67 London, British Library, MS Cotton Roll XV.7 vi, 50–2, 62, 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73 London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A.XIII vi, 16, 111–12 London, British Library, MS Harley 636 18 n. 87, 30 n. 27, 117–18, 123 n. 67, 129–30 London, British Library, MS Harley 902 17, 80 n. 35 London, British Library, MS Harley 1348 110 n. 23, 111 n. 25 London, British Library, MS Harley 2253 5 n. 22, 154, 155 n. 73 London, British Library, MS Royal 12 C.XII 134–5, 153–4, 155 n. 73, 157–8 n. 91 London, British Library, MS Royal 14.B.V 110–11 n. 24 London, British Library, MS Royal 14 B.VI 110 nn. 22 and 23, 124 n. 73

212

Index Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 195 48 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Top. Devon d. 5 7 n. 34, 12 n. 63, 19 Oxford, Magdalen College, MS 147 86 n. 59 Princeton, University Library, Garrett MS 119 (containing a fragment of Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit) 17 n. 83, 80 n. 35 Map, Walter: De nugis curialum 96 March of Wales 21, 64, 134, 144–7, 155, 157 Margaret, daughter of Edward the Exile and sister of Edgar Ætheling 110, 113 Marshal see under Richard Marshal, Earl of Pembroke marshes 151 Marvin, Julia viii, 9 n. 46, 14 n. 70, 15 n. 74, 56–8, 74 n. 1, 78 n. 18, 84, 91 n. 78, 113–14, 115 n. 36, 124 n. 76, 143, 157–8 n. 91 Mary, Princess, daughter of Edward I 18, 124 Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III, king of Scotland, wife of Henry I and queen of England, and sister of David I and Alexander I, kings of Scotland 116–17, 151 Maud, daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy 110 n. 24 Maud, daughter of Waltheof, earl of Northumbria and Huntingdon 150–1 Maud [Matilda], empress, wife of Heinrich V, emperor, and Geoffrey of Anjou, and mother of Henry II, king of England 113 Mayer, Joseph 13 n. 67 merchants 99–100, 156 Mercia: kings of 56, 57 n. 67, 137; see also under Offa sinner from 102–3

Merlin, legendary figure: his prophecies 36–7, 43, 50–1, 54, 64, 65–6, 68–9 assists Uther in sleeping with Igerne and siring Arthur 49, 59 builds Stonehenge 60 not mentioned in chronicles 47, 48 see also under Of Arthour and of Merlin messengers 70–1, 109 Middle English literature 2, 6 n. 30, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 39, 75, 78, 79–83, 84–7, 92, 94, 96, 105–7, 132–3, 139–40, 142–4, 164, 170 n. 1 Miles, fictional brother of Edward the Confessor and Harold in Le Petit Bruit by Rauf de Boun 122 Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford (d. 1143) 145 miracles 87, 101–3, 126–7, 128–9, 137; see also under dream-visions modesty, absence of in prologues 26–32, 39 Moffat, Douglas 106, 139 Mohun Chronicle 18–20: its use of documents and documentary language 6 nn. 27 and 29, 7, 8 n. 41, 153 its prologue 1–2, 28–9, 152–3 its sources 10 n. 48, 11, 134, 154 Norman Conquest in 127, 133–5, 150, 153, 155, 164 as a family chronicle 25, 141, 144, 150, 152–3, 154, 165 Mohun family: Reynold de Mohun 7, 153, 157 William de Moion I 133–4, 153, 155, 164 see also Mohun Chronicle Moll, Richard J. viii, 33 n. 39, 34 n. 47, 38 n. 74, 65 n. 105, 67 n. 118, 68 and n. 124, 69–70, 71 nn. 136 and 140, 72 n. 141, 74 n. 1, 82 n. 44, 90 n. 75, 92–3, 95, 96–7 and n. 93

