Prologues to Ancient and Medieval History: A Reader 9781442605046

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Prolo gu e s to A nc i e n t a n d M e di e va l H i s tory

Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures: XVII series editor: Paul Edward Dutton

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Prologu e s to A nc i e n t a n d M e di e va l H i s tory A R e a de r

edited by

Justin Lake

Copyright © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2013 Higher Education Division www.utppublishing.com All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5—is an infringement of the copyright law. library and archives canada cataloguing in publication Prologues to ancient and medieval history: a reader / edited by Justin Lake; series editor, Paul Edward Dutton. (Readings in medieval civilizations and cultures series; 17) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-4426-0503-9 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4426-0798-9 (pbk.).— ISBN 978-1-4426-0504-6 (pdf ).—ISBN 978-1-4426-0505-3 (epub) 1. History, Ancient—Textbooks. 2. Middle Ages—Textbooks. I. Dutton, Paul Edward, 1952–, series editor II. Lake, Justin, editor of compilation III. Series: Readings in medieval civilizations and cultures ; 17 D59.P76 2013

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C2013-903290-8

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We welcome comments and suggestions regarding any aspect of our publications—please feel free to contact us at [email protected] or visit our Internet site at www.utppublishing.com. North America UK, Ireland, and continental Europe 5201 Dufferin Street NBN International North York, Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T8 Estover Road, Plymouth, PL6 7PY, UK orders phone: 44 (0) 1752 202301 2250 Military Road orders fax: 44 (0) 1752 202333 Tonawanda, New York, USA, 14150 orders e-mail: [email protected] orders phone: 1–800–565–9523 orders fax: 1–800–221–9985 orders e-mail: [email protected] Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an error or omission, please notify the publisher. This book is printed on paper containing 100% post-consumer fibre. The University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund. Printed in Canada

To Barbara Cooney

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Con t e n t s Acknowledgments   •  x Introduction   •  xi A Note on Terminology   •  xix CHAPTER ONE: ANTIQUITY (500 BCE–500 CE) 1 Hecataeus of Miletus, Genealogies   •  1 2 Herodotus, Histories   •  1 3 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War   •  2 4 Polybius, Histories   •  12 5 Diodorus Siculus, Library   •  29 6 Aulus Hirtius, Preface to Book 8 of Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War  •  34 7 Sallust, Catiline’s War  •  36 8 Sallust, The Jugurthine War  •  38 9 Livy, History of Rome  •  40 10 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities  •  43 11 Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War  •  49 12 Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews  •  53 13 Tacitus, Agricola   •  57 14 Tacitus, Histories  •  59 15 Tacitus, Annals  •  60 16 Florus, Epitome of Roman History  •  61 17 Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus  •  62 18 Herodian, History of the Empire after Marcus  •  63 19 Jerome, Chronicle  •  65 20 Eunapius of Sardis, History after Dexippus  •  69 21 Sulpicius Severus, Life of Saint Martin  •  72 22 Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History  •  75 23 Orosius, Seven Books of History against the Pagans 77 CHAPTER TWO: THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (500–900 CE) 24 Jordanes, On the Summary of the Eras, and the Origin and Deeds of the Romans (Romana)  •  81 25 Jordanes, On the Origins and Deeds of the Goths (Getica)  •  83 26 Procopius, Wars  •  84 27 Procopius, Secret History  •  87 vii

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r 28 Agathias, Histories  •  88 29 Gildas, On the Destruction and Conquest of Britain  •  93 30 Gregory of Tours, Histories  •  96 31 Fredegar, Chronicle  •  102 32 Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People  •  103 33 Paul the Deacon, Roman History  •  106 34 Einhard, Life of Charlemagne  •  108 35 Frechulf of Lisieux, Chronicle  •  111 36 The Astronomer, Life of Emperor Louis  •  114 37 Nithard, Histories  •  116 38 Agnellus of Ravenna, The Book of the Bishops of the Church of Ravenna  •  118 39 Erchempert, History of the Lombards of Benevento  •  120 CHAPTER THREE: THE CENTRAL MIDDLE AGES (900–1100) 40 Regino of Prüm, Chronicle  •  123 41 Odo of Cluny, Life of Saint Gerald of Aurillac  •  124 42 Flodoard, History of the Church of Rheims  •  129 43 Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis  •  130 44 Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, The Deeds of Otto  •  133 45 Widukind of Corvey, Saxon History  •  135 46 Heriger of Lobbes, Life of Remaclus/Deeds of the Bishops of Liège  •  137 47 Letaldus of Micy, The Miracles of Saint Maximin  •  141 48 Letaldus of Micy, Life of Saint Julian  •  143 49 Richer of Saint-Rémi, Histories  •  146 50 Aimoin of Fleury, History of the Franks  •  147 51 Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Deeds of the Normans  •  149 52 Adalbold of Utrecht, Life of Emperor Henry II  •  155 53 Raoul Glaber, Histories  •  156 54 Wipo, Life of Emperor Conrad II  •  158 55 William of Jumièges, Deeds of the Norman Dukes  •  162 56 Lampert of Hersfeld, The Book of the Foundation of the Church of Hersfeld  •  164 57 Adam of Bremen, Deeds of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen  •  167 58 Geoffrey Malaterra, On the Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily, and of Duke Robert Guiscard, his Brother  •  169 CHAPTER FOUR: THE HIGH AND LATE MIDDLE AGES (1100–1400) 59 Fulcher of Chartres, History of the Expedition to Jerusalem  •  173 60 Guibert of Nogent, The Deeds of God through the Franks  •  174 61 Hugh of Fleury, Ecclesiastical History  •  179 viii

conte nts 62 Gallus Anonymous, Chronicles and Deeds of the Dukes and Princes of the Poles  •  183 63 Eadmer, History of Recent Events in England  •  190 64 Cosmas of Prague, Chronicle of the Bohemians  •  191 65 Galbert of Bruges, On the Murder, Betrayal, and Death of the Glorious Count Charles of Flanders  •  196 66 William of Malmesbury, Deeds of the English Kings  •  197 67 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain  •  204 68 Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History  •  206 69 Robert of Torigni, Chronicle  •  215 70 Alfred of Beverley, Annals, or History of the Deeds of the Kings of Britain  •  218 71 Otto of Freising, Chronicle, or History of the Two Cities  •  220 72 Otto of Freising and Rahewin, Deeds of Emperor Frederick I  •  227 73 Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English People  •  231 74 John of Salisbury, Memoirs of the Papal Court  •  234 75 Helmold of Bosau, Slavic Chronicle  •  237 76 William of Tyre, Chronicle  •  240 77 Gerald of Wales, The Topography of Ireland  •  245 78 Gerald of Wales, The Journey through Wales  •  251 79 Ralph de Diceto, Abbreviations of Chronicles  •  255 80 William of Newburgh, History of English Affairs  •  258 81 Gervase of Canterbury, Chronicle  •  263 82 Niketas Choniates, History  •  269 83 Saxo Grammaticus, History of the Danes  •  271 84 Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History  •  275 85 Nicholas Trevet, Annals of Six Kings of England  •  277 86 Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon  •  279 87 Anonymous, The Eulogy of Histories  •  283 88 Jean Froissart, Chronicle  •  286 INDEX OF TOPICS  •  289

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AC K NOW LEDGM ENTS Thanks are due in the first place to Paul Dutton, who suggested the idea for this reader, entrusted its execution to me, and carefully edited the manuscript. Beth McAuley copy edited this volume; Beate Schwirtlich, Anna Del Col, Natalie Fingerhut at the University of Toronto Press and freelancer Ashley Rayner helped bring it to fruition. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Natasha, for her unflagging love and support.

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I n t roduc t ion “This is the exposition of the inquiries of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, intended so that the deeds of men may not be effaced by time, and the great and wondrous achievements made manifest by both Greeks and non-Greeks may not be without fame, in particular the reason for which they waged war upon one another.” So goes the first sentence of Herodotus’s Histories, the earliest surviving narrative history from classical Antiquity and in all likelihood the first such history to have been written in the West. The concise beauty of this statement, with its prescient faith in the written word as the means of rescuing man’s achievements from oblivion, can hardly fail to strike the reader; it is precisely because an unbroken chain of words—committed first to papyrus, then to parchment, paper, and finally digital code—connects us to the fifth century BCE that the “great and wondrous achievements” that Herodotus records in his history have not been forgotten. Herodotus’s opening statement is not merely an eloquent expression of the commemorative function of history, however; it is also a guide to reading and understanding his work. Trying to assess the motives of a writer separated from us temporally by more than two millennia and mentally by a very different set of assumptions about how the world works is a task best undertaken with humility. For that reason, any attempt to understand Herodotus’s goals as a historian must start by taking account of his own words. The same holds true for every history from classical Antiquity or the Middle Ages. In trying to bridge the daunting mental gap that separates our era from theirs, we cling to the explicit statements of authors as our surest guide to their intentions. Hence the importance of the historical prologue, the one part of any history where the author was called upon to address his audience directly and comment on his reasons for writing. There was general agreement in Antiquity that written history required a formal introduction (although Xenophon’s Hellenica and Anabasis show that this was by no means a universal requirement). The most basic function of the historical prologue was simply to provide the audience with the essential facts about what they were going to read or hear. In the earliest Greek histories the opening words served both as a title and a summary of contents: Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Antiochus of Syracuse all begin by stating their names and the subject of their work, for example. Over time the statement of contents gradually shifted from the opening sentence to the middle or end of the introduction, but it remained an indispensable part of any historical prologue. Other standard features were an explanation of the author’s reason for writing (which from late Antiquity onward was almost always framed as a response to a request from an outside party), a declaration of the usefulness of history and the importance of the chosen theme, and a discussion of the xi

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r author’s methodology and use of sources, sometimes accompanied by criticism of his predecessors or contemporaries. All of these elements are already in evidence in the introduction to Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War, written at the end of the fifth century BCE. Thucydides provides a reason for writing (his expectation that the Peloponnesian War would outstrip all previous wars in magnitude and importance); he declares that history’s value lies in providing a precise record of events in case similar circumstances should ever arrive again; he emphasizes his devotion to accuracy and avoidance of “mythical” or “romantic” material; and he indirectly criticizes his famous predecessor Herodotus for the shortcomings of his methods. No less important, historical prologues were written to engage the attention of the audience and establish a sympathetic portrait of the author. The techniques for achieving these goals were ultimately derived from rhetoric, which began to cohere as a formal discipline in fifth-century BCE Greece and gradually came to overshadow all other aspects of classical education in importance. Although rhetoric was originally devised as an art of spoken persuasion, its dominant role in education meant that it exercised a powerful influence over all types of prose writing. Classical (and, to a lesser extent, medieval) historians were invariably trained in rhetoric, and this training affected both their presentation of events and the manner in which they addressed themselves to their audience. Rhetorical doctrine held that every speech (and, by extension, every text designed to persuade) should begin with an introduction (Gk. prooimion, Lat. exordium) whose purpose was to gain the sympathy and interest of the audience.1 Specific precepts for achieving these aims are found in two Latin rhetorical treatises of the first century BCE, Cicero’s De inventione (ca 90 BCE) and the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium (ca 85–80 BCE), both of which became important vectors for the transmission of classical rhetorical doctrines to the Middle Ages. Cicero states that the function of the exordium was “to bring the mind of the auditor into a proper condition to receive the rest of the speech,”2 which could be accomplished by rendering him well disposed (benivolus), attentive (attentus), and receptive (docilis).3 Naturally, different kinds of cases required different approaches. Sometimes the facts were such that the speaker needed to employ only a simple introduction or none at all.4 1 For an overview of this topic, see Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, trans. M.T. Bliss, A. Jansen, and D.E. Orton, ed. D.E. Orton and R.D. Anderson (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 121–36. 2 De inventione 1.15.20; Cicero: De Inventione; De Optimo Genere Oratorum; Topica, trans. H.M. Hubbell, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949), p. 41. Cf. Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.3.4: Exordium est principium orationis, per quod animus auditoris constituitur ad audiendum (“the exordium is the first part of a speech, through which the mind of the hearer is made ready to listen”). 3 De inventione 1.15.20; Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.4.6–7. 4 De inventione 1.15.20; Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.4.6.

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introducti on In more difficult cases, where the speaker could expect to meet with hostility or indifference from his audience, more subtle techniques were required.5 Because the De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium were primarily intended to assist orators in law courts (and to a lesser extent those appearing before deliberative assemblies or delivering set-piece orations) rather than the writers of narrative histories, the specific guidelines they provide are less important than the general principle that the specific function of the exordium was to win the sympathy and interest of the audience—goals that every historical prologue aims at in one way or another. The principal aims of the historical prologue—defining the subject of the work, explaining the author’s motives and methodology, and obtaining a favorable hearing from the audience—remained generally stable throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages. As a result, certain themes became commonplace, sometimes virtually formulaic. The term conventionally applied to such stereotyped literary formulae is topoi, although this is an extension of the original meaning of the word. In classical rhetoric and dialectic the word topos (Latin locus) designated a “place” where means of argument and persuasion could be found.6 More concretely, topoi were general strategies of argumentation or persuasion that could be deployed in different contexts. Examples include “from opposites” (for example, if war is responsible for present sufferings, then peace must bring them to an end), “the more and the less” (for example, if the gods cannot know everything, then there is no way that humans can), and “from induction” (the formulation of a general rule from several particular instances).7 Since the publication of Ernst Robert Curtius’s groundbreaking Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter in 1948 (translated into English as European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages in 1953), however, the term topos has come to be used more broadly to refer to any kind of literary commonplace.8 When used of classical and medieval prologues, therefore, the word topos must be understood in this way: not as a strategy of argumentation, but as a standard or commonplace theme. Most of the topoi of historical prologues—the role of history in preserving the past from the ravages of time, the usefulness of history as a guide for future generations, a source of wisdom for statesmen and generals, and a storehouse of examples to imitate and avoid, the obligation of the historian to tell the truth and remain free of partiality or bias, and the 5 De inventione 1.15.22–1.16.21; Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.4.6. 6 See Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 5.10.20. 7 Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23.1, 2.23.4, 2.23.11. 8 E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1953), pp. 79–105. See also Elmar Herkommer, Die Topoi in den Proömien der Römischen Geschichtswerke, diss. Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (1968), pp. 1–9.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r importance of eyewitness testimony—are already found in classical Antiquity. In the Middle Ages, however, when innovation and originality were rarely trumpeted and the imitation of authoritative models was seen as a preeminent literary virtue, there was a noticeable hardening of prefatory topoi. Rare is the medieval historian, for example, who does not profess to be relating things “worthy of memory,” a commonplace ultimately derived from the influential prologue to Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae.9 Changing social norms could also influence the forms of expression found in historical prologues. Readers of this volume unfamiliar with the conventions of the genre may well be struck by the frequency of authorial references to requests or commands to write from friends or superiors. This “topos of commission” first appears in the epistolary prefaces to two treatises by Archimedes (ca 287–212 BCE), On the Sphere and Cylinder and On Spirals, and surfaces for the first time in Latin literature in the prologue to the Rhetorica ad Herennium, where the anonymous author claims to have written in response to a request from his friend Gaius Herennius.10 Although we know nothing about the relationship between the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium and his dedicatee, there are reasons for suspecting that the “request” is actually a rhetorical device designed to influence the audience’s view of the author. In Republican Rome literary activity was generally seen as the province of Greeks and men of middling birth, not an activity for well-born Romans. Hence, some explanation or excuse for writing had to be offered, and the invocation of a real or fictional commission was the most elegant solution to this problem.11 Even after literary pursuits became more respectable, however, references to requests or commands from dedicatees remain common. The convention was not adopted by early Greek historians, who as a rule did not dedicate their works, but it begins to appear sporadically in Latin histories in the first century BCE.12 The first surviving example in a Latin historical work appears in the dedicatory epistle to Aulus Hirtius’s continuation of Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War (44/43 BCE). Hirtius claims that in spite of repeated refusals on his part, his dedicatee, Balbus, has persisted in demanding that he compose a continuation to Caesar’s Commentaries, forcing him to comply, albeit with much reluctance.13 An anecdote reported in a letter of Pliny the Younger (ca 61–ca 112 CE) illustrates that such statements were not necessarily to be taken literally. Pliny recalls that at 9 See Bernard Guenée, “Histoire, mémoire, écriture. Contribution à une étude des lieux communs,” Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. 127, no. 3 (1983), pp. 441–56, at pp. 444–45. 10 See Tore Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Conventions (Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell, 1964), pp. 19–22. 11 Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, p. 29. 12 See Herkommer, Die Topoi in den Proömien der Römischen Geschichtswerke, pp. 24–26. 13 Bellum Gallicum, 8. pref.

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introducti on a public recitation of his verses the Roman poet Passennus Paulus opened with the line “Priscus, you command me,” at which point Priscus, who was sitting in the audience, unexpectedly proclaimed, “But I don’t command you!” Priscus had missed the point of the fabricated commission and violated the rules of a widely accepted literary convention, and Pliny assures the recipient of the letter that he considered Priscus a person of “doubtful sanity.”14 In its earliest manifestations, the topos of commission is deployed with the neutral language of requesting and answering a request. In late Antiquity, however, the combination of a more rigid class structure and the widespread adoption of Christianity led to a shift in the language used to describe the relationships between authors and their dedicatees.15 From this point on, authors tend to respond to demands or urgent entreaties rather than mere requests, and they do so in the spirit of obedience to a superior rather than acquiescence to the wishes of a friend or social equal. In the Middle Ages the topos of commission became virtually ubiquitous, bolstered by the Christian virtues of humility and meekness and the monastic ethic of obedience.16 Apart from the fact that many medieval historians did write in response to requests or commands from patrons or superiors, invoking a commission—real or imagined—served a valuable function, insulating the author from charges of presumption or arrogance, absolving him of responsibility for his work, and making a public manifestation of the deference and respect owed by the author to his dedicatee. Closely linked to the topos of commission is a whole set of commonplaces associated with modesty and hesitation. As is the case with the topos of commission, the first examples are found in the first century BCE. The anonymous author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium portrays himself as burdened by domestic responsibilities and eager to spend what little free time is available to him in the study of philosophy; only Gaius Herennius’s request has induced him to compose a treatise on rhetoric.17 Similarly, Aulus Hirtius claims to have turned down numerous requests to add a continuation to Caesar’s Commentaries and still fears being charged with presumption for imagining that he could be compared with Caesar.18 Expressions of hesitation become more common among medieval historians. In the prologue to his History of the Church of Rheims, Flodoard of Rheims (894–966), the most methodologically rigorous historian of his generation, offers a series of excuses for the lateness of his work—a lack 14 Pliny the Younger, Epistles 6.15. 15 Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, pp. 117–20. 16 See Gertrud Simon, “Untersuchungen zur Topik der Widmungsbriefe mittelalterlicher Geschichtsschreiber bis zum Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Diplomatik 4.52–119 (1958), p. 61. 17 Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.1. 18 Bellum Gallicum, 8, pref.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r of scribes, cold weather, and a desire to keep improving it—and worries that it is still full of mistakes.19 Even more frequent than references to an author’s reluctance to undertake the task assigned to him are expressions of modesty and self-deprecation. Almost every medieval historian makes some reference to stylistic deficiencies, inadequate knowledge, or inability to measure up to the grandeur of his theme.20 These professions served the same goal as the topos of commission, expressing an attractive modesty and preemptively warding off charges of presumption or arrogance, while simultaneously calling attention to the difficulties inherent in writing any sort of historical work. The importance of topoi in historical prologues leads naturally to a question of considerable importance: how can we distinguish statements that are merely empty formulae from those that offer us actual insight into an author’s methods and aims? An inability to determine whether or not an author’s professions of modesty are genuine may not significantly impact how we read his history, but knowing whether he was commissioned to write or wrote on his own initiative surely will. One dilemma that continues to vex readers is what we are to make of the frequent references to malicious critics and spiteful detractors in the prologues to medieval histories.21 In classical Antiquity, when a true reading public existed, authors could expect their works to be criticized: in the prologue to the Bellum Catilinae, for example, Sallust refers to the difficulty of voicing criticism of historical actors without being accused of malice, and Jerome makes frequent references to his detractors in his vast corpus. We also have ample evidence of a lively give-and-take between rival historians in Antiquity: Thucydides snipes at Herodotus (though he does not mention him by name) in his introduction, Polybius writes a book-long diatribe against the Sicilian historian Timaeus of Tauromenium, and Herodian begins the prologue to his history by distinguishing himself from other historians who courted fame through their works rather than striving for accuracy. In the early Middle Ages, however, the climate of literary production changed radically. The collapse of the Roman educational system in the fifth and sixth centuries and the severing of Latin from the Romance vernaculars in the ninth led to the disappearance of a literary public.22 Histories were only directly accessible to those who had been trained to read Latin, and though 19 Flodoard, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae, ed. Martina Stratmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores in Folio, vol. 36 (Hanover: Hahn, 1998), p. 57. 20 For the modesty topos in medieval historical prologues, see Simon, “Untersuchungen zur Topik der Widmungsbriefe” (1958), pp. 108–19. 21 See Simon, “Untersuchungen zur Topik der Widmungsbriefe” (1958), pp. 87–98, and Helmut Beumann, “Der Schriftsteller und seine Kritiker im frühen Mittelalter,” Studium Generale 12 (1959), pp. 497–511. 22 See Erich Auerbach, Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 237–71.

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introducti on they could be made available to a larger audience through paraphrase and translation, the audience for history was necessarily more restricted. The Latin language united the small class of literate monks and clerics in the early Middle Ages, giving them a common tongue with which to communicate, but most histories did not circulate widely, and there was no such thing as a reading public. Thus when Jerome refers to critics who will “sink their teeth” into his translation of Eusebius’s Chronicle, we have good reason to take him at his word, because we know that he was involved in bitter controversies throughout his life and had no shortage of detractors. When the monastic historian Aimoin of Fleury revives Jerome’s language in the prologue to his History of the Franks six centuries later, however, we are inclined to regard his claim with more suspicion. Was there really a large pool of hostile critics waiting to sink their teeth into Aimoin’s learned compendium of Frankish history? The challenge in this case, as with all topoi, is to determine when a topos is merely a rhetorical device meant to frame the reader’s perception of the author and when it provides some actual insight into the author’s intentions and methods. It goes without saying that such a procedure is fraught with difficulty, but it is one that we should not shy away from if we wish to fully exploit the historical prologue as an interpretative tool, and it is my hope that this volume will prove to be of some assistance in this endeavor. For if the building blocks of the historical prologue remained more or less unchanged throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, it may be asked what special value an anthology of prologues dismembered from the histories they introduce possesses. The answer, I believe, is that a diachronic survey of historical prologues can serve two functions. First, interpreting any individual prologue within the context of the genre as a whole makes us less likely to over- or underestimate the importance of any particular statement. If we read the prologue to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain in isolation, for example, we may not immediately take note of the fact that he says nothing about the moralexemplary function of history. The importance of this absence only becomes clear when we realize how ubiquitous such claims are in the prologues of other medieval histories. Similarly, in the prologue to his history of the west Frankish kings, the Frankish monk Richer of Saint-Rémi (ca 950–ca 1000) does not vouch for the truth of his narrative, but claims instead that he will be satisfied if he has written “plausibly, clearly, and concisely.” At first glance these words look like a standard prefatory topos, but when we realize that no previous historian had claimed to write “plausibly” (as opposed to truthfully), and that the rhetorical virtue of plausibility explicitly licensed speakers and authors to invent fictional material, his statement takes on a new importance. Second, a diachronic survey of historical prologues can help to bring into sharper relief changes in attitudes about the methods and goals of history xvii

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r writing. In Antiquity, for example, we can see a shift in the practice of history from a primarily research-based activity requiring eyewitness investigation and careful interrogation of witnesses to a more literary pursuit carried out by former politicians and rhetoricians, a shift that is reflected in the surviving prologues. In his opening address to the reader, Herodotus describes his work as an “exposition of [his] enquiries,” and throughout his history he presents himself to the audience as a researcher and diligent gatherer of information. Thucydides similarly emphasizes the methodological rigor of his approach; his history was based partly on his own observations, he says, and partly on rigorous questioning of eyewitnesses. One looks in vain for similar statements in the prologues of Sallust, Livy, or Tacitus, who emphasize other concerns. In this case a comparison of historical prologues confirms a broader point. For the early Greek historians history was first and foremost about historia— investigation or enquiry. Travel, first-hand inspection of sites, and interviews with witnesses were the core of the historian’s tasks. The Roman historians of the Late Republic and early Principate, by contrast, tended to be retired members of the senatorial class drawing upon their own knowledge and the information available to them at Rome, or rhetoricians rewriting previous sources. In neither case was “research”—as conceived of by the founders of the Greek historiographical tradition—a high priority.23 To cite a further example of the way in which prologues can shed light on changing attitudes about history writing, Bernard Guenée has noted that at the beginning of the twelfth century we find an increase in double prologues consisting of both an epistolary address to the dedicatee and a general address to the reader, a change that suggests that authors were now expecting their histories to reach an audience beyond the dedicatee and the circle of readers around him.24 A survey of historical prologues, therefore, can serve as a useful tool both for contextualizing the statements of individual authors and for understanding the development of historiography as a genre in classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The prologues in this volume have been chosen with an eye to the importance of the works they introduce and the authors who wrote them on the one hand, and to the particular qualities of the prologues themselves on the other. Prologues give us the opportunity to hear the voices of ancient and medieval historians communicating to us directly across a gulf of centuries or millennia, and it is my hope that the reader will experience the same joy in reading and studying these texts that I have. 23 See Charles William Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 47–61. 24 Bernard Guenée, “L’histoire entre l’eloquence et la science. Quelques remarques sur le prologue de Guillaume de Malmesbury à ses Gesta Regum Anglorum,” Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 126e année, no. 2 (1982), pp. 357–70, at pp. 360–61.

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A Not e on T e r m i nolo gy In classical rhetoric the introductory part of a speech was called a prooimion in Greek and a proemium, exordium, or principium in Latin.25 The introductions to prose works were referred to by the terms proemium or praefatio, with prologus reserved for plays, while an introductory epistle was simply called an epistula.26 In the Middle Ages we find the terms proemium, praefatio, prologus, and introitus used interchangeably, with no consistent variation in meaning. Nor in most cases can we be certain that the designations assigned to the introductory sections of histories originated with the authors themselves, since they are just as likely to have been added, or changed, by copyists. It is not uncommon for different manuscripts of the same work to refer to the introduction alternately as praefatio, prologus, epistola, and so on. Thus, while I have chosen to reproduce in most cases the terminology used by the most recent editor of the text, the reader should be aware that there is no meaningful distinction between a prologue and a preface, and the boundary between either of these and a dedicatory epistle is not always clear.

25 For a synopsis of the terms used by canonical rhetorical authorities, see Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, pp. 122–23. 26 See Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces, p. 12, n. 8.

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Chap t e r On e A n t iqu i t y ( 500 BCE–500 CE )

1 H ecata e u s of M ile tus, Genealogies Before there was narrative history in ancient Greece, there was a tradition of geographical, ethnographical, and mythographical prose literature carried out by a group of authors known collectively as logographers (literally, “writers of logoi,” or accounts), many of whom came from Ionia, where Greek rationalism first took hold in the sixth century BCE. Only fragments of the works of the logographers survive, which makes it difficult to judge the degree to which Herodotus’s Histories (see Doc. 2) represented an innovation on what came before it. Among the most important of these authors was Hecataeus of Miletus, whom Herodotus mentions as playing a leading role in the Ionian revolt of 500–494 BCE. Hecataeus wrote two works that survive in substantial fragments: the Circuit of the Earth ( Periegesis or Periodos Ges), a geographical survey of Europe, Asia, and Africa in two books, and the Genealogies, in which he attempted to bring order to the tangled and mutually contradictory stories of Greek myth. Although tantalizingly brief, the opening sentence of the Genealogies attests to the rationalizing impulse of the logographers. Hecataeus of Miletus speaks thusly: I write these things as they appear to me to be true. For it seems to me that the accounts [logoi] of the Greeks are many and absurd. Source: Justin Lake from F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker: Neudruck vermehrt um Addenda zum Text, Nachträge zum Kommentar, Corrigenda, und Konkordanz (Leiden: Brill, 1957), vol. 1.A, pp. 7–8.

2 H erodotu s, Histories Herodotus of Halicarnassus drew upon the methods of the Ionian logographers, but he was the first author to transform this type of research into true narrative history. Indeed, it was his use of the word historia (“enquiry” or “investigation”) to describe his activity that gave this term its more specialized meaning of “history.” The scale of Herodotus’s achievement is impressive. In nine books he surveys the Lydian empire of Croesus, Egypt, Scythia, and the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia, before narrowing his focus to the Ionian Revolt (500–494 BCE) and the Persian Wars (490–479 BCE), which occupy him in books 7–9. Of Herodotus himself we know little. He was born at Halicarnassus in western Asia Minor, but was driven from his native city as a result of his opposition to its Persian-supported tyrant, and he spent time at Athens before settling at Thurii, an Athenian colony in southern Italy. 1

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r The Histories suggest that he traveled extensively in the Greek-speaking world and beyond, including to Egypt, southern Italy, the Black Sea, and Babylon, though the validity of these claims is debated. The Histories refer to events in the early 420s BCE and must have been completed by 425, when Herodotus’s account of the origins of the conflict between Greece and Persia was parodied in Aristophanes’s Acharnians. Herodotus exercised an incalculable influence on subsequent historians, although his wide-ranging, inclusive, and nonjudgmental approach to history writing was rarely imitated. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Herodoti Historiae, ed. Haiim B. Rosén, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1987–97), vol. 1, p. 1.

This is the exposition of the inquiries of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, intended so that the deeds of men may not be effaced by time, and the great and wondrous achievements made manifest by both Greeks and non-Greeks may not be without fame, in particular the reason for which they waged war upon one another.

3 Th u cyd ides, History of the Peloponnesian War If Herodotus was the “father of history” (a title bestowed upon him by Cicero), it was his successor Thucydides who did the most to shape the contours of later Greek historiography. Reacting in part to what he perceived to be the fabulous elements of Herodotus’s work, Thucydides limited his subject matter to contemporary political history and wrote only about events that he had either observed himself or heard about from reliable witnesses. Unlike the sprawling and digressive Histories of Herodotus, Thucydides’s history had a single theme: the Peloponnesian War, waged between Athens and Sparta (and their respective allies) from 431 to 404 BCE. Thucydides himself was an Athenian of Thracian descent. He survived the plague that struck Athens between 430 and 427 and served as general in 424 BCE, when he failed to defend the northern Greek city of Amphipolis from an attack by the Spartan general Brasidas. For this he was exiled from Athens for twenty years, which gave him the opportunity to witness the rest of the war from the vantage point of Sparta and its allies. He died sometime after 400, leaving his history incomplete (it breaks off in 411 BCE). Thucydides’s introduction comprises three parts. He begins by stating his theme and his reasons for choosing it. There follows a much longer section known as the “Archaeology” (literally, a logos, or account, of past events), a historical portrait of early Greece intended to support his contention that the Peloponnesian War outstripped all previous wars in importance, and to demonstrate the importance of sea power in history. He concludes with a section on methodology in which he declares that factual accuracy is the governing principle of his work and explains his techniques of speechwriting. The final 2

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) part of the introduction should be read at least in part as a polemic against Herodotus. Although Thucydides does not mention his famous predecessor by name, his disavowal of “romantic” or “mythical” elements in his own work and his disparaging comments about those who wrongly believed that the Spartan kings cast two votes each or that there was ever such a thing as a Pitanate regiment (see Herodotus 6.57 and 9.53) are squarely aimed at Herodotus. Herodotus is presumably also the target of his famous concluding sentence, a strikingly ambitious claim whose validity has nonetheless been borne out by time. Source: trans. Richard Crawley, The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (London: Longmans, 1874), pp. 1–15, rev. Justin Lake.

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants were in every department in the last state of perfection, and he could see the rest of the Greeks taking sides in the quarrel—those who delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation. Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the Greeks, but of a large part of the barbarian world—I had almost said of mankind. For though the events of remote antiquity, and even those that more immediately preceded the war, could not from lapse of time be clearly ascertained, yet the evidences that an inquiry carried as far back as was practicable leads me to trust, all point to the conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either in war or in other matters. For instance, it is evident that the country now called Greece [Hellas] had in ancient times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence, the various tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior numbers. Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required, without reserves of wealth, never planting the ground (for they could not tell when an invader would come and take it all away, and if he did come they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they readily changed their place of habitation, and consequently had neither large cities nor any other significant means available to them. The richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters, such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese (Arcadia excepted), and the most fertile parts of the rest of Greece. The richness of the land favored the aggrandizement of particular individuals and thus created faction, which proved a fertile source of ruin and invited invasion. Certainly Attica, which had very poor soil, enjoyed freedom from strife from a very remote period 3

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and never changed its inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable proof of my assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Greece took refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat, and becoming naturalized at an early period, swelled the already large population of the city to such an extent that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia. There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan War there is no indication of any common action in Greece [Hellas], and I am inclined to believe that the name itself was not yet in general use. On the contrary, before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, and the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not until Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis and were invited as allies into the other cities that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Greeks [Hellenes], though a long time elapsed before that name prevailed amongst all of them. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Greeks. In his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the term barbarian, probably because the Greeks had not yet been marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation. It appears, therefore, that the several Greek communities, comprising not only those who first acquired the name, city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the absence of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action. Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea. And the first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons as governors. And thus he did his best to rid the sea of piracy, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use. For in early times the Greeks and the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by sea became more common, were tempted to turn to piracy under the leadership of their most powerful men—the motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support the needy. They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls and consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it; indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, no disgrace being yet attached to 4

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) such an achievement, and even some degree of glory. An illustration of this is furnished by the honor with which some of the inhabitants of the mainland still regard a successful marauder, and by the fact that the ancient poets everywhere represent people asking wayfarers if they were pirates, as if those who were asked the question would have no idea of disclaiming the imputation or their interrogators of reproaching them for it. The same rapine prevailed also by land. And even at the present day many parts of Greece still follow the old ways—the Ozolian Locrians for instance, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and that region of the continent; and the custom of carrying arms is still kept up among these mainlanders from the old habit of raiding. The whole of Greece used once to carry arms, their habitations being unprotected and their communication with each other unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday life with them as with the barbarians. And the fact that the people in these parts of Greece are still living in the old way points to a time when the same mode of life was once equally common to all. The Athenians were the first to lay aside their weapons and adopt an easier and more luxurious mode of life. Indeed, it is only recently that their rich old men left off the luxury of wearing tunics of linen and fastening a knot of their hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers, a fashion that spread to their Ionian kindred and long prevailed among the old men there. On the other hand, a modest style of dressing, more in conformity with modern ideas, was first adopted by the Lacedaemonians, the rich doing their best to assimilate their way of life to that of the common people. They were also the first to strip naked and anoint themselves with oil in their athletic exercises. Formerly, even in the Olympic contests, the athletes who contended wore loincloths over their private parts, and it is but a few years since that the practice ceased. To this day among some of the barbarians, especially in Asia, when prizes for boxing and wrestling are offered, loincloths are worn by the combatants. And there are many other points in which a likeness might be shown between the life of the Hellenic world of old and the barbarian of today. Later on, when navigation became more common and there was a greater surplus of wealth, we find the shores becoming the site of walled cities, and the isthmuses being occupied for the purposes of commerce and defense against a neighbor. But the old towns, on account of the great prevalence of piracy, were built away from the sea, whether on the islands or the mainland, and still remain in their old sites. For the pirates used to plunder one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether seafaring or not. The islanders, too, were great pirates. These islanders were Carians and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was proved by the following fact. During the purification of Delos by Athens in this war all the graves on the island were taken up, and it was found that over half their inmates were Carians. They were 5

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them and by the method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow. But as soon as Minos had established his navy, communication by sea became easier (for he drove out the malefactors at the time when he was colonizing most of the islands). The coastal population now began to apply themselves more closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more settled; some even began to build themselves walls on the strength of their newly acquired riches. For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of wealth enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller towns to subjection. And it was at a somewhat later stage of this development that they went on the expedition against Troy. What enabled Agamemnon to raise the expedition was more, in my opinion, his superiority in strength than the oaths of Tyndareus, which bound the suitors to follow him. Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the most accurate tradition is this. First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that, stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother’s brother; and to the hands of his relation, who had left his father on account of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus, when he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and the government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were influenced by fear of the Heraclids—besides, his power seemed considerable, and he had not neglected to court the favor of the populace—and assumed the scepter of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater than that of the descendants of Perseus. To all this Agamemnon succeeded. He also had a navy far stronger than his contemporaries, so that in my opinion fear was quite as strong an element as love in the formation of the expedition. The strength of his navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent, and that of the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides, in his account of the transmission of the scepter he calls him “Of many an isle and of all Argos king” [Iliad 2.108]. Now Agamemnon’s was a mainland power, and he could not have been master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be many) if he did not possess a fleet. And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier enterprises. Now Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of the towns of that age may appear comparatively insignificant, but no accurate observer would therefore feel justified in rejecting the estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of the expedition. For I suppose if Lacedaemon were 6

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) to become desolate and only the temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true indication of her power. And yet they occupy two-fifths of the Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak of their numerous allies outside of it. Still, as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of Greece, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to have been twice as great as it is. We ought not be skeptical, therefore, nor content ourselves with considering only the physical evidence and not the actual power of cities, but we may safely conclude that the expedition in question surpassed all before it, just as it fell short of modern efforts, if we can here also accept the testimony of Homer’s poems, in which, without allowing for the exaggeration that a poet would feel himself licensed to employ, we can see that it was far from equaling ours. He has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred vessels—the Boeotian complement of each ship being a hundred and twenty men, that of the ships of Philoctetes fifty. By this, I conceive, he meant to convey the maximum and the minimum complement; at any rate, he does not specify the amount of any others in his catalogue of the ships. That they were all rowers as well as warriors we see from his account of the ships of Philoctetes, in which all the men at the oar are bowmen. And it is improbable that many who were not sailors sailed, except for the kings and high officers, especially as they had to cross the open sea with munitions of war, in ships that had no decks but were equipped in the old piratical fashion. So that if we take the average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the whole force of Greece. And this was due not so much to scarcity of men as of money. The difficulty of obtaining supplies made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to the point at which it might subsist on the land during the prosecution of the war. Even after the victory they obtained on their arrival—and a victory there must have been or the fortifications of the naval camp could never have been built—there is no indication of their whole force having been employed. On the contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what really enabled the Trojans to keep the field for ten years against them, the dispersion of the enemy making them always a match for the detachment left behind. If they had brought plenty of supplies with them and had persevered in the war without scattering for piracy and agriculture, they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the field, since they could hold their own against them with only a part of their army. In short, if they had stuck to the siege, the capture of Troy would have 7

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r cost them less time and less trouble. But as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions, so from the same cause the one in question, which was more famous than any that preceded it, may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have been inferior to its renown and to the prevailing opinion about it deriving from the authority of the poets. Even after the Trojan War, Greece was still in the process of upheaval and settlement and could not attain to the quiet that must precede growth. The late return of the Greeks from Troy caused many changes; factions arose almost everywhere, and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities. Sixty years after the capture of Troy the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis, though there was a portion of them there previously, some of whom had taken part in the expedition to Troy. Twenty years later the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese, so that a considerable time had to elapse before Greece could attain to a durable tranquility undisturbed by dislocations and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some places in the rest of Greece. All these places were founded after the war with Troy. But as the power of Greece grew and the acquisition of wealth increased, the revenues of the states increased and tyrannies were established almost everywhere (the old form of government being hereditary monarchy with fixed prerogatives), and Greece began to fit out fleets and apply herself more closely to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians were the first to come close to the modern style of naval architecture, and that Corinth was the first place in Greece where triremes were built. Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, appears to have made four ships for the Samians, and it is about three hundred years from the end of this war that he went to Samos. Again, the earliest sea battle that we know about was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans, which occurred about forty years later. Being located on an isthmus, Corinth had naturally from the first been a commercial emporium. For previously almost all communication between the Greeks within and outside the Peloponnese was carried on overland, and the Corinthian territory was the highway through which it traveled. She had consequently great monetary resources, as is shown by the epithet “wealthy” bestowed upon her by the ancient poets, and this enabled her, when traffic by sea became more common, to procure a navy and put down piracy. And as she could offer a market for trade by land and sea, she acquired for herself all the power that a large revenue affords. Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of his son Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos, had a powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses, with which he reduced 8

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) many of the islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to the Delian Apollo. About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were colonizing Massalia [Marseilles], defeated the Carthaginians in a sea battle. These were the most powerful navies. And even these, although so many generations had elapsed since the Trojan War, seem to have been principally composed of the old fifty-oared ships and longboats, and to have counted few triremes among their ranks. Indeed it was only shortly before the Persian war and the death of Darius (the successor of Cambyses) that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans acquired any large number of triremes. For after these there were no navies of any account in Greece before the expedition of Xerxes. Aegina, Athens, and others may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally fiftyoared ships. It was quite at the end of this period that the war with Aegina and the prospect of the barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the Athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis, and even these vessels did not have complete decks. Such, then, were the navies of the Greeks, both in ancient times and more recently. And yet those who applied themselves to the sea increased their power considerably, both by increasing their revenues and expanding their dominion. For they sailed against the islands and conquered them, particularly those cities that lacked sufficient land. Wars by land there were none, or at least any by which power was acquired. There were the usual border disputes, but of distant expeditions with conquest as the object we hear nothing among the Greeks. There was no union of subject cities around a great state, no voluntary combination of equals for joint expeditions. What fighting there was consisted merely of local warfare between rival neighbors. The nearest approach to a coalition took place in the old war between Chalcis and Eretria, a quarrel in which the rest of the Greeks did to some extent take sides. Various, too, were the obstacles to growth in different states. The power of the Ionians was advancing with rapid strides, when it came into collision with Persia, under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus and overrun everything between the Halys and the sea, did not stop until he had reduced the cities of the coast, after which Darius, in possession of the Phoenician fleet, subjugated the islands. Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy and prevented anything great proceeding from them, except in their wars with their neighbors, as in Sicily, where their power reached its greatest extent. Thus for a long time everywhere in Greece we find causes that make the states alike incapable of combination for great and national ends, or of any vigorous action of their own. But at last a time came when the tyrants of Athens and the far older tyrannies of the rest of Greece were, with the exception of those in Sicily, once and 9

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r for all put down by the Lacedaemonians. For though Lacedaemon suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time after the settlement of the country by the Dorians (its present inhabitants), still at a very early period it obtained good laws and enjoyed a freedom from tyrants that was unbroken. It has possessed the same form of government for more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the late war, and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the other states. Not many years after the deposition of the tyrants, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Persians and the Athenians. Ten years afterwards, the barbarian returned with the armada for the subjugation of Greece. In the face of this great danger, the command of the confederate Greeks was assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power, and the Athenians, having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people. This coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split into two sections, which included the Greeks who had revolted from the king, as well as those who had aided him in the war. At the end of the one stood Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other the first military power in Greece. For a short time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians quarreled and made war upon each other with their allies, a struggle into which all the Greeks sooner or later were drawn, though some might at first remain neutral. As a result the whole period from the Persian War to this one, with some peaceful intervals, was spent by each power in war, either with its rival or with its own rebellious allies, and consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters and that experience that is learned in the school of danger. The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies, but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by establishing oligarchies among them. Athens, on the contrary, had by degrees deprived hers of their ships and imposed instead contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos. And the power of Athens alone at the beginning of the present war exceeded that of Sparta and Athens together when the alliance between them remained intact. Having now given the results of my inquiries into early times, I grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular detail. The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever. The Athenian public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands of Harmodius and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the sons of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus were his brothers; and that Harmodius and Aristogiton, suspecting on the very day—nay at the very moment fixed on for the deed—that information had been conveyed to Hippias by their accomplices, concluded that he had been 10

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) warned, and did not attack him, yet, not liking to be apprehended and risk their lives for nothing, fell upon Hipparchus near the temple of the daughters of Leos, and slew him as he was arranging the Panathenaic procession. There are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the Greeks, even on matters of contemporary history, which have not been obscured by time. For instance, there is the notion that the Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the reality being that they have only one, and that there is a company of Pitane, there being simply no such thing. So little trouble do most people take in seeking after the truth, readily accepting the first story that comes to hand. On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft or by the compositions of the chroniclers [logographoi] that are attractive at truth’s expense, the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity. To come to this war: despite the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its importance, and when it is over to return to their admiration of earlier events, yet an examination of the facts will show that it was much greater than the wars that preceded it. With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the war began, others while it was going on; some I heard myself, others I got from various quarters. It was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in one’s memory, so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said. And with reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labor from the lack of agreement between accounts of the same events by different eyewitnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory and sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance [to muthodes] in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it is judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In sum, I have written my work not as an essay to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

11

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r

4 P olyb i us, Histories The writing of history flourished during the Hellenistic era (323–31 BCE), but little is left to show for it. The only historian from this period whose work survives to any significant degree is Polybius, whose history surveys the rise of Rome in the crucial period from the beginning of the first Punic War in 264 BCE to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 BCE. Polybius was born ca 200 BCE in the Arcadian city of Megalopolis. His father was a leading figure in the Achaean League, a confederation of Greek city-states of the northern and central Peloponnese, and Polybius served as cavalry commander of the league in 170/169. In the aftermath of the Battle of Pydna (168 BCE) he was one of a thousand prominent Achaeans deported to Italy to be kept under house arrest. Through his friendship with the sons of Lucius Aemilius Paullus, however, he was permitted to remain at Rome, where his membership in the so-called Scipionic circle allowed him to gain first-hand knowledge of Roman political and military dealings. He accompanied P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus to Spain and Africa and was present at the destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE. In that same year the Achaean League was crushed by Rome, and Polybius was tasked with visiting the conquered cities and helping to facilitate the transition to Roman rule. Polybius was thus a man of considerable military, political, and diplomatic experience, and he believed that practical knowledge of this sort was a necessary requirement for the historian. He is the most outspoken of the surviving ancient Greek historians, and the most discursive after Herodotus, frequently deviating from his narrative to comment upon matters that interest him. As a result, his numerous pronouncements about history writing are not concentrated in the introduction, but spread throughout the work. A particularly interesting series of reflections are found in book 12, which is principally devoted to attacking the Sicilian historian Timaeus of Tauromenium (ca 350–260 BCE). Polybius castigates Timaeus for a number of failings, chief among them that he wrote history without conducting the appropriate type of research. Although these meditations do not form part of the prologue, their importance is such that they have been reproduced below. Of the original forty books of Polybius’s Histories, only the first five are extant; fragments of most of the remaining books survive in Byzantine anthologies. Source: trans. W.R. Paton, Polybius: The Histories, Loeb Classical Library, 6 vols. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1922–27), vol. 1, pp. 3–41; vol. 4, pp. 367–409, rev. Justin Lake.

Had previous chroniclers neglected to speak in praise of history in general, it might perhaps have been necessary for me to recommend everyone to choose for their study and welcome such treatises as this one, since men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past. But all historians, one may say without exception, and in no half-hearted manner, but making this the beginning and end of their labor, have impressed on us that the soundest 12

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) education and training for a life of active politics is the study of history, and that the surest and indeed the only method of learning how to bear bravely the vicissitudes of fortune is to recall the calamities of others. Evidently, therefore, no one, and least of all myself, would think it his duty at this day to repeat what has been so well and so often said. For the very element of unexpectedness in the events I have chosen as my theme will be sufficient to challenge and incite everyone, young and old alike, to peruse my systematic history. For who is so worthless or indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of government the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole of the inhabited world to their rule—a thing unique in history? Or who again is there so passionately devoted to other spectacles or studies as to regard anything as of greater importance than the acquisition of this knowledge? How striking and grand is the spectacle presented by the period with which I purpose to deal will be most clearly apparent if we set beside and compare with the Roman dominion the most famous empires of the past, those that have formed the chief theme of historians. Those worthy of being thus set beside it and compared are these. The Persians for a certain period of time possessed a great rule and dominion, but as often as they ventured to overstep the boundaries of Asia they imperiled not only the security of their empire, but their own existence. The Lacedaemonians, after having for many years disputed the hegemony of Greece, at long last attained it, but held it uncontested for scarcely twelve years. The Macedonian rule in Europe extended only from the Adriatic region to the Danube, which would appear a quite insignificant portion of the continent. Subsequently, by overthrowing the Persian empire they became supreme in Asia also. But though their empire was now regarded as the greatest geographically and politically that had ever existed, they left the larger part of the inhabited world as yet outside it. For they never even made a single attempt to dispute possession of Sicily, Sardinia, or Libya, and the most warlike nations of western Europe were, to speak the simple truth, unknown to them. But the Romans have subjected to their rule not portions, but nearly the whole of the world and possess an empire that is not only immeasurably greater than any that preceded it, but need not fear rivalry in the future. In the course of this work it will become more clearly intelligible by what steps this power was acquired, and it will also be seen how many and how great are the advantages that accrue to the student from the systematic treatment of history. The date from which I propose to begin my history is the 140th Olympiad [220‑216 BCE], and the events are the following: (1) in Greece the so‑called Social War, the first waged against the Aetolians by the Achaeans in league with and under the leadership of Philip of Macedon, the son of Demetrius and father of Perseus, (2) in Asia the war for Coele-Syria between Antiochus 13

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and Ptolemy Philopator, (3) in Italy, Libya, and the adjacent regions, the war between Rome and Carthage, usually known as the Hannibalic War. These events immediately succeed those related at the end of the work of Aratus of Sicyon. Previously the doings of the world had been, so to say, dispersed, as they were held together by no unity of initiative, results, or locality; but ever since this date history has been an organic whole, and the affairs of Italy and Libya have been interlinked with those of Greece and Asia, all leading up to one end. And this is my reason for beginning their systematic history from that date. For it was owing to their defeat of the Carthaginians in the Hannibalic War that the Romans, feeling that the chief and most essential step in their scheme of universal aggression had now been taken, were first emboldened to reach out their hands to grasp the rest and to cross with an army to Greece and the continent of Asia. Now were we Greeks well acquainted with the two states that disputed the empire of the world, it would not perhaps have been necessary for me to deal at all with their previous history, or to narrate what purpose guided them and on what sources of strength they relied in entering upon such a vast undertaking. But as neither the former power nor the earlier history of Rome and Carthage is familiar to most of us Greeks, I thought it necessary to prefix this book and the next to the actual history, in order that no one, after becoming engrossed in the narrative proper, may find himself at a loss, and ask by what counsel and trusting to what power and resources the Romans embarked upon that enterprise that has made them lords over land and sea in our part of the world; but that from these books and the preliminary sketch in them it may be clear to readers that they had quite adequate grounds for conceiving the ambition of a world empire and adequate means for achieving their purpose. For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what is most remarkable in the present age, is this. Fortune has guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced them to incline towards one and the same end. A historian should likewise bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose. Indeed, it was this chiefly that invited and encouraged me to undertake my task, and secondarily the fact that none of my contemporaries have undertaken to write a general history, in which case I should have been much less eager to take this in hand. As it is, I observe that while several modern writers deal with particular wars and certain matters connected with them, no one, as far as I am aware, has even attempted to inquire critically when and whence the general and comprehensive scheme of events originated and how it led up to the end. I therefore thought it quite necessary not to leave unnoticed or allow to pass into oblivion this the finest and most beneficent of the performances of fortune. For though she is ever producing something new and ever playing 14

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) a part in the lives of men, she has not in a single instance ever accomplished such a work, ever achieved such a triumph, as in our own times. We can no more hope to perceive this from histories dealing with particular events than to get at once a notion of the form of the whole world, its disposition and order, by visiting, each in turn, the most famous cities, or indeed by looking at separate plans of each—a result by no means likely. He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, it seems to me, in much the same case as one who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace. For could anyone put the creature together on the spot, restoring its form and the comeliness of life, and then show it to the same man, I think he would quickly avow that he was formerly very far away from the truth and more like one in a dream. For we can get some idea of a whole from a part, but never knowledge or exact opinion. Special histories therefore contribute very little to the knowledge of the whole and conviction of its truth. It is only indeed by study of the interconnection of all the particulars, their resemblances and differences, that we are enabled at least to make a general survey, and thus derive both benefit and pleasure from history. I shall adopt as the starting-point of this book the first occasion on which the Romans crossed the sea from Italy. This follows immediately on the close of Timaeus’s History and took place in the 129th Olympiad [264–261 BCE]. Thus we must first state how and when the Romans established their position in Italy, and what prompted them afterwards to cross to Sicily, the first country outside Italy where they set foot. The actual cause of their crossing must be stated without comment, for if I were to seek the cause of the cause and so on, my whole work would have no clear starting-point and principle. The starting-point must be an era generally agreed upon and recognized, and one self-evident from the events, even if this involves my going back a little in point of date and giving a summary of intervening occurrences. For if there is any ignorance or indeed any dispute as to what are the facts from which the work opens, it is impossible that what follows should meet with acceptance or credence; but once we produce in our readers a general agreement on this point they will give ear to all the subsequent narrative. [There follows a summary of Roman history from the sack of Rome in 387 BCE to the Roman invasion of Sicily in 264 BCE.] Such then was the occasion and motive of this the first crossing of the Romans from Italy with an armed force, an event that I take to be the most natural starting-point of this whole work. I have therefore made it my serious base, but I also went somewhat further back in order to leave no possible obscurity in my statements of general causes. To follow out this previous history—how 15

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and when the Romans after the disaster to Rome itself began their progress to better fortunes, and again how and when after conquering Italy they entered on the path of foreign enterprise—seemed to me necessary for anyone who hopes to gain a proper general survey of their present supremacy. My readers need not therefore be surprised if in the further course of this work I occasionally give them in addition some of the earlier history of the most famous states. For I shall do so in order to establish such a fundamental view as will make it clear in the sequel starting from what origins and how and when they severally reached their present position. This is exactly what I have just done about the Romans. Enough of such explanations. It is now time to come to my subject after a brief summary of the events included in these introductory books. To take them in order, we have first the incidents of the war between Rome and Carthage for Sicily. Next follows the war in Libya and then the achievements of the Carthaginians under Hamilcar and afterwards under Hasdrubal. At the same time occurred the first crossing of the Romans to Illyria and these parts of Europe, and subsequently to the preceding events their struggle with the Italian Celts. Contemporary with this the so-called Cleomenic war was proceeding in Greece, and with this war I wind up my introduction as a whole and my second book. Now to recount all these events in detail is neither incumbent on me nor would it be useful to my readers. For it is not my purpose to write their history but to mention them summarily by way of introduction to the events that are my real theme. I shall therefore attempt by such summary treatment of them in their proper order to fit in the end of the introduction to the beginning of the actual history. Thus there will be no break in the narrative and it will be seen that I have been justified in touching on events that have been previously narrated by others, while this arrangement will render the approach to what follows intelligible and easy for those who are eager to learn. I shall, however, attempt to narrate somewhat more carefully the first war between Rome and Carthage for the possession of Sicily, since it is not easy to name any war that lasted longer, nor one that exhibited on both sides more extensive preparations, more uninterrupted activity, more battles, and greater changes of fortune. The two states were also at this period still uncorrupted in morals, moderate in fortune, and equal in strength, so that a better estimate of the particular qualities and gifts of each can be formed by comparing their conduct in this war than in any subsequent one. An equally powerful motive with me for paying particular attention to this war is that to my mind the truth has not been adequately stated by those historians who are reputed to be the best authorities on it, namely Philinus and Fabius. I do not indeed accuse them of intentional falsehood, in view of their 16

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) character and principles, but they seem to me to have been much in the case of lovers. For owing to his convictions and constant partiality, Philinus will have it that the Carthaginians in every case acted wisely, well, and bravely, and the Romans otherwise, whereas Fabius takes the precisely opposite view. In other relations of life we should not perhaps exclude all such favoritism; for a good man should love his friends and his country and share the hatreds and attachments of his friends. But one who assumes the character of a historian must ignore everything of the sort, and often, if their actions so require, speak good of his enemies and honor them with the highest praises while criticizing and even reproaching roundly his closest friends, should the errors of their conduct impose this duty on him. For just as a living creature that has lost its eyesight is wholly incapacitated, so if history is stripped of her truth all that is left is but an idle tale. We should therefore not shrink from accusing our friends or praising our enemies. Nor need we be shy of sometimes praising and sometimes blaming the same people, since it is neither possible that men in the actual business of life should always be in the right, nor probable that they should be always mistaken. We must therefore disregard the actors in our narrative and apply to the actions such terms and such criticism as they deserve. The truth of what I have just said is evident from what follows. Philinus, in commencing his narrative at the outset of his second book, tells us that the Carthaginians and Syracusans were besieging Messena, and that when the Romans reached the city by sea they immediately marched out against the Syracusans, but returned to Messena after being severely handled. They next sallied out against the Carthaginians and were not only defeated but lost a considerable number of prisoners. After making these statements he says that Hiero [II, tyrant of Syracuse, ca 271–216 BCE] after the engagement so far lost his wits as not only to burn his camp and tents and take flight to Syracuse the same night, but to withdraw all his garrisons from the forts that menaced the territory of Messene. The Carthaginians, likewise, he tells us, immediately abandoned their camp after the battle and distributed themselves among the towns, not even daring to dispute the open country further. Their leaders, he says, seeing how dispirited the ranks were, resolved not to risk a decisive engagement, and the Romans, following up the enemy, not only laid waste to the territory of the Carthaginians and Syracusans, but settled down before Syracuse and undertook to besiege it. This account is, it seems to me, full of inconsistencies and does not require a lengthy discussion. For those whom he introduced as besieging Messene and victorious in the engagements he now represents as in flight and abandoning the open country and finally besieged and dispirited, while those whom he represented as defeated and besieged are now stated to be in pursuit of their foes, and at once commanding the open country and finally besieging Syracuse. It is absolutely impossible to reconcile the two 17

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r assertions, and either his initial statements or his account of what followed must be false. But the latter is true; for as a fact the Carthaginians and Syracusans abandoned the open country, and the Romans at once began to lay siege to Syracuse and, as he says, even to Echetla too, which lies between the Syracusan and Carthaginian provinces. We must therefore concede that Philinus’s initial statements are false, and that while the Romans were actually victorious in the engagements before Messena, this author announces that they were defeated. We can trace indeed the same fault throughout the whole work of Philinus and alike through that of Fabius, as I shall show when the occasion arises. Now that I have said what is fitting on the subject of this digression, I will return to facts and attempt in a narrative that strictly follows the order of events to guide my readers by a short road to a true notion of this war. Excerpt on Timaeus of Tauromenium from Book 12 What terms are we to use in speaking of Timaeus? For it seems to me that all the most bitter phrases of the kind he applies to others are appropriate to himself. That he was quarrelsome, mendacious, and headstrong has been, I trust, sufficiently proven by what I have already said, but what I am about to add will make it evident that he was no philosopher, and in general a man of no education. For in his twenty-first book, near the end, he says, in the course of Timoleon’s address to his troops, “The earth lying under the universe being divided into three parts named Asia, Africa, and Europe.” No one would credit that, I will not say Timaeus but even the celebrated Margites had said such a thing. For who is such an ignoramus, I do not speak of those who undertake to write history but . . . [the text becomes fragmentary here] As the proverb tells us that a single drop from the largest vessel suffices to tell us the nature of the whole contents, so we should regard the subject now under discussion. When we find one or two false statements in a book and they prove to be deliberate ones, it is evident that not a word written by such an author is any longer certain and reliable. But to convince those also who are disposed to champion him I must speak of the principle on which he composes public speeches, harangues to soldiers, the discourses of ambassadors, and, in a word, all utterances of the kind, which, as it were, sum up events and hold the whole history together. Can anyone who reads these help noticing that Timaeus has untruthfully reported them in his work, and has done so deliberately? For he has not set down the words spoken nor the sense of what was really said, but having made up his mind as to what ought to have been said, he recounts all these speeches and all else that follows upon events like a man in a school of rhetoric attempting to speak on a given subject, and shows off his oratorical power, but gives no report of which was actually spoken. 18

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) The particular task of history is to discover, in the first place, the words actually spoken, whatever they were, and then to ascertain the reason why what was done or spoken led to failure or success. For the mere statement of a fact may interest us but is of no benefit to us, but when we add the cause of it, the study of history becomes fruitful. For it is the mental transference of similar circumstances to our own times that gives us the means of forming predictions about what is going to happen and enables us at certain times to take precautions, and at others, by reproducing former conditions, to face with more confidence the difficulties that menace us. But a writer who passes over in silence the speeches made and the causes of events and in their place introduces false rhetorical exercises and discursive speeches destroys the peculiar virtue of history. And of this Timaeus especially is guilty, and we all know that his work is full of blemishes of this sort. Perhaps, therefore, some might wonder how, being such as I have proved him to be, he meets with such acceptance and credit from certain people. The reason of this is that because throughout his whole work he is so lavish of fault-finding and abuse, they do not form their estimate of him from his own treatment of history and his own statements, but from the accusations he brings against others, for which kind of thing he seems to me to have possessed remarkable industry and a peculiar talent. It was much the same with Strato [of Lampsacus], the writer on physical science. He also, when he undertakes to set forth and refute the views of the others, is admirable, but when he produces anything original and explains his own notions, he seems to men of science much more simple-minded and dull than they took him to be. I think that the same is the case with literature as with our life in general. For here too it is very easy to find fault with others, and one notices as a rule that those who are readiest to blame others err most in the conduct of their own life. Besides the above-mentioned faults another thing remains to be noticed about Timaeus. Having lived for nearly fifty years in Athens, with access to the works of previous writers, he considered himself peculiarly qualified to write history, making herein, I think, a great mistake. For as medicine and history have this point of resemblance, that each of them may be roughly said to consist of three parts, so there is the same difference in the dispositions of those who enter on these callings. To begin with, as there are three parts of medicine, first the theory of disease, next dietetics, and thirdly surgery and pharmaceutics, the study of the theory of disease, which is derived chiefly from the schools of Herophilus and Callimachus at Alexandria, is indeed an integral part of medicine, but as regards the ostentation and pretensions of its professors, they give themselves such an air of superiority that one would think no one else was master of the subject. Yet when you make them confront reality by entrusting a patient to them, you find them just as incapable of being of 19

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r any service as those who have never read a single medical treatise. Not a few invalids, indeed, who had nothing serious the matter with them have before now come very near to losing their lives by entrusting themselves to these physicians, impressed by their rhetorical powers. For really they are just like pilots who steer by book. But nevertheless these men visit different towns with great ostentation, and when they manage to collect a crowd, they throw into the greatest confusion and expose to the contempt of their audience men who in actual practice have given real proof of their skill, the persuasiveness of their eloquence often prevailing against the testimony of practical experience. The third quality, which in every profession gives the true habit of mind, is not only rare but is often cast into the shade by loquaciousness and audacity owing to people’s general lack of judgment. In the same fashion systematic history, too, consists of three parts, the first being the industrious study of memoirs and other documents and a comparison of their contents, the second the survey of cities, places, rivers, lakes, and in general all the distinctive features of land and sea and the distances of one place from another, and the third being the review of political events. And just as in the case of medicine, many aspire to write history owing to the high opinion in which the science is held, but most of them bring to the task absolutely no proper qualification except recklessness, audacity, and roguery, courting popularity like apothecaries and always saying whatever they regard as opportune in order to curry favor for the sake of getting a living by this means. It is not worth saying any more about such people. Some of those again who appear to be justified in undertaking the composition of history, just like the theoretical doctors, after spending a long time in libraries and becoming deeply learned in memoirs and records, persuade themselves that they are adequately qualified for the task, seeming indeed to outsiders to contribute sufficiently for the requirements of systematic history, but, in my own opinion, contributing only a part. For it is true that looking through old memoirs is useful for obtaining knowledge about the views of the ancients and the notions people formerly had about conditions, places, nations, states, and events, and also for understanding the circumstances and chances that beset each nation in former times. For past events make us pay particular attention to the future—that is to say if we really make thorough inquiry in each case into the past. But to believe, as Timaeus did, that relying upon the mastery of this material alone one can write well the history of subsequent events is absolutely foolish, and is much as if a man who had seen the works of ancient painters fancied himself to be a capable painter and a master of that art. What I say will be made plainer by the instances I am about to adduce, as, for example, in the first place, from what happened to Ephorus in certain parts of his history. Ephorus seems to me in dealing with war to have a certain 20

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) notion of naval warfare, but he is entirely in the dark about battles on land. When, therefore, we study attentively his accounts of the naval battles near Cyprus and Cnidus in which the Persian king’s commanders were engaged with Euagoras of Salamis, and on the second occasion with the Lacedaemonians, we are compelled to admire this writer for his descriptive power and knowledge of tactics, and we carry away much information useful for similar circumstances. But when he describes the battle of Leuctra between the Thebans and Lacedaemonians, or that at Mantinea between the same peoples, the battle in which Epaminondas lost his life, if we pay attention to every detail and look at the formation and reformation of the armies during the actual battle, he provokes our laughter and seems perfectly inexperienced in such things and never to have seen a battle. It is true that the battle of Leuctra, a simple affair in which only one part of the army was engaged, does not make the writer’s ignorance very conspicuous, but while the battle of Mantinea has the appearance of being described with much detail and military science, the description is quite imaginary, and the battle was not in the least understood by the writer. This becomes evident if we get a correct idea of the ground and then number the movements he describes as being carried out on it. The same is the case with Theopompus, and more especially with Timaeus, of whom we are now speaking. For where they give a summary account of such matters, their errors escape notice, but when they wish to describe and point out the nature of any detailed movement they are both seen to be exactly like Ephorus. It is neither possible for a man with no experience of warlike operations to write well about what happens in war, nor for one unversed in the practice and circumstances of politics to write well on that subject. So that as nothing written by mere students of books is written with experience or vividness, their works are of no practical utility to readers. For if we take from history all that can benefit us, what is left is quite contemptible and useless. Again, when they attempt to write in detail about cities and places, the result must be very similar, many things worthy of mention being omitted and many things not worth speaking of being treated at great length. This is often the case with Timaeus owing to the fact that he does not write from the evidence of his eyes. In his thirty-fourth book Timaeus says, “Living away from home at Athens for fifty years continuously, and having, as I confess, no experience of active service in war or any personal acquaintance with places.” The result is that when he meets with such matters in his history, he is guilty of many errors and misstatements, and if he ever comes near the truth he resembles those painters who make their sketches using stuffed bags as models. For in their case the outlines are sometimes preserved, but we miss that vividness and animation of the real figures that the graphic art is especially capable of rendering. The 21

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r same is the case with Timaeus, and in general with all those who set out to write history with this bookish disposition. We miss in them the vividness of facts, as this impression can only be produced by the personal experience of the author. Those, therefore, who have not been through the events themselves do not succeed in arousing the interest of their readers. Hence our predecessors considered that historical memoirs should possess such vividness as to make one exclaim when the author deals with political affairs that he necessarily had taken part in politics and had some experience of what usually happens in the political arena, when he deals with war that he had been in the field and risked his life, and when he deals with private life that he had reared children and lived with a wife, and so regarding the other parts of life. This quality can naturally only be found in those who have been through affairs themselves and have acquired this sort of historical knowledge. It is difficult, perhaps, to have taken a personal part and been one of the performers in every kind of event, but it is necessary to have had experience of the most important and those of commonest occurrence. That what I say is not unattainable is sufficiently confirmed by Homer, in whose works we find much of this kind of vividness. From these considerations I suppose everyone would now agree that industry in the study of documents is only a third part of history and only stands in the third place. How true what I have just said is will be most clear from the political, exhortatory, and ambassadorial speeches introduced by Timaeus. There are few occasions that admit of setting forth all possible arguments, most admitting only of those few brief arguments that occur to one, and even of these there are certain that are appropriate to contemporaries, others to men of former times, others again to Aetolians, others to Peloponnesians, and others to Athenians. But to recite without point or occasion all possible arguments for everything, as Timaeus, with his talent for invention, does on every subject, is perfectly untrue to facts, and a mere childish sport—to do it has even in many cases been the cause of actual failure and exposed many to contempt—the necessary thing being to choose on every occasion suitable and opportune arguments. But since the needs of the case vary, we have need of special practice and principle in judging how many and which of the possible arguments we should employ— that is to say if we mean to do good rather than harm to our readers. Now it is difficult to convey by precept what is appropriate or not in all instances, but it is not impossible to be led to a notion of it by reasoning from our personal experience in the past. For the present the best way of conveying my meaning is as follows. If writers, after indicating to us the situation and the motives and inclinations of the people who are discussing it, report in the next place what was actually said and then make clear to us the reasons why the speakers either succeeded or failed, we shall arrive at some true notion of the actual facts, and

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one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) we shall be able, both by distinguishing what was successful from what was not and by transferring our impression to similar circumstances, to treat any situation that faces us with hope of success. But, I fear, it is difficult to assign causes and very easy to invent phrases by the aid of books, and while it is given only to a few to say a few words at the right time and to discover the rules for this practice, it is a common accomplishment and open to anyone to compose long speeches to no purpose. In confirmation of my charge against Timaeus on this count also, besides that of his mistakes and his deliberate falsification of the truth, I shall give some short extracts from speeches acknowledged to be his, giving names and dates. Of those who were in power in Sicily after the elder Gelo, we have always accepted as a fact that the most capable rulers were Hermocrates, Timoleon, and Pyrrhus of Epirus, and these are the last to whom one should attribute childish and idle speeches. But Timaeus in his twenty-first book says that at the time when Eurymedon came to Sicily and was urging the towns to pursue the war against Syracuse, the Geleans, who were suffering by the war, sent to Camarina begging for a truce. The people of Camarina gladly consented, and upon this both cities sent embassies to their allies begging them to dispatch trustworthy commissioners to Gela to discuss terms of peace and the general interests of all concerned. When, on the arrival of these commissioners, a resolution was proposed in council, he represents Hermocrates as speaking somewhat as follows. This statesman, after praising the people of Gela and Camarina first of all for having themselves made the truce, secondly for being the originators of the negotiations, and thirdly for seeing to it that the terms of peace were not discussed by the multitude but by the leading citizens who knew well the difference between war and peace, after this introduces one or two practical reflections and then says that they themselves must now give ear to him and learn how much war differs from peace, and this after having just said that he was thankful to the Geleans for this very thing—namely, that the discussion was not held by the multitude but in a council well acquainted with such changes. From this it appears that Timaeus was not only deficient in practical sense, but does not even attain the level of the themes we hear in schools of rhetoric. For there all, I suppose, think that they ought to give their hearers proofs of things of which they are ignorant or which they disbelieve, but that to exercise our wits in speaking of what our hearers already know is most foolish and childish . . .  Apart from his general mistake in devoting the greater part of the speech to a matter that does not require a single word, he employs such arguments as none could believe to have been used by, I will not say that Hermocrates, who took part with the Lacedaemonians in the battle of Aegospotami and captured the whole Athenian army with its generals in

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Sicily, but by any ordinary schoolboy. In the first place he thinks it proper to remind the council that in wartime men are awakened in the morning by the trumpet and in peace by the crowing of cocks. After this he tells them that Heracles founded the Olympian games and truce as a proof of his real preference, and that he had injured all those he fought with under compulsion and by order, but that he had done no evil to any man of his own free will. Next he says that Homer represents Zeus as displeased with Ares and saying, “You are the most hateful to me of the gods who hold Olympus, for strife is always dear to you, and wars and battles” [Iliad 5.890–891]; that similarly the wisest of his heroes [Nestor] says, “Cursed, lawless, and without a home is the man who loves terrible civil war” [Iliad 9.63–64], and that Euripides expresses the same opinion as Homer in these verses: “O peace, loaded with riches and fairest of the blessed gods, I long for you while you stay. But I fear that old age with its pains will overtake me before I once more behold your graceful elegance, your songs with their beautiful dances, and your fair-garlanded revels” [Euripides, Cresphontes, frag. 453]. In addition to this, Hermocrates is made to say that war very much resembles sickness and peace is very like health, for peace restores even the sick, and in war even the healthy perish. In peace again we are told that the old are buried by the young as is natural, while in war it is the reverse, and that above all in war there is no safety even up to the walls, but in peace there is safety as far as the boundaries of the land, and a number of similar things. I wonder what other words or expressions would be used by a boy fresh from the schools and the detailed study of memoirs who wished to compose a declamatory essay made up of all that was consonant with the character of certain historical personages. The style of it would probably be no other than that of the speech Timaeus puts into the mouth of Hermocrates. And what shall we say again when Timoleon, in the same book exhorting the Greeks to do battle with the Carthaginians, almost at the moment that they are about to encounter an enemy largely outnumbering them, first bids them not to consider the numbers of their foes but their cowardice. For, he says, although the whole of Libya is thickly populated and full of men, yet when we wish to convey an impression of solitude we use the proverbial phrase “more desert than Libya,” not referring to its solitude but to the cowardice of the inhabitants. “In general,” he says, “how can we be afraid of men who, having received from nature in distinction from other animals the gift of hands, hold them for the whole of their life idle inside their tunics, and above all wear underwear under their tunics that they may not even when killed in battle be exposed to the view of their enemies? . . .” When Gelo promised to send to the assistance of the Greeks twenty thousand infantry and two hundred warships, if they would grant him the command 24

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) either on land or at sea, they say that the representatives of Greece sitting in council at Corinth gave a reply to Gelo’s envoys that was much to the point. They bade Gelo come with his forces as an auxiliary, but as for the command, actual circumstances would of necessity invest the most capable men with it. These are by no means the words of men resting their whole hope on Syracuse, but of men relying on themselves and inviting anyone who wished to do so to join in the contest and win the prize of valor. But Timaeus, in commenting on all this, is so long-winded and so obviously anxious to show that Sicily was more important than all the rest of Greece—the events occurring in Sicily being so much more magnificent and more noble than those anywhere else in the world, the sagest of men distinguished for wisdom coming from Sicily, and the most capable and wonderful leaders being those from Syracuse—that no boy in a school of rhetoric who is set to write a eulogy of Thersites or a censure of Penelope or anything else of the sort could surpass him in the paradoxes he ventures on. The consequence of this is that, owing to this excessive addiction to paradox, he does not induce us to consider and compare, but exposes to ridicule the men and the actions he is championing, and comes very near to falling into the same vicious habit as those who in the discussions of the Academy have trained themselves in extreme readiness of speech. For some of these philosophers, too, in their efforts to puzzle the minds of those with whom they are arguing about the comprehensible and incomprehensible, resort to such paradoxes and are so fertile in inventing plausibilities that they wonder whether or not it is possible for those in Athens to smell eggs being roasted in Ephesus, and are in doubt as to whether all the time they are discussing the matter in the Academy they are not lying in their beds at home and composing this discourse in a dream and not in reality. Consequently, from this excessive love of paradox they have brought the whole sect into disrepute, so that people have come to disbelieve in the existence of legitimate subjects of doubt. And apart from their own purposelessness they have implanted such a passion in the minds of our young men that they never give even a thought to ethical and political questions that really benefit students of philosophy, but spend their lives in the vain effort to invent useless paradoxes. Timaeus and his admirers are in the same case as regards history. For being given to paradox and contentiously defending every statement, he overawes most people by his language, compelling them to belief by the superficial appearance of veracity, while in other cases he invites discussion and seems likely to carry conviction by the proofs he produces. He is most successful in creating this impression when he makes statements about colonies, the foundation of towns, and family history. For here he makes such a fine show with his exactitude and the bitter tone in which he confutes others that one would 25

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r think all writers except himself had dozed over events and made mere random shots at what was befalling the world, while he alone had tested the accuracy of everything and submitted to careful scrutiny the various stories in which there is much that is genuine and much that is false. But as a fact, when those who have made themselves by long study familiar with the earlier part of the work, in which he treats of the subjects I mentioned, have come to rely fully on his excessive professions of accuracy, and when after this someone proves to them that Timaeus is himself guilty of the very faults he bitterly reproaches in others, committing errors such as I have just above exhibited in the cases of the Locrians and others, then, I say, they become the most captious of critics, disposed to contest every statement, difficult to shake, and it is chiefly those who have devoted the most labor to the study of his works who profit thus by their reading. Those on the other hand who model themselves on his speeches and in general on his more verbose passages become for the reasons I give above childish, pedantic, and quite untruthful. The systematic part of his history, then, is a tissue of all the faults, most of which I have described. I will now deal with the prime cause of his errors, a cause that most people will not be inclined to admit, but which will be found to be the truest accusation to be brought against him. He seems to me to have acquired both practical experience and the habit of industrious study of documents, and in fact generally speaking to have approached the task of writing history in a painstaking spirit, but in some matters we know of no author of repute who seems to have been less experienced and less painstaking. What I am saying will be clearer from the following considerations. Nature has given us two instruments, as it were, by the aid of which we inform ourselves and inquire about everything. These are hearing and sight, and of the two sight is much more trustworthy according to Heraclitus. “The eyes are more accurate witnesses than the ears,” he says. Now, Timaeus enters on his inquiries by the pleasanter of the two roads, but the inferior one. For he entirely avoids employing his eyes and prefers to employ his ears. Now the knowledge derived from hearing being of two sorts, Timaeus diligently pursued the one, the reading of books, as I have above pointed out, but was very remiss in his use of the other, the interrogation of living witnesses. It is easy enough to perceive what caused him to make this choice. Inquiries from books may be made without any danger or hardship, provided only that one takes care to have access to a town rich in documents or to have a library near at hand. After that, one has only to pursue one’s researches in perfect repose and compare the accounts of different writers without exposing oneself to any hardship. Personal inquiry, on the contrary, requires severe labor and great expense, but is exceedingly valuable and is the most important part of history. This is evident from expres-

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one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) sions used by historians themselves. Ephorus, for example, says that if we could be personally present at all transactions such knowledge would be far superior to any other. Theopompus says that the man who has the best knowledge of war is he who has been present at the most battles, that the most capable speaker is he who has taken part in the greatest number of debates, and that the same holds true about medicine and navigation. Homer has been still more emphatic on this subject than these writers. Wishing to show us what qualities one should possess in order to be a man of action he says: “Sing to me, muse, of the man of many wiles, who wandered many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy” [Odyssey 1.1–2], and further on, “He saw the cities of many men and learned their thoughts, and suffered many woes upon the sea in his heart” [Odyssey 1.3–4], and again, “in wars of men and grievous waves” [Odyssey 8.183]. It appears to me that the dignity of history also demands such a man. Plato, as we know, tells us that human affairs will then go well when either philosophers become kings or kings study philosophy, and I would say that it will be well with history either when men of action undertake to write history, not as now happens in a perfunctory manner, but when, in the belief that this is a most necessary and most noble thing, they apply themselves all through their life to it with undivided attention, or again when would-be authors regard a training in actual affairs as necessary for writing history. Until this happens the errors of historians will never cease. Timaeus never gave a moment’s thought to this, but though he spent all his life in exile in one single place, though he almost seems to have deliberately denied himself any active part in war or politics or any personal experience gained by travel and observation, yet, for some unknown reason, he has acquired the reputation of being a leading author. That such is the character of Timaeus can easily be shown from his own avowal. For in the preface [prooimion] to the sixth book he says that some suppose that greater talent, more industry, and more previous training are required for declamatory than for historical writing. Such opinions, he says, formerly incurred Ephorus’s disapproval, but as that writer could give no satisfactory answer to those who held them, he himself attempts to institute a comparison between history and declamatory writing, a most surprising thing to do, firstly in that his statement about Ephorus is false. For Ephorus, while throughout his whole work he is admirable in his phraseology, method, and the originality of his thought, is most eloquent in his digressions and in the expression of his personal judgment, whenever, in fact, he allows himself to enlarge on any subject, and it so happens that his remarks on the difference between historians and speechwriters are peculiarly charming and convincing. But Timaeus, in order not to seem to be copying Ephorus, besides making a

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r false statement about him has at the same time condemned all other historians. For dealing with matters, treated by others correctly, at inordinate length, in a confused manner, and in every respect worse, he thinks that not a living soul will notice this. Actually in order to glorify history he says that the difference between it and declamatory writing is as great as that between real buildings or furniture and the views and compositions we see in scene paintings. In the second place he says that the mere collection of the material required for a history is a more serious task than the complete course of study of the art of declamatory speaking. He himself, he tells us, had incurred such expense and been put to so much trouble in collecting his notes from Assyria and inquiring into the manners and customs of the Ligurians, Celts, and Iberians that he could not hope that either his own testimony or that of others to this would be believed. One would like to ask this writer whether he thinks that to sit in town collecting notes and inquiring into the manners and customs of the Ligurians and Celts involves more trouble and expense than an attempt to see the majority of places and peoples with one’s own eyes. Which again is most troublesome, to inquire from those present at the engagements the details of battles by land and sea and of sieges, or to be present at the actual scene and experience oneself the dangers and vicissitudes of battle? In my opinion the difference between real buildings and scene paintings or between history and declamatory speechmaking is not so great as is, in the case of all works, the difference between an account founded on participation, active or passive, in the occurrences, and one composed from report and the narratives of others. But Timaeus, having no experience of the former proceeding, naturally thinks that what is really of smallest importance and easiest is most important and difficult—I mean the collection of documents and inquiry from those personally acquainted with the facts. And even in this task men of no experience are sure to be frequently deceived. For how is it possible to examine a person properly about a battle, a siege, or a sea-fight, or to understand the details of his narrative, if one has no clear ideas about these matters? For the inquirer contributes to the narrative as much as his informant, since the suggestions of the person who follows the narrative guide the memory of the narrator to each incident, and these are matters in which a man of no experience is neither competent to question those who were present at an action, nor when present himself to understand what is going on, but even if present he is in a sense not present.

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5 Di odoru s Si cul us, Library Diodorus Siculus was born in the Sicilian town of Agyrium ca 90 BCE. He visited Egypt during the one hundred and eightieth Olympiad (60–57 BCE) and later settled in Rome. At some point he began gathering material for a historical compendium that would serve as a handbook and reference guide for a general audience. The resulting Library, a universal history from the mythical past to the year 60 BCE, was committed to writing between the mid-40s and 30 BCE. Of the original forty books, only books 1–5, which deal with the period before the Trojan War, and 11–20, which cover the years 480–302 BCE, survive. Summaries of the other books are preserved in the Library of the Byzantine patriarch Photius (ca 810–ca 893) and in the Excerpts of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913–959). Diodorus himself was less a historian than an epitomator of the works of others, and the chief virtue of his work is that it preserves fragments of several lost histories, including those of Ephorus, Timaeus, Posidonius, and Hieronymus of Cardia. Diodorus’s prologue consists of a lengthy eulogy on the virtues of history, chief among them its didactic utility, and the whole work is characterized by overt moralizing. The prologue later became influential among Byzantine historians; it is echoed in Procopius’s Buildings, and in the histories of Agathias, Joseph Genesius ( fl. tenth century), and Leo the Deacon (ca 950–ca 1000). Its eloquence has led some scholars to suspect Diodorus of adapting it from the work of one of his predecessors, the most likely candidates being the universal historian Ephorus (ca 405–330 BCE) and the Stoic philosopher and polymath Posidonius (ca 135–ca 51 BCE). At the conclusion of the prologue Diodorus provides a chronological overview of his history, for which he claims to have relied upon the chronology of Apollodorus of Athens (ca 180–after 120 BCE). If we use Apollodorus’s dates, however, which are provided in brackets, Diodorus’s claim that he ended his history 730 years after the first Olympiad (776/775 BCE) cannot be reconciled with an earlier statement that he brought his work to a close with the beginning of the Gallic War in 60/59 BCE. Source: trans. C.H. Oldfather, Diodorus of Sicily, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1933), vol. 1, pp. 5–23, rev. Justin Lake.

