© 1996 Sheila Brynjulfson
In the year 410, Alaric the Visigoth and his forces sacked the city
of Rome. This single event, which was but one of many nails in the greater
Roman empire's coffin, initiated profound and gradual repercussions which
would ripple throughout the western empire. Just as only one of Rome's
legendary twin founders survived and prevailed to become the city's king,
so too did the Roman empire, itself divided into rough twins, share a similar
fate. The eastern empire survived; the western empire, already ailing at
the time of Alaric's attack, did not. This particular Gothic assault upon
Rome, through one of those strange coincidences which sometimes shape history
in ways disproportionate to the event itself, prompted one man on the other
side of the Mediterannean to put pen to paper in defense of the besieged
religion which its accusers claimed had failed to protect Rome, and which
had caused her demise.
The chronicler Jordanes, writing in the mid-sixth century, recorded
Alaric's campaign against Rome from the Gothic perspective. Theodosius,
the last emperor of an undivided Roman empire, had been a "lover of peace
and of the Gothic race," and during his reign relations between the Goths
and Rome had been amicable. But when Theodosius "passed from human cares"
in 395 the empire was once again divided, and its inheritors were no friends
of the Goths. When it became clear that the successors of Theodosius were
not going to deliver the "customary gifts" to the Goths, they began to
reconsider their position within the empire.(1)
They appointed Alaric, a man of exceptional lineage, to be their king.
Alaric organized the Goths and marched on the royal city of Ravenna to
appeal to the new emperor of the western empire, Theodosius's son Honorius.
If the Goths were allowed to settle peacefully in Italy, said Alaric, then
the Goths would continue their alliance with Rome. If not, he warned, then
he and his people would seek to carve out their own empire by force.(2)
Honorius, fearful of either alternative, consulted with the Senate.
The provinces of Spain and Gaul had recently been under assault by the
Vandals, and were nearly lost. As a solution to his immediate problem,
therefore, Honorius proposed the following to the Goths: they were welcome
to remain allies of Rome and to carve out their own territory, but not
in Italy. Instead he would give them Spain and Gaul. Alaric agreed to this
compromise, and thus he and his army headed west to claim their territory.
After "they had gone away without doing any harm in Italy, Stilicho the
Patrician . . . treacherously hurried to Pollentia," where "he fell upon
the unsuspecting Goths in battle, to the ruin of all Italy and his own
disgrace." The Goths won the field that day, and outraged over their betrayal,
then turned their fury toward the city of Rome.(3)
These were the circumstances under which the Goths sacked the Eternal
City. Jordanes mentioned that the invaders, under Alaric's express command,
"did not set the city on fire, as wild peoples usually do, nor did they
permit serious damage to be done to the holy places."(4)
To Jordanes, this was a sign of the civility of the Goths. To Augustine,
Bishop of Hippo, it was a clear indication that the hand of God had intervened
on behalf of the Christians. It should not be claimed, wrote Augustine,
that the Christian churches were spared due to simple good luck (and presumably
not due to the good behavior of the Goths), but rather it should be attributed
"to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the custom of
war, these blood-thirsty barbarians spared them, and spared them for Christ's
sake."(5) Ultimately, Augustine's
view of the fall of Rome would prevail, with a vengeance.
Before the time of Alaric and Augustine, western historiography had
begun to take a stylistic and philosophical turn away from the pagan histories
of the Greeks and Romans. The Christian religion, once just another minor
mystery cult in the context of the Roman empire, had grown and gained a
wider popularity. By its very nature, Christianity required an historical
basis. It had originally been classified as a mystery cult because it,
along with many other cultish religious societies, celebrated the dying
and resurrected god. This concept was as old as the Mesopotamian fertility
cults, but in its Christian form it assumed a new characteristic: instead
of happening every year, representing the cycle of fertility and vegetation,
the Christian resurrection happened only once. This was the uniqueness
of Christianity, and therefore Christianity required a fixed historical
reference in which to place this superlative event. Furthermore, Christianity
had branched off from Judaism, and Judaism had for a millennium asserted
that Yahweh the One God intervened in history at His pleasure. Therefore,
Christianity had both a preexisting historical tradition, and a new historical
imperative to fulfill.