213

Index monasteries 1, 5–6, 7, 14, 19, 20, 21, 31, 43–6, 63, 137, 143, 148, 153, 157; see also under Barlings Abbey; Croxton Abbey; Crowland Abbey; Faversham Abbey; Glastonbury Abbey; Newenham Abbey; Waltham Abbey; and under priories Monmouthshire see under Geoffrey of Monmouth; Llanthony Prima Monroe, William 13 n. 65, 14 n. 67, 142 Mordred, legendary nephew of King Arthur 50–3, 71–2, 93, 172–3 Morgan le Noir, legendary son of King Arthur in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59 Morte Arthure, alliterative 71 n. 140, 96 Mortimer family, earls of March 142 n. 7 Nanmor, Dafydd 159 Nazareth 100 Nennius see under Historia Brittonum Nest, wife of Bernard de Neufmarché 145 Newenham Abbey (Cistercian monastery), Devon 1, 7, 12 n. 63, 19, 153 Niger, Ralph: Chronicon II 128 n. 94 Noah 1 nobility, the 1, 7, 17, 21, 25, 28, 39 n. 77, 53, 57, 99–101, 106, 117, 133–5, 137–9, 141–57, 160–1, 163–4; see also under England, barons of; Normans, AngloNorman aristocracy Norfolk 137, 168–9; see also under Crabhouse Priory Norman Conquest: accounts of 6 n. 27, 10, 24–5, 105–40, 153, 162–3 as a milestone in history 9, 11, 12, 17, 50, 74, 75, 93, 104, 143 battle of Hastings 105, 109, 111–13, 118, 119, 121, 122–3, 125–6, 128, 133–5, 137–8, 162

battle of Stamford Bridge 119, 120–1 early years of Norman rule 25, 64, 105–8, 123–40, 150–1, 153, 154, 155, 164 in family chronicles 18, 25, 133–5, 137–8, 143, 150, 153, 164 William I’s right to the throne 108–23, 125, 139, 162–3 see also under Domesday Book; Edgar Ætheling; William I; Harold II Normans Anglo-Norman aristocracy 74–5, 106–8, 123, 125, 129–30, 132, 133–5, 136 Norman clerics 120, 162 Norman French dialect 10, 132–3 Norman historians 107–8 Norman kings 108, 116–17, 125, 127, 155, 162–3; see also under William I, William II, Henry I, Stephen Normandy: conquered by Arthur 49 dukes of 10, 109, 110–11 and n. 24 Earl Harold (later Harold II) in 109, 111, 114–20 laws in 129–30 Simon de Seintliz II in 151 William I died in 121 see also under William I, king of England, as duke of Normandy Northamptonshire see under Delapré Abbey Northumbria 32, 65, 99, 101, 102–3, 131–2; see also under Ælle; Æthelred; Siward; Waltheof Norway 49, 66; see also Anelaf Norwegians 149 nunneries 7, 20, 31, 147–8, 152; see also under Amesbury Priory; Crabhouse Priory; Delapré Abbey Of Arthour and Of Merlin 39 n. 77 Offa, Anglo-Saxon king (of Mercia) 56–8, 76–7 Olda 99, 101

214

Index Olrik, A. 150 n. 50 Order of the Garter, the 45 Orewen, legendary wife of Athelbright and mother of Argentille / Goldeburgh 168–9 Orkneyinga Saga 149 Orkneys 149, 159 Osbert de Clare: Vita Beati Edwardi Regis Anglorum (c.1138) 126 Osbrith, Anglo-Saxon king 57–8 Osred, nephew of King Offa 57 n. 67 Oswald, St 56, 57 n. 67 Oswi, Anglo-Saxon king (possibly based on Oswiu, king of Northumbria) 56, 57 n. 67 Oxford see under Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford Pagan, Heather viii, 14 n. 70, 15 n. 76, 91 n. 78, 114 n. 34, 124 n. 76, 143 n. 12 pagans 30, 39, 76, 91, 99–101, 103–4, 160 n. 109 Pageants of Richard Beauchamp, the 142 Paris, Gaston 30 n. 27 Paris, Matthew 13, 105, 108 Parlement of the Thre Ages 71 n. 140 Parliament 4, 5, 130 ‘passage of dominion’ from British to English, the 40, 47–58, 62, 63, 65, 72–3, 77–83, 114, 163 Paston family 86 n. 62 Patent Rolls 4 Patrikes le Rous, legendary son of King Arthur in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59 Payn Peverel, champion of William the Conqueror 64, 134, 154, 155, 157, 164 Paynel family 143 Peanda, legendary minor Anglo-Saxon king 56 Peasants’ Revolt, the 139 Pedwardine family 143–4 Pembrokeshire see under Richard Marshal; St David’s