It is fitting that all men should accord great gratitude to those writers who have composed universal histories, since by their individual labors they have aspired to help human society as a whole. For by offering instruction unattended by risk in what is advantageous they provide their readers, through such a presentation of events, with a most excellent kind of experience. For although the learning that is acquired by experience in each separate case, with all the attendant toils and dangers, does indeed enable a man to discern in each instance where utility lies—and this is the reason why the most widely

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r experienced of our heroes suffered great misfortunes before he “saw the cities of many men and learned their thoughts” [Odyssey 1.3]—yet the understanding of the failures and successes of other men, which is acquired by the study of history, affords an instruction that is free from actual experience of ills. Furthermore, it has been the aspiration of these writers to marshal all men, who, although united to one another by their kinship, are yet separated by space and time, into one and the same orderly body. And such historians have therein shown themselves to be, as it were, the servants of divine providence. For just as providence, having brought the orderly arrangement of the visible stars and the natures of men together into one common relationship, continually directs their courses through all eternity, apportioning to each that which falls to it by the direction of fate, so likewise the historians, in recording the common affairs of the inhabited world as though they were those of a single state, have made of their treatises a single reckoning of past events and a common clearinghouse of knowledge concerning them. For it is an excellent thing to be able to use the ignorant mistakes of others as examples by which to amend one’s own conduct, and when we confront the varied vicissitudes of life, instead of having to investigate what is being done now, to be able to imitate the successes that have been achieved in the past. Certainly all men prefer in their counsels the oldest men to those who are younger, because of the experience that has accrued to the former through the lapse of time. Yet we know that this sort of experience is surpassed by the understanding gained from history to the extent that history excels in the multitude of facts at its disposal. For this reason, one may hold that the acquisition of a knowledge of history is of the greatest utility for every conceivable circumstance of life. For it endows the young with the wisdom of the aged, while for the old it multiplies the experience that they already possess. It qualifies citizens in private station for leadership, and incites leaders to undertake the noblest deeds through the immortality of the glory that it confers. It makes soldiers more ready to face danger in defense of their country because of the public encomiums that they will receive after death, and it turns wicked men aside from their impulse towards evil through the everlasting opprobrium to which it will condemn them. In general, then, it is because of history’s commemoration of noble deeds that some men have been induced to become the founders of cities, others have been led to introduce laws that encompass man’s social life with security, and many have aspired to discover new sciences and arts in order to benefit the human race. And since complete happiness can be attained only through the combination of all these activities, the highest praise must be awarded to that which more than any other thing is the cause of them, that is, to history. For we must look upon it as constituting the guardian of the high achievements of

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one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) illustrious men, the witness that testifies to the evil deeds of the wicked, and the benefactor of the entire human race. For if it is true that the myths that are related about Hades, in spite of the fact that their subject matter is fictitious, contribute greatly to fostering piety and justice among men, how much more must we assume that history, the prophetess of truth—she who is, as it were, the mother city of philosophy as a whole—is even more able to equip men’s characters for noble living. For all men, by reason of the frailty of our nature, live but an infinitesimal portion of eternity and are dead throughout all subsequent time. And while in the case of those who in their lifetime have done nothing worthy of note, everything that has pertained to them in life also perishes when their bodies die, yet in the case of those who by their virtue have achieved fame, their deeds are remembered for all time, since they are proclaimed by the godlike voice of history. Now I believe that all men of understanding will agree that it is a noble thing to receive immortal fame in exchange for mortal labors. In the case of Heracles, for instance, it is generally agreed that during the whole time that he spent among men he submitted to great and continuous labors and perils willingly, in order that he might confer benefits upon the race of men and thereby gain immortality. And likewise in the case of other great and good men, some have attained to heroic honors and others to honors equal to the divine, and all have been thought worthy of great praise, since history immortalizes their achievements. For whereas all other memorials remain for only a brief time, the power of history, which extends over the whole inhabited world, possesses in time, which brings ruin upon all other things, a custodian that ensures its perpetual transmission to posterity. History also contributes to the power of speech, and a nobler thing than that may not easily be found. For it is this that makes the Greeks superior to the barbarians and the educated to the uneducated, and it is by means of speech alone that one man is able to gain ascendancy over the many. And in general the impression made by every measure that is proposed corresponds to the power of the speaker who presents it, and we describe great and good men as “worthy of speech,” as though therein they had won the highest prize of excellence. And when speech is resolved into its several kinds, we find that whereas poetry is more pleasing than profitable, and codes of law punish but do not instruct, and similarly all the other kinds either contribute nothing to happiness or else contain a harmful element mingled with the beneficial, while some of them actually pervert the truth, history alone, since in it words and facts are in perfect agreement, embraces in its narration all the other qualities as well as that are useful. For it is ever to be seen urging men to justice, denouncing those who are evil, lauding the good, laying up—in a word—for its readers a mighty store of experience.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Having observed, therefore, that writers of history are accorded a merited approbation, we were led to feel a similar enthusiasm for the subject. But when we turned our attention to the historians before our time, although we approved their purpose without reservation, we were far from feeling that their treatises had been composed so as to contribute to human welfare as much as might have been the case. For although the profit that history affords its readers lies in its embracing a vast number and variety of circumstances, most writers have recorded no more than isolated wars waged by a single nation or a single state, and few have undertaken, beginning with the earliest times and coming down to their own day, to record the events connected with all peoples; and of the latter, some have not attached to the several events their own proper dates, and others have passed over the deeds of barbarian peoples; and some, again, have rejected the ancient legends because of the difficulties involved in their treatment, while others have failed to complete the plan to which they had set their hand, their lives having been cut short by fate. And of those who have undertaken an account of all peoples not one has continued his history beyond the Macedonian period. For while some have closed their accounts with the deeds of Philip, others with those of Alexander, and some with the Diadochi or the Epigoni, yet despite the number and importance of the events subsequent to these and extending even to our own lifetime that have been left neglected, no historian has sought to treat of them within the compass of a single narrative, because of the magnitude of the undertaking. For this reason, since both the dates of the events and the events themselves lie scattered about in numerous treatises and in various authors, the knowledge of them becomes difficult for the mind to encompass and for the memory to retain. Consequently, after we had examined the composition of each of these authors’ works, we resolved to write a history after a plan that might yield to its readers the greatest benefit and at the same time inconvenience them the least. For if a man should begin with the most ancient times and record to the best of his ability the affairs of the entire world down to his own day—so far as they have been handed down to memory—as though they were the affairs of some single city, he would obviously have to undertake an immense labor, yet he would have composed a treatise of the utmost value to those who are studiously inclined. For from such a treatise every man will be able readily to take what is of use for his special purpose, drawing as it were from a great fountain. The reason for this is that in the first place it is not easy for those who propose to go through the writings of so many historians to procure the books that come to be needed, and in the second place that because the works vary so widely and are so numerous, the recovery of past events becomes extremely difficult of comprehension and of attainment. Whereas, on the other hand,

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one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) the treatise that keeps within the limits of a single narrative and contains a connected account of events facilitates reading and contains a recollection of the past in a form that is perfectly easy to follow. In general, a history of this nature must be held to surpass all others to the same degree as the whole is more useful than the part and continuity than discontinuity, and again, as an event whose date has been accurately determined is more useful than one of which it is not known in what period it happened. And so we, appreciating that an undertaking of this nature, while supremely useful, would yet require much labor and time, have been engaged upon it for thirty years, and with much hardship and many dangers we have visited a large portion of both Asia and Europe so that we might see with our own eyes all the most important regions and as many others as possible. For many errors have been committed through ignorance of the sites, not only by the common run of historians, but even by some of the highest reputation. As for the resources that have availed us in this undertaking, they have been, first and foremost, that enthusiasm for the work that enables every man to bring to completion the task that seems impossible, and in the second place the abundant supply that Rome affords of the materials pertaining to the proposed study. For the supremacy of this city, a supremacy so powerful that it extends to the bounds of the inhabited world, has provided us, in the course of our long residence there, with copious resources in the most accessible form. For since the city of our origin was Agyrium in Sicily, and by reason of our contact with the Romans in that island we had gained a wide acquaintance with their language, we have acquired an accurate knowledge of all the events connected with this empire from the records that have been carefully preserved among them over a long period of time. Now we have begun our history with the legends of both Greeks and barbarians, after having first investigated to the best of our ability the accounts that each people records of its earliest times. Since my undertaking is now completed, although the volumes are as yet unpublished, I wish to present a brief preliminary outline of the work as a whole. Our first six books embrace the events and legends previous to the Trojan War, the first three setting forth the antiquities of the barbarians, and the next three almost exclusively those of the Greeks. In the following eleven we have written a universal history of events from the Trojan War to the death of Alexander, and in the succeeding twenty-three books we have given an orderly account of all subsequent events down to the beginning of the war between the Romans and the Celts, in the course of which the commander Gaius Julius Caesar, who has been deified because of his deeds, subjugated the most numerous and most warlike tribes of the Celts and advanced the Roman Empire as far as the British Isles. The first events of this war occurred in the

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r first year of the one hundred and eightieth Olympiad, when Herodes was archon at Athens [60/59 BCE]. As for the periods included in this work, we do not attempt to fix with any strictness the limits of those before the Trojan War, because no trustworthy chronological table covering them has come into our hands. But from the Trojan War [1184 BCE] we follow Apollodorus of Athens in setting the interval from then to the Return of the Heraclidae as eighty years, from then to the first Olympiad [776 BCE] three hundred and twenty-eight years, reckoning the dates by the reigns of the kings of Lacedaemon, and from the first Olympiad to the beginning of the Celtic war, which we have made the end of our history, seven hundred and thirty years, so that our whole treatise of forty books embraces eleven hundred and thirty-eight years, exclusive of the periods that embrace the events before the Trojan War. We have given at the outset this precise outline, since we desire to inform our readers about the project as a whole, and at the same time to deter those who are accustomed to make their books by compilation from mutilating works of which they are not the authors. And throughout our entire history it is to be hoped that what we have done well may not be the object of envy, and that the matters wherein our knowledge is defective may receive correction at the hands of more able historians. Now that we have set forth the plan and purpose of our undertaking, we shall attempt to make good our promise of such a treatise.

6 Aul u s H i rti u s, P reface to Book 8 of Cae s ar ’s Commentaries on the G allic War Between 58 and 51 BCE the Roman general Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE) conquered the entirety of Gaul in a series of brilliant and devastating military campaigns. During his first seven years in Gaul he issued annual reports, or commentarii, to the senate to explain the progress of his campaign and justify his conduct of military affairs. After Caesar’s assassination in March of 44 BCE, one of his former officers, Aulus Hirtius, added an eighth and final book to bridge the gap between the seventh book of Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War and the first book of his Commentaries on the Civil War, which narrated his struggles against Pompey and the senate in 49–48 BCE. In keeping with the conventions of the genre, Caesar wrote his Commentaries in an unadorned style meant to convey a sense of objective detachment, and it is possible that he intended them as source material for future historians. In his preface to book 8, however, which is addressed to Lucius Cornelius Balbus, Hirtius rejects the possibility of improving

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one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) upon Caesar’s style, and indeed, the clarity and precision of Caesar’s Commentaries made them a model for Latin prose composition for centuries. Consul for 43 BCE, Hirtius joined the senatorial party after Caesar’s murder and was killed at the Battle of Mutina on 21 April 43 BCE, while leading an attack on the camp of Mark Antony. He may also be the author of the Alexandrian War, which narrates Caesar’s military operations in Egypt and elsewhere in 48–47 BCE. Hirtius’s introduction to book 8 is the first example of an epistolary preface in Roman historiography. Source: trans. H.J. Edwards, Caesar: The Gallic War, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1919), pp. 515–17, rev. Justin Lake.

Compelled by your continual reproaches, Balbus, which seem to regard my daily refusal not as a plea arising from the difficulty of the request but as an evasion due to indolence, I have undertaken a most difficult task. Because his earlier and later writings did not fit together, I have added a continuation to the commentaries of our friend Caesar on the operations in Gaul. And his most recent work, which was left unfinished from the operations at Alexandria onwards, I have completed as far as the conclusion—not indeed of civil discord, of which we see no end, but of Caesar’s life. I hope that those who read it will understand how unwillingly I have undertaken the task of writing so that I may more easily free myself from charges of folly and presumption for having intruded myself into the midst of Caesar’s writings. For it is universally agreed that nothing was ever so elaborately finished by others that is not surpassed by the refinement of these commentaries. They have been published so that historians may not lack knowledge of those great achievements, and so strong is the unanimous verdict of approval that it appears that historians have been deprived of an opportunity rather than given one. At the same time our admiration for his achievement exceeds that of all other men. For they know how skillfully and faultlessly he brought his commentaries to completion, but we also know how easily and quickly he did so. Caesar possessed not only the greatest facility and refinement of style, but also the surest skill in explaining his own plans. For myself, I had not the fortune ever to take part in the Alexandrian and the African campaigns, and although they are partially known to me from my conversations with Caesar, we have a different way of listening to events that captivate us by their novelty and wonder, and those that we are going to declare as evidence. Yet I do not doubt that in collecting every plea to excuse myself from comparison with Caesar I will incur a charge of presumption for imagining that I could be compared with Caesar in anyone’s judgment. Farewell.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r

7 S a llu s t, Catiline’s War Roman historiography begins with the works of Quintus Fabius Pictor and Lucius Cincius Alimentus in the third century BCE, but apart from Caesar’s Commentaries the earliest complete histories that we have by a Roman author are two monographs— Catiline’s War and The Jugurthine War— written by the ex-senator Gaius Sallustius Crispus. Sallust was born in the Sabine territory of Amiternum in 86 BCE. He served as tribune of the plebs in 52 BCE as a member of the popular faction, and agitated against the Roman nobleman T. Annius Milo (who had murdered his rival P. Clodius Pulcher in January of 52 BCE) and Milo’s supporter Cicero. Two years later he was expelled from the senate by his political opponents on the grounds of immorality, and he joined Caesar’s party, commanding a legion in 49 BCE. He served as praetor in 46 BCE and took part in Caesar’s campaign in Africa, after which he was appointed governor of the province of Africa Nova. Like many Roman governors, Sallust took advantage of his term in office to squeeze as much money as possible out of his province, and on his return to Rome he was accused of extortion and forced to retire from public life. He subsequently devoted himself to the writing of history, producing Catiline’s War in 42/41 BCE and The Jugurthine War in 41/40 BCE, and writing five books of Histories covering the years 78–67 BCE. He died in 34 BCE, leaving the Histories unfinished (it survives only in fragments.) In all three of his works Sallust emphasizes Rome’s moral decline after the Third Punic War, when the removal of the Carthaginian threat fostered greed, corruption, and discord at Rome. Catiline’s War gives an account of the failed conspiracy and rebellion of the Roman nobleman Lucius Sergius Catilina in 63–62 BCE. The Jugurthine War recounts the usurpation of the kingdom of Numidia by the African prince Jugurtha, the corruption of the Roman nobles sent to bring him to heel, and the successful campaign waged against him by the consul Marius. Sallust was widely read in antiquity, valued both as a model historian and as a literary stylist (he wrote in an archaizing and affected prose style modeled on Thucydides). In the Middle Ages he was a popular school author, prized especially for his moralistic tone. In the prologues to both Catiline’s War and The Jugurthine War, he explains his decision to write history after leaving politics. Source: trans. J.C. Rolfe, Sallust, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1921), pp. 3–9, rev. Justin Lake.

It behooves all men who wish to excel the other animals to strive with might and main not to pass through life unheralded like beasts, which nature has fashioned groveling and slaves to the belly. All our power, on the contrary, lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, and the body to serve; the one we have in common with the gods, the other with the brutes. Therefore I find it becoming, in seeking renown, that we should employ the 36

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) resources of the intellect rather than those of brute strength to the end that, since the span of life that we enjoy is short, we may make the memory of our lives as long as possible. For the renown that riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession. Yet for a long time mortal men have discussed the question of whether success in arms depends more on strength of body or excellence of mind; for before you begin, deliberation is necessary, when you have deliberated, prompt action. Thus each of these, being incomplete in itself, requires the other’s aid. Accordingly in the beginning kings (for that was the first title of sovereignty among men) took different courses, some training their minds and others their bodies. Even at that time men’s lives were still free from covetousness; each was quite content with his own possessions. But when Cyrus in Asia and in Greece the Athenians and Lacedaemonians began to subdue cities and nations, to make the lust for dominion a pretext for war, to consider the greatest empire the greatest glory, then at last men learned from perilous enterprises that qualities of mind availed most in war. Now if the mental excellence with which kings and rulers are endowed were as potent in peace as in war, human affairs would run an evener and steadier course, and you would not see power passing from hand to hand and everything in turmoil and confusion; for empire is easily retained by the qualities by which it was first won. But when sloth has usurped the place of industry, and lawlessness and insolence have superseded self-restraint and justice, the fortune of rulers changes with their character. Thus power is always passing to the best man from the hands of his inferior. Success in agriculture, navigation, and architecture depends invariably upon mental excellence. Yet many men, being slaves to appetite and sleep, have passed through life untaught and untrained, like mere wayfarers. In these men we see, contrary to nature’s intent, the body as a source of pleasure, the soul a burden. For my own part, I consider the lives and deaths of such men as about alike, since no record is made of either. In very truth that man alone lives and makes the most of life, as it seems to me, who devotes himself to some occupation, courting the fame of a glorious deed or a noble career. But amid the wealth of opportunities nature points out one path to one and another to another. It is glorious to serve one’s country by deeds; even to serve it by words is a thing not to be despised; one may become famous in peace as well as in war. Not only those who have acted, but those also who have recorded the acts of others oftentimes receive our approbation. And for myself, although I am well aware that by no means equal repute attends the narrator and the doer of deeds, yet I regard the writing of history as one of the most difficult of tasks, first because the style and diction must be equal to the deeds recorded, and in the second place because such criticism as you make of others’ shortcomings are 37

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r thought by most men to be due to malice and envy. Furthermore, when you commemorate the distinguished merit and fame of good men, while everyone is quite ready to believe you when you tell of things that he thinks he could easily do himself, everything beyond that he regards as fictitious, if not false. When I myself was a young man, my inclinations at first led me, like many others, into public life, and there I encountered many obstacles; for instead of modesty, incorruptibility and honesty, shamelessness, bribery and rapacity held sway. And although my soul, a stranger to evil ways, recoiled from such faults, yet amid so many vices my youthful weakness was led astray and held captive by ambition; for while I took no part in the evil practices of the others, the desire for preferment made me the victim of the same ill repute and jealousy as they. Accordingly, when my mind found peace after many troubles and perils and I had determined that I must pass what was left of my life aloof from public affairs, it was not my intention to waste my precious leisure in indolence and sloth, nor yet by turning to farming or hunting to lead a life devoted to slavish employments. On the contrary, I resolved to return to a cherished purpose from which ill-starred ambition had diverted me, and write a history of the Roman people, selecting such portions as seemed to me worthy of memory. And I was confirmed in this resolution by the fact that my mind was free from hope, and fear, and partisanship. I shall therefore write briefly and as truthfully as possible of the conspiracy of Catiline; for I regard that event as worthy of special notice because of the extraordinary nature of the crime and of the danger arising from it. But before beginning my narrative I must say a few words about the man’s character.

8 Sall u s t, The Jugurthine War Source: trans. J.C. Rolfe, Sallust, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1921), pp. 133–41, rev. Justin Lake.

Without reason do men complain of their nature, on the grounds that it is weak and of short duration and ruled rather by chance than by virtue. For reflection would show on the contrary that nothing is greater or more excellent, and that nature has more often found diligence lacking in men than strength or endurance in itself. But the leader and ruler of man’s life is the mind, and when this advances to glory by the path of virtue, it has power and potency in abundance, as well as fame. And it needs not fortune, since fortune can neither give to any man honesty, diligence, and other good qualities, nor can she take them away. But if through the lure of base desires the mind has sunk into sloth and the pleasures of the body, when it has enjoyed ruinous indulgence for a 38

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) season, when strength, time, and talents have been wasted through indolence, then men blame the weakness of human nature and shift their own guilt to circumstances. But if men had as great a regard for honorable enterprises as they have ardor in pursuing what is foreign to their interests and bound to be unprofitable and often even dangerous, they would control fate rather than be controlled by it, and would attain to that height of greatness where they would cease to be mortal and live forever through their fame. For just as mankind is made up of body and soul, so all of our acts and pursuits partake of the nature either of the body or of the mind. Therefore notable beauty and great riches, as well as bodily strength and all other gifts of that kind, soon pass away, but the splendid achievements of the intellect, like the soul, are everlasting. In short, the goods of the body and of fortune have an end as well as a beginning, and they all rise and fall, wax and wane; but the mind, incorruptible, eternal, ruler of mankind, animates and controls all things, yet is itself not controlled. Therefore we should marvel all the more at the perversity of those who pass their life in riotous living and idleness, given over to the pleasures of the body, but allow the mind, which is better and greater than anything else in man’s nature, to grow dull from neglect and inaction, especially when there are so many and such diverse intellectual pursuits by which the highest distinction may be won. But among these pursuits, in my opinion, magistracies and military commands—in short, all public offices—are the least desirable in these times, since honor is not bestowed upon merit, while those who have gained office wrongfully are neither safe nor the more honorable because of it. For to rule one’s country or subjects by force, even if you have the power to correct abuses and do correct them, is nevertheless tyrannical, especially since all changes of circumstance foreshadow bloodshed, exile, and other horrors of war. Moreover, to struggle in vain, and after wearisome exertion to gain nothing but hatred, is the height of folly, unless perhaps one is possessed by a dishonorable and pernicious passion for sacrificing one’s personal honor and liberty to the power of a few men. Among intellectual pursuits the recording of the events of the past is of particular value, but I think that I will be silent about this both because many men have already spoken of its usefulness and so that no one will suppose that I am led by vanity to extol my own chosen occupation. I suppose, too, that since I have resolved to pass my life aloof from public affairs, some will apply to this arduous and useful employment of mine the name of idleness— certainly those who regard courting the people and currying favor through banquets as the height of industriousness. But if such men will only bear in mind the circumstances in which I was elected to office, what men of merit were unable to attain the same honor, and what sort of men have since come into the senate, they will surely be convinced that it is rather from justifiable 39

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r motives than from indolence that I have changed my opinion, and that greater profit will accrue to our country from my inactivity than from others’ activity. I have often heard that Quintus Maximus, Publius Scipio, and other eminent men of our country were in the habit of declaring that their hearts were set passionately aflame for the pursuit of virtue whenever they gazed upon the masks of their ancestors. Of course they did not mean to imply that the wax or the effigy had any such power over them, but rather that it is the memory of great deeds that kindles in the breasts of noble men this flame that cannot be quelled until by their own prowess they have equaled the fame and glory of their forefathers. But in these degenerate days is there anyone who does not vie with his ancestors in riches and extravagance rather than in uprightness and diligence? Even the “new men,” who in former times were accustomed to rely upon their merits to outstrip the nobles, now make their way to power and distinction by intrigue and open fraud rather than by noble practices, just as if a praetorship, a consulship, or anything else of the kind were distinguished and illustrious in and of itself and were not valued according to the merit of those who live up to it. But in giving expression to my sorrow and indignation at the morals of our country I have spoken too freely and wandered too far from my subject. To this I now return. I propose to write of the war that the people of Rome waged with Jugurtha, king of the Numidians: first, because it was long, bloody, and of varying fortune, and secondly because this was the first occasion on which resistance was offered to the insolence of the nobles—the beginning of a struggle that threw everything, human and divine, into confusion, and rose to such a pitch of frenzy that civil discord ended in war and the devastation of Italy. But before actually beginning such a narrative, let me recall a few earlier events, in order that everything may be placed in a better light for our understanding and may be the more clearly revealed.

9 Li vy, H istory of Rome Titus Livy (59 BCE–17 CE) was the author of a massive and hugely successful history of Rome—the Libri ab urbe condita ( Books from the Founding of the City)—from the Trojan migration to the end of the first century BCE. Of the original 142 books, only books 1–10 and 21–45 survive intact, although fragments and summaries give us some idea of the contents of the lost books. Livy was born in the northern Italian city of Padua; at some point he came to Rome, where he made the acquaintance of the emperor Augustus. Unlike most previous Roman historians, he did not play an active role in politics, and in the preface he expresses gratitude for the distraction that writing gave 40

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) him from political affairs. Livy wrote at a period of tremendous upheaval in the Roman state. After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, his great-nephew and adopted son Octavian joined with Mark Antony to crush the conspirators, but the relationship between Octavian and Antony steadily deteriorated, and the decades of civil war that had plagued Rome throughout the first century BCE only came to an end with the defeat of Antony in 31 BCE and the establishment of the Augustan principate. Livy’s relationship to Augustus is a matter of debate. Though evidently sympathetic to Augustan ideals, he does not write as a partisan. Certainly, his assertion in the preface that Rome had reached a point at which it could endure “neither its vices nor their remedies” does not suggest that he viewed Augustus as having restored the Roman body politic to complete health. The precise import of this statement, however, depends on the dating of the preface, which is usually assigned to between 27 and 25 BCE, but may have been written before 31. In the preface Livy justifies the importance of history on the grounds that it provides models to emulate and avoid. This moral-exemplary function of history became dominant in the Middle Ages, and though Livy was not a medieval school author, his work was known to a number of historians, including Bede, who echoes it in the preface to his own Ecclesiastical History (see Doc. 32). Source: trans. B.O. Foster, Livy, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1919), vol. 1, pp. 3–9, rev. Justin Lake.

Whether I am likely to accomplish anything worthwhile if I record the accomplishments of the Roman people from the founding of the city, I do not really know, nor, if I knew, would I presume to say so, perceiving as I do that the subject is not only old but hackneyed through the constant succession of new historians who believe either that they will produce more reliable facts or surpass the unpolished style of their predecessors. However that may be, it will still be a source of satisfaction to me to have done as much as lies in my power to commemorate the foremost people of the world. And if in so vast a company of writers my own reputation should remain obscure, my consolation will be the fame and greatness of those whose renown will throw mine into the shade. What is more, the topic requires an immense amount of labor, seeing that it must be traced back more than seven hundred years, and that from slender beginnings Rome has now grown so large as to strain under the burden of its own size. At the same time, I do not doubt that to most readers the earliest origins and the period immediately following them will give little pleasure, since they will be in haste to reach these modern times, in which the might of a people that has long been very powerful is working its own undoing. I, on the other hand, shall regard it as an additional reward for my toil that I may avert my gaze from the troubles that our age has been witnessing for so many years, so long at least as I am absorbed in the recollection of the past, free from 41

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r every care that could bring anxiety to the mind of the writer, even if it cannot divert him from the truth. As for those traditions that belong to the time before the city was founded or was about to be founded, and which are adorned with poetic fictions rather than based upon trustworthy historical records, it is not my intention either to affirm or refute them. It is the privilege of antiquity to endow the origins of cities with a certain grandeur by mingling divine things with human, and if any people ought to be allowed to consecrate their origins and refer them to a divine source, so great is the military glory of the Roman people that when they profess that their father and the father of their founder was none other than Mars, the nations of the earth may submit to this with as good a grace as they submit to Rome’s dominion. But to such legends as these, however they shall be regarded and judged, I shall, for my own part, attach no great importance. Here are the questions to which I would have every reader give his close attention: what life and morals were like; through what men and by what policies Roman rule was established and enlarged in peace and in war; then let him note how, with the gradual relaxation of discipline, morals first gave way, as it were, then sank lower and lower, and finally began the downward plunge that has brought us to the present time, when we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies. Indeed, it is an especially healthful and profitable aspect of history that you may behold the lessons of every kind of experience set forth as though upon a conspicuous monument. From these you may choose for yourself and your state what to imitate and what to avoid as shameful in the conception and shameful in the result. For the rest, either love of the task I have set myself deceives me, or no state was ever greater, or more righteous, or richer in good examples, none ever was where avarice and luxury came into the social order so late, or where humble means and thrift were so highly esteemed and so long held in honor. For it is true that the less men’s wealth was, the less was their greed. Of late, riches have brought in avarice, and excessive pleasures the longing to carry wantonness and license to the point of ruin for oneself and of universal destruction. But complaints will be unwelcome even in the future, when they shall perhaps be necessary; at all events, let them be absent from the beginning of so great an enterprise. If we had the same custom that poets have, we would rather begin with good omens, and with prayers and entreaties to the gods and goddesses that they might grant us to bring the great task that we have undertaken to a successful conclusion.

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10 D io ny s i u s of H alicar n as s us, Roman Antiquities After Livy, our most valuable source for the early Roman Republic is the Roman Antiquities of the Greek rhetorician, literary critic, and historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which surveys the history of Rome from its mythical origins to the outbreak of the First Punic War. Dionysius tells the reader that he came to Rome at the end of the civil war (30/29 BCE) to teach rhetoric and spent the next twenty-two years studying Latin literature and gathering materials for his history. Of the original twenty books of the Roman Antiquities, the first nine are extant in their entirety, books 10 and 11 (which bring the work down to 441 BCE) are substantially intact, and the other nine survive only in fragments. Dionysius’s history is a panegyric on his adopted homeland and was intended in part to reconcile the Greeks to Roman rule. Not surprisingly, it is also highly rhetorical, with about a third of the text comprising speeches invented by the author. In the prologue he justifies his choice of theme and explains his methodology. Source: trans. Earnest Cary, The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Loeb Classical Library, 7 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937–50), vol. 1, pp. 3–27, rev. Justin Lake.

Although it is much against my will to indulge in the explanatory statements usually given in the prefaces [prooimia] to histories, I am obliged to prefix to this work some remarks about myself. In doing so it is not my intention to dwell too long on my own praise, which I know would be distasteful to the reader, nor do I have the purpose of censuring other historians, as Anaximenes [of Lampsacus, ca 380–320 BCE] and Theopompus [of Chios, ca 378/377–ca 320 BCE] did in the prefaces to their histories, but I shall only show the reasons that induced me to undertake this work and give an account of the sources from which I gained the knowledge of the things that I am going to relate. For I am convinced that all those who propose to leave such monuments of their minds to posterity as time shall not cause to perish along with their bodies, and particularly those who write histories, in which we have the right to assume that truth, the source of both prudence and wisdom, is enshrined, ought, first of all, to choose noble and lofty subjects and such as will be of great utility to their readers, and then, with great care and pains, to provide themselves with the proper equipment for the treatment of their subject. For those who base historical works upon deeds that are inglorious, evil, or unworthy of serious study, either because they crave to come to the knowledge of men and win some sort of name for themselves, or because they desire to display the wealth of their rhetoric, are neither admired by posterity for their fame nor praised for their eloquence. Rather, they leave this opinion in the minds of all who take up their histories, that they themselves admired lives that were of a piece with 43

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r the writings they published, since it is a just and a general opinion that a man’s words are the images of his mind. Those, on the other hand, who, while making choice of the best subjects, are careless and indolent in compiling their narratives out of such reports as chance to come to their ears gain no praise by reason of that choice; for we do not deem it fitting that the histories of renowned cities and of men who have held supreme power should be written in an off hand or negligent manner. As I believe these considerations to be necessary and of the first importance to historians, and as I have taken great care to observe them both, I have felt unwilling either to omit mention of them or to give it any other place than in the preface [prooimion] to my work. That I have indeed chosen a subject that is noble, lofty, and useful to many will not, I think, require any lengthy argument, at least for those who are not utterly unacquainted with universal history. For if anyone turns his attention to the successive supremacies both of cities and of nations, as accounts of them have been handed down from times past, and then, surveying them separately and comparing them with one another, wishes to determine which of them obtained the widest dominion and performed the most brilliant achievements in both peace and war, he will find that the supremacy of the Romans has far surpassed all those that are recorded from earlier times, not only in the extent of its dominion and in the splendor of its achievements—which no account has as yet worthily celebrated—but also in the length of time during which it has endured down to our day. For the empire of the Assyrians, ancient as it was and running back to legendary times, held sway over only a small part of Asia. That of the Medes, after overthrowing the Assyrian empire and obtaining a still wider dominion, did not hold it long, but was overthrown in the fourth generation. The Persians, who conquered the Medes, did, indeed, finally become masters of almost all Asia, but when they attacked the nations of Europe as well, they did not reduce many of them to submission and they continued in power not much above two hundred years. The Macedonian dominion, which overthrew the might of the Persians, did, in the extent of its sway, exceed all its predecessors, yet even it did not flourish long, but began to decline after Alexander’s death. For it was immediately partitioned among many commanders from the time of the Diadochi, and although after their time it was able to go on to the second or third generation, it was weakened by its own dissensions and in the end destroyed by the Romans. But even the Macedonian power did not subjugate every country and every sea. For it neither conquered Libya, with the exception of the small portion bordering on Egypt, nor subdued all of Europe, but in the north advanced only as far as Thrace and in the west down to the Adriatic Sea. Thus we see that the most famous of the earlier supremacies of which history has given us any account, after attaining to so great vigor and might, were 44

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) overthrown. As for the Greek powers, it is not fitting to compare them to those just mentioned, since they gained neither magnitude of empire nor duration of eminence equal to theirs. For the Athenians ruled only the sea coast, during the space of sixty-eight years, nor did their sway extend even over all that, but only to the part between the Euxine and the Pamphylian seas, when their naval supremacy was at its height. The Lacedaemonians, when masters of the Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece, advanced their rule as far as Macedonia, but were checked by the Thebans before they had held it quite thirty years. But Rome rules every country that is not inaccessible or uninhabited, and she is mistress of every sea, not only of that which lies inside the Pillars of Hercules, but also of the Ocean, except that part of it which is not navigable; she is the first and the only state recorded in all time that ever made the risings and the settings of the sun the boundaries of her dominion. Nor has her supremacy been of short duration, but more lasting than that of any other commonwealth or kingdom. For from the very beginning, immediately after her founding, she began to draw to herself the neighboring nations, which were both numerous and warlike, and continually advanced, subjugating every rival. And it is now seven hundred and forty-five years from her foundation down to the consulship of Claudius Nero, consul for the second time, and of Calpurnius Piso [7 BCE], who were chosen in the one hundred and ninety-third Olympiad. From the time that she mastered the whole of Italy she was emboldened to aspire to govern all mankind, and after driving from the sea the Carthaginians, whose maritime strength was superior to that of all others, and subduing Macedonia, which until then was reputed to be the most powerful nation on land, she no longer had as rival any nation either barbarian or Greek. And it is now in my day already the seventh generation that she has continued to hold sway over every region of the world, and there is no nation, as I may say, that disputes her universal dominion or protests against being ruled by her. However, to prove my statement that I have neither made choice of the most trivial of subjects nor proposed to treat of mean and insignificant deeds, but am undertaking to write not only about the most illustrious city but also about brilliant achievements to whose like no man could point, I know not what more I need say. But before I proceed, I desire to show in a few words that it is not without design and mature premeditation that I have turned to the early part of Rome’s history, but that I have well-considered reasons to give for my choice, to forestall the censure of those who, fond of finding fault with everything and not as yet having heard of any of the matters that I am about to make known, may blame me because, in spite of the fact that this city, grown so famous in our days, had very humble and inglorious beginnings, unworthy of historical record, and that it was but a few generations ago (that is, since her overthrow of the Macedonian powers and her success in the Punic wars) that she arrived 45

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r at distinction and glory, nevertheless, when I was at liberty to choose one of the famous periods in her history for my theme, I turned aside to one so barren of distinction as her antiquarian lore. For to this day almost all the Greeks are ignorant of the early history of Rome, and the great majority of them have been imposed upon by sundry false opinions grounded upon stories that chance has brought to their ears and led to believe that, having come upon various vagabonds without house or home and barbarians—and even those not free men—as her founders, she in the course of time arrived at world domination, and this not through reverence for the gods and justice and every other virtue, but through some chance and the injustice of fortune, which inconsiderately showers her greatest favors upon the most undeserving. And indeed, the more malicious are given to rail openly at fortune for freely bestowing on the basest of barbarians the blessings of the Greeks. And yet why should I mention men in general, when even some historians have dared to express such views in the writing they have left, taking this method of humoring barbarian kings who detested Rome’s supremacy—princes to whom they were ever servilely devoted and with whom they associated as flatterers—by presenting them with “histories” that were neither just nor true? In order, therefore, to remove these erroneous impressions, as I have called them, from the minds of many and to substitute true ones in their place, I shall in this book show who the founders of the city were, at what periods the various groups came together and through what turns of fortune they left their native countries. By this means I intend to prove that they were Greeks and came together from nations not the smallest nor the least considerable. And beginning with the next book I shall tell of the deeds they performed immediately after their founding of the city and of the customs and institutions by virtue of which their descendants advanced to so great a dominion. And so far as I am able, I shall omit nothing worthy of being recorded in history, to the end that I may instill in the minds of those who shall then be informed of the truth a just opinion of this city—unless they have already assumed an utterly violent and hostile attitude toward it—and so that they may neither feel indignation at their present subjection, which is grounded on reason (for by a universal law of nature, which time cannot destroy, it is ordained that superiors shall ever govern their inferiors), nor rail at fortune for having wantonly bestowed upon an undeserving city a supremacy so great and already of such long duration, particularly when they shall have learned from my history that Rome from the very beginning, immediately after its founding, produced infinite examples of virtue in men whose superiors, whether for piety or for justice or for lifelong self-control or for warlike valor, no city, either Greek or barbarian, has ever produced. This, I say, is what I hope to accomplish, if my readers will but lay aside all resentment; for some such feeling is aroused by a 46

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) promise of things that run counter to received opinion or excite wonder. And it is a fact that all those Romans who bestowed upon their country so great a dominion are unknown to the Greeks for want of a competent historian. For no accurate history of the Romans written in the Greek language has hitherto appeared, but only very brief and summary epitomes. The first historian, so far as I am aware, to touch upon the early period of the Romans was Hieronymus of Cardia [ca 364–ca 260 BCE], in his work on the Epigoni. After him Timaeus of Sicily related the beginnings of their history in his general history and treated in a separate work the wars with Pyrrhus of Epirus. Besides these, Antigonus, Polybius, Silenus [of Caleacte, late third century BCE], and innumerable other authors devoted themselves to the same themes, though in different ways, each of them recording some few things compiled without accurate investigation on his own part but from reports that chance had brought to his ears. Similar to these in all respects are the histories of those Romans, too, who related in Greek the early achievements of the city; the oldest of these writers are Quintus Fabius [Pictor] and Lucius Cincius [Alimentus], who both flourished during the Punic wars. Each of these men related the events at which he himself had been present with great exactness, as being well acquainted with them, but touched only in a summary fashion upon the early events that followed the founding of the city. For these reasons, therefore, I have determined not to pass over a noble period of history that the older writers left untouched, a period, moreover, the accurate portrayal of which will lead to the following most excellent and just results. In the first place, the brave men who have fulfilled their destiny will gain immortal glory and be extolled by posterity, things that render human nature like unto the divine and prevent men’s deeds from perishing together with their bodies. And again, both the present and future descendants of those godlike men will choose not the pleasantest and easiest of lives, but rather the noblest and most ambitious, when they consider that all those who spring from illustrious origins ought to set a high value on themselves and indulge in no pursuit unworthy of their ancestors. And I, who have not turned aside to this work for the sake of flattery, but out of a regard for truth and justice, which ought to be the aim of every history, shall have an opportunity in the first place of expressing my attitude of goodwill toward all good men and toward all who take pleasure in the contemplation of great and noble deeds, and in the second place of making the most grateful return that I may to the city in remembrance of the education and other blessings I have enjoyed during my residence in it. Having thus given the reason for my choice of subject, I wish now to say something concerning the sources I used while preparing for my task. For it is possible that those who have already read Hieronymus, Timaeus, Polybius, or any of the other historians whom I just now mentioned as having written in a 47

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r careless manner, since they will not have found in those authors many things mentioned by me, will suspect me of inventing them and will demand to know how I came by the knowledge of these particulars. Lest anyone, therefore, should entertain such an opinion of me, it is best that I should state in advance what narratives and records I have used as sources. I arrived in Italy at the very time that Augustus Caesar put an end to the civil war, in the middle of the one hundred and eighty-seventh Olympiad [30/29 BCE], and having from that time to this present day, a period of twenty-two years, lived at Rome, learned the language of the Romans, and acquainted myself with their writings, I have devoted myself during all that time to matters bearing upon my subject. Some information I received orally from men of the greatest learning, with whom I associated, and the rest I gathered from histories written by the approved Roman authors—Porcius Cato, Fabius Maximus, Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer, the Aelii, Gellii, and Calpurnii, and many others of note; with these works (which are like the Greek annalistic accounts) as a basis, I set about the writing of my history. So much, then, for myself. But it yet remains for me to say something also about the history itself—to what periods I limit it, what subjects I describe, and what form I give to the work. I begin my history, then, with the most ancient legends, which the historians before me have omitted as a subject difficult to be cleared up with diligent study, and I bring the narrative down to the beginning of the First Punic War, which fell in the third year of the one hundred and twenty-eighth Olympiad [265 BCE]. I relate all the foreign wars that the city waged during that period and all the internal seditions by which she was agitated, showing from what causes they sprang and by what methods and by what arguments they were brought to an end. I give an account also of all the forms of government Rome used, both during the monarchy and after its overthrow, and show what was the character of each. I describe the best customs and the most remarkable laws, and, in short, I show the whole life of the ancient Romans. As to the form I give this work, it does not resemble that which the authors who make wars alone their subject have given to their histories, nor that which others who treat of the several forms of government by themselves have adopted, nor is it like the annalistic accounts that the authors of Atthides [that is, histories of Attica] have published (for these are monotonous and soon grow tedious to the reader), but it is a combination of every kind—forensic, speculative, and narrative—to the intent that it may afford satisfaction both to those who occupy themselves with political debates and to those who are devoted to philosophical speculations, as well as to any who may desire mere undisturbed entertainment in their reading of history. Such things, therefore, will be the subjects of my history and such will be its form. I, the author, am Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the son of Alexander. And at this point I begin. 48

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11 Fl av i u s J os ephu s, J ewish War A Jewish historian who wrote in Greek under the patronage of Roman emperors, Flavius Josephus (Yosef ben Matityahu) is unique among the historians of antiquity. Born in 37 CE to a priestly family of Jerusalem, he studied in a rabbinic school and then with the three major Jewish sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes) before aligning himself with the Pharisees. In 63/64 he traveled to Rome and secured the release of several Jewish priests through the offices of the wife of the emperor Nero, to whom he was introduced by a Jewish actor. He returned in 66 to a Judaea on the edge of rebellion against Rome. After failing to persuade nationalist leaders of the futility of their cause, he was appointed commander of the Galilee and was forced to take refuge in the city of Jotapata when a Roman army under Vespasian moved into the region in 67. After a two-month siege in which he was unable to defend the city, Josephus and forty of his comrades fled into a cave, where he suggested that they draw lots to kill one another in order to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans. Josephus himself was the sole survivor of this mass suicide and surrendered to the Romans. His life was spared, he claims, at the intercession of Vespasian’s son, the future emperor Titus. He escaped being sent to Rome for trial by predicting Vespasian’s elevation to the imperial throne and was freed after Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by his troops in 69. Thereafter he remained in the entourage of Vespasian and Titus, witnessing the sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70 and returning to Rome with Titus the next year. At Rome he was lodged in Vespasian’s former home and given a pension and Roman citizenship, at which time he assumed the Roman name Titus Flavius Josephus. Cut off from his homeland by his enthusiastic (and to the Jews, unseemly) embrace of his Roman patrons, Josephus turned to literary pursuits. His first work was the Jewish War, published ca 79 CE, which surveys the Jewish rebellion from 66 to 73/74. In the prologue Josephus reveals that he had written an earlier version of this work in Aramaic for the benefit of Jewish and gentile readers outside of the Roman Empire, and he claims to have undertaken a Greek version to counter inaccurate histories of the war that were in circulation. In his subsequently written autobiography he says that he presented the work to both Vespasian and Titus and that Titus gave it his approval and saw to its publication. The Jewish War has been seen as a warning of the consequences of rebellion against Rome, and in book 3 Josephus notes that he has described the Roman army at some length both to console those whom it has defeated and to “deter others who may be tempted to revolt” (3.108). Source: trans. H.St.J. Thackeray, Josephus: The Jewish War, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1926), pp. 3–17, rev. Justin Lake.

The war of the Jews against the Romans—the greatest not only of the wars of our own time, but, so far as accounts have reached us, well nigh of all that ever broke out between cities or nations—has not lacked its historians. Yet 49

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r those who were not witness to the conflict have given a distorted account of it by collecting random and contradictory reports, while others, who witnessed the events, have given a false view of what happened, either out of a desire to flatter the Romans or because of their hatred of the Jews. Their writings contain in some places recriminations and in others encomium, but nowhere historical accuracy. For this reason, I decided for the benefit of those who live under the power of the Roman Empire to translate into the Greek language what I had previously written in my native tongue and sent to the non-Greeks dwelling inland. I, Josephus, son of Matthias, a Hebrew by race, a native of Jerusalem, and a priest, fought against the Romans at the opening of the war and was compelled to take part in what happened later. I spoke of this upheaval as one of the greatest magnitude. At the time that it broke out the Romans had their own internal disorders. The Jewish revolutionary party, whose numbers and fortunes were at their zenith, seized the opportunity of the turbulence of these times for insurrection. As a result of these vast disturbances some hoped to gain and others feared to lose from what was happening in the East. For the Jews hoped that their countrymen beyond the Euphrates would join with them in revolt, while the Romans for their part were occupied with their neighbors the Gauls, and the Celts were restive. Nero’s death, moreover, brought universal confusion; many were induced by the opportunity to aspire to the sovereignty, while the soldiery were eager for a transfer of power because they hoped to profit from it. I thought it intolerable, therefore, to sit idly by and watch the truth be distorted in matters of such importance, and to let the Greeks and the Romans who had not participated in the war remain in ignorance of these matters, with flattering or fictitious narratives as their only guide, while the Parthians, Babylonians, and the most distant tribes of Arabia, along with our countrymen beyond the Euphrates and the inhabitants of Adiabene had been accurately acquainted with the origin of the war, the various phases of calamity through which it passed, and its conclusion through my efforts. Although the writers in question presume to give their works the title of histories, not only do they fail to provide sound information, but they seem to me to fall short of their own purpose. They desire to represent the Romans as a great nation, but they constantly disparage and belittle the actions of the Jews. Yet I fail to see how the conquerors of a contemptible people deserve to be accounted great. Again, these writers have respect neither for the long duration of the war, nor for the vast numbers of the Roman army that suffered in it, nor for the greatness of the generals, whose strenuous efforts before Jerusalem will fail to win them the glory they deserve if their achievement is belittled. At the same time, I have no intention of trying to rival those who extol the achievements of the Romans by exaggerating the deeds of my countrymen. 50

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) Rather, I shall accurately recount the actions of both sides. But in my reflections on these events I cannot conceal my private sentiments or refuse to give my personal sympathies scope to bewail my country’s misfortunes. For that it owed its ruin to civil strife, and that it was the Jewish tyrants who drew down upon the holy temple the unwilling hands of the Romans and the conflagration is attested by Titus Caesar himself, who sacked the city. For throughout the war he pitied the people who were at the mercy of the revolutionaries, and often of his own accord he deferred the capture of the city and by protracting the siege gave the culprits time to repent. If anyone criticizes me for my condemnations of the tyrants and their bands of marauders, or for my lamentations over my country’s misfortunes, I ask that he forgive emotions that are contrary to the rules of historical writing. For of all the cities under Roman rule it was the lot of ours to attain to the highest felicity and to fall to the lowest depths of calamity. Indeed, in my opinion the misfortunes of all nations since the world began fall short of those of the Jews, and since the blame lay with no foreign nation, it was impossible to restrain my grief. Should, however, any critic be too austere for pity, let him credit the history with the facts, the historian with the lamentations. For my own part I might justifiably censure those learned Greeks who, though events of such importance have taken place in their own lifetimes that they reduce to insignificance the wars of antiquity, nonetheless sit in judgment on the former and disparage those who make them their special study—authors whose historical principles they lack, even if they have the advantage of them in literary skill. For their own themes they take the Assyrian and Median empires, as if these subjects had not been satisfactorily dealt with by ancient historians. Yet the truth is that these modern writers are inferior to them no less in literary power than in judgment. The ancient historians were eager to write the history of their own times, and the fact that they had witnessed the events added vividness to their accounts, while a failure to tell the truth brought an author into disrepute with readers who knew the facts. Surely the work of committing to writing events that have not previously been recorded and of commending to posterity the history of one’s own time is one that merits praise and acknowledgement. The industrious writer is not the one who merely remodels the scheme and arrangement of another’s work, but one who has something new to say and constructs his own historical edifice. As for myself, though a foreigner, I have expended a great deal of money and effort to present to the Greeks and Romans this memorial of their great achievements. As for the native Greeks, where personal profit or a lawsuit is concerned their mouths are at once agape and their tongues loosed, but in the matter of history, where truthfulness and laborious collection of the facts are essential, they are mute, leaving to inferior and ill-informed writers the task of describing the 51

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r exploits of their rulers. Let us at least hold historical truth in honor, since by the Greeks it is disregarded. To narrate the ancient history of the Jews—their origins, the circumstances of their migration from Egypt, the countries that they traversed in their wanderings, the extent of the territory that they subsequently occupied, and their removal from it—would, I considered, be not only out of place here, but also superfluous, seeing that many Jews before me have accurately recorded the history of our ancestors, and that these records have been translated by certain Greeks into their native tongue without serious error. I shall therefore begin my work at the point where the historians of these events and our prophets conclude. Of the subsequent history I shall describe the incidents of the war through which I lived with all the detail and elaboration at my command, whereas for the events preceding my lifetime I shall be content with a brief summary. I shall relate how Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, took Jerusalem by storm and after holding it for three years and six months was expelled from the country by the Hasmonaeans; next, how their descendants, in their quarrel for the throne, dragged the Romans and Pompey into our affairs; how Herod, son of Antipater, with the aid of Sosius, overthrew the Hasmonaean dynasty; of the revolt of the people after Herod’s death, when Augustus was Roman emperor and Quintilius Varus the local governor; of the outbreak of war in the twelfth year of Nero’s principate, the fate that befell Cestius, and the success that attended Jewish arms in overrunning the country in the opening engagements. Then I shall proceed to tell how they fortified the neighboring towns; how Nero, apprehensive for the empire after the reverses of Cestius, entrusted the conduct of the war to Vespasian; of his invasion of Jewish territory, accompanied by his elder son; of the strength of the forces, Roman and auxiliary, with which he penetrated into Galilee, and of the towns of that province that he captured either by main force or by negotiation. In this connection I shall describe the admirable discipline of the Romans on active service and the training of the legions; the extent and nature of the two Galilees, the limits of Judaea, the special features of the country, and its lakes and springs. I shall give a precise description of the sufferings of the prisoners taken in the several towns from my own observation or personal share in them. For I shall conceal nothing even of my own misfortunes, as I shall be addressing persons who are well aware of them. I shall next relate how, at the moment when the Jewish fortunes were on the decline, Nero’s death occurred, and how Vespasian’s advance upon Jerusalem was diverted by his summons to the throne; the portents of his elevation that he received, and the upheavals that took place in Rome; his proclamation by his soldiers as emperor against his will; the civil war that broke out among the 52

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) Jews upon his departure for Egypt to restore order to the realm, the rise of the tyrants to power, and their mutual feuds. My narrative will proceed to tell of the second invasion of our country by Titus, starting from Egypt; how and where he mustered his forces, and their strength; the condition to which civil war had reduced the city on his arrival; his various assaults and the series of earthworks that he constructed; further, the triple line of our walls and their dimensions; the defenses of the city and the plan of the temple and sanctuary, the measurements of these buildings and of the altar being all precisely stated; certain festival customs, the seven degrees of purity, the ministerial functions of the priests, their vestments and those of the high priest, with a description of the Holy of Holies. Nothing shall be concealed, nothing added to the facts that have been brought to light. I shall then describe the tyrants’ brutal treatment of their fellow countrymen and the clemency of the Romans towards an alien race, and how often Titus, in his anxiety to save the city and the temple, invited the rival parties to come to terms with him. With respect to the sufferings and calamities of the people that culminated in their defeat, I shall distinguish the degree to which they were caused by the war, the sedition, and the famine, respectively. Nor shall I omit to record either the misfortunes of the deserters or the punishments inflicted on the prisoners; the burning of the Temple, contrary to Caesar’s wishes, and the number of the sacred treasures rescued from the flames; the taking of the whole city and the signs and portents that preceded it; the capture of the tyrants, the number of the prisoners and the destiny allotted to each; nor yet how the Romans crushed the last remnants of the war and demolished the local fortresses; how Titus traversed the whole country and restored order; and lastly his return to Italy and triumph. All these topics I have comprised in seven books. While I have left no pretext for censure or accusation to persons who are cognizant of the facts and took part in the war, my work is written for lovers of truth and not to gratify my readers. I will now open my narrative with the events named at the beginning of the foregoing summary.

12 F l av i u s Jos ephu s, Antiquities of the Jews Josephus began writing his Antiquities of the Jews, a history of the Jewish people in twenty volumes from Adam to the rebellion against Rome, in the 80s CE and completed it in 93/94. It has been suggested that he wrote it in order to demonstrate his commitment to Judaism and to repair his damaged reputation among his own people, but he himself claims that he intended it for gentiles who wanted to know more about Jewish history 53

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and customs. The first eleven books are adapted from the Hebrew Bible, and in making this material accessible to gentiles he invokes the example of the high priest Eleazar, who sent Jewish scholars to Alexandria to translate the Pentateuch into Greek at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 283–245 BCE). Josephus’s reference in the prologue to “unseemly mythology current among others” presumably refers to the legends of early Rome and may refer specifically to Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s Roman Antiquities, published exactly a century earlier, a work similar in scope and purpose. The identity of his patron Epaphroditus remains uncertain. He may have been a former secretary of Nero who served the emperor Domitian until his execution in 95, or else the grammarian Marcus Mettius Epaphroditus. Source: trans. H.St.J. Thackeray, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books I–IV, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1930), pp. 3–13, rev. Justin Lake.

Those who intend to write history are driven to do so, I perceive, not by one and the same aim, but by many widely different motives. Some, eager to display their literary skill and win renown for themselves on this basis, direct their efforts to this branch of scholarship, while others, in order to gratify those who happen to be the subject of the work, have undertaken this sort of labor even though it is beyond the scope of their abilities. Others again have been compelled by the difficult straits of events in which they themselves took part to give a clear account of them, while many have been induced by the prevailing ignorance of important affairs to publish a history of these things for the public benefit. Of the aforementioned reasons the last two apply in my own particular case. For having known by experience the war that we Jews waged against the Romans, the incidents that took place during it, and its outcome, I was compelled to give a detailed account of it in order to refute those who were doing injury to the truth in their writings. I have undertaken the present work in the belief that the whole of the Greek-speaking world will find it worthy of their interest. For it will encompass our entire ancient history and our political constitution, translated from the Hebrew writings. Before now, when writing the history of the war, I had already contemplated describing the origins of the Jews, the vicissitudes that they experienced, the great lawgiver under whom they were trained in piety and the exercise of the other virtues, and all those wars waged by them through long ages before this last in which they were involuntarily engaged against the Romans. Given the scope of such a project, however, I made the War into a separate volume with its own beginning and ending, thus duly proportioning my work. Nevertheless, as time went on, as tends to happen to those who intend to tackle large projects, there was hesitation and delay on my part in rendering so vast a subject into a foreign and unfamiliar tongue. 54

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) Nonetheless, certain people encouraged me in this endeavor because they were desirous of such a history, foremost among them Epaphroditus, a man devoted to every form of learning, but particularly interested in the events of history, conversant as he himself has been with important affairs and varying turns of fortune, through all of which he has displayed marvelous force of character and an unshakeable attachment to virtue. Yielding, therefore, to the persuasions of one who has always been an enthusiastic supporter of those with the ability to produce useful or beautiful work, and ashamed of myself that I should be thought to prefer idleness to the effort of this noblest of undertakings, I was encouraged to greater ardor. Apart from these motives, there were two further considerations to which I gave serious thought, namely, whether our ancestors were willing to communicate such information, and whether the Greeks were interested in learning it from us. I found then that the second of the Ptolemies, a king who had a remarkable enthusiasm for learning and collecting books, was particularly anxious to have our law and the political constitution based upon it translated into Greek, while on the other side Eleazar, who yielded in virtue to none of our high priests, did not begrudge this monarch the enjoyment of a benefit that he certainly would have refused had it not been our traditional custom to make nothing of what is good into a secret. Accordingly, I thought that it was fitting that I should imitate the high priest’s magnanimity and assume that there were still today many lovers of learning like the king. For even he failed to obtain all of our records; it was only the portion containing the law that was delivered to him by those who were sent to Alexandria to interpret it. The things narrated in the sacred scriptures are, however, innumerable, seeing that they embrace the history of five thousand years and contain all sorts of surprising reverses, many vicissitudes of war, the heroic exploits of generals, and political revolutions. But speaking generally, the main lesson to be learned from this history by any who care to peruse it is that men who conform to the will of God and do not venture to transgress the laws that he has wisely established prosper in all things beyond belief and are granted happiness as their reward by God, whereas to the degree that they depart from the strict observance of these things, what is otherwise possible becomes impossible, and whatever seemingly good thing they strive to do ends in irretrievable disaster. At the outset, therefore, I entreat those who read these volumes to fix their thoughts upon God and to judge whether our lawgiver has had a worthy conception of his nature and has always assigned to him such actions as befit his power, keeping his words concerning him free of that unseemly mythology current among others, though in dealing with ages so long and remote he would have had ample license to invent fictions. For he was born two thousand years ago, to which ancient date the poets never ventured to refer even the birth of their 55

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r gods, much less the actions or laws of mortals. The precise details of our scriptural records will, then, be set forth, each in its place, as my narrative proceeds, that being the procedure that I have promised to follow throughout this work, neither adding nor omitting anything. But since virtually everything related in this work is dependent upon the wisdom of our lawgiver Moses, I must first speak briefly of him, lest any of my readers should ask why it is that so much of my work, which professes to treat of laws and historical facts, is devoted to natural philosophy. Let it be known, therefore, that Moses deemed it necessary above all for one who would order his own life rightly and also legislate for others first to understand the nature of God, and then, having contemplated his works in his mind, to imitate so far as possible that best of all models and endeavor to follow it. For in the absence of this contemplation neither could the lawgiver himself ever have attained to a right understanding, nor would anything that he might have written in regard to virtue have had any effect with his readers, unless above all else they were taught that God, as the universal father and Lord who beholds all things, grants a blessed life to those who follow him, but involves in dire calamities those who step outside the path of virtue. Such, then, being the lesson that Moses desired to instill into his fellow citizens, he did not, when framing his laws, begin with contracts and the rights of men in their dealings with one another, as others have done, but instead he led their thoughts up to God and the structure of the universe, convincing them that of all God’s works upon earth, mankind is the fairest. And once he had won their obedience to the dictates of piety, he had no further difficulty in persuading them of all the rest. Other legislators, in fact, following fables, have in their writings imputed to the gods the disgraceful errors of men and have thus furnished the wicked with a powerful excuse. Our legislator, to the contrary, having shown that God possesses the very perfection of virtue, thought that men should strive to participate in it, and inexorably punished those who did not hold with or believe in these doctrines. I therefore entreat my readers to examine my work from this point of view. For studying it in this spirit, nothing will appear to them unreasonable, nothing incongruous with the majesty of God and his love for man; everything, indeed, is here set forth in keeping with the nature of the universe. Some things the lawgiver skillfully veils in enigmas, others he sets forth in solemn allegory, but wherever straightforward speech was expedient, there he makes his meaning absolutely plain. As for those who wish to consider the reasons for each individual article in our creed, they would find it profound and highly philosophical. That subject for the moment I defer, but if God grants me time, I shall endeavor to write about it after completing the present work. I shall now accordingly turn to the narrative of events, first mentioning what Moses has said concerning the creation of the universe. 56

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13 Taci tu s, Agricola Publius(?) Cornelius Tacitus was born ca 56 CE in Narbonese or Cisalpine Gaul, the son of a Roman knight. By 75 he was in Rome, where he advanced through the stages of a senatorial career, serving as praetor in 88, suffect consul under Nerva in 97, and proconsul of Asia in 112–113. Over a span of about two decades he wrote four historical works that have established him as one of the greatest Roman historians and a master of Latin prose: the Agricola (98), a biography of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, governor of Britain from 77/78–84/85; the Germania (98), an ethnographic study of the Germanic peoples partly intended to contrast their uncorrupted virtue with Roman luxury and weakness; the Histories (ca 110), a history of Rome from 69 CE (the “year of the four emperors”) to the end of the reign of Domitian in 96 CE; and the Annals (ca 115–120), an account of the Julio-Claudian emperors from Tiberius to Nero. The last two works are incomplete; the Histories breaks off in the middle of book 5 (70); the Annals is missing most of book 5, all of books 7–10, and half of book 11, and breaks off in book 16 (66). The Germania has no prologue, but the prologues to the three other works all make reference to the difficulty of writing history under the principate, when the truth might be distorted by flattery or fear of a living emperor, or by hatred of those who were deceased. This was especially true under the tyrannical regimes of emperors such as Nero (54–68) and Domitian (81–96), whose reign of terror Tacitus witnessed first-hand as a senator. His own literary efforts dated to the reigns of Nerva (96–98) and Trajan (98–117), the first of the “five good emperors,” under whom literary activity could be undertaken on a sounder footing. Tacitus was an essentially pessimistic historian. While holding that the principate was necessary to secure peace, he painted a dark portrait of conditions within the empire from the latter years of Augustus’s reign onward. In the prologue to the Agricola he promises a history of the reigns of Nerva and Trajan, one in which he presumably would have adopted a more sanguine point of view, but he never got around to this project. In the prologue to the Histories Tacitus says that the historian must treat no man with hatred (odium) or affection (amor), and at the end of the very brief prologue to the Annals he professes to write “without anger or partiality” (sine ira et studio). Tacitus himself was hardly politically neutral, as his invective against Domitian at the end of the Agricola shows. But in the Histories and Annals, rather than voicing praise and criticism openly, he prefers to employ his sophisticated and nuanced prose style to hint at his beliefs indirectly. Source: trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, The Agricola and Germania of Tacitus, and the Dialogue on Oratory (London: MacMillan and Co., 1877), pp. 1–3, rev. Justin Lake.

To bequeath to posterity a record of the deeds and characters of distinguished men is a custom of the past that even the present age, careless as it is of its own achievements, has not neglected whenever some great and conspicuous 57

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r excellence has conquered and transcended that failing that is common to both small and large states, namely ignorance of and hostility toward goodness. But in days gone by, as there was a greater inclination and a more open path to the achievement of memorable actions, so those conspicuous for their genius were led by the simple reward of the consciousness of doing good to hand on without partiality or self-seeking the remembrance of greatness. Indeed, many thought that to write their own lives showed confidence in their own integrity rather than presumption. Of [P.] Rutilius [Rufus] and [M. Aemilius] Scaurus no one doubted their credibility or questioned their motives. So truly is merit best appreciated by the age in which it thrives most easily. But even though I am about to recount the life of a man who is no longer alive, I needed to ask for an indulgence that I would not have had to request if I had inveighed against my subject; so cruel and so hostile to all virtue was the age. We have read that the panegyrics pronounced by Arulenus Rusticus on Thrasea Paetus and by Herennius Senecio on Helvidius Priscus were made capital crimes, that rage was directed not only against their authors but against the books themselves, and that the triumvirs were tasked with burning those works of splendid genius in the Comitium and the Forum. They believed that the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the Senate, and the conscience of the human race were being consumed in that fire, while at the same time they banished the teachers of philosophy and exiled every noble pursuit, so that nothing good might confront them anywhere. Certainly we showed a great example of patience. As a former age had witnessed the extreme of liberty, so we witnessed the extreme of servitude, when informers robbed us of the interchange of speech and hearing. We would have lost our memory as well as the power of speech, had it been as easy to forget as to keep silent. Now at last our spirit is beginning to return. But while at the dawn of a most blessed age the emperor Nerva combined things once irreconcilable, namely sovereignty and freedom, although Nerva Trajan is now daily augmenting the prosperity of the time, and although the public safety has not only formed hopes and prayers, but also has a certain pledge of their fulfillment, still, because of the natural frailty of mankind, the remedy works less quickly than the disease. And as our bodies grow slowly but perish in a moment, so it is easier to crush than to revive genius and its pursuits. Besides, the charm of indolence steals over us, and the idleness that at first we loathed we subsequently come to love. But what of the fact that during those fifteen years—a considerable portion of human life—many died through the ordinary workings of fate, and the most energetic fell victim to the emperor’s rage, but a few of us outlived not only others, but, so to speak, ourselves, since so many years were taken from the middle of our lives, years in which we passed from youth into old age and from old age to the very end of our lives, all the while 58

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) remaining silent? Yet we shall not regret that we have composed—albeit in an artless and unpolished style—this record of past servitude and testimony to present happiness. In the meantime this book, which is intended to honor my father-in-law Agricola, may be commended, or at least excused, for bearing witness to my devotion.

14 Tac i tu s, H istories Source: trans. W. Hamilton Fyfe, Tacitus: The Histories, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), vol. 1, pp. 17–20, rev. Justin Lake.

My work begins when Servius Galba was consul for the second time and Titus Vinius was his colleague [69]. Many authors have dealt with the 820 years of the earlier period beginning with the foundation of Rome, and the history of the Roman people has been told with no less independence than eloquence. After the Battle of Actium, when the interests of peace were served by the centralization of all authority in the hands of one man, there followed a dearth of literary ability, and at the same time the truth suffered in various ways, partly from ignorance of politics, which were no longer a citizen’s concern, partly from the growing taste for flattery or from hatred of the ruling house. So between malice on one side and servility on the other the interests of posterity were neglected. But while one is instinctively repelled by a writer’s attempts at flattery, people readily open their ears to criticism and envy, since flattery incurs the shameful stigma of servility, whereas malice gives a false appearance of independence. Of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, I have known nothing either to my advantage or my injury. I cannot deny that I originally owed my position to Vespasian, or that I was advanced by Titus and still further promoted by Domitian, but those who profess unbiased honesty must speak of no man with either hatred or affection. I have reserved for my old age, if life is spared to me, the reign of the Divine Nerva and the rule of Trajan, which afford a richer and safer theme; for it is the rare fortune of these days that a man may think what he likes and say what he thinks. The story I now commence is rich in vicissitudes, grim with warfare, torn by civil strife, a tale of horror even during times of peace. It tells of four emperors slain by the sword, three civil wars, an even larger number of foreign wars, and some that were both at once; successes in the East, disaster in the West, disturbance in Illyricum, disaffection in the provinces of Gaul, the conquest of Britain and its immediate loss, and the rising of the Sarmatian and the Suevic tribes. It tells of how Dacia had the privilege of exchanging blows with Rome, and how a pretender claiming to be Nero almost deluded the Parthians 59

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r into declaring war. At this time Italy was also afflicted with new disasters, or disasters it had not witnessed for a long period of years. Towns along the rich coast of Campania were submerged or buried. The city was devastated by fires, ancient temples were destroyed, and the Capitol itself was fired by Roman hands. Sacred rites were grossly profaned, and there were scandals in high places. The sea swarmed with exiles and the island cliffs were red with blood. Worse horrors reigned in the city. To be rich or well-born, to hold or refuse office were grounds for accusation; merit of any kind meant certain ruin. Nor were the informers more hated for their crimes than for their rewards. Some carried off a priesthood or the consulship as their prize; others won offices and influence in the imperial household. The hatred and fear they inspired worked universal havoc. Slaves were bribed against their masters, freedmen against their patrons, and if a man had no enemies he was ruined by his friends. Yet the period was not so utterly barren as to yield no examples of heroism. There were mothers who followed their sons, and wives their husbands into exile. One saw here a kinsman’s courage and there a son-in-law’s devotion; slaves obstinately faithful even on the rack; distinguished men bravely facing the utmost straits and matching in their end the famous deaths of older times. Besides these manifold disasters to mankind there were portents in the sky and on the earth, thunderbolts and other premonitions of good and of evil, some doubtful, some obvious. Indeed never has it been proved by such terrible disasters to Rome or by such clear evidence that providence cares nothing for our well-being, but only for our punishment.

15 Tac i t us, Annals Source: trans. John Jackson, Tacitus: The Histories, with an English translation by Clifford F. Moore. The Annals, with an English translation by John Jackson, Loeb Classical Library, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931), vol. 2, pp. 243–45, rev. Justin Lake.

Rome at the outset was a city under the government of kings; liberty and the consulate were institutions of Lucius Brutus. Dictatorships were a temporary expedient; the decemviral office lasted only two years, nor was the consular authority of the military tribunes long-lived. Neither Cinna nor Sulla created a lasting despotism. Pompey and Crassus quickly forfeited their power to Caesar, and Lepidus and Antony their arms to Augustus, who under the name of “first citizen” gathered beneath his rule a world exhausted by civil strife. But while the glories and disasters of the old Roman commonwealth have been chronicled by famous authors, and intellects of distinction were not lacking to tell the tale of the Augustan age until the rising tide of sycophancy 60

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) deterred them, the histories of Tiberius and Caligula, of Claudius and Nero, were falsified out of fear during their lifetimes, and composed, after they had fallen, under the influence of still fresh hatreds. Hence my design, to treat a small part (the concluding one) of Augustus’s reign, then the principate of Tiberius and what followed, without anger or partiality, from the motives of which I stand sufficiently removed.

16 F loru s, Epitome of Roman H istory Uncertainty surrounds the identity of the second-century CE author of the Epitome of All Wars over 700 Years from Titus Livy. Manuscripts identify the author as Lucius Annaeus (or Julius) Florus; he may be the same person as the African poet and orator Publius Annius Florus, and/or Annius Florus, a friend of the emperor Hadrian. Despite its title, the Epitome, which gives an abbreviated account of Roman history from the founding of Rome to the reign of Augustus, is not simply an abridgement of Livy, but draws on Sallust and Caesar as well. Like other epitomes of Roman history, Florus’s work was popular in the Middle Ages, and the influence of the preface can be detected in the prologue to Rahewin’s continuation to Otto of Freising’s Deeds of Emperor Frederick I (see Doc. 72). Source: trans. E.S. Forster, Lucius Annaeus Florus: Epitome of Roman History, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1929), pp. 5–9, rev. Justin Lake.

During the seven hundred years from the time of King Romulus down to that of Caesar Augustus the Roman people achieved so much in peace and war that if a man were to compare the greatness of their empire with its years, he would consider its size as out of all proportion to its age. So widely have they extended their arms throughout the world that those who read of their exploits are learning the history not of a single people, but of the human race. They have been buffeted by so many toils and dangers that valor and fortune seem to have competed to establish the Roman Empire. But although the history of Rome is particularly worthy of study, the very vastness of the subject makes it difficult to grasp, and the diversity of its topics distracts the attention. For this reason, I intend to follow the example of those who depict the geography of the earth and provide an overview of my subject as though in a small picture. In this way I hope to contribute something to the admiration in which this illustrious people is held by displaying their greatness all at once in a single view. If anyone, therefore, were to contemplate the Roman people as he would a single individual and review its whole life—how it began, how it grew up, how it arrived at what may be called the maturity of its manhood, and how it subsequently reached old age, as it were—he will find that it went through four 61

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r stages of progress. The first period, when it was under the rule of kings, lasted for nearly four hundred years, during which it struggled against its neighbors in the immediate vicinity of Rome. This period will be its infancy. Its next period extends from the consulship of Brutus and Collatinus [509 BCE] to that of Appius Claudius and Quintus Fulvius [212 BCE], a space of one hundred and fifty years [presumably a copyist’s error], during which the Roman people subjugated Italy. It was an age of the utmost exertion for its soldiers and their arms, and may therefore be called its youth. The next period is the hundred and fifty years down to the time of Augustus Caesar, during which it brought peace to the whole world. This was the manhood and, as it were, the robust maturity of the empire. From the time of Caesar Augustus down to our own age there has been a period of not much less than two hundred years, during which, owing to the inactivity of the emperors, the Roman people, as it were, grew old and lost its potency, except that under the rule of Trajan it again stirred its arms and, contrary to general expectation, once more grew strong, as though its youth had been restored.

17 Jus ti n, E pitome of the P hilippic History of P ompeius Trogus The Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus (a Romanized Gaul who wrote at the end of the first century BCE) was a forty-four book universal history beginning with the Assyrian king Ninus and extending down to the reign of Augustus. Many years after it was written, it was abridged by a certain Marcus Junianus Justinus, of whom we know next to nothing, although it has been suggested that he was a teacher of rhetoric who came to Rome from the provinces (possibly Africa) and took advantage of his time in the city to make an abridgement of Trogus’s Philippic History. There is little consensus about when he lived and worked: dates between the mid-second century and the end of the fourth century CE have been proposed. Justin’s Epitome was widely read in the Middle Ages (over two hundred manuscript copies survive), and its popularity helped to ensure the loss of the Philippic History itself, of which only fragments and summaries of the individual books remain. In the preface to the Epitome Justin gives a brief explanation of his methodology and purpose. The identity of his dedicatee is unknown and we cannot be certain if he borrowed any of the ideas contained in the preface from the Philippic History itself. Justin’s influence can be detected at the end of the prologue to book 1 of William of Malmesbury’s Deeds of the English Kings (see Doc. 66). Source: trans. Justin Lake from M. Iuniani Iustini Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi, ed. Otto Seel (Leipzig: Teubner, 1985), pp. 1–2.

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one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) While many Romans, and even men of consular rank, have written histories of Rome in Greek (a foreign language), Pompeius Trogus, a man of venerable eloquence, attracted either by a desire to win glory or by the variety and novelty of the task, compiled the histories of Greece and of the whole world in Latin, so that just as our history can be read in Greek, we could read the history of the Greeks in our own tongue. Naturally this undertaking demanded tremendous resources of both mind and body. For if to most authors, who write about the deeds of individual kings or peoples, their task seems to be one of arduous labor, must we not conclude that Pompeius’s decision to take the whole world as his theme was an act of Herculean boldness, since his books contain the deeds of every age, king, nation, and people? And what the historians of the Greeks dealt with separately, each adopting the course that was congenial to him, Pompeius brought together, omitting what was of no use, dividing his material according to period, and narrating it in order. During the period of leisure that we had in the city, therefore, I excerpted everything worthy of notice from these forty-four books (for that was the number that he published), and setting aside whatever was neither attractive for the pleasure of learning it nor necessary by way of example, I put together a small bouquet of flowers, as it were, to rouse the memory of those who had learned this material in Greek and instruct those unfamiliar with it. I have sent this work to you not so much to acquaint you with its contents as for you to correct it, and at the same time to provide you with a satisfactory accounting of my leisure time, a practice that Cato thinks necessary [see Cato, Origines, frag. 2]. For the present your judgment is all that I need, but in the future, when criticism borne of envy has disappeared, it will serve as a testimony to my diligence.

18 H erod i an, H istory of the Empire after Marcus Herodian was the author of an eight-book history of the Roman Empire in Greek from the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 to the accession of the emperor Gordian III in 238. Herodian came from the eastern part of the empire, possibly Antioch, and there are grounds for thinking that he composed his history, one of the only literary sources for this period, during the reign of Gordian’s successor, Philip (244–249). His statement that he witnessed some of what he saw during the period of his “imperial and domestic service” has been variously interpreted, but it probably implies that he was either an imperial freedman or a civil servant of the equestrian class. In his prologue, which harkens back to Thucydides, Herodian gives an account of his methods and stresses the importance of his subject matter. Curiously, he says nothing about himself, not even providing his name. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Herodianus: Regnum post Marcum, ed. Carlo M. Lucarini (Munich and Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2005), pp. 1–2.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Most of those who have occupied themselves in compiling histories and have striven to revive the memory of deeds done in previous eras have courted eternal fame for their erudition, lest they should be forgotten by remaining silent and thereby reckoned among the common run of mankind. For this reason, they have paid scant attention to the truth of their narratives, while devoting no small amount of care to developing a pleasing manner of expression, confident that even if some of what they say partakes of the fabulous [to muthodes], they will reap rewards from the pleasure afforded by their readings, while the accuracy of their investigations will not be called into question. On the other hand, there are those who, motivated by hostility or hatred of tyrants, or the desire to flatter or honor kings, cities, or individuals have, through the excellence of their style, endowed minor and insignificant deeds with an importance that they do not truly possess. For my own part, I did not accept from other people unverified information unsupported by evidence, but I gathered the material for this history with scrupulous accuracy from what was fresh in the memory of my audience, reasoning that the knowledge of great deeds, many of which occurred in a short span of time, would not be without enjoyment to posterity. If one were to take by way of comparison the whole period from the time of the emperor Augustus (under whom the government of Rome became a monarchy) down to the reign of Marcus, one would not find in this span of about two hundred years such successions of emperors, such varied fortunes in wars both native and foreign, such unrest in the provinces and captures of cities both in our own country and in many barbarian lands, such earthquakes and pestilences, and such unexpected careers of both tyrants and emperors, things that were formerly recorded either sparingly or not at all. Some of these men reigned for a long time; others held power only briefly. And there were others who had scarcely attained to the title and honor of the imperial throne before they were deposed. During a period of sixty years the Roman Empire was divided up between more rulers than such a span of time required, which brought many strange occurrences in its wake. The older emperors, because they had more experience of public affairs, ruled themselves and their subjects with greater care, while those who were younger led a more dissolute lifestyle and made numerous innovations. Because of these differences in age and authority, they naturally conducted themselves differently. I shall now provide an account of how each of these things came about, proceeding in chronological order, emperor by emperor. While he was emperor, Marcus had several daughters but only two sons. One of them, named Verissimus, died at a young age, but his father spared no pains in bringing up the survivor, whose name was Commodus, summoning men renowned for learning from every quarter of the empire and paying them handsomely to attend constantly upon and educate his son. When his daughters 64

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) reached the age of marriage, he gave them to the noblest men of his council, wishing to have as his sons-in-law not those distinguished by patrician birth and long bloodlines or abundant wealth, but men modest in their habits and temperate in their way of life. For he considered these to be the only true and permanent possessions of the soul. He himself cultivated every type of virtue and was devoted to the writings of the ancients, so much so that none of the Greeks or Romans exceeded him in this regard. This is revealed by those of his speeches and writings that have come down to us. He showed himself to be a fair and moderate emperor to his subjects, receiving those who came to him and forbidding his bodyguard to frighten off petitioners. He alone of the emperors proved his devotion to wisdom not merely with words or knowledge of doctrine, but through the dignity of his character and the sobriety of his life. And his reign produced a great crop of wise men, since subjects are always inclined to emulate the disposition of their ruler. Many learned men have written accounts of his courageous and judicious measures against the inhabitants of the northern regions and those who dwell in the East, actions that revealed his military and political skill. For my own part, I have written about what happened after his death, taking as my theme events that I witnessed or heard about throughout my life, some of which I participated in during my imperial and domestic service.

19 J erome, Chronicle The Chronicle of Eusebius of Caeserea (260–339) probably had a greater impact on the study of classical Antiquity in the West than any other historical work from the ancient world. A monumental achievement of both chronography and historical scholarship, it was the first attempt to organize the histories of multiple civilizations under a unified chronological framework, and it serves as an invaluable repository of historical data. The Chronicle was divided into two parts: the Chronographia contained both an enumeration of sources and raw historical data, including lists of kings. This material was then reworked in the Chronological Tables (Chronici Canones), which laid out the histories of nineteen different peoples in descending columns from the birth of Abraham (our 2016 BCE) to 325 CE. As many as nine columns were displayed together at a time on a two-page spread, but by the year 70, when Jerusalem fell to Titus, they had been winnowed down to one: Rome. Eusebius’s Chronicle became known to the Latin West through the translation and continuation of the church father Jerome (ca 347–420). Jerome discovered the Chronicle at Antioch in the late 370s, and after arriving at Constantinople in 380 he translated the Chronological Tables into Latin and continued them down to the year 378. In 65

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r addition to adding new entries and supplementing existing ones, he made intentional and unintentional changes to Eusebius’s chronology, sometimes introducing errors in the process. His admission in the prologue that he worked “in tremendous haste” is confirmed by occasional mistakes in the translation. Jerome’s Chronicle found many continuators and became the foundation for all subsequent universal chronicles in the medieval West. Its success helped to doom Eusebius’s original, which no longer survives intact. The first part of Jerome’s preface, which is addressed to his friends Vincentius and Gallienus, is devoted to an explanation of the challenges faced by the translator. He cites the example of the Old Testament, which had inspired as many as seven competing Greek translations. Because of the complexity of the physical layout of Eusebius’s Chronicle, with its multiple columns, regnal years, Olympiads, years since the birth of Abraham, and bits of historical narrative, Jerome asks future copyists not to dispense with the use of red ink as a means of helping the reader keep different kingdoms separate. At the end of the preface he alludes to the unsettled circumstances following the Battle of Adrianople in 378, where the Goths had defeated a Roman army led by the emperor Valens, killing the emperor and introducing a hostile army inside the Roman Empire. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Hieronymi Chronicon, ed. Rudolf Helm, Eusebius Werke, vol. 7: Die Chronik des Hieronymus (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1984), pp. 1–7.

It was a venerable custom of learned men that in order to train their minds they would render Greek books into the Latin tongue, and, what was more difficult, they would translate the poems of famous authors while adhering to the requirements of the meter. Thus our Cicero made a literal translation of the complete works of Plato, and after he had published a Latin version of Aratus in hexameter verse, he amused himself with Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, a work in which the golden stream of his eloquence is frequently impeded by rough and turbulent obstacles, so that those who do not know that it is a translation refuse to believe that it was written by Cicero. For it is difficult when following an unfamiliar path not to step over the line in some places, and challenging, in the case of what has been neatly expressed in a different language, to preserve that same elegance in a translation. A certain meaning is communicated through the particular signification of one word; I do not have my own word to express it, and while I try to fully account for its meaning with a long circumlocution, I can scarcely cover the distance of a short path. Then there are the twists and turns of hyperbaton [that is, unusual word order], the dissimilarities of case, the variety of figures, and finally the particular and (so to speak) native character of each language. If I translate word-for-word, it sounds ridiculous. If, out of necessity, I make a change in word order or the manner of expression, then I appear to have abandoned the duty of a translator. 66

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) And so, my dearest Vincentius, and you, Gallienus, part of my soul, I entreat you to read this work, however confused it is, in the spirit of friends and not of judges, especially since (as you know) I have dictated to a secretary in tremendous haste. Even the apparatus of the holy books testifies to the difficulty of this endeavor. What the seventy translators produced does not preserve the flavor of the original in the Greek language, which is why Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion were spurred on to publish almost entirely different versions of the same work, with one of them trying to translate word-for-word, another trying to follow the sense instead, and the third not disagreeing much with the older translators. Although the authors who produced the fifth, sixth, and seventh editions are unknown, each of these nonetheless contains justifiable variations, so that even without names attached to them they have earned authoritative status. Hence it has come to the point that the sacred scriptures appear to lack both elegance and harmony because learned men, ignorant of the fact that they have been translated from Hebrew, look at the surface rather than the substance and shudder at the shabby dress (so to speak) of the style before they can discover the beauty of the contents within. Yet what is more mellifluous than the Book of Psalms, which in the manner of our Flaccus [Horace] or the Greek Pindar now runs along in the Iambic meter, now resounds in the Alcaic, now swells with the Sapphic, and now proceeds in the Senarian? What is more beautiful than the Song of Deuteronomy or Isaiah? What is more weighty than Solomon or more perfect than Job? In the original language—as Josephus and Origen write—all of these works flow along in orderly hexameters and pentameters. When we read them in Greek, they sound different; when we read them in Latin, they are scarcely coherent. But if anyone doubts that the charm of a language is altered in the process of translation, let him render Homer into Latin word-for-word; still more, let him translate the same author into prose in his own language. He will see that the word order becomes absurd and the most eloquent of poets can hardly speak. Where is all this leading? The point is that it is not surprising if we cause offense in certain places, if our plodding style is made harsh with consonants, or gapes with vowels, or is constrained by the brevity of the material itself, since the most learned of men have toiled over this very same task. And in addition to pleading the general difficulty that attends every translation, we face the particular problem that this history is complicated, containing foreign names, events unfamiliar to Latin speakers, numbers that cannot be removed, and textual notes intertwined among both the events and the numbers, so that it is almost more difficult to discover the order in which to read than to arrive at an understanding of the text. 67

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Thus, I think that a warning should be issued in advance that everything should be preserved as it has been written, even distinctions of color, lest anyone should think that this provision was made only out of an irrational appeal to the eyes and, in an effort to stave off weariness while writing, weave a labyrinth of error. For this effort was made so that the threads of the kingdoms, which had almost become intermingled because they were so close together, could be distinguished by the use of red ink, and so that subsequent pages would preserve the same location for each color that was indicated on the first page. Nor am I unaware that there will be many people who, from their customary joy in disparaging everything, will sink their teeth into this volume, a circumstance that can only be avoided by writing nothing at all. They will find fault with the dates, change the order of events, criticize the syllables, thoroughly winnow the letters, and, as generally tends to happen, they will attribute to the author the carelessness of the scribes. Although I would be justified in retorting that they should avoid reading what displeases them, I prefer to appease them and send them on their way quickly, so that they will ascribe the trustworthiness of the Greek material to its author and recognize that the new information that we have added was taken from other men of proven trustworthiness. Indeed, you should know that I fulfilled the task of both a translator and, to some extent, of an author, since I faithfully translated the Greek and added a considerable amount of material that I thought had been omitted, particularly in the case of Roman history. In my opinion it is not so much that Eusebius, the author of this book, was ignorant of Roman history, since he was a learned man, but rather that he skipped over it lightly because, as an author writing in Greek, it was of less importance to his audience. From Ninus and Abraham down to the fall of Troy, therefore, this is entirely a translation from the Greek. From the fall of Troy to the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine I have added some new entries and integrated a considerable amount of material that I painstakingly excerpted from [Suetonius] Tranquillus [the work alluded to is De viris illustribus] and other famous historians. From the twentieth year of Constantine to the sixth consulship of Valens and the second of Valentinian it is all mine. Because I was content to stop there, I have left the remaining period under Gratian and Theodosius for a more wide-ranging historical treatment, not because I was afraid to write freely and truthfully about those who were still living (for the fear of God drives out the fear of men) but because, with barbarians still running riot in our land, everything is uncertain.