The earliest Christian historical works were chronologies designed to
link events from scripture with political events, and to create a universal
history of mankind. The first of these chronologies was produced by Sextus
Julius Africanus, the Chronographia, which extended to the year
221.(6) This work and others like
it served to legitimize Christianity by firmly anchoring it to definite
worldly historical events. In 313, when Constantine declared official toleration
of Christianity and when persecution of Christians temporarily ceased,
the way had already been prepared for a new historical form. Eusebius,
Bishop of Caesarea was propitiously positioned to step into the role of
the "father of ecclesiastical history." Eusebius was fortunate enough to
live and work near the most complete Christian library of his time, which
had (also fortunately) somehow escaped the wholesale destruction of Christian
literature which had been sanctioned under the order of the emperor Diocletian.
Eusebius first produced a chronology, similar to those written by Sextus
and others, which began, naturally, with the Creation and extended to 324
C.E. Unlike the earlier chronologies, which linked only the classical and
Judeo-Christian calendars, Eusebius's work incorporated precise chronological
systems of every civilization known to him, including the Assyrian and
Egyptian calendars as well as the Greek olympiads and Roman consulates(7)
The Chronicle of Eusebius was important, but not groundbreaking.
His contribution to the genre was to expand and refine the format, and
was largely built upon the efforts of earlier writers. The real innovation
of Eusebius was his Ecclesiastical History. This new historical
concept developed from the earlier chronological forms, inasmuch as it
linked different historical spheres into a universal whole. But Eusebius
went far beyond the dry, bare-bones structure of the chronology. While
maintaining the temporal linkages in the Ecclesiastical History,
he abandoned the strictly chronological arrangement. Instead of tracing
Judeo-Christian history from Abraham onward, he instead focused primarily
on the years since the Incarnation, reaching backward in time only to bolster
and justify the Christian doctrine which he expounded. All events in Eusebius's
history refer back to the birth of Christ either directly or indirectly,
and attempt to show that all history, from the date of Creation and the
beginning of time, was moving deliberately and inexorably toward the Incarnation.(8)
Official tolerance did not necessarily mean acceptance, as the early
church writers were acutely aware. As Christianity's influence continued
to spread, it continued to be haunted by its old mystery cult stigma. Eusebius
employed every device which he could contrive to dissolve that negative
association. To this end, he divided sacred history from profane history,
and then reunited them in an hierarchy, with the latter being clearly subordinate
to the former.(9) The distinction
between the two coexisting historical realms tacitly argued for the uniqueness
of Christianity; through the act of declaring its existence, Eusebius had
given the sacred a separate historical validity. Eusebius and other Christian
writers sought, by firmly establishing the historicity of the acts of God
and the holy martyrs, to set Christianity apart from and above the cultish
pagan religions. Yet in spite of their efforts, the veneration of saints
still looked suspiciously like hero worship, and the trinitarian doctrine
established by the Council of Nicaea in 325 still appeared to many as blatant
polytheism.
Meanwhile, as Christianity gradually flourished, Rome steadily declined.
It was already in an advanced state of debilitation by the time Theodosius,
friend of the Goths, declared Christianity as the official religion of
the Empire in 380. But after the death of Theodosius in 395 and the subsequent
betrayal of the Visigoths by Honorius, Rome functionally ceased to exist
as an empire. Alaric's incursions into Italy, culminating with the ransacking
of Rome in 410, was a blow from which the Empire never recovered. To judge
by the writings of Augustine, the greatest question on the collective Roman
mind was how this could have happened to Rome, the "eternal" city. One
answer offered by pagans was that Rome, by abandoning her native gods
in favor of Christianity, had brought their retributive wrath upon
the wayward city.
It is this question which Augustine addresses in City of God.