Perceval, Sir, legendary Arthurian knight 60 Percy family, earls of Northumberland 142 Perlesvaus 155 Peter Comestor: Historia Scholastica 38 Peter de Brubille, robber chief in Fouke le Fitz Waryn 159 Peter’s pence 59, 153 Philip I, king of France 124 Philip the Red, brother of Fouke Fitz Waryn 160 Phillippe Auguste (Philip II Augustus), king of France 160 Philosophy (personification) 35 Picards 136 Piers de Gaveston, earl of Cornwall 137 Plea Rolls 4 ploughshares 103 n. 123 Poetic Edda 97 Poitou 49 Polonus, Martinus: Chronicon Pontificium et Imperatorum 8, 18 Ponthieu, count of (Guy I) 114–16 popes 18–19, 90, 99, 153 see also under Boniface VIII; Gregory the Great; Peter’s pence postcolonialism 22 Premonstratensians see under Barlings Abbey; Croxton Abbey Prestwich, Michael 44 n. 21 priories 63–4, 102, 129 n. 98, 145–7; see also under Amesbury Priory; Bridlington Priory; Christ Church Priory; Crabhouse Priory; Llanthony Prima; Llanthony Secunda; St. Martin’s Priory; Sixhills Priory prophecy 33, 34, 36–9, 43, 54, 64, 68–9, 116–17, 131 Prose Brut (Anglo-Norman) 14–15, 24, 143, 162–3: Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 54–8, 76–7, 91 nn. 76 and 78

215

Index Prose Brut (Anglo-Norman) (cont.) Arthur in 54, 66, 70 n. 132, 84 as a source for Gray’s Scalacronica 19, 28, 64–6, 70, 72, 92–4, 119 and n. 54, 163 as a source for John Hardyng’s Chronicle 164 n. 1 continuations of 14–15, 16, 23 documents in 6–7 Havelok in 55, 74 n. 1, 83, 84–5, 88, 92–4 Hengist and Horsa in 77–8, 81 legendary history of Britain in 14–15, 24, 54–8, 60–1, 62–3, 64–6, 74 n. 1, 76–8, 84 manuscripts of 15 and n. 74, 74 n. 1, 144 Norman Conquest in 24, 105–6 n. 2, 113–15, 120, 123, 163 ‘passage of dominion’ in 54–8, 62–3, 64–5, 108, 163 prequels to 14–15 and n. 73, 27 and n. 8 sources for 9, 10, 14, 15 n. 76, 27, 54–7, 78, 83–5, 91 n. 78, 113–14 n. 32, 114 and n. 34, 115 n. 36, 120 and n. 58, 124 n. 76, 143 William I’s reign in 124, 131 Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle 11, 18, 23–4, 28 (see also William de Briane) Putter, Ad 7, 41 n. 5, 67 n. 115 Qgmundarsynir, Kormák see under Kormák Qgmundarsynir Quatre Fils Aymon, Les 155–6 n. 77 Ralph the Breton, earl of East Anglia 136–7 Ranulf III, earl of Chester 157 and n. 89 Rauf de Boun 17, 147: Le Petit Bruit 17, 24, 147: Arthur in 58–62, 69, 162, 163 Danish kings in 88–91 Engel in 79–83, 103 English kings in 17, 59, 62, 79–83 Havelok in 83, 84, 88–91, 92, 94

legendary history of Britain in 17, 58–62, 72, 162, 163 manuscripts of 17 and n. 83, 80 n. 35 prologue to 17, 30, 33 Norman Conquest in 122–3 sources for 17, 58–60, 80–1, 88 n. 66, 122–3 and n. 96 style in 6 n. 29, 61 William I’s reign in 127, 135–7 ‘Ravenlaundeye’, banner belonging to Siward, earl of Northumbria 149 readers of Anglo-Norman prose chronicles: hypothetical or imagined readers 5, 21, 23, 27–31, 33, 35, 50–1, 53, 57–8, 73, 86, 98, 104, 163 known readers or target audiences 1–2, 10, 18, 20, 74 n. 1, 87–8, 129, 147–8, 154 recreation, historical literature as 26, 35 registers see under cartularies religious institutions see under monasteries, nunneries, priories Remus see under Romulus and Remus Renaud de Montauban see under Quatre Fils Aymon, Les Revard, Carter 154 n. 67, 155 n. 73 rhetorical topoi 26–31, 39 Richard I, king of England 11, 19, 23, 43–4, 46, 108–9, 124 Richard I, Duke of Normandy 110 n. 24 Richard II, king of England 17, 125 Richard Marshal, Earl of Pembroke 146–7 Richard the Cantor of Nottingham 148–9 riddles 32–3, 38, 39 Riddy, Felicity 45 Rigmel, character from Thomas’s Roman de Horn 160 n. 108 Ritchie, R. L. Graeme 136 Robert of Béthune, Bishop of Hereford 145