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2 0 E u n ap i u s of Sa rdis, History after De x ippus The writing of secular history in Greek experienced a revival in the late fourth and early fifth centuries with the appearance of works by Eunapius of Sardis, Olympiodorus of Thebes, Priscus of Panium, Malchus of Philadelphia, and Zosimus. Eunapius (ca 347/8–after 404), the first of this new group of classicizing historians, continued where the now-lost Short History written by Herennius Dexippus broke off in 270. A native of Sardis in Asia Minor, Eunapius studied at Athens under the Christian sophist Prohaeresius. Upon returning to Sardis, he studied with the pagan philosopher Chrysanthius, taught rhetoric, and became part of a circle of pagan sophists that included Oribasius, the former court physician to the emperor Julian. Eunapius is known to have written two literary works: the Lives of the Sophists, a collection of twenty-four biographical sketches, mostly of fourth-century Neoplatonists, which survives in its entirety, and the History after Dexippus, which covers the years 270–404 in fourteen books. No manuscript of the History survives, but substantial fragments are preserved in the Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia of the late tenth century, and the Excerpta, an anthology of excerpts from literary works compiled on the orders of the tenth-century Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r. 913–959). The Byzantine patriarch Photius (ca 810–893) also provides valuable information about Eunapius in his Library, and the historian Zosimus copied large portions of Eunapius’s history into his own work. The History is strongly anti-Christian in tone; Eunapius denigrates Constantine and Theodosius I, while idealizing the pagan emperor Julian (r. 361–363) and the Gothic general Fravitta. It was published in two editions, the first ending between 391 and 395 and the second in 404. According to Photius, in the second edition Eunapius toned down a number of vitriolic anti-Christian passages. In the prologue Eunapius contrasts his work to the history of Dexippus, which began in mythological times and ended with the death of the emperor Claudius Gothicus in 270. Dexippus wrote his history annalistically (that is, in a year-by-year format) and attempted to reconcile Greek and Roman dating systems (the Olympiads, the archons of Athens, and the Roman consuls) to provide a chronological framework for his history. This was a difficult procedure that evidently resulted in errors and contradictions. Eunapius criticizes Dexippus’s obsession with chronology, which he finds irrelevant to the true purpose of history: providing models for the reader to emulate and avoid. In order to bolster his argument about the irrelevance of chronology, Eunapius either misremembers or willfully misrepresents an episode from Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War (4.120–122). In the spring of 423 BCE Athenian and Spartan envoys agreed to an armistice, but it was later discovered that the city of Scione had revolted from Athens and gone over to the Spartan general Brasidas two days after the treaty was concluded. The Athenians demanded that Scione be returned to them, and when Brasidas refused on the grounds that Scione had defected prior to the treaty, the Athenians sent troops to 69

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r recapture the city. Eunapius asserts that Thucydides was unable to judge which of the two parties was correct in their claims, whereas, in fact, Thucydides states explicitly that Scione went over to Brasidas two days after the armistice. Source: trans. Justin Lake from R.C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, and Malchus, vol. 2 (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1983), pp. 6–10.

Dexippus the Athenian wrote his history based upon the archons at Athens, from the time when they began to exercise power among the Athenians, and included the Roman consuls as well, although the work itself actually commences before the consuls and archons. The organizing principle of this history is to give over and entrust the events of the more distant past and whatever the tribe of poets takes as its subject matter to the criterion of plausibility and what was more likely to convince the reader, while gathering together later and better attested events and making them conform to a standard of historical accuracy and greater truthfulness. Thus, he organizes and keeps track of time by writing according to Olympiads and the archons within each Olympiad. After establishing a beautiful entryway to his history, he proceeds to point out that what lies within is even more worthy of reverence; and he removes whatever is legendary in nature and excessively ancient, leaving it, like an old and ineffectual drug, to those who had compounded it. As he reckons up the eras of Egyptian history and presses onward to the origins and more developed stages of government among each people, he brings onto the stage the leaders and fathers of history, demonstrating and citing evidence that virtually proves that every dubious piece of information derives from some other author. He compiles his history based upon a great many sources of various kinds, reducing this material into his own succinct and concise narrative, like a perfumer’s shop stocked different kinds of useful wares, rapidly touching upon and arranging in his work everything considered worthy of note by mankind in general, as well as individual cases that obtained renown through the virtue of some outstanding person. He concludes and brings his history to an end with the first year of the reign of the emperor Claudius [II], the year in which he assumed the throne and died, having ruled over the Romans for one year (although others grant him a second). Then he calculates the number of Olympiads, and the consuls and archons along with them, even including thousands of years, as though he would be greatly distressed if he did not present his readers with an account ranging over such a long period of time. Having studied this work, I was able to learn these things and understand from Dexippus himself the nature and extent of the risk that one runs by writing history annalistically, and of acknowledging to the reader that the 70

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) results are not necessarily chronologically accurate, but that different people have different opinions, and of openly accusing oneself, as Dexippus did, of producing a historical chronicle that goes astray and frequently contradicts itself—like an assembly without a leader. I immediately began to hear the Boeotian proverb that “that is not the right way to play the pipes,” and I reflected that the ultimate purpose and goal of history is to commit to writing an account of events free from any emotional attachment which comes as close to the truth as possible; whereas the accurate calculation of dates, which are like uncalled witnesses who appear of their own volition, serves no useful purpose. For what do dates contribute to the wisdom of Socrates or the cleverness of Themistocles? Were these men good and noble because it was summertime? Did they exhibit virtues that increased and fell away at certain times of the year like leaves? Or is it not rather the case that each of them persistently displayed and continuously maintained in their actions whatever excellence they had acquired by nature or ability? How, then, is it relevant to the purpose of history to know and be cognizant of the fact that the Greeks won the Battle of Salamis when the dog-star was rising? What advantage is there to a reader seeking to benefit from history to know that such-and-such a person was born on a particular day and later became a supremely talented lyric or tragic poet? For if the ultimate aim of history is to gain experience of the many noble deeds with which we are unacquainted in a short span of time and through a limited amount of reading, and through our knowledge of what has happened in the past to become old men while we are still young, so that we know what to avoid and what to choose, then those people who by virtue of unnecessary and extraneous material spoil the nourishing food of history with exotic seasonings and disturb the delight of listening with bitter language seem to me to do the very opposite. Perhaps it is not a hindrance to acquire superfluous knowledge, but it is assuredly harmful to allow this to prevent one from learning what is useful. And besides, as Dexippus himself says, while there is disagreement about all or most dates, when it comes to well-known events whose importance is not confined to a particular place, concord and agreement prevail. For who is so famous among those who have tried their hand at writing or left written accounts as Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian, who according to common report was openly proclaimed to be divine by the testimony of a god on account of his establishment of laws? And yet among those who have written on this subject who agrees with anyone else about the time of his legislative activity? It is as if they were examining a house or a column or some such thing: everyone agrees and grants that it really exists, but they fill up volumes with their disagreements about when it was built. Thucydides, the most scrupulous of all historians, says that the origin and pretext for the second phase of that great and famous 71

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r war arose from a disagreement about the days on which certain cities [Scione and Mende] were captured [4.120–123], and not even he is capable of judging clearly and accurately which of the parties had the more just claim, but when it comes to the matter of days he indicates and points out that occupying one’s time with the study of dates is a vain and useless pursuit Having pondered and deliberated on matters such as these and many others besides, I offer the same advice to those who are eager to write chronicles or who are undertaking such an effort: accuracy with regard to years and days is appropriate for stewards and accountants of the wealthy, and certainly to those who study the heavens, and to those whose occupation clearly involves numbers. As for myself, I declare in advance to my readers that I embarked upon this task confident of my ability to write about the events of the past and present. I have excused myself from mentioning the year and day on which these events occurred on the grounds that this information is irrelevant, and I have instead chosen to use the reigns of emperors as a more accurate means of dating. Thus the reader will find that certain things were done during the reign of such-and-such an emperor; as for the year and the day, let someone else delude himself with that song-and-dance. I write according to my faith in myself, following the lead of men who were foremost in learning during my lifetime and who earnestly entreated me not to pass over in silence affairs of general interest and whatever our own era had witnessed, as well as the events that took place before my time but after Dexippus’s history, and which had not yet been recorded and set down in a well-known history. These men and I shared the same task, and it seemed best to us to report on everything down to the time of Julian, who was emperor in my day and whom all mankind worshipped as a god.

21 S ulpi c i u s Severu s, Life of S aint Martin Hagiography was one of the most fertile literary forms of the Middle Ages, and among the earliest and most influential models of the genre was the Life of Saint Martin of Sulpicius Severus (ca 360–ca 420). Born into a prominent Aquitainian family, Sulpicius studied at Bordeaux, achieved fame as a lawyer, and contracted a highly advantageous marriage with the daughter of a wealthy and prominent family. Around 390 he was baptized, along with his friend Paulinus of Nola. After the premature death of his wife he abandoned his wealth and worldly ambitions and retired to his estates in southern Gaul to live a life of monastic retirement. In the mid-390s Sulpicius met Martin, the famous monk-bishop of Tours, prompting him to write a biography depicting his subject as an exemplary ascetic and a powerful worker of miracles. In the dedication to the Life of Saint Martin, Sulpicius addresses his motives for writing and publicizing his work. 72

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) In the first chapter, which serves as a preface, he attacks the motives of those who seek fame through their literary efforts, a direct rebuke to the position espoused by Sallust in the opening lines of Catiline’s War (see Doc. 7). Source: trans. Justin Lake from Vita Sancti Martini, ed. Jacques Fontaine, Sulpice Sévère: Vie de Saint Martin, 3 vols., Sources chrétiennes (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf ), vol. 1, pp. 248–54.

Severus to his dearest brother Desiderius: I had intended, brother after my own heart, to confine the book that I had written on the life of Saint Martin to its own pages and keep it within the walls of my house. For being naturally faint-hearted, I wanted to avoid subjecting it to the judgments of other people, for fear that readers would be put off by the crudity of the language and I would be judged worthy of universal scorn for having presumed to arrogate to myself a theme that ought to have been left to more learned authors. Yet I could not refuse your insistent requests. For there is nothing that I would not grant to your love, even if it entailed a loss to my own modesty. I have produced this little volume for you on the understanding that you will keep your promise and not pass it on to anyone else. And yet I fear that you will eventually serve as a gateway for it, and that once it has left your hands it will be impossible to recall [compare Horace, Epistles 1.18.71]. If this happens, and you see it being read by other people, kindly entreat them to judge the content rather than the words and to bear it with good grace if my faulty language offends their ears; for the kingdom of God does not stand on eloquence, but on faith. Let them also remember that salvation was not preached to the world by orators (something that God could have seen to if it had suited his purpose) but by fishermen. For when I first set myself to write [Terence, Andria 1], judging it unthinkable that the miracles of so great a man should remain unknown, I decided that I would not be ashamed of my grammatical errors, since I had never acquired a thoroughgoing knowledge of this discipline, and if I had ever obtained any familiarity with it in the past, I had long since lost it from want of practice. But to spare us so irksome a defense, let this book be made public without any mention of my name, if that is acceptable to you. To see to this, erase the title from the head of the work so that the page will be mute and speak only of the subject matter (which is sufficient) and not of the author. Chapter 1 Many mortals who have devoted themselves to the empty pursuit of knowledge and worldly glory have sought to win eternal fame (as they reckoned it) by celebrating the lives of famous men in writing. And while their efforts failed 73

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r to win them eternal renown, they did earn them some small portion of the reward that they envisioned. For they succeeded in perpetuating their own memory (albeit to no purpose), and by setting forth the examples of great men they stirred up in their readers no small desire to emulate them. And yet these labors of theirs had nothing to do with the blessed life of eternity. For what good has the fame of their writings done them, when it is destined to perish along with the world? What did it profit future generations to read about the battles of Hector or the philosophizing of Socrates, when it would not only be foolish to imitate these men, but madness not to oppose them with the utmost vigor? Because they measure human life only by the actions of the present day, they placed their hopes in fanciful tales and consigned their souls to the tomb. They thought to perpetuate themselves solely in the memory of man, whereas it is the duty of mankind to seek eternal life rather than eternal memory, and to do so not through writing or warfare or philosophy, but by living a pious, holy, and devout life. Once committed to writing, this error of man has grown so strong that it has clearly found many who aspire to its empty philosophy and foolish conception of virtue. I think, therefore, that I shall be doing something worthwhile if I set down the life of this most holy man in writing as an example to others, so that when they read it they may be spurred on to true wisdom, service in the army of heaven, and divine virtue. In doing so I am looking out for my own interest, but what I am seeking is an eternal reward from God, not idle fame among men. Because even if I have not lived in such a way that I might serve as an example to others, I have nonetheless devoted myself to seeing that one who is worthy of imitation might not remain hidden. I shall therefore commence to write the life of Saint Martin—how he conducted himself before and after becoming a bishop—although it will be impossible to touch on everything that he did. For the things that he himself was the only witness to are unknown because he did not seek praise from men and insofar as it was possible he wanted his miraculous deeds to remain concealed. At the same time, we have also left out many things that were known to us because we thought it would be sufficient if only the most exceptional deeds were recorded. We also had to keep the interest of the reader in mind and make sure that he did not grow bored with the amount of material that we had assembled. I beseech those who will read this to lend credence to my words and trust that I wrote nothing except what was known and attested to be true. For I would have preferred to remain silent rather than say anything that was untrue.

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2 2 Ru f i n u s, E cclesiastical H istory Tyrannius Rufinus (ca 345–411) was a Christian scholar and monastic pioneer best known to posterity for his translations of Greek patristic literature into Latin. Born in the northern Italian town of Concordia, in his youth he joined an ascetic Christian community that counted among its members the church father Jerome. After being baptized at Aquileia (ca 371), he studied with Didymus the Blind at Alexandria and visited the Egyptian desert fathers. In Egypt he also made the acquaintance of Melania the Elder, a Roman aristocrat and devout Christian ascetic, and when she left to found a convent in Jerusalem, Rufinus followed her and established a monastery on the Mount of Olives. In Palestine Rufinus became embroiled in a long-running feud with Jerome over the doctrines of the third-century Christian scholar and exegete Origen, some of whose teachings had been deemed heretical in the fourth century. After returning to Italy in 397, Rufinus turned out a series of translations of Christian texts, including a number of works by Origen. This brought him under increasing pressure from anti-Origenist parties, including Pope Anastasius. As a result, he left Rome and retired to Aquileia, where in 402 he began work on a translation of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History at the request of his former schoolmate Chromatius, now bishop of Aquileia. In the prologue he explains that Chromatius intended the work to be a distraction for the people of Aquileia, who were threatened by a Gothic army that had laid siege to Milan in 402. Rufinus paraphrased and abridged Eusebius’s history, reducing its ten books to nine, and supplementing it with two additional books to bring it down to the death of the emperor Theodosius I in 395. In the prologue Rufinus compares himself to the little boy whom Philip (actually Andrew) pointed out to Jesus and whose five loaves and two fishes were used to feed the five thousand. In this metaphor the books of Eusebius represent the five loaves, Rufinus’s own two books are the two fishes, and the residents of Aquileia, who will gain spiritual sustenance from his history, are the multitude fed by Jesus and his disciples. Source: trans. Justin Lake, Prologus Rufini in libros historiarum Eusebii, ed. Theodor Mommsen, Eusebius Werke, vol. 2.2 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1908), pp. 951–52.

It is said to be the practice of skilled doctors that when they see cities or regions threatened by epidemics they make provision for some sort of elixir or drug by which men might be fortified and preserved from imminent destruction. You, too, venerable father Chromatius, are pursuing such a medicine at a time when the pestilence of the Goths under their leader Alaric has broken through the defenses of Italy and overspread the area, devastating fields, flocks, and men far and wide. Seeking some sort of remedy against this savage destruction for the people entrusted to you by God, so that their anxious minds might be distracted from contemplating the evil that has burst upon them and be given 75

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r over to more worthwhile pursuits, you enjoined upon me the task of translating into Latin the Ecclesiastical History written in the Greek language by that most learned man Eusebius of Caeserea. Your intention was that the minds of those who heard it would be engrossed by its reading and obtain some measure of forgetfulness from the evils being perpetrated as they eagerly sought the knowledge of what is recounted therein. Although I wanted to excuse myself from this task as one who was unworthy and unequal to it, and one who over the course of many years had grown out of practice in the Latin language, I reflected that you gave me these instructions not without some precedent from the teaching of the apostles. For once when the crowds who had come to hear the Lord were hungry and he said to the apostles, “Give to them to eat,” Philip, one of their number, understanding that the manifestations of divine power shine forth more brightly if they are carried out by the ministrations of the most lowly, did not bring forth the loaves stored in the basket of the apostles, but said that there was a little boy present who had five loaves and two fishes [ John 6:9]. And he apologized for him with embarrassment adding, “What are these among so many?” so that the power of the Lord might be made manifest through the meagerness of the resources available and the desperation of the circumstances. Knowing, therefore, that you too are descended from these teachings, and recalling that it was perhaps with the example of Philip in mind that you called upon a little boy when you saw that it was time to feed the multitudes (one who would use the five loaves doubled, just as he had received them, but would also add the two little fish that he had caught through his own labor in order to fulfill the gospel mystery), I undertook to carry out what you had commanded insofar as I was able to do so, secure in the knowledge that the authority of the one setting the task would excuse any errors arising from my own ignorance. Now regarding the tenth book of the Greek text, it should be known that since it has very little to do with historical events and is otherwise given over to panegyrical treatments of bishops that contribute nothing to our knowledge, I omitted what seemed superfluous and joined whatever historical information it contained to the ninth book, and there I brought an end to the narrative of Eusebius. I myself wrote the tenth and eleventh books, based partly upon the accounts of my predecessors and partly upon what my own memory had retained, and I joined them like the two fish to the loaves of the writings that precede them. If you give these books your approval and blessing, then I will trust for a certainty that they will satisfy the multitudes. The work as a whole contains an account of the deeds done in the Church beginning with the ascension of our Savior, while my two little books deal with the era of Constantine following the persecution and go down to the death of the emperor Theodosius. 76

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23 O ro s i u s, S even B ooks of History against the Pagans In 410 Alaric’s Visigothic army sacked Rome. Although the physical damage to the city was comparatively minor, the psychological trauma was profound. Many pagans blamed the disaster on the forcible suppression of polytheism by Christian emperors and the consequent neglect of the traditional cults. Partly in response to these accusations, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) undertook to write the City of God, a massive exposition of his Christian philosophy of history. In 414, while Augustine was writing, the Spanish priest Orosius (ca 385–after 418) arrived in North Africa to study with him, and after an abortive attempt to return to Spain, in 417 he began work on a task assigned to him by Augustine: the compilation of a historical dossier that would refute the accusations of the pagans by showing that humanity in general, and the Roman state in particular, had always and at all times been beset by disaster. The result was Orosius’s Seven Books of History against the Pagans, the first universal history of secular events written from an explicitly Christian perspective. Beginning with the original sin of Adam (rather than with Abraham and Ninus, as Eusebius had done in his Chronicle), and continuing down to 418, Orosius catalogued the various disasters that had befallen mankind. Although he claims in the prologue to be writing in response to a commission from Augustine, Orosius’s view of history differs in some important respects from that of his dedicatee. Like Eusebius—and unlike Augustine—he viewed the Roman Empire as a divinely ordained tool for spreading Christianity and saw Augustus, under whose reign Jesus was born, as the inaugurator of the fourth and final world empire ordained by God. Moreover, while Augustine believed that misery remained a constant factor in human life, Orosius subscribed to the view that mankind’s lot had improved after the coming of Christ. Thus while he presents the sack of Rome in 390/387 BCE by the Gauls as an unmitigated disaster, he treats the sack of Rome in 410 by the Arian Goths as almost inconsequential, and as a divinely ordained punishment for the presence of pagans in the city. In the prologue Orosius adopts an obsequious tone. He likens himself to a dog in the house of his master and attributes all that he has accomplished to Augustine, the first ten books of whose City of God he compares to beams of light emitted from a watchtower that have overspread the entire earth. After the publication of the Seven Books of Histories in 418, we know nothing more about Orosius, but his work endured as one of the most popular and widely read works of history of the Middle Ages. The Julian of Carthage mentioned in the prologue is otherwise unknown. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Pauli Orosii historiarum adversum paganos libri VII, ed. K.F.W. Zangemeister (Leipzig: Teubner, 1889), pp. 1–4.

I have complied with your instructions, most blessed father Augustine, and I hope that I have been as successful as I was eager, although as to whether 77

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r I have done so properly or not, I am not clearly inclined in either direction. For you have already had to labor to decide if I was capable of carrying out your commands, whereas I am content solely with the evidence of my obedience, so long as I have embellished it with my determination and my effort. For while on the estate of a great master there are many different types of animals that contribute to the welfare of the household, the upkeep of dogs is not the lowest priority. In them alone nature has implanted the instinct to seek what has been prepared for them out of their own accord, and through a kind of natural obedience to wait expectantly through disciplined fear until they are given leave by a nod or a sign to pursue what they seek. They have their own particular impulses—to recognize, to love, and to serve—which, insofar as they are superior to those of beasts, are closer to those of rational creatures. While they discriminate between their masters and strangers, they do not hate those whom they pursue, but show zealous regard towards those whom they love. And while they love their master and their home, they are not vigilant because nature has suited their bodies for it, but they keep watch out of a sense of anxious love. Hence also according to that mysterious teaching in the Gospels the Canaanite woman did not blush to say, and the Lord did not disdain to hear, that puppies eat the crumbs under the table of their masters [Matt. 15:27]. Moreover the blessed Tobias, following the lead of an angel, did not scorn to have a dog as his companion [Tobit 6:1]. Therefore, being bound to your general love by the particular love that I bear you, I have willingly complied with your request. Because my lowliness owes whatever it has accomplished to your paternal instruction, and because my work is entirely yours (since it returns to you from you), what I have given back to you has only been increased by virtue of the fact that I completed it gladly. You instructed me to write in opposition to the blustering perversity of those strangers to the city of God who are called pagans [pagani] because they come from the crossroads and villages [pagi] of rural areas, or gentiles because they are wise in the ways of the world. Because these men do not look to the future and either forget the past or know nothing of it, they charge the age in which we live of being particularly plagued with misfortunes because Christ is believed and God is worshipped, while the worship of idols dwindles. You instructed me, therefore, by employing all the histories and annals that could be obtained at present, to discover whatever I could in past ages about the savagery of war, the devastation of disease, the anguish of famine, the terror of earthquakes, extraordinary floods, dreadful volcanic eruptions, dire lightning strikes and hailstorms, and the misery of parricide and sin, and to set these things forth concisely and in chronological order in a book. Because you were laboring to complete an eleventh book against these same pagans (the rising rays of the first ten volumes having already shone over the whole world as soon 78

one: Antiquity ( 50 0 BCE–50 0 CE) as they arose from the watchtower of your fame in the Church), and I did not think it proper that your reverence should be bothered with such a trifling little work, and because your holy son Julian of Carthage, a servant of God, was insistent that his request in this matter should be fulfilled in a manner that would justify his confidence in me, I set to work, and at first I bogged myself down in confusion, since it appeared to me, as I frequently pondered it, that the disasters of the present day had overflowed beyond measure. But I have since discovered that past ages were not only just as oppressive as the present day, they were actually more cruelly wretched to the degree that they were further removed from the remedy of the true faith. Through these investigations, therefore, it became clear to me that bloodthirsty death had reigned for as long as the faith that prohibited bloodshed was unknown, but that when the faith came to light, death fell silent; that death is now held in check, since life prevails; and that death has no future, since only life will reign—excepting and setting aside, of course, the final days at the end of the world, when the Antichrist appears, and at the end of the last judgment. The Lord Christ has foretold through his own testimony in the holy scriptures that at this time there will be afflictions surpassing anything that has come before, and according to the same measure that exists now and forever—yet with an even clearer and more severe judgment—the saints will be tested through the unbearable tribulations of those days, while the ungodly shall be visited with destruction.

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Chap t e r Two Th e Ea r ly M i ddl e Age s ( 500 – 900 CE )

2 4 J ordan e s, On the Summary of the Eras, and the O rigin and Deeds of the Romans ( Romana) Jordanes, a historian of Gothic extraction from the Roman province of Moesia, is known to us from two works that he wrote at Constantinople ca 551/552: On the Summary of the Eras, and the Origin and Deeds of the Romans (known as the Romana) and On the Origins and Deeds of the Goths (the Getica). These were conceived as separate projects but later brought together in a single volume. Jordanes states that he began writing the Romana in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of the emperor Justinian (550/551) at the request of a certain Vigilius, interrupted it to write the Getica, and then went back and completed the Romana. He then brought both works together in a single volume that he presented to Vigilius. Jordanes served as a notary to the Alan ruler Gunthigis (Basa), but he gave up this office and retired from public life after a conversion—either an acceptance of Catholic Christianity in place of the Arianism practiced among the Goths or a decision to enter the clergy. The Romana is divided into a world chronicle that begins with Creation and ends with the reign of Augustus and the birth of Christ, and a history of Rome from Romulus to the twenty-fourth year of Justinian. The chronicle is based on Jerome’s continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, while the Roman history draws on Jerome, Florus, Festus ( fourth century CE), and the continuation to Jerome’s Chronicle by Marcellinus Comes. Vigilius, the dedicatee of the Romana, is sometimes identified with Pope Vigilius (537–555), who was detained in Constantinople by Justinian from 547 to 554 in connection with the Three Chapters controversy, but Jordanes’s informal tone of address and his admonition that his dedicatee should turn to God and be free from the desires of this world argue against this hypothesis. The Romana surveys the current state of the empire with gloom and ends on a pessimistic note: “These are the calamities that have befallen the Roman state, apart from the daily threats of the Bulgars, the Antes, and the Slavs. If anyone wishes to know about these things, let him read over the annals and consular lists without recoiling in disgust, and he will find that the state in our own day is worthy of tragedy. He will learn whence the Roman state arose, how it grew, how it subjected to itself every land, and how it lost them again because of unskilled rulers.” Source: trans. Justin Lake from De summa temporum vel origine actibusque Romanorum, ed. Theodor Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. 5.1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1882), pp. 1–2.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r I am thankful for your vigilance, most noble brother Vigilius, because through your inquiries you have roused me at last from my long slumber. I give thanks also to God Almighty, who made you so anxious that you are no less concerned for others than you are for yourself. Blessed be your virtue and worthiness. For you wish to learn about the misfortunes of the present age and to be informed about when it began and what it has endured down to our own time. You add, moreover, that by plucking flowers from the words of my predecessors, I should briefly relate to you how the Roman state began, how it endured, how it subjugated almost the entire world, and how it continues to hold sway over it even today, at least in outward appearance. I am also to unfold to you the succession of rulers beginning with Romulus, and then from Octavian to Justinian, in a plain fashion, but in my own style. Although what you suggest is ill-suited to both my manner of living and my talents, nonetheless, so as not to turn a deaf ear to the requests of a friend, I have gathered widely scattered material in whatever manner I could. Beginning first with the authority of the divine scriptures, which it behooves us to follow, and going down to the deluge of the earth, proceeding by heads of families, I came to the empire of Ninus, the ruler of the Assyrian race, who subjugated almost all of Asia, and then to Arbaces the Mede, who, after destroying the kingdom of the Assyrians, brought it under the sway of the Medes and held it until the time of Cyrus the Persian, who in similar fashion overthrew the empire of the Medes and transferred it to the Parthians. From there I came to Alexander the Great of Macedonia, who, after conquering the Persians, subjected their state to the rule of the Greeks. After this I related the manner in which Octavian Caesar Augustus overthrew the empire of the Greeks and brought it under the authority and dominion of the Romans, and how for the 700 years before Augustus the Roman state vanquished many others through the skill of their consuls, dictators, and kings. Beginning with Romulus himself, the founder of the Roman state, in the twenty-fourth year of the emperor Justinian [550–551] I compiled all of this, albeit in an abbreviated fashion, into this one very small book in your name, joining to it another volume on the origin and deeds of the Gothic people, which I had already produced for our mutual friend Castalius, so that when you learn about the calamities that have befallen the various nations you might desire to be free from all cares and turn to God, who is true freedom. As you read both books, therefore, know that necessity always threatens the man who loves the world. Pay heed to the apostle John, who says, “Beloved, love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. For the world passes away and the concupiscence thereof, but he who does the will of God abides for ever” [1 John 2:15–17]. Love God and your neighbor with all your heart so that you may fulfill the law and so that you may pray for me, most noble and esteemed brother. 82

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25 J ordan e s, On the Origins and Deeds of the G oths (G etica) Most of the scholarly attention directed at Jordanes has focused on the second part of his historical diptych, the Getica. Its importance derives not from its reliability or literary qualities, but from the fact that it is the only written source for the early history of the Goths. As Jordanes reveals in the prologue, his most important source was a now lost twelve-book Gothic history written by Cassiodorus (ca 490–ca 585), a Roman senator who served as master of offices and praetorian prefect for the Ostrogothic kings at Ravenna before decamping for Constantinople after the sack of Ravenna by Belisarius in 540. The precise relationship between the Getica and Cassiodorus’s history is much disputed. Because Cassiodorus served in various high offices at the Ostrogothic court under Theoderic (r. 489–526) and his successors, he must have had access to oral and written traditions about the Gothic past. If the Getica is a more or less faithful abridgement of Cassiodorus’s lost history, therefore, then the legends about the Gothic past that it contains ( for example, the Gothic migration out of the northern island of Scandza) can be imputed to authentic Gothic traditions. On several occasions Jordanes mentions Gothic songs (carmina, cantiones, cantus) and tales (fabulae) as sources, and he refers three times to an otherwise unknown Gothic historian named Ablabius. The prologue to the Getica does not suggest that Jordanes was slavishly following Cassiodorus. He claims that he only had three days to peruse Cassiodorus’s history and that he was compelled to rely on his memory to reconstruct its contents. Jordanes also mentions other Greek and Latin sources that he used, and he makes a point of saying that Castalius wanted him to summarize Cassiodorus in his own words. All of this suggests that the author wished to present his history as an independent endeavor and not simply as an epitome of Cassiodorus. Moreover, the very different state of Ostrogothic relations with Byzantium when Cassiodorus and Jordanes were writing suggests that they brought different political perspectives to their work. Cassiodorus’s lost history was completed between 526 and 533, when an independent Ostrogothic kingdom still ruled over Italy in harmony with the eastern Roman Empire. In contrast, when Jordanes finished the Getica in 551, Justinian’s armies had been waging a bloody war in Italy for sixteen years and were in the process of mopping up the last remnants of Ostrogothic resistance. While Cassiodorus’s (presumed) goal in writing was to legitimize the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy and put its rulers on a par with their Roman subjects, this theme was no longer possible for Jordanes, who in any case clearly supported Justinian’s war of reconquest in Italy. It has been suggested that Jordanes viewed the idea of an independent Gothic kingdom as an aberration, and that he saw the natural state of affairs between Goths and Romans as a relationship of mutually beneficial dependence. In contrast to the Romana, a significant portion of the prologue to the Getica is borrowed from elsewhere, in this case Rufinus’s abridgment 83

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and translation of Origen’s commentary on Romans. We know nothing about the addressee of the work, Castalius, apart from Jordanes’s statement that he is a “neighbor to the Goths,” which suggests that he lived in Italy. Source: trans. Justin Lake from De origine actibusque Getarum, ed. Theodor Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. 5.1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1882), pp. 53–54.

While I am content to skirt the edge of the tranquil shore in my little boat, and, as a certain person [Rufinus] put it, to pluck tiny fish from the pools of the ancients, you compel me to unfurl my sails, brother Castalius, and abandoning the little work on an epitome of chronicles that I have in my hands, you urge me to reduce to one little book in my own words the twelve volumes of [Cassiodorus] Senator on the origin and deeds of the Goths from ancient times to the present day, proceeding downward by generations and kings. These are quite burdensome commands, and it is as though they had been laid upon me by someone who is unwilling to recognize the difficulty of the task. Nor do you perceive how weak is the breath with which I am supposed to fill up the mighty horn of his eloquence. But the greatest difficulty is that I was not given access to these books so that I might attend closely to his meaning. Instead, to tell the truth, I had three days before now to read over them, thanks to his steward. Although I do not recall the exact words, I trust that I have retained intact both the tenor of this work and the events recounted therein. I have added to it relevant material from a number of Greek and Latin histories, interspersing them at the beginning and the end, and to a greater extent in the middle, in my own words. Therefore, accept willingly and without complaint that which you have demanded from me, and read it with pleasure. If I have said too little about anything that you, being near to this race, remember, add it and pray for me, dearest brother. The Lord be with you. Amen.

2 6 P rocop i us, Wars We owe our extensive knowledge of the reign of the emperor Justinian (r. 527–565) to three works by the great Byzantine historian Procopius of Caeserea: the Wars, an eightbook history of the military campaigns undertaken in Justinian’s reign, most of which were prosecuted by the general Belisarius; the Anecdota, or Secret History, a scathing attack on Justinian and his empress Theodora; and On the Buildings, a panegyrical account of Justinian’s building projects. We know little with certainty about Procopius until 527, when he secured a position on the staff of Belisarius, whom he accompanied on his campaigns into Persia, North Africa, and Italy, witnessing at first-hand much of what he reports in the Wars. In 540 Procopius returned to Constantinople, gave up his 84

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) position with Belisarius, and turned to the writing of history. Books 1–7 of the Wars were finished by 551; the Secret History was probably written ca 550/551, while book 8 of the Wars was added as a coda in 553/554. On the Buildings was undertaken in 554 and seemingly left unfinished, which suggests that Procopius died ca 554/555. The Wars is modeled on Thucydides, both in style and content. Procopius focuses almost exclusively on military history, uses summers and winters as a chronological framework, invents speeches to explain the motives of actors and the causes of important events, and stresses the importance of eyewitness observation of events. In the prologue (whose opening words harken back unmistakably to Thucydides) Procopius justifies the writing of history in both Herodotean and Thucydidean terms, claiming that history preserves the memory of great and important deeds from oblivion, while at the same time it provides a useful record of past events that can serve as a guide to statesmen, generals, and administrators who find themselves in analogous circumstances. Like Thucydides, Procopius declares that the events of his history are the most important known to him, and he similarly takes issue with those who overestimate the scale and importance of previous wars. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Procopius Caesariensis: opera omnia, ed. Jakob Haury, revised by Gerhard Wirth, 4 vols. (Munich: K.G. Saur, 2001), vol. 1, pp. 4–7.

Procopius of Caeserea wrote an account of the wars that Justinian, emperor of the Romans, waged against the foreign nations of both East and West, relating the particular course of events in each case, so that in the absence of a written record the passage of time would not overwhelm deeds of surpassing importance, consigning them to oblivion and effacing all memory of them. He thought that a record of these matters would be important, and that it would be especially useful both to the men of the present day and to posterity, in case in the course of time they should ever find themselves under the same sort of duress. For to those who are about to wage war or otherwise be engaged in conflict the exposition of an analogous historical situation can be useful, revealing how a similar struggle turned out for the men of a previous age and indicating (at least for those who are as prudent as possible in their deliberations) the likely outcome of current events. He was also convinced that he was more capable than anyone else of writing an account of these events, if for no other reason than that, having been chosen adviser to the general Belisarius, he happened to have been present at almost all of what happened. It was his opinion that while cleverness was appropriate to rhetoric, and the contrivance of stories to poetry, truth was appropriate to history. In accordance with this conviction, he did not conceal the difficulties endured even by his closest friends, but instead wrote an accurate account of everything that happened to each person, whether their actions met with success or not. It will be evident—at least to anyone who wishes to base their judgment upon 85

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r the facts—that there has been nothing greater or of more lasting importance than the events of these wars. For the actions carried out in them were more remarkable than anything that we have heard of, unless someone reading this prefers to give pride of place to antiquity and refuses to count the deeds of his own day as remarkable. For of course there are some people who refer to the soldiers of today as “bowmen,” while they are eager to assign grandiose names like “hand-to-hand fighters” and “shield-bearers” to those of the distant past; and they absolutely refuse to grant that the valor exhibited in antiquity has persisted down to the present day, thereby propounding a view of these matters that is both careless and far removed from experience. For it has never dawned on them that the bowmen found in Homer, whose misfortune it was to bear this humiliating epithet drawn from their craft, did not ride on horses, nor did they defend themselves with spears or shields. To the contrary, they had no other means of protection for their bodies, but they went into battle on foot and found it necessary to take cover either by picking out the shield of one of their companions or crouching behind the gravestone atop a burial mound. From this position they could neither save themselves in the event that they were put to flight or attack their enemies if the latter were retreating. Nor indeed could they fight out in the open, but they always appeared to be stealing in some way from those who had actually taken part in the battle. Apart from this, they practiced their craft in such a negligent way that by bringing the bowstring back only as far as their chest, the arrows that they released lacked force and naturally had no effect on those whom they struck. It is clear that this is what the practice of archery was like in an earlier era. In contrast, the bowmen of our own time go into battle armed with a breastplate and fitted out with greaves that come up to their knees. They hang arrows down from their right side and a sword from their left, and some of them also have a spear hanging down beside them and a small shield without a grip that serves to cover up the area around their face and neck. They are consummate riders capable of bending their bows to either side without difficulty and shooting at their enemies both when they are pursuing them and when they are retreating. They draw their bowstrings along the forehead as far as the right ear, imparting such velocity to the arrow that it always kills whoever happens to be in its way, with neither a shield nor breastplate being capable of deflecting its force. There are some who, paying no heed to any of this, regard antiquity with reverence and wonder and make no allowance for these innovations. None of this however, hinders us from concluding that the greatest deeds, and those most worthy of record, occurred during these wars. The beginning of the narrative has been pushed back a little to what the Romans and the Persians accomplished and suffered while at war with one another. 86

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2 7 Procopi u s, S ecret History In the late 540s, as Procopius grew increasingly disillusioned with Belisarius and the imperial regime of Justinian and Theodora, he began work on a venomous pamphlet airing his grievances against them. The resulting work, the Anecdota (“unpublished material”), or Secret History, overturns the heroic portrait of Belisarius in the Wars, accuses his wife Antonina of adultery and treachery, depicts Theodora as a former prostitute guilty of shocking sexual depravity, and presents Justinian as a malicious tyrant and a demon in human guise. Procopius probably began work on the Secret History after the death of Theodora in 548 and brought it to completion by 550/551. It was thus written while he was still finishing books 1–7 of the Wars and was intended to serve as a kind of commentary on that work. In the prologue Procopius states that he was unable to give the real reasons for events in the Wars because the principal actors were still living, an indication that the Secret History was only to be made public after the death of Justinian. Since the Secret History was rediscovered in the Vatican Library in 1623, its authenticity has occasionally been called into question, but today Procopius’s authorship is not in doubt. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Procopius Caesariensis: opera omnia, ed. Jakob Haury, revised by Gerhard Wirth, 4 vols. (Munich: K.G. Saur, 2001), vol. 3, pp. 4–6.

I have recounted in detail what befell the Roman people in their wars up to the present day while harmonizing the exposition of events, insofar as it was possible, with the requirements of time and place. What follows, however, will not be composed in the same manner, for from this point forward I shall write about everything that happened everywhere in the Roman Empire. The reason for this is that it was not possible for me to write in the manner I deemed necessary while the actors were still living. For neither could I escape the notice of a multitude of spies, nor, if I had been discovered, could I have avoided a miserable death. I could not even have confidence in the closest of my relatives. Instead, I was compelled to conceal the causes of many of the events that I narrated in my earlier history. My present task, therefore, will be to reveal both the things that have hitherto remained unspoken and to give the reasons for the events narrated in my previous work. As I set to work on this task, however, one that is difficult and exceedingly daunting, dealing as it does with the lives of Justinian and Theodora, I stammer and draw back as far as I can when I consider that what I am about to write will appear neither trustworthy nor plausible to future generations, particularly when the long passage of time makes my account more antiquated, and I fear that I shall acquire the reputation of a purveyor of tales and be classed among the authors of tragedies. Nonetheless, drawing courage from the fact that there are others to corroborate my account, I shall not shrink from the burden of this 87

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r task. For the men of the present day, being expert witnesses to these events, will be worthy emissaries to posterity of the reliability of what I write. Although I was eager to get started, for a long time something else kept holding me back. For I thought that this work might have adverse consequences for future generations, since it is better that the most unsavory deeds should remain unknown to posterity than that they should come to the attention of rulers and serve as a model for them to imitate. For it is inevitably the case with most of those who are in power that their inexperience inclines them to imitate the wickedness of those who came before them, and it is always easier and requires less effort for them to resort to the mistakes made by their predecessors. And yet I was subsequently led to write the history of these affairs by virtue of the fact that it will thereby be made clear to future rulers that they will in all likelihood suffer the same punishments for their misdeeds that these people did. Moreover, because their actions and their manner of living will be written down for all posterity to see, they will perhaps be more reluctant to break the law. For who in succeeding generations would have known about the depraved life of Semiramis or the madness of Sardanapalus and Nero unless those writing at the time had left behind these testimonies? In particular, my account will not be wholly without benefit for those who happen to endure similar things at the hands of rulers, since those who are the victims of misfortune are inclined to find solace in the fact that they are not the only ones to have suffered terrible things. For this reason, I shall first speak about the shameful deeds of Belisarius, and subsequently I shall reveal the scandalous conduct of Justinian and Theodora.

2 8 Ag athias, Histories Procopius’s Wars found its first continuator in Agathias of Myrina, whose Histories cover the years 552 to 559 in five books. Born ca 532 at Myrina in Asia Minor, Agathias studied at Alexandria and later moved to Constantinople to practice law. There he became part of a circle of literary-minded lawyers, officials, and scholars and counted among his friends a number of men with important connections to the imperial court, including Paul the Silentiary, Anthemius of Tralles (the architect of Hagia Sophia), and the imperial secretary Eutychianus. His literary ambitions were initially directed toward the composition of poetry; he assembled his early poems into a nine-book collection called the Daphniaca and later compiled the Cycle, an anthology of poems contributed by his friends and literary acquaintances, portions of which survive today in the Greek Anthology. At the urging of Eutychianus, Agathias eventually gave up poetry to write history, presumably in a bid to win imperial favor. Given his criticism of historians who wrote about still-living emperors, it is reasonable to suppose that he 88

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) wrote after 573, when Justin II went mad, or 578, when he died. Agathias himself was dead by 582, leaving his history unfinished. Agathias’s prologue is characteristically long-winded and reflects his mannered style and fondness for circumlocution. Many of the themes he discusses—the utility of history, history as a spur to the ambitions of noble men, and the debt of gratitude owed by society to historians—derive from Diodorus Siculus. Agathias criticizes the approach taken by other contemporary writers of history, who, he claims, are solely interested in flattering the powerful, and either defame or neglect those who are deceased. In contrast, he professes to serve only the truth, which, he says, is the proper function of history. Unlike Procopius, who drew clear dividing lines between rhetoric, poetry, and history, Agathias sees history and rhetoric as two sides of the same coin, differing only in the use of meter. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Agathiae Myrinaei Historiarum libri quinque, ed. Rudolf Keydell, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, vol. 2 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1967), pp. 3–9.

Victories and trophies in war, the restoration and beautification of cities, and whatever accomplishments are great and worthy of admiration are something noble and blessed. Such things bring a certain measure of fame and pleasure to those who have achieved them, but when these men have perished and departed, their attainments are not likely to follow after them. Instead oblivion overtakes them, concealing and distorting the true nature of events. As soon as those who possess knowledge pass away, their knowledge departs and disappears, and is extinguished along with them. Mere recollection, therefore, is unstable and of little use, nor does it tend to extend itself naturally over a long span of time. Nor do I suspect that certain people would have determined to risk their lives on behalf of their fatherland or endure other hardships knowing that even if they performed the most praiseworthy deeds their fame would perish together with them and be preserved for a span only as long as their lives, unless some divine foresight (as seems to be the case), giving strength to our natural weakness, had introduced the benefits of history and the hopes arising therefrom. For I do not think that the victors in the Olympic and Nemean games would have stripped naked in the arena for the sake of olive or parsley, nor do I think that valiant combatants in war send themselves into obvious and manifest danger merely out of a desire for spoils and what redounds to their immediate advantage. But in both cases they act for the sake of lasting and untarnished glory, which they could not otherwise enjoy than by history conferring immortality upon them—not in the manner of the rites of Zalmoxis and the madness of the Getae, but truly in some divine and deathless fashion, through which alone that which is mortal can live on into eternity. It would be far from easy to relate in detail and reckon up all of the benefits that history contributes to the life of man, but, to be brief, I do not think that it 89

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r falls very far short of political philosophy, and it may in some respects be more useful. For the latter is an unyielding mistress, immune to flattery, who gives commands and ordains what sort of behavior should be emulated and avoided, just as she intermingles compulsion with persuasion. History, by contrast, employs the element of enticement to the greatest possible extent, seasoning, as it were, the reporting of events with a variety of instructive examples, and furnishing the narrative with instances in which men have achieved honor through sound judgment and the exercise of justice, or in which they have deviated from the standard of right conduct because they were driven to it by some contrary notion or by fate. In this way history quietly implants the virtues in the mind without its being aware of it. For what is pleasant to the mind and chosen of its own accord takes root there better and adheres more resolutely. As I subjected these matters to lengthy deliberation and scrutiny, therefore, I concluded that those who have labored over the composition of histories ought to be admired and celebrated as public benefactors, although I gave no thought to undertaking this sort of effort myself, or even of making an attempt to start. For since childhood it so happens that I have been more inclined to the heroic meter and I have delighted in the savor of poetic invention. Accordingly, I composed a number of short hexameter poems entitled the Daphniaca, which were embroidered with amorous tales and replete with the charms of that sort of poetry. Some time earlier I also decided that it would be something worthy of praise and not without charm if I were to assemble as best I could in once place and arrange in a suitable order a collection of new and recently composed epigrams that were still unpublished and thus being indiscriminately whispered about by certain people under their breath. I have brought this project in particular and many other such efforts to completion not out of any necessity, other than the fact, perhaps, that they were attractive and charming. For poetry is assuredly something sacred and divine. In it the soul achieves an inspired state, as the wise son of Ariston [Plato] would put it, and whichever souls are truly inspired by the Muses and possessed by this frenzy bring forth offspring of surpassing beauty. I was determined, therefore, to continue with these efforts and never willingly give up the pleasant pursuits of my youth, but instead to follow the proclamation at Delphi and strive for self-knowledge. But since in my lifetime it happened that great wars unexpectedly broke out all over the inhabited world, migrations of numerous barbarian tribes took place, matters dimly understood and hard to believe produced unanticipated results, fortune took unexpected turns, peoples were destroyed, cities enslaved, inhabitants uprooted, and all of human affairs were convulsed—since, therefore, all of these things happened, a certain fear overtook me that it would be impious to leave events of such 90

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) importance, which were worthy of our admiration and useful and advantageous to posterity, half-forgotten and shrouded in silence. And so I decided that it would not be inappropriate to attempt to write history in some fashion or other so that my whole life would not be spent in the contrivance of tales and pointless labor, and I might be compelled instead to make some sort of useful contribution. Many of my friends provoked and encouraged me with their entreaties and exhortations to set out upon this course of action, foremost among them the younger Eutychianus, who held the first rank among the imperial secretaries and was otherwise an upstanding and very sagacious man, admirably learned, and the noblest ornament of the family of Florus. Because he made much of my efforts and had taken a great interest in how I might increase my reputation and otherwise better myself, he did not cease to encourage me and express openly his hopes for my success. He declared that I should not regard this as a difficult and insuperable task, nor should I be frightened by the fact that I had never attempted such an undertaking, as those without experience of the sea fear a voyage. Instead, I should think of history as something not far removed from poetry, both being brethren of the same stock distinguished from one another only, perhaps, by virtue of meter. Since, therefore, the journey would only be leading me back to my own home, he bid me set out with courage and devote all of my efforts to this task. I was already eager to do so, and by intoning words such as these, he easily beguiled and persuaded me. Thus it is that I have arrived at this point, and I hope that I can accomplish something that will rise to the level of my enthusiasm and the importance of the task. At the outset I should clarify who I am and where I come from, something that has become customary for writers of history. My name is Agathias; I am a native of Myrina; my father is Memnonius; my craft is Roman law and the contests of the lawcourts. By Myrina I do not mean the city in Thrace or any other city in Europe or Libya, if there happens to be one called by that name, but the colony in Asia established long ago by the Aeolians near the mouth of the River Pythicus, which flows from Lydia to the furthest channel of the gulf of Elaia. I hope that I will be able to pay her back adequately for proving such an excellent nursemaid by accurately recording all of the illustrious deeds of my homeland. But for now I hope that she will look upon my efforts kindly and propitiously, since I must move on to deal with important matters of general interest. I shall not write history in the same way that other people in our own time have done so. For there are others, I suppose, who have made a similar effort to treat the events of the present day, but for the most part they have paid no regard to the truth, nor have they taken care to recount in detail the events of the past as they chance to have turned out. Instead, they have chosen to openly flatter and glorify the powerful, with the result that they are not to be trusted, 91

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r even if they happen on occasion to speak the truth. Now those who are expert in these matters declare that the exaggeration of a person’s good qualities is the proper function of encomium, and while history does not altogether refuse to bestow praise upon those who have been successful, neither, I submit, does it typically make flattery its object and distinguishing feature. Thus, even if an occasion to mete out praise or censure does arise at some point during the narrative, it is not right for history to distort or embellish the actual record of events. Yet those who profess to write history, and the titles of whose works reveal this same ambition, have been caught attempting to advance a duplicitous claim to this designation. For not only do they adopt the style of panegyric when dealing with those who are still living, whether these people are kings or persons prominent in some other way (which by itself would be a minor transgression), but they make it clear to everyone that they have no intention other than to express praise and admiration, beyond the level even of what is required. As for the dead, on the other hand, regardless of what they were actually like, these authors either defame them as thoroughly wicked men and perpetrators of outrage against the state, or (and this is admittedly less egregious) they neglect them entirely, so that they will not be remembered at all. In this way they suppose that they are looking out for their own present advantage and that by winning over whoever is in power they will benefit themselves, failing to realize that this sort of thing will do little to gratify the recipients, who will judge that an obvious token of flattery will do little to secure their reputation. Let these people write history in whatever way pleases them. I for my part must make telling the truth my highest priority, whatever this entails. I shall recount whatever deeds worthy of mention have been accomplished by the Romans and most of the non-Romans up to this point in time, not only by men who happen to still be living, but especially by those who have already passed away, and I shall not pass over anything worthy of remembrance. Although I was not led to write history until Justin II assumed supreme power on the death of Justinian [565], nonetheless I shall also treat of earlier times, and I shall take as my task whatever has not already been completed by someone else. For since most of the events that took place during the reign of Justinian have been accurately recorded by the rhetorician Procopius of Caeserea, I can dispense with these matters, inasmuch as they have been sufficiently dealt with. Conversely, it is my duty to recount the events after Procopius as well as I can. [Agathias proceeds to summarize the eight books of Procopius’s Wars.] All of these things took place down to the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Justinian, and I believe that Procopius the rhetorician completed and brought to a close his history with these events. For my own part, I intended from the beginning to deal with what happened next, and I shall now set out to do so, adhering closely to the events themselves. 92

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2 9 G i ldas, O n the Destruction and C onquest of B ritain The history of Britain in the fifth and early sixth centuries is shrouded in obscurity. The only native narrative source for this period is a treatise by the British priest Gildas, On the Destruction and Conquest of Britain, which surveys the collapse of Roman rule in Britain and the coming of the Germanic invaders. Formally, Gildas’s work is not a history, but a letter, and he writes not as a classicizing historian but as an Old Testament prophet, castigating the sins of his people. The work comprises three parts: a vague sketch of early British history from the Roman conquest down to the time of the author, an invective against the rulers of Britain, and an admonition to the priesthood. We know very little about Gildas himself. He says that he was born in the year of the Battle of Mount Badon and that he wrote forty-three years later, but the date of the battle is disputed. He may have written ca 540, but earlier dates have been proposed. An eleventh-century biography names the place of his birth as the northern British kingdom of Clyde, and he may have been educated in South Wales. Despite Gildas’s obscurity, his work was known to Bede, who cited it extensively in his Ecclesiastical History. In an opening chapter laden with scriptural citations, Gildas laments the darkness of the era in which he lives and explains his reasons for writing. Source: trans. Justin Lake, from Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, ed. Michael Winterbottom (London: Phillimore and Co., 1978), pp. 87–89.

In this letter I shall proceed by weeping rather than by declaiming—in a contemptible style, but one that is nonetheless well-intentioned—lest anyone think that I, who lament with plaintive tears the indiscriminate destruction of all that is good and the piling up of evils, write as one who despises everyone else and holds himself up as superior to all men rather than one who grieves for the troubles and sufferings of his fatherland and takes joy in their remedies. Because it was not my intention to speak of valiant soldiers and the dangers they face in savage warfare, but of idle ones, I confess—as the Lord, the observer of my heart, can bear witness [Wisd. of Sol. 1:6]—that I kept silent while ten years or more went by, my inexperience and worthlessness together preventing me from writing any sort of tract of admonishment. Nonetheless, I read about how a revered lawgiver did not enter the longedfor land because of his hesitation about the meaning of one word [Num. 20:1–12, Deut. 32:51]; how the sons of a priest died a swift death after placing a strange fire before the altar [Lev. 10:1–2]; and how 600,000 of the sinful people of the word of God [Num. 26:51], with the exception of two who remained true, were scattered in the deserts of Arabia, where they fell victim to wild beasts, the sword, and fire [Num. 26:65]. This was a people dear to God, as evidenced by 93

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r the fact that a smooth path of sand was laid before them through the depths of the Red Sea [Exod. 14:22], their food was bread from heaven [Exod. 16:14–15], their drink a new traveler from a rock [Exod. 17:6], their invincible battle-line a mere raising-up of hands. And I read how they later entered the unknown gate, as it were, of the River Jordan [ Joshua 3:13–17], and how the walls of an enemy city were toppled at God’s command by the din of horns alone [ Josh. 6:20]; about how a cloak and a little gold taken from an offering struck down many [ Josh. 7:1–26]; and how the violation of the treaty with the Gibeonites, though it was wrung from them through trickery, brought destruction to some [ Josh. 9:3–27; 2 Sam. 21:1–9]. I read also of the voices of the holy prophets rebuking the sins of man, especially Jeremiah, who bewailed the ruin of his city in four alphabetic poems. [Lam. 1–4; compare Jerome, Prologue to Jeremiah] I even saw that in our own day, as Jeremiah had lamented, “a city that was full of people sat solitary; the mistress of gentiles had become a widow; the chief of provinces had been made tributary” [Lam. 1:1] (by this he means the Church); that “gold had become dim and the finest color had changed” [Lam. 4:1] (that is, the splendor of the Church of God); that “the noble sons of Zion” (that is, sons of the Holy Mother Church) who were “clothed with the best gold, had embraced the dung” [Lam. 4:2, 5]. And I saw that it grew to be unbearable to him, as a prominent person, just as it was to me, despite my lowliness, and that it somehow reached the height of grief when he mourned for these same outstanding men living in a prosperous state, saying “Her Nazarites were whiter than snow, more ruddy than antique ivory, fairer than sapphire” [Lam. 4:7]. Having examined these and many other passages in the Old Testament as though they were a kind of mirror of our own times, I turned also to the New Testament, and there I was able to read more clearly what perhaps had been obscure to me before, as the shadows dissipated and truth shed its more enduring light. For there I read that the Lord said, “I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel” [Matt. 15:24], and on the other hand, “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” [Matt. 8:12]. And again, “It is not good to take the bread of the children and cast it to the dogs” [Matt. 15:26, Mark 7:27]; and likewise, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites” [Matt. 23:13]. And I heard: “Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” [Matt. 8:11], and on the other hand, “And I shall say to them, ‘Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity’” [Luke 13:27]. I read, “Blessed are the barren and the breasts that have not given suck” [Luke 23:29], and on the other hand, “They that were ready went in with him to the marriage. But afterwards came also the other virgins, saying ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But the response to them was, “I know you not’” [Matt. 25:10–12]. And I certainly heard, “He 94

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned” [Mark 16:16]. I read in the words of the apostle that a branch of wild olive was grafted onto a good olive tree, but that it would be cut off from partaking of the root and fatness of that tree if it was arrogant and did not show fear [Rom. 11:17–22]. I knew the mercy of the Lord, but I also feared his judgment. I praised his grace, but I feared the recompense that will be given to each person according to his works. Perceiving that sheep from the same fold were different, I justly called Peter most blessed because he confessed Christ completely, Judas most unfortunate because he loved greed, Stephen glorious because he won the palm of martyrdom, Nicolas wretched because he bore the mark of unclean heresy [Rev. 2:6, 15]. I certainly read that “all things were common unto them” [Acts 4:32], but also that it was said, “Why have you agreed to tempt the spirit of the Lord?” [Acts 5:9]. On the other hand, I saw how comfortable the men of the present day had grown, as if there were nothing for them to fear. These things and many others that I have decided to omit in the interest of brevity I pondered with astonishment and a degree of compunction in my heart. And if, I say, the Lord did not spare the particular people chosen out of all the nations, the seed of kings and a blessed race [Deut. 7:6, 14:2], to whom he said, “my firstborn, Israel” [Exod. 4:22], if he did not spare their priests, prophets, and kings, nor the apostle his servant, nor the members of the early church when they strayed from the right path, then what will he do to such blackness as characterizes this age? And to the wicked and heinous sins that it commits in common with the rest of the sinful world may be added, as a kind of native characteristic, the ineradicable and unavoidable burden of its folly and frivolity. What then? Has the responsibility been entrusted to you, wretch (and here I am speaking to myself ), as though you were a distinguished and eminent teacher, to stand in the way of the blows of such a violent torrent and against this rope of proliferating crimes that has been drawn out far and wide without interruption for so many years? Keep the deposit that has been entrusted to you and be silent. To do otherwise is to tell the foot to keep watch and the hand to speak. Britain has its rulers and its watchmen. Why are you determined to mutter your nonsense? It has, I tell you, if not too many, then at least not too few. But because they are bent down and oppressed by such a heavy burden, they do not have room to breathe. And so my feelings, like mutual debtors, forestalled one another with these sorts of alternating objections, and ones much more biting than these. And when I read that “there is a time to speak and a time to keep silent” [Eccles. 3:7], they struggled with one another, as I have said, for a considerable period of time, as though in a kind of narrow passageway of fear. At last the creditor 95

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r prevailed saying, “If you are not so bold as to not fear being branded with the mark of golden liberty befitting truth-telling creatures of a rational origin second only to the angels [Heb. 2:7], then at least do not refuse to imitate the ass who, having been for so long without the power of speech, was inspired by the spirit of God to make herself understood. She did not wish to carry the crowned magician who was going to curse the people of God, and when she was caught in the narrow place by the wall of the vineyards, she enfeebled and bruised his foot, although she felt cruel blows as a result. And despite the fact that that ungrateful and furious man was unlawfully and wrongfully beating her innocent flanks, she pointed out to him, as if with a finger, the heavenly angel standing opposite to them bearing a sword without its sheath, whom he, in the blindness of his cruel stubbornness, had not seen” [see Num. 22]. In my zeal, therefore, for the sacred law of the house of the Lord, compelled by the reasoning of my own thoughts and the devout prayers of my brethren, I now pay back the debt that was contracted long ago. What I have to offer is assuredly worthless, yet sincere. It will be welcome to all those who have nobly taken up arms for Christ, but burdensome and unbearable to foolish apostates. The former, if I am not mistaken, will perhaps receive this with tears that flow from the charity of God, the latter with sadness, but a sadness that is wrung from the resentment and timidity of a conscience that has been pricked.

30 G regory of To urs, Histories Our view of Merovingian Francia in the sixth century is heavily dependent on the writings of Gregory of Tours (538–594). Born into a prominent Gallo-Roman family at Clermont, Gregory was elected bishop of Tours in 573, at the age of thirty-four. Unusually for a Gaulish bishop of his day, he was responsible for a large literary output: eight books of hagiography, a commentary on Psalms, and a treatise on the offices of the Church, in addition to his ten-book Histories, which extend from Creation to the year 591. The Histories paint a vivid picture of Merovingian politics and society, intermingling the endless feuding of the Merovingian kings with stories of holy churchmen and miracles worked at the shrines of saints. In the first preface, which serves as an introduction to the whole work, Gregory addresses the cultural decline in sixth-century Gaul and claims that his own uncultivated style makes him ideally suited to address an audience that can no longer understand elevated forms of discourse. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Gregorii episcopi Turonensis libri historiarum X, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, vol. 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1951), pp. 1, 3–5, 36–37, 96–97, 193–94.

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two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) General Preface With the cultivation of liberal letters declining, and indeed dying out, in the cities of Gaul, many things were being done, both just and wicked; the fury of kings was being provoked; the savagery of the heathens was raging; churches were being attacked by heretics and defended by catholics; faith in Christ was blazing up in many and growing lukewarm in others; churches were being enriched by the devout and despoiled by the wicked. And yet no grammarian skilled in the art of dialectic could be found to represent these things in prose or verse, so that many people were frequently groaning, saying, “Woe to the days in which we live, for the study of letters has died out among us, and no orator can be found among the people to publish in writing what is now happening.” And so, seeing that these and similar things were constantly being said, in order to commit to memory the deeds of the past so that they might come to the attention of posterity, even with my uncultivated manner of expression I could not be silent either about the rivalries of the sinful or the lives of those who lived virtuously. The motivation that particularly spurred me on was the fact that I marveled to hear many of our people frequently saying that “few can understand the philosophizing of a rhetorician, but many can understand the speech of a simple man.” It was also my determination that, for the sake of calculating the passage of time, the beginning of the first book, whose chapter-headings I have appended below, should proceed from the origin of the world. In the preface to book 1, Gregory includes a creedal formulation in which he affirms his Catholicism and denounces heretical beliefs, including Arianism. He also notes that for the sake of those who are worried about the end of the world he will keep track of the number of years that have passed since Creation. Anxiety about the end of the world derived from a commonly held belief—based on a combination of the biblical six days of Creation, the patristic six ages of the world, and the statement in 2 Peter 3:8 that “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”—that six thousand years would pass between the creation of the world and the Second Coming. According to the authoritative chronology of Eusebius-Jerome, the Creation took place 5,199 years before the birth of Christ, so that the six-thousandth year of human history was drawing close at the time when Gregory was writing. Preface to Book 1 Before I proceed to write about the wars of kings with hostile peoples, of martyrs with pagans, and of churches with heretics, I first wish to make a profession of my faith, so that whoever reads this will not doubt that I am a catholic. For 97

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r the sake of those who despair that the end of the world is approaching I decided to tally up the total number of years in the chronicles and histories of my predecessors, so that the number of years that have passed since the beginning of the world would be made manifestly clear. But first I ask for pardon from my readers if in letters or syllables I have transgressed the rules of grammar, a subject in which I have not been fully instructed, since my only desire was to hold to what the Church instructs us to believe without any dissimulation or hesitation in my heart, because I know that one who is guilty of sin can obtain pardon before God through the purity of his faith. Therefore, I believe in God the Father almighty. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was born of the Father, not created, not after a period of time, but who was always with the Father before all time. For he could not be called father unless he had a son. Nor could he be a son if he did not have a father. As for those who say, “There was a time when he was not,” I reject them with curses and testify that they are cut off from the Church. I believe that Christ is the word of the Father, through whom everything was made. I believe that the word was made flesh, and that the world was redeemed by his passion, and I believe that his humanity, not his divinity, suffered the passion. I believe that he rose on the third day, that he freed man who was lost, that he ascended to heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father, and that he will come and judge the living and the dead. I believe that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, that it is not inferior and did not come into existence later, but that it is God, equal and always coeternal with the Father and the Son, consubstantial in nature, equal in power, cosempiternal in essence, never having existed without the Father and the Son, inferior neither to the Father nor to the Son. I believe that there is a distinction of persons in the Holy Trinity and that the Father is one person, the Son is another, and Holy Spirit is another. I confess that in the Trinity there is one divinity, one power, and one essence. I believe that the blessed Mary was a virgin before giving birth and remained a virgin after giving birth. I believe that the soul is immortal, but nonetheless that it has no part of divinity. And I faithfully believe everything that was established by the three hundred and eighteen bishops at Nicaea. As for the end of the world, I believe what I have learned from those before me: that the Antichrist will come first. The Antichrist will first introduce circumcision, claiming to be a Christian, and he will then place his statue in the temple at Jerusalem to be adored, just as we read the Lord declared: “You will see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place” [Matt. 24:15]. But God himself shows that the day is kept hidden from all men, saying, “But of that day or hour no man knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father” [Mark 13:32]. And here we will respond to those heretics who attack us, claiming that the Son is inferior 98

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) to the Father because he is not aware of this day. Let them know, therefore, that “son” here is the name given to the Christian people, of whom God says, “I will be a father to them, and they will be as sons to me” [compare 2 Sam. 7:14; 2 Cor. 6:18]. For if he had said these things of his only begotten son, he would never have put the angels before him. For he speaks thusly: “Neither the angels of heaven nor the Son” [compare Matt. 24:36], showing that he said these things not about his only begotten son, but about his adopted people. But our end is Christ himself, who in his generous benevolence will grant us eternal life if we turn to him. As for the age of this world, the chronicles of Bishop Eusebius of Caeserea and the presbiter Jerome address this clearly and show how the entire succession of years unfolds. Orosius as well, inquiring very carefully into these things, assembles in one place the total number of years from the beginning of the world to his own time. Victorius [of Aquitaine] also looked into this matter in connection with the calculation of the feast of Easter. Following the precedent of the aforementioned authors, therefore, we also wish to calculate the sum total of years from the creation of the first man to our own day, if God will deign to grant us his aid. We will complete this task more easily if we begin with Adam himself. A characteristic feature of the Histories is the alternation of episodes of violence and wickedness with accounts of miracles and the deeds of holy men. Gregory addresses this aspect of his work in the preface to book 2, noting that the same juxtaposition of good and evil is found in the historical books of the Bible and in the works of earlier chroniclers. Preface to Book 2 As we proceed forward chronologically, we shall recount the miracles of the saints and the slaughters of peoples intermingled and jumbled together. For I do not think that it will be deemed unreasonable if we relate the fortunate lives of the blessed alongside the destruction of the wretched, since it was not the convenience of the author but the course of events that was responsible for this. If he searches diligently, the careful reader will find among the histories of the kings of the Israelites that the sacrilegious Phineas perished under the just Samuel [1 Sam. 4:11], and that Goliath the foreigner was slain under David, whom they call “strong in hand” [1 Sam. 17]. Let him recall how many massacres took place, and how famine and drought afflicted the wretched earth during the time of the famous prophet Elijah, who took away the rain when he wished and made it fall onto parched lands when it suited him, and who turned the poverty of the widow to riches through his speech [1 Kings 17–18]. Let him recall the evils that Jerusalem suffered in the time of Hezekiah, to 99

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r whom God granted fifteen extra years of life [2 Kings 20:6], and how many killings and what wretchedness afflicted the people of Israel during the time of Elisha, who restored the dead to life and worked many other miracles among the people [2 Kings 4:35, 13:21]. In the same way, Eusebius, [Sulpicius] Severus, and Jerome in their chronicles, as well as Orosius, wove together the wars of kings and the miracles of the martyrs. And so we too shall write in a similar fashion, so that the succession of ages and the reckoning of years down to our own time will be more easily discerned in its entirety. After proceeding through the histories of the aforementioned authors, therefore, we shall treat of subsequent events if the Lord commands it. In the preface to book 3, Gregory once again affirms his belief in the Trinity and distinguishes the fate of those who have opposed the Trinity to the blessings of the orthodox. Preface to Book 3 If I may, I should like to briefly compare the good fortune that has attended Christians who confess the blessed Trinity with the ruin that has befallen heretics who seek to tear it apart. Let us leave aside how Abraham venerated the Trinity beside the oak tree [Gen. 18:1–2: the Latin ad ilicem, by the oak tree, derives not from the Vulgate, but from an earlier Latin translation of the Septuagint], how Jacob preached it in a blessing [Gen. 49:10], how Moses recognized it in the bush [Exod. 3:6], how the people followed it in the cloud [Exod. 13:21] and feared it on the mountain [Exod. 20:18], and how Aaron carried it in the tabernacle [Exod. 28:30], or how David prophesied it in the psalm, praying to be renewed through an upright spirit, not to have the Holy Spirit taken away from him, and to be strengthened with a perfect spirit [Ps. 50:12–14]. Here also I perceive a great mystery, since what the heretics claim to be the lesser, the voice of the prophet proclaimed to be the foremost. But leaving aside these things, as we said earlier, let us return to our own day. For Arius, the first member and the wicked contriver of this wicked sect, left his guts behind in a privy and was given over to the fires of hell, whereas the blessed Hilary [of Poitiers], a defender of the undivided Trinity who was sent into exile for its sake, was restored both to his homeland and to paradise. King Clovis confessed the Trinity, crushed the heretics with its help, and expanded his kingdom throughout all of Gaul. Alaric, who denied it, was punished with the loss of his kingdom and his people, and what is worse, with the loss of eternal life. If those who truly believe lose something to the plots of their enemies, the Lord returns it to them a hundredfold, whereas heretics obtain nothing better, and what they appear to possess is taken from them. This is proved by the deaths of Godegisel, Gundobad, and Godomar, who at 100

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) the same time lost their homeland and their souls. For our part, we confess the one invisible and immeasurable, incomprehensible, glorious, eternal, and everlasting Lord, who is one in the Trinity with respect to the number of persons—that is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We confess also that he is threefold in unity with respect to equality of substance, divinity, omnipotence, and power, who is the one supreme and omnipotent God ruling for all eternity. Warfare between rival kings was a constant fact of life in sixth-century Francia. After the death of Clovis in 511, his sons, and later grandsons, divided up the kingdom between them and fought constantly to increase their respective shares. In the preface to book 5, Gregory rebukes the greed and ambition of the Frankish kings, singling out his sometime antagonist King Chilperic of Neustria (r. 561–584) as the chief instigator of discord. Preface to Book 5 It wearies me to relate the various civil wars that trample down the people and the realm of the Franks. And what is worse, in this age we are already seeing what the Lord foretold would be the beginning of our suffering: “Father shall rise up against son, son against father, brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor” [compare Matt. 10:21]. For we ought to be frightened by the example of earlier kings who were slain by their enemies as soon as they were divided. How many times did the city of cities and the head of the whole world collapse into civil war, and then, as soon as it was over, rise up again, as though from the ground? Would that you, o kings, would exert yourselves in the battles that your forefathers labored in, so that the heathens would be terrified by the peace that prevails among you and stand in awe of your power. Recall what Clovis, the source of your victories, did. He slew enemy kings, crushed hostile peoples, subjugated their homelands, and left them to you as a kingdom, whole and undiminished. And when he did this, he had neither gold nor silver such as is now found in your treasuries. What are you doing? What is your aim? What do you not possess in abundance? Your palaces teem with luxuries; wine, grain, and oil abound in your storehouses; gold and silver are piled up in your treasuries. There is one thing you lack, however, because without peace you do not have the grace of God. Why does one person take from another what belongs to him? Why does one desire what belongs to someone else? Be mindful, I beg you, of the apostle’s saying: “If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another” [Gal. 5:15]. Carefully examine the writings of the ancients, and you will see the fruits of civil war. Look at what Orosius writes about the Carthaginians. After declaring that their city and their territory were overthrown after 700 years, he adds, “What preserved it for so long? Harmony. 101

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r What destroyed it after such a long time? Discord.” Beware discord. Beware civil wars, which are leading you and your subjects to ruin. What else can you expect when your army has been defeated but that you yourselves, left without aid and overwhelmed by hostile peoples, will meet with destruction? But if civil war pleases you, o king, then devote yourself to the one that the apostle says rages within man; let the spirit strive against the flesh and the vices yield to the virtues. And may you, who formerly served the root of all evils in shackles, now serve your head, which is Christ, as a free man.

31 F redeg ar, Chronicle Fredegar is the name conventionally assigned to the anonymous Frankish author of a Latin chronicle extending from Creation to the year 642 and compiled ca 660. The first three books consist primarily of excerpts drawn from five earlier histories: the Liber generationis of Hippolytus of Porto, the chronicles of Jerome, Hydatius, and Isidore of Seville, and books 2–6 of the Histories of Gregory of Tours. Book 4, which covers the period from 584 to 642 (although it alludes to events as late as 658), contains material found nowhere else and is the most important narrative source for this period of Merovingian history. Almost nothing can be said with certainty about the author, although some evidence suggests that he was a high-ranking secular official, possibly of Burgundian extraction, active in Neustria and Burgundy. In the opening sentences of the prologue to book 4 (which serves as an introduction to the whole work) Fredegar quotes obscurely from the prologue to Jerome’s Chronicle and Jerome’s translation of Eusebius’s prologue; the precise meaning of his words remains open to debate. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii scholastici libri IV cum continuationibus, ed. Bruno Krusch, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, vol. 2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1888), p. 123.

Since I do not have the words to express anything if it is not granted to me by the most high, while I seek to express my meaning I can scarcely traverse a short path with a long circuit of words. A translation into the vernacular sounds ridiculous, and if out of necessity I make a change in word order, then I will appear to have departed from the duty of a translator. For this reason, after carefully reading through the chronicles of the blessed Jerome, Hydatius, a certain wise man [Hippolytus], and Isidore, as well as Gregory from the beginning of the world until the waning years of Guntram’s reign, I have inserted into this little book one after another what these men so skillfully and blamelessly wrote in their five chronicles, in an appropriate style and with few omissions. Having done so, I thought it necessary to pursue the truth more diligently, 102

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) and for this reason in these earlier chronicles I noted for my own benefit the reigns of all the kings as source material, so to speak, for a future work. I have included these dates in the present work, and paying close attention to the order, I have joined to them the deeds of individual peoples, which those learned men whom I mentioned above composed with the utmost seriousness and set down in their own chronicles (a Greek word that means “the deeds of the past” in Latin), like a pure fountain flowing with a copious stream. I had hoped that the same eloquence would attend me, so that it would at least bear some resemblance. But water is drawn more carefully where there is no certainty of a constant supply. The world is now growing old, and for this reason the keenness of our understanding grows sluggish, so that no one in this era can presume to be equal to the orators who preceded us. Yet insofar as my lack of sophistication and limited understanding availed me, I presumed to make a careful abridgment of these books in as concise a manner as possible. And lest anyone reading this should entertain any doubts, by consulting the name of each book he should go back to its author, and he will find that everything is consistent with the truth. After I finished the volume containing Gregory’s books, I did not neglect to set down in this volume historical events that I was able to discover written in any source and which became known to me later (that is, the deeds of kings and the wars waged by various peoples), everything, that is, that I learned about and verified through reading and hearing, and even by witnessing it for myself. To the contrary, to the best of my abilities I very diligently undertook to write from the point where Gregory’s work ended and grew silent, that is, at the point where Chilperic died.

32 B ede, Ecclesiastical History of the E nglish P eople Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People is one of the monuments of medieval historiography. In five books it recounts the end of Roman rule in Britain, the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, the efforts to convert them undertaken by Pope Gregory I and Irish monks from the monastery of Iona, and the eventual clash of Roman and Irish Christianity in Northumbria. From the age of seven Bede (673–735) was a member of the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in Northumbria, where he was ordained deacon and later priest. A scholar, teacher, and prolific author, he wrote saints’ lives, treatises on grammar and chronology, biblical commentaries, a martyrology, and a history of the abbots of Wearmouth-Jarrow, in addition to his most famous work, the Ecclesiastical History. Upon completion of the latter in 731/732, Bede sent copies to Albinus (d. 732), abbot of the monastery of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Canterbury and his principal informant, and King Ceolwulf of Northumbria (r. 729–737), asking both of them to 103

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r make copies. Bede’s preface is noteworthy both for the detail that he provides about his sources and for his reference (derived from Jerome’s Against Helvidius) to a “true law of history” in a passage whose precise meaning remains a subject of debate. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Bedae opera historica, ed. Charles Plummer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), vol. 1, pp. 3, 5–8.

Bede, a servant of Christ and priest, to the most glorious king Ceolwulf. Previously, my lord, I was happy to send to you at your request the ecclesiastical history that I had recently made public so that you might read and critique it, and now I am sending it back to you to be copied and reflected upon more fully at your leisure. I warmly embrace the sincere enthusiasm with which you not only lend your ear assiduously to hearing the words of the sacred scriptures, but also devote unflagging attention to learning about the deeds and words of the men of old, particularly the illustrious men of our race. For if history relates the good deeds of virtuous men, then the hearer is moved and prompted to imitate their goodness, whereas if it records the evil deeds of the wicked, then the faithful and pious hearer or reader is similarly roused to avoid what is harmful and perverse, and to pursue more adeptly what he recognizes to be virtuous and worthy of God. Because you yourself are also keenly aware of this, you desire for the sake of the general welfare that the aforementioned history should be more widely distributed, so that it may become better known both to you and to those whom divine authority has set you to rule over. With regard to what I have written, in order that I might remove any occasion for doubt from you and the other hearers or readers of this history, I shall take care to indicate briefly the principal authorities from whom I derived my information. My chief authority and helper in this modest work was the most reverend abbot Albinus, a man supremely learned in all subjects. Educated in the church of Kent by the most venerable and erudite archbishop Theodore and abbot Hadrian of blessed memory, he diligently acquainted himself with everything done by the disciples of the blessed pope Gregory in the province of Kent and in the surrounding regions through written records and the traditions of older men. And those things that he judged worthy of memory he passed on to me through the agency of the pious priest Nothhelm of the church of London, either in written form or related to me orally by Nothhelm himself. This same Nothhelm subsequently went to Rome, and after searching through the archives of the holy Roman church with the permission of pope Gregory [II], who now presides over this see, he discovered a number of letters of the blessed pope Gregory [I] and other popes. When he returned, he brought them to us to be included in our history on the advice of the most reverend father Albinus. So from the beginning of this book until the time when the English people 104

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) received the faith of Christ we learned most of what we have related from the writings of earlier authors gathered in various places, while from that point until the present day we came to know about the deeds done in the church of Kent by the disciples of the blessed pope Gregory and their successors, and under which kings, through the efforts of the aforementioned abbot Albinus, as conveyed to us, as we said earlier, by Nothhelm. They also gave me some information about who from the provinces of the East and West Saxons, the East Angles, and the Northumbrians received the grace of the gospel, from which bishops, and during the reigns of which kings. Thus I was prompted to venture upon this undertaking chiefly by the urging of Albinus. But Daniel, too, the most reverend bishop of the West Saxons, who is still living now, imparted to me in writing some information about the ecclesiastical history of his province and about the neighboring province of the South Saxons, as well as about the Isle of Wight. We also took pains to learn about how the province of Mercia came to the faith of Christ, which it had not known, and how the province of the east Saxons recovered the faith that it had previously rejected through the ministry of the devout priests of Christ Cedd and Chad, and also about the life and death of these same fathers, from the brothers of the monastery known as Lastingham, which was founded by them. Furthermore, we acquired information about the ecclesiastical history of the province of the East Angles partly from documents and the traditions of older men, and partly from the reports of the most reverend abbot Esi. And we learned about the history of the Christian faith and the episcopal succession in Lindsey in writing from the most reverend bishop Cynibert, and orally from other trustworthy men. As for Northumbria, I learned about the deeds done in the church in the different parts of this province from the time that it received the faith of Christ until the present day not from a single authority but from the faithful testimony of countless witnesses who were in a position to know about or remember these things, with the exception of those matters with which I was personally acquainted. In this regard, it should be noted that what I have written about the most holy father and bishop Cuthbert, both in this work and in his biography, I derived in part from the earlier account written by the brothers of the church of Lindisfarne. I incorporated this material, accepting in simple faith the reliability of the story I was reading, while at the same time I took care to add information that I was able to learn for myself through the reliable testimony of trustworthy men. I humbly beg the reader not to impute it to us if he finds anything set down in what we have written that is contrary to the truth, since in accordance with a true law of history we have endeavored to commit to writing for the edification of posterity what we have gathered from common report. Moreover, I humbly beseech everyone whom this history of our nation might reach, 105

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r whether readers or hearers, to remember to intervene frequently with God’s mercy on behalf of my infirmities of mind and body, and each in their separate provinces to repay me with their thanks, so that I, who have taken pains to carefully record information about individual provinces and important places that I believed to be worthy of memory and pleasing to the inhabitants, might receive the fruits of pious intercession from all men. Bede also wrote a separate letter to Albinus accompanying his history. Letter to Albinus To the most beloved and reverend father Albinus, Bede, a servant of Christ, sends greetings. It was with the utmost gratefulness that I received the gifts of your affection that you thought worthy to send to me through our venerable brother, the priest Nothhelm, particularly the letter in which for the second time you took the trouble to provide copious assistance and instruction regarding the ecclesiastical history of our people that you had previously encouraged me to write. For this reason, as soon as I finished this history, I sent it to you directly to be copied. As to the other work in which I discovered that you had some interest, namely the book that I recently produced concerning the construction of the temple of Solomon and its allegorical interpretation, I have also sent this to you to be copied as a token of my thanks. And I humbly beseech you, most beloved father, and the servants of Christ who are with you, to remember to intercede regularly with the merciful judge on behalf of my weakness and to advise those to whom you distribute our modest works to do the same. Farewell most excellent father, always beloved in Christ.