City of God begins as a lengthy refutation of the pagans' assignment
of culpability to the Christians for the fall of Rome. To accomplish this
aim, Augustine must have answered every question which had ever been asked,
as well as every other question he could think of, to support Christianity
and to disprove the notion that it was responsible for undermining Roman
civilization. This he achieved, brilliantly. Drawing from the writings
of Greek philosophers, Roman statesmen, the epic poets and, of course,
the Bible, Augustine relentlessly reasoned his way through the first ten
books of City of God, inexorably plowing his way toward the ultimate
vindication of Christianity. In striking contrast to the later claims of
Jordanes that the Goths' mercy was quite conscious and deliberate, Augustine
claimed that the "savage barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise"
due to "the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper." Yielding no quarter,
he continued, "[f]ar be it from any prudent man to impute this clemency
to the barbarians. Their fierce and bloody minds were awed, and bridled,
and marvellously tempered by [God]."(10)
What ostensibly began as an answer to pagan accusations gradually develops
into a body of doctrine which would have a profound effect on the concept
of history, and on the western outlook in general, for more than a thousand
years. One question which Augustine addressed was why did God, although
He caused the asylum seekers in the churches to be spared, allow atrocities
to be committed upon other Christians in the city. In response, Augustine
explained that "when He exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove
our perfections or correct our imperfections; and in return for our patient
endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves for us an everlasting
reward."(11) What happens in
the temporal world is the will of God; earthly events are naught but trials
for a higher purpose, to direct humankind not toward the false comforts
of the city of man, but rather to test and temper the soul for admission
to the eternal city of God. It was therefore the duty of man to simply
endure the worldly hardships which befall the pious as well as the ungodly,
and to know that the hand of God was upon the world, guiding history according
to His indiscernible will toward one definite end: the second coming of
Christ.
The huge success of City of God can be attributed to, for lack
of a better term, being the right book at the right time. Before Alaric's
attack on Rome, the western empire was already in a severe state of decay.
To judge from Augustine's writings, the sack of the city in 410 was a sign
to its inhabitants that civilization was indeed near its end.(12)
Addressing himself to this concern, Augustine explained that "because some
live according to the flesh and others according to the spirit, there have
arisen two diverse and conflicting cities," the former of man, the latter
of God.(13) This dualistic concept
of reality echoes the Eusebian division of history into the categories
of sacred and profane, yet Augustine took it a step further by affirming
the coexistence and intermingling of each as an epic Manichaean struggle.
The division between the two cities explained the apparent disintegration
of society: it was pagan Rome, the Rome of the flesh, which was
ruined; Christian Rome, the Rome of spirit, had survived.
The underlying premises of Augustine's City of God affected the
way in which the western world would henceforth view history in several
fundamental ways. First, it shifted the focus of history from one of causality
to one of meaning. Causality became certain and unquestionable: it was
God Himself who drove the cosmos toward one definite final event. Second,
because God was directing history toward one end, the repeating historical
cycles of the Hebrews and the Greeks were subsumed by a linear concept
of time.(14) Third, due to the
new assumption that time was finite and linear, a sense of progress could
be seen in history. No longer was history simply the endless turning of
fortune's wheel; Augustine had given it a clear and definite direction,
one in which every event had its own significance.(15)
City of God also continued the Eusebian tradition of ecclesiastical
history, and he developed it into a more complex form. Not only did Augustine
weave scriptural and secular events together in a continuous chronology,
but he also imbued biblical events with a new historicity by convincingly
arguing for their credibility. Employing his relentless logic, Augustine
methodically explained the many anomalies and incongruities found in the
Hebrew bible, particularly those in the book of Genesis, and tied each
into his greater scheme of the two cities. It was Cain who built the first
city, the city of man. Augustine wrote:
At present it is the history which I aim at defending, that
Scripture may not be reckoned incredible when it relates that one man built
a city at a time in which there seem to have been but four men upon earth,
or rather indeed but three, after one brother slew the other . . .(16)
In answer, Augustine explains that the Bible does not necessarily speak
of all the people who may have been alive at that time, but only
the men who fell within the scope of the incident at hand. He goes on to
remind the reader that the antediluvians named in the Bible all lived to
be at least 753 years of age, which was ample time to generate a population
large enough to build and occupy a city.