216

Index ‘Robert of Gloucester’: Chronicle 11, 71 n. 140, 105–7, 139–40 Robert the Bruce (Robert I), king of Scotland 158 Robin Hood 154 n. 71 Roger, earl of Hereford (Roger de Breteuil) 137 Roll-chronicles see under genealogical chronicle rolls Roman de Horn see under Thomas, Roman de Horn romances 10, 11, 39 n. 77, 44, 75, 78 n. 19: as sources for Anglo-Norman prose chronicles 20, 23–5, 59–60, 64, 68–73, 83–8, 91–7, 99, 141–2, 155, 158–61 Romance dialects 2 n. 3 Romans 52, 60, 65, 85, 99–101: Roman senators 38 Roman emperors 49, 50–2, 99, 101, 152–3 Roman historians 42, 67 Rome 36, 41, 48, 50, 65, 70–1, 99, 101 Romulus and Remus, legendary founders of Rome 65 Ronewenne, legendary daughter of Hengist 47, 81–2 Ronwein see under Ronewenne Rothwell, William 3, 4 Round Table, the see under Arthur, legendary king of Britain, his Round Table Rous Roll, the 142 Rouse, Robert 75, 86 ‘Rubundibraz’, legendary king of Britain in Rauf de Boun’s Petit Bruit 59 Rule of St. Benedict see under Benedict, St Rymer, Thomas (editor): Foedera 4 Sadoine, son of the Sultan (in Gui de Warewic) 156 n. 77 saints’ lives see under hagiography

St. David’s, Pembrokeshire, Bishop of 145–6 St. Martin’s Priory, Dover, Kent 63–4 St. Paul’s Cathedral, London 17 Sallust: Bellum Catilinae 26, 34, 133 n. 113 Saracens 99–101, 159, 160; see also under pagans Saxons: as brave knights 95–7 British battles with 52–3, 56 in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica 102–3 in reign of Constantine 55, 74 n. 1 in story of Havelok 83–5, 93–5, 168–73 loss of Britain to 41, 47, 77–8, 81, 114, 166–7 participate in the Norman Conquest in the Petit Bruit 136 Saxon historians 42, 65, 67–8 their conversion to Christianity 55–6, 99, 101 see also under Anglo-Saxons; ‘passage of dominion’ Saxony 60, 79, 81, 166–9 Scandinavian motifs 148–50 Scandinavians 103; see also under Danes; Denmark; Norway; Norwegians; Sweden Scarborough, Yorkshire 80–1 Scardisbornz 79 Scardius/Scardyng, legendary giant 79–82 Scotland: conquered by Arthur 49, 59, 61, 65–6 Eboracus and; see under Eboracus Edward I and later English kings claimed overlordship of 16 n. 76, 21, 24, 44–6, 58, 61, 65–6, 69 kings of 110, 150; see also under Alexander I; Alexander II; David I; Malcolm III; Malcolm IV; Robert the Bruce (Robert I) ruled by Hiwayn 71 ruled by Uther 61

217

Index Scotland: (cont.) wars with 32, 37, 45–6, 65–6, 124, 129, 131–2, 149–50 William I and 124, 129, 131–2 Scottish, the 65–6, 131–2, 150–2: Scottish historians 65, 158 Scottish Chronicle, the 15–16 n. 76 Scotus, Marianus (1028–82) 19 Seint Graal 59 Sharpe, Richard 37 n. 69 sheriffs 133 ships and seafaring 99–101, 156, 159 Short English Metrical Chronicle 11: Alfred the Great and Havelok in 91 n. 76 Bevis of Hampton not featured in 87 Guy of Warwick in 85, 87 Inge in 81–3 legendary history of Britain in 60 Norman Conquest in 107, 121–2, 134–5, 139, 155 related to the Brute Abregé 11, 16 and n. 78, 81–3, 85, 87, 121–2 Sibyl, Sibyls 6 n. 27, 34–9 Sibylla Tiburtina 37–9 Sicily 65 Sigar, legendary steward from Denmark 83 Sigrun, legendary figure 96–7, 163 Sigurð Digre, Jarl of Orkney 149 Simon de Seintliz I (d. c. 1111), earl of Huntingdon 150–1, 157 Simon de Seintliz II (d. 1153), earl of Huntingdon 151, 157 Simon de Seintliz III (d. 1184), earl of Huntingdon 151–2 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 80 n. 28 Sixhills Priory (Gilbertine house), Lincolnshire 81 Siward, earl of Northumbria (d. 1055) 137, 148–50, 152, 153, 154, 155 Skarthi see under Thorgils Skemer, Don C. 17 n. 83 Smith, A. H. 149 n. 48, 150 n. 50 Smithers, G. V. 84