33 Pau l the De acon, Roman H istory We have few precise details about the early life of Paul the Deacon (ca 720–799). Born into a noble family in the northern Italian province of Friuli, he served at the Lombard court at Pavia before professing as a monk at Monte Cassino. Around the year 770 he presented Adalperga, wife of Duke Arichis II of Benevento and daughter of the Lombard king Desiderius, with a copy of the Breviary of Eutropius, a ten-book epitome of Roman history from Romulus to the death of the emperor Jovian in 364. Dissatisfied with Eutropius, Adalperga commissioned Paul to expand it where appropriate and supplement it with material from the Bible to clarify its chronology. Paul also added material at the beginning (commencing his narrative with Janus and the legendary kings of Italy, rather than the founding of Rome) and tacked six more books onto the end, bringing his Roman 106

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) History down to the reign of Justinian and the defeat of the Gothic leader Totila in 552. At the end of the dedication he promises to continue the work down to his own day if his health and the source material allow it. Paul eventually wrote this continuation—his better-known History of the Lombards—but not until he had returned home to Monte Cassino after spending four years at Charlemagne’s court (781–785). The purpose of the History of the Lombards remains the subject of much debate; unfortunately, Paul left behind no prologue to hint at his intentions. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Pauli Historia Romana, ed. H. Droysen, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Berlin: Weidmann, 1879), pp. 1–2.

To my lady the most distinguished and exalted duchess Adalperga, Paul, your humble suppliant. In imitation of your most excellent consort, who almost alone of the princes of our age holds the palm of wisdom, you pry into the mysteries of the wise with subtle understanding and the most perceptive scrutiny, so that you have the gilded eloquence of the philosophers and the jeweled words of the poets at your disposal, and you devote yourself to histories and commentaries, both sacred and secular. For this reason, I, who have always encouraged your grace’s studies, joyfully offered you the history of Eutropius to read. After you had examined it eagerly, as is your custom, what displeased you about his text, aside from its excessive brevity, was the fact that the author, being a pagan, nowhere made mention of sacred history or our faith. And so it pleased your excellency that I should expand upon this history a little bit in suitable places and add to it some material from the text of sacred scripture in order to clarify the chronology of the narrative. As one who is always eager to comply with your orders, I hope that my success in carrying out what you have commanded will match the enthusiasm with which I have undertaken it. Commencing the narrative a little bit before the text of Eutropius’s history, I have expanded it where justified and interspersed contemporaneous events from the Old Testament, in this way harmonizing it with sacred history. And because Eutropius only brought his narrative down to the reign of Valens, from this point I added six books in my own style, based upon the words of my predecessors, as similar as possible to the preceding books, and I reached the era of the emperor Justinian. I promise, however, with God as my protector, that if you are resolved upon it, and if the words of my predecessors furnish me support in this undertaking, then while I am still alive I will bring this same history down to our own age. Farewell, Lady Mother, you who are supported by divine protection, your exalted consort, and your three children, and enjoy this with happiness.

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34 E i nh a rd, L ife of Charlemagne Secular biography dwindled in importance in the early Middle Ages, losing ground to hagiography. Its revival in the early ninth century was largely the result of an influential and widely read biography of Charlemagne (748–814) written by his former courtier Einhard (ca 770–840) probably between 825 and 829. Born in Maingau in East Francia, Einhard was educated at the monastery of Fulda and later sent to Charlemagne’s court at Aachen, where he served in various capacities from 791 until his patron’s death in 814. Although Charlemagne’s successor Louis the Pious (r. 814–840) dismissed almost all of his father’s former advisers, Einhard managed to retain his position at court (a fact that Wahlafrid Strabo was later to find miraculous), and was handsomely rewarded by Louis with estates and lay abbacies. As Paul Dutton has shown, early in Louis’s reign Charlemagne’s reputation declined precipitously, and in the 820s several written accounts of visions claiming to have seen him being punished in purgatory were circulated. Einhard wrote in part to counter these contemporary criticisms of his former patron. By praising his subject in panegyric tones, he also provides an implicit critique of Louis’s reign. In choosing to revive a dormant literary genre, Einhard turned to classical Antiquity for a model. He found one in the Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius (ca 70–ca 130), a collection of thirteen imperial biographies from Julius Caesar to Domitian. Rather than giving a strictly chronological account of his subjects’ lives, Suetonius organized his biographical sketches thematically, with an emphasis on personal qualities and character, and Einhard follows this arrangement. The preface also contains verbal echoes of Sulpicius Severus’s Life of Saint Martin. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Einhardi Vita Karoli Magni, ed. O. Holder-Egger, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1911), pp. xxviii–xxix, 1–2.

After I decided to write about the life and the manner of living, and in no small part the deeds, of my lord and provider Charles, the most excellent and deservedly most celebrated king, I summarized these things as concisely possible, while striving not to omit anything that came to my attention, and at the same time trying not to offend through a long-winded narrative those people who disdain anything new—if it is even possible, that is, for a new literary work not to give offense to those who dismiss even the venerable histories compiled by the most learned and erudite men. I do not doubt that there are many people devoted to the cultivation of leisure and the pursuit of letters who do not think that the circumstances of the present day ought to be completely neglected so that everything that is now happening is consigned to oblivion as though it were unworthy of remembrance. Seduced by a desire for enduring fame, these people prefer to commit the outstanding deeds of others to works 108

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) of whatever quality rather than remove the renown of their name from the memory of posterity by writing nothing. Nonetheless, I decided that I should not refrain from this sort of writing when I realized that no one else could write about these events more truthfully than I could, events that I myself took part in and learned about, as they say, with the testimony of my own eyes, and because I did not know for sure whether anyone else would write about them. I thought it preferable to commend these things to writing jointly with others, as it were, and pass them on to the memory of posterity rather than to allow the celebrated life of that most excellent king, the greatest of all those of his age, and his noble exploits, which it would scarcely be possible for the men of the current age to match, to be blotted out by the shadows of oblivion. There was another motivation—one that was not, in my opinion, unreasonable—that would have sufficed by itself to compel me to write, namely the patronage that he bestowed upon me and the continuous friendship that I enjoyed with him and his children from the time that I began to live at his court. In this way he so bound me to himself and made me his debtor, both in life and in death, that I would justifiably seem to be and be regarded as ungrateful if, unmindful of the many benefits that he bestowed upon me, I were to pass over in silence the most celebrated and illustrious deeds of a man who was my supreme benefactor and allow his life to remain unwritten and without the praise that it merits, as though he had never lived. This despite the fact that it would have been more appropriate for the eloquence of Cicero to toil over the writing and presentation of his life rather than my small measure of talent, which is meager and insubstantial—indeed almost nonexistent. You have before you a book containing the memory of that most outstanding and greatest of men. Apart from his exploits, there is nothing to marvel at, except perhaps the fact that I, a foreigner little trained in the Roman tongue, should have thought myself capable of writing something in Latin and should have burst forth into such impudence that I decided to reject that saying of Cicero from the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, where, in speaking of Latin authors, we read that he said the following: “A man who commits his thoughts to writing without being able to arrange or elucidate them, or to appeal to the reader through any sort of charm, is recklessly misusing both his leisure and his words.” The opinion of this eminent orator might have deterred me from writing, had I not previously resolved to endure the judgments of men and risk my own meager talents by writing these things rather than pass over the memory of such a great man in an effort to spare myself. In the early 840s, Wahlafrid Strabo (ca 809–849), a monk and later abbot of Reichenau who had met Einhard at the court of Louis the Pious, divided Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne into chapters and gave it a new introduction. 109

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Einhard, a man who among all the courtiers of his age merits exceptional praise not only for his learning but also for the unimpeachable integrity of his character, is known to have written an account of the life and deeds of the most glorious emperor Charles (which is appended below) and to have corroborated it with evidence of unimpeachable veracity, as one who was present at almost all of these events. Born in East Francia in the county called Maingau, as a child he received the first rudiments of instruction at the monastery of Fulda in the school of the holy martyr Boniface. More on account of his singular intellectual ability and intelligence (which already at that time foreshadowed the exemplary wisdom for which he was later conspicuous) than his noble birth (which was a notable gift in him), he was subsequently transferred by Baugulf, the abbot of the aforementioned monastery, to the palace of Charles, who of all kings was the most eager to diligently seek out wise men and cultivate them in the pursuit of knowledge. In this way he took the clouded and almost completely blind (so to speak) expanse of the kingdom entrusted to him by God, and by shining into it a new light of all the knowledge that was heretofore partially unknown to this barbarian people, he made it resplendent with divine illumination and capable of sight. Now, however, as the pursuit of knowledge slips back into its former condition, the light of wisdom grows faint in many people as it is esteemed the less. The aforementioned little man (for he was looked down upon because of his stature) attained in the palace of Charles, that lover of wisdom, such an increase in glory through the merits of his wisdom and integrity that among all the servants of his royal majesty there was virtually no one to whom he, the most powerful and wisest king of that era, entrusted more of his personal confidences. And in truth this was not undeserved, since not only in the time of Charles himself, but—and this is the greater miracle—also under the emperor Louis, when the kingdom of the Franks was in a state of unrest due to many and various disturbances and was declining in many respects, through a kind of marvelous and divinely ordained balancing act he preserved himself, with God’s protection, so that that lofty name which brought ill-will and misfortune to many, neither abandoned him prematurely nor delivered him into inextricable dangers. We say this so that no one will doubt his words, since the reader will recognize that the author owed the highest praise to the love of his patron and transparent veracity to the curiosity of the reader. I, Strabo, have added chapter-titles and divisions to this work as it seemed appropriate to me, so that anyone looking for a particular topic will have an easier time finding what he wants.

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35 Frech ulf of Li si eu x, C hronicle The universal chronicle remained one of the most important and best represented categories of historical writing throughout the Middle Ages. The most sophisticated representative of the genre in the Carolingian era was the Chronicle of Frechulf of Lisieux (d. 850/852), which extended from Creation to 609 CE. The significance of Frechulf’s achievement lay not in his original contributions, but in the way that he seamlessly integrated a host of sources ( Eusebius-Jerome, Josephus, Florus, Aurelius Victor, Rufinus, Augustine, Orosius, Jordanes, Isidore of Seville, and Bede) into a unified narrative. After an elite education, possibly at Fulda, Frechulf was sent to the court of Louis the Pious in the early 820s, where he served as an imperial envoy and judge (missus). By 825 he had been appointed bishop of Lisieux in Normandy, and around this time he wrote the first part of his Chronicle (books 1–7) in response, he says, to a request from Louis’s archchancellor Helisachar. Frechulf addresses Helisachar in the prologue as his “instructor” (praeceptor), but this may simply be an honorific and does not necessarily imply that he studied under him in any formal capacity. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Frechulfi Lexoviensis episcopi opera omnia, ed. Michael Allen. Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 169A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 17–20, 435–37.

To my lord and teacher, the most beloved Helisachar, Frechulf, the least of bishops, in Christ the son of God. The solicitude of the wise tends to rouse the slumbering minds of some people so that they do not remain weighed down in idle lethargy, languishing unproductively and wasting away through inactivity, and so that instead, by rousing themselves and wiping away the haziness of sleep, they may benefit others by writing and teaching; but let them strive to do so attentively, lest they should ever hear the dreadful judgment pronounced by the Lord concerning the talent that was wrongly buried in the earth [Matt. 25:24–30]. You, too, my beloved teacher, who are revered for your insatiable love of wisdom, after insistently spurring on others with the goads of charity so that they might remain watchful and at a suitable time faithfully share what had been entrusted to them as servants of their Lord, finally approached my lowliness and commanded me that by carefully perusing the books of the ancients—both the authors of saints’ lives and pagan writers—I should exert myself to make a clear and concise compilation of whatever pertains to the truth of history, from the circumstances of the first man until the birth of Christ our Lord. In addition, I was to take pains to relate carefully whatever opinions Christian or pagan authors have expressed about the first age (which took place before the universal cataclysm) or the second (which extended from the end of the flood until the birth of Abraham and the reign of King Ninus of the Assyrians), not neglecting 111

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r to resolve the difficult problems found in the writings of the lawgiver [Moses] throughout this period, insofar as it pertains to the truth of history. From that point I was to keep a careful count of years through the kings of the Assyrians, the Medes and the Persians, and the Greeks, down to the reign of Octavian Caesar (the peoples to whom the empire of the Assyrians was transferred in succeeding ages) and, in the case of the people of God, through the patriarchs, judges, kings and priests, and then kings, and to note whatever deeds were worthy of memory in each part of the world. And I was to show how certain things are eternally repeated during each era, when and where they took place, who was ruling at the time in the most important kingdoms, and who ruled over the people of God. In addition, you prompted me to bring together and arrange in an abbreviated form the history of the Jews from the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem until the birth of our Lord Christ, since these events appear confused because of the disasters that befell them. All these things you showed to me, in my lowliness, as though laid out in a concise table, and leaving me no opportunity to refuse, you ordered me to get to work quickly. Aided by the assistance of God, therefore, who makes the mute to speak [Mark 7:37], not out of presumptuousness but for the sake of obedience, I, an inexperienced sailor, have set out upon this vast ocean in a little skiff. But if the calmness of the sea changes and the waves swell up, then you who gave the order must extend your hand to a shipwrecked sailor. For although I am detained by Church business and worldly affairs, and although I am tonguetied and dull in sensibility, nonetheless I, an uneducated novice, have seized upon this great undertaking, which ought to have been entrusted to wiser men. Because I could not refuse your kindness, I am sending it for you to examine, and if you judge that it will be useful, it will be attributed to the corrector no less than the author. I have not, as you previously advised me, included in every instance the names of the authors from whom I gathered the material collected in these seven books, since in those cases where they were in agreement I took the meaning that I had chosen and tried to phrase it more concisely. In those cases where certain authors (whether Christian or pagan) differed from the rest, however, I decided to mention their names and reproduce their opinions as found in their books. I implore whoever desires to read this, therefore, not to impute anything that may displease him to the presumptuousness of my weakness, but instead to my obedience, and not to make rash criticisms before carefully reading the authors from whom we have excerpted. Frechulf began work on a continuation immediately and brought it to completion in 829. He dedicated this second volume, which contained books 8–12, to the empress Judith, the second wife of Louis the Pious, designating it specifically for the edification of her son, 112

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) Charles (the future Charles the Bald). The timing was significant because in 829 Louis had granted the six-year-old Charles his own kingdom, in violation of the Ordinatio imperii of 817, the document by which he had partitioned the empire among his three sons by his first wife, Ermengard. My lady Judith, most fortunate of empresses, there is nothing to be found in the affairs of man by which you might grow more exalted. If we consider your husband, then who among emperors is nobler or wiser in both sacred and secular learning than the unconquered Caesar Louis? Nor is it surprising that this age has brought forth such progeny from the most excellent emperor Charles. If it is a question of your physical charms, then to speak the truth without deceitful flattery, your beauty surpasses every queen whom we in our insignificance have learned of through sight or hearing. If, on the other hand, it is a question of your offspring, is not Charles the glory of the world and the delight of men? He conquers and surpasses his own immature years through the elegance of his person, his superior habits, and his active pursuit of wisdom, so that his grandfather appears not to have perished but to have wiped away the haziness of sleep and illuminated the world anew. For in his grandson there shines brightly his same immortal mind, his name, his elegance, and his virtue. For this reason—because there is nothing in the affairs of this world the addition of which you lack—you have extended yourself to the pursuit of wisdom so that you might be deemed to surpass the empresses of past ages. Thus the wisdom with which you have been endowed by God and the innate knowledge of your mind left me and the rest of those who heard you astonished. For I was amazed when I became aware of the fluency of your erudition in divine and liberal studies, and I resolved to offer to the ardor of your beneficence a small gift assembled by my own efforts. For this reason, I set about writing a second volume, beginning with Octavian Augustus and the birth of our Lord and Savior, and carrying it down to the kingdoms of the Franks and the Lombards, when the emperors and judges of the Romans disappeared from Italy and Gaul, and the kings of the Goths, who had succeeded them, were likewise driven out by these peoples. I have divided this work into five books. In them, as in a mirror, my lord Charles, your excellency’s most glorious son, will be able to perceive what to do and what to avoid through the admonition and instruction of your most holy devotion. For it is fitting that you, my venerable lady, should instruct your only son, the king of our joy and of a new age, mindful of Bathsheba, who taught Jedidiah [Solomon], the wisest king of antiquity, as he says of himself: “For I also was my father’s son, tender, and as an only son in the sight of my mother. And [s]he taught me, and said, ‘Let your heart receive my words, keep my commandments, and you will live. Get wisdom, get prudence. Do not forget, nor turn away 113

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she will keep you; love her, and she will preserve you,’” and so on [compare Prov. 4:3–6]. For his part, he will obey your sacred orders in proportion as we trust in the Lord’s mercy, and amidst the other admonitions of your maternal love he will not refuse to entrust these books to his memory. Enlightened by the deeds of emperors, the triumphs of the saints, and the instruction of eminent teachers, he will discover in a careful and precise manner what is to be done and what is to be avoided. It is my desire for your affection, therefore, my ever august lady, that has compelled me to write these volumes, which now await the judgment of your beneficence and immortal wisdom. If they obtain praise in your eyes, it will be ascribed eternally to your memory, since your most holy name Judith means “judging” or “praising.”

36 The A s t ron omer, Life of Emperor L ouis Louis the Pious inspired two biographies: a Life of Louis by Thegan, the suffragan bishop of Trier, which did not include a prologue (although Wahlafrid Strabo subsequently added one), and the Life of Emperor Louis by an anonymous author known as the Astronomer. Various suggestions as to his identity have been offered, but none have met with universal acceptance. Based on his knowledge of southern Gaul, it is generally assumed that the Astronomer was either a Frank who went to Aquitaine in the 780s as part of the young King Louis’s entourage or else a Septimanian Goth. His reference to canon law as “our law” marks him either as a cleric or a monk, and in the prologue he states that he served at Louis’s court at Aachen. The sobriquet “Astronomer” derives from the author’s demonstrations of his expertise in this subject, including an account of the appearance of Haley’s comet in 837. He wrote his biography after Louis’s death in June of 840 and most likely before the Battle of Fontenoy in June of 841. While Einhard celebrates Charlemagne’s achievements in panegyrical tones, Louis’s reign, which was marked in its later years by civil wars instigated by his rebellious sons, could not be treated in the same way. For this reason, the Astronomer’s stated motivations for writing and the characteristics he ascribes to his subject in the prologue differ in notable ways from Einhard. The identity of the Adhemar mentioned at the end of the prologue as the Astronomer’s source for events before 814 is unknown. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Astronomus: Vita Hludowici imperatoris, ed. Ernst Tremp, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1995), pp. 280–84.

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two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) When the good or wicked deeds of the ancients, particularly those of important men, are recalled to memory, then a twofold benefit is conferred upon the reader; for the former serve to benefit and instruct, the latter to caution. Because the foremost men stand, as it were, atop a lofty tower and cannot therefore conceal themselves, their reputation extends further to the extent that it is perceived over a wider area, and the majority are attracted to their virtue in proportion as they take pride in imitating the great. The truth of this assertion is borne out by the histories of our predecessors, who endeavored in their accounts to instruct posterity about the paths trodden by important men during their earthly journeys. In striving to follow their lead we do not wish to be disagreeable to the men of the present day or begrudging to those to come, but we are relating, albeit in an unlearned style, the deeds and life of the orthodox emperor Louis, who was beloved of God. I confess and maintain without deceitful flattery that not only my meager talents, but those of greater men, are inadequate to such a topic. For we have learned from the authority of divine eloquence that Holy Wisdom teaches us moderation, wisdom, justice, and courage, “which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life” [Wisd. of Sol. 8:7]. He himself clung to their train so resolutely that you would not know which of the virtues was most to be admired in him. For what is more modest than his moderation, which by another name is called frugality or temperance? He cultivated this virtue to such an extent that the ancient proverb “nothing in excess” [Terence, Andria 61], whose fame extends to the heavens, was second nature to him. At the same time, he took delight in the wisdom that he learned from sacred scripture, which says, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom” [ Job 28:28]. As to the passion with which he devoted himself to justice, they can attest to it who are familiar with his burning zeal that each order of mankind should carry out what is required of it, love God above all else, and love one’s neighbor as oneself. Courage was so firmly rooted in him that even though he was battered by so many and such serious misfortunes and wounded by injuries both private and external, still, with God’s protection his invincible heart could not be broken under any burden of wrongs. One fault alone was ascribed to him by his rivals, namely that he was too merciful. But let us respond to them with the words of the apostle: “Pardon him this wrong” [compare 2 Cor. 12:13]. As to whether these things are true or not, everyone who reads this will be able to see. Up until the time that he became emperor, I learned what I have written from the account of the most noble and devout monk Adhemar, a contemporary who was raised with him. As for subsequent events, because I was present at the dealings of the court, I have related in writing what I was able to see and learn. 115

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37 Ni tha rd, Histories After the death of Louis the Pious in June of 840, a power struggle broke out between his three surviving sons, Lothar, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald. In June of 841 Lothar was defeated at the Battle of Fontenoy by the combined armies of Charles and Louis, forcing him to enter into negotiations with them the following year. The ultimate result was the Treaty of Verdun, signed in August of 843, which divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts and laid the groundwork for the future political geography of Europe. We owe our detailed knowledge of the events between Louis’s death and the spring of 843 to Nithard (d. 844), whose uniquely valuable history survives in only one manuscript. A grandson of Charlemagne through his mother Bertha, Nithard was one of Charles the Bald’s leading advisers, and he wrote his work at Charles’s request, with an eye toward justifying his lord and patron’s conduct to contemporary observers. Janet Nelson has suggested that Nithard’s particular audience was the men who had rallied to Charles’s cause in 840/841, who needed both justification and encouragement for their choice. Nithard wrote books 1 and 2 as a unit, beginning after Charles’s entrance into Châlons-sur-Marne in May of 841 and finishing in October of that year. Books 3 and 4 were added later. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux, ed. Philippe Lauer (Paris: H. Champion, 1926), pp. 2, 36, 78, 80, 116.

Book 1 covers the period from the death of Charlemagne (814) to the death of Louis the Pious ( June 840). Prologue to Book 1 As you know very well, my lord, you and your followers had been suffering undeserved persecution at the hands of your brother [Lothar] for almost two years, when, prior to our entrance into the city of Châlons, you instructed me to commit the events of your era to memory in writing. Your commission, I acknowledge, would have been a timely and pleasant undertaking if I had been granted the leisure to carry out a task of such magnitude properly. As it is, if you find anything in this work that is inadequate or less polished than the importance of the events demands, you and your followers ought to pardon me all the more readily because you know that I have been battered by the same storm as you during the course of its execution. I had decided to forgo mention of the events that took place during the time of your pious father. Yet the truth of the disputes in which you have been involved will be clearer to anyone who reads this if we briefly touch on certain events known to have taken place during his reign. It scarcely seems advisable, 116

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) moreover, to disregard completely the revered memory of your grandfather, and for this reason the narrative will begin with him. Book 2 ends with the Battle of Fontenoy in June of 841, at which Charles and Louis inflicted a severe defeat on Lothar. Prologue to Book 2 Having explained the origins of your disagreements as far as time and my abilities permitted, so that any reader who wishes to know why Lothar decided to persecute you and your brother after the death of your father might reach his own determination and conclusion and see whether he acted justly or not, I shall now undertake to show, insofar as my memory and abilities allow, the forcefulness and energy with which he prosecuted his aims. At the same time, I entreat you to consider the difficulties arising from these same troubles, which hindered me in my insignificance, and I ask your forgiveness if I have neglected anything in this work. Book 3 begins with the aftermath of the Battle of Fontenoy and ends with Lothar’s flight from Charles and Louis in March of 842. Notably, this book is not specifically addressed to Charles. Prologue to Book 3 Because it fills me with shame to hear anything unfavorable about our family [the Carolingians], I am particularly loathe to relate such things myself. For this reason, when the hoped-for end of the second book arrived, disregarding my orders, yet with no trace of malicious intent, I resolved to bring this work to an end no matter what. But to forestall the possibility that some other person who has been deceived in some way should presume to narrate the events of our era otherwise than they turned out, I have consented to add a third dealing with events in which I was involved. Nithard wrote book 4 at the monastery of Saint-Riquier (where he was lay abbot) in the winter and early spring of 842–843. By this point he had become bitterly disappointed with Charles, having lost his lands in the settlement negotiated with Lothar in the summer of 842. Prologue to Book 4 Not only does it make me happy, as I have said previously, to rest from the labor of this history, but my mind, which is crammed full of various grievances, is also 117

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r constantly occupied with anxious thoughts about where I can remove myself completely from public life. But because fortune has joined me here and there to the affairs of the world at large and now carries me in my grief amidst violent storms, I really have no idea where I shall be brought into port. Meanwhile, however, if I find any spare time, what harm will it do if I undertake to commit to memory in writing the deeds of our leading men and magnates, as I have been ordered? Therefore, I shall devote my efforts to the fourth book of this history, and if I am unable to be of use to those who come after me in any other way, then at least through my efforts I shall wipe away the cloud of error for posterity.

38 Ag n ell u s of Raven n a, T he B ook of the B ishops of the Church of R avenna Between 830 and 846 Andreas Agnellus, a priest from a prominent family of Ravenna, delivered a series of public readings in which he related the history of the city’s bishops beginning with Saint Apollinaris at the end of the first century and ending in his own day. Modeled on the compilation of papal biographies known as the Liber Pontificalis, Agnellus’s Book of the Bishops of the Church of Ravenna sheds valuable light on early medieval Ravenna and serves as an important textual record of an oral performance. The unifying theme of the work is hostility toward Rome and the Ravennate bishops who collaborated with the pope. By the 800s Ravenna had declined considerably from its heyday in the fifth and early sixth centuries as the capital first of the Western Empire and then of the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. Relations with Rome soured in the late seventh century when Ravenna briefly obtained, and then lost, the privilege of autocephaly (the right to install a bishop without confirmation from Rome). Friction increased after Charlemagne’s conquest of Lombardy, when Ravenna passed under the control of the papal states. Agnellus was proud of his city’s past and its former autonomy from Rome, and he demonstrates an impressive knowledge of its physical remains, using his personal inspection of buildings and inscriptions as a major source of information about the city’s bishops. In the prologue, Agnellus addresses an unnamed group of people who he says urged him to write. This is a reference to the priesthood of Ravenna—or a faction of the priesthood—which served as the audience for his readings, and whose collective interests are reflected in Agnellus’s political views. That Agnellus claims to have written at the request of the city’s clergy rather than the bishop is unusual. Episcopal histories were typically written at the request of a newly installed bishop and were intended at least in part to glorify the incumbent. Far from flattering the bishops of Ravenna, however, Agnellus directly and indirectly criticizes them for a variety of faults, including collaboration with

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two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) Rome and an inequitable division of revenues with the clergy. In the prologue Agnellus defends his use of oral tradition as a source, citing the examples of Moses (the putative author of Genesis) and the gospel writers Mark and Luke. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, ed. D.M. Deliyannis, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 199 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 145–46.

To you who request a book setting out in an organized fashion the order of succession of the bishops who have taken up the see of Saint Apollinaris, as the truthfulness and reasoning of your Agnellus (who is also Andreas) of the same orthodox see of Ravenna, could discover and ascertain. Prologue You must give thanks to God the Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are threefold in majesty but singular in power, that he has opened my polluted lips and made my barren tongue eloquent, insofar as it pleased him to do so. For I trust that in response to your prayers God gives me the gift to speech in my readings, so that, since you have compelled me to speak, I might recall to memory as best I can what each one of the holy fathers who previously held this see as bishop of the church of Ravenna accomplished during his tenure. I shall not only reveal to your ears what I observed of their accomplishments, but also what I heard, as it was related to me by our elders. For indeed Moses himself, the most outstanding of men, who wrote the book of Genesis through the inspiration of God, says, “Ask your fathers, and they will declare to you, your elders and they will tell you” [Deut. 32:7], and Job: “Inquire of the former generations, and search diligently into the memory of the fathers” [ Job 8:8]. For Moses was a descendant of the race of Abraham, and it is said that the whole edifice of the world was created by God before Abraham was born. In addition, Mark, a disciple of the apostle Peter and his son in baptism, did not physically follow the Lord’s footsteps, nor did he witness any of the miracles performed by him, but in his gospel he wrote what Peter recounted to him. Likewise, Luke, a helper of the apostle Paul, opened up the fount of his gospel after being imbued with Paul’s teaching. And indeed many other people have written books based upon oral tradition, so that one reads in the lives of the fathers that “a certain old man told me,” and so on. And did not Gregory, the bishop of the see of Rome, report in many places in his book of Dialogues that “such and such a man told me this” and other things?

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Now I am certainly not capable of speaking like these men. For just as a small spark, when placed in view of the blazing midday sun, is obscured and its light is not visible, in the same way, I confess, my writing is completely extinguished in the presence of the philosophers. Whatever the case, I could keep going on in this vein, but I am wasting my breath and using up parchment and ink. For I am like someone who finds himself in a forest or a wilderness; when he sees thick woods, dark and shadowy places, and impenetrable thickets before him, he doesn’t know where to go or what route to follow, and he can only find his way back to civilization via a safe path. In a similar fashion I embarked, on the perils of the deep as it were, in order to give an account of the holy bishops of this see of Ravenna, and as the stormy tempest contended with me, I was harried by the waters of the whole abyss and the seething of the sea-blue waves. But I am not afraid now, because I am protected by your prayers, and the Lord is with me, who is blessed for all eternity. By your charity I shall proceed to the task mentioned above, which I undertook at your urging. For previously I suggested to your ears that I ought to do something with the information that had been given to me about the see of Ravenna. If, perhaps, I have made a mistake, then forgive me. The collector of a debt ought not cause trouble when it is about to be repaid. But in all of this let us bless God the Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit, who lives and reigns for all eternity. Amen.

39 E rchempert, H istory of the Lombards of Benevento In the late 880s Erchempert, a monk of Monte Cassino, wrote a continuation of Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards focusing on the independent Lombard duchy of Benevento. Erchempert’s history spans a little over a century, beginning with Charlemagne’s conquest of Lombardy in 774 and breaking off in 888/889 in the aftermath of a battle fought near Brescia between Wido of Spoleto and Berengar of Friuli, rival claimants to the throne of Italy. Erchempert came from a noble Lombard family and probably entered Monte Cassino after 881. He evidently rose to a position of some prominence, because in 887 Abbot Angelar sent him to Rome to persuade Pope Stephen V to intervene on behalf of the monastery in a dispute with the gastald (a Lombard title equivalent to count) of Capua. Erchempert declares in the prologue that his subject will be weakness and decline, and his gloomy outlook reflects the turmoil and political instability that afflicted Italy in the ninth century. The duchy of Benevento was weakened by internal disputes over the succession, and Muslim raiders from North Africa and Sicily took advantage of the 120

two: The Early Mi ddle Age s (50 0–9 0 0 CE) political disunity to raid along the Tyrrhenian coast with impunity. Monte Cassino was destroyed in a raid in 883, forcing the monks to relocate first to Teano in Campania and then to Capua. Erchempert himself fell victim to this disorder on two occasions that he describes in his history. In 881 he was captured in a raid led by the gastald of Capua, and in 886 he and other monks from Monte Cassino were captured and robbed by Neapolitan Greeks. Of his reasons for writing, Erchempert tells us only that he was urged to do so by “a number of people” (presumably his monastic brethren) and that he did so for the instruction of posterity. Like Agnellus, he cites the evangelists Mark and Luke to justify the use of oral tradition in place of eyewitness testimony. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum, ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI-IX (Hanover: Hahn, 1878), pp. 234–35.

Paul, a man of great learning, wrote about the lineage of the Lombards, their migration, and the location of their kingdom (that is, their origins, how they left the island of Scandinavia for Pannonia, and how they migrated again from Pannonia to Italy, where they established their realm) with compendious brevity, yet in a well thought-out fashion, extending his history from Gambara and her two children down almost as far as the reign of Ratchis [r. 744–749]. It was not by chance that he broke off his narrative here, because during this period the kingdom of the Lombards came to an end. For it is the custom of the learned historian, particularly when dealing with his own race, to relate only those things that are acknowledged to contribute to the increase of glory. Ultimately, I, Erchempert, was prevailed upon by a number people to produce a short history of the Lombards of Benevento from around the time of the beginning [of the principality], and in particular from the time of the renowned and wise Adelchis [r. 854–878]. In these days nothing worthy and deserving of praise can be found about them that can be set down truthfully in writing. For this reason, heaving up deep sighs from the bottom of my heart, I shall proceed to describe for the instruction of posterity—albeit in an abbreviated and unpolished style—their destruction rather than their rule, misery rather than prosperity, ruin instead of triumph, how they declined rather than how they flourished, and how they were defeated and conquered instead of how they conquered others. Having been worn down at last by these entreaties, I acknowledge that I am not relating what I saw with my eyes so much as what I drew in with my ears, having to some degree at least followed the example of the proclamations of the evangelists Mark and Luke, who described the good news of what they heard, rather than what they saw.

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4 0 Reg i n o of Prüm, C hronicle In the ninth century the Carolingian Empire was undermined internally by quarreling among the heirs of Charlemagne and threatened from outside by Viking raiders. The steady devolution of power away from the center meant that when the last Carolingian emperor, Charles the Fat, was deposed in November of 887, the empire fragmented into separate kingdoms (East and West Francia, Lotharingia, Italy, Burgundy, and Provence), in each of which non-Carolingian rulers soon came to the throne. Among the most important historical witnesses to the dissolution of the empire is the Chronicle of Regino of Prüm. We know little about Regino’s background, although a sixteenthcentury source says that he came from an aristocratic family at Altrip, near Speyer. As a young man he entered the richly endowed and politically important monastery of Prüm, in Lotharingia, where he rose to become abbot in 892. Regino was removed from this position in 899 as a consequence of political infighting, and he took refuge in Trier, where he was appointed abbot of Saint-Martin by Archbishop Ratbod and remained until his death in 915. Regino used his time at Trier to write three important literary works: a treatise on music (De harmonica institutione) with an accompanying book of liturgical chant, a collection of canons to be used by bishops in their diocesan visitations (De synodalibus causis), and the Chronicle, which he dedicated to Bishop Adalbero of Augsburg in 908. Book 1 of Regino’s Chronicle begins with the Incarnation and ends with the death of Charles Martel in 741. Book 2 begins with a lengthy excerpt from the Royal Frankish Annals and continues to 906. In the preface, however, Regino states that he carried the work down to 908. The most likely explanation for this discrepancy is that he expunged his entries for the years 907 and 908 out of political expediency, a hypothesis strengthened by his claim that he held back while writing in order to avoid offending certain people. We know that he also removed a large part of his entry for the year 892 dealing with his expulsion from Trier for the same reason. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Reginonis abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon cum continuatione Treverensi, ed. Friedrich Kurze, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1890), pp. 1–2.

To lord bishop Adalbero, a man of surperior intelligence distinguished many times over for his studies in every branch of philosophy, Regino, albeit the 123

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r least among the worshippers of Christ, yet supremely devoted to your loftiness in all things, sends the faithful obeisance of his words. I have sent to your singular wisdom for examination the chronicle that I have written concerning our own era and that of our predecessors so that it may be approved or condemned by your penetrating judgment. I have divided it into two books, beginning with the first year of the Lord’s Incarnation and bringing the work that I have undertaken to a close in the current year, which is reckoned as the nine-hundred-and-eighth since the aforementioned Incarnation of the Lord. For I thought it unseemly that while the historians of the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, and other peoples have handed down in writing the history of their own eras so that they have become known to us, there is a continuous silence about our own era, even though it is much more recent. It is as if men have ceased to do anything in our own day, or perhaps they have accomplished nothing worth committing to memory, or if anything worthy of remembrance has been achieved, no one qualified to commit it to writing has been found because writers have become negligent and listless from inactivity. For this reason, I could not allow our era and that of our fathers to pass by wholly untouched, so instead I undertook to note down a few things out of many, and when I had arrived at the present day I exercised restraint with my pen in order not to offend certain people who are still living, leaving these matters to be pursued in more detail by posterity. Receive, therefore, this modest little offering with a kindness equal to the devotion with which my insignificance sent it. In closing, I beseech the reader, if these words of ours (of whatever sort they are) have pleased him and he wishes to have them written down for himself, not under any circumstances to omit this brief preface, but instead to take care to have it copied down at the very beginning of the book. May heavenly providence deign to preserve unimpaired the glory of your highness for a long time so that it may redound to the benefit of the multitude.

41 O do of C l u ny, L ife of S aint G erald of Aurillac Odo of Cluny was born near Le Mans in 878/879 and educated at the court of Duke William the Pious of Aquitaine. Before 900 he became a canon of Saint-Martin at Tours, and he later professed as a monk, abandoning the secular life for which he had been trained. Around 909 he entered the monastery of Baume, whose abbot, Berno, became the first abbot of Cluny upon its foundation by Duke William in 910. Odo succeeded Berno as abbot of Cluny in 927 and over the next fifteen years established himself as the most powerful and influential monastic leader in the Latin West. Around 930 he paid a visit 124

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) to the tomb of Count Gerald of Aurillac (ca 855–909), a nobleman from the Auvergne region of southern France, at the monastery of Tulle in the diocese of Limoges, and he subsequently wrote a four-book biography of Gerald attesting to his holiness. As a secular aristocrat, Gerald was an unlikely candidate for a saint’s life. Odo’s biography, the first such hagiographical account of a layman, was intended to serve as a model of sanctity for men in similar positions of power, some of whom sought to use Gerald’s status as a saint to justify their own worldly excesses. Although he maintained the status of a secular lord, Gerald’s way of life—in Odo’s telling—was monastic. He avoided bloodshed (urging his men to fight with the hilts of their swords), shunned relationships with women, and cultivated monastic discipline, reciting the psalter daily and preferring quiet meals with clerics to the feasting characteristic of the aristocracy. Odo’s dedicatory epistle is addressed to Aimo, abbot first of Tulle and then of SaintMartial of Limoges (937–943), and brother of Bishop Turpio of Limoges (897–944), whom Odo claims was one of the many people who urged him to write. In the preface Odo stresses to a degree as yet unusual in sacred biography the efforts he took to establish the truth about Gerald’s life. He describes his preface as “apologetic” because he is defending the controversial proposition that a rich and powerful secular lord could also exhibit holiness. Odo’s reference in the dedicatory epistle to material about Gerald that he is leaving out in order to avoid a “transgression” may be a reference to information that he learned at Aurillac (of which he was also abbot) after his visit to Tulle. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Vita sancti Geraldi Auriliacensis comitis, ed. in J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 133, cols. 639A–642C, 667D–670B.

Dedicatory Epistle To the lord abbot Aimo, who is to be recalled with affection for his merits, Odo, a fellow servant of the brethren, wishing you eternal salvation in Christ. I am setting to work as best I can on the little book about the life and miracles of the blessed Gerald that you recently urged me to write with such imperiousness, although I have some trepidation. For even in doing so I fear being presumptuous, as though exceeding the bounds of my abilities, whereas in failing to do so I fear being obstinate for disobeying you. Trusting, however, in the obedience and goodness of Christ, I ask you to implore his mercy so that out of love for his servant Gerald he will deign to see to it that this account is not completely unworthy of the man whom he designated for glory, and that it is not a cause of transgression for me. In order to avoid such a transgression, I am passing over certain matters that you will perhaps take issue with, recounting instead only those things that were divulged to me by reliable authorities while you were also present. Farewell.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Preface Many people are in the habit of doubting whether the stories told about the blessed Gerald are true, among whom are some who think it is all made-up and completely untrue. Others, as if seeking excuses for their own sins, extol him uncritically, claiming that Gerald was powerful and rich and lived a life of luxury, but for all that he was still holy. Not surprisingly, they try to justify their own decadent lifestyle by his example. For this reason, we thought it appropriate to offer them a brief response, insofar as we are capable of doing so. For although we had heard the reports of his miracles for a long time, we nonetheless entertained doubts about them, chiefly because in certain places, through of rumors of one sort or another, crowds of people have recently been gathering and then slowly dwindling away, as though there were nothing to it. But when a reason demanded that we pay a visit to the brotherhood of the monastery of Tulle, we were happy to go to his tomb. At that time we summoned four men from among those whom he had fostered—the monk Hugh and the priest Hildebert, as well as Witard and another Hildebert, who were noble laymen—in addition to a great many other people, and we inquired into his character and the nature of his life in this way: sometimes together and sometimes separately, we zealously scrutinized what each person said and whether their accounts agreed with one another, silently weighing up whether his life was such that it had been consistent with the performance of miracles. But after learning how piously he lived and how God gave many signs to show that he was in his grace we could no longer doubt his holiness. We are more astonished that in this our age, when charity has almost wholly gone cold and the time of the Antichrist draws near, the miracles of the saints should have ceased. But it is not surprising that God is mindful of the promise that he makes through Jeremiah: “I will not cease to do my people good” [ Jer. 32:40]. The apostle also bears witness to his generosity, declaring that God does not leave himself without a witness in any era, but fills the hearts of men with gladness through his beneficence [compare Acts 14:16]. If, therefore, it pleases his divine goodness that he who worked wondrous deeds with the fathers should also be glorified in our era, then there is no reason that we should withhold belief. Nor is it surprising that this divine dispensation should act in our own era through a man of the present day, because all the things previously done and said by the saints have receded “from our hearts as one dead” [Ps. 30:13]. Just like in the days of Noah, when this man of God was found who lived according to the law, God established him as a witness to those who beheld him, so that when they saw that how righteously and devoutly he lived, the vision of their heart would remain fixed on this nearby beacon, as it were, and stive to imitate

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thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) him. Nor should the keeping of God’s commands be considered burdensome or impossible, since we can see that they were obeyed by a powerful layman. Now nothing is worse for fostering mental laziness than the failure to reflect now on the recompense for good and bad works that awaits us after this life. Against this scripture warns us that in all of our works we should be mindful of our final end. For this reason, the same servant whom God rewards in heaven he also exalts on earth in the face of those who despise him, so that through what is done externally those who reject God might perceive internally that he who serves God does not do so in vain, but as God testifies, he will glorify those who glorify him and cast out the wicked men who despise him. Since we believe that this man of God was given to serve as an example to the powerful, let them observe him as though he were close at hand and imitate a member of their own order who has been set over them, lest perchance God condemn them in his judgment, like the queen of the South did the Jews [Luke 11:31, Matt. 12:42]. As for us, where the opportunity has presented itself, we are using his deeds as an occasion to compose something in the way of an admonition to these same powerful men, just as you requested. So also the lord bishop Turpio, the venerable and most beloved abbot Abbo, and a great many other people compelled me by the force of their requests to undertake this project. Although I pleaded my genuine want of skill as an excuse, they said that they would prefer for these things to be related in an uncultivated style. Reflecting also that an ostentatious narrative ill befits a humble man, I have placed my trust in the words of witnesses who did not report much in the way of the miracles that the crowd values so highly, but rather his disciplined way of life and not a few of the works of mercy that please the Lord. For on judgment day the King will say to many who prophesied and many who did meritorious deeds, “I know you not” [Matt. 25:12]. But those who devote themselves to justice, in which Gerald flourished exceedingly, will hear “Come, ye blessed of my father” [Matt. 25:34]. And in truth is he not attested to have accomplished the same sorts of deeds for which Job, David, Tobias, and many others are blessed? Taking these things into account, therefore, I have been persuaded to believe that Gerald is worthy of the company of the saints and that the heavenly judge sees fit to work miracles through him. In devising this apologetic preface, we have spoken at some length. Now, in the name of Christ, let us come to the beginning of our account. In the preface to book 2, Odo addresses several groups of people who hold incorrect beliefs about Gerald: those who doubt his sanctity, monks who seek to use his holiness as a justification for adopting elements of the secular lifestyle, those who deny that he deserves the status of martyr or confessor, and those who demand miracles as evidence of his holiness.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Preface to Book 2 A careful examination of the nature of Gerald’s life should be sufficient to satisfy those who rashly dispute his merits. For they weigh up whether he ought to be called a saint or not, as though seated upon a tribunal, whereas in fact this depends on divine judgment, which frequently uses even the reprobate to give signs for the benefit of the virtuous. Therefore, proof of the miracles that Christ deigned to work through him while he was alive and after his death ought to satisfy these people. And as for those who proclaim boastfully that Gerald was a powerful man and is also a saint, we urge them not to congratulate themselves on this account, since unless they are poor in spirit, and, like him, temper their power with devotion, their little house will not be able to stand. To the contrary, they will be convicted by comparison with him, since they could have lived righteously like him but chose not to do so. As for those gluttons and drunkards (to speak of some of those who profess the religious life) who, by way of fashioning excuses for themselves in their sinfulness, are in the habit of saying when they are in their cups that Gerald ate meat and is a saint, their [monastic] profession openly refutes them. For many things are permitted to a layman that are not permitted to a monk. Adam was condemned not because he ate fruit from the tree in paradise, but because he presumed to do what was forbidden. Gerald, for his part, was within his rights to take advantage of the privileges of his order, since he also abstained from what was forbidden and took his meals with the poor. For he knew that wine was created for sobriety. For Elijah, too, ate meat and was worthy to be transported to paradise, whereas Esau, through the desire that goads many people, lost his birthright in exchange for a pottage of lentils [Gen. 25:34]. The circumstances are different, therefore, between Gerald and these people. As for those who rant that he ought to be called neither martyr nor confessor, they should know that he can be called both, and not only him, but everyone who bears the cross by resisting sin and glorifies God by doing good works. For in truth God is confessed by works, as John testifies: “And by this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments” [1 John 2:3]. And he is also denied by works, as the apostle declares of certain people: “They profess that they know God: but in their works they deny him” [Tit. 1:16]. Since, therefore, the word “confessor” (confessor) derives from “confessing” (confitendo), and God is either denied or confessed through works, the more just the works through which Gerald confessed God, the more rightly he can be called a confessor. But as for those who act like Jews and ask for signs, what do they make of John the Baptist, who, we read, produced no sign after his birth? For although this man [Gerald] is not completely lacking in miracles, our only 128

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) response is this: that because he did not place his hope in money and treasures, he performed, as it is written, “wondrous things in his life” [Sir. 31:8–9].

4 2 F lodoard, History of the Church of Rheims Flodoard (894–966), a priest and canon of the cathedral of Rheims, wrote two of the most important works of tenth-century Latin historiography: Annals covering the years 919–966, and the monumental History of the Church of Rheims, which extends from the legendary founding of the city of Rheims by Remus to the year 948. Flodoard began work on the latter in the aftermath of the synod of Ingelheim (7–9 June 948), which brought an end to a long-running dispute over the archbishopric of Rheims that had led to serious personal consequences for the author. In 925 Count Heribert II of Vermandois arranged for his five-year-old son Hugh to be elected archbishop of Rheims. Flodoard refused to participate in the uncanonical election and was stripped of his prebends as a result. In 932 the West Frankish king Radulf deposed Hugh and replaced him with a new bishop, Artald, on whose behalf Flodoard traveled to Rome in 936/937. In 940 Artald was expelled from Rheims by Heribert, and Flodoard, now suspect for having served Artald, was placed under temporary house arrest. He had evidently reconciled himself to Hugh by 941, but Hugh was expelled from Rheims in 946 and Artald re-established in the see. The dispute dragged on for another two years and was only resolved at the synod of Ingelheim, which deposed Hugh and established Artald once and for all. Flodoard was present at Ingelheim with Artald, and after the conclusion of the synod he spent four weeks in the retinue of Archbishop Ruotbert of Trier. Shortly thereafter he began work on his history, which he finished at some point between 952 and 954. The dedicatee of the prologue, whom Flodoard addresses only as “R.,” is usually assumed to be Ruotbert, although Bishop Rorico of Laon has also been suggested as a candidate. In the prologue Flodoard expresses the fear that his dedicatee will still find errors in his work and asks that he correct them. This is a standard prefatory topos, but in this case Flodoard’s anxiety may well have been real. His reference to scribes suggests that he set down his work by dictation, a process that inevitably led to the introduction of errors into a text. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Flodoardus Remensis: Historia Remensis ecclesiae, ed. Martina Stratmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores in Folio, vol. 36 (Hanover: Hahn, 1998), p. 57.

To the venerable and renowned lord bishop R., much beloved in the charity of Christ, Flodoard, a servant of your great beneficence, wishes every joy of the holy virtues in Christ. Spurred by the frequent goading of your reminders, I have at last shaken off the torpor of my slothful idleness and abandoned the preoccupations of my 129

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r various concerns, and I am turning over to the expertise of your ardent devotion the fourfold work of my labor assembled from various places and arranged in chapters just as you deigned to command me, that is the book of the history of our church of Rheims. Do not wonder if I beseech your lofty sanctity concerning my delay in complying with your request, because I have been hindered by various duties, confined by the winter frost of an icy cold, and hampered by a lack of scribes. Nor is it surprising that the delays in correcting my work are causing me considerable fear, because some ancient writers are said to have spent more time in retractions than in publishing their work. Yet not even now do I think that I have completely eliminated all of my mistakes, and if any of the author’s errors are still to be found, then your keen diligence will be able to expunge them. For I do not judge myself to be such a meticulous proofreader that I should be unwilling to endure it if I found a corrector more thorough in removing mistakes. Therefore, because the love that belongs to your holiness has grown up so profusely around my own limited capabilities, I have considered this fruit of my labor worthy to entrust to the protection of your patronage, so that what has been said in darkness by my own lowliness might be spoken in the light by the loftiness of your diligence.

43 L iu dpr an d of Cremon a, Antapodosis While Flodoard’s work is characterized by careful archival research and sober reliability, his contemporary Liudprand of Cremona (ca 920–972) is known for the highly personal tone of his two most famous works, the Antapodosis, or “Retribution” (962), and the Embassy to Constantinople (968/969). Born into a prominent Lombard family, Liudprand entered the palace school of King Hugh of Arles at Pavia in 931. When Hugh was forced to cede power to Berengar II, marquis of Ivrea, in 945, Liudprand’s stepfather secured him a position as a chancery official with Berengar, who became king after the death of Hugh’s son Lothar in November of 950. Shortly after returning from a diplomatic mission to Constantinople on behalf of Berengar in 949, Liudprand had a falling out with him and fled north of the Alps to seek patronage from King Otto I of Germany, whose court was to become a haven for Berengar’s opponents. It was at Otto’s court at Frankfurt in 956 that Liudprand met the dedicatee of the Antapodosis, Recemund, bishop of Elvira, a Spanish Christian who was serving as ambassador for the Umayyad Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III. Liudprand began work on the Antapodosis in 958 and finished it in 962, the year of Otto’s imperial coronation. By that time he had been appointed bishop of Cremona, a reward for his loyal service and a sign of his closeness to the emperor. In addition to the Antapodosis and the Embassy, Liudprand wrote two other works that we know of: the History of Otto (965), a short treatise defending Otto’s occupation of Italy and 130

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) interference in papal politics between 961 and 964, and an Easter homily (before 961) in which he refutes the arguments of an unnamed Jewish interlocutor. Like his father and stepfather before him, Liudprand served as an envoy to Byzantium, and he made at least three, and probably four, trips to the East. A twelfth-century source says that he died during a diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 971/972, a journey that brought back the Byzantine princess Theophanu as a bride for Otto II. In the prologue (proemium) to book 1 of the Antapodosis, Liudprand implies that he undertook the work in response to a request from Recemund, who asked him to write about “the deeds of the emperors and kings of Europe.” In the introduction to book 3, however, he implies by way of explaining the meaning of the title Antapodosis that his purpose in writing was to repay Berengar and his wife Willa for their crimes against him and his family, leaving us to decide whether Liudprand’s purpose in writing changed over time, or whether Recemund’s request was a fiction. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Liudprandi Cremonensis Opera, ed. Paolo Chiesa, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 156 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 5–6, 68, 145.

To the reverend lord Recemund, bishop of the church of Elvira, one who is filled with all holiness, Liudprand, a deacon of the church of Pavia not by his own merits, sends greetings. Because of the meagerness of my talent, dearest father, I put off for two years the request by which you urged me to set down the deeds of the emperors and kings of Europe, as one who was reliable by virtue of being an eyewitness rather than suspect for relying on hearsay. What discouraged me and prevented me from getting started was my almost total lack of eloquence and the malice of my critics, who, swollen with pride but disinclined to read, and—in the words of the learned Boethius—possessing a scrap of the robe of Philosophy but thinking that they have the whole thing [Consolation of Philosophy 1.3], will insolently tell me, “Our predecessors have written so much that we will much sooner run out of readers than things to read.” And they will jabber the comic line: “There is nothing to be said that has not already been said” [Terence, Eunuchus, 41]. My response to their barking is this: like those afflicted with dropsy, who become more thirsty the more that they drink, the more that philosophers read, the more eagerly they seek out new material. So if they are worn out by the difficulty of reading the eloquent Cicero, at least they can revive their spirits with these sorts of amusements. For if I am not mistaken, just as the eye is blinded when struck by the rays of the sun, unless some object is placed in the way so that it is not beheld at full strength, so also the mind is weakened by constant meditation on the doctrines of the Academics, the Peripatetics, and the Stoics, unless it is refreshed by the salubrious laughter of comedies or the entertaining tales of heroes. In this regard, if the detestable 131

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r rite of the ancient pagans (which, I maintain, not only serves no purpose, but is more than a little dangerous even to hear about) is copied into books to be preserved, why should there be silence about the wars of emperors whose deeds are worthy to be compared to the praises of the renowned generals Julius, Pompey, Hannibal and his brother Hasdrubal, and Scipio Africanus, especially because as long as they lived holy lives, the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be recalled in them, whereas to the extent that they committed any transgressions, the helpful correction of the Lord is called to mind? Nor should anyone be provoked if I have included in this little volume the deeds of enervated kings or effeminate princes. For it is one and the same righteous power of almighty God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that justly punishes some for their sins and exalts others for the worthiness of their merits. This, I declare, is the true promise of our Lord Jesus Christ to the saints: “Pay heed and listen to my voice, and I will be an enemy to your enemies, and will afflict those that afflict you, and my angel shall go before you” [Ex. 23:21–23]. Through Solomon, wisdom, which is Christ, also cries out: “The whole world shall fight for him against the unwise” [Wis. 5:21]. Even one who is snoozing recognizes that this happens every day. But to supply one obvious example from many, I will be silent and let the stronghold of Fraxinetum, which is located on the border between the Italians and the inhabitants of Provence, speak. [Liudprand goes on to describe the establishment of Fraxinetum as a base for Arab piracy and raiding.] In the introduction to book 3, which he wrote on the island of Paxos off the western coast of Greece ca 960, probably while on a diplomatic mission for Otto, Liudprand explains the meaning of the title Antapodosis. I do not doubt that you are surprised at the title of this work, most holy father. You might be saying, “Since it describes the deeds of eminent men, why is it given the title of Antapodosis?” My response is that the aim of this work is to point out, exhibit, and cry aloud the deeds of that Berengar who now rules as tyrant rather than king in Italy, and his wife Willa, who is a second Jezebel on account of the enormity of her despotism, and who bears the epithet “Lamia” because of her insatiable desire for plunder. So great are the barbs of their falsehoods, so great is the ruination caused by their thefts, so great is the scale of the impiety that they have perpetrated without justification against me and my household—both relatives and dependents—that my tongue lacks the power to speak and my pen to write about it. Let the present work, therefore, serve as retribution (antapodosis) for them, since in return for my sufferings I shall lay bare for present and future generations their asevian, that is, their impiety. At the same time it will also serve as recompense (antapodosis) to holy and blessed men for the favors that they have bestowed upon me. In truth, out of those 132

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) people who have been mentioned or will be mentioned there is no one—or hardly anyone—to be found, with the sole exception of the nefarious Berengar, for whose favors my forebears or I, their offspring, would not be emphatically grateful. Finally, my present exile shows that this little booklet was written in ti echmalosia, that is, in captivity or wandering. For I began it at Frankfurt, which is a place twenty miles from Mainz, and it is being worked on down to the present day on the island of Paxos, which is more than 900 miles from Constantinople. But let us return to the matter at hand. Book 6 of the Antapodosis is devoted to Liudprand’s diplomatic mission to Constantinople on behalf of Berengar in 949. In the introduction, Liudprand reflects on the trials that he has endured since exiling himself from Italy. The nature of the present age would demand that I be a writer of tragedy rather than history, were it not that “the Lord prepared a table before me against those who afflict me” [Ps. 22:5]. For I cannot recount the number of misfortunes that have battered me since I set out for foreign parts, and weeping suits the outer man better than writing. But the inner man, strengthened by the teachings of the apostle, takes pride in such tribulations, “knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience trial, and trial hope. And hope confounds not, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” [Rom. 5:3–5]. Let the outer man obey the inner, therefore, and not only not shrink from his misfortunes, but find repose in them instead. And when, in devoting himself to writing, he declares that some people have been raised up and others brought low by the wheel of fortune, he will feel his present troubles less, and rejoicing in its mutability, he will no longer fear worse things to come (which is impossible except in the case of death or the maiming of limbs) but always await better fortune. For if it changes his present circumstances, it will bring the prosperity that is absent and drive away his current misfortunes. Let him write, therefore, and add to previous events a true account of what comes afterwards.

4 4 H rotsv i t ha of G ander s he im, T he D eeds of Otto Hrotsvitha (ca 935–after 968), a canoness of the royal abbey of Gandersheim in Saxony, was the most prolific female author of the tenth century and one of the most important of the Middle Ages. In a remarkable burst of literary activity between 962 and 968 she wrote a book of versified saints’ lives (Legends), a collection of seven original plays modeled on Terence, a poetic chronicle of the history of Gandersheim, and The Deeds of Otto, an 133

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r epic poem of 1511 lines (of which 837 survive) commissioned by Gerberga, the abbess of Gandersheim, as a panegyric on the emperor Otto I. Hrotsvitha was a skilled writer of prefaces and deploys familiar topoi in subtle and sophisticated ways. Peter Dronke has shown how the extravagant protestations of humility and womanly weakness found in the general preface to the Legends and in the preface and introductory epistle to the plays were, in fact, a kind of “literary coquetry,” a way of subtly justifying and demanding respect for her work. In the prose preface to The Deeds of Otto (there are also two verse prefaces addressed to Otto I and Otto II, respectively), Hrotsvitha addresses the difficulties she faces in writing an epic poem, in particular her lack of an authoritative written source. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Hrotsvit: Opera Omnia, ed. Walter Berschin, Bibliotheca scriptorum graecorum et romanorum Teubneriana (Munich and Leipzig: W.G. Saur, 2001), pp. 271–73.

To the renowned abbess Gerberga, who is accorded reverent obedience as much for her conspicuous integrity as for the distinguished lineage of her royal birth, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, the least of the least of those who serve under the authority of so great a figure, wishes what a servant owes to her mistress. My lady, you who shine brightly with the resplendent diversity of spiritual wisdom, let it not become irksome to your beneficence to read over what I have carried out (as you are not unaware) at your command. For it was you who imposed upon me the task of recounting in verse the deeds of exalted Caesar, although I could never gather sufficient material from oral report. You may judge for yourself how much difficulty my ignorance encountered in toiling to make progress, since I was unable to find this information set down previously in writing or draw it out of anyone in speech in an organized fashion and to a satisfactory degree. To the contrary, it is as if an inexperienced person were going to set out across the expanse of an unknown forest where every path was covered up and concealed by thick snow, without any guide and led only by the indications of those who had pointed the way beforehand, sometimes wandering by side paths and sometimes happening upon the right path by accident, until at last, having passed through the midst of the dense forest, he found a place of welcome rest, and planting his foot did not venture to go any further until someone else came along to lead him or he could follow the tracks of one who had gone before him. In the same way I, having been ordered to enter upon a vast expanse of glorious deeds, have traversed the profusion of royal exploits with the greatest of difficulty, wavering and hesitating as I went, and now, completely worn out by these exertions, I am stopping to rest in a suitable place, nor do I intend to approach the loftiness of the supreme title of emperor without guidance. For if I were inspired by the eloquent pronouncements of eminently learned men, which I have no doubt have recently been written or soon will be on 134

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) this topic, then perhaps I could find a way to conceal my lack of sophistication for a time. Now, however, the less that every side of this work is supported by any authority, the more vulnerable it is. Hence I fear that I will be accused of impertinence and that I will not escape the snares of reproof from many people because I have presumed to dishonor with the baseness of my uncultivated speech that which ought to have been expounded with the stately eloquence of elegant refinement. If, however, it were to meet with the consideration of a sound mind that was not incapable of judging things correctly, then to the degree that my sex is weaker and inferior in knowledge, pardon would be all the more forthcoming, especially since I undertook to lay the warp of this little work not out of my own presumption, but on your orders. But why do I fear the judgment of others, when I am only answerable to your criticism if I have made a mistake? And why would I be unable to avoid reproof, when I need only devote myself to being silent in order not to be justly reproached on every side, as I would if I wished for a sequence [of verses] to be made public that because of its worthlessness ought not to be shown to anyone? But however it may turn out, I leave it to be evaluated by the judgment of you and your intimate acquaintance Archbishop William [of Mainz], to whom you have decreed that this unrefined piece of work should be presented.

45 Wi d u k i nd of Corvey, S ax on H istory The writing of history and secular biography declined precipitously in Germany after the collapse of the Carolingian empire, but these genres experienced a resurgence during the so-called Ottonian Renaissance of the second half of the tenth century. Liudprand and Hrotsvitha were two of the leading lights of this literary revival. Another was Widukind, a monk of Corvey in Saxony whose Saxon History is a key source for the reigns of Henry the Fowler (r. 919–936) and Otto I (r. 936–973) and an important repository of oral traditions about the early Saxons. Widukind’s history combines elements of national history and royal history, dealing with the origins and early history of the Saxon people in book 1, and recounting the deeds of Otto I in books 2 and 3. We know little about Widukind, but he was almost certainly a member of the Saxon aristocracy, for whom the monastery of Corvey was a favored destination for younger sons. He was most likely a descendant of the famous eighth-century Saxon leader Widukind, who led the resistance to Charlemagne’s efforts to conquer and convert the Saxons. At the beginning of book 1 Widukind refers to his earlier composition of saints’ lives (and a later source mentions a Passion of Thecla and a Life of Paul the Hermit), but these works do not survive. The extant manuscripts show that the Saxon History was written in three stages. Widukind completed the earliest version by 967/968, intending it for the internal use of the monastery of Corvey. In 968 he dedicated a revised version (which contained the three prefaces) to 135

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Mathilda, the eleven-year-old daughter of Otto I, who had been appointed abbess of Quedlingburg in 966. After the death of Otto I, Widukind also produced a third version that carried the work down to 973. In the preface to book 1 Widukind invokes the exemplary function of history, noting that by studying the deeds of her glorious ancestors, Mathilda herself could become still more glorious. Gerd Althoff has suggested that Widukind’s intention was to offer practical instruction to Mathilda, who, with her father and brother (the future Otto II) away in Italy, was the only member of the Saxon royal house north of the Alps from 968 to 972. In the first chapter of book 1, however, Widukind states that he undertook the Saxon History out of devotion to his people (gens) and his kin-group (genus). Source: trans. Justin Lake from Rerum gestarum Saxonicarum libri tres, eds. Paul Hirsch and H.-E. Lohmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1935), pp. 1–2, 61, 100–01.

Preface to Book 1 To Lady Mathilda, who is resplendent with the bloom of virginity, imperial majesty, and singular wisdom, the least of the lowly servants of the martyrs of Christ Stephen and Vitus, Widukind of Corvey, offers you the most devoted service of complete obedience and wishes you true salvation in our Savior. Although you are exalted by the singular glory of your father’s power and adorned by wisdom that is widely renowned, our lowliness nonetheless presumes from the mercy that is always near to the throne that our devotion will be received by your piety, even if it does not deserve it. For when you have read about the deeds of your most powerful father and your most glorious grandfather, which have been entrusted to memory by my labor, being now excellent and supremely glorious, you will be in a position to become even better and more glorious. We acknowledge, nonetheless, that we cannot describe all of their deeds, and we are writing in a compendious and piecemeal fashion so that our account will be clear to the reader and not become tiresome. I have also undertaken to write briefly on the origin and circumstances of the people over whom the great lord Henry was the first to rule, so that by reading these things you may obtain some diversion and relief from your cares and devote yourself to a pleasing leisure. Therefore, may your resplendence read this book in memory of us, with a piety equal to the devotion with which we wrote it. Preface to Book 2 May the great work that I am about to begin, or at least revisit (since a large part of it has already been completed) be supported by your grace, since you 136

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) are recognized to be the rightful queen of all of Europe, although your father’s power already extends to Africa and Asia. For I hope that if anything unsuitable is found within, it will be mitigated by the glorious leniency of your mercy and that [this work] will remain dedicated with the same devotion with which it was undertaken. Preface to Book 3 Just as the appearance of heaven and earth and the voices, faces, and customs of men differ in a thousand ways in harmonious variation, yet are ruled by the direction of the one light and one mind of God who rules all things by providence, so too for those who are involved in public or private affairs the imperial glory, which brought you forth to the world as a most serene ornament and a most brilliant jewel, is the sole arbiter of justice and standard of correct behavior. I humbly beg, therefore, that this product of our labor, which will be received differently by those of different habits because it lacks brilliance of conception and style, may be received into the bosom of your glorious mercy, and that in it you will pay more regard to our devotion than our lack of wisdom.

4 6 H er iger of Lobbes, L ife of R emaclus/ the D eeds of the Bishops of L iè ge In the second half of the tenth century, the schools of Liège acquired a prominence virtually unrivaled in the Latin West. The intellectual luminary Rather of Verona was educated at Lobbes, a monastery under the temporal control of the see of Liège, and served briefly as bishop (953–955). Bishop Eraclius (959–971), a former student of Rather’s, founded schools throughout the diocese and promoted the study of the liberal arts. It was Eraclius’s successor Notker (972–1008), however, who brought Liège to its greatest flowering as an intellectual center. A Swabian of noble background who served in the chancery of Otto I, Notker was a devoted servant of the Ottonian emperors and an able and energetic scholar, administrator, and diplomat. After his appointment as bishop in 972, he devoted himself to building a new cathedral and new churches, oversaw the improvement of the schools of his diocese, and made the cathedral school of Liège a training ground for future bishops. Such was Notker’s reputation for erudition that on more than one occasion monastic communities requested that he lend his name to the composition or revision of saints’ lives. Between 972 and 980 Werinfred, abbot of the monastery of Stavelot, wrote to Notker, asking him to oversee the expansion and revision of the ninth-century life of the monastery’s patron, Saint Remaclus (d. 669/679). Notker assigned the task to his close friend and confidant Heriger, the schoolmaster (scholasticus) at Lobbes, whom he 137

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r later appointed abbot. Heriger was himself a versatile and prolific scholar. He wrote at least three hagiographical works (the revised Life of Remaclus, the Metrical Life of Ursmar of Lobbes, and the Life, Translations, and Miracles of Landoald, Landrada, and their Companions), and an episcopal history—The Deeds of the Bishops of Liège —as well as mathematical and chronological works and a treatise on the Eucharist. The prologue to the Life of Remaclus takes the form of a letter written from Notker to Werinfred, though it was actually written by Heriger. The letter’s most striking feature is the number of quotations from classical and late antique authors, a reflection of the flourishing school culture that Notker had helped to foster in his diocese. So dense is the tissue of quotations, in fact, that the prologue to the Life of Remaclus has been described as a cento, a type of composition constructed by stitching together fragments of other works. In the letter Heriger (writing as Notker) claims to have written a complete history of the bishops of Liège and to have excerpted the Life of Remaclus from this larger work for the benefit of Werinfred and the monks of Stavelot. In reality, Heriger probably wrote the Life of Remaclus first and then imported it wholesale into his Deeds of the Bishops of Liège, of which it forms the final section. Not only did he reproduce unchanged the narrative of Remaclus’s life, he also used the same introductory letter as a prologue to both works. A revised version of this same letter also serves as the introduction to the Life of Saint Landoald that Heriger wrote for Notker in response to a request from Abbot Womar of Saint-Bavo at Ghent. Notker’s letter to Womar dates the completion of this work to June of 980, which provides a terminus ante quem for both the Life of Remaclus and The Deeds of the Bishops of Liège. Source: trans. Justin Lake, from Vita Remacli, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, vol. 5 (Hanover: Hahn, 1910), pp. 109–11.

Notker, who, although an unworthy servant of Saint Mary and Saint Lambert, is nonetheless called bishop, to the venerable Werinfred, father and fellow priest in Christ, wishing you the aid of eternal salvation. “All of antiquity,” as the greatest of orators says, “was perhaps better able to discern what was true the less distant it was from the origin and offspring of the gods” [Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.12.26]. But we know, as the angel told Daniel, that “many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold” [compare Dan. 12:4]. This was true among the ancients because reason, which pursues truth, thrived together with insight about the future, whereas among the moderns it is the faith of belief that flourishes together with a detailed knowledge of the past. To them a long life, drawing over it the hardened skin of old age, provided an understanding of all things. But for us, “who are beset by impatience and want of experience” [compare Horace, Epistles 1.3.33], may the shortness of our lives and the burden of our responsibilities not cause us to lose the memory of what the ancients discovered. “Many brave men lived before Agamemnon, 138

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) but unwept and unknown, they are weighed down by a long night, because they lack a divine poet” [Horace, Odes 4.9.25]. It was with this in mind, I believe, most reverend of abbots, as well as the fact that the younger we are the more discerning we must be, that you presented us with a little book on the life of our mutual patron Lord Remaclus, though you complained that because of the negligence of your predecessors it was written in a more cursory fashion than circumstances required given the importance of his deeds. At the same time you judged it best—I will not say to beseech—but to exhort me to see to it that this work was not only expanded, but also given something in the way of stylistic refinement, because information about his deeds is available in other sources, and because in your cartulary there is no lack of information about chronology, the knowledge of which is now of particular importance. At the same time, however, since it was established that you with your followers were a patron of all the arts, the verse came to mind: “Do not bring wood to the forest” [Horace, Satires 1.10.34], and “Why do you send fish into the sea and water in the river”? [compare Sidonius Apollinaris, letter 7.3.1]. In the meantime “silence had begun to keep my mind suspended” [compare Claudian, De Bello Gothico 1.457], when suddenly I recalled that charity supplies the ability that want of talent denies, and that “it was only necessary to get started, and the rest would take care of itself ” [Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 20.10]. I embarked upon this task, therefore, and in the words of a certain wise man, “focusing on what was useful, and taking however much the situation demanded from a modest pile” [Horace, Epistles 2.2.190], I deemed nothing to take precedence over your exhortation, which was bound up with the nobility of this undertaking and its usefulness to future generations [Boethius, Commentary on Cicero’s Topics 1.270]. And I agreed all the more willingly to this task lest I should seem to be fleeing from your authority. “For authority is given to one who ventures upon an undertaking when he believes that what is sought can be accomplished” [Pseudo-Caecilius Balbus, On the Trifles of Philosophers], and the glory of being able to obey is equal to that of issuing commands. Previously men who were advanced in age did the same thing, namely Abbot Hilduin in his Passion of Saint Dionysius, Archbishop Hincmar in his Life of Saint Remigius, and a great many others who compiled the deeds of more than a few of the saints. From such excellent authorities we can determine what in every case tends to be and ought to be the most important. For “never was there anyone who adopted such a well thought-out manner of living, but experience, age, and practice always brought along something new” [Terence, Adelphoe 5.4.1]. And in order that this task, which has been undertaken at your urging, does not fail to bear fruit, it is not only the person about whom we are speaking (namely Saint Remaclus) but the rest of the bishops of our see whose chronology and accomplishments—such as these could be scraped together from 139

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r any source—I have compiled down to our own time, and from this I have excerpted the life of which you were particularly desirous and presented it to you in response to your wishes. I believed in my own judgment that I was far removed from the excellence of the greatest of orators, who could summarize a great deal in a few words, expand a small amount in many words, reduce what is abundant, express what is broad narrowly and what is narrow broadly, what is common decorously and what is decorous so that it may be understood, what is new in a familiar manner and what is familiar in a novel fashion, and draw on many such techniques [compare Apuleius, On Interpretation 176], and to whom the poet gives the instruction: “Either follow tradition or invent something consistent” [Horace, Ars Poetica 119]. Nor, as scholars do when they set a topic for debate with the words that the person who suffered an injury and the one who inflicted it could have used, have we invented something silly or obscure. Although if I were to strive to imitate a person of surpassing eloquence who declared that “even if neither person said these things, nonetheless each desired it and revealed it in his actions” [Paul the Deacon, Homily 65, misattributed to John Chrysostom], I would still not fear anyone’s censure. But let this be for another time. I declare that I have sent to your charity a gift that was undertaken not with the assurance of success, but with the presumption of friendship. For the contemplation of friendship provides strength during the course of such a difficult task, and an abundance of material is often available to those whose wish is to satisfy others [compare Boethius, Commentary on Cicero’s Topics 4.333]. Thus, although I am afraid that I will be unequal to the task that has been set for me, and I fear that the responsibility for my failure will redound to the detriment of the one who assigned it, nonetheless, when I consider your goodwill, all of the labor devoted to a task that delights you becomes straightforward and easy, and, so to speak, pleasurable [Boethius, Commentary on Cicero’s Topics 4.333]. In discharging this obligation I want to make you aware that if I ever ask for any of your works in the future, you will do me an injury to deny the request [compare Boethius, Commentary on Cicero’s Topics 1.270]. “Whoever gives great gifts wishes for great recompense” [Martial 5.59]—although not presumptuously great, so as to be unequal to your merits and our desires, for which reason I fear the bites of barking envy, since in a difficult undertaking envy tends readily to lead to criticism [Boethius, Commentary on Cicero’s Topics 4.333]. “Then not everyone admires or loves the same things” [Horace, Epistles 2.2.58]. Therefore, “Let no one detract from my words with an envious gaze or poison them with the bite of hidden enmity” [compare Horace, Epistles 1.14.37–38]. But you, most blessed father, who are responsible for my labor and your own exhortations, see to it that the task that I have accomplished renders me safe, since the shame of a friend would be more suitable for you if you are dissatisfied [compare Boethius, Commentary on Cicero’s Topics 4.334]. 140

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) Rejoicing, possess always “what wishes cannot allow nor dreams create” [Claudian, Against Eutropius, 172]. “Sensitive ears rejoice in a first name; your virtue made me you friend” [Horace, Satires 2.5.32–33].

47 L e ta ld u s of M i cy, T he Miracles of S aint Ma ximin The hagiographer and poet Letaldus of Micy (ca 950–ca 1010) is best known today for his critical approach to writing about the past. Given as an oblate to the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Mesmin de Micy during the abbacy of Anno (943–970), by 973 he had obtained the position of chief scribe (cancellarius). In the early 980s, he began writing an important series of hagiographical works: The Miracles of Saint Maximin; an account of the transportation of the body of Saint Junianus to the Synod of Charroux (989) written at the request of Constantine, abbot of Nouaillé; The Life and Miracles of Saint Martin of Vertou; The Life and Miracles of Saint Eusicius; and The Life of Saint Julian. Letaldus was also the author of liturgical and secular poetry, including a mock-epic poem about an English fisherman named Within who was swallowed by a whale. The Miracles of Saint Maximin, Letaldus’s first foray into hagiography, was not simply a catalogue of wondrous deeds associated with the eponymous patron of Saint-Mesmin, but a history of the monastery itself. Letaldus begins in the early sixth century with Clovis’s donation of land at Micy, across the Loire from Orléans, to a holy man named Eusicius and his nephew Maximin, who would become the first abbot. He goes on to describe the abbey’s destruction in 749, its revival under Bishop Theodulf of Orléans (ca 798–818), and its history during the ninth and tenth centuries. The work is colored by, and written partly in response to, the long-running feud between the abbey of Saint-Mesmin and the bishops of Orléans. The tension between the two parties had become particularly acute during the episcopacy of Arnulf (972–1003), who sought to limit the independence of abbeys in his diocese and demanded an oath of fealty from Saint-Mesmin. Letaldus adopts a combative stance toward the bishops of Orléans, a decision whose potential dangers may be alluded to in the first sentence of the prologue. The introductory sections of Letaldus’s works are notable for his detailed expositions of sources and methodology, and The Miracles of Saint Maximin is no exception. Rather than stressing the edifying character of the work, Letaldus devotes most of the prologue to a discussion of his methods and the challenges he faced in writing the history of the abbey. His primary sources were two earlier biographies of Maximin, one written in the first half of the ninth century by the monk Berthold, the other some decades later by an anonymous author. Letaldus evidently found both unsatisfactory because of their lack of chronological precision. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Liber miraculorum S. Maximini abbatis Miciacensis, ed. J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 137, cols. 795B–798A.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Deliberately and knowingly I am putting my hand into the fire [ Jerome, Preface to Isaiah], I who have presumed amidst so many streams of supremely eloquent men, being myself an insignificant person of barren talent, to attempt a thing heretofore untried, since those who would be well qualified to accomplish this task capably and competently have not presumed to do so, and while they now do very well for themselves, I fear to be weighed upon the scale of their penetrating scrutiny and condemned in their judgment. This is because from the time of the most pious memory of the father Maximin down to the age in which it pleased the counsel of the Almighty, who “calls those things that are not as those that are” [Rom. 4:17], that we should live, while through various turns of fortune the place that that man of God had built (Micy, that is) at one time flourished, at one time lay exposed to complete abandonment, and now has attempted to rise once more (though amidst all these vicissitudes the clemency of merciful God was never lacking, and the abundance of miracles exhibited through the merits of that same father have often consoled the wavering and the fearful) no one could be found who could set these things down in writing so that they could come to the knowledge of future generations in an organized fashion. In my estimation this is a great loss, because the favors of God have been consigned to idle forgetfulness, and given the humble condition of the place and the silence of written records, almost no one knows how great it once was and what it was like. Whatever did manage to come to anyone’s knowledge and was not witnessed by the person who learned about it must have been handed down in writing or by oral tradition. But if neither of these is the case, then whether something really happened or not, everyone, including me, will be silent about it. Take away a written record of events and it is inevitable that they will disappear, and society will totter and reel in confusion. It is for this reason that, acting with the daring of reckless presumption yet envisaging a useful outcome, I applied myself to determining which of the things that I had either seen myself or heard from the truthful accounts of trustworthy men it should be my intention to write. It ought not be seen as surprising if in composing this work I have included some material that appears to have little relevance to the topic at hand, since I do so infrequently and, if the right view of these matters is taken, not without reason. For my purpose in beginning with Clovis and touching very briefly upon his natural cleverness was to lay the foundation of the narrative with the man whose munificence was responsible for the place that we are endeavoring to speak about. Likewise, when I introduce his sons, I do so for the sake of the blessed Avitus, because I want to make a record of his long years and pious devotion. And again, when I distinguish the reigns of different kings down to the time of Childebert [II], son of Sigibert, by calculating the number of years, I do this for two reasons: to establish the fact that Saint Launomaurus [d. 590/594: 142

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) founder and first abbot of Corbion, a monastery in the diocese of Chartres] was a contemporary of father Maximin, at least insofar as he was a young man when Maximin was of a mature age, and to demonstrate that in this our region no father of his authority is found to have been written about prior to father Maximin, who molded so many holy and distinguished men through the example of his instruction. It is not unreasonable to suppose, therefore, that the holy and venerable Launomaurus was also a product of the teaching of this same man, since they lived at the same time and the relationship between the monks of Micy and those of Corbion has continued undisturbed almost to this day. And in addition, as we will discuss later, Heric went to the monastery of Corbion and lived out his remaining days there after he had withdrawn from this place [Micy] under duress. At the same time, I have not included in this book everything that I have learned. I was hindered in particular by the confused state of the chronology, and where I was unable to make a satisfactory determination about dating, I decided that it was better to be silent. I do know that many noble and diligent fathers flourished in this place, namely Aimo, Stenegaudus, Dructesindus, and Berthold, a very educated man who is said to have written an older life of Saint Maximin, as well as Peter, whose erudition and zeal are well-known even today. For among other goods he bestowed various books of histories upon this place, and after correcting and punctuating them through his own labor, he put them upon the altar of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr on the day of the Feast of the Lord, as the books themselves bear witness. But because the chronology here is unclear, enough has been said about it. Now, as we prepare to return to the sequence of the narrative, we beseech the immeasurable goodness of Christ to bring us, who are supported by his powerful right hand, to the edge of the longed-for shore.

48 L e ta ld u s of M icy, L ife of Saint Julian In the 980s and 990s, Letaldus wrote two hagiographical works on behalf of communities allied to his abbot, Robert of Blois (who was also abbot of Saint-Florent-de-Saumur): The Life and Miracles of Saint Martin of Vertou for Saint-Jouin de Marnes and The Life and Miracles of Saint Eusicius for Selles-sur-Cher. In 1004, shortly after the death of Bishop Arnulf of Orléans, Letaldus led an unsuccessful effort to depose Robert, presumably on the grounds that he had been derelict in his duties toward Saint-Mesmin. In the aftermath of his failed attempt he wrote a life of Saint Julian, the first bishop of Le Mans, at the request of Bishop Avesgaud of Le Mans (ca 997–1038), an opponent of Robert’s. The dedicatory epistle to the Life of Saint Julian provides a clear indication of Letaldus’s critical approach to the writing of sacred history. He condemns those who knowingly perpetrate 143

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r falsehoods, demonstrates that the previous life of Julian that Avesgaud had asked him to rewrite had, in fact, been plagiarized from earlier sources, and shows that Saint Julian could not have been a contemporary of Pope Clement, as the earlier life suggested. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Vita Sancti Juliani Cenomanensis antistitis primi, ed. J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 137, cols. 781B–784B.

Dedicatory Epistle To the most reverend father Avesgaud, brother Letaldus sends greetings in Christ. When, having been inflamed by the desire for both spiritual and physical healing, I had approached the tomb of the most outstanding bishop Julian and had been allowed to enjoy the sweet discourse of your affection, the same power of charity that reconciled your sublimity of mind to my faintheartedness imposed upon me a task that, if I were qualified to undertake it, would be both congenial and pleasant. Because I am unequal to the task, however, it is not so much pleasant as deserving of reverence. Your wish was that I should rewrite in a clearer and more intelligible manner the earlier accounts of the deeds of this same glorious father, which you judged to have been written in an uncultivated style, and that I should clothe them in a white garment for the benefit of the audience. I have called this a task that should be treated with reverence rather than a pleasant one, because whatever is to be read out in the sight of truth must be spoken and written seriously and with great reverence, so that what is thought to appease God does not instead further provoke him to anger. For nothing is pleasing to him except what is true. There are some people, however, who, in trying to extol the deeds of the saints, offend against the light of truth, as though through falsehood one could exalt the glory of the saints, who, if they had been devotees of falsehood, never would have been able to ascend to the height of sanctity. We must therefore truthfully proclaim what truth has accomplished, because if any one of the fathers is said to have performed a miracle, it is not the man himself, but God who is at work, God who is capable of working in and through whomever he wishes. When, therefore, I read such marvelous and brilliant things about the acts of this most outstanding father, I do not question his merits, nor do I doubt the power of God. But when I find the same things written elsewhere, I cannot clearly determine to whom these deeds should be attributed, unless perhaps the authoritative weight of some great teacher should lead me away from error and fix my wavering mind fast like the weight of an anchor. For there are many things written in the acts of the aforementioned father that are also found in those of the blessed martyrs Clement and Dionysius and the confessor Fursaeus, with the same meaning and almost the same words. 144

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) As to the time when that great man was flourishing, I have drawn an inference about this from a book of Gregory of Tours, who declares in the first book of his Histories that under the consuls Decius and Gratus many bishops were ordained by Sixtus, the apostle of the see of Rome, and sent into Gaul to preach the word of God (I shall have more to say later about their names and the places where they were sent). Moreover, since the blessed Dionysius is said by Gregory to have been one of their number, and in the deeds of the glorious father Julian he is said to have come to Gaul to preach with Saint Dionysius, I do not think there can be any doubt that [ Julian] is proven to have lived at the time of the consuls Decius, Valerian, and Gratian, while Sixtus was bishop of the see of Rome (Sixtus, who along with Archdeacon Laurentius was put to the test by Decius, and by persevering in bearing witness to Christ was crowned by the victorious power). As for the idea that Julian was sent to Gaul by the blessed [pope] Clement, neither the chronology nor the authority of the ancients supports this. For the blessed Clement was sent into exile in the Chersonese during the reign of Trajan, and between Trajan and Decius, during whose reign we have concluded that the blessed Julian lived, there were a great many emperors, a fact that the diligent reader can easily confirm for himself in the chronicle of Eusebius of Caeserea, which Jerome translated. Therefore, we have confirmed what we wrote about Saint Julian, insofar as we were able to do so, through the authority of the fathers who preceded us, and we have reproduced some material unchanged according to the ancient tradition. At the same time, we have omitted certain things that did not appear credible to us. At no point, however, have we tried to persuade anyone to doubt the merits of so great a father. Because through God’s generosity he works so many and such mighty deeds at the site of his sacred ashes, it is clear to all those who are correct in their belief that he performed much greater and more brilliant deeds while he was still living in the world. If this inarticulate rusticity of ours has contributed in any way to utility or devotion, then if the Lord Christ grants it we intend to append an account of the deeds accomplished at his sacred tomb during our own time once we have become acquainted with them. We have also produced a set of responsories and antiphons, as you requested. In them we have constructed each individual section in a different mode to stave off boredom. At the same time, we do not wish to depart completely from imitating the older chant, lest we should end up composing a barbarous or amateurish melody. For I dislike the innovations of some composers, who are so devoted to novelty that they completely disdain to follow the old authorities. For those who enter into marriage prefer to bear offspring that look like men rather than bring forth the likeness of some odious monster.