He then goes on to explore biblical chronology, to explain why Methuselah
appears to live beyond the time of the Flood even though he was not on
the Ark, and to generally affirm the literal truth of scripture through
rational explanation. He also affirms the existence of miraculous occurrences,
citing examples of well-known natural phenomena to support his claim.(17)
Finally, Augustine wraps up City of God by addressing certain
questions concerning the details of the resurrection of the faithful which
would come at the end of the millennium. Because the resurrection would
include the restoration of one's earthly body, Augustine also had to refute
the Platonists who claimed that bodies would be too heavy to stay in heaven,
as well as answer many questions concerning the condition and appearance
of resurrected bodies.(18)
In sum, City of God consolidated the tradition of ecclesiastical
history begun by Eusebius and developed the sacred/profane dichotomy into
the paradigm of the two cities. Into this format Augustine also introduced
an eschatalogical element to history. This he did through the simultaneous
explication of history and theology, weaving them tightly together into
a nearly seamless doctrine of the steady march, according to the will of
God, toward the end of days. Also, in the hands of Augustine, history became
teleological, focused on the great purpose of fulfilling God's plan. This
doctrine, the development of which was motivated by the destruction of
Rome, was intended to encourage the citizens of the crumbling empire to
hold tight to the Christian faith, for although the world seemed on the
brink of disaster, it was intended by God to be so. To adhere to their
faith and submit to their fate was the obligation of every Christian. In
this way, Augustine (although he may not have been aware of it) more or
less closed the book on one civilization, that of the Roman empire, and
opened the window to a new one, medieval Europe.
And indeed, just as Augustine had suggested, to the average inhabitant
of early medieval Europe, the world certainly seemed to be declining toward
the eschaton. After the final collapse of the western empire, after
the departure of the relative order which it had imposed, came chaos, or
so it must have appeared to those who still remembered Rome. During the
fourth and fifth centuries, the Gothic and other "barbarian" tribes of
northern Europe and the steppe country were consolidating their massive
migration westward and southward, as they ultimately occupied most of what
had been the western empire. Europe became increasingly fragmented. In
the absence of a strong, centralized force which could bind them together,
isolated and diverse regional cultures began to develop independently across
the continent. Thus the once-universal culture of Rome degenerated into
a shifting cluster of ethnic communities, about which we know very little.
Each was its own dark and mysterious room into which one can now barely
peer. Across the continent, literacy declined precipitously, and was kept
alive almost exclusively within the Church. Hence the history, as scarce
as it was, written during the early middle ages was tinted with the distinctive
shade of Christianity, based on the doctrine of Augustine.
Even so, the resulting histories were by no means uniform. Most were
written by clerics of one sort or another, and most reflect, to a greater
or lesser extent, the Augustinian world view and the hand of God upon history.
The clerical historians varied greatly with respect to education, style,
ecclesiastical status, and the quality of their sources and scholarship.
Some, like Bede the Venerable, were learned men of high rank within the
church who had ready access to source materials. Others such as Jordanes
apparently had at least some access to sources, but his status within the
Church is less than clear. Still others, like Nennius, were poorly educated
monks forced to rely on remote sources and oral tradition. The number of
historical works produced between 500 and 1000 is few, and the number which
have survived until the present is fewer still. It is therefore difficult
to generalize about the historiography of this period.
It is, indeed, difficult to generalize even within a limited geographical
area. A study of the isle of Britain, "situated on almost the utmost border
of the earth, towards the south and west, and poised in the divine balance,
as it is said, which supports the whole world,"(19)
proves this. Of the period defined as the latter half of the first millennium
C.E., British history suffers from a lack of surviving sources worse than
any other region in Europe. The oldest of the few which remain is De
Excidio Britanniae et Conquestu, written by a Welsh monk named Gildas.(20)
Gildas, who wrote between 540 and 547, is almost universally panned
by historiographers as being inaccurate, hysterical, and biased. And indeed,
the tone of De Excidio is not particularly calm or rational. Gildas
was no Augustine, but Augustine's influence is quite visible in Gildas's
epistle. In his hyperbolic style, Gildas viewed the social and political
decay of fifth century Britain as an apocalypse.