Smyser, H. M. 135 Somerset 1, 18, 153; see also under Dunster Castle; Glastonbury Abbey; Mohun Chronicle; Mohun family Southern, Richard 21 Spain 60 Spiegel, Gabrielle M. 11 nn. 51 and 52, 22 spring 29 Stamford Bridge (Yorkshire), battle of see under Norman Conquest Stephen, king of England 136–7 n. 131 statutes 4–5 Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury 127, 130 Stonehenge 60, 74 n. 1 Suffolk 137, 168–9 Suggett, Helen 3, 5 n. 20 sultan, a 99–100, 156 n. 77 Summerfield, Thea 107 Sussex, kings of 56 Sweden 159 Swein, king of Denmark 93–4, 172–3 Tatlock, J. S. P. 40, 82 n. 42 taxation 59, 127–28, 153 Taylor, John 9 n. 43, 16, 21 n. 99, 22 n. 103, 28 n. 17, 33 n. 39, 67 n. 114, 142 n. 7 Telous 101 Thacker, Alan 125 and n. 82 Thiolier, Jean-Claude viii, 15 n. 74, 19 n. 93, 20 n. 94, 35, 37 n. 64, 70 n. 134, 97, 120 n. 59, 132, 133–5 Thomas: Roman de Horn 78 and n. 19, 160 n. 108 Thomas: Tristan 160 n. 105 ‘Thomas de Otreburn’ 19 Thomas (Thomas of Woodstock), Duke of Gloucester 154 Thomas, Hugh 75, 106 ‘Thomas of Kendale’ 80 Thongcaster 81

218

Index Thorgils, legendary Viking warrior also known as Skarthi 80 Tiburtine Sibyl 37, 38 n. 70; see also under Sibyl, Sibyls Tosti, earl of Huntingdon 149 Toulousans 136 tournaments 44–5, 71 and n. 136 treasure 120–1, 156 Treharne, Elaine 106 Trevet, Nicholas: Historia ab orbe condito 29–30 Les Cronicles 17–18, 24: Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 63, 76, 98–104 Arthur and legendary history of Britain in 63 Christianity in 98–104, 126–7, 163 Constance in 98–101, 104, 164 n. 1 manuscripts of 18, 19, 98 n. 97, 135 prologue to 29–30 Norman Conquest in 115–16, 125–6, 128 sources for 98–9, 101–3, 115–16, 119 William I’s reign in 124–7, 131 Triamour, King (in Gui de Warewic) 156 n. 77 Trivet, Nicholas see under Trevet, Nicholas Trotter, David 3 Troy, histories of 19, 36 and n. 63, 95, 102 Turville-Petre, Thorlac 12 n. 59, 16 n. 78, 75, 78 n. 21, 106–7, 136, 139 Tyson, Diana B. 13 n. 65, 14 n. 68, 18 n. 86, 19 n. 89, 52 n. 49, 58 n. 72, 60, 109, 123 underworld 36 Unwine, legendary warrior 96–7, 163 Uther Pendragon, legendary king of Britain: as father of Arthur 48 learns of Aurelius Ambrosius’s death 65–6