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4 9 Ri cher of S a in t- Rém i, Histories In 972, the same year that Notker was appointed bishop of Liège, the renowned scholar and polymath Gerbert of Aurillac (ca 945–1003) took up the position of scholasticus at the cathedral school of Rheims. There he presided over a curriculum that included the complete corpus of dialectical texts known as the “Old Logic” ( Vetus logica) and advanced instruction in astronomy, mathematics, and music. Our knowledge of Gerbert’s early life and curriculum derives principally from the four-book history written by Richer, a monk at the abbey of Saint-Rémi at Rheims, which he dedicated to Gerbert between 991 and 998. Whether or not Richer wrote in response to a command from Gerbert, as he states in the prologue, his work bears Gerbert’s imprint, not least in Richer’s knowledge of classical rhetoric and his use of the principles of rhetorical invention as a means of fleshing out his source material. In the prologue Richer presents his work as a continuation of the Annals of SaintBertin (830–882, a continuation of the Royal Frankish Annals), whose last section, covering the years 861 to 882, was written by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims (845–888). The Histories begin in 888, with the accession of Count Odo of Paris to the West Frankish throne, and ends, unfinished, in 995. The sole surviving manuscript, Richer’s autograph, contains a further thirteen lines of notes covering the years 995–998, which were intended as material for a future continuation. For the first half of his history Richer relies heavily on the Annals (919–966) of Flodoard of Rheims as his primary source. The prologue shows, however, that he was keen to demonstrate his stylistic independence from Flodoard, and his boast of employing a “very different rhetorical style” is not an idle one. While Flodoard employs the dry and dispassionate style of the annalist, Richer gives life to his history through invented speeches and dramatic scenes. Noteworthy in this regard is his invocation of the three “virtues of narrative” recommended by the rhetorical handbooks of classical Antiquity: clarity, brevity, and plausibility. The last of these licensed the invention of plausible fictions to give credibility to any kind of narrative, including history, and Richer appears to be the first historian of the Latin Middle Ages to claim to write plausibly (probabiliter). Source: trans. Justin Lake from Richeri Historiarum Libri IIII, ed. Hartmut Hoffmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores in Folio, vol. 38 (Hanover: Hahn, 2000), pp. 35–36.

To my Lord and most blessed father Gerbert, archbishop of Rheims, the monk Richer. The authority of your command, most holy father Gerbert, provided the seedbed for the conflicts of the Gauls to be compiled in a book. Because the advantages to be realized are so great, and because the subject matter is so abundant, I have embraced this task as eagerly as I was drawn by the marvelous good will of the one making the request. I have judged it best to begin with recent events because Hincmar of blessed memory, who was eighth in the office 146

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) of archbishop before you, so comprehensively wove together the deeds of the more distant past in his own annals. The further back the reader goes from the beginning of my work through Hincmar’s history, the earlier the material that he will find. I say this so that the frequent repetition of the name “Charles” and of other names in both works will not cause any confusion about their respective order. For when the sequence of events is not heeded, error will confound the struggling reader to the degree that it leads him astray from the proper order. Because the names “Charles” and “Louis” appear often in both of our histories, therefore, the careful reader will distinguish between kings who share the same name by referring to the different time periods of the authors. My particular goal is to recall to memory in writing the frequent wars waged by the Gauls during the reigns of these kings, their various struggles, and the different reasons for their undertakings. If the affairs of others are mentioned, let it be assumed that this is due to incidental reasons that could not be avoided. Now if I am accused of being ignorant of the unknown past, I do not deny that I took some things from a certain book of Flodoard, a priest of Rheims, but the content itself shows very clearly that I did not use the same words, but different ones, and that I employed a very different rhetorical style. I think that the reader will be satisfied if I have arranged everything plausibly, clearly, and concisely. For by declining to be long-winded, I will reveal many things succinctly. I will begin the prologue to the work as a whole after I have briefly made a division of the world and divided Gaul into its parts, since it is my intention to describe the customs and deeds of its inhabitants.

5 0 A imoi n of Fle u ry, History of the F ranks A contemporary of Richer, Aimoin of Fleury was a prolific author and skilled literary stylist who wrote important works of secular history, hagiography, and biography. Born into a noble family in Périgord in the southwest of France, Aimoin entered the Benedictine abbey of Fleury (Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire), where he was taught by the noted scholar—and rival of Gerbert— Abbo. It was Abbo, who served as abbot of Fleury from 988 until his death in 1004, who commissioned Aimoin to write his History of the Franks in the late 990s. Aimoin’s task, he tells us in the prologue, was to revise the uncultivated Latin of his Merovingian-era sources, works such as the Histories of Gregory of Tours, the Chronicle of Fredegar, the Book of the History of the Franks, and the Deeds of King Dagobert. Rather than simply stringing together a series of modified excerpts from these texts, however, Aimoin skillfully blended his sources together, creating an elegant Frankish history that found future continuators and later served as the principal source for the Grandes Chroniques de France, the official history of the French kings kept at the monastery of Saint-Denis beginning in 1274. 147

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Aimoin’s history begins with an introductory section of eight chapters that contains geographic and ethnographic accounts of Gaul and Germany. Here he draws heavily on Caesar’s Gallic War, Pliny’s Natural History, and the geographical introduction to Orosius’s Seven Books of History against the Pagans, sometimes reproducing these texts word-for-word. His admission in the prologue that he has used “the words of others” may be a reference to this procedure, but Karl-Ferdinand Werner has suggested that Aimoin was instead referring to his use of Hegesippus (the pseudonym given to the author of a fourth-century Latin adaptation of Josephus’s Jewish War) as a stylistic model. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Aimoini Historiae Francorum libri quatuor, ed. J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 139, cols. 627B–628C.

To the venerable lord Abbot Abbo, whose foundation has been laid in the love of Christ, Aimoin, the least of all of the flock entrusted to him by God, wishes the gift of perpetual happiness. I have complied with the instructions of your beatitude, most blessed father, by which you enjoined me that through the exercise of my meager talent (which, through the dispensation of Christ, you judged to have made progress for the better through the assiduous care of you and your students) I should reduce to the body of one small work and recall to a more correct standard of Latinity the deeds of the people and kings of the Franks, which lay scattered among various books and were recounted in an uncultivated style. I have undertaken this task to the best of my abilities, and I hope that my success matches my enthusiasm. Beyond that, your paternity will have to decide whether I have done so correctly or not. I am content with the evidence of my obedience alone, so long as I have adorned it with my desire and my effort. Not unmindful, therefore, of the admonition by which you frequently urged me not to leave out an account of the territories of Germany and Gaul, where the events that are going to be recounted took place, I gathered what I could find in the authors Julius [Caesar], Pliny, and Orosius, and inserted it into this little work, deeming this to be a suitable way of satisfying your eminence’s wishes. To this I also added what Julius included in his book of history regarding the customs and practices of the Germans and the Gauls. From the departure of the Franks from Troy down to the time when Pepin, the father of Charles the Great, began to rule, I decided to divide the whole sequence of events into four books, which I have composed according to the principle that the succeeding book should always surpass the previous one in length and number of kings. For example, the first book contains the deeds of five kings; the second contains six; the third, seven; the fourth, at least eight. I have also clarified as carefully as possible the genealogies of the kings, which, owing to the similarity of their names, were very confused, distinguishing each 148

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) one by the name of his father or by the appellation of “elder” or “younger,” as the careful reader will be able to recognize in the appropriate places. I took particular care to see to it that in each of these books there were specific reasons to mention Father Benedict, for it is to him, after God, that I attribute my knowledge, my ability, and my life. Nor am I unaware that there will be many people who, from their customary joy in disparaging everything, will sink their teeth into this volume, a circumstance that can only be avoided by writing nothing at all. For they will find fault with the dates, change the order, quibble with the material, thoroughly winnow the syllables; and as generally tends to happen, they will attribute to the author the carelessness of the scribes [see Jerome, Chronicle (Doc. 19)]. They will even say, “Behold our historian, a new author who uses the words of others for his own.” Indeed, I do not deny having done so, nor do I repent of it; and I declare that I will continue to do so in the future. I have the example of good men, and on this basis I think that I am allowed to do what they have done [Terence, The Self-Tormentor 19–21]. Nor am I much swayed by the opinions of my detractors. It is enough for me to be instructed by your praise or criticism. Farewell, venerable father, and may you flourish with prosperous good fortune according to your desires.

51 Du do of Sai n t- Que n tin, Deeds of the Normans Among the principalities that took root in France after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, the duchy of Normandy had the greatest initial success; yet the history of Normandy in the tenth century remains obscure. Our only detailed literary source for this period is the Deeds of the Normans written by Dudo, a canon of the abbey of SaintQuentin in the Vermandois. In 987/988 Count Albert of Vermandois sent Dudo to the court of Duke Richard I of Normandy to seek his assistance in reconciling the count with the newly crowned West Frankish king, Hugh Capet. Dudo must have made a favorable impression on his Norman hosts, because he subsequently returned to Normandy and entered the service of the dukes, acquiring lands and titles, and serving as chaplain and chancellor to Richard II. In the dedicatory epistle to the Deeds of the Normans, which is addressed to Bishop Adalbero of Laon, Dudo claims that Richard I commissioned the work from him in 994, partly on the basis of information that the duke provided. After Richard’s death, when Dudo contemplated giving up the project, the duke’s son and heir Richard II and half-brother Count Rodulf of Ivry urged him to complete it. In the letter to Adalbero Dudo refers to himself as “dean” of Saint-Quentin, a position he probably did not assume until 1015, which shows that he was still working on the project almost twenty years after Richard I’s death. 149

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r The ultimate purpose of the Deeds of the Normans is much debated. It has been seen as a propaganda-piece written to show that the Norman dukes were civilized Christian rulers, and alternatively as a treatise seeking to justify Richard II’s inheritance of his father’s realm to Adalbero. Dudo’s history is written in alternating blocks of prose and verse, a genre known as prosimetrum (other examples include Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and Martianus Capella’s Marriage of Philology and Mercury, both of which Dudo knew well). His style is overburdened and ostentatious and has won him few admirers among modern readers. Dudo follows his epistle to Adalbero (translated below) with eight introductory poems, including one addressed to Richard II, one to Count Rodulf, and three to Archbishop Robert of Rouen. In the manuscripts the address to Adalbero is given the title of a “letter of panegyric and defense” (epistola panegyrica et apologetica). Source: trans. Justin Lake from De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum, ed. Jules Lair (Caen: Typ. F. Le Blanc-Hardel, 1865), pp. 115–20.

To the renowned Bishop Adalbero, one worthy of pious veneration, whom noble birth adorns and wisdom decorates, occupant of the episcopal chair of the holy church of God at Laon, Dudo, dean of the congregation of SaintQuentin, wishes the guidance of the sheep that have been entrusted to him in the sight of the divine majesty. No one who understands the words that the Lord spoke to Nicodemus— “the Spirit breathes where it will” [ John 3:8]—is unaware of the widespread fame of your most glorious name, which is higher in its unsurpassed loftiness than the cedars of Lebanon, more visible in its brilliance than light, more widely spread in its conspicuous prominence than the far-reaching span of the earth’s extended length and the outstretched distance of its vast width, because, as human sight can clearly discern from outward appearances, having been made a sufficient source of comfort to everyone, and having become “all things to all people” [1 Cor. 9:22], you surpass the loftiness of all other bishops through the seed of your lineage and the beneficence of your meritorious deeds. Therefore, highest of bishops, renowned model of righteousness, incomparable pattern of the transparent life, glory of the priesthood, inexpressible light of the universal church, outstanding pinnacle of holiness, unbending pillar of all goodness, in accordance with your merits you are worthily sanctified by a truthful declaration. For the right hand of God enthroned on high decided to exalt you, whom your outstanding deeds proclaim to be a person of distinction and greatness, with the honor of a lofty and distinguished prominence, because divine charity and its manifold offspring occupy the innermost recesses of your guiltless breast and your innocent heart. Whichever of the manifold virtues—the daughters of this same charity—are obtained through the constant and unwavering pursuit of each of the servants of God, as the Holy Spirit, 150

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) the inspirer and enlightener of minds [allows], and whatever can be attained through most devout service to them, is seen to reign in you through God’s will, and the fount of charity has wondrously placed in the seat of your breast a complete accumulation of these same virtues. Indeed, it is clear to all who are capable of reason, my father and lord, that from the squalling of your infancy you have offered yourself through internal contrition of the heart as a living sacrifice to the eternal priest, that you have consecrated your breast with the plenitude of virtues as a seat for the Holy Spirit, and that you have dwelt in the heavens in your mind, because the mighty purpose of your joyous soul—as has been clear up to the present day—has not been observed to deviate from its intention through any impurity or wickedness of vice. Touched, therefore, by the nectar of the Holy Spirit, you appear to have been endowed by heaven with a unique wondrousness and a wondrous uniqueness, since like a mystical lamp you blaze up with the brightness of the sun amidst the bishops of this world. For who could bear such a stony breast and possess a heart so shrouded in darkness that after witnessing your miraculous deeds he would not immediately turn from wickedness to a life of chastity? For the sole intention of all those who strive to remove themselves from the winding course of this most bitter road—upon which many are led to a harsh death and towards which the wisdom of the deceitful world guides those whose inclination is to seek after the pleasures of bodily delight—is to become partakers in your devotion, since in the many ages that have gone by or are yet to come you appear to have no predecessor equal to you, and no successor. Nor is it surprising, most reverend bishop, if it has been granted to you by God that you might be a supreme exemplar of virtuous conduct, since from the time that you were in the cradle you have been seen to mount to the temple of the celestial homeland through the steps of the virtues and to occupy the starry heights through the magnitude of your meritorious acts. But even among deeds such as these something marvelous comes to the fore, o bishop worthy of extraordinary admiration! To forestall the possibility that you might be accused by the perverse whisperings of malicious sophists, you have embraced the precepts of the life that always strives for what is difficult, and exhibited such devotion in your responsibilities that if anywhere on earth some degree of devotion prevailed and it came to your ears from the inhabitants themselves or the report of some other person, you never allowed the space of an hour to elapse before you toiled to bring it to completion more quickly than it had been spoken. You, indeed, who will enter upon the joy of your Lord on account of a few things—that is through the gift of five talents that you faithfully administered and the allocation of food that you wisely distributed—will be placed over many things as a good and faithful servant when the Lord comes [Matt. 25:14–21]. Joined to the fellowship of the heavenly virtues, you will 151

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r possess joys without end. For through your holy commerce the mina that was entrusted to you will bring back ten minas to the treasury of the supreme head of household when the Lord returns [Luke 19:12–27], because you purchased yourself for God through the Ten Commandments, and bearing the sheaves of justice in your right hand [Ps. 125:6] you shall return a hundredfold profit to the table of the invisible and immortal bridegroom as a worthy guest, just as a mina is equal to the weight of a hundred drachmas. Having deservedly obtained the rank of apostolic merit, you were elevated by divine allotment to the summit of this same rank, that is, to the number of the twelve, because if the mysteries of this number are pondered, in every case they can be attributed to your loftiness. For it is called “oddly even” by mathematicians because it is composed of an even combination of both even and odd numbers. For just as this number possesses the very same signification as its factors and another one which they do not possess, you possess the power of devotion of all the bishops who are assigned to this same number, but also something given to you in addition by God. And just as on the one hand it is called odd and on the other hand even, you are found to be both unequal and equal to others who are raised to the height of this same number—unequal in holiness, but equal in name. The number twelve is rightly called “superfluous” with respect to its parts, because if its factors are added together, they exceed the sum of the original quantity. In the same way, if the outward signs of your holiness are reckoned up, then by the excess of your merits you are found to be superior to those others who serve God in the same number. What does this same reckoning signify in musical measurements but the loftiness of so great a patron? What else is the number twelve but the harmonious agreement of the octave, perfecting by a twofold increase the number six, which through an exposition of its own composition customarily indicates the perfection of something, just as it is itself perfect. And what is revealed by ascending through the value of this number but the immense perfection of the double increase in you, which has been achieved by repeated twofold increases? With respect to that same number, it stands in the ratio of one-and-a-half to the number eight and one-and-a-third to the number nine, and it contains the harmonies of the fifth and the fourth. For at the time when the elevation to that same number raised you to pastoral rule, it increased the beatitudes to eight and joined you to the nine ranks of angels. In the same way that the number twelve increases to the sum of twenty-four through multiplication by two, the observance of the twin precepts of loving God and loving one’s neighbor has joined you to the twenty-four elders [Rev. 4:4], among whom, bedecked with an unfading crown, you will sing a new song to the one seated upon the throne [Rev. 4:10–11]. Among them, just as this same number increases to eighteen

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thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) when half again is added to it (that is, six, which, as has been mentioned, lacks both deficiency and superfluity), so as the sweetly sounding consonances of a complete harmonic melody render the service of a mellifluous song, you will hear nothing deficient and nothing superfluous, but be amply delighted by the five tetrachords joined to eighteen different strings. Where is all of this leading? Here is the explanation. After traversing every region of Gaul and surveying the lands of all Christians everywhere, I can find no one so worthy to receive the tributes of all honor as you. For this reason, venerable father, after the glorious renown wrung from your marvelous deeds struck my ears, it furnished my mind with constant incentives to turn to you, because in seeking to satisfy my desires anywhere that I could, I learned, as if from the mere report of your name, that you could be a consolation to me in my time of need. I have endured this hardship from the beginning up until now because I could not find anyone to whom I might present the contemptible and reprehensible draft of such an insignificant work for correction except for you, whose praises seem to reach to the heavens, and to whom, as I said earlier, all honor is owed. An honor such as this I turn over in my heart, and I deliberate in my mind whether it is worthy of so great a patron that what in this book appears obscured by its own shadows should be brought into the light by you, since it will not redound to the reputation of the impoverished and inglorious author, but to the fame of the distinguished corrector. Although it may be imputed as foolishness in me, I have seized the courage to be bold through my faith in this letter, and having entered into the sight of your majesty and approached with the neck of my heart and head bowed low, I join prayers to prayers not once, not twice, not three times, but even more, so that every trace of inappropriate ambiguity may be completely and totally pruned away by your razor-sharp double-edged axe, which has been fashioned by the pure iron of complete wisdom. Almost half of this work would seem to serve no useful purpose unless, with you as the reaper, it is pruned of the thistles of superfluity. For since I am weighed down by bodily infirmity and hindered by the demands of worldly affairs, the eye of my mind, which of its own accord embraces blindness rather than sight, is stifled and deprived of the desire for bodily pleasures, and is plunged into an immense whirlpool of darkness. Thus it is my earnest desire that this eye, which I declare to be destitute of the aid of the true light, be made to see again by you, who are occupied with the teachings of sacred eloquence. I want to inform you of something so that you will not think that I have attached myself to this work voluntarily or undertaken it of my own free will. Two years before his death, I was at the court of the noble duke Richard, the son of Marquess William, as was my frequent habit, wishing to render him

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r a token of my obedience on account of the innumerable favors that he had deigned to bestow upon me in the absence of any merit on my part. On this day he approached me and began to embrace me in his arms with pious affection, drawing me out with his sweet words and softening me up with soothing entreaties, going so far as to protest and swear that if by any means I could do so I should relieve the long-held desire of his soul by committing to writing the customs and deeds of the Norman land, and especially the rights that his great-grandfather [actually his grandfather] Rollo had established in the realm. I was struck dumb, as though senseless, and for several days I refused my services and declined his requests. At last, however, moved by so many appeals and worn down by such forceful entreaties, I managed to convince myself to put the weight of so great a burden upon my shoulders. And although I had come to the conclusion that the duty being imposed upon me was beyond the scope of my abilities, nonetheless I placed the heavy weight of this yoke upon my neck, having become a follower of that commandment that orders us to stand, to act manfully, and to be comforted, and for all of our actions to be done in charity [compare 1 Cor. 16:13–14]. Alas! Our unskillful pen had not even touched upon the first sections of this work when a mournful report proclaimed that Richard, the foremost man of the whole world, had died. I would have set all of this aside out of grief for this great man on account of my excessive weeping and unbearable lamenting, which racked not only my heart but all the limbs of my body with shaking, had not this task been brought back to my attention by his most excellent son, the patrician Richard, who was still living, and by the outstanding count Rodulf [of Ivry]. Both of them pleaded insistently that I carry out what Duke Richard of memorable life had instructed me to do in his request, and they appealed to me that I should not let the project that I had promised him to undertake lapse into the vice of deceitfulness and become tarnished with the pollution of falsehood, but that it should flourish in the inmost depths of complete understanding. Giving in to their instructions and requests, therefore, I completed this work, and although it cannot boast of dialectical syllogisms or rhetorical arguments, I arranged to send it to your majesty so that its falsehoods might be pruned away and whatever truth remained might be confirmed by your authority, so that God, the marvelous bestower of rewards, who has placed the noble marquess Richard in the paradise of his glory, just as he raised you up to be a pillar of his holy Church, might establish you as a senator of the heavenly court adorned with an unfading garland among the choirs of all saints.

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5 2 Adalbold of Utrech t, Life of E mperor Henry I I Adalbold of Utrecht (ca 970–1026) was educated at the cathedral school of Liège under Notker and later became a cleric at Lobbes before joining the court of Emperor Henry II of Germany (r. 1002–1024), who appointed him bishop of Utrecht in 1010. Adalbold was a skilled mathematician who corresponded with Gerbert of Aurillac on the methods of calculating the area of a triangle and the volume of a sphere. His written works include a commentary on book 3, metrum 9 of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and treatises on music, and he may be the author of a Life of Saint Walburga. Adalbold is generally credited with a fragmentary biography of Henry II, which only covers the first three years of his reign and draws heavily on the Chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg, giving it limited value as a historical source. In the preface Adalbold writes about the obligations of the historian, the value of writing about recent events, and the utility of history. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Vita Heinrici II imperatoris, ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores in Folio, vol. 4 (Hanover: Hahn, 1841), p. 683.

Two requirements must be observed in the writing of history: the author must hold fast to the truth in his narrative, and the reader must derive some profit from reading. A writer cannot adhere to the truth, however, unless he strenuously avoids, or to some extent puts out of his mind, these four things: hatred and earthly love, envy and hellish flattery. For hatred and envy are either wholly silent about good deeds, or else they pass over them quickly or alter them maliciously, while they proclaim, expand upon, and amplify bad deeds. Earthly love and hellish flattery, on the other hand, ignore bad deeds of which they are aware and hide the truth by feigning ignorance, while they dilate upon good deeds and praise them beyond what is justified in an attempt to curry favor. Through these four things, therefore, in accounts of good deeds or bad, truth grows dim and falsehood shines bright with a counterfeit splendor. Spiritual love, on the other hand, being a friend of truth, neither conceals bad deeds nor ostentatiously inflates good ones, knowing that the former often serve as a means to improvement, while the latter are frequently a hindrance when they become a source of pride. For it is better that the mind should be restrained by adversity than that it should be insolently puffed up by good fortune. The reader will not be able to derive any benefit, however, unless he pays careful attention to and fully understands why good things happen to good people, bad things to bad people, good to bad, and bad to good. There are two ways of understanding why good things are granted to good people: they are either so good that they stand in no need of testing or purgation through the trials of this world, or else they are good in such a way that if they were battered by 155

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r hardships they would probably be made worse because of the limitations of their simplicity. In this way, therefore, they are neither befouled by living in the muck of this world nor tormented by the blows of adversity. Bad things are given to bad people, on the other hand, so that their sufferings may provoke them to mend their ways, or if they are unwilling to come to their senses, so that they may understand that they are condemned to suffer misfortune both here and in the world to come. Bad things occasionally happen to good people not so that they may acquire merit, but so that the merit they possess may be increased through their sufferings and their reward thereby made greater. Sometimes they are also guilty of a minor sin, and for this reason they receive a mild punishment in this life so as not to be subject to worse torment in the world to come. Good things are granted to bad people so that they may either come to recognize the mercy of God and reform their wickedness, or so that it may be laid up for them as a reproach that they were unwilling to recognize the bestower of blessings. In the case of all histories we believe that the precepts that we have laid down will not be without benefit both to the author and the reader. We are also aware, and have often heard it said, that in every type of writing antiquity is venerated with admiration and novelty is rejected with scorn. But what is accepted on the grounds that it is ancient would not be ancient unless it had first been new. For this reason, newness comes first, so that antiquity may follow after it. It is foolish, therefore, to reject what comes first and to accept what comes later, when it owes its existence to what preceded it. For it is not often that a thirsty man seeks out a stream when its source is available. We say this not so that what is ancient may be rejected, but so that what is new may be accepted. For novelty and antiquity are of equal worth in any kind of writing, so long as it possesses truth and utility. Now perhaps someone will ask what benefit there is in reading history. To him our response will be that whoever reads about the deeds of another will find a model to emulate if this person’s actions are good and an example to frighten him if they are bad. For to read about the deeds of another person is to gaze into a mirror: if you see something that displeases you, correct it in yourself; if you find something that pleases you, imitate it. But now let the introduction [praelocutio] come to an end, and the reason for the introduction follow.

53 Rao u l G laber, H istories The Histories of Raoul Glaber (ca 980–ca 1046) cover the period from the beginning of the tenth century to the author’s death, focusing on Burgundy, but also dealing with events in the French kingdom and elsewhere in the Latin West. Glaber’s history is 156

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) idiosyncratic and highly personal, and though unreliable in some respects, it provides a window into the mind of its author and serves as a valuable witness to attitudes about the approach of the millennia of the Incarnation and the Passion. For Glaber’s background we are reliant upon what he tells us. At the age of twelve he was placed in a monastery (probably Saint-Germain of Auxerre) by his uncle. After being expelled for disobedience, he led a peripatetic existence, taking up residence in a series of Burgundian monasteries, including Saint-Bénigne of Dijon (under its famous reforming abbot, William of Volpiano), and, for a brief period, Cluny. Glaber seems to have had a knack for wearing out his welcome, but his literary abilities evidently ensured that he could always find a home somewhere. At some point during the 1020s he began work on a history of the events surrounding the first millennium. In his Life of Saint William he claims to have undertaken this work at William’s request, but in the prologue to the Histories he says that complaints from the brethren at Cluny about the lack of contemporary history drove him to write. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Rodolfo il Glabro: Cronache dell’anno mille, ed. Guglielmo Cavalli and Giovanni Orlandi (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1989), pp. 6–8.

To Odilo, the most renowned of eminent men, father of the monastery of Cluny, Raoul Glaber: Having often been moved by the justifiable complaints of the learned brethren, and sometimes by you yourself, that there was nobody in our own day who would communicate in any manner of writing the great variety of things that can be seen happening now in the churches and among the people (and which by no means should be kept hidden) to those who will come after us, especially because, as the Savior bears witness, he himself, with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit and the Father, will accomplish new things in the world up until the very last hour of the final day, and because for a span of about two hundred years (that is, after Bede, the priest of Britain, and Paul [the Deacon] of Italy) there was no one who sought to commit any sort of historical writing to posterity. Each of these men wrote the history of his own people and country, but it is clear that there are a great many things that have happened in the provinces beyond the sea and those inhabited by barbarians which, if they were entrusted to memory, would be exceedingly beneficial and would serve in particular to facilitate the cultivation of prudence by all men. To no lesser extent, but in greater profusion than normal, did the events of which I am speaking take place around the thousandth year of the Incarnation of Christ the Savior. Insofar as I am capable of doing so, therefore, I am obeying your command and the will of the brethren. In the first place I want to make it clear that, although the total number of years calculated from the beginning of the world differs according to the histories of the Hebrews and the version of the seventy translators, nonetheless we can 157

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r say with certainty that the one-thousand-and-second year of the Incarnate Word was the first year of the reign of King Henry of the Saxons, and that the thousandth year of the Lord was the thirteenth year of the reign of King Robert of the Franks. At that time these two were considered to be the most Christian and the greatest rulers in our world this side of the ocean. The first of them, namely Henry, subsequently took up the rule of the Roman Empire. We have established this record of them, therefore, in the interest of chronology. In addition, because we are going to give an account of events that took place in the four parts of the world, it seems appropriate to us, just as it is dear to our heart, and especially as we are speaking to monks, that with God’s guidance we should say something at the beginning of this work that we have undertaken about the power of the divine and abstract quaternity and its corresponding harmony.

5 4 W i po, Life of Emperor Conrad I I When Henry II of Germany died without heirs in 1024, the Saxon dynasty inaugurated by Henry the Fowler (r. 919–936) came to an end with him. In September of that year an assembly of magnates chose Conrad of Worms, grandson of Duke Otto of Carinthia, as his successor. Conrad II’s election and reign are chronicled in a biography written by Wipo (ca 990–after 1047), a cleric and scholar of Swabian or Burgundian origin who served as chaplain at his court and later served his son and successor, Henry III. In addition to the Life of Emperor Conrad, which Wipo dedicated to Henry ca 1047, he wrote a number of extant poems, including the Proverbia, a collection of maxims intended to edify the young Henry, and the Tetralogus, a poem of praise and advice to Henry. In the prologue to the Life of Emperor Conrad, Wipo meditates on the importance of writing the history of Christian rulers. Drawing on Macrobius’s Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, he notes that historians can serve the state in the same way that philosophers once did. There is a slight discrepancy between the prologue, which was written prior to Henry’s imperial coronation in December of 1046, and the dedicatory epistle, which addresses Henry as emperor. In the former Wipo envisions a single work in two parts, dealing first with the deeds of Conrad, and then with those of Henry. In the dedicatory epistle, however, Wipo presents his dedicatee with a biography of Conrad (albeit one that includes the deeds that Henry performed in his father’s lifetime). Henry’s exploits after Conrad’s death, Wipo says, are to be reserved for a separate work, one that was evidently never written. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Gesta Chuonradi imperatoris, ed. H. Bresslau, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1915), pp. 3–8.

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thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) Dedicatory Epistle To the most glorious emperor, Henry III, a king suited for both peace and war, Wipo by the grace of God a priest, wishes what a servant of the royal servants wishes for the ruler of the rulers of this world. I have deemed it appropriate, lord emperor, to write about the illustrious life and celebrated deeds of your father, Emperor Conrad, lest his light be hidden under a bushel [Matt. 5:15], the ray of his sun be clouded over, and his memorable virtue be overspread with the rust of forgetfulness. For were it not that he preceded you with outstanding and brilliant deeds of his own, these would seem to be eclipsed to some degree by the subsequent resplendence of your own virtues. God permitting, it is my intention, as your humble servant, to recount the deeds that both of you performed during my lifetime, drawing a distinction between you such that I might truly say that one of you made a salutary incision into the state (that is, the Roman Empire) and the other prudently restored it to health. Now if I write or say something on this topic that is more or less than, or contrary to, the truth, it will not be the fault of the writer, but of whoever related it to me, since I was frequently unable to be in attendance at the chapel of my lord Conrad due to a long illness. Yet relying upon a truthful pen, I shall exhibit the fruits of what I myself saw or heard from others to those who wish to gather them from us. Because there are certain praiseworthy actions that you performed while your father was still living, I have judged it best to include these among his deeds, whereas I decided that those glorious achievements that you accomplished after his death should be recorded separately. Now if certain malicious people reproach me on the grounds that this task is unnecessary because others have already written on the same subject (though I had not yet seen any such writing), my response will be that “in the mouth of two or three all testimony shall stand” [compare Deut. 19:15], and that the words of Christ in the gospel are propagated in the Church not by one man alone, but by four suitable witnesses. I am dedicating this work to you, supreme emperor, and exhibiting to you the exploits of your father, so that whenever you contemplate the performance of deeds of great renown, you may first picture to yourself, as though in a mirror, the virtues of your father, and so that what you have inherited from the roots of your forefathers may flourish more abundantly in you. For just as you have surpassed all of your predecessors in certain matters worldly and divine, so may you merit, through the favor of God Almighty, to hold your kingdom and empire longer than all of them. Farewell.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Prologue I have deemed it appropriate and fitting to bind together the fleeting memory of transitory events with the bonds of letters, and in particular not to pass over the praises of the Christian empire in idle silence, because a certain degree of everlasting fame will remain for those who governed the empire well during their lifetime, and a model of right living will be set before posterity should they wish to emulate their forefathers, since a salutary example tends to render the mind of the imitator more eager and resolute in his actions. Likewise it is often the case that the praise bestowed upon earlier generations gives rise to shame and embarrassment among their descendants if they have not at least proven equal to them, since the renown of their ancestors has taught them to praise their deeds. For just as virtue ennobles many common people, so too when noble birth is unaccompanied by the virtues it causes many of those endowed with it to become worse. It hardly seems permissible, moreover, to be silent about the victories of Catholic rulers while dilating at such length on the triumphs of pagan tyrants. It is a silly mistake to read and write about Tarquin the Proud, Tullus [Hostilius] and Ancus [Martius], Father Aeneas, the savage Rutulian [Turnus], and other men of this ilk, while wholly neglecting our Charleses and the three Ottos, Emperor Henry II, Emperor Conrad (the father of the most glorious king Henry III), and this same king Henry, who triumphs in Christ. The writers of today should be concerned that the vice of slothfulness does not make them contemptible in the eyes of the Lord, since the venerable authority of the Old Testament, which diligently sets forth the histories of the Fathers with fruitful labor, prefigures and instructs us to preserve the fruits of recent events in the storehouse of memory. Thus we recall that Abraham freed his nephew Lot in battle, we learn that the sons of Israel vanquished various foes, and we have before our eyes the wars of King David, the wisdom of Solomon, the cleverness of Gideon, and the battles of the Maccabees because of the abundance of writers [or texts]. For the philosophers of old took thought for the interests of the state in various ways. Often they recounted plausible dreams as a way of leading the minds of their audience towards the kind of behavior that they were determined to promote. To that same end, they sometimes contrived fabulous tales cloaked with honorable deeds and characters, since these sorts of fictions are not contrary to philosophy. Through open disputations they frequently inculcated in the rulers of the state the belief that human souls are eternal and—as Macrobius tells us Socrates said—that the soul does not perish together with the body. And almost all philosophers taught without hesitation that the rewards of human endeavors do not come to an end with life itself, but that everyone who has aided his country and kept the law enjoys eternal happiness, while through the verdict of the just creator punishment is reserved for those who have scorned righteousness. 160

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) They established the immortality of the human soul through many lines of argument, and in particular from the fact that while it is enclosed within the bonds of the body it enjoys the freedom to traverse with the lively motion of thought the recesses of the stars and the earth and the hidden depths of the sea, things that it never saw bodily, and that while the body is sometimes awake and sometime sleeping, the soul deduces many future events through its own vision and no other and retains these things in memory, and when it has stripped off the cloudy veil of the flesh it enjoys this same alacrity [of thought] with even more freedom. And they declared that to believe this—or rather, to know it—would be of the greatest utility to rulers, who often grow lazy out of arrogance and pay scant attention to the benefits of the life to come. For this reason, the ancients made statues and magnificent monuments for those who were victorious, and they decreed that their deeds should be written down so that the honor accorded to those dead (whose souls they believed lived eternally) would be eternally present in the memory of posterity. And although it was with only human wisdom that they inquired into the immortality of the soul (since it had not yet been promised or shown to them by Christ), nonetheless they were led by this conviction to cultivate justice themselves and to inculcate this belief in the rulers of their country through their writings. For they judged that the deeds of the state would perish together with its rulers if a record of events were not kept, and that terrible destruction would be wrought through the idleness of silence if written texts did not survive to make it clear that the course of action that each person pursues in life follows him after his death. But as for us, from whom the listlessness of silence has been banished by the word of truth saying, “That which I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and that which you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops” [Matt. 10:27], why do we allow Christian rulers and defenders of the gospel faith to be denied that which pagans freely offer to their own? For if our Catholic kings, the defenders of the true faith, administer without danger of error the law and the peace of Christ that he handed down to us in his gospel, then what else will those who display their good works in writing be doing but preaching the gospel of Christ (however much the mind of the writer hesitates to treat of difficult endeavors carried out with mature judgment, moral seriousness, and unwavering perseverance)? And if events occur that are characterized by inappropriate excess, feigned courage, or sinful greed (all topics that the writer must deal with), then in the deeds of those whom he marks out for censure he must divulge both what they did and what they failed to do, insofar as the faculty of the intellect allows, so that in this way good men will be prompted to virtue and the wicked will be corrected through appropriate chastisement. This, then, is the reason for writing: that no religious scruple forbids it, that its purpose recommends it, that it benefits the nation and serves as a blessing 161

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r to posterity. Knowledge of the past is [thereby] readily at hand, whereas there is no way of knowing what is going to happen in the future. Prompted by these factors and this expectation, I wanted to write what the audience would find pleasing for the general benefit of the reader. For if virtuous conduct is mentioned in this work, it will be within the reader’s power to emulate it openly. I am doing this even at my advanced age, because in spite of the many bodily ailments that afflict me, I am capable, through God’s prompting, of avoiding lethargy as something inimical to the soul by occupying myself in these tasks. Thus, when I am ready to speak of royal deeds, I will principally treat of the exploits of two kings, namely Emperor Conrad and his son, King Henry III, whom almost all men of sound judgment refer to as “Henry, the Line of Justice.” I shall depict those exploits of his father that happened in my own time, which I either saw for myself or learned of from the accounts of others, portraying them with my pens for the benefit of his successors who are unacquainted with them. As for the celebrated deeds of his son, because by the grace of God he survives and still reigns, I shall not cease to assemble them as long as I am alive. Now if it so happens that I chance to depart this life before the king (just as it befell me to enter it before him), and in this way I leave my work unfinished, I beseech whoever writes after me not to be ashamed to place his walls atop my foundations, nor to despise raising up my sinking pen, nor to envy what I have begun, just as he would not want anyone to envy what he has completed. For if half the credit belongs to the person who begins something, no one should be ungrateful at the end of this work who finds the beginning prepared for him. These things I have written by way of a short introduction [proemium]. I shall now come to the deeds of the emperor. But first I shall speak briefly about the propriety of his election, so that I will be able to write with more credibility later if I first recall which of the bishops and other leading men came to the defense of the realm at that time.

55 W i lli am of Ju miè ges, Deeds of the N orman Dukes Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s Deeds of the Normans laid the foundation for subsequent Norman historiography and inspired several continuators in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The first historian to pick up where Dudo left off was an obscure monk named William at the Norman abbey of Jumièges. The first four books of William’s Deeds of the Norman Dukes are a revision and abbreviation of Dudo’s history and end in 996 with the death of Duke Richard I. Books 5 through 7 recount the reigns of dukes Richard II (996–1026), Richard III (1026–27), Robert the Magnificent (1027–35), and 162

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) William II. Little is known about the author himself. Orderic Vitalis reports that he was nicknamed “calculus,” which suggests that he might have been responsible for calculating movable feast days and perhaps also for compiling monastic annals, but he is not found in any of the charters of his monastery. William began work on his history in the early 1050s and completed the first version before 1060. In a subsequent revision he brought it down to 1070, so that it included the Norman Conquest of England and its immediate aftermath, and he added the dedicatory epistle to King William. Although William’s Latin is far less ostentatious and more accessible than Dudo’s, the dedicatory epistle is written in an artificial and syntactically complex prose style. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Guillaume de Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. Jean Marx (Paris: A. Picard, 1914), pp. 1–3.

To the pious, victorious, and orthodox William, king of the English by the will of the supreme king, William, a monk of Jumièges, the most unworthy of all monks, wishes the strength of Samson to crush his enemies and the wisdom of Solomon to determine what is just. Most wise and serene king, in accordance with my limited abilities I have compiled this work on the deeds of the Norman dukes by drawing upon various books, and dedicating it to your highness, I have decided to entrust it to the library of chronicles in order to recall the examples of the pious acts of our forefathers who occupied the highest ranks of secular office. It is not adorned with the elegant dignity of the rhetoricians, nor endowed with the venal charm and luster of polished discourse, but by writing in an unrefined style with a barren mode of expression and using ordinary language, I have striven to make it clear to the reader. Your majesty has at his side exceptional men thoroughly instructed in the knowledge of letters who traverse the city with swords drawn, destroying the lairs of the wicked and striving to protect the litter of Solomon by keeping an unceasing watch over the law of God. Many people have also testified in diverse ways to the forcefulness of your penetrating intellect, which was bestowed upon you by the prerogative of the heavenly steward—how it prevails with marvelous effectiveness in the conduct of war and in all matters to which you direct your attention and which you contemplate doing. Accept with a gentle hand, therefore, this insignificant gift of our meager efforts, and recall through these pages the noble deeds worthy of renown performed by you and your forebears. I took the first part of this narrative down to the time of Richard II from the history of Dudo, a learned man who diligently sought out from Count Rodulf [of Ivry], the brother of Richard I, what he committed to parchment to be handed down to posterity. The rest, which I am offering from my own private store, I learned in part from the accounts of many people whose age and experience serve 163

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r equally to confirm their reliability, and in part from the unerring testimony of my own eyes. I have excised from the narrative the genealogy of Rollo, who was descended from pagan ancestors and spent much of his life as a pagan before finally being reborn into blessed infancy through the health-giving font, as well as his dream and many other things of this nature, since I deemed this material merely flattery that offered no semblance of anything honorable or useful. Now whoever accuses one who has given himself up to sacred learning of presumption or some other fault because of the nature of this work should know the motive behind it, which I do not believe to be frivolous, namely that the most outstanding virtues of the best men in both secular and divine affairs, which live a blessed existence in the eyes of God, should also live on usefully in the memory of mankind. For it is not appropriate for one whom the confines of the cloister enclose so that he may embrace the grandeur of the heavenly Jerusalem with a devout heart, and whom reverence for the monastic habit and the life that he has professed have shut off from the world, to take joy in popular acclaim, which flatters with a gentle but dangerous smile, and through such enticements to let himself be caught up in the entanglements of the world. You have before you, most wise conqueror of kingdoms, your own peace and war, and those of your most pious father, the glorious duke Robert, and your earlier forebears, who were the most renowned leaders of earthly knighthood, but who nonetheless strove for heaven with sincere faith, keen hope, and fervent charity, and showed themselves to be vigorous soldiers and zealous worshippers of Christ. May the emperor who rules over the eternal kingdom, through faith in whom you have trampled underfoot the obstacles of many terrible dangers, triumphing exultantly with marvelous success, may this same most powerful guardian watch over you in all that you do and protect the wisdom that he granted you to rule, so that when your blessed life beneath the worldly crown has run its course, you will be received at the court that is the homeland of true and supreme blessedness, to be adorned with the ring and stole of eternal glory, o pious, victorious, and orthodox king.

56 L ampert of Her sfeld, T he Book of the F oundation of the Church of Hersfeld Lampert of Hersfeld (b. before 1028–d. before 1085) is best known for his Annals, which extend from Creation to the year 1077 and serve as a valuable source for the early years of the reign of Henry IV of Germany. Lampert was educated at the cathedral school of Bamberg and entered the monastery of Hersfeld in 1058. In the same year he was consecrated as a priest at Aschaffenburg and undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem without the authorization of his abbot. In September of 1059 he returned to Hersfeld, where he 164

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) distinguished himself as a historian. Between 1063 and 1073 he wrote a Life of Archbishop Lull of Mainz (ca 710–786), and he subsequently composed a history of the abbey of Hersfeld in hexameter verse at the request of Abbot Hartwig (1072–1090). When the latter work was criticized for its inaccuracies, Lampert undertook to write a prose history in which he restricted himself to established facts. The product of his labors, The Book of the Foundation of the Church of Hersfeld, survives only in a fragmentary state. In the prologue Lampert laments the general state of the Church, and of his abbey in particular. He makes an oblique reference to the Saxon rebellion against Henry IV in 1073–1075, to which Hersfeld was asked to contribute, and he despairs that the secular lords who ought to have protected his monastery have instead plundered it. Implicit in this statement is criticism of Henry IV, toward whom Lampert adopted an unremittingly hostile stance in the Annals. Tension between Lampert and Abbot Hartwig, who supported Henry, may help to explain why Lampert left Hersfeld to become abbot of Hasungen in or before 1081. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Libellus de institutione Herveldensis ecclesiae, ed. O. Holder-Egger, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1894), pp. 343–45.

While Jesus sleeps, the ship of the Church is endangered. The winds contend with one another upon the great sea, and no Daniel is found to pray for the people. To the contrary, Daniel does not prevail unless the archangel Gabriel fights against the prince of Persia, who resists his prayers. For truly, truly is the House of Israel a house that provokes [Ezek. 2:8], and its iniquity is very great. For this reason, the Lord has given power to his sword so that it may proceed “to the right hand or to the left, whichever way it has a mind to set its face” [Ezek. 21:16]. Let Ezekiel sigh, therefore, and let him sigh with the contrition of his loins [Ezek. 21:6], so that God does not make an end of Israel [Ezek. 11:13]. Let also the angel speak to the Lord who says in Zechariah, “Lord, God of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem?” [Zech. 1:12] so that he will deserve to hear good words and words of consolation from the angel standing among the myrtle trees [Zech. 1:11, 13]. “Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes” [ Jer. 9:1] so that even if I am unable to bewail the evils taking place in the Church, at least I might mourn both day and night for the wretched daughter of Babylon, that is my mother Hersfeld, who has been made a daughter of shame through her many afflictions and sufferings? When we recall her beauty it is as though we are sitting and weeping upon the rivers of Babylon [Ps. 136:1], because, to tell the truth, after such great beauty our sins and the iniquities of our fathers have begotten upon her the shame of her current ugliness. It is not difficult to say (as we shall subsequently relate) how quickly she grew in riches, size, and 165

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r reputation, thanks principally to the efforts of the blessed archbishop Lull of Mainz, who set his hand to building her, and also to the support and generosity of noble men and women, and to the multitude of monks nobly serving there in the camp of the Lord, the number of whom at that time had already grown to one hundred and fifty. So great was the fruitfulness that he had bestowed upon her, he “who makes a barren woman to dwell in the house, the joyful mother of children” [Ps. 112:9]. But now, unfruitful and exhausted—or rather, unfruitful because she is exhausted—she “groans and is in travail even up to now” [Rom. 8:22], and she has no strength in her travail because the violence of robbers has left her with nothing save for her walls and stones. “Remember, o Lord, the children of Edom, who say ‘destroy it, destroy it, even to the foundation thereof ’” [Ps. 136:7]. For this reason we think it dangerous to yield to their wicked counsel, which is contrary both to the harmony of the state and the peace of the Church [the reference is to demands that Hersfeld support the Saxon and Thuringian rebels against Henry IV in 1073]. Yet we suffer the greatest violence from those who ought to have been the defenders of our church, those whose duty it was “to go up to face the enemy and to set up a wall for the house of Israel” [Ezek. 13:5], who have been enriched by the wealth of the church in order that they might be able to stand before the camp of the Lord and fight the battles of the Lord. But greed, like hell, never says, “It is enough” [compare Prov. 30:15–16]. For having accepted the benefices that belong to them by virtue of the office of advocate, their greed impels them to lay claim to what has been set aside for our use under their protection. And they devour your people, Lord, like they eat bread, doing nothing with regard to our welfare because it is not part of our profession to oppose an injury. But “vengeance belongs to me, and I shall repay,” said the Lord [Heb. 10:30], and “he that touches you, touches the apple of my eye” [Zech. 2:8]. The time now demands that the purpose of this introduction should be made clear. It was not to make a show of my intellect, but to exercise it, and not for the sake of knowledge, which puffs up, but of charity, which builds up [1 Cor. 8:1], that I decided to write down what I remembered of those things that I happened to have read about or to have learned from trustworthy men in former days concerning the state our monastery, as well as of those things that I myself witnessed, sitting like Jeremiah and weeping the downfall and (so to speak) the destruction of my fatherland. It was to this end, if you recall, that your paternity undertook on many occasions to rouse me from my sleep. Although I was fearful and “a child of unbelief ” [Eph. 2:2], in the end I was persuaded to venture upon this undertaking by the charming history that a certain abbot of Fulda so accurately entrusted to memory [this work is not extant], although I possess neither the same degree of eloquence nor the ability to recount with such exactitude events that have been relegated far from 166

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) memory due in part to forgetfulness and in part to the long passage of time, and which for that reason must necessarily possess less authority. My interest in recent events kindles my enthusiasm for this task, although I know that I am hardly qualified to describe them. In spite of this, I summarized many of these events in heroic verse, insofar as the resources of my meager talent allowed. But because what one person writes another person refutes, and because I stand accused of having written falsehoods instead of truth in many places in my verses, in this genre of writing I have decided to touch upon what is wellknown and avoid what is disputed. It is your judgment alone, my father, that I await in this modest work. “But let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head” [Ps. 140:5]. “Arise my father, and eat of your son’s game, that your soul may bless me, if it is sweet to your throat” [Gen. 27:31].

57 Ada m of B remen, D eeds of the A rchbishops of Hamburg-B remen Adam of Bremen came from southern or central Germany and was probably trained at the cathedral school of Bamberg at the same time as Lampert of Hersfeld. In 1066/67 he was brought to Bremen, where he was made a canon of the cathedral and master of the school by Archbishop Adalbert (1043–1072). Soon afterwards he began collecting material for a history of the bishops of the diocese. Adam dedicated this work to Archbishop Liemar in 1075/76, but he continued revising it until his death in 1085. The Deeds of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen weaves together an impressive variety of sources, including earlier histories and biographies, documents preserved in the archives of the cathedral of Bremen, and information derived from the author’s conversations with a variety of informants, including the Danish king Svein Estridson. The first three books give an account of the history of the diocese from the mission of Willehad (the first bishop of Bremen) in the eighth century to the death of Archbishop Adalbert in 1072. The fourth book contains a valuable geographical and ethnographical survey of the Nordic lands over which the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen claimed jurisdiction and the right to organize missionary activities. In the prologue Adam explains his reasons for writing and comments on the difficulty of his task and the sources he employed. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, ed. Bernhard Schmeidler, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1917), pp. 1–4.

To the most blessed father Liemar, elected archbishop of Hamburg by the will of heaven, A[dam], the least of the canons of the holy church of Bremen, offers you a small token of his complete devotion. 167

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r When I was recently received into the number of your flock by your predecessor, o shepherd of the Gospel, I strove diligently not to appear ungrateful—as a stranger and a foreigner—for the favor of so great a gift. Therefore, as soon as my eyes and ears revealed to me that your church had been much diminished from the privilege of its ancient honor and needed the hands of many builders, I pondered at length through what monument of my labor I could help a mother bereft of her strength. And lo, as I occasionally read or heard about the deeds of your predecessors, I encountered many things that seemed worthy of relating both because of their own importance and the needs of this church. But because the memory of these events lies hidden, and the history of the bishops of this see has not been committed to writing, someone might say either that they accomplished nothing worthy of memory in their day, or if they did achieve anything, that they wanted for the industry of writers who could pass it on to posterity. Prompted by this need, I have applied myself to writing about the succession of bishops of Bremen and Hamburg, believing that it is not contrary to the obligations of my devotion or the responsibilities of your mission if, as a son of the Church, I recount the deeds of those most holy fathers through whom the Church was exalted and Christianity was spread among the pagans. In undertaking this task, which is undeniably arduous and exceeds my abilities, I ask for even greater indulgence, because despite the fact that there is virtually no one who has gone before me whose tracks I might follow, I have not hesitated to take an unknown path, feeling my way along in the dark, as it were, and choosing to bear the burden and heat of the day [Matt. 20:12] in the vineyard of the Lord rather than remain outside the vineyard doing nothing. Therefore, I am making bold to commit what I have undertaken to your scrutiny, most holy bishop, and I ask you to be both judge and advocate, although I know that nothing worthy of your wisdom can be brought before you, you who have traversed the course of earthy wisdom and have now ascended in greater glory to the pursuit of divine philosophy, looking down upon earthy affairs and meditating upon heavenly matters alone. And though you easily outstrip many people in both learning and truth (that is, through your pastoral words and example), foremost among your virtues is humility, which, by making you obliging towards all men, has also given me the confidence to dare to speak in my stammering way with a philosopher, and to appear as Saul among the prophets [1 Sam. 10:12]. Nonetheless, I know that I will not want for detractors (as is customary in any novel undertaking) who will claim that what I say is fictitious and false, like the dream of Scipio contrived by Cicero: Let them even say, if they wish, that it has departed through Virgil’s ivory gate [Aeneid 6.893–96]. It is not our intention to please everyone, father, but rather you and your church. For it is 168

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) very difficult to satisfy the envious. And because the perversity of my rivals compels me to do so, I will reveal to you the meadows from which I have plucked the flowers of this garland, lest it be said that I have seized upon a lie with the appearance of the truth. Some of what I am writing I gathered from scattered pages, but I borrowed a great deal from histories and papal documents, and the greater part I learned from the accounts of older men who were privy to this information. And truth is my witness that I am prophesying nothing from my own heart [Ezek. 13:2] and defining nothing rashly. To the contrary, everything that I am going to set down will be confirmed with reliable evidence, so that even if people do not believe me, at least they will put faith in my sources. Everyone should know that by venturing upon such a bold undertaking I do not desire to be praised as a historian in this work, nor do I fear to be criticized as a purveyor of falsehoods, but whatever I could not do well myself I have left as material for other writers to improve upon. I am beginning, therefore, with the coming of Saint Willehad, when all of Saxony was subdued by the arms of the Franks and delivered over to the worship of God, and making your salutary assumption of office the finishingpoint of this little book. At the same time, I beseech the mercy of almighty God that he who established you as the pastor to this wandering and afflicted people should also grant that through your efforts and in your own time those perversions that have arisen among us should be corrected and remain corrected in perpetuity. In addition, let Jesus Christ our Lord, whose reign is without end forever and ever, grant that the strenuous efforts to convert the pagans undertaken previously by your predecessors may be brought to completion by you, who possess by inheritance the mandate to preach to the whole region of the North.

58 G eoffrey M al at erra , On the D eeds of C ount Roger of Calabria and Sicily, and of Duke Robert Guiscard, his Brother Early in the eleventh century Norman adventurers began filtering into southern Italy, where they took advantage of the region’s chronic political instability to carve out careers as mercenaries and establish their own lordships. The most successful of the Norman arrivals were the sons of the minor Norman lord Tancred de Hauteville, two of whom, Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger, consolidated Norman control over Apulia and Calabria and eventually wrested Sicily away from its Muslim rulers. Roger completed the conquest of Sicily in 1090, five years after Robert’s death, and subsequently undertook the task of rebuilding the Latin church on the island. As part of this effort, he recruited clerics from north of the Alps, and it was probably in this capacity that Geoffrey Malaterra, 169

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r a monk from Normandy, arrived in southern Italy in the early 1090s, first in Apulia, and later in Sicily, where he joined the monastery of Saint-Agatha of Catania. At some point after his arrival in Italy, Geoffrey began work on a four-book history beginning with the arrival of the Normans in Italy and ending in July of 1098, and focusing on the conquest of Sicily. At the beginning of his dedicatory epistle Geoffrey asks for the support of Ansgar, a monk of Breton origin whom Roger had brought to Sicily from the monastery of Saint-Eupehmia in Calabria and appointed bishop of Catania in 1091. In addition to being bishop of the city, Ansgar was also made abbot of Saint-Agatha, a circumstance to which Geoffrey alludes in calling attention to the monastic vocation that they shared. Geoffrey’s history actually begins as a poem, and although it quickly reverts to prose, there are a few verses scattered throughout the work, which explains his reference to his history as a poem. The dedicatory epistle is followed by a general address to the clergy and bishops of Sicily. Source: trans. Justin Lake from De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius, ed. J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 149, cols. 1099A–1102A.

Dedicatory Epistle To Bishop Ansgar of Catania of blessed memory, brother Geoffrey, who derives the name Malaterra from his forefathers, wishing him rebirth from the unhappy course of the world as lived with Martha into the blessed repose of Mary with her brother Lazarus. Because, most holy father, I recognize that through a tie of intimacy distinct from that which I share with other bishops (whose appearance signals that they belong to a different order) I am united to you, however undeservingly, through the monastic habit that we wear, I also enjoy a hope distinct from others in presuming upon you, and I implore you to be my protector in all that I do. I request, therefore, that this book be examined by you, or at least in your presence, so that by receiving the favor of your authority it will be rendered more pleasing to the duke, and so that if by chance any critics should arise, they will not presume to criticize it out of respect for you. At the same time, you or anyone else who reads aloud or translates this book should know that if you find that the events are not set forth in the order in which they occurred, or that anything has been left out through forgetfulness, the fault should be ascribed not to me but to my informants, especially since I was not actually present at the time when these things took place, but, as you well know, I came from beyond the Alps and only recently became an Apulian, and indeed a Sicilian. If, on the other hand, it is a matter of my uncultivated manner of expression, it should be known that even if there were some way that I could have spoken in a purer or more stately manner, the duke himself 170

thre e: THE CENTRAL MI DDLE AGES (9 0 0–110 0) exhorted me to use plain language that was easy to understand so that what I was saying would be clearer to everyone. Whatever objections might be made against me, therefore, I am seeking shelter under the cover of your protection, so that by relying upon your powerful assistance I will have less to fear from those who seek to bite me with a hostile tooth, and so that I may enjoy the support of our duke. Prologue To all those throughout Sicily who bear the name of cleric or bishop, Geoffrey Malaterra, wishing both the name and what it signifies. Through the example of the philosophers of old, the custom arose among later generations of setting down in writing and transmitting to posterity the deeds of valiant men, so that actions worthy of memory would not perish through silence together with those who performed them. Instead, their deeds were to be entrusted to writing, so that future generations could read and learn about them, and so that those who performed them would be in some sense made to live again, as it were, through the recollection of their lives. Sallust, that orator praiseworthy among historians, recommends this when he writes at the beginning of his book [Catiline’s War] that “it behooves all men who wish to excel the other animals to strive with might and main not to pass through life unheralded like beasts, which nature has fashioned groveling and slaves to the belly.” Instructed by authors such as these who have recounted to him the histories of the ancients, the most glorious duke Roger, acting on the advice of his men, decided to commit to posterity those arduous triumphs that he won at the cost of great peril—specifically, how he subjugated first Calabria and later Sicily by armed force—and he instructed me to undertake the task of committing this work to writing. Since I am beholden to his generosity and cannot refuse what he commands, I have set out fearfully, like an unskilled swimmer upon a deep lake, employing an unpolished style and a feeble manner of expression. At the same time, I was terrified of you and your resentment against me, because it should have been you, who have drunk deeply from the pure fountain of the art of grammar, rather than I, who still hunger for the bread of learning, who undertook this task. But the aforementioned duke, recognizing that you were occupied in matters of greater importance, toiling sometimes over the upkeep of churches with Martha, and sometimes in blessed contemplation with Mary, spared you, lest he take you away from a more important task. At the same time, he is striving to render me more vigilant, as though I were idle and not devoted to any activity, with a slap of his hand, as it were. I ask, therefore, that you recall the words of scripture: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you shall fulfill the 171

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r law of Christ” [Gal. 6:2], and elsewhere: “When a brother helps a brother, both are consoled” [compare Prov. 18:19]. May you extend a supporting foot to prop up the frailty of my poem, so that, protected by the shield of your authority, I will not have to fear the attacks of those who seek to disparage me, the words others speak with a hostile tooth, and the actions of those who strive to gnaw at me. For there are some people who, when they have attained some degree of any sort of knowledge and have obtained the reward of human praise as a result, swell up with arrogance and become filled with such envy that they are unwilling to have anyone else equally skilled in letters in their vicinity. If, on the other hand, they chance to get their hands on another’s work, they ceaselessly attack and disparage it with a biting tooth, fearing that their own reputation will be diminished if someone else is praised. These people are accurately designated by that passage of scripture that says “knowledge puffs up,” but it does not follow in them that “charity builds up” [1 Cor. 8:1]. There are others, however, whose learning and manners ennoble them to such an extent that the more they drink from the fountain of philosophy, the less they are carried away by pride. Keeping the steps of their mind always planted in humility, and refraining from criticizing the words or deeds of others, they gently correct whatever they hear others say awkwardly, and in private rather than in public, lest it become a source of embarrassment to them. And in order to help them find favor through their words with the powerful of this world, they strive to extol them, regarding the praise and profit that accrue to them as though it were their own. I ask that the affectionate benevolence of such men be invited against me. For my part, I will judge that whatever I have said should be corrected by you and adorned with the roses of your learning, so that this vine, having been cultivated by you and watered with the care of your knowledge, will return richer fruit and find greater praise and favor with the duke.

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5 9 F ulcher of Ch artres, History of the E x pedition to Jerusalem Fulcher of Chartres (1059–ca 1127) was one of three historians (along with Raymond of Aguilers and the anonymous author of the Deeds of the Franks and other Pilgrims to Jerusalem) who wrote eyewitness accounts of the First Crusade. Trained as a cleric in northern France, probably at Chartres, he seems to have attended the Council of Clermont in 1095, at which Urban II preached the crusade. In October of 1096 he departed for the Holy Land in the retinue of Stephen of Blois, but when Baldwin of Boulogne broke off from the main body of the crusaders, Fulcher followed him to Edessa and became his chaplain. After the death of his brother Godfrey of Bouillon in 1100, Baldwin was elected king of Jerusalem, and Fulcher accompanied Baldwin there, remaining in Jerusalem until at least 1127, when he may have died of plague. His three-book history, which begins with the preparations for the crusade and breaks off in 1127, is based on Fulcher’s first-hand knowledge of events and is a crucial source not only for the First Crusade, but also for the early years of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. In the prologue Fulcher justifies the writing of history and argues that the deeds performed by the crusaders are worthy of commemoration. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg: Carl Winters, 1913), pp. 115–18.

It is truly pleasing to the living and also beneficial to the dead when the deeds of valiant men, particularly those who serve God, are set down in writing to be read, or else committed to memory in the repository of the mind and recited solemnly among the faithful. For when those who live in the world hear of the pious intentions of the faithful who have come before them—how they clung to God, spurning the flower of this world, and followed him, abandoning their parents, wives, and possessions, no matter how great, in accordance with the Gospel teaching—then they are spurred on more fervently to love him and animated by divine inspiration. It also greatly benefits those who have died in the Lord, because when the faithful hear of their virtuous and devout works, they bless their souls as a result and offer alms and prayers charitably on their behalf, both for those whom they know and those whom they do not. For 173

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r this reason, having been prompted on various occasions by the exhortations of certain of my companions, I have written a careful account of the celebrated deeds performed in the Lord by the Franks who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem under arms at God’s command, employing an unsophisticated but truthful style, and judging this material worthy to be entrusted to memory, insofar as I was capable of doing so and was an eyewitness to what happened during the course of the journey. Although I do not dare to compare the aforementioned undertaking to the privileged status of the people of Israel, or the Maccabees, or many others whom God has glorified with so many and such marvelous miracles, nonetheless, judging it not greatly inferior to their deeds because God is known to have worked numerous miracles during its course, I have taken care to commit it to writing. In fact, those who came later distinguished themselves from those who were first, whether Israelites or Maccabees, because in the same regions as those people we frequently saw those before us or heard that those far away were put to death by dismemberment, crucifixion, flaying, being shot with arrows, being cut to pieces, and various forms of martyrdom for the love of Christ, yet they would not give in to threats or any kind of blandishments. To the contrary, if the sword of the executioner had been present, many of our men would not have refused to be slain for Christ. O, how many thousands of martyrs met with a blessed death during this campaign! But who bears such a stony breast that he could hear about these works of God and not be moved by feelings of compassion to burst into praise of the Lord? Who could not be amazed that we, a small group of people amidst so many hostile kingdoms, have been able not only to defend ourselves but even to thrive? Who has ever heard of anything like this? On one side are Egypt and Ethiopia, on another Arabia, Chaldea, and Syria. Here are Assyria and Media, there Parthia and Mesopotamia, elsewhere Persia and Scythia. Even the great sea cut us off from Christendom and enclosed us within the hands of those who slaughter us, just as God permitted. He, however, protected us mercifully with his strong arm. For “blessed is the people whose god is the Lord” [Psalm 32:12]. The history that follows will tell of the nature of this undertaking, its origin, and how the whole people of the West was roused to make such a great journey and willingly direct their minds and hands to this end.

6 0 G u i bert of Nogen t, The D eeds of G od through the Franks Guibert of Nogent (ca 1060–1124) is more accessible to us than almost any other medieval author thanks to his three-book memoir the Monodies, the most significant work of Latin autobiography since Augustine’s Confessions. Born into a family of minor nobility 174

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) in or around Clermont-en-Beauvais, he entered the monastery of Saint-Germer-deFly around the age of twelve and in 1104 was elected abbot of the minor monastery of Nogent-sous-Coucy. In addition to the Monodies, Guibert wrote biblical commentaries (including a ten-book exposition of Genesis), theological treatises, and a history of the First Crusade, The Deeds of God through the Franks, which he began in 1107 and completed the following year. Unlike Fulcher of Chartres, Guibert was not an eyewitness to the First Crusade. He was prompted to write an account of the expedition, he says, by his dissatisfaction with the stylistic inadequacies of the anonymous Deeds of the Franks and other Pilgrims to Jerusalem. Guibert’s history is largely a reworking of this source (in considerably more difficult Latin), but it also contains valuable independent information about the preparations for the crusade and the reception waiting for those who returned home. Guibert dedicated the finished history to Bishop Lisiard of Soissons. He reports in the Monodies (3.11) that this decision provoked the ire of Bishop Gaudry of Laon, who refused to finish reading the work when he saw that it had not been dedicated to him. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Guibert de Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 127A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), pp. 77–84.

Epistle to Lisiard To Lisiard, father and lord bishop of the holy church of Soissons, Guibert, forever a debtor to his generosity, wishing whatever is believed sweet and singular in affection. Certain of my friends have often questioned why I did not attach my own name to the present work, but up to now I have put them off, fearing to tarnish a pious history with the name of an odious person. Yet after concluding that what was noble in itself could be rendered more noble still by being connected to the name of an eminent personage, I have in the end turned to you and placed a most brilliant lamp at the head of a work burdened by the mark of its author. For since your venerable nobility is graced by the knowledge of letters, exceptional tranquility, and modest habits, God in his foresight is rightly believed to have ordained that the office of bishop should be honored by so respected a figure. Let the volume that follows, therefore, flourish in the embrace of your name. Let whatever uncouthness it possess be smoothed over by love for you, for whom it is written. And let it be strengthened by the authority of the office in which you are preeminent. To be sure, there was no dearth of bishops and other people who knew of, and even had opinions about, this and my other writings. But I set them firmly aside, for it was my chief desire to turn to you. In reading this you should be aware that if on occasion I have chanced to stray from ordinary grammatical usage, I was correcting the faults, or rather the ground-slithering style [Horace, Ars Poetica 28], of a previous 175

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r history. I see villages, cities, and towns ablaze with the study of grammar, and for this reason I would not have wanted to deviate from the historians of old, so long as my abilities were up to the task. Consider, also, that in the midst of my domestic responsibilities and frequent hearings of disputes, I was seething with the desire to compose and transcribe (which is the more onerous task), and while externally I was forced to give an ear to various matters that claimed my attention with biting insistence, internally I had to keep a firm grip on the project that I had begun. No one should be surprised that I have employed a style very different from that which I used in the Expositions of Genesis or my other short treatises. For it is appropriate, and certainly permissible, for a history to be adorned with a studied refinement of diction, whereas the mysteries of sacred eloquence ought to be treated not with the loquacity of the poets, but with ecclesiastical simplicity. I ask, therefore, that you receive this work favorably and keep it as an eternal monument to your name. Preface What gave me the boldness to carry out this modest work was not any confidence in my knowledge of letters, which is meager in scope, but rather the divine authorship of the events themselves. For I was always certain that this undertaking was brought to completion by the power of God alone, through the agency of those whom he chose for the task, and I never doubted that he intended for it to be written down by those whom he wished, however uncultivated they might be. For I could not doubt that he who led his people through so many difficulties during the course of their journey and mowed down so many hostile forces that sprang up in their path would endow my history with truth in whatever way it pleased him and grant me fitting words with which to adorn the narrative. It is true that this history already existed, but it was written in unsuitably simple language, transgressing on many occasions the rules of grammar and frequently demoralizing the reader with the tedious blandness of its style. Naturally, those who are uneducated and care nothing about stylistic quality regard it as perfectly adequate because they enjoy the novelty of the story and do not suppose the author should have expressed himself in a manner that they cannot understand. But when those who believe that it is respectable to partake of the nourishment of eloquence consider the presence of awkward diction where a more agreeable style is appropriate, and the concise narration of events in circumstances that call for the intricate variety of soothing eloquence, when they see the treatment of the subject under consideration walking barefoot, then, as the poet has it, they either fall sleep or laugh [Horace, Ars Poetica 105]. Or rather, they look with hostility upon the illconceived temerity of speech that they believe ought to have been declaimed 176

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) in a very different manner. Obviously, the language of speakers ought to be adapted to accord with the nature of the subject-matter, so that warlike deeds are recounted with a certain vehemence of expression, while matters that touch upon the divine are drawn out at a more measured pace. If my abilities were up to the task, I ought to have run the race of this work in both ways, so that proud Mars would acknowledge that his noteworthy deeds were recounted in language that was in no way unsuitable, and the modesty of Mercury would never exceed the solemnity of tone required of the subject when matters of the faith are being treated. Although I have been unable to carry this out to my satisfaction, I have nonetheless learned to accept and approve, for the most part, what has been done well by someone else. I confess, therefore, to having acted rashly and impudently (though it was out of love for the faith) in subjecting myself to the judgments of other people’s opinions, for when they learn that I have undertaken this task in an effort to improve upon the original, they may deem the second version worse than the first. Yet because we see the study of grammar everywhere ablaze, and we know that everyone of even the lowliest status has access to this discipline on account of the great number of schools, I shuddered at the prospect of not committing this glorious achievement of our age to writing—if not as I should have, then at least insofar as I was capable of doing so—or rather, of leaving this history hidden beneath the scaly carapace of unpolished language. I saw how in our era God had performed miracles greater than those he had worked in any other age, and I beheld a jewel such as this lying at the edge of the dust, and unable to bear such contempt, I undertook to relate with whatever eloquence I possessed that which was more precious than any gold and yet had been consigned to neglect. Nor did I do so presumptuously, based solely on my own initiative, but rather in response to the requests of certain people who sincerely encouraged this desire. Some asked that I write in prose, but most requested that I do so in verse, since they had learned that in my youth I had practiced the rudiments of this discipline more than I should have. But now that I was more advanced in age, rank, and experience, I concluded that the story should not be declaimed in words calculated to win applause or with the clattering of verses. Instead, I believed (if I dare say it) that it was worthy to be recounted with more gravity than all the histories of the Jewish war, if there was anyone to whom God would give the eloquence necessary for the task. I do not deny that after the capture of Jerusalem, when those who had taken part in this great expedition began to return home, I formed the design to write about this subject, but I put it off because of the obstacles posed by certain demands that arose around this time. But with God’s permission (I do not know if it was his will) I was granted the means to carry out what I desired, and I set out upon the task that was the object of my pious aspirations, perhaps 177

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r only to be mocked by everyone, but ignoring the laughter and scurrilous jests of certain people so long as I could attend to the growth of my longstanding purpose, paying no heed to their barking. And if there is someone who would laugh, let him not criticize one who has sound intentions and is doing the best he can, nor let him hastily impute fault to what I have said, but if he despises it completely, then, forgoing a quarrel of words, let him rewrite what I have declaimed badly and provide his own models for composition. Moreover, if there is anyone who would impugn anything that I have said on the grounds that it is hard to understand, he should fear lest he furnish evidence of his own stupidity, since I know that nothing I have said in the book under discussion could cause uncertainty to anyone trained in letters. In setting out to correct (or perhaps to corrupt) the original draft of this history, I decided first to relate the motives and forces that set in motion the gathering of this expedition based upon what I had heard, and then, after giving an account of the causes, to write about subsequent events. I learned from those who took part in the expedition that the account of the earlier author who I am following was written with a great regard for the truth. Of course, I also frequently compared what was related in that book with the reports of those who witnessed the events for themselves, and I ascertained beyond doubt that neither version differed from the other. As for what I myself added, I either learned it from eyewitnesses or drew upon my own knowledge. Now if anything that I have said is shown to contradict the truth, it would be pointless for the clever person who discovers it to accuse me of falsehood, since he should know that with God as my witness I have said nothing with the intention to deceive. For what surprise is it if we make a mistake when recounting unfamiliar deeds, when we cannot even collect our own thoughts and actions in the calm of our mind, much less express them in words? What shall I say about intentions, which for the most part prove to be so inscrutable that they can scarcely be discerned by the examination of the inner self? We should not be censured harshly, therefore, if we err in what we say out of ignorance. Rather, what ought to be rooted out with unflinching severity is the deliberate fabrication of falsehoods out of a desire to deceive or perpetrate some sort of fraud. The names of people, provinces, and cities also gave me a great deal of trouble. For since I can see that certain names with which I am familiar were rendered incorrectly by the previous author, I do not doubt that he also expressed whatever was foreign (and thus less familiar to him) equally unreliably. For example, we reproach the “Turks” with invective daily, and we say “Khorasan,” which is something of a new name. Where the old terminology is unknown because it has been almost completely forgotten, I have dispensed with the ancient names (even if it were possible to recover them) and chosen 178

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) not to use any expression that is not part of the common parlance. For if I were to use “Parthians” (as some people have it) instead of “Turks” and “Caucasus” instead of “Khorasan” on the pretext of striving for authenticity, I would make myself hard to understand and expose myself to criticism from those who are sticklers about the proper names of regions. And I take particular note of the fact that just as in our own lands territories are denominated with different words, we do not doubt that foreign lands also change their names in the same way. For if the region that was once called Neustria is now Normandy, and what was once Austrasia is now, after certain turns of fortune, referred to as Lotharingia, how could anyone not believe that the same thing occurs among the inhabitants of the East? Indeed, certain people tell us that what was once Egyptian Memphis is now called Babylon. For this reason I have preferred to render certain names after the common fashion rather than make myself hard to understand or provoke an argument by using different terminology. For a long time I was uncertain about the name of the bishop of Le Puy, and I only learned what it was as I was nearing the end of this work, for it was not found in the source that I was using. I also ask that the reader pardon my careless manner of expression, since he may rest assured that I had no more time to compose this work than I did to write it down, nor did I set it down on wax tablets first so that it could be carefully corrected, but I put it down on parchment just as it is here. I have given this work a name that is free from arrogance and yet redounds to the honor of our people, namely The Deeds of God through the Franks.

61 H u gh of F leury, Ecclesiastical H istory Between the ninth and the early twelfth centuries, the Benedictine abbey of Fleury (Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire) witnessed an impressive tradition of historical writing. In the second half of the ninth century, Adrevald wrote an account of the translation of the relics of Saint Benedict, the Life of Saint Aigulf, and the first book of the Miracles of Saint Benedict, a work that was continued throughout the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Abbo of Fleury wrote the Passion of St. Edmund for the monks of the English monastery of Ramsey, and his student Aimoin wrote books 2–3 of the Miracles of Saint Benedict, the unfinished History of the Franks (see Doc. 50), and a life of Abbo. Aimoin was succeeded by Andrew of Fleury, the author of books 4–7 of the Miracles of Saint Benedict and the Life of Abbot Gauzlin (1004–1030), and by Helgaud, who wrote a biography of King Robert the Pious of France around 1033. A third generation of historical writing was inaugurated by the monk Hugh of Fleury (d. 1118/35), who wrote a chronicle of the French kings from the accession of Charles the Bald to the death 179

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r of King Philip I, a Life of Saint Sacerdos of Limoges, a treatise on the Investiture Controversy dedicated to King Henry I of England, and his most ambitious undertaking, the Ecclesiastical History. The first draft of the latter work comprised four books, beginning with Abraham and Ninus (who mark the beginning of recorded history in the Chronicle of Eusebius-Jerome) and ending in 814. In 1110 Hugh produced a revised edition in six books, adding new material and continuing it down to 855. He sent this version to Adela of Blois, daughter of William I of England and wife of Count Stephen of Blois. In the prologue Hugh justifies his project on the grounds that the history of the Church lay scattered in various books, from which he had extracted the most important parts. In reality, the Ecclesiastical History is not simply a history of the Church, but a universal chronicle, the first written in France since Frechulf of Lisieux. This genre was given new life around the turn of the twelfth century by Hugh and his contemporaries Hugh of Flavigny, Frutolf of Michelsberg, and Sigebert of Gembloux. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Hugonis Floriacensis opera historica, ex Historia Ecclesiastica editionis primae, ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores in Folio, vol. 9 (Hanover: Hahn, 1851), pp. 349–51.

Dedicatory Epistle To his lady, the venerable countess Adela, Hugh, a fosterling of Saint-Benedict of Fleury, wishes the glory of great felicity. I believe it fitting, most serene lady, to dedicate the present work as a gift to your gentleness with suppliant affection, since you are worthy to be ranked before many of the leading men of our age by virtue of your renowned generosity and outstanding integrity, and because you are educated in letters, which is a mark of nobility and great culture. The gift to which I refer is this little book, slender in its compendious brevity, which is intended to delight you with its charms and exhort you to perform good works and adorn your life with virtuous habits. This is not to deny that you are already very becomingly endowed with great virtues; rather, we are reminding you to strive constantly to make progress for the better. After reading over the history of the Church produced piecemeal by many historians and recounted in different styles, I decided to condense it into this one volume, and after collecting as many books as possible, to excerpt from and carefully extract the kernel of truth from each one, in certain cases using the same words as the authors and sometimes using my own. To be sure, this was a very laborious task, since brevity not infrequently goes hand-in-hand with obscurity, and I am striving to be clear and endeavoring to be concise. Everything to be found there that my boorishness composed was declaimed in uncultivated language. But whatever the manner of expression, this material can still benefit the reader and recall to the memory 180

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) a more copious series of events, both for the unlearned and the learned, for those occupied in secular affairs, and particularly for those who believe that the reading of the sacred scriptures has been given to us as a great source of comfort in this life, while the person who has read a great deal will find a brief reminder of these things here, and the ignorant will be instructed in a short period of time. If anyone is unwilling to be content with this, however, then I direct him to the opulent and magnificent volumes from which I derived this material. I admit that in rashly undertaking such a difficult task—one that ought to have been reserved for more learned men—I have given ample opportunity for slanderers and critics to malign me. But my response to the envious and mocking people who may look down upon my work with haughty disdain on account of their arrogant pride is that I suspect future generations will make no effort to remember their names, but that their criticism and praise alike will remain hidden. In contrast, the memory of your name, my lady, will be left eternally to posterity through this book and through your performance of good works, to which you devote unstinting labor, nor will there ever come a time when forgetfulness will bring it to an end. Accept gladly, therefore, this meager gift that I have offered to you, and defend it from the wicked through your favor. For in the past wise men did not heedlessly ignore the deeds of the men of old, but they set them down in books for the instruction of the present life. Moreover, the chronology of the past is related through history, and many needful things can be discerned through the successions of kings and emperors. Therefore, I shall begin this narrative starting with Octavian Augustus and take careful note of the names and deeds of the emperors and rulers of the Romans down to the time of Charlemagne and his son Louis. I am presenting you with something that you may read at your leisure, namely the deeds of the ancient emperors and the memorable actions of certain men beloved of God from the Incarnation of the Lord down to the prescribed time period. If you devote your attention to these matters, then idleness will not weigh down the illustrious and honorable acuity of your mind. As for praise of your virtues, which the nobility of your birth and the bounty of nature have poured over us, I blush to speak of them now, lest I should seem to employ the flattery of a sycophant, but I will speak of them elsewhere when there is occasion to do so. To those who may look askance at my dedication of this work to you, I respond that the blessed priest Jerome honored the holy Paula and her daughter Eustochium with his writings on many occasions, and the venerable Gregory, bishop of the Romans, sent the four books of his Dialogues to Queen Theudelinda of Italy. In addition, the woman who sat at the feet of the Lord and listened to the words that he spoke surpassed not only the Pharisees and Sadducees, but also the servants of Christ through the strength of her devotion. For the female sex is not without the capacity to understand profundities, but, 181

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r as we shall clearly show in the reading that follows, women sometimes possess great mental industry and the elegance of unimpeachable habits. The book of this history also contains hidden within it the most profound sacraments of the Church. For just as we know from scripture that the first man was created by God on the sixth day of the world’s creation, so we will also show that he was redeemed in the sixth age of the world. And just as we have learned that this same man was made from earth that was without stain, so we shall demonstrate, based upon a trustworthy source, that our savior was born from an undefiled virgin. And just as Adam was given the breath of life by God on the sixth day of the week and received from him the power of freedom of choice, through which he might obey the creator not through servile necessity but through free will, so that through obedience he would obtain the reward of eternal life and through disobedience he would merit death, so too it is clear that in the sixth age of the world mankind received from heaven the Holy Spirit, through which it might fulfill the law of God and God’s will freely, not in a servile fashion like other creatures, but like beloved children. For almighty God gave the power of freedom of choice to the rational creatures that he created in the first age, namely the angels and mankind, so that endowed with this ability, they might persist forever in praise of their creator. But because the first creation—that is, the angelic—was corrupted (though not entirely) and made miserable by drawing away from the love of its creator through pride, it burned with envy against human nature and put before it the stumbling-block of sin so that it might be stained with the mark of its impiety, thinking that it would be a great solace to itself if they should fall together and suffer the same punishment for their guilt. The divine majesty did not allow this, but decided to reform human nature according to the unspoiled nobility of its dignity. Therefore, God demonstrated the severity of his justice through angelic nature, which he punished, and the sweetness of his mercies through human nature, which he redeemed. For “all his ways are mercy and truth” [Ps. 24:10]. Therefore, just as through Adam we found the sadness of death during the first age of the world, so through the mystery of the incarnate word we recovered the joyfulness of eternal life during the sixth age, as we said above. Before this could happen, however, the patriarch Abraham lived during the third age of the world, from whom the rite and practice of circumcision derived its origin, since all the nations, corrupted by error, were sacrificing to idols. Finally, the Jewish people were given the law, by which the true God was to be worshipped. And truly God, who created everything from nothing, could have created everything simultaneously at one moment in time and could have led the whole of the human race to revere and worship him. But he did not do so. Instead, by a secret and inscrutable sacrament he arranged to be born of a virgin, not at the beginning of the world, but at a suitable time. When he shone serenely on 182

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) the world through his birth in human flesh, he gathered together one church from the Jewish and the gentile people in the sixth age of the world, and thus he joined both peoples to one another within the same church through one spirit so that there would no longer be any disagreement there, but rather one freedom. The fact that he wished to be born from a woman shows the great generosity of his goodness to us and provides immeasurable proof his humility. Now he who had come to purify the flesh could not be contaminated by flesh. Yet he could be born in the flesh, crucified, and resurrected for our salvation in a miraculous and ineffable way, without injury to his invulnerable and immutable majesty. The faithlessness of the proud cannot pry into such holy sacraments because it does not want to believe, but the Holy Church sincerely believes and embraces and pursues with great devotion all of these things in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, you too, daughter of the Church of the Lord, receive these same sacraments intently, read with rejoicing, and believe through reading. Live, be well, rejoice, most worthy of great praise, Progeny of kings, pillar of the clergy and people, Whom integrity of character and noble ancestors Alike adorn. May everything turn out fortunately for you.