It was not Gildas's primary purpose to write history; rather, as he
freely admits, the "subject of my complaint is the general destruction
of every thing that is good, and the general growth of evil throughout
the land."(21) He apparently
used no sources, relying solely upon what was widely known about the events
of the limited period of time of which he wrote. Yet if the reader can
forgive his extended agonizing and garment rending over the pitiful state
of politics and morality of his day, one will find kernels of historical
fact, as even his many critics are grudgingly forced to admit. Gildas is
the only source for the crucial period during which the Roman legions
departed Britain and the Germanic peoples moved in. His is the only account
of the fateful collaboration between the indiscreet British King Vortigern
and his Saxon mercenaries against the persistent Pictish invasions from
the north, and of the subsequent adventus Saxonum in Britain. It
was this latter event, the arrival of "the fierce and impious Saxons, a
race hateful both to God and men," which caused Gildas the most distress,
and which inspired his most colorful use of language. The chronology of
De Excidio is practically nonexistent; its only temporal clue comes
from a passage wherein Gildas describes the siege of Badon Hill, which
he dates as "forty-four years and one month after the landing of the Saxons,
and also the time of my own nativity."(22)
It is assumed that the reader would know when the Saxons had landed, and
to which Saxon landing Gildas referred.
The next narrative history to originate from England was much different
in character than that of the strident Gildas. In 731, the Venerable Bede
completed his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Bede
was also a monk, and it appears that he spent his entire adult life at
the monastery in Jarrow, Northumbria. The Ecclesiastical History
is but one of many scholarly works which Bede produced, yet it is the one
for which he is most famous. This is probably due to the absolute paucity
of English historical work during the early Middle Ages, as well as to
the high quality of the work itself. While many modern historians curl
their lips and sneer at poor Gildas, none would dare do so to Bede. His
Ecclesiastical History is universally lauded as a scholarly work
of the highest order.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this broad acclaim is that to the twentieth
century mind, Bede's history, unlike that of Gildas, is easily recognizable
as such. It bears all the marks of a well reasoned, well organized historical
account: extensive and critical use of sources, analysis, and synthesis.
There is no doubt that Bede was a remarkable scholar. He was, by all accounts,
dedicated to a life of study. Admitted to Holy Orders at the exceptionally
early age of nineteen, of himself Bede says, "All my life I spent in that
same monastery, giving my whole attention to the study of the Holy Scriptures,
and in the intervals between the hours of singing in the church, I always
took pleasure in learning, or teaching, or writing something."(23)
So devoted was he to these activities that later in his life he declined
to be elevated to the office of abbot, claiming that "[t]he office demands
thoughtfulness, and thoughtfulness brings with it distraction of the mind,
which impedes the pursuit of learning."(24)
Bede's devotion to scholarship was rivaled only by his piety, which
is equally apparent in the Ecclesiastical History. True to the form
first developed by Eusebius, Bede's history emphasized the actions of missionaries,
saints, and holy martyrs over those of kings and queens. When his mission
as an historian came into conflict with his religious devotion, his dedication
to his faith took precedence.(25) The
Church is the central focus of the work, and Bede clearly assumes that
it is the Church alone which is responsible for maintaining civil life.
His Ecclesiastical History tells us much about developments within
the Church in England, both great (the seventh century controversy over
the keeping of Easter) and small (the introduction of sacred music into
church services).(26) Taking
his cue from Augustine's sanction, Bede also includes many visions and
miracles in his history. In the pages of Bede's history he recounts, among
others, St. Cuthbert's ability to call forth a spring from dry ground through
the strength of his prayer and the miraculous healing power of John the
Bishop.(27) The inclusion of
miracles also affirms Augustine's doctrine of the two cities: by demonstrating
the power of God over base nature (the city of man), the holy men validated
belief in the spiritual city of God.
