DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World

Manuscripts, Makers and Readers, c.1066-c.1250

Laura Cleaver editor Andrea Worm editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:York Medieval Press

Published:18th Oct '22

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in another edition too:

Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World cover

The contexts for the works of eleventh and twelfth-century historians are here brought to the fore. History was a subject popular with authors and readers in the Anglo-Norman world. The volume and richness of historical writing in the lands controlled by the kings of England, particularly from the twelfth century, has long attracted the attention of historians and literary scholars, whilst editions of works by such writers as Orderic Vitalis, John of Worcester, Symeon of Durham, William of Malmesbury, Gerald of Wales, Roger of Howden, and Matthew Paris has made them well known. Yet the easy availability of modern editions obscures both the creation and circulation of histories in the Middle Ages. This collection of essays returns to the processes involved in writing history, and in particular to the medieval manuscript sources in which the works of such historians survive. It explores the motivations of those writing about the past in the Middle Ages, and the evidence provided by manuscripts for the circumstances in which copies were made. It also addresses the selection of material for copying, combinations of text and imagery, and the demand for copies of particular works, shedding new light on how and why history was being read, reproduced, discussed, adapted, and written. LAURA CLEAVER is Senior Lecturer in Manuscript Studies, Institute of English Studies, University of London; ANDREA WORM is Professor of Art History. Kunsthistorischen Institut, Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen. Contributors: Stephen Church, Kathryn Gerry, Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Laura Pani, Charles C. Rozier, Gleb Schmidt, Laura Slater, Michael Staunton, Caoimhe Whelan, Andrea Worm

This volume thus offers a rich variety of insights into the diversity and complexity of Anglo-Norman historical writing. . . . [It] achieves its goal of using manuscripts to add nuance to our understanding of Anglo-Norman historical writing. * MANUSCRIPT STUDIES *
The quality of the essays, and the originality of many of their findings, should, if nothing else, serve to spur other researchers into action. * FRANCIA *

ISBN: 9781914049118

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 434g

288 pages