noted as ruler of Britain 60, 61, 67 n. 117 omitted from chronicles 47 preceded by Arthur in the Brute Abregé 52 sleeps with Igerne and sires Arthur 49, 59 Valkyrie, a 97 verse, use of 2, 3, 6, 7, 9–10, 11, 16, 20, 22, 23, 27–8, 30–1, 32–3, 37, 39, 46, 79, 105, 107, 108 n. 13, 128–9, 139–40, 153, 154, 162 Vikings 80; see also under Danes, Norwegians Vincent of Beauvais: Speculum Historiale 38 and n. 75 Virgil: Aeneid 36, 82 n. 42 Eclogues 37 Vita et Passio Sancti Waldevi 137–8, 148–50 Vita Haroldi 125 Vitalis, Orderic 137 Vortigern, legendary king of Britain 47, 55, 60, 77 n. 16, 78 Vulgate prose romances 59, 68 Wace 9–10, 27: Roman de Brut 9–10: Arthur in 42–3, 48, 49, 53, 54, 60 n. 82, 61–2, 66, 67, 68 Britain as England in 53 and n. 52, 60 n. 85, 62 as a source for Des Grantz Geanz 27 and n. 8 as a source for roll-chronicles 48 as a source for Gray’s Scalacronica 19, 64, 66, 68, 70, 71 as a source for John of Canterbury’s Polistorie 63 as a source for Langtoft’s Chronique 10 as a source for Robert Mannyng’s Chronicle 11, 79 as a source for the Anonimalle Brut 63

219

Index Wace (cont.) as a source for the prose Brut 14, 28, 54–8, 63, 78 n. 18 legendary history of Britain in 9–10, 42–3, 48, 49, 53, 54, 60 n. 82, 61–2, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71 manuscripts of 9–10, 55 n. 58 Roman de Rou 10: as a source for the Mohun Chronicle 18, 28, 134, 153, 154 Norman Conquest in 10, 105, 132, 134, 153 Norman dukes in 10 Wade 96–7, 163 Wales: Anglo-Norman prose chronicles read in 21 as place of refuge 146 ‘British hope’ in 21, 43–5, 68–9 ruled by the Britons in the legendary history of Britain 21, 45, 47, 48, 59, 61 wars with 24, 45, 48, 68–9, 88 n. 66, 129, 134, 155 William I and 129, 155 see also under March of Wales Walter, archdeacon of Exeter see under Walter, archdeacon of Oxford Walter, archdeacon of Oxford 34 and n. 47, 68 Walter Map see under Map, Walter Waltham, Essex 45, 113, 121, 128 Waltham Abbey (Augustinian house), Essex 45 Waltheof, earl of Northumbria 128, 130–1, 137–8, 148, 150, 157; see also under Vita et Passio Sancti Waldevi; Delapré Chronicle Wantage, Berkshire 157 Warwick, earls of see under Beauchamp family, earls of Warwick Warwickshire 86 n. 62 Wassail and Drinkhail (custom) 81 Watkins, Carl 137 n. 135, 148

Weiss, Judith viii, 156 n. 77 Welsh, the 21, 43–5, 64, 68–9, 88 n. 66, 101, 146–7, 155, 159 Welsh literature 60 n. 82, 159 Wessex, kings of 56, 76 see also under Æthelwulf; Alfred; Egbert Westminster 130 Westminster Abbey (Benedictine monastery) 17, 45 West Saxons 53; see also under Saxons; Wessex, kings of Whittington, Shropshire 158 n. 92 Wigmore Abbey Chronicle 20, 31 Wikele, character from Thomas’s Roman de Horn 160 n. 108 William I, king of England: as Duke of Normandy 108–10, 114–23, 133–5 impact on languages in England 105, 132–3 in family chronicles 64, 133–5, 137–8, 150–1, 153, 154, 155, 157, 164 legitimacy of his claim to the throne 24–5, 108–23, 163 nature of his reign as king of England 106–8, 123–40, 162 treatment of his knights 121, 124, 129, 130–1, 136–8, 163 see also under Harold II; Norman Conquest; Normans William II (William Rufus), king of England 117, 145, 150 William de Briane: translation of Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle 11, 23 William de Briouze (Braose) III, lord of Brecon 146 William de Briouze V, grandson of William de Briouze (Braose) III, lord of Brecon 146 William de Moion, first lord of Dunster see under Mohun family William de Vieuxpont (‘William de Wespund’) 148 William of Jumièges 108 n. 12

220

Index William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum 8: Arthur in 41–2, 67 as a possible source for the Anonimalle Brut 119 n. 50 as a possible source for the prose Brut 114 n. 34, 124 n. 76 as a source for Gray’s Scalacronica 19, 67–8, 119–20, 131 as a source for John of Canterbury’s Polistorie 130 and n. 101 as a source for LRB 12 and n. 61 as a source for multiple works 74 Norman Conquest in 107–8, 114 n. 34, 119–20 William I’s reign in 124 n. 76, 130, 131 William of Newburgh: History of English Affairs (Historia Rerum Anglicarum) 21, 26–7, 35 n. 51, 42–3, 61 William of Poitiers 108 n. 12 William, son of Miles of Gloucester 145–6 William the Lion, king of Scotland and earl of Huntingdon 151–2 Williams, Alison 158 n. 92 Wilson, R. M. 79 n. 25, 80, 81–2 and n. 43, 96 n. 93, 149 n. 48, 154 n. 69