Overall, Bede's treatment of history, though at times he can hardly
suppress his religious enthusiasm,(28)
is generally very even-handed -- but not completely neutral. There are
still shades of the old hostility between Saxon and Briton visible in Bede's
writing. Although not nearly as vituperative as Gildas's attack on the
character of the Saxons ("a race hateful to both God and man"), even the
pious Anglo-Saxon Bede apparently could not resist taking a subtle swipe
at the Britons. Speaking of Oswald, "the most Christian king of the Northumbrians"
(Bede's home territory), he mentions one year of Oswald's otherwise stellar
reign which was "held accursed for the brutal impiety of the [unnamed]
King of the Britons."(29)
Unlike Gildas, Bede made extensive use of the many sources which were
available to him, which he enumerated in his preface to the Ecclesiastical
History. For England's pre-Christian history, he drew from the sizeable
library at the Jarrow monastery. When he had exhausted the library at Jarrow,
he sent for manuscripts from other English monasteries. More impressive,
however, was that he also received manuscripts on loan from Rome through
a London priest named Nothelm. For the time since "the English nation received
the faith of Christ," Bede used church records from all over England, from
which he obtained information about the East and West Saxons, the East
Angles, the South Saxons, as well as the provinces of the Isle of Wight,
Kent, and Lindsey.(30) Bede's
history is not arranged in a strictly chronological manner, and perhaps
this is due to the regional nature of his material and the political division
of the island into separate kingdoms.
The church records which Bede used as source material almost certainly
included a collection of monastic annals. This method of recording events
was an invention of the monasteries of England in the sixth century. Originally,
the purpose of the annals had been to record the dates of Easter, saints'
days, and church festivals. It was the abbot's duty to prepare such a calendar
each year. Somewhere near the end of the sixth century, however, the annals
began to be used for notations of other kinds. Most of the additions (called
"glosses") recorded events which had occurred during the year, although
other odd things were also occasionally added to them: genealogies, astronomical
phenomena, even corrections of previous glosses. The practice of keeping
annals spread to the continent in the seventh century, carried by English
missionaries. So valuable did these records prove to be, that Charlemagne
later required all monasteries in the Carolingian empire to keep them.(31)
Near the time when Charlemagne was discovering the value of the annals
form on the continent, the form itself was undergoing a transformation
in England. In the late eighth century, some local monastic annals were
combined into larger chronicles. The best surviving example of this sort
of plural chronicle is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It was apparently
first compiled from local annals during the latter part of the ninth century.(32)
Six manuscripts of the chronicle have survived, and one theory maintains
that it was copied and distributed to various monasteries around the year
891. After that point, the manuscripts begin to vary as their keeping was
turned over to the local monks. During the years of war from 911 to 924,
the several versions of the chronicle share an emphasis on the wider political
and ecclesiastical events of the day. Conversely, during the relative peace
between 925 and 975, the chronicles take on a more local character in the
absence of the captivating dramas of insular infighting. The biggest news
items between 925 and 941 were the ordinations and deaths of bishops. During
this period, many years have no entries at all. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
then, is almost like a monastic diary; when great events moved the island,
its pages are filled. When life returned to normal, only the most obligatory
entries were made.(33)
Another theory on the method of composition of the chronicles is based
not on their content, but rather derives from the handwriting found in
the manuscripts. According to J. A. Giles, each monastery had its own designated
historian, and it was the historian's duty "to copy the history of preceding
times from those who were already known to have written of them with success,
and to continue the narrative, during his own times, to the best of his
ability."(34) A study
of the existing manuscripts reveals that lengthy sections, spanning periods
of time much longer than one monkish historian might be expected to live,
were written in what appears to be the same handwriting. The quality of
the ink in which particular sections were penned is another clue as to
the contemporaneousness of their composition with other adjacent entries.
This seems to indicate that the monasteries "compared notes" from time
to time, copying especially good accounts from the chronicles of other
monasteries.(35)
Giles's theory of composition seems to explain the unusual overall uniformity
of the chronicle. The manuscripts have differing end dates which range
from 977 to 1154, with most of them terminating in the mid-eleventh century,
but their accounts of critical events are virtually the same, save a few
omissions and abridgements. That each monastic historian continued the
chronicle "to the best of his ability" is a very telling statement. The
varying levels of skill which other medieval writers possessed is evident
in the unevenness of medieval historiography in general. For those of lesser
ability with less education, Bede was undoubtedly an example to be emulated,
but unfortunately, he was a tough act to follow. One consistent trait of
the generally inconsistent history written during this period was the obligation
of each writer, including Bede, to profess his inadequacy to the task.