6 2 G a ll u s A no n ym us, C hronicles and D eeds of the Dukes and P rinces of the P oles Gallus Anonymus is the name conventionally assigned to a monastic chronicler, probably of French origin, who wrote a history of the dukes of Poland between 1112 and 1118. One theory is that he was a monk of Saint-Gilles in Provence who spent time at his abbey’s daughter-house at Somogyvár in Hungary before going to Poland in the early twelfth century. In Poland he became acquainted with the members of the chapel of Duke Boleslaw III Wrymouth (1102–1138). Probably around 1112, at a time when opposition to the duke’s rule was growing due to his betrayal and blinding of his half-brother Zbigniew, the author began work on his chronicle, the chief purpose of which was to glorify Boleslaw and legitimize the rule of the Piast dynasty to which he belonged. Each of the three books of the Chronicle begins with an introductory epistle. In the first of these the author addresses five Polish bishops— Martin of Gniezno, Simeon of Plock, Paul of Poznan, Maur of Krakow, and Zyroslaw of Wroclaw—as well as the chancellor Michael, who may have commissioned the work. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Galli Anonymi Cronica et Gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum, ed. Karol Maleczyński, Monumenta Poloniae Historica: Nova series, vol. 2 (Krakow: Nakł. Polskiej Akademii Umieję tności, 1952), pp. 1–4, 6–9, 60–62, 120–23.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Introductory Epistle to Book 1 To Lord Martin, archbishop by the grace of God, to Simeon, Paul, Maur, and Zyroslaw, men worthy of God and venerable bishops of the territory of Poland, and to his collaborator, the venerable chancellor Michael, artisan of the work that has been undertaken, the writer of the following modest work wishes that you might see the flock that has been entrusted to your vigilant care standing upon Mount Zion, which is holy to God, and that, progressing from virtue to virtue you might behold the God of gods face to face. If I were not supported by your authority, aforementioned fathers, and if I could I not rely upon your help, in vain would I venture upon so difficult a task and launch my rickety boat upon the boundless depths of the perilous sea. Yet a sailor can sit in his ship and travel securely through the waves of the raging sea, if he has an experienced helmsman who knows how to use the winds and stars to steer his craft unerringly. Had it not pleased your charity to assist my little craft with the guidance of your oars, I would not have been able to avoid a disastrous shipwreck. Nor would I have been able to find my way out of such a dense forest, being unfamiliar with the path, had it not pleased your benevolence to reveal to me the boundary-markers within to guide me. Because I have been honored by the assistance of such worthy helmsmen, therefore, I will escape the howling winds and put into port safely. Nor will I hesitate to feel my way along an unknown path with bleary vision, since I know that the eyes of the guides who have gone before me gleam more brightly than light. Because I have sent advocates such as these out in advance to plead on my behalf, I will pay no heed to the muttering and grumbling of spiteful critics. Because fortune has gratified my wish and won you as my supporters in this worthy endeavor, I thought it fitting that men of your eminence should be inserted, as it were, into the events of this chronicle. For in your day, and through your valuable prayers, God glorified Poland through the memorable and celebrated deeds of Boleslaw the Third. And although I shall pass over many outstanding deeds performed during your lifetimes, I shall not fail in what follows to commend some of these things to the memory of posterity. But for now let us speak of you and extol you together as one, and let us join together in our praise those who are linked by the indissoluble bond of charity. For it is fitting that as priests your deeds should also be recorded, since divine grace, by endowing you with spiritual gifts, makes you to rule over the rulers themselves. And just as through your stewardship heavenly nourishment is given in response to the faithful prayers of your subjects, let your patronage watch over and protect this meager product of our feeble abilities. For it is fitting that those whom God has ordained to be preeminent over others by virtue of the privilege of their office should be especially vigilant in looking out for the welfare and needs of individual men. 184

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) Therefore, lest we seem to be humble men trying to make the fringes of our vanity long [compare Matt. 23:5], we have decided to designate this little book not with our own name, but with yours. Let us therefore impute whatever praise and honor is accorded to this work to the rulers of this land, and let us confidently entrust our labor and the reward for our labor to the discernment of your judgment. May the grace of the Holy Spirit, which ordained you as shepherds of the Lord’s flock, imbue your minds with wise counsel so that the duke will grant worthy gifts to the one who deserves them, so that honor will redound to you and glory to the one who makes you this offering. Rejoice always, and grant your favor to this work and its author. Proem to Book 1 Throughout the whole expanse of the world many things worthy of memory that have been accomplished by numerous kings and dukes are covered up in silence because of the contemptuous neglect of philosophers, or perhaps because there is a dearth of them. For this reason, we thought it worthwhile for the sake of a certain most glorious and triumphant duke named Boleslaw to set down in writing certain deeds of the Polish princes, preferring to do so in an immature style rather than forgo preserving anything noteworthy for the memory of posterity, especially since he was born through the dispensation of God and the prayers of Saint Giles, through whom we believe that he enjoyed good fortune and was always victorious. Because the territory of the Poles is remote from the paths taken by travelers and is known to few apart from traders passing through on their way to Russia, a brief examination of this topic ought not seem out of place to anyone, and no one should consider irksome if we give an account of the whole region instead of a partial description. On the north, then, Poland comprises the northern part of Slavonia, and it borders Russia on the east, Hungary on the south, Moravia and Bohemia on the southeast, and Dacia [Denmark] and Saxony on the west. On the northern, or Amphitryonic [Baltic], sea it counts as neighbors three savage tribes of pagan barbarians, namely Selencia, Pomerania, and Prussia. The duke of the Poles is constantly waging war against these territories in order to convert them to the faith, but it has proven impossible either to turn their hearts from faithlessness with the sword of preaching or to exterminate this brood of vipers with the sword of destruction. On many occasions their leaders have sought refuge in baptism after being defeated in battle by the duke of the Poles, but after recovering their strength they have renounced the Christian faith and renewed their wars against the Christians. Beyond these people and within the arms of the Amphitryonic Sea there are still more barbarous tribes of pagans and uninhabitable islands where there is perpetual snow and ice. 185

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r In the north, then, the land of Slavonia consists of these regions, into which it is divided and which comprise its parts. It extends from the Sarmatians, who are also called the Getae, to Dacia and Saxony, and from Thrace through Hungary, which was formerly occupied by the Huns (who are also called the Hungarians), and passing through Carinthia it ends in Bavaria. On the south, starting with Epirus near the Mediterranean Sea and going up through Dalmatia, Croatia, and Istria, it comes to an end at the Adriatic Sea, which separates it from Italy, where Venice and Aquileia are located. Although this area is heavily forested, it abounds in gold and silver, bread and meat, fish, and honey, and it is greatly preferable to other regions in that, while it is surrounded by the many aforementioned peoples, both Christian and pagan, and it has been attacked by all of them together and separately on numerous occasions, it has never been completely subjugated by any of them. It is a land where the air is healthful, the fields are fertile, the woods are dripping with honey, the water is full of fish, the soldiers are warlike, the peasants are hardworking, the horses are hardy, the oxen are suited to the plow, and the cows abound with milk and the sheep with wool. But lest we appear to be making too lengthy of a digression, let us return to our chosen topic. For it is our aim to give an account of Poland and especially of Duke Boleslaw, and to recount for his sake certain deeds of his predecessors that are worthy of memory. Now, therefore, let us commence to address our theme in such a way that we may climb from the roots of the tree to its branches. The section of the narrative that follows will reveal how the office of duke passed into the hands of the family that holds it now. Book 2 covers the years 1086 to 1109, including the accession of Boleslaw III and his dispute with his half-brother Zbigniew. Dedicatory Epistle to Book 2 To Lord Paul, by the grace of God a Polish bishop of venerable wisdom, and Chancellor Michael, his collaborator, a man of exemplary piety, this distributor of a modest repast offers his filial reverence and the obedient service that is your due. As I was pondering a great many things, the recollection of your most generous kindness and your reputation for heavenly wisdom and earthly probity, which has spread far and wide, impressed themselves upon me. But because the sluggish faculty of speech often fails to render into words what the vast ambition of the mind conceives, the benevolence of my intentions must suffice in place of eloquence; for it is unfair to complain when someone does the best that he can. Yet to avoid seeming to pass over in silence the reputation of such eminent men and the memory of such pious prelates, let us strive to praise them 186

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) by bringing a drop from a tiny spring, as it were, to the waters of the Tiber. For although what is perfect by nature cannot be improved upon, still reason does not prevent its being venerated in writing and celebrated with praise. In painting it is not considered inappropriate if the color black is sometimes interspersed among more costly hues for the sake of variety. Likewise, royal tables will often feature some common dish as a way of preventing the daily round of delicacies from becoming tedious. So too the ant, though it is an animal inferior in size to the camel, nonetheless performs its work diligently and is proportionately just as strong. Spurred on by these examples, I am attempting, like a stutterer, to form childlike words in praise of men who, being commendable in and of themselves, need no acclaim, and to extol the Israelites truthfully and without deceit. The praiseworthy life of these men, their conspicuous learning, exemplary habits, salutary preaching, and the wisdom that they have derived from the twin peaks of philosophy so prudently illuminate the dense forests of Poland that they do not sow the seed of the faith in the uncultivated ground of the human heart until they have rooted out the thorns and thistles that grow there with the hoes of the divine word, being similar also to “the man that is a householder who knows to bring forth out of his treasure things new and old” [Matt 13:52], and to the Samaritan who bound the wounds of the injured man and poured wine and oil over them [Luke 10:34]. They also faithfully distribute grain in measure to their fellow-servants, and rather than hiding their talent, they put it out at interest. But why does a mute person strive to speak about eloquent men, and why does a child of small intellect entangle himself in such profundities? Let him nonetheless pardon ignorance, And pardon goodwill as well. Esteemed fathers, let the judgment of your sanctity not consider what it is or how much of its labor the desire of our ability offers, but what it strives for. For when a poor man gives a powerful friend some insignificant product of his labor, the latter will not refuse to accept it in place of a more costly gift if he considers the attitude of the giver rather than the gift itself. Therefore, kindly fathers, may your lofty authority and the benevolence of your minds accept and commend this meager work composed by our feeble pen, so that Almighty God may endow you with an increase of both temporal and eternal goods. Book 3 covers the period from 1109 to 1113 and describes Boleslaw’s campaigns against the Czechs and Pomeranians, his blinding of Zbigniew, and his penance for this act. A remark in the introductory epistle suggests that the author intended to return to his monastery upon completion of the chronicle. 187

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Dedicatory Epistle to Book 3 To the venerable chaplains of the duke and the other virtuous clerics worthy to be remembered throughout Poland, the author of this insignificant work wishes that you might disregard the goods of this world so as to be allowed to pass unhindered from the transitory to the permanent. In the first place I want you to know, dearest brothers, that I did not undertake a project of this magnitude in order to make the fringes of my feebleness long [Matt 23:5], nor so that I, who am an exile and foreigner among you, might exalt my own country and kinsmen, but so that I might bring back some product of my labor to the place of my profession. I also submit to your judgment that I did not embark upon this task because I thought that I was better qualified than other people or because I accounted myself more eloquent, but so that I might ward off idleness and stay in the habit of writing, and so that I would not eat the bread of Poland in vain [compare 2 Thes. 3:8]. In addition to this, the abundance of martial subject matter roused my ignorance to undertake a task that outstripped my abilities, and the prowess and valor of the warlike duke Boleslaw gave confidence to my boldness. For this reason, Consider this yours and not mine. Evaluate the gold, rather than the craftsman. Drink up the wine, not the vessels. And if by chance you find fault with the nakedness of the diction in this work, at least it will provide you with material that can be treated in greater depth and in more detail. If, on the other hand, you deem the Polish kings and dukes unworthy to be commemorated in annals, then you will undeniably be lumping the kingdom of Poland in with all manner of uncivilized barbarian tribes. And if by chance you imagine me to be a particular sort of person with a certain way of life, and thus unworthy to have ventured upon an undertaking of this sort, my response is that I have written an account of the wars of kings and dukes, not a gospel. For the fame and military might of the Romans and the Gauls would never have achieved such renown throughout the world if they had not been preserved through the testimony of writers, to be remembered and emulated by posterity. Likewise, the great city of Troy, although it lies ruined and abandoned, has been enshrined in memory forever by the works of the poets. Its walls have been leveled, its towers lie toppled, its spacious and pleasant places are uninhabited, and the haunts and secret lairs of wild beasts lurk where the palaces of kings and princes used to

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) be. Yet throughout the world the glory of the citadel of Troy is proclaimed in writing. Hector and Priam are recalled more often in the dust than on the royal throne. Do I need to mention Alexander the Great, Antiochus, the kings of the Medes and the Persians, or the tyrants of barbarian peoples, when merely to recite all of their names would demand that I extend today’s work into tomorrow? The praise of the ancient bards has made the fame of these men immortal, although their lives were transitory and fleeting. For just as holy men are celebrated for their good works and miracles, so too the kings and princes of this world are exalted by victory and triumph in war. And just as it is a pious duty to preach the lives and passions of the saints aloud in churches, it is glorious to recite the triumphs and victories of kings and dukes in schools and palaces. And just as the lives and passions of the saints preached in churches instruct the minds of the faithful in piety, so too the campaigns and victories of kings and dukes recited in schools and palaces fire the minds of fighting men with courage. For just as the pastors of the Church are duty-bound to seek the spiritual profit of souls, the defenders of a country strive to increase its honor, fame, and earthly glory. For the ministers of God should render spiritual obedience to God in those things that belong to God and show honor and obedience to the rulers of this world in those things that belong to Caesar. What surprise is it if men celebrated for their triumphs seek fame and glory through their courage, when even Cleopatra, the queen of Carthage, in her thirst for glory sought with manlike audacity rather than natural womanly virtue to uproot the seat of the Roman Empire? And if a woman in pursuit of an empire preferred to subject herself to a terrible death after suffering defeat in a naval battle rather than be a slave, how is it surprising if those who are defending their homeland or their paternal inheritance, or avenging a wrong that has been done to them, prefer to seek a glorious death in battle (as opposed to one by poison) instead of shamefully submitting to those beneath them? This much is clear from the deeds of the Polish princes commended above, which have not been recounted in vain. So too it is clear that the present work must be affirmed by your judgment and read out by a true interpreter. And in addition, for the sake of God and Poland, may the judgment of your probity see to it that my reward for a labor of this magnitude is impeded neither by enmity nor by any instance of vanity on my part. For if wise men judge my work to be good and useful for honoring the fatherland, then it would be undeserved and inappropriate if the recompense for this labor were taken away from its creator through the counsel of certain men.

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6 3 E a dmer , H istory of Recent Events in England The English historian and hagiographer Eadmer was born ca 1060 in Kent and entered the venerable monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury as an oblate. He met Anselm, the famous abbot of the Norman monastery of Bec, during the latter’s visit to England in 1079, and when Anselm was appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 1093, Eadmer became his chaplain. As a close friend and companion of Anselm, Eadmer traveled throughout England on official business with him and twice accompanied Anselm into exile after disputes with kings William Rufus and Henry I prompted him to seek refuge on the Continent. Eadmer’s two most important works, the Life of Anselm and the History of Recent Events in England, were written together and form a literary diptych, the first describing Anselm’s inner life and the second giving an account of his accession to the see of Canterbury and his disputes with the English kings. The History originally comprised four books and ended in 1109 with the death of Anselm, but Eadmer later added two books that carried it down to 1122. In the preface Eadmer justifies his decision to write and explains the purpose of his work. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Eadmeri Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Martin Rule (London: Longman, 1884), pp. 1–2.

When I behold the men of the present day bowed down under the weight of various misfortunes, anxiously investigating the deeds of their predecessors out of a desire to discover a means of consoling and fortifying themselves, yet unable to obtain what they seek because fleeting oblivion has consigned this material to oblivion due to a dearth of writers [or written records], then I think I can see that those who have entrusted the deeds of their own era to the memory of letters out of a desire to benefit future generations have performed a great service for posterity. And I believe that those men who have toiled over this sort of labor with sincere determination will surely receive a fitting reward from God in return for their efforts. Having reflected upon this, therefore, I decided to commit to writing those things that I had witnessed with my own eyes and ears, while striving to be concise, both so that I might comply with the wishes of my friends who were forcefully urging this course of action upon me, and so that I might make some small offering to the diligence of future generations, in case a situation ever arose among them that could be helped in some way by the example of these events. The chief goal of this work is to recount how Abbot Anselm of the monastery of Bec became archbishop of Canterbury, to explain the reasons for his frequent and lengthy periods of exile from the realm after a division arose between him and the kings of England, and to relate the outcome of the source of discord between them. This 190

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) dispute appears to be a new development in our era and something unheard of among the English people since the time that—I will not say before—the Normans began to rule in England. For from the time that Count William of Normandy conquered this land and made it subject to himself, no one prior to Anselm was made a bishop or abbot in England without first becoming the king’s man and receiving the investiture of his bishopric or abbacy from his hand through the giving of the pastoral rod, with the exception of two bishops, Ernost and Gundulf (these two, who served as successive heads of the church of Rochester, were invested with this see in accordance with custom by Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury of venerable memory before the chapter of brothers of Canterbury). Anselm, then, desiring to abolish this practice on the grounds that it was contrary to God and the sacred canons, and seeking to curtail the abuses that flowed from it, made himself an enemy of the kings and was compelled to leave his country (There were other reasons for his departure as well, as subsequent events will show). Many other things that came to pass in England before, during, and after these events will also be recounted, since insofar as it lay in our power we did not think it right to wholly deprive our readers of this knowledge. But it will suffice to have given a brief account of these things in the prologue. In commencing our narrative we think it best to start a little earlier and proceed with a brief account beginning from the planting of the root, so to speak, from which sprang the shoots of the events that we shall discuss.

64 C o s mas of Pragu e, Chronicle of the Bohemians The Chronicle of Cosmas of Prague (ca 1045–1125) is the first narrative history of the Czech lands and serves as the foundation for the study of early medieval Bohemia and Moravia. In three books, Cosmas narrates the origins of the duchy of Bohemia and the consolidation of power under the Přemyslid dukes. Cosmas was born in Bohemia and educated at the cathedral school of Prague; he later studied grammar and dialectic at the cathedral school of Liège under the celebrated mathematician Franco. He returned to Bohemia by 1091, was ordained a priest in 1099, and subsequently became dean of the cathedral church of Prague. Each of the three books of the Chronicle is preceded by an introductory epistle, while the whole work is introduced by an address to Severus, provost of Melnik. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Cosmae Pragensis Chronica Boemorum, ed. Berthold Bretholz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, Nova Series, vol. 2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1923), pp. 1–4, 80–81, 159–60.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Prologue to Severus To lord Severus, provost of the church of Melnik, a man endowed with both knowledge of letters and spiritual understanding, Cosmas, dean of the church of Prague in name only, wishes a prize in the heavenly kingdom when the race of this life is run. With God as my witness, I cannot put into words the depth of the devotion and love with which I prostrate myself before your paternity, nor is that love to be considered great that can be grasped by human reason. For true love can have nothing of its own, nothing secret or hidden that it does not offer to the person whom it cherishes with sincere affection. Were it not that I possessed such love, I never would have presumed to offer these senile ravings of mine to a man of such great authority. For I sought to find something to offer you that would please you in your idle moments, but nothing so ridiculous as I find this little work of mine. For if we laugh gently when we see someone stumble over a rock, then when you see how many errors and transgressions of the grammatical art I have committed in this work, you will be able, if you are inclined to laugh at each one of them, to exercise this uniquely human quality to an excessive degree. Farewell. Whether or not these senile trifles of mine please you, I ask you not to let a third eye see them. Preface to Master Gervase To Archdeacon Gervase, who is richly endowed with the knowledge of each of the liberal arts and anointed with the wisdom of every type of knowledge, Cosmas, one hardly worthy to be called what he is called, but nonetheless a servant of the servants of God and Saint Vaclav, offers the gift of prayer that is your due and a pledge of mutual love. When you receive this manuscript, you should know that I have sent you a chronicle of the Bohemians. Although it is polished with none of the charms of the grammatical art and it is composed in simple and scarcely Latinate language, I have decided that it should be examined by your singular wisdom, so that it may either be wholly rejected by your penetrating judgment and read by no one, or else, if it is judged worthy to be read, so that it may first be polished down to the last detail by the file of your scrutiny, or preferably rendered anew into better Latin by you. For the only value I attribute to my work is that you, upon whom wisdom has been bestowed by God, or other people more learned than I, might be able to use it as source material (as Virgil had the destruction of Troy and Statius the descendants of Aeacus) to make your learning known to posterity and win a glorious reputation to be remembered down through the ages.

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) I have begun this narrative with the first inhabitants of the land of Bohemia, and I am revealing to the love of all good men, insofar as my knowledge and abilities permit, a few things that I learned from the fanciful tales of old men, not out of any desire for human praise, but so that the things that I was told would not be wholly consigned to oblivion. I am eager to please men of virtue and learning, but I am not afraid to offend the ignorant and uncultivated. For I know that there will be many critics who will die of derisive laughter when they behold the form of this work, men who have only learned to disparage others and are unable to dispense anything good themselves. Of such people the prophet sings, “They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge” [ Jer. 4:22]. These men only look with the eyes of Lynceus, and they memorize and hold fast in their heart, as if in adamantine, what I have said incorrectly and instances where my slumbering mind has faltered. But this is hardly surprising: “Great Homer sometimes nods” [Horace, Ars Poetica 359]. I am neither frightened by the malicious disparagement of these people nor flattered by their disingenuous praise. Let those who wish to do so read; those who do not may cast this work aside. But if you love me as your friend, dearest brother, and if you are touched by my prayers, then gird the loins of your mind and take in hand an erasing-knife, chalk, and a pen, so that you may erase what is superfluous and add what is missing. Correct what I have said incorrectly so that my ignorance may be remedied by your eloquence. For I do not blush to be corrected by a friend. To the contrary, I earnestly request to be emended by my friends with sincere affection. This first book contains an account of the deeds of the Bohemians, insofar as I was able to learn about them, down to the time of Bretislav I, the son of Duke Oldrich. I only began to keep track of the years of the Lord’s Incarnation from the time of Borivoj, the first Catholic duke, since I did not want to invent them at the beginning, and I was unable to find a chronicle that could inform me when or in what era the deeds that you will read about hereafter took place. Farewell. At your command, I shall either gird myself to relate other things or else stop here and put an end to my clumsy efforts. Live, be well, and do not refuse my requests, but fulfill them. This chronicle was written during the reign of the Roman emperor Henry IV [actually Henry V, r. 1106–1125], when Pope Calixtus [II] was presiding over the holy church of God [1119–1124], at the time when Vladislav was duke of the Bohemians [1109–1117, 1120–1125], and Hermann was bishop of the church of Prague [1099–1122]. In what follows the years of the Incarnation and the indictions in which the events took place are provided for everyone who wishes to know them.

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Book 2, which covers the period from 1038 to 1092, is addressed to Clement, abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Brevnov at Prague. Proem to Clement, Abbot of the Church of Brevnov To Clement, spiritual father of the monastery of Brevnov, who rightfully bears this name, a man ever devoted to contemplation, Cosmas, who is scarcely worthy to be called dean, wishes you membership in the heavenly senate. As I turned it over at length in my mind, I was at a loss as to what particular token of my love I could send to a man of such sanctity that weights of gold and silver are cheap in his eyes and only things of the spirit please him. For this reason, I decided that it would be best simply to obey your will. For I learned from your cleric Deocarus, who secretly made it known to me, that you were eager to see those trifles of mine that I had formerly written for Gervase. Taking courage from the opportunity presented to me, or rather compelled by the persuasion of a dear friend, I have presumed to set before your paternity not only what you asked for, but also a second little book (so to speak) of this same narrative, which treats of the period from Bretislav, the son of Duke Oldrich, to the like-named son of King Vratislav, insofar as I was able to learn about it. For although, venerable father, you do not cease to drink up the holy scriptures, and you continuously drain the deep fonts of philosophy, nonetheless do not disdain to wet your holy lips with this meager liquid. For it is often the case that after strong wines and sleep-inducing draughts, if a natural thirst befalls a man, a drink of pure water is more satisfying to him than sweet libations. And it often happens that the soldier who toils in the arms of Mars rejoices to mingle among choirs of virgins or is glad to play with a hoop amid a circle of children. Thus, most holy father, set aside your weighty tomes of logic and read over these meager works of mine, which are childish in sense and uncouth in style. In them you will find a number of things that are worthy of mockery and derision, but for all that, I ask that you commit them to memory, so that with the wisdom bestowed upon you by God you might eventually correct them down to the last detail. As for the fact that in certain places you will find verses that are not entirely metrical, you should know that I was aware of my own ignorance when I composed them. Farewell. Book 3 extends from the accession of Duke Bretislav II in 1092 to shortly before the author’s death in 1125. In the “Apology” that introduces the third book, Cosmas discusses the potential dangers of writing about contemporary history, borrowing from the 892 entry of the Chronicle of Regino of Prüm.

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) Apology for the Third Book With the aid of God’s mercy I have now fulfilled Whatever promises I believe that I made to you, reader. Having recorded a few of the many things dealing with earlier events and times past, I have now brought the story of my narrative down to the time of the younger Duke Bretislav. Yet I have judged it worthwhile to pause from the work before me, and it will not be out of place to explain why. For it is better that we should be completely silent about the men and events of the present day than risk losing something by speaking the truth, since the truth always engenders hatred. And yet if we deviate from the truth and write what is contrary to the facts, we will be censured on the grounds of flattery and falsehood, since these events are known to almost everyone. In addition, the men of this era, being bare of virtue, strive only to be decked with praise. Their greatest folly is to wish to be adorned with favors and yet to do nothing worthy of favor. This was not the case with the men of old, who, though they were eminently worthy of praise, nonetheless shunned the accolades sought by the men of the present day and deemed shameful what the latter judge to be a source of honor. If we clearly relate with our pen the deeds of such persons, then because some of these things were not done with God, we shall doubtless not avoid offending certain still-living people, new men and yes-men who, when they hear the duke’s voice, have nothing else as ready on their lips as “Yes, my lord,” or “So it is, my lord,” or “Do so, my lord.” Yet this was not the case in the past. For the duke cherished most dearly the man who fought for justice and opposed his shield to iniquity, the man who held bad counselors and those who deviated from the path of justice in check with a single word of truth. Of such men there are now none, or few. If there are any, then when they keep silent it is as if they did not exist. The sin and the judgment are the same for having kept the truth silent and for having stooped to falsehood. Consequently, it seems much safer to us to relate a dream, to which no one can bear witness, than to write about the deeds of the men of the present day. For this reason, we leave to posterity the task of giving a more extensive account of their actions. Yet to prevent anyone from accusing us of having left this material untouched, we shall undertake to make note of a few things in summary fashion.

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65 G albert of Bruge s, On the Murder , B etrayal, and D eath of the G lorious C ount Charles of Flanders On 2 March 1127 Count Charles of Flanders was assassinated as he prayed in the church of Saint-Donatian at Bruges. The murder shocked contemporaries and sparked a political crisis in Flanders, and it prompted a notary in the comital administration at Bruges to keep a day-to-day account of the events following the murder. The result was the extraordinary history of Galbert of Bruges, who apparently began keeping a record of events during the siege of the castle of Bruges, where Charles’s murderers and their allies took refuge after the killing. Galbert first took notes on wax tablets and later worked them up into a complete account of the murder and its aftermath. In its final form Galbert’s history begins with an account of Charles’s rule as count (1119–1127) and ends in the summer of 1128 with the accession of Thierry of Alsace as count of Flanders. In the prologue Galbert describes the difficulty of the circumstances in which he wrote and his reasons for undertaking the task. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Histoire du meurtre de Charles le Bon par Galbert de Brugues, ed. Henri Pirenne (Paris: A. Picard, 1891), pp. 1–3.

At a time when an ardent zeal to win fame and glory through knightly exploits and a shared intention to rule well were conspicuous among the rulers of the kingdoms that we see around us, Henry, who ruled as emperor of the Romans and died without heirs after sitting on the throne for many years, was a man of lesser fame and power, and the king of England, who occupied his realm without children, was likewise inferior in fame and power to Charles, marquis of Flanders, our natural lord and prince, a man ennobled by his exploits in war and the royal blood of his family, who, in the seventh year of his countship, while he presided over the churches of God as a father and advocate, being a man generous to the poor, courteous and honorable among the magnates, cruel and cunning toward his enemies, and also without heir, was betrayed and killed by his own men, or rather by his most debased serfs, laying down his life for justice. As I set out to recount the death of so great a prince, I did not strive to adorn my narrative with the ornaments of eloquence or the various figures of rhetoric, but simply to pursue the truth, and though the style is barren, I have nonetheless commended the remarkable series of events that followed his murder to the memory of the faithful in writing. For my own part, when I wanted to apply myself to this task, I had neither a location nor a suitable occasion to write, since at that time our place [the castle of Bruges] was beset by fear and hardship, to the point that without exception the clergy and the people were constantly threatened with the destruction of their possessions and their lives. 196

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) Amid so many obstacles, therefore, and in the most cramped conditions, I undertook to calm my seething mind, which was tossed about as if it were in Euripus, and focus it on the task of writing. In the midst of these mental demands, one tiny spark of love sustained and nourished by its own flame ignited all of the spiritual powers of my heart and endowed my person, which had been possessed by fear of what was happening outside, with the freedom to write. Thus, if anyone is keen to belittle and disparage this work to which I have devoted myself, and which I have commended to your hearing and that of all the faithful in common, despite being placed in such difficult straits, I do not much care. What gives me assurance is the fact that I am speaking the truth, as it is known to everyone who endured the same perils that I did, and that I am commending it to be remembered by those who come after us. I ask and advise, therefore, that if this little work, with its arid style and limited scope, comes into anyone’s hands, that he not scorn and deride it, but rather marvel with fresh wonderment at the things written here, which have come to pass only in our time by the ordinance of God, and that he learn not to despise or betray to their death those earthly powers that have been set over us—as we are obliged to believe—by divine ordinance, whence the apostle says, “Let every soul be subject to every power, whether it be to the king as (tamquam) supreme or to governors as (tamquam) sent by him” [1 Pet. 2:13–14]. Tamquam here is not comparative, but affirmative. For in the sacred scriptures tamquam is used to mean that which is true, so that “as a betrothed” (tamquam sponsus) means “truly betrothed” (vere sponsus). These murderers, drunkards, fornicators, and slaves to all the vices of our earth did not deserve to be ruled over by a prince who was good, pious, and powerful, catholic, a sustainer of the poor after God, an advocate of the churches of God, a defender of his country, and one in whom the remaining power of earthly rule assumed the form and matter of a virtuous ruler and servant of God. When the devil, therefore (as you will see in what follows), saw the progress of the Church and the Christian faith, he shook the foundations of the earth (that is, of the Church of God) and threw it into confusion with treachery, betrayals, and the shedding of innocent blood.

6 6 W illi a m of M a lmes bury, Deeds of the English K ings The twelfth century was an exceptionally fertile period for English historiography, in part because the Norman Conquest prompted several monastic authors to turn to the writing of history as a means of maintaining a connection with the rapidly disappearing AngloSaxon past. One such author was William of Malmesbury (ca 1095–1143), the most important and prolific English historian since Bede. Born to a Norman father and an 197

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r English mother, William entered the monastery of Malmesbury in Wiltshire as an oblate and stayed there for the rest of his life. In two periods of literary activity, the first ending in 1125, and the second from 1135 until his death, he produced an impressive corpus of historical texts that were widely circulated and copied: the Deeds of the English Kings, a history of the rulers of England from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons to 1120 (and in a revised version, to 1127); the Deeds of the English Bishops, a history and gazetteer of the bishoprics in England; the History of Recent Events, an account of English history from 1128 to 1142; a Life of Saint Dunstan; and On the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury, which he wrote at the request of the monks of Glastonbury Abbey. William’s importance as a historian derives not only from the extent of his writing, but also from his methodology, which was characterized by conscientiousness, sound critical judgment, and careful scrutiny of various types of source material, including charters, inscriptions, topography, and physical remains. William completed his first edition of the Deeds of the English Kings in 1124/25. He revised it twice between 1135 and 1140, bringing the work down to 1127 and adding a dedicatory epistle to Robert, earl of Gloucester. Robert was an illegitimate son of King Henry I and a half-brother and key supporter of the empress Matilda, who contested the English throne with King Stephen during the so-called Anarchy of 1139–54. William’s letter, and his favorable portrait of Robert in the History of Recent Events, may have been intended to win Robert’s patronage for the abbey of Malmesbury, which was threatened by the turmoil of Stephen’s reign. In addition to the dedicatory epistle to Robert, each of the five books of the Deeds of the English Kings contains a separate prologue. Source: trans. J.A. Giles (based on the translation of John Sharpe), William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle of the Kings of England (London: George Bell and Sons, 1904), pp. 1–4, 93–94, 258–59, 325–26, 424, rev. Justin Lake.

Dedicatory Epistle to Earl Robert of Gloucester To my respected lord, the renowned Earl Robert, son of the king, health, and, as far as he is able, his prayers, from William, monk of Malmesbury. The virtue of celebrated men holds forth as its greatest excellence its tendency to excite the love of persons even far removed from it. Hence, humble men make the virtues of their betters their own by venerating those great actions to the practice of which they cannot themselves aspire. Moreover, it redounds altogether to the glory of exalted characters both that they do good and that they gain the affection of their inferiors. To you, princes, therefore, it is owing that we act well; to you, indeed, that we compose anything worthy of remembrance. Your exertions incite us to make you live forever in our writings in return for the dangers you undergo to secure our tranquility. For this reason I have deemed it proper to dedicate the Deeds of the English Kings, which 198

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) I have lately published, more especially to you, my respected and deservedly beloved lord. None, surely, can be a more suitable patron of the liberal arts than yourself, in whom are combined the magnanimity of your grandfather, the munificence of your uncle, and the wisdom of your father, more especially as you add to the qualities of these men, the pattern of whose diligence you reproduce, this particular characteristic, namely a devotion to learning. Nor is this all. You condescend to honor with your notice those men of letters who are kept in obscurity either by the malevolence of fame or the slenderness of their fortune. And as our nature inclines us not to condemn in others what we approve in ourselves, therefore men of learning find in you manners congenial to their own. For without the slightest indication of harshness you regard them with kindness, welcome them with joy, and send them away with regret. Indeed, the greatness of your fortune has made no difference in you, except that your generosity can now almost keep pace with your volition. Accept then, most eminent of men, a work in which you may contemplate yourself as in a mirror, where your highness’s sagacity will discover that you have imitated the actions of the most exalted characters even before you could have heard their names. The prologue to the first book sets forth the contents of this work; if you deign to peruse it, you will briefly acquaint yourself with the whole subject matter. This much I must request from your excellency, namely that it not be imputed to me as a fault that my narrative often wanders far afield from England. For I intend this work to be a compendium of many histories, although with a view to the larger portion of it I have entitled it the Deeds of the English Kings. Prologue to Book 1 The history of the English from their arrival in Britain to his own times has been written by Bede, a man of singular learning and modesty, in a clear and captivating style. After him you will not, in my opinion, easily find any person who has attempted to compose the history of this people in Latin. Let others declare whether their researches in this respect have been, or are likely to be, more fruitful. My own labor, though diligent in the extreme, has down to this period been without its reward. There are indeed some notices of antiquity written in the vernacular tongue after the manner of a chronicle and arranged according to the years of our Lord. By means of these alone the times subsequent to Bede have been rescued from oblivion. For of Aethelward, a noble and illustrious man who attempted to arrange these chronicles in Latin, and whose intention I could applaud if his language did not weary me, it is better to be silent. Nor has it escaped my knowledge that there is also a work of my lord Eadmer, written with a chastened elegance of style, in which, beginning 199

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r with King Edgar, he has but hastily glanced at the times down to William the First, and thence taking a freer range, gives a narrative, copious and of great utility to the studious, until the death of Archbishop Anselm. Thus from the time of Bede there is a period of two hundred and twenty-three years that he deemed unworthy of memory, and without the aid of writing the course of history pulls up lame in the middle. This circumstance has induced me, both out of love for my country and out of respect for the authority of those who have enjoined this undertaking upon me, to fill in the gap in the historical record and to season what has been written in a barbarous tongue with Latin elegance. And in order that the work may proceed with greater regularity, I shall cull somewhat from Bede, whom I must often quote, glancing at a few facts, but omitting more. The first book, therefore, contains a succinct account of the English from the time of their descent on Britain till that of King Egbert, who, after the different princes had fallen by various ways, gained the monarchy of almost the whole island. But as among the English arose four powerful kingdoms, that is to say those of Kent, the West Saxons, the Northumbrians, and the Mercians, which it is my intention to treat separately if I have the time, I shall begin with that which attained the earliest to maturity and was also the first to decay. I shall do this more clearly if I place the kingdoms of the East Angles and the East Saxons after the others, since they are unworthy either of my labors or of the regard of posterity. The second book will contain the chronological series of kings down to the coming of the Normans. The three following books will be dedicated to the history of three successive kings, with the addition of whatever in their times happened elsewhere, which, from its renown, may demand a more particular notice. This, then, is what I intend, if divine favor smiles upon my undertaking and carries me safely by those rocks of rugged diction upon which Aethelweard, in his search for ringing and far-fetched phrases, so unhappily suffered shipwreck. “Should anyone, however,” to use the poet’s expression, “read these things smitten by love” [Virgil, Eclogues 6.9–10], I think it necessary to inform him that I vouch nothing for the truth of past deeds but the correctness of the dates; the credibility of the account must rest with its authors. Whatever I have recorded of later times I have either seen for myself or heard from credible authorities. However it goes, I have little esteem for the judgment of my contemporaries, but I trust that with posterity, when affection and enmity have disappeared, I shall have, if not a title to eloquence, then at least a testament to my diligence. Prologue to Book 2 A long time has passed since through the care of my parents and my own industry I became familiar with books. This pleasure possessed me from my 200

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) childhood, and the source of delight has grown with my years. In fact, I was instructed by my father to believe that if I turned aside to other pursuits it would be dangerous to my soul and a discredit to my character. For this reason, mindful of the adage that one should covet what is necessary, I constrained my young age to desire willingly that which it was shameful not to want. I devoted my attention to various branches of knowledge, but in different degrees. Logic, for instance, which gives arms to eloquence, I contented myself with barely hearing. Medicine, which ministers to the health of the body, I studied with somewhat more attention. And having scrupulously examined the several branches of ethics, I now yield to its majesty, because it spontaneously unveils itself to those who study it and directs their minds toward virtuous living. And in particular I studied history, which by recapitulating past events in a pleasant way excites its readers through example to frame their lives so as to pursue the good and shun the bad. And so when at my own expense I had procured some historians of foreign nations, I proceeded during my free time to inquire if anything concerning our own people could be found that was worthy of notice to posterity. In this way it arose that, not being content with the writings of ancient times, I began to write myself—not to make a display of my learning, which is negligible, but to bring to light events lying concealed in the confused mass of antiquity. For this reason, rejecting fickle opinions, I have studiously sought after chronicles far and near, though I confess I have scarcely profited at all by this industry. For after perusing all of them I still remained poor in information, since I could not find anything worth reading before I ceased my efforts. Whatever I ascertained clearly concerning the four kingdoms, however, I have inserted in my first book, in which I hope truth will find no cause to blush, though perhaps a degree of doubt may sometimes arise. I shall now trace the monarchy of the West Saxon kingdom through the line of successive rulers down to the coming of the Normans. If any person deigns to regard these things favorably, let him in brotherly love observe the following rule: “If previously he knew only these things, let him not be bored because I have inserted them; if he knew more, let him not be angry that I have not spoken of them.” Rather, let him communicate his knowledge to me while I yet live, so that those events that do not occur in the text may at least be added in the margin by my pen. Prologue to Book 3 Both the Normans and the English, incited by different motives, have written of King William. The former have praised him to excess, extolling to the utmost both his good and his bad deeds, while the latter out of national hatred 201

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r have laden their conqueror with undeserved reproach. For my own part, since the blood of both peoples flows in my veins, I shall steer a middle course. Of his good deeds, I shall openly proclaim as much as I have been able to learn; his bad conduct I shall touch upon lightly and in passing, as it were, and only to the extent necessary to make it known. In this way my narrative will not be condemned as false, nor will I brand that man with ignominious censure almost all of whose actions may reasonably be excused, if not commended. For this reason, I shall willingly and carefully relate such information regarding him as may serve as an incitement to the indolent or an example for the industrious, and that may prove useful to the present age and pleasing to posterity. But I shall spend little time in relating such things as are of service to no one, and which will bore the reader and arouse ill-will against the author. There are always more than enough people willing to sink their jaw-teeth into the actions of good men. The method that I shall follow will be to extenuate evil as much as can be consistent with truth and not to bestow excessive commendation even on good actions. For this moderation, as I imagine, all true judges will esteem me neither timid nor lacking in judgment. This rule, too, my pen will observe equally with respect both to William and his two sons: that nothing will be dwelt on excessively, and nothing untrue shall be admitted. The elder of these did little worthy of praise, if we except the early part of his reign, throughout the whole of his life purchasing the favor of the knights at the expense of the provincials. The second, more obsequious to his father than to his brother, possessed a spirit unsubdued either by prosperity or adversity. In contemplating his campaigns, you would not know whether he was more cautious or more bold, in considering their results, whether he was more fortunate or unsuccessful. There will be a time, however, when the reader may judge for himself. I am now about to begin my third volume, and I think I have said enough to make him attentive and disposed to receive instruction; his own benevolent feelings will persuade him to be charitable. Prologue to Book 4 I am aware that many people think it foolish of me to have applied my pen to writing the history of the kings of my own time. For they declare that in works such as these the truth often suffers shipwreck while falsehood is strengthened, because relating the crimes of one’s contemporaries is attended with danger, whereas recounting their good deeds meets with applause. Hence it arises, they say, that because all things now have a natural tendency to evil rather than to good, the writer passes over obvious misdeeds out of fear and for the sake of applause invents good deeds where there are none. There are others who, measuring us by their own indolence, deem us unequal to so great a task and 202

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) defile our efforts with their malignant contempt. For this reason, impelled by the reasoning of the one and the contempt of the other, I had long since voluntarily retired to leisure and silence. But after indulging in inactivity for a time, my longstanding love of study once more plucked my ear and laid hold of me, since it was impossible for me to be unoccupied, and I did not know how to give myself over to those concerns that are unworthy of a man of letters. To this were added the exhortations of my friends, whose suggestions—though only implied—I could not ignore. They gently urged me (though I was already itching to get started) to proceed with my undertaking. Animated, therefore, by the encouragement of those whom I love with a deep-seated affection, I am stirring myself so that they may receive a lasting pledge of friendship from the stores of my heart. Out of gratitude to those who fear for me lest I become an object of hatred or perpetrate falsehoods, I will, with the help of Christ, return their kindness in such a way as to be found neither dishonest nor worthy of hatred. For I will describe what has been done well and otherwise in such a way that, steering my craft unscathed, as it were, between Scylla and Charybdis, my opinions will not be concealed, even if some matters are omitted from my history. Furthermore, to those who undervalue the labor of others, I will make the same answer as Saint Jerome once did to his critics: “Let them read if they like; if not, let them cast it aside” [ Jerome, Preface to the Book of Ezra]. For I am not obtruding my work on those who are not inclined to read it, but dedicating it to the studious, if there are any who think it worth their notice. Even these men will readily declare this to be a fair policy, unless they are of the number of those of whom it is said: “Fools are easy to confute, but not so easy to restrain.” I will relate, then, in this the fourth book of my work, everything that may be said of William, son of William the Great, in such a way that the truth will not suffer and the majesty of the ruler will not be tarnished. There will also be inserted into these pages some events that took place during his reign that were calamitous in this country or glorious elsewhere, as far as my knowledge extends, and in particular the pilgrimage of the Christians to Jerusalem, which it will be proper to include here because an expedition so famous in these times is well worth hearing about and will also be an incitement to valor—not that I have any confidence that these deeds will be better treated by me than by others who have written about them, but so that what is written about by many may be read by many. Yet to prevent such a long introduction from boring my reader, I will now begin the task that I have set for myself. Prologue to Book 5 Summoned by the progress of events, we have entered upon the era of King Henry, though to commit the deeds of his reign to posterity in writing is a 203

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r greater task than ought to be required of us. For even if only the information that has reached our ears were to be set down in writing, it would try the nerves of even the most eloquent man and weigh down the most ample bookshelves. Who, then, would attempt to unfold in detail all the depths of his counsel and all of his royal achievements? These are matters too weighty for me, and they require more leisure than I possess. Cicero himself, whose eloquence is venerated by all the Latin world, would scarcely attempt it in prose, and in verse not even a rival of the poet of Mantua. Add to this the fact that, while I refuse to trust in doubtful sources, I am at the same time remote from the secrets of the court, and so, being ignorant of his greater achievements, I touch only upon a few things. There is a danger, therefore, that because my information falls short of what I might wish, I shall make him seem like a lesser man by leaving out many of his exploits. This fault, however, if it can be called a fault, will be readily excused by anyone who recalls that I could not have known about all of his deeds, and all the deeds that I did know should not have been put into writing. The insignificance of my position brought about the former; the boredom of my readers would be a necessary consequence of the latter. This fifth book, then, will lay claim to a few of his deeds, while fame, no doubt, will blazon the rest, and lasting memory transmit them to posterity. Nor will it deviate from the design of the preceding four, but set forth some things that happened during his time here and elsewhere that are perhaps unrecorded or not widely known. Indeed, they will occupy a considerable portion of the volume, and I must claim the usual indulgence for long digressions, both in this and in the others.

67 G eoffrey of Mo n mout h, History of the Kings of Britain Few medieval histories achieved anything like the success of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, which survives in over two hundred manuscripts, inspired numerous translations and paraphrases, and served as the foundation for the Arthur legend in the Middle Ages. In the History Geoffrey gives an account of the native kings of Britain from pre-Roman times to the seventh century in eleven books. He claims in the prologue that he was inspired to write about this subject by Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, who presented him with “a certain very ancient book written in the British tongue” containing a continuous account of British history from Brutus to Cadwallader. Walter, Geoffrey tells us, had brought the book from Britannia (probably Brittany, but possibly Wales). Precisely what this volume contained, or whether it even existed, are matters of some controversy. Geoffrey’s sources include Gildas, Bede, Nennius’s History of the Britons, and William of Malmesbury. The degree to which material not found in 204

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) these works derives from oral tradition or is the product of the author’s own imagination is difficult to assess. Some of the names found among Geoffrey’s early kings of Britain are similar to those in Welsh annals, but the majority of the History’s contents were probably invented by Geoffrey. Down to the sixteenth century the History of the Kings of Britain was generally accepted as an accurate account of pre-Saxon Britain, but even in the twelfth century it was not without its critics. William of Newburgh (see Doc. 80) dismissed it as pure fiction, while Gerald of Wales recounts an anecdote in The Journey through Wales (see Doc. 78) in which a man possessed by evils spirits is cured by having the Gospel of John placed on his chest; when the Gospel is removed and Geoffrey’s history is used in its place, however, he is attacked with renewed vigor. We know little about Geoffrey himself. He may have been part of the Norman aristocracy in the Welsh Marches, and it has been suggested that his family came to England from Brittany during the invasion of William the Conqueror. By 1129 he was in residence at Oxford, probably as a canon of Saint-George at Oxford Castle, where he witnessed a number of charters. In 1152 he was appointed bishop of Saint-Asaph, in Wales, but he seems not to have visited his see before his death in 1154. He completed his history before 1139, the year in which the Norman historian Robert of Torigni showed a copy to Henry of Huntingdon at Bec. Most of the manuscripts contain a single dedication to Earl Robert of Gloucester, but some include a second dedication to Count Waleran of Meulan. One manuscript, which may not have been written by Geoffrey, replaces the name of Earl Robert with that of King Stephen and the name of Count Waleran with Earl Robert. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain, ed. Michael D. Reeve (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2007), p. 4.

As I was deeply pondering a number of things, my thoughts turned to the history of the kings of Britain, and I marveled that in the account that Gildas and Bede had given of them in their elegant works I found nothing about the kings who lived here before the Incarnation of Christ, and also nothing about Arthur or the many others who succeeded to the throne after the Incarnation, although their actions are worthy of immortal fame and many people recite them from memory for entertainment, as though they had been written down. As I frequently meditated upon these and similar thoughts, Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned in the art of eloquence and in foreign histories, presented me with a very ancient book in the British tongue that set forth in an elegant style a continuous account of all of their deeds from Brutus, the first king of the Britons, down to Cadwallader, son of Cadwallo. At his request, therefore, I undertook to translate this book into the Latin tongue, although I had not gathered richly attired words from the gardens of others and had to content myself with the rustic style of my own pipes. For if I had bedaubed the pages with grandiloquent turns of phrase, I would have tired out my readers by 205

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r forcing them to spend more time teasing out the meaning of my words than understanding the narrative itself. Therefore, Robert, earl of Gloucester, may you bestow your favor on this modest work, so that it may be corrected by your instruction and advice in such a way that it will not be said to have arisen from the meager spring of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and so that instead, having been seasoned with the salt of your wisdom, it may be called the product of the illustrious King Henry of England’s son, whom Philosophy has instructed in the liberal arts and whose native courage has set him over knights in wartime, so that now in our own day Britain inwardly rejoices as though it had obtained another Henry. [Most manuscripts of Geoffrey’s history contain only the dedication to Robert of Gloucester. Ten manuscripts, however, append to it an additional dedication to Count Waleran of Meulan.] May you, too, Count Waleran of Meulan, the second pillar of our kingdom, apply yourself so that through your joint efforts this work may shine more beautifully when made public. For mother Philosophy took you, who are descended from the stock of that most illustrious king Charles [Charlemagne], into her lap and instructed you in the subtleties of her doctrines, and afterwards she sent you to the royal castle so that you might distinguish yourself in knightly training. There, having surpassed your fellow warriors in bravery, you learned under the auspices of your forebears to be a terror to your enemies and a source of protection to your own people. As the faithful shield of your people, therefore, take me your poet and this book, which was written for your enjoyment, under your protection, so that reclining under the covering of your outspread branches, I can play on the pipe of my muse a melody safe from the envious and the perverse.

6 8 O rder ic V i tali s, E cclesiastical H istory Orderic Vitalis was born at Atcham near Shrewsbury in 1075, the son of Odelerius of Orléans, a cleric in the household of Earl Roger of Montgomery. At the age of ten he was sent to the monastery of Saint-Évroul in Normandy, where he became head of the scriptorium and acquired a detailed knowledge of historiography by reading and copying works such as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (see Doc. 32). His own efforts at history writing began with entries in the Annals of Saint-Évroul and interpolations to William of Jumièges’s Deeds of the Norman Dukes (see Doc. 55). His massive Ecclesiastical History, at which he labored for more than thirty years, began as a history of his monastery commissioned by Abbot Roger of Le Sap (1091–1123) early in the twelfth century. Over time, however, Orderic gradually expanded the scope of the work to encompass the political and ecclesiastical history of Normandy, as well as events in Europe and the Holy Land. Book 3, which fulfilled the original commission from Roger, was the 206

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) earliest part of the Ecclesiastical History and was written over a span of some ten years, from 1114 to 1123/24. Most of the rest of the work was written between 1123 and 1137. Books 1 and 2 contain a universal chronicle down to 1137 and a series of biographies of apostles and popes. Books 3 to 6 focus on the monastery of Saint-Évroul, but also include information about the history of the Normans down to 1083. Books 7 to 13 are a history of Normandy and neighboring lands from 1083 to 1141. Orderic finished the bulk of the Ecclesiastical History in 1137, at which time he wrote the general prologue and dedicated it to Warin des Essarts, who had succeeded Roger as abbot of Saint-Évroul. The Ecclesiastical History had a limited readership in the Middle Ages, but today it is prized as an indispensable source for the political, social, and ecclesiastical history of Normandy. Source: trans. Justin Lake from The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969–80), vol. 1, pp. 130–32; vol. 2, pp. 2–4; vol. 3, pp. 4–8, 212–14; vol. 4, pp. 4–8.

Prologue Since ancient times our ancestors have wisely examined the course of this fleeting world and set down the good and bad that has happened to mortals as a warning to mankind; and striving always to be of use to future generations, they have added their own works to what was previously written. We can see that Moses and Daniel and the other authors of scripture did this; we know that Dares the Phrygian and Pompeius Trogus and the other historians of the pagans did so as well; and we also recognize the same impulse in Eusebius and in the Ormesta Mundi of Orosius, in the Englishman Bede, in Paul [the Deacon] of Monte Cassino, and in other authors of the church. I look upon their narratives with delight, I praise and admire the elegance and utility of their works, and I urge the learned men of our era to emulate their noteworthy accomplishments. But because it is not my place to tell other people what to do, I, at least, shall strive to stave off unprofitable idleness and set myself to work at something that ought to appeal to my simple fellow students. In the straightforward narrative of the restoration of the monastery of SaintÉvroul that I undertook to the best of my abilities at the behest of Abbot Roger, I found it necessary to touch truthfully upon certain matters concerning the good and evil rulers of this wicked age. I now seek to write about the things that we are witnessing and enduring, not because I am aided by skill in letters or endowed with learning and eloquence, but because I am motivated by a desire to do good. In any case, it is fitting that as new things are happening in the world every day, they should be dutifully committed to writing for the glory of God, and just as our ancestors handed down the deeds of the past to us, so too the men of the present day should set down in writing and hand on to posterity 207

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r what is happening now. As a simple son of the church, it is my intention to speak truthfully about ecclesiastical affairs, and diligently following the example of the ancient fathers to the extent that my ability and my modest efforts will allow, I am striving to investigate and make public what has befallen the Christians of the present day, as a result of which I am affecting to call the present work the Ecclesiastical History. Although I am unable to inquire into the affairs of the Alexandrians, the Greeks, and the Romans, and other matters worth recounting, because, as a cloistered monk, I am bound by my own choice to tolerate without complaint the obedience of the monastery, I am nonetheless striving with God’s assistance to recount in a plain and truthful style those things that I have seen in my own day or know to have happened in neighboring regions for the examination of future generations. Based upon the example of the past, I firmly believe that someone will come along who is much more discerning than I am and more capable of investigating the course of the various things that happen in the world, and that perhaps he will draw material from my pages and those of others like me to insert into his own chronicle or history for the instruction of posterity. What gives me particular confidence is the fact that I undertook this work based upon a simple command from the aged and venerable Abbot Roger, and that I am presenting it to you, Father Warin, who succeeded him lawfully and in accordance with ecclesiastical procedure, so that you may remove whatever is superfluous, correct any infelicities, and fortify what you have emended with the authority of your wisdom. I shall commence with the beginning that has no beginning, with whose aid I hope to arrive at the end that is without end, so that with those in heaven I may forever sing devoted praises to him who is the alpha and omega. Book 3 is the earliest section of the Ecclesiastical History and was originally undertaken to fulfill Abbot Roger’s request for a history of the monastery of Saint-Évroul. In the preface, which was added after it was finished, Orderic attributes his decision to widen the scope of his history to a command from his “masters.” The preface is damaged in Orderic’s autograph manuscript, and brackets indicate places where the manuscript is illegible. Preface to Book 3 We ought to devote ourselves to ceaselessly praising the Creator in all of his works, he whose ineffable power and magnitude we cannot discern, and whose loftiness and indefatigable goodness we lack the ability to describe. Although the pages of the Old and New Testaments testify to it, and every wise men ponders and meditates upon it, no man can penetrate the immense profundities of God. The knowledge of Christ’s love surpasses all human wisdom; to investigate, embrace, and pursue this love with all our power is righteous and abounding 208

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) in eternal salvation. For this reason, those holy men whose praise is found in authentic texts and who rejoice in heaven in the company of angels scorned what was fleeting and shrank from things of the flesh, yearning rather for what was eternal and delighting in the things of the spirit. By taking the difficult path of the virtues, they followed in the footsteps our Savior, leaving us with a salutary example, so that we might follow them on the path of righteousness and hasten to our eternal patrimony. Yet our sins weigh us down because we are weak and [. . .]. Nonetheless, we must always strive tenaciously to [. . .] and follow after them, so that through their [merits] and God’s dispensation we may eventually be numbered among the company of the blessed. I was glad to speak about some of the friends of God [at the behest of ] my superiors, for to think or speak faithfully about them brings me joy and benefits the soul, and it serves as a salutary remedy for inner sickness. But now my masters have given me another task, and material about the history of the Normans is set before me. Leaving Dacia, they applied themselves to warfare rather than learning, and down to the time of William the Bastard they occupied themselves more with fighting than with reading or writing. Dudo, the dean of Saint-Quentin, wrote eloquently about the martial exploits of three of the dukes, producing a florid panegyric employing various meters that he sent to Richard, son of Gunnor, in an attempt to secure his favor. William, known as “Calculus,” a monk at Jumièges who came after Dudo, made an elegant abridgment of his work and wrote a concise and lucid history of the four subsequent dukes. In the preface to book 5, Orderic justifies the writing of history as a means of warding off idleness and provides a brief autobiographical sketch. He refers to this book as the third of his history because what are now the first and second books were added later. Preface to Book 5 Following the example of our elders, we should be unwavering in avoiding the dangers of sloth and exert ourselves strenuously in useful study and salutary activity. For by concentrating on these things, the mind is purged of vice and gloriously armed against all wickedness through active discipline. “Every slothful man,” as Solomon says, “is lost to his desires.” And “desires kill the slothful” [Prov. 21:25]. For surely a man is lazy and slothful who, because he lacks the will to do good, submits willingly to vice. He is adjudged to be wretchedly weighed down by sloth who does not meditate day and night (that is, in prosperity and adversity) on the law of Lord nor strive to resist and struggle against the snares and challenges of Satan so that he may deserve to obtain the reward of the heavenly calling. There can be no doubt that baneful desires destroy him, dragging him to the commission of sin as he drowses in 209

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r luxury and plunging him down into the depths of perdition through the broad path of his own desires. Thus, our elders condemn in no uncertain terms our slackness and idleness as inimical to the soul, and invite those who would follow them to useful labor and activity through their words and deeds. And it is not only Christians, but pagan poets, who are in agreement on this. For Virgil says, “What do labor and good works accomplish? Unflinching labor overcomes all, and poverty that urges man on amid harsh circumstances” [Georgics 1.145–6]. Ovid, too, offers instruction against lust to whoever wishes to resist desire, saying: “Idleness rots the mind and impairs the body. Heed my advice and shun the first sign of idleness. If you drive away idleness, Cupid’s arrows will fail, and his torches will lie ignored and without fire” [Remedia Amoris 136, 139–40]. Carefully weighing thoughts such as these in my mind, father Warin, I decided to write something in a straightforward manner that would benefit and delight some of the faithful in the house of the Lord, lest when the Lord comes to judge us I should be condemned along with the idle servant who hid his talent in the earth. In the first place, I sought to obey the instructions of the venerable Abbot Robert, and subsequently to follow your wishes, by beginning this little work with the condition of the church of Saint-Évroul, a task that our predecessors urged each other to undertake, although none of them was willing to do so. For they all chose to stay silent rather than speak, preferring a comfortable leisure to the all-consuming task of investigating past events. To be sure, they would have liked to read about the deeds of their abbots and brothers, and about the accumulation of the modest patrimony that was first bestowed upon them by their poor but devout founders and was later gradually increased by the careful supervision of the abbots, but they refused to discipline their minds to the task of dictating or writing. So in the end it was I, a native Englishman from the furthest reaches of Mercia, who was brought here at the age of ten and introduced as a barbarous and unknown stranger among natives who were familiar with these traditions, who undertook through God’s inspiration to present the history and fortunes of the Normans to the Normans in writing. With God’s help I have already published two short books into which I have introduced some brief remarks about the rebuilding of our monastery and our three abbots, along with certain events of that time, relating these things truthfully based upon the careful inquiries that I made of our venerable elders. I shall now begin the third book with the year 1075 of our Lord’s Incarnation and speak about my abbot and the congregation of Saint-Évroul, and the events of a twelve-year period down to the death of King William. On February sixteenth of the year in which I have decided to begin the present volume, I was brought forth from the womb of my mother into the light, and on the Saturday of the following Easter I was reborn in the sacred font through the ministry of the priest Orderic at Atcham, in the church of the 210

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) holy confessor Eata, on the banks of the Severn. After my fifth birthday, my father handed me over to the noble priest Siward to be educated in letters. I was subject to his tutelage for five years, during which I received the first rudiments of my education. But in the eleventh year of my life I was given up by my own father for the love of God and sent from England to Normandy as an exile of tender years so that I might serve the eternal king. I was subsequently received by the venerable father Mainer, clad in the mantle of the monastic habit, and joined to this honorable community of monks by an indissoluble bond. It is now forty-two years that I have joyfully borne the gentle yoke of the Lord, and with my companions I have walked eagerly and to the best of my ability in the path of the Lord, following the precepts of the Rule. I have labored to learn the customs and service of the Church, and I have always applied myself to some useful endeavor. If our bishops and the other rulers of the earth were men of such holiness that God worked miracles for them and through them—miracles such as were once frequently performed by the ancient fathers, whose marvelous deeds, scattered widely throughout manuscripts, fill the hearts of readers with delight and recall to the men of the present day the glory of their earlier teachers—then I would shake off my lethargy and set myself to handing down in writing that which is worth relating to the eager notice of posterity. But because we now live in an age when charity grows cold and iniquity abounds in many people [Matt. 24:12], miracles, which are a sign of holiness, are becoming scarce, while crimes and sorrowful lamentations are increasing in the world. The quarrels of prelates and the bloody wars of princes provide richer material for those who would write history than the teachings of the theologians or the selfdenial and prophecies of ascetics. The time of the Antichrist draws near, and before he appears, as the Lord teaches the blessed Job, there will be a dearth of miracles, and the madness of vice will run rampant among those who love themselves carnally. But now, venerable father, in the name of the Lord I shall boldly proceed with the task that I have undertaken, faithfully trusting that your wisdom will correct whatever mistakes my ignorance is responsible for. In the preface to book 6, Orderic argues for the utility of history, addresses potential critics, and defends his choice of subject matter. Roger Ray has argued that he is responding here to members of his own community who had criticized the excessively secular nature of his work. Preface to Book 6 To preserve its keenness the human mind must be constantly engaged in useful study, and to prepare for the future it must be profitably instructed in the virtues through the remembrance of past events and the examination of those happening 211

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r now. Each of us must learn how to live from day to day, seizing upon the valiant examples of past heroes for our own benefit. It is often the case that much of what resounds in the ears of the uneducated sounds as if it is unprecedented, and in the present day unexpected events are continually bringing new things to light. In such circumstances those who have no experience of what is happening can understand nothing except by reflecting upon the past. It is for this reason that studious men investigate what is hidden, faithfully embracing and setting great store by whatever they deem to be beneficial to sympathetic minds. Although these men act out of good will and exhibit the events of the past to posterity without malice, their erudition is sometimes rent by the fangs of idle men. And so it often happens that those at whom this enmity is directed, having been wounded by the bites of the envious, cease their labors and abandon their efforts to be condemned, perhaps, to eternal silence. Thus, from the most trifling circumstances there sometimes arises a grievous loss to the world. And yet if it could make good the loss and recover these abandoned labors, a grateful posterity would quickly shake off its lethargy and bestir itself, making a strenuous effort to seek out the blossoms and fruits of these formerly resented works and pore over them fervently with determined attentiveness. We frequently read about such things in the complaints of the ancients, and we lament to see such distinguished teachers bemoaning the insults of their rivals. We note that Jerome and Origen and other learned men complained about the carping of their detractors in their writing, and we grieve with them that for this reason many outstanding works were lost to us, since clever men of learning preferred to rest in silence rather than toil to bring hidden things to light and endure the malicious barking of critics. As for those people who produce nothing of their own and do not receive the works of others with a generous spirit or gently correct what they find fault with, I beseech them to remain silent and not to bestir themselves. Let them learn what they do not already know, and if they are unable to learn, then at least let them allow their fellow students to write what they want. The condition of mankind and his fall, the mutability of our fleeting world, the vicissitudes of our prelates and rulers, peace, war and the various misfortunes that afflict those who dwell upon the earth—these are an ample theme to any author. But as for the miracles and prodigies of holy men, there is now such a dearth of them in the world that the writers of the present day should not bother exerting themselves to recount them. For the ancient fathers Martial, Taurinus, Silvester, Martin, and Nicholas, and other extraordinary men whose tongues were made the keys of heaven, men who were filled with the gifts of divine grace so that they shone as a light in the Church, and who ruled through the power of the Almighty, commanding the elements of the world and the powers of the air, have now obtained their celestial reward and enjoy a blessed 212

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) existence in heaven with their king. Their successors, on the other hand, who reached the heights of power, and are called “Rabbi” and sit upon the seat of Moses [see Matt. 23:2], flourish in the pomp and riches of this world, to which most of them are inordinately attached, but they do not shine equally in the merits of sanctity or the power of miracles and prodigies. And yet we must write truthfully about the course of this world and human affairs, and history must be composed in praise of the creator and righteous ruler of all things. For the eternal creator works even now, ordering all things in a marvelous fashion. Of his glorious acts, therefore, let every man dutifully relate, in accordance with his desire and ability, whatever he has received from divine inspiration. In book 9, Orderic gives his account of the First Crusade. In the preface he mentions the histories of Fulcher of Chartres (see Doc. 59), whom he misidentifies as a chaplain of Godfrey of Lorraine, and Baudri of Bourgeuil (also known as Baldric of Dol), who wrote a four-book history of the Crusade that Orderic used as a source. Preface to Book 9 The eternal creator regulates the vicissitudes of time and history wisely and to good effect, nor does he order and vary human affairs to serve the pleasure of fools, but with his powerful hand and mighty arm he faithfully protects and duly exalts and dispenses. We see this clearly in winter and summer, and likewise perceive it in cold and hot weather. We observe it in the way all things rise and fall, and we can rightly discern it in the manifold variety of God’s works. This is the source of the numerous histories that are now being written about the various things happening in the world every day and the increasing amount of material that is now available to learned historians to set forth in detail. I have been thinking deeply about these things and am now committing my own thoughts to writing, because an unanticipated change is taking place in our own day, and a noble theme dealing with miraculous events has now been made available for authors to apply themselves to. Behold, a divinely inspired expedition has been undertaken to Jerusalem! Many peoples of the West have been assembled into a single flock in wondrous fashion and have been led to the East against the heathens as one army. Holy Zion has been rescued by her children, who willingly left their distant homelands and vanquished the foreigners who previously trampled upon the holy city and polluted God’s sanctuary with their impiety. For some time ago God’s judgment allowed the detestable Saracens to enter the lands of Christendom and invade their holy places. They put to death the Christian inhabitants and foully polluted the sacred places with their filth, but after a long time had passed they 213

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r met with the punishment they deserved from the swords of the men this side of the Alps. Never before, I believe, have learned men had available to them a martial theme as glorious as the one that God has now given to our poets and scribes. For he triumphed over the pagans of the East through a handful of Christians who were prompted to leave their homes through the noble desire to become pilgrims. Indeed, in recent times the God of Abraham has repeated his miracles, for he won the peoples of the West to his cause solely through the desire to see the sepulcher of the Messiah, and used Pope Urban to instruct them without a king or any secular authority; he drew them from the ends of the earth and the islands of the sea, as he had formerly used Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, and led them through foreign lands all the way to Palestine; and there he vanquished kings and princes joined together with many nations and gloriously subjected them to his rule after overthrowing their heavily fortified cities and towns. Fulcher of Chartres, the chaplain of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, who witnessed the hardships and dangers of this expedition, produced a true and reliable book about the glorious exploits of the army of Christ. Archbishop Baldric of Dol also wrote four books in an elegant style in which he truthfully and accurately revealed the whole story from the beginning of the pilgrimage to the first battle after the capture of Jerusalem. Many Latin and Greek authors have also dealt with subject matter that is equally worthy of remembrance and have informed posterity about the celebrated deeds of heroes in their lively writings. I, too, the least of all those who wear the monastic habit and follow the Lord in their lives, in my love for the valiant champions of Christ and my desire to extol their noble deeds, intend to broach the subject of the expedition made by Christians in the name of our Lord Jesus in the little work that I have undertaken on the history of the Church. I am hesitant to attempt a complete history of the blessed pilgrimage; I do not dare to commit myself to such an arduous task, but I do not know how I could completely skip over so noble a theme. I am hindered by old age, as a man in his sixties who was raised in the monastery and has been a monk since boyhood. I can no longer put up with the toil of writing, but neither do I have secretaries to take down my words, so I am hurrying to finish the present work. I shall now begin the ninth book, in which, if God grants me the help that I require, I shall try to relate truthfully and in order some matters dealing with Jerusalem. In the deserts of Idumaea I cry to you, merciful Jesus, Mighty king of Nazareth, I ask for your help. Give me the strength to speak worthily of the remarkable power With which you have exalted your followers and trampled down the rebellious. Leader and ruler of your people, their protector in distress, 214

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) You are the helper of your people and the bestower of victory. God on high, I adore you, I now implore your aid, Let perpetual praise be given to the king of kings For all eternity. Amen.

6 9 Robert of Torig n i, Chronicle Robert of Torigni (ca 1106–1186) was part of a distinguished series of Norman historians that included Dudo of Saint-Quentin, William of Jumièges, and Orderic Vitalis. Born at Torigni-sur-Vire in Normandy, he entered the monastery of Bec in 1128 and became prior in 1149. In 1154 the monks of Mont-Saint-Michel elected him abbot, a position that he retained until the end of his life. As abbot, Robert acquired a reputation for learning and book-collecting, and he produced a substantial corpus of historical works. He composed entries in the Annals of Mont-Saint-Michel and the first part of the Lives of the Abbots of Bec, authored a treatise on monastic orders and the abbeys of Normandy, and carried out a continuation and interpolation of William of Jumièges’s Deeds of the Norman Dukes (see Doc. 55) that brought it down to the reign of Henry I. Robert also wrote a universal chronicle from creation to the year 1186, which serves as a key source for the reign of Henry II. Down to the year 1112 Robert interpolated the chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux (which was itself based on the chronicle of EusebiusJerome) with material on the history of the Normans; from this point forward, however, the entries are his own. Robert’s principal source for English history down to 1147 was the history of Henry of Huntingdon, whom he met at Bec in 1139 and presented with a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (see Doc. 67). Robert’s Chronicle was popular in Normandy and England, and was used by a number of later English historians, including Ralph de Diceto, Matthew Paris, Nicholas Trevet, and Roger of Wendover. Matthew and Roger both borrow heavily from Robert’s prologue, the former in his History of the English, the latter in the introduction to his Flowers of History (see Doc. 84). Source: trans. Justin Lake from Chronique de Robert de Torigni, ed. Léopold Delisle, 2 vols. (Rouen: Société de l’Histoire de Normandie, 1872–73), vol. 1, pp. 91–97.

Before we proceed in what follows to speak about chronography—that is, the description of time—we shall first offer a brief response to those hostile critics who attribute no value to our labors, and then in the same prologue we shall provide a succinct explanation of the organization of this work for the benefit of those generous-minded friends of ours who are anticipating, and indeed demanding, it from us. 215

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r To those who ask, “What need is there to commit the lives, deaths, and varying fortunes of men to writing, or to leave a written record of the prodigies of heaven and earth and the other elements,” my answer is that the virtuous lives and habits of those who came before us are set down for the imitation of posterity, while the examples of the wicked are recounted not so that we might imitate them, but so that they might be avoided. As for earlier prodigies and portents whose appearance presaged famine, death, or the other scourges of heavenly vengeance merited by the sons of men, they are entrusted to memory through writing so that if similar events should ever happen again, sinners who recall that they have incurred the wrath of God in some way might hasten to the remedies of penitence and confession in order to appease God thereby. It is for this reason (although there are others as well) that in the sacred scriptures Moses the lawgiver exhibits the innocence of Abel, the envy of Cain, the sincerity of Jacob, the treachery of Esau, the wickedness of the eleven sons of Israel, the goodness of the twelfth (namely, Joseph), and the punishment of the five cities through their destruction by fire and brimstone: so that we might imitate the good, shudder to follow in the footsteps of the wicked, and avoid the supernatural fire by shunning the foulness of sin. And it is not only Moses, but all the authors of sacred scripture who do this in the historical and moral books, commending the virtues and denouncing the vices, admonishing us both to fear and love God. We should therefore pay no heed to those who claim that books of chronicles, especially those produced by catholic authors, are of no importance. For in these works, as in other treatises, there is generally a useful purpose that remains hidden from the foolish and the ignorant, but which is apparent to the studious and the perceptive. It was with this in mind that Cyprian the martyr and bishop of Carthage, Eusebius of Caeserea, the presbiter Jerome, Sulpicius Severus (a friend of Saint Martin), Prosper of Aquitaine (a secretary of the holy Pope Leo), Bishop Gregory of Tours, and—to come to more recent authors—the monk of Fulda Marianus Scotus, and Sigibert of Gembloux all devoted themselves to the useful task of writing chronicles. A number of other men, both religious and secular, did so as well, but I shall forgo mentioning their names for the sake of brevity. Now that we have addressed our critics, we shall reveal our intentions to those who wish us well. Because I rank Sigebert of Gembloux above all modern authors of chronicles and am an ardent admirer of his work, I shall attempt to produce something in the way of a continuation of his chronicle. Sigebert copied out the chronicle of Eusebius (which begins with Ninus, the first king of the Assyrians, in the forty-third year of whose reign Abraham was born, and extends down to the twentieth year of the reign of the most devout emperor Constantine) based on the most accurate manuscripts and added to it the chronicle of Jerome, 216

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) which begins in the twentieth year of Constantine’s reign and goes down to the thirteenth year of the emperor Valens. After that, he added the chronicle of Prosper from the first year of Gratian to the fifth year of the emperors Valentinian and Marcian, and to this he finally appended his own contributions. He did not want to start writing where Prosper left off, however, but where he had begun—that is, from the end of Jerome’s chronicle, the year 381 of the Lord’s Incarnation. He did so because as a contemporary author who had carefully inspected a large number of histories, he wanted to include many things that Prosper had not yet heard about when he wrote. In this book he puts the names of different kingdoms (namely, those of the Romans, the Persians, the Franks, the Britons, the Vandals, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, and the Huns) at the head of the page, and below them he lists the names of the kings for each kingdom. Going down the middle of the page are the years of each ruler; in the margin are the names of the Roman pontiffs, and directly across from them the years of the Lord corresponding to the years of the aforementioned kings. Although he mentions the kingdom of the Britons, he does not name a single king of the island for a period of almost one hundred and twelve years except for Aurelius Ambrosius. Likewise, although he relates where appropriate a number of things about the English (who succeeded the Britons), he only talks about the kings named by Bede, the priest and teacher of the English, in his history, although there were more kings belonging to this race after Bede’s death than prior to it. He says little or nothing about the dukes of the Normans, although he did not do this out of negligence, but because he did not possess these three histories [Dudo, William of Jumièges, and Orderic Vitalis]. Because I possess all of this information, however, I have inserted into this chronicle where appropriate the names and successions and occasionally the more famous deeds of these dukes, as well as the names of all the archbishops of Rouen and some of the bishops of this province, down to the year 1100, and I have every intention of doing the same thing with the kings of the English whom he does not mention. I had intended to do this with the kings of the Britons, if only I had found a satisfactory way of including them in Sigebert’s chronicle. But because Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas, from whom the island of Britain gets its name, was the first to rule there, if I wanted to include all of the kings who succeeded him in the right order, then I would have to distribute their names not only throughout Sigebert’s work, but also throughout the entire length of Jerome’s chronicle and a large part of Eusebius’s. But because it is unseemly to add anything extraneous to the writings of men as eminent as Eusebius and Jerome, in order to satisfy those who are interested I am appending to this prologue a letter from the archdeacon Henry [of Huntingdon] in which he gives a brief account of all the kings of the Britons from Brutus down to Cadwallon, who was the last of the powerful British kings and the father of 217

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Cadwallader, whom Bede calls Caedwalla. Henry excerpted the material for this letter (as its contents show) from a complete manuscript of the History of the Britons that I showed him at Bec while he was on his way to Rome. Therefore, because Sigebert, as I have already stated, began his chronicle in the year 381 of the Lord’s Incarnation and carried it down to the year 1100, from that point forward I shall undertake, with God’s permission and help, without which none of us can accomplish anything, to assemble under the years of the Lord’s Incarnation those things that occurred in various regions, and particularly in Normandy and England, which came to my attention. And I do so all the more eagerly because I want to provide a brief year-byyear account of the deeds of Henry I, the most vigorous king of the English and duke of the Normans, with whose reign I am beginning. I shall be aided in this task by the history that I recently wrote about the late King Henry, which I appended to the Deeds of the Dukes of the Normans, and by the history that the aforementioned archdeacon Henry wrote about the kings of England, beginning with Julius Caesar and continuing in chronological order down to the death of King Henry, that is, to the year 1135 of the Lord’s Incarnation.

70 Alfred of Beverley, Annals, or History of the Deeds of the Kings of B ritain Although Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (see Doc. 67) achieved rapid and widespread popularity, some early readers raised doubts about its veracity. One voice of mild skepticism belonged to Alfred (or Alured) of Beverley, who served as treasurer and sacristan of the minster of Beverley in Yorkshire in the first half of the twelfth century. Alfred was prompted to turn to the study of history, he says, to stave off idleness after an interdict was laid over his church. A legatine council held at London in March of 1143 had decreed that the divine office could not be said in a church where any excommunicated person was present, and although the precise circumstances of the excommunications at Beverley are not clear, it evidently resulted in a suspension of services there. During this period of enforced inactivity, Alfred obtained a copy of Geoffrey’s history and set out to produce an abridged version of it that also included extracts from other histories. The result was Alfred’s Annals, a history of Britain in nine books from its legendary origins to the year 1129. Alfred was skeptical about some of what he found in Geoffrey’s work, noting, for example, that King Arthur was not mentioned by any earlier historians, and that Bede and Gildas knew nothing of the legendary British kings whose deeds Geoffrey recounts. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales, sive historia de gestis regum Britanniae, libris IX, ed. Thomas Hearne (Oxford, 1716), pp. 1–3.

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) In the days of our silence we were unable to render unto God what belonged to God and yet were compelled to render unto Caesar what belonged to Caesar, because—according to a decree of the Council of London—we could take no part in the divine offices due to the multitude of excommunicated persons. We were thus carrying on a burdensome existence, and for a long time I was sorely aggrieved by the rampant oppression, and I almost fell into despair after the pillars of our church had been expelled from their sees, because I was virtually the only one left. But I was raised from the depths of despair by the favoring hand of merciful God, and returning to myself under the guidance of reason, I deemed it a not unworthy pursuit that I, who had been compelled against my will to take no part in the canonical hours, should give myself over to reading as much as I could during my private hours. At that time tales from the History of the Britons were on many people’s lips, and anyone unfamiliar with these stories was branded a fool. Nonetheless, despite the reverence accorded to its antiquity, for which I have always had the deepest respect, and its refinement of style, which meant nothing to me but delighted younger men who knew it by heart, I often blushed to admit in conversation that I had not yet acquainted myself with the aforementioned history. What more is there to say? I sought out this work, and no sooner had I found it than I applied myself to reading it diligently. And because I was delighted to read this novel account of the distant past, my mind was soon agitating to transcribe it, but the time available to me and the poverty of my purse would not allow it. Therefore, in order to satisfy at least in part my swelling desire, and to provide some relief from the evils of those days, I endeavored to excerpt from the aforementioned history material that would not strain credibility and would delight the reader and stick fast in his memory, the truth of which could be confirmed by comparison with other histories. I did this not for the benefit of the learned, but for myself and those like me who were ignorant of such things. For this reason, I pored over older histories and diligently investigated what was unique and exclusive to the History of the Britons, and what it contained that agreed or disagreed with other works. Now because the kingdom of the English arose in Britain when the kingdom of the Britons collapsed, and the venerable master Bede wove together the history of the English people from the time of Julius Caesar and carried it down to his own day, I also decided to borrow some material from this work. Likewise, after Bede many people throughout the churches of England diligently inquired into the reigns of their kings and through skillful investigation endeavored to write down their deeds, and I have included some of their diligent researches in this modest work. I have embarked upon a difficult task, one that may be looked down upon by the scornful, but which will, I believe, prove useful to the studious, because the diligent reader will be able to perceive as if in a brief table more than two 219

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r thousand years of British history from the first inhabitants to the coming of the Normans—material that is presently scattered throughout the writings of many different authors—and find in his reading the history of different eras organized by chapter.

71 Otto of Fre i si n g, Chronicle, or H istory of the Two Cities Otto of Freising (ca 1115–1158) was the most important German historian of the twelfth century and one of the most important historical thinkers of the Middle Ages. Unusually for a medieval historian, he was born into the highest ranks of the nobility: his father was Margrave Leopold III of Austria, a member of the powerful Babenberg clan, and his mother, Agnes, was the daughter of Emperor Henry IV. Otto studied in Paris in his youth and later joined the Cistercian order at the monastery of Morimund in Champagne, becoming abbot in 1136/37. In 1138 he was elected bishop of Freising and worked diligently to rebuild his see, which had suffered badly during the political turmoil that followed the death of Henry V in 1125. In 1147 Otto joined his half-brother, the emperor Conrad III, on the Second Crusade, but he returned to Germany in 1148/49 after the expedition’s disastrous failure. Upon the death of Conrad in 1152, Otto’s nephew Frederick Barbarossa was elected emperor, uniting the feuding Welf and Staufen factions and inaugurating an era of renewed strength for the empire. Otto wrote two major works of history, the History of the Two Cities, a universal chronicle from Creation to 1146, and the Deeds of Emperor Frederick I, a panegyric on the emperor, which he left incomplete at his death. The History of the Two Cities is grounded in Augustine’s belief that human history is characterized by ceaseless opposition between the City of God and the Earthly City. In the prologue Otto also invokes the non-Augustinian theory of the four world empires, which was ultimately derived from Daniel’s interpretation of the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible, and promulgated most influentially by Jerome and Orosius. The Roman Empire was understood to be the last of the four empires, but its strength, according to Otto, had been vitiated by its transference to the Byzantines, the Franks, and now the German emperors, who had inherited its mantle. The Two Cities is characterized by a deep pessimism, the product of the political turmoil and church-state strife that afflicted Germany in the first half of the twelfth century. Otto completed the first edition of the work (of which no copy survives) between 1143 and 1147 and dedicated it to Isingrim, a monk of the abbey of Saint-Ulrich-and-Afra in Augsburg, and after 1145 abbot of Ottobeuren. After March of 1157 he sent a revised edition to Frederick Barbarossa, which included dedicatory letters to the emperor and his chancellor, Rainald of Dassel. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Ottonis episcopi Frisingensis Chronica sive Historia de Duabus Civitatibus, ed. A. Hofmeister, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1912), pp. 1–11.