Wiltshire see under Amesbury Priory Winchester, Hampshire 85–7, 90, 130–1, 138 Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn viii, 2, 32 n. 35, 75 women (unnamed) 2, 21, 31, 89 and n. 70, 166–7 Woodford family 144 Worcester, Worcestershire 126 Wright, C. E. 150 n. 50 Wright, Laura 3 Wright, Neil viii, 41 n. 6 Wright, Thomas 13 Wulfstan (St), Bishop of Worcester 126–7, 128–9, 132, 162 Wynn, Philip 99 Year Books 4 York, archbishopric of 18; see also under Ealdred York 33, 150 Yorkshire 10, 19, 81; see also under Bridlington Priory; Flamborough; Norman Conquest, battle of Stamford Bridge; Scarborough; York Young, Helen 78 n. 21, 123 n. 69 Yvain 71 n. 140, 160; see also under Hiwayn Zettl, Ewald 16 n. 78

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God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of LateMedieval Women Visionaries, Rosalynn Voaden (1999) Pilgrimage Explored, ed. J. Stopford (1999) Piety, Fraternity and Power: Religious Gilds in Late Medieval Yorkshire 1389–1547, †David J. F. Crouch (2000) Courts and Regions in Medieval Europe, ed. Sarah Rees Jones, Richard Marks and A. J. Minnis (2000) Treasure in the Medieval West, ed. Elizabeth M. Tyler (2000) Nunneries, Learning and Spirituality in Late Medieval English Society: The Dominican Priory of Dartford, Paul Lee (2000) Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England, Lesley A. Coote (2000) The Problem of Labour in Fourteenth-Century England, ed. James Bothwell, P. J. P. Goldberg and W. M. Ormrod (2000) New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies: Essays from the 1998 Harvard Conference, ed. Derek Pearsall (2000) Cistercians, Heresy and Crusade in Occitania, 1145–1229: Preaching in the Lord’s Vineyard, Beverly Mayne Kienzle (2001) Guilds and the Parish Community in Late Medieval East Anglia, c.1470–1550, Ken Farnhill (2001) The Age of Edward III, ed. J. S. Bothwell (2001) Time in the Medieval World, ed. Chris Humphrey and W. M. Ormrod (2001) The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300–1300, ed. Martin Carver (2002) Henry IV: The Establishment of the Regime, 1399–1406, ed. Gwilym Dodd and Douglas Biggs (2003) Youth in the Middle Ages, ed. P. J. P Goldberg and Felicity Riddy (2004) The Idea of the Castle in Medieval England, Abigail Wheatley (2004) Rites of Passage: Cultures of Transition in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Nicola F. McDonald and W. M. Ormrod (2004) Creating the Monastic Past in Medieval Flanders, Karine Ugé (2005) St William of York, Christopher Norton (2006) Medieval Obscenities, ed. Nicola F. McDonald (2006) The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, ed. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson (2006)

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York Manuscripts Conference Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England: The Literary Implications of Manuscript Study, ed. Derek Pearsall (1983) [Proceedings of the 1981 York Manuscripts Conference] Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English Literature, ed. Derek Pearsall (1987) [Proceedings of the 1985 York Manuscripts Conference] Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, ed. A. J. Minnis (1989) [Proceedings of the 1987 York Manuscripts Conference] Regionalism in Late-Medieval Manuscripts and Texts: Essays celebrating the publication of ‘A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English’, ed. Felicity Riddy (1991) [Proceedings of the 1989 York Manuscripts Conference] Late-Medieval Religious Texts and their Transmission: Essays in Honour of A. I. Doyle, ed. A. J. Minnis (1994) [Proceedings of the 1991 York Manuscripts Conference] Prestige, Authority and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. Felicity Riddy (2000) [Proceedings of the 1994 York Manuscripts Conference] Middle English Poetry: Texts and Traditions: Essays in Honour of Derek Pearsall, ed. A. J. Minnis (2001) [Proceedings of the 1996 York Manuscripts Conference] Manuscript Culture in the British Isles I

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