This may have been a sign of humility before God, or it could have been
a device to lower the reader's expectations, or both. Gildas began his
De Excidio with "[w]hatever in this my epistle I may write in my
humble but well-meaning manner . . . let no one suppose that it springs
from contempt of others, or that I foolishly esteem myself as better than
they . . ."(36) Similarly, in
his introduction to the Ecclesiastical History, Bede implores "all
men who shall hear or read this history of our nation" to pray for him
and his "manifold infirmities both of mind and body."(37)
The humility of Gildas and Bede was more a matter of form than of necessary
apology. Such is not the case with Nennius, another British monk-historian
of the late eighth or early-to-mid ninth century. Nennius was apparently
a native of Wales.(38) His history
is known as Historia Brittonum, and in his preface to the work,
Nennius gives 858 as the date of its composition. Presumably he was the
designated historian of his monastery, but the markedly different tone
of his opening apology shows that he clearly felt inadequate to the task.
Said Nennius:
Be it known to your charity, that being dull in intellect and
rude of speech, I have presumed to deliver these things in the Latin tongue,
not trusting to my own learning, which is little or none at all.(39)
Historia Brittonum aspires to be exactly that: a history of the
Britons. In his preface, Nennius complained that since the coming of the
Saxons, too much had been forgotten of British history. Lest "the name
of my own people, formerly famous and distinguished, should sink into oblivion,
and like smoke be dissipated," and also at the command of his superiors,
Nennius composed his history. He described his own method as "heap[ing]
together" all of the sources at his disposal, gleaning what he could of
the Britons from Roman annals, the works of Eusebius and Isidore of Seville,
from Scottish and Saxon chronicles, and "from our ancient traditions."(40)
Noticeably absent from this list is Bede, possibly because in his Ecclesiastical
History, the Britons are only peripherally represented. Also conspicuously
absent is the name of Gildas. This omission is less easy to understand,
as Gildas was also a Welshman and British patriot against the Saxons. Either
Nennius did not have access to a copy of the De Excidio manuscript,
or he cited the work anonymously. The story of the Saxon invasion is included
in Historia Brittonum, but it is unclear from whence it came. Even
if Nennius's account were mostly borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
it none the less includes a pro-British narrative which is strikingly similar
to that of Gildas. The patriotic thread of the narrative may have derived
from "our ancient traditions," but it is still odd that Gildas is not mentioned
at all. Knowledge of Gildas may have been one of the gaps in Nennius's
admittedly incomplete learning.
Just as Nennius had claimed, the final product may rightly be called
a heap. He was indeed as inadequate to the task as he had feared, yet it
is hard to fault him for " having attempted, like a chattering jay," to
redact the dissipating history of his people. He freely admits that "I,
to this day, have hardly been able to understand, even superficially .
. . the sayings of other men; . . . like a barbarian, have I murdered and
defiled the language of others."(41)
He made no attempt at synthesis of his diverse material, nor at
any sort of chronological arrangement. Historia Brittonum consists
of a biblical chronology borrowed from Eusebius, a list of cities in Britain,
and the obligatory geographical description of the island which had appeared
in all British histories from the time of Caesar. Then, before launching
into his disjointed history of the Britons, Nennius described their mythological
origin as the descendants of Brutus, the grandson of Aeneas.
There is very little ecclesiastical history in Nennius's work. He gives
an account of St. Germanus's mission in Britain, and a slightly briefer
account of St. Patrick. Nennius ignores completely St. Augustine, upon
whom Bede had fawned, and who dominated the first half of his Ecclesiastical
History.(42) Nennius actually
succeeded in raising more historical questions than he answered, as he
is the first source of the legendary or semi-legendary figures of Merlin
and Arthur. Traces of the Arthur character, based on Nennius's account,
can be found in the epistle of Gildas, but Gildas does not name anyone
called "Arthur." Nennius gives a list of twelve battles conducted under
Arthur's command, the last and most definitive of which was the battle
of Mount Badon, or of Badon's Hill, after which the Saxons were routed
for a time. Gildas tells of only one significant battle against the Saxons,
that of mons Badonicus, but he does not name the British general.