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) Dedicatory Epistle to Emperor Frederick I To his lord, the victorious, celebrated, and triumphant Frederick, ever venerable emperor of the Romans, Otto, by the grace of God what he is in the church of Freising, wishing prosperity in him who gives salvation to kings [Psalms 143:10]. Your imperial majesty requested of our insignificance that the book on the mutability of history that we were prompted to write several years ago by the troubled state of affairs should be conveyed to your serenity. I submitted to your command gladly and willingly, and I did so all the more eagerly because I thought it most befitting of your royal excellency that you should wish to acquaint yourself with the deeds of the kings and emperors of the past in order to better keep the realm safe through force of arms and mold it through laws and judgments. In the same way, the great king of the Persians Ahasuerus, or Artaxerxes, although he had not obtained the knowledge of the true light through the worship of one God, nonetheless believing through the nobility of his soul that it would benefit the royal majesty, decreed that the annals that had been compiled during his reign and those of his predecessors should be read out to him. And in this way he won renown because an innocent man was not punished as though he were guilty, and the guilty party did not escape punishment as though he were innocent [see Esther 6:1ff.]. No one can be found on earth who is not subject to earthly laws and constrained to obey them. It is only kings, who have been set above the law and reserved for divine judgment, who are not confined by the laws of this world. Whence comes the testimony of the man who was both king and prophet: “To thee only have I sinned” [Psalms 50:6]. It therefore befits a king who is not only ennobled by the greatness of his soul, but has also been illuminated by divine grace in order to know his creator, to keep God, the king of kings and the lord of lords, foremost in his mind, and to take care in every way possible not to fall into his hands. For since, according to the apostle, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” [Heb. 10:31], it will be all the more terrible for kings, who have no one above them to fear apart from God, because they have more freedom to sin than others, according to the wise man who says: “Listen, therefore, kings, and understand; learn, you who are judges over the ends of the earth; give ear, you who rule the people and please yourselves in multitudes of nations. For power has been given to you by the Lord, and strength by the Most High, who will examine your works and search out your thoughts. Because, though you are ministers of his kingdom, you have not judged rightly, nor kept the law of justice, nor walked according to the will of God, horribly and speedily will he appear to you. For a most severe judgment shall await those who rule” [Wisdom 6:2–6]. But you, most 221

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r renowned prince, who in fact and in name are justly called “peacemaker” because you have brought back the joyous sights of a tranquil morning after a dismal and rainy night, and restored the blessings of peace to the world while preserving each person’s possessions, with God, who is the origin, granting you perseverance, through the favor of divine mercy you will not incur the penalty of so bitter a pronouncement. An understanding of history, therefore, will be both honorable and useful for your excellency. For by contemplating the deeds of valiant men and the power and might of God, who takes away and bestows earthly rule upon whomever he wishes and permits temporal change, you will always conduct yourself in fear of him and reign for many years with continuing good fortune. Accordingly, we ask that your nobility recognize that we were prompted by the turmoil of the times to write this history of the troubled era that preceded you in bitterness of spirit, and for this reason we did not so much commit to writing the course of events, but—in the manner of a tragedy—the misery that attended them. Thus, we have ended each of the books down to the seventh and eighth (through which are signified the repose of souls and the twofold garment of resurrection) in sorrow. And so if it pleases your majesty to commend an account of your most noble deeds to the memory of posterity in writing, and if your highness’s clerks will arrange it by chapter and send it to me, I shall not hesitate—God willing and as long as I am still living—to carry out this joyous task with a joyful spirit, expecting nothing as a reward other than the aid that your imperial mercy may wish to render to the church that I serve in in the hour of its need. For the sake of the honor of the empire and the glory of your own person I was glad to hear of the expedition that you have organized against the arrogance of the Milanese, and I was honored to receive the instructions on this matter that you directed to my lowliness. We have sent as bearers of the present work the venerable abbot Raboto of Saint-Stephen and our chaplain Rahewin, who took down this history from our lips, so that with your permission they may offer a suitable response in this matter on our behalf. Dedication to Rainald of Dassel To his cherished friend Rainald, noble chancellor of the ruler who stands supreme among all the rulers of the world, Otto, by the grace of God bishop of the church of Freising, sends greetings and obedience. Because I share with Boethius the belief that life’s greatest solace lies in learning and practicing all the branches of philosophy, I embrace your noble personage all the more familiarly and joyfully for knowing that hitherto you have toiled in the pursuit of philosophy and become supremely accomplished 222

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) in it. For this reason, I write to you as to a philosopher rather than a neophyte concerning the book that I sent to the lord emperor, trusting in your diligence and hoping to find in you one who will give a favorable, rather than a hostile, interpretation of certain of its contents. For you know that every branch of learning consists of two things: avoidance and selection. To begin with grammar, therefore, which comes first for those embarking upon the study of philosophy, by its own precepts grammar instructs us to choose what is appropriate to our purpose and to avoid what is contrary to it. For example, it instructs us by a hard and fast rule to join words together on the basis of similar qualities, while avoiding and eliminating constructions that do not follow this rule, such as barbarisms and solecisms. Likewise, logic, which deals chiefly with the principles of syllogisms, purging and instructing our judgment, avoids and eliminates any series of premises that results in an invalid syllogism, while selecting only the valid ones for use. For while sixteen combinations of premises can be devised, only four, according to Aristotle, are valid in the first figure, while twelve are invalid. Likewise, in the second figure four are valid and twelve are invalid, and in the third six are valid and twelve are invalid. The geometrician, too, by taking part of an incorrect diagram and demonstrating its impossibility, shows that it is to be avoided, while proving with incontrovertible arguments that his own proof must be accepted. In the same way the writing of history has certain things that it avoids and eliminates, and others that it chooses and employs for its subject matter. Specifically, it shuns falsehood and chooses truth. And so may your judgment not take offense, or, as I have said, interpret it in an unfavorable way to the ears of the emperor, if, for the sake of preserving the truth, certain statements in our history are critical of his predecessors or ancestors, since it is better to fall into the hands of men than to abandon the duty of a writer by painting over an unpleasant exterior with deceptive hues. I shall also briefly explain the order in which this history proceeds, so that when this is understood the nature of the work may be more readily apparent. It can be understood from the vision of Daniel that from the beginning of the world there have been four principal kingdoms that have overshadowed all others, and that according to a universal law they will endure down to the end of the world, succeeding one another in turn. I have set down the rulers of these kingdoms, listing them in chronological order beginning with the Assyrians, and then (leaving out the Chaldaeans, whom historians do not deign to include among the others) the Medes and the Persians, and finally the Greeks and the Romans, and I have recorded their names down to the present emperor, taking note of other kingdoms only in passing and in order to demonstrate the mutability of temporal affairs. I have also given an account of the various orders of monks and provided a list of the kings who reigned in Laurentum, Latium, 223

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and Alba [Longa] before and after the founding of Rome, and likewise a list of the emperors and popes down to the current holders of these offices. I have brought this work to an end in the eighth book by speaking of the resurrection of the dead and the end of both cities. I have also shown how each kingdom was supplanted in turn by another down to the Roman Empire, believing with Methodius that we must wait until the end of time for the fulfillment of that which is said about it—namely, that it will be overthrown by a stone cut from a mountain [see Dan. 2:34]. Farewell. Prologue As I meditate often and deeply on the instability and uncertainty of temporal affairs, and their random and unpredictable course, I find, after rational reflection, that as it ill befits a wise man to cling to such things, he should pass over and turn away from them. For it is the duty of a wise man not to turn like a spinning wheel, but to stand fast in the stability of the virtues like a squared block. Because the mutability of time can never stand still, therefore, who of sound mind will deny that a wise man, as I have said, ought to turn away from what is temporal toward the eternal city that stands firm and endures? This is the City of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to which the sons of God who have been set upon this pilgrimage aspire, though they are weighed down by the confusion of temporal affairs like the Babylonian captivity. For because there are two cities—one temporal and the other eternal, one worldly and the other heavenly, one belonging to the Devil and the other to Christ—catholic authors have declared the former to be Babylon and the latter Jerusalem. Because a great many pagan authors wrote at length about one of these cities in order to commend the deeds of their ancestors to posterity, they have left us (as they believed) with numerous examples of their virtues, although in our opinion they constitute rather a procession of miseries. In this regard there are extant the celebrated histories of Pompeius Trogus, Justin, Cornelius [Tacitus], Varro, Eusebius, Jerome, Orosius, Jordanes, and countless others, both Christian and pagan, whom it would be tedious to enumerate. The thoughtful reader will discover in these works not so much the history of mankind as the wretched tragedy of the calamities that have befallen him. Of course, we believe that these things happened in accordance with the sound and provident dispensation of our Creator, so that man, who in his vanity clings longingly to earthly and transitory things, might be frightened by the uncertainty of his condition and prompted by the wretchedness of his fleeting life to turn from the world and recognize his creator. We, however, who have been appointed to live, as it were, at the end of time, do not so much read about the tribulations of mankind in these books as discover them in our midst from the experiences 224

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) of our own day. For to say nothing of other examples, the Roman Empire, which in the book of Daniel is compared to iron because it has conquered the entire earth and exercises uncontested authority over it (what the Greeks call “monarchy”), has, after so many vicissitudes, particularly in our own day, declined from the height of nobility to become almost contemptible, so that according to the poet, scarcely “the shadow of a great name remains” [Lucan, Civil War 1.135]. Transferred from Rome to the Greeks, from the Greeks to the Franks, from the Franks to the Lombards, and from the Lombards back to the Teutonic Franks, not only has the empire grown decrepit with old age, but through its own mutable nature it has acquired numerous stains and various defects, like a smooth pebble tossed this way and that by the waves. Thus the sorrows of the world are revealed at its very head, and its fall threatens to destroy the whole body. Yet it is hardly surprising that human power is transitory, when even the wisdom of mortals is fleeting. For we read that the Egyptians once possessed such wisdom that according to Plato they called the Greek philosophers childish and immature. Moses the lawgiver, moreover, with whom God spoke like one neighbor to another, and whom he filled with divine wisdom, did not blush to be instructed in all the wisdom of Egypt. And was it not the case that the great patriarch Abraham, whom God appointed to be father of the gentiles and who was instructed in the teachings of the Chaldaeans and endowed with knowledge, abandoned his ways at the call of the Lord but did not lose his wisdom? And yet according to the prophecy of Isaiah [13:19–22] Babylon the great, the famous pride of the Chaldaeans, which was not only famed for its wisdom but also glorious among kingdoms, was made the temple of sirens, the house of serpents and ostriches, and the lair of snakes, without any hope of restoration. Egypt, too, is said for the most part to be uninhabitable and trackless. The careful investigator of history will discover that from Egypt wisdom was transferred to the Greeks, and from there to the Romans, and finally to the Gauls and the Spaniards. And it should be observed that all human power and wisdom have begun in the East and will come to an end in the West, so that in this way the mutability and imperfection of the world is revealed. God willing, we shall demonstrate this in greater detail in what follows. Because examples such as these demonstrate the instability of the world, dearest brother Isingrim, I deemed it necessary in response to your request to write a history in which, through God’s generosity, I could display the wretchedness of the citizens of Babylon and the glory of the kingdom of Christ, which the citizens of Jerusalem hope to experience when this life is finished, but which they must now wait for and experience a foretaste of. It was my intention, insofar as God granted me the ability, to give an account of the conflicts and sorrows of this life down to our own day, and to the degree that I could 225

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r glean information about it from the scriptures, not to remain silent about the hope of the life to come, but to leave a record of its citizens as they make their pilgrimage in this life. In this work I am following the lead of Augustine and Orosius, those most distinguished lights of the Church, and I have decided to draw from these sources whatever is relevant to my subject matter and my purpose. One of the two discoursed subtly and learnedly about the origin and progress of the glorious city of God and its destined limits, about how it has always made headway among the citizens of the world, and about which of its citizens and rulers were contemporary with the rulers and citizens of the worldly city. The other, arguing against those who babbled senselessly about how they preferred the time before the Christian era, composed a most useful history about the various catastrophes suffered by mankind in the past, about wars and the hazards of warfare, and about the rise and fall of kingdoms from the creation of the world down to his own time. Following in their footsteps, we intend to speak about both cities in such a way as not to lose sight of the course of history, so that the pious hearer will be able to recognize what to avoid in his worldly dealings on account of the countless miseries of their transitory nature, while the studious and diligent investigator will find an orderly account of past history. I do not think that I can be fairly criticized for having presumed to write in my unskillful way after eminent men of such great wisdom and eloquence, since I abbreviated what they wrote about extensively and in detail, and recounted in an uncultivated style those things done after their time by the citizens of the world to the benefit or detriment of the Church of God. Nor do I think that I deserve to be cudgeled with the verse of the satiric poet in which he says that “learned and unlearned alike, we all write poems” [Horace, Epistles 2.1.117], since it was not out of rashness or frivolity that I dared to undertake so difficult a task, despite my lack of learning, but out of love, which can always compensate for inability. Nor will anyone have grounds to accuse me of falsehood concerning those things that may seem incredible by the standards of our own day, since down to recent times I have included nothing save what I found in the writings of trustworthy authors, and only a small portion of that. For I do not think that they should be condemned if some of them maintained an apostolic simplicity in their writing, for just as cleverness is sometimes revealed to be the source of error, pious sincerity is always the friend of truth. Before I begin to speak about the wretched instability of the one city and the blessed constancy of the other, let us invoke God, who patiently tolerates the turmoil and confusion of the former, and by his own presence enhances and glorifies the joyful tranquility of the latter, so that through his aid we might say what is pleasing to him. The first book extends down to Arbaces and the transfer of power from Babylon to the Medes and the beginning of 226

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) the glory of Rome; the second to the civil war of the Romans waged by Julius and Pompey, the death of Caesar, and the nativity of Our Lord; the third to Constantine and the era of the Christian empire, and the transfer of power to the Greeks; the fourth to Odoacer and the invasion of the empire by the Rugi; the fifth to Charles and the transfer of power to the Franks, and the division of the kingdom and empire under his descendants; the sixth to Henry IV and the dispute between the kingly and priestly power, the anathema promulgated against the emperor, the expulsion of Pope Gregory VII from Rome, and his death at Salerno; the seventh to the rebellion of the Roman people in the ninth year of Conrad’s reign. The eighth concerns the Antichrist and the resurrection of the dead and the end of both cities.

72 Otto of Fre i s i n g an d Ra hew in, D eeds of Emperor Frederick I In the dedicatory epistle to Frederick attached to the Two Cities, Otto expressed his desire to compose an account of the emperor’s achievements if his clerks would send the author a synopsis of the events of his reign. In response Frederick sent Otto a letter containing a summary of the events of his reign from his accession in 1152 down to September of 1156. Otto undertook his biography of Frederick that same year, but managed to complete only two books before his death in 1158. The third and fourth books were written by his chaplain and secretary, Rahewin, who states in the prologue to the third book that he did so at Otto’s behest and with permission from the emperor. In the prologue to book 1 Otto adopts a tone markedly different from the pessimism and gloom that pervaded the Two Cities. Gone, too, is its philosophical schema, replaced by a straightforward desire to extol the deeds of an emperor who had brought peace and security to the realm. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris, ed. G. Waitz and B. De Simson, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1912), pp. 9–12, 162–64.

Prologue It was the intention of all those who wrote history before us, I believe, to celebrate the noble deeds of the valiant in order to spur the minds of men to virtue, and to cover up the ignoble deeds of the wicked in silence, or, if they were brought to light, to set them down openly in order to inspire fear in the minds of these same mortals. I thus regard those who are writing now as fortunate to some degree, because after the turmoil of the past not only has the unheard-of tranquility of peace dawned once more, but the authority of the 227

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Roman Empire is now so strong thanks to the virtues of this most triumphant prince that the people who live under his dominion conduct themselves peacefully in humble silence, while the barbarians and Greeks who dwell beyond his borders tremble under the weight of his authority. I confess that several years ago, when I had finished my earlier history and the spirit of the pilgrim God had inspired almost the whole of the West to take up arms against the pagan inhabitants of the East, in my joy at the peace which then momentarily smiled upon the world, I contemplated revising this work and had already begun to write, when, prompted by some unknown impulse, as if my mind could predict what was to come and foresee the end, I put aside the work that I had undertaken. It is, I believe, as if I unconsciously and unintentionally postponed the task of carrying out my plan until the present day, when a lasting peace (if one can put any faith in transitory things) is expected in the Roman world under the rule of a most vigorous ruler. Now regarding what I said about the peoples of the West having been inspired at that time by the spirit of the pilgrim God, no one should take this to mean that we believe that God is a pilgrim. Rather, we borrowed this expression from a document that was much read in those days in many parts of Gaul, which went like this: “I say to you, L, shepherd of bodies, by the first element of the material of your substance, whom the spirit of the day of the pilgrim god has inspired.” In the text of this document, beneath a covering of words, King Louis of France was promised the conquest of the royal city [Constantinople] and ancient Babylon, as well as a triumph over the whole of the East, in the manner of King Cyrus of Persia or Hercules. Hence, words such as these are found there: “When you have come to the side of the eternally situated tetragon and the side of the eternally standing tetragons and to the product of the blessed number and the actual first cube, arise to her whom the angel of your mother promised to visit and did not visit [ Jerusalem], and you will reach from her to the penultimate; as soon as he who promised her rises, the promise fails because of the excellence of the wares, and let your rose-colored standards be planted all the way to the furthest labors of Hercules, and the gate of the city B[abylon] will be opened to you. For the bridegroom [ Jesus] raised you up as the top-sail, he whose ship has almost fallen, at whose head is a triangular sail, so that he who preceded you might follow you. Thus your L[ouis] will be turned into C[yrus], who diverted the waters of the river until those who were zealous in the procuring of sons could cross over it.” This prophecy was accorded so much authority by the most respected and pious of the Gauls that some claimed it was found in the Sibylline books, while others maintained it was revealed by God to a certain Armenian. But whoever the prophet or huckster was who made this pronouncement, he should decide whether he still expects it to be fulfilled in some future expedition, or whether 228

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) it should be rejected because it has not already come to pass and ascribed to the frivolity of the Gauls that it was ever accorded any credence. At the same time, he should recognize that it was not unreasonable for us as well as him to refer to the spirit who sent almost all the inhabitants of the West upon a pilgrimage as “the spirit of the pilgrim God.” For according to the opinion of some prominent logicians, while substances rather than forms are the proper subject of predication, nonetheless genera and species are capable of being subjects of predication through the transference of qualities to their causes. Or, to give a common example, just as whiteness is called bright and death is called pale, because the former is the cause of brightness and the latter the cause of pallor, and just as we say that “Eurus pours fourth his waters,” in the same way, with reference to the cause of the expression, we refer to the “spirit of the pilgrim God,” who was the reason why so many men of such repute took up the garb of the pilgrim for the sake of God. Since, therefore, things have changed for the better, and a time to laugh has arrived after a time to weep, and a time of peace after a time of war [Eccl. 3:4,8], I thought it unfitting, most renowned emperor Frederick, after recounting the deeds of other kings and emperors, to be silent about yours. Indeed, to speak truly, I thought it much more suitable to place your virtues atop those of your predecessors, like a jewel mounted upon gold. For among all the rulers of the Romans you are virtually the only one to whom this privilege has been granted: that although you are acknowledged to have toiled in the duties of warfare from the time that you first came to manhood, fortune has not yet gazed at you inauspiciously. You are also acknowledged to be moderate in prosperity, brave in adversity, fair in rendering judgment, and wise and sagacious in adjudicating disputes, so much so that these qualities appear not only to have taken root in you through your manner of living, but to have been divinely inspired, as it were, and granted to you by God for the general benefit of mankind. I offer this history to your nobility, therefore, asking and beseeching God, the bestower of all goods, that an even better ending may attend the worthy beginning that you have made. Before I embark upon the narrative of your exploits, however, I have decided to touch briefly upon certain deeds of your grandfather, father, and uncle, descending by a sort of narrative thread, so that what is to be said about you will appear even more glorious by comparison with their illustrious deeds. Now if the deeds of any person, ecclesiastical or secular, from another realm have been mentioned in passing, these should not be deemed irrelevant to the substance of this work, since the history of all kingdoms and peoples returns to the condition of the Roman state, as though to its source. Nor will it be judged extraneous to a work of this sort if the opportunity is taken to stray from a simple historical narrative and elevate the discourse to a higher level of 229

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r philosophical subtlety, since it is not foreign to the prerogative of the Roman Empire to intersperse lofty things with those of a more humble nature. For Lucan, Virgil, and other Roman authors, who recounted not only historical events but legendary ones as well, either humbly in the manner of shepherds and farmers, or more loftily like princes and lords of the earth, nonetheless frequently elevated their style to touch upon certain philosophical mysteries. Thus, it is not only those who take pleasure in listening to historical narratives, but those who delight more in the loftiness of subtle reasoning who are drawn to read and acquaint themselves with material of this sort. With God’s help may the history that I have conceived now begin. Otto died in 1158, having only completed the first two books of his biography of Frederick. The final two books were written by his chaplain and secretary, Rahewin. Rahewin’s prologue to book 3 is addressed to Ulrich, who served as imperial chancellor from 1159 to 1162, and Henry, chief notary of the imperial chancery from 1157 to 1167. In it he borrows from the prologues to Josephus’s Jewish War (see Doc. 11), Florus’s Epitome (see Doc. 16), and Jordanes’s Getica (see Doc. 25). Rahewin, Prologue to Book 3 To lords Ulrich and Henry, men of outstanding wisdom tried in both peace and war, one the chancellor of the sacred palace and the other a notary, Rahewin, by profession a canon of the holy church of Freising, a deacon in rank, although unworthy, wishes that you may abound in understanding and the spirit of piety. Inquiring of the former generation and searching diligently into the memory of the fathers [ Job 8:8], I find many proofs that there is nothing stable or lasting in human affairs, but that the days of man pass more swiftly than the web is cut by the weaver [ Job 7:6], and his life departs more quickly than a shadow or a breeze. Although this is made clear to us by many important examples, the text of the present work also furnishes independent proof. It was first undertaken in an elegant style by its author of blessed memory, but after he was cut short—alas!—by an untimely death, then, by his command and the approval of the most serene and divine emperor Frederick, it was entrusted to our insignificance to be nurtured and continued, as though prematurely born and rescued from the grave of its master [Ovid, Tristia 1.7.38]. I concluded that I was obliged to obey the instructions of such eminent men, preferring to be criticized for the gracelessness of my unsophisticated style rather than be accused of disloyal laziness or lazy disloyalty if I allowed a work undertaken on such a glorious theme, and a memorial of so distinguished and eminent a man as my dear master, to be lost and forgotten along with him. In fact, this 230

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) task ought to have been entrusted to your wisdom, since you possess a precise knowledge of the past. But because you are hindered in this regard by the burden of your various responsibilities, time will not permit you to apply your distracted minds to writing, but only to bestowing criticism or merited praise upon the writings of others. For “some people,” as Josephus says, “who were not witness to events, but gathered from hearsay untrustworthy and contradictory accounts, are accustomed to set them down in the manner of orators, whereas those who were present misrepresent the facts, either from flattery of the victorious ruler or hatred of the vanquished.” I do not think that I can be ranked among either group, for with regard to what I heard, I did not allow myself to be led astray by the indiscriminate gossip of anyone who had a tale to tell, nor, with respect to those things that I ascertained for myself, did I add anything untrue to flatter the ruler or court the favor of my people. Now if anyone compares the eloquence of the previous work with my own meager style, I ask that he kindly grant me pardon. For I confess that I scarcely have the breath to sound a little pipe, much less to fill up the mighty and abundant horn sounded in the writing and speaking of the previous author, the venerable bishop. But wherever the burden of stylistic eloquence exceeds my abilities, with God’s favor, sound judgment and a scrupulous regard for the truth will compensate for this. I therefore choose both of you as my instructors, witnesses, and judges in this task, and I ask that you receive without reproach the work that was demanded of me, and that you who were witnesses to these events as intimates of the emperor and men privy to his counsels not hesitate to emend anything that needs correction so as to accord with the truth or erase anything superfluous and add anything that is missing. For if I could not rely upon your assistance and devotion, truly would I succumb to this burden, having striven in vain to treat of the deeds of an emperor so great that anyone who compares his courage and the extent of his empire with his age will judge him older than he is. For so widely and triumphantly has he carried his arms throughout the world and so much has he accomplished in peace and in war, that whoever reads of his accomplishments will judge them to be the deeds of many kings and emperors rather than those of a single person.

73 He n ry of H u n ti ngdo n, H istory of the E nglish P eople Henry of Huntingdon’s History of the English People was one of the most influential historical works written in twelfth-century England and serves as a key source for the reigns of kings Henry I (1100–1135) and Stephen (1135–1153). Henry was born ca 1088 in Cambridgeshire, perhaps at Little Stukely near Huntingdon, to an English mother 231

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and a Norman father. As a young man he was sent to the cathedral school of Lincoln to be educated and joined the household of the bishop of Lincoln, Robert Bloet. Upon the death of Henry’s father in 1110, he was appointed to succeed him as archdeacon of Huntingdon and canon of Lincoln cathedral. After Robert Bloet’s death in 1123, Henry served his successor, Alexander of Blois, attending royal courts and ecclesiastical councils with him. In 1139 he traveled to Rome to secure a papal privilege for the cathedral of Lincoln and stopped at the abbey of Bec, where he met Robert of Torigni, who later copied much of Henry’s history into his own work. Henry completed the first redaction of his History of the English People, which he claims to have undertaken at Alexander’s request, around 1133, but he added to it and revised it continuously over the next two decades. In its final form it covered the period from the Trojan settlement of Britain to the coronation of Henry II in 1154 in ten books. His history achieved immediate success, and portions of it were copied into the works of many later chroniclers. In the prologue, which is addressed to Bishop Alexander, Henry addresses the moral-exemplary function of history and alludes to the famous introduction to Sallust’s Catiline’s War (see Doc. 7). Source: trans. Thomas Forester, The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), pp. xxv–xxviii, rev. Justin Lake.

Prologue As I regard the pursuit of learning in all its branches to be a sweet relief from toil [Horace, Odes 1.32.14) and the ultimate consolation for sadness while we are alive, so too I believe that the dignity of history must be embraced with the greatest delight and given the most prominent and illustrious position. For there is nothing in this life more excellent than investigating and tracing out the course of worldly affairs. For where do the noble exploits of the valiant, the wisdom of the prudent, the decisions of the just, and the moderation of the temperate shine out in greater profusion than in the writing of history? Indeed, we have heard that Horace, in praising Homer’s history, declared that “it gives a more complete and accurate account of what is beautiful and what is base, and what is useful and what is not, than Chrysippus or Cantor” [Epistles 1.2.3–4]. Cantor and Chrysippus toiled to produce numerous volumes of moral philosophy, whereas Homer portrays, as if in a mirror, the prudence of Ulysses, the courage of Agamemnon, the moderation of Nestor, the justice of Menelaus, and on the other hand the rashness of Ajax, the weakness of Priam, the want of moderation of Achilles, and the injustice of Paris, discoursing about the honorable and the expedient and their opposites more clearly and more attractively in his history than do the philosophers. But why do we dwell on profane literature? Consider how sacred history teaches morality, attributing justice to Abraham, courage to Moses, temperance 232

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) to Jacob, prudence to Joseph, and on the other hand showing the injustice of Ahab, the weakness of Uzziah, the recklessness of Manasseh, and the foolishness of Rehoboam. O God of mercy, what a shining example of humility it was when holy Moses, after joining with his brother in an offering of sweetsmelling incense to God [Num. 16:46], his protector and avenger against his enemies, threw himself into the midst of terrible danger, shed tears for Miriam who slandered him [Num. 12:13], and toiled incessantly in prayer for those who wished him ill. How brightly shone the light of humanity when David, though he had been struck and forcefully provoked by Cushi [actually Shimei], would not allow him to be killed, although he himself was armed, surrounded by his followers, and at the peak of his strength, while the latter was alone, hardpressed, and weak. And afterwards, when David was triumphantly restored to his throne, he would not suffer punishment to be inflicted upon him [see 2 Sam. 16:5–13, 19:16–23; 1 Kings 2:8]. So too in the histories of all peoples and nations, which are truly the judgments of God, clemency, munificence, honesty, circumspection and the like, together with their opposites not only provoke the religious to what is good and deter them from evil, but also attract worldly men to goodness and diminish their wickedness. History brings the past before our eyes as if it were present and enables us to judge the future by envisioning the past. The knowledge of past events has a further exceptional property, namely that it is the principal distinguishing feature between brutes and rational creatures. For brutes, whether they are men or beasts, neither know nor wish to know whence they come, or their origins, or the circumstances and events of their homeland. Of the two I consider men in this brutal state to be the more unfortunate, because what is natural in the case of beasts befalls them from their own want of sense, and what beasts could not acquire even if they wanted to, such men will not even though they could. But let us now move on from those whose life and death alike are destined to be consigned to everlasting oblivion. With these things in mind, therefore, and at your command, Bishop Alexander, I have undertaken to set forth the history of this kingdom and the origins of our people, of which you are the flower and pinnacle. At your suggestion I have followed as far as possible the Ecclesiastical History of the venerable Bede, making extracts also from other authors and borrowing from the chronicles preserved in ancient libraries, and in this way I have depicted the course of past events down to the time of our own knowledge and observation. The attentive reader will learn in this work both what he ought to imitate and what he ought to avoid, and if he becomes the better for this imitation and avoidance, that is the fruit of my labor that I most desire. For it is frequently the case that history leads us back to moral purity by the most direct path. But as we undertake nothing without imploring divine assistance, let us commence by invoking God’s holy name. 233

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r O Adonai, our creator, shepherd, and sustainer, Beginning, source of growth, and end of all things, We ask you to inspire this work and see it to its conclusion, This work that you have created and begotten among our forefathers, Raising up and laying low peoples and kingdoms through your judgment, A judgment that is sometimes manifest and sometimes hidden, Delaying punishment for some until they complete their crimes, And meting out punishment to others when their crimes are complete. Whatever kings and peoples propose to do, If they accomplish it, it is because you bring it about. You bring peace and create affliction, as the prophet declares [Is. 45:7], A unique entity, remaining as great as you wish, From whom, through whom, and in whom alone everything exists. And you, Bishop Alexander, father of your country, Ruler second only to the king, if what we have written pleases you, We pray that it may be made resplendent through your praise, And if it displeases you that you may correct it. Here you may see kings and peoples whom the die of fate Has raised up and brought low, and you may measure the future by them. Behold where the powerful have gone. Behold how the honor, light, and glory of the world have come to nothing.

74 Joh n of S a l i s bu ry, Memoirs of the Papal Court John of Salisbury (ca 1120–1180) was one of the greatest literary and intellectual figures of twelfth-century England, a humanist, philosopher, and political thinker whose Policraticus and Metalogicon are two of the monuments of twelfth-century thought. Born at Old Sarum, near Salisbury, he received his initial education there and at Exeter before leaving for the continent in 1136. He studied at Paris and Chartres for twelve years, counting among his teachers Peter Abelard, William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres, and Gilbert de la Porrée. In 1148 he returned to England and entered the household of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, whom he served in a secretarial and diplomatic capacity, and on whose behalf he made as many as five trips to the papal curia between 1149 and 1154. During the tenure of Theobald’s successor, Thomas Becket, John fell out of favor with King Henry II and spent much of the period from 1164 to 1170 in self-imposed exile at the monastery of Saint-Rémi at Rheims, the guest of Abbot Peter of Celle. John returned to England in 1170, after the short-lived reconciliation between Henry II and Thomas Becket. He was made bishop of Chartres in 1176 and died in 1180.

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) Early in his stay at Rheims (probably in 1164), John wrote his Memoirs of the Papal Court, drawing upon his earlier experiences at the papal curia. The work begins in 1148 with the Council of Rheims, at which John’s former teacher Gilbert de la Porrée was tried for heresy, and ends abruptly in 1152, evidently unfinished. It survives in only one manuscript and was little known in the Middle Ages. In the prologue, which is addressed to Peter of Celle, John argues for the value of history and places his work at the end of an unbroken chain of chronicles starting with the Old Testament. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Ioannis Saresberiensis Historiae pontificalis quae supersunt, ed. R.L. Poole (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), pp. 1–4.

Jerome, a celebrated doctor of the Church and a man well versed in almost every branch of learning, declares that the book of Chronicles is so important that anyone who lays claim to a knowledge of the divine scriptures without it makes a mockery of himself. To support this contention, he notes that it touches upon a number of stories not found in the other books, the knowledge of which resolves countless questions of the Gospel. It is like a compendious summary of the Old Testament, and if the books of Ezra and Maccabees are added to it, one can read through all of the mighty works of divine dispensation made manifest in the fathers down to the time when all things were silent, and the necessity of the human race and the plan of God’s dispensation demanded that the consubstantial and coeternal son of God should enter the womb of the undefiled Virgin, so that the Word might thereby become flesh and dwell among us. The holy authors of the Gospel next assumed this role, teaching what the Incarnate God did as a man and on behalf of mankind, and flying to the four corners of the world on swift wings to sow the word that saves the souls of those who heed it, joining to Christ a church without stain or wrinkle. Luke, the apostle of Paul, recounted the infancy of the newborn church by describing the deeds of the apostles, and he was succeeded by Eusebius, the key to the scriptures, who narrated the progress of the Church in its youth and brought it down to the age of manhood, depicting the struggles and triumphs of men renowned in Christ. Cassiodorus, a pagan who became a Christian, a senator who became a monk, and a rhetorician who became a doctor of the Church, subsequently proclaimed the triumphs of the army of Christ that he saw and took from the fathers. And just as he had predecessors in the writing of chronicles, he left behind illustrious men to carry on this work after him. Orosius, Isidore, Bede, and others whose names it would take too long to relate all occupied themselves in writing history, and in our own time many men of learning have undertaken to benefit their contemporaries through this

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r sort of labor. One who recently distinguished himself in this way was master Hugh, a canon of Saint-Victor at Paris, who set down the events of history in chronological order and gave a concise account of the vicissitudes of kingdoms from Creation down to the time of Pope Innocent II and the most Christian king Louis [VII] of France. He was followed by Sigebert, a monk of Gembloux, who laid the warp of his history with the first year of the reign of Valentinian and Gratian [375] and brought it down to the Council of Rheims, which was held in the year 1148 of the Lord’s Incarnation, during the reign of the aforementioned King Louis, while Conrad [III] was ruling in Germany. From that point on, however, I have been unable to find any chronicles, though I did discover some records of important events in the archives of churches that could aid the endeavors of those who may undertake to write in the future. Nor did Sigebert recount the deeds done under the aforementioned pope. Indeed, he is silent about a great many memorable events that are worth recounting, either because he had no knowledge of them, or because he was prevented from doing so for other reasons. And while he was diligent about mentioning the important events that took place in many kingdoms, he sought to devote more attention and care to those matters that pertained to his own countrymen, the Germans. In an effort to curry favor with them, he seems to have inserted a number of things into his chronicle that appear to be contrary to the privileges of the Roman Church and the traditions of the holy fathers. For this reason, dearest of masters and friends, I am willingly acquiescing to your request, and in accordance with your command, and with God’s grace preceding me, I shall undertake to narrate briefly those things that pertain to the history of the papacy, having in mind the same goal that other writers of history before me are known to have had, namely to benefit the men of my own day and future generations. For all of them shared a single purpose: to relate what was worth knowing, so that the invisible things of God might be clearly perceived by the things that have been made [Rom. 1:20], and so that by adducing examples of reward and punishment they might make men more careful about fearing God and cultivating justice. For anyone who claims for himself the knowledge of sacred scripture or worldly wisdom without the knowledge of these things is rightly said to make a mockery of himself. For as the heathen says, “The lives of others are our teacher” [Distichs of Cato 3.13], and the man who is ignorant of the past stumbles blindly into the future. Moreover, the knowledge of chronicles helps to establish or nullify rights and to confirm or invalidate privileges, and nothing instructs those living after the grace and law of God more correctly or authoritatively than the knowledge of the deeds of their predecessors. With God as my guide, in what follows I shall write nothing except what I have seen or heard for myself and know to be true, or else what is based upon the writings and authority of credible men. Let the 236

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) beginning of our discourse, therefore, be the son of the Inviolate Virgin, who in the beginning was the Word, and let him further the work that we have undertaken for our salvation and the benefit of his church, he who is the leader of all those who walk in righteousness and the end of everything that we do.

75 Helmold of B o s au, S lavic Chronicle Just as Adam of Bremen wrote about the history and geography of Scandinavia in the context of the missionary activities of the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen, Helmold of Bosau (ca 1120–1177) chronicled the Slavic peoples east of the Elbe through the lens of their conquest and conversion by the Germans. Born in the Harz region of Saxony around 1120, Helmold joined the Augustinian monastery established by the missionary (and later bishop of Oldenburg) Vicelin at the newly founded fortress of Segeburg in 1134. When Segeburg was sacked in 1138, Helmold relocated first to Neumünster, where Vicelin was abbot, and then to Braunschweig, where he was taught by the schoolmaster and cathedral canon Gerold. In 1143 he returned to Neumünster, where he remained for over a decade and assumed the office of deacon. In 1154, Gerold was elected bishop of Oldenburg-Lübeck, and Helmold joined his inner circle, accompanying him on a visitation of his diocese and receiving consecration as a priest at Bosau in 1156. After Gerold’s death in 1163, Helmold undertook his Slavic Chronicle, which he dedicated to the cathedral canons of Lübeck. Book 1 extends from the time of Charlemagne to 1168 and draws heavily upon Adam of Bremen’s Deeds of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen (see Doc. 57) for the period before 1066. The much shorter second book ends in 1171. In the preface to book 1 Helmold discusses his motives for writing. In the preface to book 2 he claims to have written a truthful account of his subject unaffected by enmity or bias. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Cronica Slavorum, ed. B. Schmeidler, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum (Hanover: Hahn, 1937), pp. 1–2, 188–89.

Preface to Book 1 To the reverend masters and fathers, canons of the holy church of Lübeck, Helmold, an unworthy servant of the church of Bosau, offers a voluntary display of due obedience. I mulled over in my thoughts for a long time what kind of work I should undertake to honor my mother, the holy church of Lübeck, with my service, but I could think of no more fitting way to praise her than by writing about the conversion of the Slavic people—that is, through the efforts of which kings and preachers the Christian religion was first established and later restored in 237

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r these regions. I was spurred on to this undertaking by the exemplary devotion of previous authors, many of whom, in their dedication to writing, forsook completely the tumults of worldly affairs so that in the solitary repose of contemplation they might discover the path of wisdom, preferring it to pure gold and costly treasures of every sort. And what is more, by extending the gaze of their intellect to the invisible things of God and seeking to draw near to these secrets, they often strove to toil beyond their own abilities. Others, however, not setting their sights so high, but remaining within the confines of their own abilities, enriched the secrets of the scriptures through their own simplicity. Starting with the very creation of the world, they commented at length on kings and prophets and the fickle fortunes of war, adding praise to virtue and hatred to vice through their proclamations. For in the shadowy gloom of this world if the light of the scriptures fails, all is darkness. We must therefore reprove the arrogance of modern authors, who, although they see many things flowing up now as then from the depths of the judgments of God [Ps. 35:7], have shut up the veins of their eloquence and turned to the fleeting vanities of this life. In contrast, I think that the pages of this work should be dedicated to the praise of those who brought light to the land of the Slavs in different eras through their deeds and words, and in many cases through the shedding of their own blood, and whose fame should not be obstructed by silence. For after the destruction of the church of Oldenburg, through God’s favor they raised the famous city of Lübeck to such a height of splendor that among all the most celebrated cities of the Slavs this one has become most prominent both for its wealth and its devotion to God. Leaving aside other matters, I decided (God willing) to faithfully describe the deeds of our era that I had either learned about from the accounts of older men or seen with my own eyes, naturally providing more detail as the amount of contemporary material to be written about grew more abundant. It was not rashness that spurred me on. Rather, I was persuaded by the exhortations of my venerable teacher, Bishop Gerold, who first made the church of Lübeck renowned for its episcopal see and its clergy. Preface to Book 2 Among writers of histories, few can be found who fully discharge the obligation to be faithful to the deeds they are describing. Indeed, the differing aims of men, which for the most part arise from perverse motives, can be recognized immediately on the surface of a narrative, since unwarranted affection or enmity, which grows in the hearts of men like an excess of humors, causes it to change course, abandoning the path of truth and veering to the right or left.

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) For there have been many who, in seeking to win the favor of men, have hidden behind a deceptive veneer of friendship, and, in an attempt to win honor or some other sort of reward, have said what would be found pleasing to men, ascribing meritorious deeds to those who were unworthy of them, praise to those who did not deserve it, and bestowing blessings upon those who had no blessing. Others, by contrast, having been stirred up by hatred, were unsparing in their abuse, seeking any occasion for slander and vehemently persecuting with their tongues those whom they could not persecute with their hands. And of course there are some who put light for darkness (Is. 5:20) and claim that night is day. Nor has there ever been a dearth of people who were afraid to reveal the impious deeds of princes because they feared the loss of their property or bodily torment, although it is more pardonable to keep the truth silent out of cowardice and the demands of the moment than to fashion a lie in the hope of idle profit. In describing the deeds of men, therefore, as in carving the most intricate sort of engravings, an honest critical gaze is always required, which neither favor, nor enmity, nor fear can cause to deviate from the path of truth. Because it requires great skill—or rather, consummate expertise—to steer the helm of discourse safely between the obstacles of these rocks, I must beseech God’s mercy all the more intently, so that, having brought the ship of this narrative onto the deep through a boldness that was more unplanned than reckless, through divine aid and the sending of favoring winds I might merit to bring it in to the shore of its destined completion. Otherwise, the difficulty caused by disputes that become ever more serious and the corrupt morals of princes may easily cause me to become flustered out of fear. It is a source of great consolation to all those who strive for truth that even if on occasion it engenders enmity among the wicked, truth itself nonetheless remains unshaken and blameless, in the same way that light is hateful to diseased eyes, but it is the fault of the malady that afflicts the eyes rather than of the light itself. So, too, everyone who examines the face that he was born with in a mirror will impute it to himself and not the mirror if he recognizes anything crooked or distorted. Therefore, I dedicate the following work, as I likewise did the one that preceded it, to your charity, o venerable masters and brothers, desiring to confer upon the men of this age a token of my esteem and to give posterity the advantage of a knowledge of these events. As for myself, I hope that I will not lack for whatever recompense comes from the intercession of great men who may read this book and will not refuse my request to aid me in their prayers.

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7 6 W i ll i am of Tyre , Chronicle William of Tyre was born in Jerusalem ca 1130 to a family that had immigrated to the Holy Land after the First Crusade. After studying in France and Italy for two decades, he returned home in 1165 and rapidly obtained a series of important church offices. Through the patronage of King Amalric of Jerusalem (r. 1163–1174), he was appointed archdeacon of Tyre, and he later served as tutor to Amalric’s son Baldwin (the later Baldwin IV). When Amalric died in 1174, Raymond of Tripoli, serving as regent for Baldwin, appointed William as chancellor and secured his election as archbishop of Tyre a year later. Shifting political currents in the late 1170s diminished William’s influence at court, however, and he was passed over for the patriarchate of Jerusalem in 1180. He died in 1186, a year before the defeat of the crusaders at the Horns of Hattin and the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin. William wrote two histories: a now-lost History of the Rulers of the East from the time of Muhammad to his own day, and his Chronicle, a history of the Crusades and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in twenty-three books. Down to 1127 William relied on earlier crusade historians, but after this point, and especially after 1143, when he could rely upon his own memory, the Chronicle is a historical source of the highest importance. William stopped work on the Chronicle in 1184, at which time he wrote both the general prologue and the more pessimistic preface to book 23. The latter is followed by only one chapter, which suggests either that the latter portion of the history is lost or that William abandoned his design to keep a contemporary record of events after 1184. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, vols. 63–63A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), pp. 97–101, 1061–62.

William, through the sufferance of God an unworthy servant of the holy church of Tyre, to his venerable brethren in Christ whom the present work has reached, wishing you eternal salvation in the Lord. No man of wisdom could doubt that committing the deeds of kings to writing is a dangerous enterprise attended by great risk. To say nothing of the toil, unceasing effort, and constant sleepless nights that an undertaking of this sort demands, the authors of histories are invariably threatened by two different dangers, both of which they can scarcely avoid. For if they flee from Charybdis, then they run into dog-girdled Scylla, who is just as capable of bringing ships to grief. Thus, they will either strive to produce a true account of events and stir up hostility in many quarters, or else conceal what happened in an effort to soften feelings of resentment, a course of action that is in no way blameless. For to neglect the truth deliberately and conceal it on purpose is undeniably contrary to the duty of the historian, and to fall short of this duty is beyond any doubt a fault, if duty is properly defined as “the actions appropriate 240

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) to each person according to the customs and laws of his homeland” [Marius Victorinus, Commentary on Cicero’s De Inventione 1.5]. On the other hand, trying to produce an uncontaminated account of the past without abandoning the standard of truth frequently tends to arouse resentment. For as the old saying has it, “Complaisance creates friends; truth engenders hatred” [Terence, Andria 68]. Those who write history, therefore, will either fall short of their professional duty by showing inappropriate deference or be compelled to bear the burden of enmity by pursuing the truth, which is the mother of hatred. It is no wonder, then, that these two so often tend to be enemies and cause problems through their mutual antagonism. For in the opinion of our Cicero, “Truth is troublesome, because it engenders hatred, which poisons friendship, but complaisance is worse, because by indulging the vices of a friend it allows him to plunge to his ruin” [De Amicitia 24], a sentiment that seems to be embodied in the actions of those who suppress the truth out of deference, contrary to the responsibility of their office. As for those who shamelessly intermingle falsehoods with true events out of a desire to flatter, their actions are deemed so detestable that they should not even be admitted to the ranks of historians. For if concealing the truth of history is contrary to the duty of the author and a failure to live up to his responsibility, then disfiguring the truth with falsehood and knowingly handing down lies to posterity as if they were the truth will be deemed a much graver sin. In addition to these risks, the authors of histories tend to face another equally serious, if not greater, danger, one that they must make every effort to avoid: namely, that the dignity of their theme not be marred by arid diction and a meager style. For words must be similar to the events that they describe, and the language and thoughts of the author should not fail to live up to the nobility of his subject matter. Consequently, great care must be taken, so that the grandeur of the theme does not fall victim to incompetent treatment, and stylistic deficiencies do not render what is naturally sleek and robust meager and frail. As the distinguished orator [Cicero] says in the first book of the Tusculans: “A man who commits his thoughts to writing without being able to arrange or elucidate them, or to attract the reader with any sort of charm, is recklessly misusing both his leisure and his words.” In our present undertaking we appear to be faced with this same dilemma and a multiplicity of dangers. For in the work that we have before us, we have included a great deal of material—some of it laudatory and some of it critical—about the characters, lives, and physical traits of kings, as the series of events seemed to dictate. When their descendants read this, however, they might take umbrage and become angry with the author without justification, accusing him either of being motivated by envy or of being a liar, both of which accusations—as the Lord lives—we are trying to avoid like the plague. 241

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r As for the rest, no one could doubt that we are foolishly struggling at a task that exceeds our abilities, and that our powers of speech cannot measure up to the loftiness of the subject matter. At the same time, our accomplishment is not wholly negligible. For in painting, those who are inexperienced and have not yet been admitted to the secrets of the guild typically start by laying down drab colors and tracing the initial outlines, while a more skillful hand later adds the finishing touches in more noble hues. In the same way, we have toiled to lay a foundation, so that some more accomplished builder—observing the requirement of truth that we have nowhere abandoned—may use his superior technique to build a more skillfully executed edifice on top of it. In the face of so many dangerous snares and such a difficult dilemma, it would have been safer to do nothing, remaining silent and enjoining idleness upon our pens. But we are urged on by an insistent love for our fatherland, on behalf of which any man of good character is bound to give up his life, should a moment of necessity require it. It urges and commands us imperiously with its preeminent authority not to allow the events that have taken place on its soil for almost the last hundred years to be buried in silence or suffer the indignity of being forgotten, but for them to be diligently committed to writing and preserved for the memory of posterity. We have obeyed, therefore, and given our hands to her whom we could not in good conscience deny the service of our labor, paying little heed to what posterity would think of us or what reception our own feeble powers of speech would meet with when dealing with such noble subject matter. We obeyed, of course, and I only wish that our success had equaled our eagerness and the results were commensurate with our devotion. We were led more by the sweetness of our native soil than any belief that our own powers were equal to the task that we had undertaken. Nor did we rely upon our intellectual attainments, but rather upon the fervor of our pious devotion and the sincerity of our love. To these incentives we may add the command—one that is not to be neglected lightly—and the frequent entreaties of our lord King Amalric (may his soul enjoy a blessed repose) of illustrious memory and noble remembrance in the Lord, which particularly impelled us toward this same goal. At his request, and with the aid of Arabic manuscripts that he provided, we wrote another history from the time of the deceiver Muhammad down to the present year, the year of the Incarnation of our Lord 1184, covering a period of 570 years, employing as our chief authority the venerable patriarch of Alexandria, Seith, son of Patricius. In the present work, however, we have had no previous text in either Greek or Arabic to guide us, and we have set down the events of the narrative with only tradition to instruct us, save for the few things that we were able to see for ourselves. We began with the departure of those valiant men and princes beloved of God who departed the realms of the West at 242

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) God’s summons and claimed the Promised Land and virtually all of Syria for themselves through their mighty deeds. And from there we diligently carried our history down to the reign of King Baldwin the Fourth, who was seventh in the order of kings, if we count Duke Godfrey [of Bouillon], who was the first to obtain the throne, a period of eighty-four years. And in order not to deprive the reader who is eager to obtain a more complete understanding of the conditions that prevail in the East of anything, we have prefaced this with a brief and succinct account of the time period during which this land endured the yoke of servitude, the conditions for the faithful who dwelled there among the infidels during the intervening period, and why, after so long a period of continuous servitude, the rulers of the realms of the West were bestirred to liberate them and take the heavy burden of this pilgrimage upon themselves. Now if anyone considers the numerous responsibilities that drive us to exhaustion, not only those associated with the noble and divinely protected metropolitan see of Tyre (which we preside over not because we deserved to be elected, but only through the forbearance of the Lord), but also those pertaining to the business of our lord the king, in whose sacred palace we serve in the office of chancellor, and the other needs of the realm, which are becoming more urgent than usual, he will be more inclined to pardon us if he finds anything in the present work that merits criticism. For given the number of tasks with which we are occupied, the inner motion of our mind tends to rise more feebly to the challenge of dealing with each one individually. Divided, it cannot give to each task the amount of attention that it would normally allot to a particular endeavor if it were concentrated on it alone, and for this reason it is more deserving of forgiveness. We have divided the whole of this work into twenty-three books and assigned separate chapters to each, so that the reader will have an easier time finding whatever portions of this history he deems to be the most useful. For as long as we live our intention is to add to what we have already written the various future events that will come to light later in our time, and to increase the number of books in proportion to the amount of new subject matter. Now we hold it for a certainty (nor does our opinion deceive us in this) that in the present work we are bringing forth a witness to our own ignorance, and though we could have remained silent and escaped notice, we chose to write and embrace the duty imposed upon us by love, thereby exhibiting our own failings. And yet we prefer to be found wanting in that which puffs up rather than to lack for that which edifies. For without the former, many who have come to the wedding have been found worthy to sit at the table of the king, but the man who was found to be without the latter merited to hear among the guests, “How did you come in here without a wedding garment?” [Matt. 22:2–12]. May the merciful and compassionate Lord, who alone has 243

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r the power to do so, prevent this from happening to us. Knowing nonetheless that “in a multitude of words sin is not wanting” [Prov. 10:19], and that the fickle tongue of wretched man easily merits punishment, we invite our reader with brotherly affection and urge him in the Lord to exercise criticism freely, with charity in its midst, when he finds a passage that deserves correction, so that by correcting us he may win for himself the reward of eternal life. And in remembrance of us we ask him to beseech the Lord on our behalf in his prayers not to impute to our death whatever transgressions we have committed in the present work, but for the Savior of the world (whose tribunal we fear, as wretched and unprofitable servants in his house whose conscience accuses us beyond measure) to extend his compassionate forgiveness to us from the benevolence of his grace and his deep-rooted mercy. Introduction to Book 23 In our weariness at the misfortunes that are befalling the realm with greater than usual frequency (indeed, almost without interruption), we had intended to enjoin idleness upon our pens from now on, and to entomb in silence the work that we had initially undertaken to hand down to posterity. For there is no one who would willingly bring to light the weakness of his homeland and the failings of his countrymen, since there is a sort of compact among men (and it is regarded as natural, so to speak) that each person should exert himself to the utmost to sing the praises of his fatherland and not begrudge the claims to glory of his countrymen. Yet every occasion for praise has been taken from us, and the only subjects that present themselves are the disastrous state of our grieving homeland (a theme more suitable for weeping, and one that wrings tears from our eyes) and the manifold misfortunes that afflict it. For we who in the previous books recounted—in however mean a style—the noble deeds of those valiant men who exercised sovereignty in our corner of the East, and especially at Jerusalem, for a period of more than eighty years, have now come up short in our distaste for what is currently happening, dumbfounded as we are by the subject matter that obtrudes itself upon our eyes and ears, none of which is worthy even of being related in the poems of a Codrus or Maevius [see Virgil, Eclogues 5.11, 3.90]. For I can think of no actions of our current rulers that a reasonable man would think worthy of entrusting to the treasure-house of memory, nothing that would help to restore the reader or redound to the honor of the writer. For as the prophet laments, there has perished from our midst “counsel from the wise man, words from the priest, and vision from the prophet” [compare Jer. 18:18], and it is now the case among us that “as are the people, so is the priest” [Hos. 4:9], so that the saying of the prophet could now be applied to us: “The whole head is sick and the whole heart is sad; from the 244

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) sole of the foot to the top of the head, there is no soundness in us” [Is. 1:5–6]. For we have now come to that stage in which “we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies” [Livy, preface]. Consequently, our sins have merited that “our enemies have become our lords” [compare Lam. 1:5], and we who formerly triumphed over our foes and frequently won the palm of victory and the glory that came with it have now been abandoned by God’s grace and get the worst of almost every battle. It would have been better to remain silent, therefore, and more advisable to shroud our failings in darkness rather than shine a light upon the sources of our shame. But those who are determined that we should continue the work that we have begun, and who urge us that our work should exhibit to posterity a complete picture of the conditions in the kingdom of Jerusalem— both good fortune and bad—spur us on by citing the examples of those most learned historians Titus Livy and Josephus. For the former not only entrusted to writing the successes of the Romans, but also their setbacks, and the latter made public in his lengthy treatises both the outstanding accomplishments of the Jewish people and what redounded to their shame. Those who wish to spur us towards this goal can cite many other examples, and they have no difficulty in persuading us, because it is manifestly clear that the writers of history subject good and bad fortune alike to the same sort of treatment, so that just as they inspire a kind of courage in future generations by recounting successful exploits, so too by the example of less happy episodes they render them more cautious in similar circumstances. For the writers of annals do not, as a function of their office, normally commit to writing what they themselves want, but what the times provide them with. In history, and in warfare in particular, outcomes tend to be uncertain; success does not last forever, and ill fortune is relieved by intervals of brightness. We submit, therefore, and just as we have begun (and would that it had been auspicious and successful), we shall diligently undertake to commit to writing whatever the future brings, with God’s help, and for as long as we live, abandoning our later purpose.

77 Ger a ld of Wale s, The Topography of Ireland Gerald of Wales (Gerald de Barri, Giraldus Cambrensis) was born at the castle of Manorbier, near Pembroke, in South Wales in 1146/47, the youngest son of the Norman knight William de Barri and Angharad, a granddaughter of the Welsh prince Rhys ap Tewdwr. He was educated at the Benedictine abbey of Gloucester and studied for several years at Paris before returning to Britain in 1172. In 1175 the archbishop of Canterbury sent him as a legate to Wales, where he sought to enforce the payment of tithes and clerical 245

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r celibacy and obtained the archdeaconry of Brecknock after the incumbent was deposed from office. In 1176 the cathedral chapter of the Welsh bishopric of Saint-David’s nominated Gerald as a candidate for the see after the death of his uncle, David FitzGerald, but he was passed over by Henry II in favor of a royal candidate. Gerald subsequently decamped for Paris to teach canon law, but he returned to England in 1179/80 and served briefly in an administrative capacity for the see of Saint-David’s before taking up a position as chaplain to Henry II. In 1185 he accompanied Prince John to Ireland, a journey that served as the impetus for his first two major literary works, The Topography of Ireland and The Conquest of Ireland. In 1188 Gerald was selected to accompany Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury during his preaching tour through Wales to promote the Third Crusade; his account of that trip, The Journey through Wales (see Doc. 78), and a subsequent work, The Description of Wales, are key sources for medieval Welsh history. In 1199 Gerald was again nominated to the see of Saint-David’s, but opposition from Hubert Walter, the archbishop of Canterbury, prevented him from taking full possession of the see despite repeated trips to Rome to plead his case, and he abandoned the attempt in 1203. He spent the last two decades of his life in semi-retirement from public affairs and devoted himself to literary activity, writing a number of important works, including an autobiography. Gerald was one of the most important literary figures of his era, and by focusing on the Celtic lands of Wales and Ireland and emphasizing the importance of topography, natural history, and local tradition, he made significant contributions to the historiography of Britain. Gerald collected most of the material for The Topography of Ireland during his visit to the island with Prince John in 1185–86, although he had made an earlier trip in 1183. He completed it upon his return to Wales, and in 1188 presented the finished work to Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury. At a later date, Gerald staged a three-day reading of the whole work at Oxford. In later years he continuously padded the Topography, increasing its bulk so much that the final edition was more than twice as long as the version presented to Baldwin in 1188. Book 1 of The Topography describes the geography of Ireland, and its flora, fauna, and climate; book 2 deals principally with miracles and marvels. Book 3 treats the inhabitants of Ireland and the history of the island down to the time of the arrival of the Normans. The first preface is devoted principally to the theme of literary glory, a motive generally disclaimed by previous medieval historians. A second, shorter, preface is addressed to King Henry II. Source: trans. Thomas Forester in The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. Thomas Wright (London: H.G. Bohn, 1863), pp. 1–10, rev. Justin Lake.

First Preface When I reflect that our life is short and fleeting, I am filled with admiration for the noble aims of those men of genius who, before their path for the future was yet plain, resolved on making it their principal object to leave behind them 246

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) some outstanding memorial by which they might secure enduring fame and live on in memory at least after their brief span of existence had ended. Thus we read in the books of celebrated poets: “Then if any envy still stretches a cloud over you, it will pass, and deserved honors will be paid to you after me” [Statius, Thebaid 12.818–19], and elsewhere: “Wherever Roman power extends to conquered lands, I shall be read by the lips of the people, and through all the ages I shall live on in fame, if the prophecies of bards have any truth” [Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.877–79]. This was the first and the principal incentive with the greatest authors for undertaking their works. There was another, second indeed in merit as well as in order, namely the patronage and encouragement of illustrious princes. For honors are the nurses of the arts. “For if Virgil had lacked for a boy or decent lodging, all the snakes would have fallen from the [fury’s] hair” [ Juvenal, Satires 7.69–70]. And again: “What place is there for genius unless our minds concern themselves with poetry alone and give free rein to the lords of Cyrrha and Nisa [Apollo and Bacchus], not admitting more than one concern?” [ Juvenal, Satires 7.64–67]. Philosophy, however, which loves modesty and a happy mean, and neither revels in wealth nor accepts poverty, seems to have spoken through Solomon: “Give me, O Lord, neither riches nor poverty, but only what is necessary for subsistence” [Prov. 30:8]. For although mediocrity is not permissible in poets—“Neither gods, nor men, nor booksellers allow it” [Horace, Ars Poetica 372–73]—still, if their learning is only average, there is no reason why they should not receive a modest living. In the past, therefore, when the last-mentioned inducement to write disappeared, poetry began to fail as well. Not, indeed, that poetry was altogether lost, or philosophy extinct, nor did noteworthy records of glorious deeds ever cease to be produced. Letters were not wanting, but lettered princes. The liberal arts had not disappeared, but the honors that ought to have attended them were withheld. There would be no lack of eminent writers today if there were none of enlightened rulers. Give me a Pyrrhus and you will have a Homer; a Pompey and you will have a Cicero; a Gaius and Augustus, and a Virgil and Horace will follow in course. While in our case, then, the second motive for writing fails for want of patrons, nonetheless the first and most powerful of those that I have mentioned urges us to write. And what can give a spark to our courage and fan the innate fire into a flame is the fact that, supported by so many and such great authorities, and borne, as it were, upon their shoulders, we may rise to eminence by the aid of their manifold grandeur if only we have courage. Nothing is so great a hindrance to bold attempts as diffidence. Despair of success is fatal to all efforts to obtain it, so that many men of praiseworthy talent and learning have for this reason lived in idleness and seclusion, and while they shrank from proving their abilities by active exertion, their brilliant merits remained completely hidden. Hence it happens that many men of 247

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r the greatest learning grow old without knowing their own powers. And while their intellectual talents are wasted because they want for a spark to kindle their minds, they perish like beasts and their names are lost to oblivion. Since, therefore, “there is little difference between powers not called into action and buried in sloth” [Horace, Odes 4.9.29–30]; since “fear is the token of a degenerate mind” [Virgil, Aeneid 4.13], “a work well begun is half ended” [Horace, Epistles 1.2.40], and “fortune favors the bold” [Virgil, Aeneid 10.284], I have resolved to write, preferring to be judged foolish by the malice of envious persons rather than be deemed timid in the eyes of the good. Nor was I deterred by the example of Cicero, who said, “I do not compose a poem on that subject because I cannot write what I would wish, and I am unwilling to write what I can.” My own determination is this, and on this subject it is very decided: “For the string does not always return the sound that the hand and the mind desire, and it often sends back a high note to the player seeking a low one; nor does the bow always strike the object that it threatens” [Horace, Ars Poetica 348–50]. If I cannot write as well as I would, I will at least write to the best of my ability. Shall I be judged presumptuous or provident, therefore, for having taken upon myself a task requiring long and close application, so as to expose myself to hostility while I am alive in the hope of possibly achieving a glorious reputation when my days are ended? After musing on concerns such as these for a long time and anxiously turning them over in my mind, at last it occurred to me that there was one corner of the earth, Ireland, which from its position on the furthest borders of the globe had been neglected by others; not that it had been left altogether untouched, but no writer had previously undertaken a comprehensive treatment of it. But it may be asked, “Can any good come from Ireland?” “Will its mountains drop sweetness and its valleys flow with milk and honey?” Let us then endeavor to suck honey out of the rock and draw oil from the stone. Let us follow the example of great orators, who in an admirable fashion polish the arms of their eloquence most when the poverty of their theme demands that it be elevated by a superior style. “And let eloquence give strength to the weaker cause” [Lucan, Bellum Civile 7.67]. These men must strive all the more readily to be eloquent in cases where they have little to go on, so that where reasoning has availed little, language may have a greater effect. For such is the power and such is the force of eloquence that there is nothing so humble that it cannot exalt it, nothing so copious that it cannot add to it, nothing so obscure that it cannot make it clear, nothing so clear that it cannot further illuminate it. For as the noble senator [Cicero] says in his Paradoxes: “There is nothing so incredible that it cannot be made plausible in speech, nothing so rude and barbarous that brilliant oratory cannot ornament and polish it.” But what can a discourse that has only a slender pith of ideas and a meager poverty of words 248

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) offer to erudite ears and to men of the highest eloquence? For it is useless, and altogether superfluous, to address the eloquent in barren phrases, or set before the learned things that everyone knows. What sort of sound will the cackling goose emit among melodious swans? Is he to publish what is new, or what is already well known? Men recoil with disgust from what is trite and common, while that which is novel does not have the support of authority. For as Pliny says, “It is a difficult matter to give novelty to old subjects and authority to new ones, to embellish what is threadbare, impart grace to what is out of fashion, shed light on obscurities, give confidence in what is doubtful, and endow all with nature” [Natural History, preface]. Notwithstanding this, I shall undertake in whatever manner I can to excite the reader’s attention with some new material that has either not been related before or has only been touched upon briefly, exhibiting to him the topography of Ireland in this little work of mine as in a clear mirror, so that its features may be open to the inspection of all the world. I propose, therefore, to examine from afar at least the qualities and situation of this most distant land, revealing its peculiarities, which have so long been hidden under the veil of antiquity, and searching out both the qualities and defects of almost all the things that nature has produced there for the adornment of the great and the use of lesser men. Besides this, I propose to unravel the marvelous prodigies of nature herself, to trace the descent of the various tribes from their origin, and to learn the customs of many men. And because the land of which we treat is backward and feeble, it will be no small satisfaction to studious minds to survey with the better part of ourselves the whole world and the causes of the world (at least with our mind) and to have everything readily available to us. This work is divided into three parts. The first treats of the conditions of Ireland and its location in reference to greater Britain; of the nature of the soil, its uneven quality, and its various properties; of the fishes and birds that are distinct from ours in location rather than in origin; of wild beasts and reptiles, and the nature and defects of the various species; and of the absence of all venomous creatures. It will also contain a comparison of the east and the west, showing that the west is deservedly to be preferred. All of this is clearly noted in the titles prefixed to the individual chapters. The second part tells of the prodigies of playful nature, not only those that are found in this country, but others of whatever sort and origin that are similar to these. It also sets forth the famous records of saints celebrated for their powers, which were manifested by glorious miracles unknown to the world. The third part treats in regular order of the first inhabitants of this country and the arrival and disappearance of various immigrants of different nations; of the habits and customs of the Irish race that inhabits the island to the present day, and of their subjugation 249

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r by foreign invaders. In short, it gives a history of all that is worthy of memory respecting this nation down to our own times. In the first two parts I found no direct evidence from the Irish records and no assistance from any external source outside of my own diligent inquiries. It is only in the third part, which treats of the inhabitants of the island and the origin of its people, that I obtained some information from their own chronicles. These had been compiled by the native writers in a loose and disorderly manner, and for the most part they were superfluous and absurd, written in a rude and barbarous style. At the cost of great labor, like one seeking out and picking up precious stones among the sands of the sea shore, I reworked the most interesting parts of this material in the present volume as clearly and concisely as I could. But since from the wretched state of human imperfection “this work fears the penetrating judgment of the critic” [Horace, Ars Poetica 364], then even if the work itself does not merit praise, at least the author’s purpose does. For the love of study is commendable, nor does it seem undeserving of praise to have some regard for what is honorable amidst the pressing and almost intolerable cares of the court. Let him be praised, then, whose mind is free while his body is subject to servitude. And because it is characteristic of a wise man to catch his breath in the refreshment of his own spirit when he is wearied by outward vexations, and to diversify tedious employments by an interchange of what is agreeable, since nothing that is pleasant can be considered laborious, a dignified leisure intervening between numerous responsibilities is worthy of praise. Second Preface, to King Henry II It has pleased your excellency, the most invincible king of England, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to dispatch me from your side in attendance upon John, your beloved son, to Ireland. Coming there not as a fugitive, but serving in the capacity of a scout, I soon found occasion to take note of many things that are completely foreign to other regions and wholly unknown, and because of their novelty much to be wondered at. I therefore began to make diligent inquiries regarding the situation and nature of the country, the origin of its people and their customs, as well as how often, by whom, and in what manner the island had been subjugated and conquered, and what new and secret works nature had stored up in the far western boundary of the earth contrary to her ordinary rules. For beyond these confines neither does land exist, nor is there any habitable spot either for men or animals, but across the entire horizon in boundless space the ocean alone sweeps around and rolls its waves in unknown and unfathomable channels.

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) For just as the regions of the East are remarkable and preeminent for certain prodigies peculiar to themselves and native to that part of the world, in the same way the western parts receive renown for the miracles of nature performed within their limits. For sometimes nature, like one wearied with serious affairs and realities, withdraws and retires for a little space, and in remote regions amuses herself, as it were, with embarrassing and secret oddities. Having therefore selected and made a collection of the most interesting facts, I have deemed it not unprofitable to bring together those that appeared most worthy of memory and to submit them to your highness’s careful consideration, from which scarcely any part of history has escaped notice. I might, indeed, as others have done, presented for your highness’s acceptance some little offerings of gold, or falcons or hawks, with which the island abounds. But I thought it of little importance to offer a mighty prince things that by their nature are prone to pass away and disappear, and I instead preferred to send to your highness that which cannot be lost, and through you to instruct posterity by means that no lapse of time can destroy. I also judged it a worthy undertaking to give a short account in writing of the virtues and triumphs of you and your illustrious son, so that the great glory that they have conferred upon our age may not pass away in a transitory fashion, but be firmly planted in the memory of posterity by the aid of letters. Nor do I hesitate to believe that it will be justly owing to our efforts that through the records of such noble achievements the minds of many men will subsequently be roused to increased courage by the admirable examples of your valor, and that the perusal of these pages will have the same effect that the images and portraits of their ancestors had on the men of old, rousing a laudable spirit of emulation not only in the brave, but in those that are sluggish, adding a spark of energy to the one, and lighting the innate fire of the other.

7 8 G era ld of Wa les, T he Journe y through Wales In 1188 Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury undertook a preaching tour through Wales to win converts for the Third Crusade. He was accompanied on this trip by Gerald, who kept a diary of the events of the journey and later published it as The Journey through Wales. Gerald produced at least three distinct versions of this work, revising and adding new material on each occasion. The first version, written in the spring or summer of 1191, lacked the first preface. The second edition was written ca 1197; it included the first preface and was dedicated to Bishop Hugh of Lincoln. The third version (printed below), written after 1213, was dedicated to Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r (1207–1228). At that time the phrase “through you, O illustrious Stephen” was added to the second preface. As was the case with The Topography of Ireland, Gerald focuses to a large extent on the motivations that drive authors, particularly the prospect of winning everlasting fame. Source: trans. R.C. Hoare, in The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. Thomas Wright (London: H.G. Bohn, 1863), pp. 325–29, rev. Justin Lake.

First Preface, to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury Just as the times in which we live are subject to various movements and changes of circumstance, so too the minds of worldly men are driven to pursue different courses. “There are a thousand kinds of men with different experiences of the world; each has his own desire, nor do they live according to the same wish,” proclaims the satirist [Persius, Satires 5.52–53]. And according to the comic tag, “There are as many opinions as there are men; each has his own way” [Terence, Phormio 454]. Hence, because men of different character pursue different ends, young soldiers exult in the clash of arms, and the pleaders of cases delight in the gown, while others anxiously long to accumulate wealth and believe riches to be the supreme good. Some favor Galen, others embrace Justinian. Those who are desirous of honors follow the court, and ambition cuts them to the quick, tormenting them with a recurring hunger that cannot be satisfied. There are some—though they are few and of little account these days—who devote themselves to the liberal arts. Among them we marvel at the students of logic, who, when they have made a little progress, are so carried away by the delight they take in this subject that we see many of them growing old in the twists and turns of dialectic, as though bound to the rocks of the sirens [compare Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 16.8]. But among so many different types of men, where are the divine poets? Where are the noble upholders of morals? Where are the masters of the Latin language? Who in the present day adorns his writing, whether poetry or history, with learned eloquence? Who, I say, in our own day, either builds a system of ethics or consigns illustrious actions to immortality through the eternal bonds of letters? Because “fate ensures that everything degenerates and slips backwards” [Virgil, Georgics 1.199–200], literary ambition, which used to be placed in the highest rank, seems now to be verging on collapse and devolving to the lowest depths, so that persons attached to these pursuits are at present not only not imitated or venerated, but actually despised. “Happy indeed would be the arts,” observes Fabius [Quintilian], “if artists alone stood in judgment upon them” [ Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah]. But as Sidonius says, “It is fixed and rooted in the human breast that those who are ignorant of the 252

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) arts despise the artist.” But to return to our subject, which, I ask, have rendered more service to the world, the arms of Marius or the verses of Maro? Long ago rust consumed the swords of Marius, but the fame of Virgil, the author of the Aeneid, is immortal. And though in his time letters were honored by educated rulers, yet from his own pen we find this: “Amidst the weapons of Mars our poems have as much power as they say Chaonian doves do when the eagle comes” [Eclogues 9.11–13]. Do you hesitate in deciding which are more fertile and profitable, the works of Jerome or the riches of Croesus? Ask yourself where now shines the silver and gleams the gold of Croesus, and what parts of the world the learning and example of the poor monk enlighten and instruct. Yet as great as he was, at Rome he suffered insults and abuse because of envy, and being eventually driven across the sea, he found a refuge for his studies in the solitude of Bethlehem. In comparing these things, then, this distinction may be drawn: gold and arms appear to support us in this life but avail us nothing after death, whereas, thanks to envy, writing is of little benefit to the author while he is alive, but acquires permanent value from his death. Like a will, then, the authority of writing is confirmed by the ink of death. According to the poet, “Envy feeds on the living; after death it grows silent, and each man’s reputation protects him as he deserves” [Ovid, Amores 1.15.39–40]. And also, “Then if any envy still stretches a cloud over you, it will pass, and deserved honors will be paid to you after me” [Statius, Thebaid 12.818–19]. Moreover, those who employ their ingenuity in an effort to acquire and preserve a skillful and correct style have little cause to boast of their inventions as long as they are merely regurgitating the words of others. For it is those who have composed the polished discourse that embraces with its elegance of style the cases in the great body of law who deserve to be heralded with eternal praise. I might have said, then, that it is the authors and inventors of refined language, and not the listeners and reciters, who are most worthy of commendation. You will find that the court and the schools are very similar in attracting people and retaining them. Yet while it is clear that the knowledge of logic— the pinnacle, as it were, of all the other sciences and arts—is very useful when a suitable period is allowed to master it, the court is by no means necessary, except to sycophants and ambitious men. For if you enrich yourself at court, ambition entices and binds you even more strongly, nor will it abandon the court or the palace until it is sated. If, on the other hand, your labor avails you nothing, then you will add still another year, and then another after that, and so on indefinitely, until, in an effort not to have squandered both your time and your money, you will have suffered the loss of time, the greatest and most irretrievable of all losses. There is likewise some resemblance between 253

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r the court and dicing, as the poet observes: “Thus in the hope of making good his losses the gambler continues to lose, while the seductive die calls back his greedy hands” [Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.451–52]. By making a minor change, you could say in a similar fashion: “Thus in the hope of making good his losses the deluded man continues to lose, while the seductive court calls back his greedy hands.” This further proof of their resemblance may be added, I think: that the ups and downs of dicing and the court make no distinction of persons and are equally distributed to the worthy and the unworthy. Since, therefore, among so many types of men “each is led by different desires” [Virgil, Eclogues 2.65], and “the hearts of men are troubled with different longings,” a regard for posterity has induced me to choose the pursuit of writing. And because this present life is temporary and mutable, it is gratifying at least to live on in the memory of future ages and to be honored with praise and immortalized by fame. For to toil after that which produces envy in life but glory after death is a sure indication of an elevated mind. Thus, it is immortality that poets and authors seek, although they do not refuse any worldly advantages that may fall to them. For as the poet says, “What place is there for genius unless our minds concern themselves with poetry alone and give free rein to the lords of Cyrrha and Nisa, not admitting more than one concern?” [ Juvenal, Satires 7.64–67]. Previously, I completed the Topography of Ireland for King Henry the Second of England and the Vaticinal History [that is, the Conquest of Ireland] for Count Richard of Poitou, his son—and, I wish I were not compelled to add, his successor in vice—princes little versed in letters and much engaged in business, a labor that was vain and unprofitable with regard to that secondary motive [that is, remuneration]. For this reason, it is to you, illustrious Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, who are equally commendable both for your devotion and your learning, that I have taken care to compose and send an account of our meritorious journey through the rugged territory of Wales, written in a scholarly style and divided into two parts. For as virtue loves itself and detests what is contrary to it, so we trust that you will embrace whatever in this little book is imputed to the praise of your next-to-last predecessor, the venerable archbishop, with no less affection than if it related to yourself. When this is complete, with God as my guide, and if I am still living, I promise you my treatise On the Instruction of a Prince, if at some point the pressing demands for prayers and the concerns of your other responsibilities settle down and you can find the leisure to read it. I have decided to submit these and the other fruits of our labor to your judgment to sample, each in its proper order, so that if my larger undertakings do not excite your interest, my smaller works may do so; excite your interest, I say, so that they might win me your favor and render me grateful for it. Being unmoved by desires of the flesh, you do not consider blood and birth, but learning and merit, when bestowing with your right hand 254

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) those favors in which you excel; you whom virtually alone the English church has found to be firm and faithful in the midst of the great and unceasing contests between the crown and the priesthood; you who are almost the only one duly elected in the present day to whom the canonical description of a bishop seems to apply and with whom it accords. It is not by bearing a cap, placing a cushion, removing a feather, or shaking off the dust (even if there were none) that I have decided to win your favor in the midst of a herd of flatterers, but through my writing. To you, therefore, a renowned and illustrious man who has few peers, on whom diligence and nature together have bestowed with incomparable generosity almost everything that becomes a priest in this world, I dedicate my works. And if perchance I fail in this way to win your favor because prayer and your responsibilities crowd out the time available for reading, and because the respect once accorded to literature has vanished, then at least I shall leave my works to posterity in the hope of its revival. Second Preface Since those things that are known to have been done with laudable devotion are not unworthily extolled with due praises; since the mind, when relaxed, loses its energy, and the torpor of sloth enervates the powers of thought; and as iron acquires rust for want of use and “stagnant waters become foul” [Ovid, Ex Ponto 1.5.6], then to prevent rust from consuming my idle pen I have judged it worthwhile to commit to writing the pious mission that Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, made throughout Wales. Therefore, lest these efforts should perish through idleness and their praise be hidden by silence, through you, o illustrious Stephen, I have exhibited to posterity in this modest work, as if in a polished mirror, the difficult places through which we passed, the names of springs and rivers, the witty sayings, the toils of the journey and the various incidents that befell us, the notable events of ancient and modern times that took place in those parts, the nature of the country and the occasional marvelous deviances from nature, and a description of the land.

7 9 Ra lph de Diceto, Abbreviations of C hronicles The last two decades of the twelfth century witnessed an upsurge in historical writing in England, particularly among secular clerics. Among the historians of this period was Ralph de Diceto (ca 1120/30–1200/02), who wrote two major historical works, the Images of History, a chronicle covering the years 1148 to 1200, and the Abbreviations of Chronicles, a collection of extracts from other histories arranged in an annalistic format 255

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r from Creation to the year 1147, as well as a number of short treatises abstracted from the Images and the Abbreviations. The holder of administrative office in the see of London for over fifty years, Ralph had a wide-ranging knowledge of politics and government, and his historical works are scholarly and practical rather than moralistic. The place of Ralph’s birth is unknown, as is the origin of his surname. He counted as friends and acquaintances some of the most prominent English churchmen of the later twelfth century and rose to high office in the Church. In 1152 he was appointed archdeacon of Middlesex and in 1180 he was elected as dean by the clerics of Saint-Paul’s, London. The Abbreviations contains both a preface and a prologue. The preface provides a set of twelve marginal symbols (also used in the Images) identifying categories such as “Persecutions of the Church,” “Schisms,” “Anointing of Kings,” and “Dukes of Normandy” intended to help the reader find relevant material. The prologue, which is translated below, is followed by a list of forty-two historians starting with Pompeius Trogus and ending with Ralph himself, as well extracts from a number of historical works. Much of the prologue of the Abbreviations is reproduced in one of Ralph’s minor works, The Annals of the Archbishops of Canterbury, which he excerpted from the Abbreviations and dedicated to Archbishop Hubert Walter of Canterbury. In the opening section of the prologue, Ralph appears to be offering advice on how to construct a chronicle, but it is not clear whom he is addressing. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica, vol. 1, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series (London: Longman and Co., 1876), pp. 18–20.

Prologue As you look over the years starting with Creation laid out here in chronological order with indications of their era for your convenience, fix the year 1188 from the time of Grace as your boundary and assign only a few numbers to the first and second ages of the world. From the time of Abraham, however, as men began to aspire to greater glory, they strove fervently to expand the boundaries of their kingdoms as far as the expanse of the earth, their ambition, and the limits of their courage would allow. So that you may more easily recall what happened in any given year, therefore, group ones into tens and tens into thousands and you will be able to grasp things more easily. Separate whatever suggested itself during these calculations into three categories: antiquity, the more recent past, and contemporary events, and assemble them respectfully into three different dwellings, as it were. Antiquity: To start from the beginning, therefore, treat the opinions of the Hebrew truth and the seventy translators with equal respect and credibility in matters of chronology, both before the law and during the law. And if anyone

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) is provoked by the goads of envy and presumes to criticize the men of the present day, maintain your reverence for the past, whose example we must cherish. For it borders on impertinence, and it is certainly a mark of arrogance, not to have reverence for the past. The More Recent Past: In order to win esteem within the Church through the grace of God the mediator and the favor of men, carefully ponder the interpreters of sacred scripture, bestow praise upon catholic historians, and assemble the decrees of the Roman pontiffs, the celebrated victories of kings, the marvelous prodigies of nature, unprecedented events and unusual occurrences that have befallen individual men, and outstanding deeds and legal pleadings into a chronicle, and organize it clearly. If actions find favor in your eyes, you may emulate them; if you deem them reprehensible, they should be discreetly avoided. Where your sources disagree with one another, it would be rash to prefer Orosius to Eusebius, Dionysius to Marianus [Scotus], or Bede to Tertullian arbitrarily. You should remember that according to the traditions of our ancestors, and as it is noted in the catalogue of famous men, Clement is sometimes referred to as the second, sometimes the third, and sometimes the fourth pope after Peter. If in our chronology we preserve the honor that our fathers unanimously accord to Linus and Cletus in the canon of the Mass, then we shall assuredly escape disaster. Down to the year 1147, however, it is beyond our ability to resolve chronological disputes in this or in other cases. Contemporary Events: Although I rank myself last among the moderns, it is possible that I am unjustly usurping the place of some other more learned man who is just now making a name for himself. He would be doing me a favor if whenever he notices an obvious chronological error in the following work he would correct it. A timely correction can eliminate a mistake if the criticism is made purely out of fraternal love. This trifling little work frequently had to be broken off because of the various tasks that I had to attend to and the condition of my pen, but if it sounds concise, clear, and plausible to the ear, then at least the sophistication of some more eloquent person may compensate for its defects—if it even merits being looked at, that is. If the blunted sensibility of my speech has introduced anything swollen or inflated, however, or if it droops and withers because of the dry and bloodless connections between words; if presumptuous metaphors offend the ears of the hearer, or a yawning collision of vowels wrings a laugh from him, then again, I ask him to correct it. Before the reader comes to the title of the work that follows, he will find the names of famous men and the different eras during which they lived, as well as the prologues of certain authors that I have added there, so that if the reader has trouble obtaining these weighty volumes, he may at least find a summary of what these authors believed and what they left behind as an eternal monument to posterity. He should not

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r doubt that anything in the margins below that looks like a temporary gloss was actually taken from historians whose complete works we did not have when we first set ourselves the task of writing this chronicle.

8 0 W ill i a m of Newburgh , History of E nglish A ffairs William of Newburgh (ca 1136–ca 1198) was a canon at the Augustinian priory of Newburgh in Yorkshire and the most important monastic historian of late twelfth-century England. In addition to composing sermons and a commentary on the Song of Songs, he wrote a history of England from 1066 to 1198 in five books in response to a request from Ernald, the abbot of the nearby Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx. Ernald may have been prompted to commission this work from William because of the Cistercian prohibition against literary activity not approved by their General Chapter. William’s sound judgment and critical approach have made his History of English Affairs a favorite among modern scholars. Curiously, his prologue says virtually nothing about the contents of the work and is instead dedicated to attacking the veracity of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (see Doc. 67). Source: trans. Joseph Stevenson, The History of William of Newburgh: The Church Historians of England, vol. 4.2 (London: Seeleys, 1856), pp. 397–402, rev. Justin Lake.

Dedicatory Epistle to Ernald of Rievaulx To his reverend father and lord, Ernald, abbot of Rievaulx, William the least of the servants of Christ, prays that when the prince of shepherds appears you may receive an unfading crown of glory. I received the letter of your holiness in which you deigned to impose upon me the responsibility and labor of committing to writing for the knowledge and instruction of posterity the memorable events that have so abundantly occurred in our own times, despite the fact that many of the brethren of your own venerable community are capable of completing this task more easily and with greater eloquence. But I perceive that this stems from your devoted regard to spare own your children, who are toiling in the duties of monastic service, and to prevent the leisure hours kindly granted to my infirmity from being idle. Indeed, I am so devotedly bound to your kind regard for me that even if your commands were more difficult, I would not venture to refuse them. But since your prudent judgment does not command me to devote myself to investigating matters of profundity or prying into mysteries, but merely to dilate for a time on historical narratives for the purpose of refreshing my mind, as it were 258

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) (so easy is the work), I have consequently no grounds for refusal. Therefore, by the assistance of our Lord God, in whose hands both of us and our words are, and relying on the prayers of you and your holy brethren, who have deigned to join their own entreaties—which are not to be taken lightly—to the command of your holiness, I shall undertake the task that you have enjoined upon me, touching briefly upon a few relevant matters before I commence my history. Proem The history of our people (that is, the English) has been written by the venerable priest and monk Bede, who in order to more readily gain the object he had in view commenced his narrative at a very remote period, summarizing with astute brevity the more celebrated deeds of the Britons, who are known to have been the original inhabitants of our island. Prior to him, however, the Britons had a historian of their own, Gildas, from whose work Bede included some extracts; this fact I observed some years ago, when I chanced to read his work. Gildas’s history, however, is rarely to be found, for few people care either to transcribe or obtain it—his style being so coarse and unpolished. Yet it is no trifling proof of his integrity that in bringing the truth to light he does not even spare his own countrymen, and while he touches very lightly on their good qualities, he laments their numerous bad ones. There can be no suspicion that the truth is disguised when a Briton, speaking of Britons, declares that they were neither courageous in war nor faithful in peace. For the purpose of washing out those stains from the character of the Britons a writer has appeared in our own era who has invented the most ridiculous fictions about them and extolled their might with shameless effrontery far above that of the Macedonians and the Romans. He is called Geoffrey, surnamed Arthur, because he rendered the tales of Arthur (drawn from the ancient fictions of the Britons, with additions of his own) into Latin and endeavored to dignify them with the name of authentic history. He has, moreover, with even greater effrontery promulgated the mendacious predictions of a certain Merlin as if they were genuine prophecies corroborated by indubitable truth, to which also he has himself considerably added during the process of translating them into Latin. He further declares that this Merlin was born of a woman from a demonic father, and he attributes to him—as though he had inherited this gift from his father—a precise and extensive knowledge of future events. Whereas we are assuredly instructed by reason and the holy scriptures that devils, being excluded from the light of God, can never by meditation arrive at the cognizance of future events, although by the means of certain signs more evident to them than to us they can predict—more by conjecture than by certain knowledge—certain future occurrences. Moreover, even in their 259

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r conjectures, clever though they might be, they frequently deceive themselves as well as others. Nevertheless, they impose on the ignorant by their feigned divinations and arrogate to themselves a prescience that they do not truly possess. The errors of Merlin’s prophecies are indeed evident in the events that transpired in the kingdom of England after the death of this Geoffrey, who translated these follies from the British language, and to which, as is truly believed, he added much from his own imagination. Furthermore, he accommodated his prophetic fancies (as he easily might do) to circumstances occurring prior to or during his own lifetime in such a way that they might obtain a suitable interpretation. Moreover, no one but a person ignorant of ancient history, when he meets with that book that he calls the History of the Britons, can for a moment doubt how wantonly and shamelessly he falsifies in virtually every respect. For only someone who has not learned the truth of history indiscriminately gives credence to the absurdity of such tales. I pass over this man’s inventions concerning the exploits of the Britons prior to the rule of Julius Caesar, as well as the fictions of others he has recorded as if they were authentic. I make no mention of his deluded glorification of the Britons, in defiance of the truth of history, from the time of Julius Caesar, when they came under the domination of the Romans, to that of Emperor Honorius, when the Romans voluntarily retired from Britain on account of the urgent necessities of their own state. We read that after the Romans had departed and the Britons had regained their independence—or rather, after they had been abandoned to their own destruction—they were exposed to the depredations of the Picts and Scots and chose Vortigern for their king, who invited over the Saxons and the Angles to defend the kingdom. They arrived in Britain under the command of Hengist and repelled the invasions of the barbarians for a time, but afterward, when they had become acquainted with the fertility of the island and the lethargy of its inhabitants, they broke their agreement and turned their arms against those who had invited them over, gradually forcing them out and confining the miserable remnants of this people, who are now called the Welsh, within inaccessible mountains and woods. The Saxons had a succession of powerful and wide-ruling kings. Among them were Aethelbert, a great-grandson of Hengist, who extended his dominion from the Gallic Ocean to the Humber and embraced the gentle yoke of Christ at the preaching of Augustine; Aethelfrith, king of the Northumbrians, who subdued both the Britons and the Scots with tremendous bloodshed; Edwin, who succeeded Aethelfrith and reigned at the same time over the Angles and Britons; and Oswald, his successor, who governed all the nations of Britain. Now since it is evident that these facts are consistent with the historical truth as set forth by the venerable Bede, it appears that whatever Geoffrey has 260

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) written about Arthur and his successors, and about those who came before him and after Vortigern, was fabricated, partly by himself and partly by others, either from an unbridled joy in lying or out of a desire to please the Britons, of whom vast numbers are said to be so stupid that they are still waiting for Arthur to return and will not suffer to hear talk of his death. Moreover, he makes Aurelius Ambrosius succeed to Vortigern after the defeat and expulsion of the Saxons whom he had sent for, and he pretends that he exercised preeminent authority over all of Britain. He also mentions Uther Pendragon, his brother, as his successor, and claims that he ruled with equal power and glory, adding a vast deal from Merlin out of his unrestrained indulgence in lying. Upon the death of Uther Pendragon, he makes his son Arthur succeed to the kingdom of Britain—the fourth in succession from Vortigern, just as Bede places Aethelbert, the patron of Augustine, fourth from Hengist in the kingdom of the Angles. Therefore, the reign of Arthur and the arrival of Augustine in Britain ought to coincide. Even a dimwit could clearly perceive the degree to which this plain historical truth puts a contrived falsehood in the shade. He depicts Arthur himself as great and powerful beyond all men, and as celebrated in his exploits as he wished to make him. He first makes him triumph at will over the Angles, Picts, and Scots; he then subjects Ireland, the Orkneys, Gothland, Norway, and Denmark to his authority, partly by war, partly by the fear of his name alone. To these he adds Iceland, which some call Furthest Thule, so that what a noble poet said by way of flattery to the Roman Augustus—“Furthest Thule will acknowledge your rule” [Virgil, Georgics 1.30]—would actually seem to apply to this Briton. Next, he makes him attack Gaul and subdue and triumph over it in short order—a land that Julius Caesar, at the cost of infinite peril and labor, was scarcely able to subjugate in ten years—as though the little finger of this Briton were more powerful than the loins of the mighty Caesar. After these numerous triumphs he brings him back to England, where he celebrates his conquests with a splendid banquet with his subject kings and princes in the presence of the three archbishops of the Britons—that is, the bishops of London, Caerleon, and York—whereas the Britons never had even a single archbishop. For Augustine, when he received the pallium from the Roman pontiff, became the first archbishop in Britain. In fact, the barbarian peoples of Europe, even though they had long since been converted to the Christian faith, were content with bishops and cared nothing for the prerogative of the pallium. Lastly, the Irish, Norwegians, Danes, and Goths, although they are known to have been Christians and to have had bishops for a long time, only began to have archbishops recently. Next this fabricator, in order to raise his Arthur to the highest pinnacle of success, makes him declare war against the Romans. Before this he vanquishes a giant of astonishing magnitude in single combat, although we never read about giants after the time of David. Then, granting 261

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r himself even greater license for falsehood, he has the great kings of the world join together with the Romans against him—that is to say, the kings of Greece, Africa, Spain, Parthia, Media, Iturea, Libya, Egypt, Babylon, Bithynia, Phrygia, Syria, Boeotia, and Crete—and he relates that all of them were conquered by him in a single battle, whereas even Alexander the Great, who was renowned throughout all the ages, toiled for twelve years in vanquishing only a few of the rulers of these mighty kingdoms. Indeed, he makes the little finger of his Arthur more powerful than the back of Alexander the Great, especially when, prior to the victory over so many kings, he has him relating to his comrades the subjugation of thirty kingdoms by his and their united efforts. Whereas in fact our fabricator will not find in the world so many kingdoms apart from those mentioned, which he had not yet subdued. Does he dream of another world possessing countless kingdoms, in which the circumstances that he has related took place? Certainly in our own world no such events have happened. For how would the historians of old, who always took great pains not to omit anything remarkable in the writings, and who are also known to have entrusted to memory things of no particular importance, have been able to pass over in silence so incomparable a man and such surpassing deeds? How could they, I repeat, by their silence suppress the deeds of Arthur, the king of the Britons, who was superior to Alexander the Great, and the prophecies of Merlin, the British prophet, who was the rival of our Isaiah? For does he attribute to Merlin anything less in the knowledge of future events than we do to our Isaiah, except indeed that he does not dare to introduce his prophecies with “thus saith the Lord,” and he was ashamed to say “thus saith the Devil,” although this would have been fitting for a prophet who was the child of a demon. Since, therefore, the ancient historians make not the slightest mention of these matters, it is plain that whatever this man has published about Arthur and Merlin are fictions invented to gratify the curiosity of the undiscerning. It should be noted, moreover, that he subsequently relates that the same Arthur was mortally wounded in battle, and that after having disposed of his kingdom he retired to the island that the tales of the Britons call Avalon to be cured of his wounds, not daring, for fear of the Britons, to mention the death of one whom these stupid Britons are still expecting to return. He tells similarly outrageous lies about the successors of Arthur, giving them the monarchy of Britain down almost to the seventh generation, and making those noble kings of the English whom the venerable Bede declares to have been monarchs of Britain their vassals and servants. Let Bede, therefore, whose wisdom and integrity cannot possibly be doubted, possess our unbounded confidence, and let this fabricator and his fictions be rejected without hesitation by all. There was no lack of authors after Bede who carried on the chronology and events of our island from his time down to recent memory, although none 262

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) of them can be compared with him. They deserve praise for their devout and faithful labors, however much their narratives fail to measure up to his eloquence. In our era events so great and memorable have occurred that the men of the present day would rightly be blamed for negligence if these things were not handed down to perpetual memory in written form. Perhaps a work of this kind has already been undertaken, or even finished, by one or more people. Notwithstanding this, some venerable persons to whom I owe obedience have deigned to enjoin this same labor upon my insignificance, in order that I, who am unable to make my offerings with the rich, may yet be permitted with the poor widow to put something from my meager possessions into the treasury of the Lord. Because we are aware that the course of English history has been carried down to the death of King Henry the First by others, beginning at the arrival of the Normans in England, I shall give a brief account of the intermediate period, so that, God willing, I may begin to give a more copious account starting from the time of Stephen, Henry’s successor, in whose first year, I, William, the least of the servants of Christ, was born unto death in the first Adam and born again unto life in the second.

81 G ervas e of Can terbury, Chronicle Gervase of Canterbury’s (ca 1140–ca 1210) identity as a historian was firmly rooted in the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, where he served as a monk from 1163 until his death. His first literary efforts were two treatises concerning disputes that pitted the archbishop of Canterbury against the religious houses of Saint-Augustine and Christ Church, respectively. Gervase’s need to understand the historical precedents that supported the competing arguments in these disputes served as the stimulus for his entry into history writing, as evidenced by the fact that both treatises (along with a separate history of Christ Church) are prefixed to the beginning of his Chronicle. Gervase began work on the Chronicle ca 1188, beginning with the accession of Henry I in 1100 and ending 1199. For the first half of the twelfth century he relied heavily on the history of Henry of Huntingdon and the chronicle of John of Worcester, the latter of which contained the unorthodox chronological system of the Irish monk Marianus Scotus, who dated the Incarnation twenty-two years later than the commonly accepted calculation of Dionysius Exiguus. Gervase contemplated adding a second book to cover the reign of King John, but it seems to have been an anonymous continuator, rather than Gervase himself, who brought the Chronicle down to 1210. In subsequent years Gervase wrote a history of the English kings partially adapted from the Chronicle, The Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and the Mappa Mundi, a survey of English monasteries. In the prologue to the Chronicle, Gervase draws a distinction between chroniclers and historians, ranking himself in the former category as one who writes simply and directly 263

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and avoids rhetorical ornamentation. He also remarks on the sources of chronological discrepancies between chronicles, justifying his own decision to start the year at Christmas and to employ the chronological system of Dionysius Exiguus. The prologue is preceded by an introduction that stresses the power of example as the best remedy for man’s innate sinfulness, thus providing an indirect argument for the utility of historiography. Source: trans. Justin Lake, from The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, vol. 1, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series (London: Longman and Co., 1879), pp. 84–91.

Introduction to the Prologue Three things, dearest brother, are principally responsible for assailing the human race and inciting it to commit wicked deeds: demons, the world, and the flesh. For demons suggest evil to man in his thoughts, the world entices him through the visible display of sensual things, and the flesh is easily aroused because of its own innate weakness. The threefold assault of these forces frequently vanquishes the spirit and induces it to carry out evil acts. The worst of these is demonic suggestion, which intrudes upon the mind of man deceptively, as if it were the product of his own thoughts, in order to cast him down into the pit of temptation and the sink of evildoing. The boastful vanity and vainglory of the world also holds for its captives as many incitements to temptation as there are types of allurements. But be warned by the saying that “whoever wishes to be a friend of this world becomes an enemy of God” [ James 4:4]. For it is better—incomparably better, in fact—to be an enemy of the world than of God. The wretched downfall of the flesh is especially to be feared because it is unavoidable, and the flesh is all the more capable of doing harm because it is an internal enemy. For no bane is more effective at inflicting injury than one that dwells within; the more we must obey it, the more inevitable are its betrayals, and the more perilous its company. For if we refuse the body food so that it does not become overbearing, then we ourselves must perish. Yet if we are too quick to give in to its needs and wants, then it rises up suddenly to subjugate and confine us in return for the benefits that it has been granted. In order to beat down its obstinacy we must constantly reflect upon the fact that “all flesh is as grass, and the glory of the flesh is the flower of the grass” [1 Pet. 1:24]. It is nothing, and what can be less than nothing? For the proper place for flesh is the earth, and however much it revels in its wantonness, it is still only one step away from rotting and becoming food for worms. The devil establishes the major premise, as it were, in the back of our minds, the world adds a minor premise, and the conclusion is carried out by the flesh, in the perpetration of acts of wickedness. But ranged against the cunning of these 264

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) three are three remedies by which man’s frailty may be trained in combat and called forth to victory, namely prohibition, command, and example. For these three things teach the human condition to shun evil and seek the good. We are restrained from the vices by prohibition, incited to good works by commands, and fortified in the good works that we perform through God’s grace by example. There are numerous instances of prohibitions and commands in both the Old Testament and the New. And although there are many different types of prohibitions, they all have the same goal: to incline the mind of the reader or hearer to be zealous in avoiding evil. Likewise, the commandments of God’s law, though they are widely scattered and proclaimed in different languages, have a single purpose, namely that we should do good. Although there are many commandments, they are all contained in the short saying of the most distinguished of the prophets: “Turn from evil and do good” [Psalms 36:27]. And in the same passage he also speaks of a reward: “And dwell for all eternity.” The entirety of sacred scripture has a single purpose: that we should avoid evil and do good. The patriarchs declare, the prophets proclaim, the apostles write, and the teachers of the Church expound and instruct that we should turn from evil and do good. But the human race, having been led astray in its earliest ancestor by the malicious suggestion of the devil and corrupted by its inherent frailty, could not, enveloped as it was in thick shadows, fulfill the simple commandment to turn away from evil or desire the good. And what is surprising, or rather deplorable, is that it could not even fully distinguish evil from good and good from evil. It was therefore appropriate, and indeed wholly necessary, that the dark shadows of this ignorance should be illuminated by many lamps. And so first came the prohibitions that evil of every sort should be avoided. Next came the commandments that man should follow the path of virtue in his habits and his life. To these were added the glorious examples of the holy fathers, which are contained in the histories of both testaments, where they are set forth at length. “For whatever was written, was written for our instruction” [Romans 15:4]. There are a great many people whose minds are more easily prompted to avoid evil and do good by examples than by prohibitions or commands. For when they read or hear about the punishment meted out to someone for his transgressions, they are moved by fear to avoid evil, lest they should meet with a similar punishment. In the same way, when they read or hear about the accolades bestowed upon someone for his obedience, then they are easily restrained from evil and more eagerly and fervently attracted to the performance of good works. There are also many people who are so fired by the examples of the saints that neither good nor bad fortune, nor dire punishments, nor even the bitterness of death can restrain them from loving God and performing good works. At the same time, there are countless people (a fact that it saddens and grieves us to relate) whom neither prohibitions, nor 265

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r commandments, nor the examples of the holy fathers can tear away from their depraved habits. For they rejoice when they do evil and exult in their wickedness. Beset by every manner of vice, they pass their days in luxury and descend to hell in the blink of an eye, never to return. But their wretchedness is rather to be wept over than written about. Prologue The glorious and commendable examples of the holy and orthodox fathers are found in histories and annals, which by another name are called chronicles. There the diligent seeker may find many examples of virtuous living through which mankind’s ignorance is brought out of the darkness and instructed so that it might make progress in the good. To some extent the historian and the chronicler have the same goals and use the same material, but their method of handling it is different, as is their form. They share a common purpose, because both strive for truth. The form of their work is different because the historian proceeds in a roundabout and elegant manner, while the chronicler adopts a direct and straightforward course. The historian “employs rhetorical flourishes and long-winded words” [Horace, Ars Poetica 97], while the chronicler “practices the rustic muse upon a slender reed” [Virgil, Eclogues 1.2]. The historian sits “among the lofty speakers who sow grandiose words,” while the chronicler rests beneath the hut of poor Amyclas [see Lucan, Bellum Civile 5.515–559] so that there will not be a battle before his meager dwelling. It is the duty of the historian to strive for the truth, to delight his hearers and readers with sweet and eloquent words, to relate the deeds, manner of living, and lives of those whom he portrays truthfully, and to include nothing apart from what reason declares to be the province of history. The chronicler, on the other hand, calculates the years, and months and days of the year, of the Lord’s Incarnation, briefly relates the deeds of the kings and princes that took place at these times, and records events, portents, and miracles. There are many authors of chronicles and annals, however, who go beyond these limits, because they delight “to make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long” [Matt. 23:5]. For although their intention is to compile a chronicle, they proceed in the manner of historians and attempt to weigh down with bombastic verbiage what they ought to have set forth in writing concisely and in a humble style. There is also some disagreement among the authors of chronicles. For while their particular and principal goal is to set forth the years of the Lord and the events contained in them with an accurate reckoning, they calculate the years of the Lord in different ways and with different starting points, sowing great confusion in the Church of the Lord because of their falsehoods. For some

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four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) of them reckon the beginning of the year at the Annunciation, others at the Nativity, others at the Circumcision, and others at the Passion. Which of these, then, are we to trust? According to Roman custom and the practice of the church of God, the solar year begins on the Kalends of January and ends during the days of the Lord’s birth, that is, at the end of December. How then could the reckonings of two different people both be correct when one of them begins the years of the Incarnation at the beginning of the solar year and the other at the end? Both also attach one and the same name to the years of the Lord when they say, “In such-and-such year of the Incarnation,” such-and-such things happened. For these reasons and others like them, no small amount of disagreement has arisen in the church of God. And there is another plausible occasion for falsehood. For some people say that the Lord’s passion took place in the thirty-second year of his life, others in the thirty-third, and still others in the thirty-fourth. All of these cannot be simultaneously true. For the Lord did not suffer his passion in his thirtysecond, thirty-third, and thirty-fourth years, but only in one of them. There is yet another source of error and disagreement among computists and the authors of chroniclers, for there are twenty-two years between the calculation of Dionysius [Exiguus] and the so-called calculation according to the Gospel. Thus, different authors writing about various subjects, all of whom were individually striving to come directly to the shrine of truth, have written a great many inaccurate things about the deeds of kings and the words of princes, and their chronology, which is supposed to be the foundation for all history writing, can often be shown to fall short of the truth for the aforementioned reasons. But let these brief comments about subject matter, truth, falsehood, and the differences between chronicles be sufficient. Now, however, because it is my wish to compile, rather than compose, a record of certain past and future events, and because it is not possible for anyone to refute or correct the chronological calculations of the past 1135 years that have been committed to writing by many people, I shall endeavor to follow to the best of my ability the calculations of earlier writers, and in particular that of Dionysius, whether it be true or false. If anyone wishes to know the years of the Lord that are said to have been written according to the Gospel, let him add twenty-two years to the Dionysian reckoning that we are following. For this span of twenty-two years is the difference between the years of the Lord according to the Gospel and those according to Dionysius, as Marianus Scotus states in his chronicle. Since, therefore, in my estimation the aforementioned chronicle of Marianus, which was assembled by various authors but written under his name, sets forth in a very clear and compendious fashion the eras and years from the beginning of the world down to Christ,

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r and from the Incarnation to the year 1135 of the Lord’s Incarnation (that is, down to the death of King Henry I of England and the beginning of Stephen’s reign), I am beginning my narrative from the time of King Stephen. It is not my wish, however, to record everything that is memorable, but only that which deserves to be remembered, that is, those things that seem to me to be worthy of memory. I do not believe that I should be reckoned among the authors of chronicles, however, because I am not writing for a public library, but for you, my brother Thomas, and for our poor little family. And because I know that idleness is inimical to the soul, I have endeavored to occupy my spare time with this task. May the Holy Spirit, therefore, which provided the beginning of good will, help us to carry out this work. Amen. Because I wish to commend myself and everything that is mine to the grace of God, therefore, you should know, kind reader (whoever you are), that because of the errors of the chronicles and the disagreements among their authors, I am ascribing the years of the Lord that I intend to recount below to the grace of God that came about through Jesus Christ. For what some people call years of the Incarnation, others years of the Nativity, others years of the Age of the Lord, and still others years of the Passion, I shall refer to in what follows as years of Grace. For to the best of my abilities I wish to avoid the stain of falsehood, so that none of my critics may be able to accuse even a syllable of what I have written of being untrue. Let Dionysius, therefore, and the other computists and chroniclers refer to them as years of the Lord’s Incarnation, or Nativity, or Age, or Passion, or even Ascension if they wish. For my part, I shall refer to them as years of Grace, because I find grace and truth in all the works of Christ. And because the grace of the Lord our savior (which from the time of the Incarnation lay hidden in the womb of a virgin) revealed itself at the Nativity, I am making this sacred feast, on which the angels proclaimed glory to God and peace to men of good will, the point at which one year ends and the next one begins. In this way I will be able to reconcile the course of the solar year, the position of the termini, and the sequence of events and dates, and especially the nineteen-year cycle, which in my estimation is more important to this undertaking than the other cycles. It was for this reason, I believe, that virtually all those who wrote chronicles of this sort before me were prompted to begin the year at Christmas. I had actually intended to begin my years at the Lord’s Annunciation [25 March], but I was unable to carry out this objective free from the taint of falsehood. Having set aside this intention, therefore, I am striving to follow the example of my predecessors, and I am beginning the years below at Christmas. I am exempting from this rule, however, the day of the passion of the martyr Saint Thomas [Becket], so that it will remain at the end of the year 1170, on a Tuesday, the fifth day after Christmas [29 December]. Before I begin to write my trifling little chronicle, beginning with the reign 268

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) of King Stephen, as I have proposed to do, I see that it is necessary to touch briefly upon certain matters concerning King Henry and his children, about whom much remains to be said—both good and bad, favorable and unfavorable.

8 2 Ni k e tas C hon i ates, History The History of Niketas Choniates (ca 1155–1216/17) is a key source for the Second Crusade and the reign of Manuel I Comnenus (1143–1180), and the only contemporary Byzantine account of the Third and Fourth Crusades and the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Born in the Phrygian village of Chonia, Niketas was sent to Constantinople at the age of nine to complete his education under the supervision of his older brother Michael (the future archbishop of Athens). He rose steadily through the ranks of the imperial administration and eventually obtained the office of grand logothete, although he was relieved of this position by the emperor Alexius V shortly before the fall of Constantinople. His History, which covers the years 1118–1206/1207 and draws upon Niketas’s experience as an administrator and diplomat, tries to explain the reasons for the decline of the Byzantine Empire after 1180 and the fall of Constantinople to the crusaders, a singularly traumatic event for which Niketas is our most important witness. After the sack of the city, Niketas went into exile at Nicaea, where he wrote the final section of his history, which he left unfinished at his death in 1216/1217. Like Procopius and other classicizing Byzantine historians, Niketas wrote in an archaic and highly artificial prose style modeled on the canonical authors of Antiquity. His statements in the prologue about the importance of clarity and simplicity as stylistic ideals, therefore, must be weighed against the complexity and difficulty of the prologue itself. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Nicetae Choniatae Historia, ed. Jan-Louis van Dieten, 2 vols., Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1975), vol. 1, pp. 1–4.

Histories have been devised for the common benefit of mankind, since those who are so inclined may glean from them many examples of noble conduct. Because it encompasses the ways of the past, history puts human nature on display and exhibits many different kinds of experience to high-minded men who nourish an innate love of the good. Holding wickedness up for ridicule and exalting noble conduct, for the most part they make those inclining in either direction moderate and better, so long as shameful character and base habits do not cause them to cling but lightly to the precious attainment of virtue. For those who are mortal and subject to death become, in a manner, immortal, and history embraces those who spent their lives long ago. Those who have lived virtuously or basely will be spoken of well or badly according to the manner in which they lived, and when a man’s soul departs down to 269

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Hades, his body returns to the elements from which it was constituted. But the things that he did during his lifetime—whether they were pious and just, or lawless and insolent, and whether he lived happily or died in distress—are loudly proclaimed by history. To put it another way, history may be called the book of the living [Psalms 68:29], and the written word the blast of the trumpet that summons those long dead from their graves [1 Cor. 15:52] and sets them before the eyes of those who wish to see. Such (to be brief ) are the virtues of history, but surely it is also no less gratifying to future generations. Indeed, I hope that no one is so mad as to suppose that there is anything sweeter than history. For someone well versed in history, though he had not yet reached the age of manhood, could recount the same things that aged men and those who would be older than Tithonus and thrice a crow’s age if they still lived would know and relate to eager audiences by kindling recollections from their memory and ploughing the furrows of past deeds. For this reason, I did not think it fitting to let the events that took place during my lifetime and a little bit earlier pass by in silence, events numerous and important, and worthy of being remembered and recounted. Through this history of mine, therefore, I am making these things known to posterity. I readily agree with those who believe that the material of history rejects as inappropriate to itself a narrative that is obscure or tangled up with digressions and circumlocutions, whereas it loves clarity, not only in accordance with the saying of the wise man [Euripides, Orestes 397], but because clarity is particularly well suited to history. For this reason, no one will find that what is written here falls short of that ideal. For as a general rule we have not admitted what is ostentatious, obscure, or bestrewn with difficult words, although many people are all agape for this sort of thing (or to speak more truly, they forsake the events of the past and present and devote themselves to decking out the particular object of their fancy), and for the most part we have chosen what is suitable to history, content neither to stretch our foot over the threshold or exceed the boundaries of the genre. Above all else, as I have said, history rejects that which does not simplify the manner of expression and make it more comprehensible, but it embraces with open arms a style that is unadorned and recounts events just as they happened. Holding fast to the truth as her particular object, and keeping away from rhetorical showmanship and poetical wordplay, she continually rejects what partakes of such things. And although history draws after her no small degree of reverence and veneration, she loves to be set before delvers and smiths and those bedecked in grime, and to be familiar to those whose business is arms and warfare, nor does she scorn to be associated with women who spin and mine the same vein as she does. She delights in pleasing language and the pure clarity of words and loves to be simply garbed rather than dressed in exotic finery. 270

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) This history shall be handled in as clear and concise a fashion as possible. At the same time, the narrative humbly requests pardon from those whose hands it may fall into if it has been carried out with less adornment and grace than the contents deserve, especially since we are embarking upon this theme for the first time and attempting to follow a path that is deserted and untrodden. This is a laborious undertaking, and one that is much more difficult than following in the footsteps of others who have traveled the same road before, or, for that matter, proceeding smoothly and directly in a straight line along the royal road. This history begins with the end of the life and reign of Alexius, the first ruler of the Comnenian dynasty, since those who set their hand to the writing of history before us brought their accounts down only as far as this ruler. Thus, our words will be joined to those of earlier writers, and our account will be interwoven with theirs, like the channel of a stream issuing from a single source or a series of interconnected rings stretching onward without limit. The narrative will recount the events of the reign of Emperor John [II Comnenus], who succeeded Alexius upon the throne, in a summary fashion, nor will it spend as much time in recollecting them as it will on subsequent events. And because in this case we are not committing to writing things that we saw with our own eyes, we cannot relate these things in detail. Consequently, we have relied upon what we learned from those who saw this emperor and accompanied him on his campaigns against his enemies and took part in his battles. It is best that we begin at this point.

83 S axo G r ammati c us, History of the Danes Saxo Grammaticus’s History of the Danes is our most important source for the early history of Denmark and a treasure trove of Scandinavian folklore and legend. Books 1–9 are legendary in nature, drawing on the poems, sagas, and runic inscriptions of Scandinavia. Books 10–16, which were actually written first, relate the history of Denmark from the reign of Harald Bluetooth (r. 958–986) to the year 1187 and draw in part on information provided to Saxo by his patron, Archbishop Absalon of Lund (1179–1201). Saxo was born ca 1150, probably on the Danish island of Zealand. His father and grandfather had fought on behalf of King Valdemar I of Denmark (r. 1157–1182), and he served as a cleric in the household of Archbishop Absalon, possibly as the archbishop’s secretary. The quality of his Latin, which prompted a fifteenth-century epitomator to give him the epithet grammaticus (man of letters), shows that he was highly educated and suggests that he may have studied abroad. In the preface to his history, Saxo states that Archbishop Absalon assigned him the task of writing a history of Denmark after the rest of the archbishop’s followers refused. He was at work on the history as early as 1185, but it was incomplete 271

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r at the time of Absalon’s death in 1201. The preface is addressed to Absalon’s nephew and successor, Anders Sunesen, who served as archbishop of Lund from 1201 to 1223, and to King Valdemar II (r. 1202–1241). Saxo wrote the preface last, after completing the rest of the work, probably shortly after 1208, and not later than 1223. Source: trans. Oliver Elton, The First Nine Books of the History of Saxo Grammaticus (London: David Nutt, 1894), pp. 1–6, rev. Justin Lake.

Just as other nations are accustomed to boast of the glory of their achievements and reap joy from the remembrance of their forefathers, Absalon, archbishop of the Danes, whose zeal ever burned high for the glorification of our land, and who would not suffer it to be deprived of like renown and record, imposed upon me, the least of his followers, since all the rest had refused the task, the work of compiling into a chronicle the history of Denmark, and by the authority of frequent exhortations he spurred my weak faculties to enter upon a labor that exceeded their capabilities. For who could write a record of the deeds of Denmark, when it had only lately been admitted to the common religion and still languished in ignorance of both the faith and the Latin tongue? And yet when the knowledge of Latin arrived along with the sacraments of the faith, men were just as slothful as they had previously been ignorant, and the vices of their lethargy were no less blameworthy than those of their earlier poverty. Thus it came about that my lowliness, although perceiving itself to be unequal to this burden, chose rather to strain beyond its abilities than to resist his bidding, fearing that while our neighbors rejoiced in the traditions of their deeds, the repute of our own people might appear not to possess any written chronicle, but rather be scattered to the oblivion of the past. I have thus been forced to put my shoulder, which was unaccustomed to the task, to a burden unfamiliar to all authors of preceding time, and fearing to slight his command, I have obeyed with more boldness than success, borrowing from the greatness of the one who was urging this work upon me the confidence that the weakness of my own abilities denied me. But because his death preceded the completion of this task, I entreat you in particular, Anders, who were chosen by an unimpeachable and unanimous vote to be his successor in this office and head of the church, to direct and inspire my theme, so that through the defense of so great a patron I may thwart the spiteful criticism that always attacks the most conspicuous targets. For your mind, which is so prolifically learned and instructed in so many venerable teachings, is worthy to be deemed a kind of shrine of heavenly treasures. Having searched through Gaul, Italy, and Britain in order to receive instruction and acquire a copious knowledge of letters, after a long period of wandering you acquired a position as the head of a foreign school, and you became such 272

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) a pillar there that you seemed to confer more honor upon the office of teacher than it did upon you. Because of the loftiness of your honors and the merits of your virtues, you were subsequently made secretary to the king, and you adorned that office, which was limited in scope and middling in importance, with such proofs of your industry that when you were transferred to the position that you now hold, you left it as a prize to be sought after by men of the highest rank. Consequently, Scania [Scandinavia] is found to have leapt for joy because she has borrowed a bishop from her neighbors rather than choosing one from her own people, and having made such a noble choice, she deserves the joy of her election. Because you are conspicuous for your birth, learning, and intellect, and because you guide your flock with the fruitful labors of your teaching, you have won the deepest love of your people, and through the reputation of your praiseworthy administration you have raised the office that you have undertaken to the pinnacle of renown. And lest you should seem to be unfairly acquiring power through the appropriation of property, you have bequeathed a very sizeable patrimony to the holy churches in a pious and generous will, preferring, as is fitting, to reject riches and their attendant cares rather than be shackled with the desire for them and their burden. You have likewise composed a marvelous work on the tenets of the faith, and eager to put the duties of the Church above private cares, through the instruction of your wholesome admonitions you have compelled those persons who refuse to pay what is due to the Church to show proper obedience to what is holy, and by your pious gift of money you have atoned for the ancient neglect of sacred buildings. Furthermore, you have recalled those who pursued a wanton life and yielded overmuch to the power of lust from their enervated weakness to a more upright state of mind through the insistency of your wholesome reproofs and the noble examples of your virtue, leaving it in doubt whether you have instructed them more by word or by deed. Thus, through the power of your wise counsel alone you achieved what it was not granted to any of your predecessors to obtain. Nor would I have it forgotten that the Danes of a previous era, when any notable deeds of mettle had been performed, were filled with the desire to equal their glory, and in imitation of the Roman style not only narrated the glories of their memorable exploits in a particular kind of composition, which might be called a poetical work, but also had carved upon rocks and stones, in the characters of their own language, the deeds of their ancestors that had been made popular in the songs of their native tongue. I have followed in the footsteps of these poems as if they were the volumes of antiquity and tried to preserve their gist by translating them accurately, taking care to render verses with verses, so that the history that I shall write, being based upon these sources, will not be known for a modern fabrication, but for the utterance of antiquity, since 273

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r this present work promises not frivolous eloquence, but reliable information about the past. And yet how many histories must we suppose that men of such genius would have written, if they could have slaked their thirst for writing with the knowledge of Latin—men who even though they lacked acquaintance with the Roman tongue, were yet seized with such a passion for handing down their history to memory that they embraced huge boulders instead of scrolls and used rocks in place of books. Nor should the diligence of the men of Thule [Iceland] be blotted out by oblivion; for though they lack all that can foster luxury because of the natural barrenness of their soil, yet they make up for their poverty through their intelligence, continually observing all the duties of moderation and devoting every moment of their lives to cultivating the knowledge of the achievements of others. Indeed, they consider it a delight to learn and consign to memory the histories of all peoples, deeming it to be no less glorious to set forth the achievements of others than to display their own. Their stories, which are stocked with attestations of historical events, I have examined closely, and I have woven together no small portion of the present work by following their narrative, not despising the judgment of men whom I know to be so well versed in the knowledge of antiquity. And I have taken equal care to follow the statements of Absalon, and with obedient mind and pen to include both his own deeds and those of other men that he learned, treasuring the evidence of his venerable recollection as though it were a kind of divine instruction. Therefore, Valdemar, beneficent ruler and father of us all, shining light of our fatherland, whose lineage, glorious from times past, I am about to relate, I ask you to attend the faltering course of this work with your favor. For I am hampered by the burden of my intentions and I fear that I may end up exposing my ignorance and want of skill rather than portraying your origins as I should. For to say nothing of the ample patrimony that you inherited from your forefathers, you have achieved a glorious expansion of the realm by conquering your neighbors, and in toiling to increase your dominion you have encompassed the ebbing and flowing waves of the Elbe, thus adding to your celebrated roll of honors no mean title to glory. After outstripping the renown and repute of your predecessors through the greatness of your deeds, you did not even leave the Roman Empire untried by your arms. And because you are judged to be so well endowed with both courage and generosity, you have left it in doubt whether you do more to terrify your enemies in battle or win over your subjects through your kindness. In addition, your most illustrious grandfather [Canute Lavard, d. 1131], who was sanctioned with the honors of a public cult and earned the glory of immortality through an unmerited death, now dazzles with the splendor of his holiness those whom he previously annexed in his conquests—he from whose most holy wounds more virtue than blood has flowed. 274

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) Bound by an old and inherited duty of obedience, I have determined to soldier for you with the forces of my mind at least, I whose father and grandfather are known to have served your illustrious sire in camp, rendering faithful service in the toils of war. Relying therefore upon your guidance and consideration, I have resolved to begin with the position and description of our own country. For I shall relate particular matters more vividly if the course of this history first traverses the places to which the events belong and takes their situation as the starting-point for its narrative [Saxo goes on to give a detailed account of the geography of Denmark].

8 4 Roger of Wen dover, F lowers of H istory Roger of Wendover (d. 1236) is the first of an important group of historians associated with the English abbey of Saint-Albans. Our knowledge of his life is limited to the notices preserved in the work of Matthew Paris (ca 1200–ca 1259), Roger’s successor as historian at Saint-Albans, who used Roger’s Flowers of History as the basis for his own Greater Chronicle. Roger served for a time as prior of the cell of Belvoir in Lincolnshire before being deposed for squandering monastic property (probably between 1224 and 1231). He subsequently returned to Saint-Albans, and it was probably there that he composed his Flowers of History, a universal chronicle from Creation to 1234 in two books. Down to 1202 the Flowers is a compendium of other histories, but after 1202 it has value as an independent historical source. The first part of Roger’s prologue is borrowed almost entirely from Robert of Torigni’s Chronicle (see Doc. 69), with some minor alterations. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Rogeri de Wendover Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, 5 vols., ed. H.O. Coxe (London: English Historical Society, 1841–45), vol. 1, pp. 1–4.

Prologue to Book 1 We have decided to set down for the instruction of posterity a historical epitome together with the complete genealogy of our Savior and the successions of certain kingdoms and kings, so that the diligent listener will be able to learn a great deal from a concise treatment of these things. But what shall we say to those sluggish listeners who ask by way of insult what need there is to commit the lives, deaths, and varying fortunes of men to writing, or why a written record of the prodigies of heaven and earth and the other elements should be kept? These people should know that the virtuous habits and lives of those who came before us are set down as an example to posterity, while the examples of the wicked are related not so that they might be imitated, but so 275

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r that they might be avoided. At the same time, the effects of past prodigies and portents are a sign of mortality and the other scourges of heavenly vengeance to the faithful. These things are entrusted to memory in writing, therefore, so that if similar events ever come to pass, the faithful will hasten quickly to the remedy of penitence so that they might appease God thereby. It is for this reason (though there are others as well) that in the sacred scriptures Moses the lawgiver exhibits the innocence of Abel, the envy of Cain, the sincerity of Job, the treachery of Esau, the wickedness of the eleven sons of Israel, the goodness of the twelfth (namely, Joseph), and the punishment of the five cities through their destruction by fire and brimstone: so that we might imitate the good and completely avoid becoming followers of the wicked. And it is not only Moses, but all the authors of sacred scripture who do this in the historical and moral books, commending the virtues and denouncing the vices, admonishing us to love and fear God. We should therefore pay no heed to those people who maintain that books of chronicles, especially those written by Catholic authors, are of no importance, because it is through these works that the determined investigator is able to discover through memory, learn through understanding, and make known through eloquence whatever is necessary for human wisdom and salvation. This work is divided into two books. The first briefly treats of the Old Testament and the divine law through the first five ages, as they were distinguished by the lawgiver Moses, down to the coming of the Savior, along with the successions of gentile kings and their kingdoms, without which the divine law could not be properly related. For the evangelist Luke, when he wished to write about the gospel of Christ, made mention of the emperor Tiberius and the kings of the Jewish people [Luke 3:1], whose days and years were well known to all, writing so that the coming of the Savior to man and his works, which were humble in origin, might come to be known to all men through what was proud and well known to everyone; and almost all of the authors of sacred scripture did the same thing for the same motives and reasons. The second book of this work deals with the New Testament, which begins with the Incarnation of Christ and his birth, and is organized according to the years of the Lord’s Incarnation, leaving aside nothing down to our own era, upon which the end of the world, as it were, has come [compare 1 Cor. 10:11], concerning which we will have more to say at the proper time. Nonetheless, for the sake of those delicate readers of scripture who are easily surfeited, we believe it necessary to make an abridgment of history, so that when they find a few things that please them in a concise and agreeable account, we may bring their minds to love a small amount of reading and make attentive students out of inactive listeners and bored readers. What follows has been taken from the books of reputable catholic authors, just as flowers of various colors are 276

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) gathered from different fields, so that this variety, which is distinguished by its many hues, may refresh the minds of its various readers and suffice for the enjoyment and delight of each person through the savor of its different flavors.

85 N i cholas Treve t, Annals of S ix K ings of England Nicholas Trevet (ca 1258–1328/34) was an English Dominican scholar known principally for his commentaries and historical works. In his youth Trevet studied at Oxford, where he joined the Dominican Order and taught for a time before going to Paris to complete his studies. He subsequently returned to England to teach, dividing his time between Oxford and the Dominican convent in London. Trevet established his reputation as an author of commentaries on the Bible and patristic literature (including works on all five books of the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Augustine’s City of God), and on secular works, including Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, the Controversies of the Elder Seneca, the tragedies of Seneca the Younger, and Livy’s History of Rome. In the 1320s, Trevet turned to the writing of history, producing three works: a universal chronicle in Latin from Creation to the birth of Christ, another universal chronicle in Anglo-Norman from Creation to the 1330s, and his Annals of Six Kings of England, which extends from 1136 to 1307, covering the reigns of Stephen and the first five Angevin kings. In the prologue to the Annals, Trevet complains that the writing of patriotic history has been neglected in England since the reign of King John (1199–1216). Trevet himself presents a generally sympathetic portrait of the Angevin kings, of whom Henry III and Edward I had been generous patrons of the Dominicans. The Annals is largely derivative of other sources but contains some independent information about Henry III and Edward I. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Annales sex regum Angliae, ed. Thomas Hog (London: English Historical Society, 1845), pp. 1–3.

When Sallust, an author of the utmost reliability, compared the accomplishments of the Athenians to those of the Romans, he declared that the latter had been achieved through the superior virtue of outstanding men, but the former had acquired greater renown because they had been extolled by the diligent efforts of brilliant minds [Bellum Catilinae 1.8]. For the eloquence of the Greeks, being eager for praise and glory, was not content to hand down to posterity the noteworthy triumphs of their wars according to the historical truth, but amplifying them with poetic fictions (which were more abundant there than anywhere else in the world), it embellished them with pleasing fancy so as to be the object of wonder and admiration. And although they were studiously emulated by the ambition of the Romans, who in the exercise of arms and the 277

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r gracefulness of their speech easily surpassed the teachers from whom they had derived the laws and precepts of both arts for the improvement of the state (as the conquered world cries aloud in the former case, and their own people proclaim in the latter), nonetheless their glory was deemed inferior to that of the Attic people, because there was an insufficient number of learned authors who could perpetuate the memory of their triumphs. And although the other nations of the earth lacked equally glorious and abundant subject matter to write about, nonetheless they did not fail to make an assiduous effort to propagate their fame, so that the damage wrought by time would be counteracted and the memorable deeds of the past would become known to future generations. We now perceive that this custom, which derives from the love by which nature has implanted in the minds of each person a zealous regard for his own honor, although it had been observed among the English people down to the beginning of the reign of King John, has become neglected, either because of the growth of idleness, which shuns the effort involved in any kind of labor, or because the people in their viciousness have degenerated to the point that they despise their rulers and take more delight in seeing them disparaged than praised. As a result, with the possible exception of the meager efforts of the chroniclers, the history of a period of more than one hundred and twenty years is shamefully blackened in contemporary discussions by disgraceful criticisms of our previous kings, while the deeds of foreigners are praised to the heavens. While we were previously in residence at the [Dominican] studium at Paris, therefore, we carefully read through the deeds of the French, the Normans, and others, and faithfully excerpted whatever touched upon the English nation. Based upon these efforts and what we found in English chronicles, as well as some material that we gathered for ourselves or learned from the trustworthy accounts of reputable men to fill in what had been left out or neglected, we have endeavored in the following work to set down in chronological order down to our own era the deeds of those kings who traced their origins in the male line back to the counts of Anjou, the first of whom was Henry II. And although our principal goal is to treat of the affairs of the English people, we have not failed to include what we know concerning the memorable deeds of the bishops and emperors of the Romans, as well as of the kings of France and certain other contemporaries of the aforementioned kings, intending in this way to better serve the common good. We are appending four headings to the top margin of this work. The first is that of our Lord, Jesus Christ; the second is that of the Romans, preceded by the letter P, which stands for bishops [pontifices] and followed at the end by the letter R, which stands for kings [reges]. The third is that of the French, the fourth that of the English. To these correspond five sets of numbers, which precede each chapter. Two sets of numbers, one of the popes and one of 278

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) the emperors, correspond to the second heading. A single set of numbers is appended beneath the rest of the headings. The first of these is the year of our Lord Jesus Christ; the fourth and fifth correspond to the reigns of the kings of France and England, respectively. When two numbers are given for the Roman emperor, the former designates the years of his reign as emperor, the latter the years of his reign as king. We are beginning the year in January, according to the custom of the Roman calendar.

8 6 R an ulph H igde n, P oly chronicon Ranulph Higden was a monk at the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Werburgh in Chester from 1299 to his death ca 1363. Little is known of his life, and his reputation today rests solely on his Polychronicon, a universal chronicle in seven books from Creation to the year 1357 culled from earlier sources. After the prologue, Higden appends a list of forty writers whose works he used, but he notes that he did not reproduce his authorities verbatim, instead rendering them in his own words. The Polychronicon was widely read and copied in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it inspired a number of continuators. It was translated into English from Latin by John of Trevisa in 1387 (a version that was printed by William Caxton in 1482) and again by an anonymous author between 1432 and 1450. A substantial portion of Higden’s prologue is reproduced, with slight variations, in the prologue to the anonymous Eulogy of Histories (see Doc. 87). Source: trans. Justin Lake from Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden monachi Cestrensis, ed. C. Babington, 9 vols., Rolls Series (London: Longman, Green, 1865–86), vol. 1, pp. 2–20.

Prologue After the noble writers of the arts, who were happy to toil all their lives in the service of knowledge or morality, those who have conveyed the magnificent deeds of ages past to posterity through the aid of writing, combining utility and pleasure, as it were, are deserving of the highest praise. For in the historical writings that have been bequeathed to us by the industry of chroniclers, one may clearly behold the standard of correct conduct, the proper way to live, the incentive for probity, the threefold path of the theological virtues, and the fourfold path of the cardinal virtues, which our own limited abilities would be incapable of discovering or emulating if writers had not taken pains to transmit a record of the past to our ignorance. For the briefness of our lives, the dullness of our senses, the lethargy of our minds, the fleeting nature of our memories, and unprofitable employments hinder our pursuit of knowledge, while forget279

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r fulness ever plays the wicked stepmother to our memory. Indeed, our arts and laws would speedily collapse, the examples of noble deeds would remain hidden, and the tropes and figures of speech would disappear completely if divine mercy had not provided us with the use of letters as a remedy for human imperfection. Who today, I ask, would know about the Caesars, marvel at the philosophers, or follow the apostles if there were no written records to secure their renown? Who would be acquainted with Lucilius if Seneca had not made him famous in his letters? Truly, the works of the poets added more to the glory of the Caesars than all the earthly riches that they carried off. History, therefore, because it is a witness of the past, a record of life, and a herald of antiquity, possesses the most noble qualities and brings the richest rewards to its practitioners. For through a kind of everlasting fame, history renews what would otherwise perish, calls back what is fleeting, and in a sense perpetuates and preserves what is mortal. Why, then, among others who tread the paths of the trivium and hold forth with grandiloquent words—men who have obtained no mean prize for the race that they have run—should the quadrivial writers of history, who have measured the four corners of our earth, not also be worthy of praise? To the contrary, can there be any doubt but that like faultless cubes they will lay claim to the laurels of victory [see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.10]? Inspired by their commendable example, therefore, and neither boastfully vaunting my own powers, nor scornfully disparaging those of others, I decided, insofar as I was capable of doing so, to celebrate the abundant claims to glory of my native land by compiling a treatise on the condition of the island of Britain, gleaned from the works of various authors, for the instruction of future generations. When this came to the attention of my companions, who have always made a habit of inquiring into the deeds of their ancestors, I was moved by their persistent entreaties to compile in addition some material from the most celebrated histories of our world from the creation of the universe down to our own era, not merely in chronological order, but with an accurate calculation of individual years. Yet as I pondered the complexity of this task (which was similar in its intricacy to the labyrinth of Daedalus), I was afraid to undertake what had been asked of me. For apart from the fact that a certain degree of sloth and apathy tends to steal upon those who are contemplating ambitious projects, I reflected upon my own inability to reveal so much that lay hidden, the vastness of the theme imposed upon me, the number and prestige of the authors who had written on this same subject, and most of all the resulting satiety of modern readers, who tend to have little regard for the obedience of devotion and quickly grow tired of trifling fare such as this, so that like jealous rivals they sharpen their tongues and arch their brows against derivative works that cover no new ground. Of such men Gregory of Nazianzus says that “they are quick to 280

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) criticize the faults of others, but slow to imitate their good deeds.” Naturally, I was afraid to see the poverty of my own barren eloquence speaking “some bit of trash through its nose” [Persius, Satires 1.33] after the blaring of such mighty trumpets, or to pluck the bitter fruit of the sycamore tree and offer it to men of delicate taste. For who would not laugh—indeed jeer—to see a pygmy girding for battle after witnessing the labors of Hercules or the competitions of the Olympic Games? And who would not mock me for playing on my slender reed, if, after these high-sounding sons of thunder had defined the limits of satire with the clash of their mighty eloquence, I defaced the grandeur of such a noble theme with the grating hiss of my own sound? And yet I know what the pious householder Boaz said to Ruth when she was bashfully gleaning the ears of grain left behind by the reapers. “No one,” he said, “will bother you.” And to the reapers he said, “Even if she wishes to reap with you, do not prevent her; and let no one rebuke her while she is gathering” [Ruth 2:9, 15–16]. Moreover, Virgilius Maro, the poet of Mantua, as Isidore says in book ten of his Etymologies—or Horatius Flaccus, as Hugo of Pisa has it in his Derivationes under the same heading—“when accused by his rivals of having translated certain verses from Homer and inserted them into his poems, and having thus been declared a despoiler of the ancients, responded, ‘it takes a great deal of strength to wrench the club of Hercules from his grasp’” [Etymologies 10.44]. I ask, therefore, that none of my superiors blame me if I play the role of sand and ash. For although these things are impure and have no brightness, if rubbed against other substances they can restore their purity and luster, just as some materials can endow others with what they do not themselves possess. Whence the satiric poet says, “I serve as the whetstone that sharpens the sword” [Horace, Ars Poetica 304–305]. And in his Pastoral Care Gregory says that “though an ugly painter, I have depicted the beauty of man.” Presuming therefore upon the charity that, according to Gregory in his Homily, provides the strength denied by want of skill, I shall embark upon the wearisome task of this reaping, a labor that may be looked down upon by the scornful, but which will not be without value, I think, to the studious. I shall enter, that is, into the fields of the ancients, following the reapers if I can, and gleaning however I may the ears of grain that are left to me, or at least gathering the crumbs that have fallen from the table of the masters who left their scraps for the servants once they were full. Gathering up as well the remnants from the fragments of the baskets left over by those who have eaten, I shall add something to the labors of these authors, sitting like a dwarf upon the shoulders of giants. In this way, the young will be incited to learn and their elders to act, so that those who have not yet come into contact with the weighty volumes in which this material is set forth at such length may at least learn from this abridgment, in which neither subtlety of expression nor eloquence of speech, but rather the sincerity of my 281

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r devotion, will minister to the subject matter. In this compendium almost all of the problems of our ancestors are set forth. A number of things that I was unable to find in the books of my sources, however, I gathered from daily experience and knowledge of the world—from a kind of history of behavior, as it were. For the knowledge of many things has been taken from us, partly by hostile violence, and partly by the slothfulness of writers, so that today the mere names of places have scarcely been preserved. Now if the fictions of the heathens, the words of the pagans, and the marvels of foreign lands are occasionally inserted into this modest work, they nonetheless serve the Christian faith. For Virgil was allowed to seek the gold of wisdom in the muck of the poet Ennius, and the sons of Israel were permitted to despoil the Egyptians on their way to the Promised Land. In what follows, almost all of which has been excerpted piecemeal from other writers and then reassembled here in order, the serious has been intermingled with the entertaining and the pagan with the Christian, so that while what is well known has been abbreviated and what is unfamiliar has been expanded, the order of events has been preserved, and the truth has been kept intact and unwavering to the furthest extent possible. Nonetheless, the same degree of certitude cannot prevail in every part of this work. For according to Augustine in the City of God, divine miracles should be marveled at and venerated, not subjected to disputation. Nor should we be skeptical about everything that is marvelous. For as Jerome says, “You will find many incredible and implausible things that are nonetheless true. For nature itself does nothing contrary to the Lord of Nature.” And in many cases where the truth seems to be well established, there are nonetheless good reasons for doubt. For Isidore says in book fifteen of the Etymologies: “If there is no agreed-upon account of the founding of the city of Rome, we should not be surprised that opinions differ about other cities. Consequently, we should not condemn historians and commentators who disagree with one another, for antiquity itself is the cause of error.” According to Jerome, therefore, it is appropriate to give credence to the words of those whose beliefs neither harm our faith and morals nor contradict established truths. For this reason, I am not running the risk of vouching for the truth of everything that appears in this historical narrative, but imparting without envy what I have read in the works of various authors [compare John of Salisbury, Policraticus book 7, prologue]. For the apostle does not say, “whatever was written is true,” but “whatever was written was written for our instruction” [Romans 15:4]. And although I am using what belongs to others, I am making it my own by frequently setting forth the opinions of the ancients in my own words, so much so that I am using the authors whose names are written at the beginning of this work as a shield against my enemies. Whatever is written in the voice of the compiler, however, appears under the letter “R.” 282

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8 7 A n on ymou s, T he Eulog y of Histories The Eulogy of Histories is an anonymous chronicle from Creation to the year 1366 written

by a monk of the English abbey of Malmesbury. The vast majority of the work is derived from other histories, but it contains some original material dealing with the fourteenth century. In several places the author is openly hostile toward Ranulph Higden, whom he refers to variously as “a monk of Chester,” “a new chronicler,” and “a new compiler.” In book 4 he attacks him for rejecting the tradition—supported by the authority of Bede, Jerome, and Isidore—that Saint Patrick had rid Ireland of venomous snakes, and he later takes him to task for claiming that William of Malmesbury had dreamed up some of what he said in his history. The author’s adversarial relationship with Higden is all the more interesting because the prologue to The Eulogy is heavily derivative of the Polychronicon. Precisely what the author’s intention was in reworking Higden’s words remains an open question. The autograph manuscript of The Eulogy shows that the work was originally entitled The Compendium, a title that better fits the author’s description of the work in the prologue. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis: Chronicon ab orbe condito usque ad annum Domini MCCCLXCI, ed. Frank Scott Haydon, 3 vols., Rolls Series (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858–63), vol. 1, pp. 1–5.

Proem The proper way to live, the incentive for probity, the standard of the theological virtues, and the fourfold path of the cardinal virtues give no savor to my dullness because I am so incapable and inadequate. Thanks to the industry of chroniclers, I have a clear view of things that my own limited abilities would be incapable of discovering or emulating if writers had not taken pains to transmit a record of the past to my ignorance. For the briefness of my life, the dullness of my senses, the lethargy of my mind, the fleeting nature of my memory, and my unproductive employments hinder my pursuit of knowledge, while forgetfulness ever plays the wicked stepmother with my memory. The figures of speech would perish as well, if divine mercy had not provided us with the use of letters as a remedy for human imperfection. History, therefore, because it is a witness of the past, a record of life, and a herald of antiquity, possesses the most noble qualities and brings the richest rewards to its practitioners. History restores what would otherwise perish, recalls what is fleeting, and in a sense perpetuates and preserves what is mortal. The writers of history, therefore, who measure the four corners of the earth and bring back what has been forgotten, will surely lay claim to the laurels of victory. Confined to the cloister, therefore, I am often exhausted, my senses are dulled, my strivings after virtue are frustrated, and I often fall prey to the worst 283

Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r kinds of thoughts, both because of the length of our readings and the heavy burden of our prayers, and because of the vain boasting and wicked deeds that I was once responsible for in the world, as well as the pleasure I took in them, the assent that I gave to them, and—what is worst of all—their abundance. Pondering, therefore, how I might snuff out the provocations and fiery barbs of the one who strives to inflict so many injuries upon the conscience of a monk, I decided in response to the entreaties of my superiors to compile as best I could a treatise gleaned from the works of various authors for the benefit of future generations. For on many occasions I had been asked by the prior of our monastery to undertake something in the manner of a chronicle dealing with the deeds of the ancients, nearby and faraway lands, miracles, wars, and the ancient deeds of Christians and pagans, in such a manner that I would have to abandon all the thoroughly unprofitable activities of my spare time without a second thought. Assenting to his request, therefore, and adding my own wishes to his desires, in accordance with what he had communicated to me on many previous occasions regarding the form and subject matter of this work, I fashioned with my own hands this rough-hewn compendium, which is neither graceful nor elegant, but rather turgid and compacted. I am not vouching for the truth of everything in this historical account, therefore, but imparting without malice what I have read and seen in the works of various authors. And although I am using the work of others, I nonetheless believe that whatever I set down here in their words belongs to me, such that as a shield against my critics I am using the authors whose names are written in the introduction, namely Josephus (a Jew, and later a Christian), the historian Hegesippus, whom Ambrose translated, Pliny’s Natural History, Pompeius Trogus, Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, Augustine’s City of God, his student Orosius, Isidore the etymologist, Solinus’s On the Marvels of the World, Eutropius, Paul the Deacon, Cassiodorus, the martyr and bishop Methodius, Priscian, Macrobius, Peter Comestor, Bede, Gildas, Marianus Scotus, William the monk of Malmesbury, Dares Phrygius’s History of Troy, Henry of Huntingdon, Walter of Exeter [Oxford], Alfred of Beverley, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Rievaulx [William of Newburgh], and many others. This modest work is divided into five books. The first contains the creation of the world and its beginning, proceeding in order and in an abbreviated fashion down to the Nativity of Christ and ending with his Ascension. The second book contains the preaching of the apostles, the deaths of the martyrs, and the popes who succeeded Peter, together with their most important deeds, the number of years they served, and the persecutions that they suffered. The third teaches about the first settlement of Italy and the founding of Rome, and the pagan and Christian emperors, together with their most important 284

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) deeds—good and bad—and contains a number of marvelous stories taken from various authors. The fourth book shows the division of the world, with its habitable and uninhabitable zones, and provides a description of its regions, provinces, and islands, as well as the customs of their inhabitants. The fifth describes the first inhabitants of Britain, the kings who succeeded to Brutus, and the events that happened during their reigns. I hope that truth will not be ashamed of anything that I have included in these books. The reality is that when people read or hear about marvels or unheard-of prodigies, they rarely believe them, because those who always remain in their native country will hardly ever see the marvelous things that they could see if they journeyed to foreign lands. My presumption in undertaking this work does not derive from my own abilities, which are nonexistent. For this reason, reader, I ask you to be sympathetic and not to sting me with a venomous tongue. If there is anything useful here, you may attribute it solely to God. If there is anything that is worthless in your eyes, you may deem the book to be in error and me to have exceeded my purpose. Many people are apt to think little of a written work that they do not understand. I did not presume to do anything on my own authority, but I applied myself diligently to compiling the statements of other historians in my own way. Therefore, I do not want to furnish this compilation, which is derived from the labors of the holy fathers who wrote history, with an original title, but because I extracted some little bit of the marrow from the labors of the ancients, I want the hodge-podge that is this book to be called the Eulogy. I am not calling this work a eulogy without reason, because it will provide a welcome refreshment to those who are studying or praying when they want to take a break from their labors, helping them to avoid idleness and root out wicked thoughts. For if it has something useful to occupy it, the mind of the man at study or prayer is much gladdened, particularly if it hears about something novel or beholds something it has never before seen. At the same time, if this book contains anything that seems bizarre or fantastical, peruse the ancient writings and you will find an account of everything that has been included here. Therefore, reader, whoever you are, apply yourself to correcting and emending the contents of this work with fraternal charity. This work was finished in the year of the Lord 1362, during the reign of Edward, the third from the Conquest. If I have added anything on my own authority, I have appended it beneath my sign. Do not be surprised if material has been inserted out of order, because I wrote the first manuscript of this work in my own hand.

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88 Je an Fro i s sa rt, Chronicle The Chronicle of Jean Froissart is our most valuable source for the first part of the Hundred Years War and one of the greatest historical works of the later Middle Ages. Froissart was born at Valenciennes in the county of Hainaut in 1337. In 1362 he came to England, bringing with him a now-lost verse chronicle dealing with the early part of the Hundred Years War, which he presented to Queen Philippa of Hainaut, wife of King Edward III. He remained in the household of Queen Philippa for eight years, serving her as a secretary and court poet, and taking advantage of the opportunities afforded him by his position to travel widely and gather information that would subsequently become part of his Chronicle. After the death of Queen Philippa in 1369, Froissart returned to Valenciennes, where he completed the first redaction of book 1, which he dedicated to Robert of Namur. He remained based in the Low Countries for the rest of his life, although he continued to travel widely and write voluminously. By the time of his death in the first decade of the fifteenth century, his Chronicle encompassed four books and spanned the period from 1325 to 1400, covering events in England, France, Spain, and the Low Countries. In choosing to write a history in prose, Froissart was influenced by Jean le Bel, a canon of Liège who had written an earlier chronicle in which he criticized the composition of histories in verse. The manuscript tradition of Froissart’s Chronicle is complicated; the prologue printed below belongs to the first redaction of book 1. In it, Froissart invokes the commemorative function of history in the specific context of the chivalric culture of the fourteenth century, which placed a high premium on the accurate recording of knightly exploits. Source: trans. Justin Lake from Les Chroniques de Sire Jean Froissart, ed. J.A.C. Buchon, 2 vols. (Paris: Desrez, 1835), vol. 1, pp. 1–2.

In order that the honorable enterprises, noble adventures, and feats of arms that occurred in the wars between England and France may be properly related and entrusted to perpetual memory, so that brave men may have them as an example to encourage them in their actions, I wish to treat of and record a history and theme worthy of great praise. But before I begin, I beseech the savior of the whole world, who created all things from nothing, that he may endow me with sense and understanding, so that I may continue the book that I have begun and persevere in such a way that all those who read, see, or hear it will derive entertainment and pleasure from my work, and I may meet with their favor. It is said with truth that every building is constructed and built one stone at a time, and that all great rivers are formed and constituted from many different streams and sources. In the same way every type of knowledge is derived and compiled by many learned men, and what one is ignorant of another knows—although there is nothing that will not be known sooner or later. Now 286

four : THE HIGH AND LA TE MI DDLE AGES (110 0–140 0) to come to and arrive at the matter that I have undertaken to commence, first by the grace of God and the beneficence of the Virgin Mary, from whom all comfort and success come, I wish to base my work upon and organize it after the true chronicles formerly written and compiled by the venerable and wise master, my lord Jean le Bel, canon of St. Lambert at Liège, who bestowed great care and every necessary attention upon his work and continued it all his life as faithfully as he could, although it cost him much to obtain and acquire his material. But whatever expenses he incurred, he did not complain about them; for he was rich and powerful and could well afford them. And of his nature he was generous, honorable, and courteous, and willing to spend his own wealth. He was also during his life a great friend and intimate acquaintance of the very noble and redoubtable lord Sir Jean of Hainaut, who is remembered fondly in this book, and with justification. For he was the leader and cause of many noble actions and a close companion of kings, and through him the aforementioned Jean le Bel could see and acquaint himself with many exploits that are contained in what follows. It is true that I, who have undertaken to compose this book, have, from the pleasure that always inclined me to it, spent time with and made the acquaintance of many great and noble lords, both in France and in England, as well as in Scotland, Brittany and in other countries; and to the best of my abilities I have made enquiry of them and asked for accurate information about the wars and exploits that have taken place, especially those since the great battle of Poitiers, in which the noble king John of France was taken prisoner, since before this I was still very young in age and understanding. In spite of this, however, and despite being just out of school, I undertook with considerable boldness to compose and recount in verse the aforementioned wars, and to carry the book that I had thus compiled into England, just as I was. And there I presented it to the very high and noble lady Philippa of Hainaut, queen of England, who happily and graciously accepted it from me and generously rewarded me. Now it is possible that this book has not been investigated or written as accurately as such a subject requires, since feats of arms, which are purchased at so high a price, ought to be faithfully assigned and credited to those who have achieved them through their prowess. To acquit myself in the eyes of all, therefore, as is only just, I have undertaken to continue this history according to the above-mentioned plan and foundation at the prayer and request of my dear lord and master, Sir Robert of Namur, lord of Beaufort, to whom I gladly owe love and obedience. And may God grant me that I may do what is pleasing to him.

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I n de x of Topic s Topics are listed by document number. Thus, 19 is a reference to document 19, which is Jerome, Chronicle. Abraham: 19, 30, 35, 38, 54, 68, 69, 71, 73, 79 accuracy: 3, 4, 5, 9–11, 18, 20, 26, 28, 56, 60, 68, 88 Achilles: 73 Adalbold of Utrecht: 52 Adam: 30, 41, 61, 80 Adam of Bremen: 57 affection. See also bias; enmity as a distorting factor: 4, 14, 20, 52, 66, 75 Agathias: 28 Alexander the Great: 5, 24, 62, 80 Alfred of Beverley: 69, 87 Agamemnon: 3, 46, 73 Agnellus of Ravenna: 38 Aimoin of Fleury: 50 ambition, literary: 7, 18, 21, 78 Anaximenes of Lampsacus: 10 ancestors remembrance or emulation of: 8, 10, 54, 55, 72, 77, 83 Antiochus IV Epiphanes: 11 Arthur, king of the Britons: 67 Assyrians, empire of: 71 Astronomer, the: 36 Athenians: 3, 4, 7, 10, 20, 85 Athens: 3, 4, 5, 7, 20 Augustus Caesar: 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 24, 35, 61, 77 Augustine: 23, 71, 86, 87 Aulus Hirtius: 6 author duties of: 71, 76, 81 eagerness of: 5, 28, 33, 49, 50, 56, 71 glory conferred by writing history: 64

labor demanded of or expended by: 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 44–46, 51, 57, 61, 63, 66, 68, 75, 76, 77, 82, 86 motives of: 12, 13, 18, 30, 55, 66 tasks of: 4, 10 qualifications of: 4 unwillingness of: 6, 22, 29, 51 (See also hesitation) authority of dedicatee or patron: 22, 44, 46, 49, 58, 60, 62, 64, 68, 77, 83 autopsy (eyewitness): 3, 4, 5, 18, 26, 31, 34, 36, 38, 43, 54, 55, 59, 60, 63, 68, 72, 74–77 Babylon: 56, 71, 72, 80 Bede: 32, 53, 66–70, 73, 74, 79, 80, 87 bias: 4, 7, 15, 20, 52, 76. See also affection; enmity Boethius: 43, 71 carelessness: 10, 19, 50, 60. See also idleness; negligence Cassiodorus: 25, 74, 87 Cato, Marcus Porcius: 10, 17 Charlemagne: 34, 35, 37, 50, 61, 67, 71 chronicler v. historian: 81 chronology: 20, 30, 46, 47, 49, 53, 58, 61, 64, 69, 79, 80, 81, 85, 86 Cicero: 19, 34, 43, 46, 57, 76, 77 command. See commission commission: 6, 12, 21–25, 33, 35, 37–39, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49–51, 53, 56, 58, 66, 68, 71–74, 76, 80, 83, 87, 88. See also encouragement given to historian conciseness. See narrative, features of, brevity

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r enthusiasm. See author, eagerness of envy: 5, 7, 14, 17, 46, 52, 57, 58, 61, 67, 68, 76–79, 86, 87 Ephorus: 4 Erchempert: 39 Esau: 41 Eunapius of Sardis: 20 Eusebius: 19, 22, 30, 48, 68, 69, 71, 74, 79 eyewitness. See autopsy

corrections, requests for: 5, 17, 32, 35, 40, 42, 50, 51, 57, 58, 60, 64, 67, 68, 72, 73, 76, 79, 87 Cosmas of Prague: 64 criticism expressed by other authors: 4, 10, 27, 58, 75, 80 of other historians: 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 18, 27, 28, 75, 77, 80, 81 received or anticipated by author: 10, 11, 19, 21, 34, 35, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60–62, 64–72, 76, 77, 83, 84, 86, 87 of subjects: 4, 7, 54, 66, 71 Crusades as a theme: 59, 60, 66, 68, 72, 76 Cyrus, king of Persia: 3, 7, 72 Daniel: 46, 56, 68, 71 Darius, king of Persia: 3 dates: 5, 20, 31, 46, 47 David: 30, 41, 54, 71, 73, 80 deeds worthy of remembrance, or notice: 10, 26, 28, 32, 35, 40, 57, 59, 62, 66–68, 77, 81, 82 delays: 12, 29, 42, 43, 72, 79 delight. See history, enjoyment provided by Dionysius Exiguus: 81 Diodorus Siculus: 5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus: 10 documents: 4, 5, 32, 47, 50, 54, 55, 57, 67, 68, 72, 76, 77 Dudo of Saint-Quentin: 51, 68, 69 Eadmer: 63, 66 Einhard: 34 Elijah: 30, 41 encouragement given to historian: 12, 20, 27, 32, 53, 56, 58–60, 63, 64, 66, 69, 75, 76, 77, 80, 86, 87. See also commission enmity: 11, 14, 15, 18, 52, 64, 66, 75, 76. See also affection; bias

Fabius Pictor, Quintus: 4, 10 falsehood: 4, 10, 15, 48, 51, 56, 57, 60, 64, 66, 71, 76, 80, 81 fame conferred on objects: 5, 27, 62, 67, 77, 85, 86 (See also history, glory conferred by) disclaimed as a motive: 21 pursued by or conferred on historians: 7, 9, 10, 12, 18, 21, 34, 77, 78 fault-finding. See criticism fear: 7, 13, 19, 21, 27, 29, 30, 41, 42, 44, 46, 47, 58, 65, 66, 72, 75, 77, 86 fictional material: 9, 11, 80, 85, 86 flattery: 10, 11, 14, 18, 27, 35, 36, 52, 55, 61, 64, 66, 72, 75, 76, 78. See also panegyric; praise of subjects Flodoard: 42, 49 Florus: 16 forgetfulness: 47, 54, 56, 58, 61, 76, 86, 87. See also oblivion Fortune: 4, 8, 10, 16, 27, 37, 43, 62, 72, 77 Frechulf of Lisieux: 35 Fredegar: 31 free time. See leisure Froissart, Jean: 88 Fulcher of Chartres: 59, 68 future generations. See posterity Galbert of Bruges: 65 Gallus Anonymus: 62

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index of topics Geoffrey Malaterra: 58 Geoffrey of Monmouth: 67, 69, 70, 80, 87 Gerald of Wales: 77, 78 Gervase of Canterbury: 81 Gildas: 29, 67, 80, 87 Goliath: 30 gratitude. See praise owed to history and historians Greeks: 1–5, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 24, 35, 40, 68, 71, 72, 85 Gregory of Tours: 30 Gregory I, Pope: 31, 32, 38, 61, 86 Guibert of Nogent: 60 hatred. See enmity Hecataeus of Miletus: 1 Helmold of Bosau: 75 Henry of Huntingdon: 73, 87 Henry I, king of England: 66, 67, 69, 80, 81 Henry I, king of Germany: 45 Henry II, king of England: 77, 78, 85 Heracles (Hercules): 4, 5, 17, 72, 86 Heriger of Lobbes: 46 Herodian: 18 Herodotus: 2 hesitation: 12, 27, 29, 37, 44, 68, 86. See also author, unwillingness of Hieronymus of Cardia: 10 historian v. chronicler: 81 history benefit of (See history, utility of ) commemorative function of: 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 40, 45, 53, 55, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 76, 80, 84, 88 dangers of writing: 4, 7, 13–15, 40, 64, 66, 75, 76 difficulty of writing: 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 17, 25, 27, 37, 48, 64–66, 70, 76 entertainment provided by: 10, 18, 43, 45, 59, 61, 67–69, 72, 81, 84, 88

(See also history, refreshment afforded by) glory conferred by: 5, 10, 27, 39, 58, 66, 77 (See also fame) immortality conferred by: 5, 10, 27, 58, 66, 67, 77, 78, 82, 85–87 law of: 32 as mirror: 29, 35, 52, 54, 66, 73, 77 moral-exemplary function of: 4, 5, 9, 21, 28, 32, 35, 36, 41, 46, 52–54, 59, 61, 62, 66, 68, 69, 71–74, 76, 77, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88 painting, as analogous to writing of: 4, 62, 76 praise of: 4, 5, 73, 86 refreshment afforded by: 43, 77, 80, 84, 87 (See also history, entertainment provided by) requirements for writing: 52 rewards of writing: 9, 13, 18, 21, 32, 62, 63, 71, 75, 76, 78 solace from reading or writing: 4, 9, 22, 27, 43, 45, 61, 63, 70, 73, 75 usefulness of in interpreting or preparing for future: 3, 4, 26, 63, 68, 69, 73 usefulness of in politics: 4 utility of: 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 26, 27, 32, 35, 36, 46, 47, 49, 52–54, 58, 59, 61, 63, 66, 68–71, 73–75, 77, 81, 82, 84–86 History of the Kings of Britain. See Geoffrey of Monmouth Homer: 4, 19, 26, 64, 73, 77, 86 Horace: 19, 46, 71, 73, 77, 86 hostility. See criticism; enmity Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim: 44 Hugh of Fleury: 61 humility topos. See modesty topos idleness: 8, 12, 13, 35, 40, 42, 47, 54, 61, 62, 64, 66, 68, 77, 80, 81, 83, 85–87. See also carelessness; negligence

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r ignorance, admission of or reference to: 22, 44, 49, 60, 62, 64, 68, 70, 76, 83, 86, 87 imitation and avoidance: 5, 9, 20, 32, 35, 36, 41, 52, 54, 66, 69, 72, 73, 79, 84 importance of subject matter: 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 16, 26, 34, 46, 59, 60, 62, 66, 68, 72, 76, 80 impudence. See presumption informants: 3, 10, 31, 32, 36, 38, 41, 44, 54–58, 60, 64, 68, 72, 74, 75, 82, 85, 88. See also oral tradition Isidore of Seville: 31, 74, 86, 87 Jerome: 19, 30, 31, 61, 68, 69, 71, 74, 78, 86 Jerusalem: 11, 30, 35, 55, 59, 60, 66, 68, 71, 72, 76 John: 41 John, king of England: 77, 85 John of Salisbury: 74 John the Baptist: 41 Jordanes: 24, 25 Josephus: 11, 12, 76, 87 Julius Caesar: 5, 6, 43, 50, 69, 70, 71, 77, 80 Justin: 17 Lacedaemon. See Sparta (Lacedaemon) Lampert of Hersfeld: 56 legends or legendary material: 3, 5, 9, 10, 20, 72 leisure: 7, 17, 66, 68, 70, 76, 78, 80, 81, 87 Letaldus of Micy: 47, 48 Leuctra, battle of: 4 libraries: 4, 73 Licinius Macer: 10 Liudprand of Cremona: 43 Livy: 9, 76 logographers: 1, 3 Louis the Pious, king of the Franks: 34–37, 61 Luke: 38, 39, 74, 84

Macedonian Empire: 4, 24, 35, 71 malice. See envy Marianus Scotus: 69, 79, 87 Mark: 38, 39 Median Empire: 24, 35, 71 memoirs: 4 memory: 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 18, 21, 22, 26, 30, 35, 37, 40, 45, 46, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61–65, 69–71, 77, 78, 80, 82–88 metaphor building as: 20, 76, 88 clothing as: 48, 82 flowers as: 24, 57, 67, 68, 84 food as: 20, 27, 62 forest as: 38, 44, 62 fountain as: 5, 31, 62 journey as: 38, 44, 50, 57, 62, 82 medicine as: 4 nautical: 25, 35, 37, 38, 47, 62, 66, 75, 76 rivers as: 19, 31, 47, 52, 82, 88 swimmer as: 58 weaving as: 44, 49 Minos: 3 miracles: 21, 30, 38, 41, 47, 59, 60, 62, 68, 77, 81, 84, 86, 87 modesty topos: 5, 6, 13, 21–25, 29–32, 34–48, 50, 51, 55–62, 64–68, 70–72, 76, 77, 79–82, 86–88 moral decline: 7, 8, 9, 13–15, 29, 30, 39, 41, 43, 56, 64, 66, 68, 71, 76, 85 Moses: 12, 29, 30, 35, 38, 68, 69, 71, 73, 84 myths or mythical material: 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, 18, 20 narrative, features of brevity: 7, 20, 23, 29, 31, 34, 45, 49, 61, 63, 68, 69, 74, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84 clarity: 35, 61, 68, 77, 79, 82 plausibility: 20, 49, 79 nature: 4, 7, 10, 23, 85

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index of topics negligence: 10, 46, 50, 60. See also carelessness; idleness Nicholas Trevet: 85 Niketas Choniates: 82 Ninus, king of Assyria: 19, 24, 35, 69 Nithard: 37 Noah: 41 novelty, rejection or criticism of: 34, 43, 52, 57, 77 oblivion: 2, 4, 26, 27, 34, 47, 64, 73, 77, 83. See also forgetfulness Odo of Cluny: 41 Odysseus: 5, 73 oral tradition: 3, 9, 32, 38, 39, 44, 47, 57, 64, 66, 72, 76. See also informants Orderic Vitalis: 68 Orosius: 23, 30, 50, 68, 71, 74, 79, 87 Otto of Freising: 71, 72 Otto I, king of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor: 44, 45 Ovid: 77, 78 panegyric: 22, 27, 68. See also flattery; praise of subjects partisanship. See bias patronage as incentive to write: 77 Paul: 29, 30, 46, 38, 41, 71, 74, 86 Paul the Deacon: 33, 39, 53, 68, 87 Pelops: 3 Peloponnesian War: 3 Persia: 3, 4, 56 Persian Empire: 3, 4, 24, 35, 71 Persian War: 3 Peter: 38, 79 Philinus: 4 Philip of Macedon: 4, 5 philosophers: 4, 33, 38, 43, 54, 57, 58, 62, 71, 73, 86. See also names of individual philosophers

philosophy: 4, 5, 12, 13, 21, 28, 40, 43, 54, 57, 58, 62, 64, 67, 71, 72, 73, 77 Plato: 4, 19, 71 Polybius: 4 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus): 11, 15, 43, 71, 77 Porcius Cato. See Cato, Marcus Porcius portents: 11, 14, 69, 81, 84 posterity: 3, 5, 10, 13, 14, 18, 26, 27, 30, 34, 37, 39, 47, 53, 54, 58, 61–64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 74–78, 80, 82, 84, 85, 87 praise owed to history and historians: 5, 27, 77, 86, 87 praise of subjects: 4, 7, 27, 28, 34, 39, 54, 55, 58, 61, 62, 65, 66, 68, 71, 72, 75, 78. See also flattery; panegyric presumption: 6, 21, 34, 35, 41, 44, 47, 55, 58, 60, 61, 64, 71, 75, 77, 79, 87 Priam: 62, 73 Procopius: 26, 27 Rahewin: 72 Ralph de Diceto: 79 Ranulph Higden: 86 Raoul Glaber: 53 rashness. See presumption recompense. See history, rewards of writing Regino of Prüm: 40 reliability. See accuracy relief. See history, refreshment afforded by; history, solace gained from reading or writing repayment: 32, 43 request to write. See commission rewriting: 46, 48–50, 60, 61, 77, 78 rhetorical skill, lack of. See stylistic inadequacy Richard I, duke of Normandy: 51, 55 Richard I, king of England: 78

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Prologue s to Ancie nt and M e dieval History: A Reade r Richard II, duke of Normandy: 51, 55, 68 Richer of Saint-Rémi: 49 Robert, earl of Gloucester: 66, 67 Robert of Torigni: 69 Roger of Wendover: 84 Roman Empire: 4, 9, 16, 18, 24, 27, 35, 53, 54, 62, 71, 72, 83 Romans: 4, 5, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 24, 26, 28, 35, 40, 61, 62, 65, 68, 71, 72, 76, 80, 85 Rome: 4, 5, 7, 9, 14, 15, 16, 78, 86, 87 Rufinus: 22 Sallust: 7, 8, 58, 85 Saul: 57 Saxo Grammaticus: 83 Septuagint: 19, 79 ships. See metaphor, nautical sloth. See idleness Solomon: 19, 54, 68, 71, 77 sources discussed or enumerated by historian: 3, 10, 18, 24, 31, 32, 35, 36, 44, 46, 57, 66–71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 79, 82–88 Sparta (Lacedaemon): 3, 4, 5, 7 spare time. See leisure speeches: 3, 4 spring as metaphor. See metaphor, fountain as Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury: 78 style, relationship to subject-matter: 5, 7, 30, 60, 76, 77, 82 stylistic inadequacy: 13, 19, 21, 22, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 38–41, 43–48, 51, 55, 56, 58,

59, 61, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 71, 72, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 86, 87 Sulpicius Severus: 21 Tacitus: 13–15 Theopompus: 4, 10 talents, parable of: 51, 62, 68 Thucydides: 3 Timaeus of Tauromenium: 4, 10 translatio imperii: 71 translation: 11, 19, 22, 31, 58, 67, 80, 83 Trojan War: 3, 5 Troy: 3, 19, 62, 64 truth: 4, 10, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 34–37, 47, 48, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 64–66, 68, 70–72, 74–76, 80–82, 85–87 Ulysses. See Odysseus Virgil: 64, 68, 77, 78, 86 Widukind of Corvey: 45 William of Jumièges: 55, 68, 69 William of Malmesbury: 66, 87 William of Newburgh: 80, 87 William of Tyre: 76 William I, duke of Normandy and king of England: 63, 66, 68 William Rufus, king of England: 63, 66 Wipo: 54 Xerxes: 3

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Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures Series Editor: Paul Edward Dutton

“Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures is in my opinion the most useful series being published today.” — William C. Jordan, Princeton University I – Carolingian Civilization: A Reader, second edition edited by Paul Edward Dutton II – Medieval Popular Religion, 1000–1500: A Reader, second edition edited by John Shinners III – Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard translated & edited by Paul Edward Dutton IV – Medieval Saints: A Reader edited by Mary-Ann Stouck V – From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader translated & edited by Alexander Callander Murray VI – Medieval England, 1000–1500: A Reader edited by Emilie Amt VII – Love, Marriage, and Family in the Middle Ages: A Reader edited by Jacqueline Murray VIII – The Crusades: A Reader edited by S.J. Allen & Emilie Amt IX – The Annals of Flodoard of Reims, 919–966 translated & edited by Bernard S. Bachrach & Steven Fanning X – Gregory of Tours: The Merovingians translated & edited by Alexander Callander Murray XI – Medieval Towns: A Reader edited by Maryanne Kowaleski XII – A Short Reader of Medieval Saints edited by Mary-Ann Stouck XIII – Vengeance in Medieval Europe: A Reader edited by Daniel Lord Smail & Kelly Lyn Gibson XIV – The Viking Age: A Reader edited by Angus A. Somerville & R. Andrew McDonald XV – Medieval Medicine: A Reader edited by Faith Wallis XVI – Medieval Pilgrimages: A Reader edited by Brett Edward Whalen XVII – Prologues to Ancient and Medieval History: A Reader edited by Justin Lake .

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