Nennius's source of the Arthurian account is probably from the ancient
traditions which he cites in his preface, which may have been preserved
in the bardic or oral traditions of the Welsh.
Nennius's nobly conceived but ineptly executed history paved the way
for a much more significant historian in the twelfth century, Geoffrey
of Monmouth, who, incidentally, was also a Welsh cleric. To call
Geoffrey an historian is, by modern standards, to push the limits of the
term to their extremes, but he occupies a unique position in English medieval
historiography. Between the Roman withdrawal from the island and the Norman
conquest, there had been a general dearth of historical writing. In the
twelfth century, however, the ranks of the historians suddenly swelled.
Geoffrey was one of the first of this group, which also included Henry
of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, and William of Newburgh. In 1136,
Geoffrey completed a work titled History of the Kings of Britain.
Although panned by his fellow historians, Geoffrey's history enjoyed a
widespread popular success.(43)
Geoffrey drew material from Gildas, Nennius, and Bede for his History,
and he admitted as much throughout the book. But he claimed to have an
advantage which neither the earlier historians nor his contemporary rivals
had: possession of "a certain very ancient book written in the British
language." That very ancient book, Geoffrey assured his reader, was "attractively
composed to form a consecutive and orderly narrative" which "set out all
the deeds of these men, from Brutus, the first King of the Britons, down
to Cadwallader, the son of Cadwallo." The book was lent to him by his friend
Walter, the Archbishop of Oxford, who was also considered to be learned
in the field of history. It was at Walter's request, as Geoffrey wrote
in the dedication of his History, that he endeavored to translate
the book from "the British language" (most historians understand this to
mean Welsh) into Latin.(44)
Equipped with Archbishop Walter's book, Geoffrey had in his hands a
complete and continuous history of the island -- or so he said. That very
ancient book is the center of a controversy that has clung to Geoffrey
since his own time. There is no surviving manuscript of the book. Most
historians confess that there is very little (if any) firm evidence to
support the belief that a book like this ever existed, but many of them
are loath to give up the quest. In 1951 a variant version of History
was published which differs in many ways from the standard Latin vulgate
text. This version lacked dedications, the acknowledgment of Archbishop
Walter, and any references to a very ancient book, all of which appear
in one form or another in the vulgate texts. Examination of the variant
version led some scholars to theorize that this may have been Geoffrey's
very ancient book. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this theory.
First, the book lacks the antiquity one would expect it to have; indeed,
it seems to be contemporary with Geoffrey himself. Second, it is not written
in the "British language," it is written in Latin.(45)
To understand the controversy over the very ancient book, however,
one must examine Geoffrey's History first.
The History of the Kings of Britain is a detailed narrative which
begins with the Trojan diaspora which followed the fall of Troy. Geoffrey
spent many pages on Brutus, the Trojan who was guided by the goddess Diana
to lead Britain's first inhabitants to the island (that is, if you don't
count the giants that were living there at the time). Brutus founded the
city of Troia Nova (New Troy), later called Trinovantum, later called
London, and it is after him that the island and its new resident population
are named.(46) From these beginnings
the Britons developed a sophisticated civilization, complete with roads,
amphitheaters, and baths. Two wise lawgivers, Dunvallo Molmutius and Queen
Marcia, separately codified bodies of just laws for the people.(47)
There was a dramatic power struggle between two brothers, Belinus
and Brennius, over the kingship of Britain to which Geoffrey paid special
attention. Eventually the Romans arrive, and they are surprised to find
a civilization very much like their own thriving on this island that was
"situated on almost the utmost border of the earth."(48)
In this brief summary of the early history of Britain lies the essence
of Geoffrey's historical method: he was a bold and unrepentant revisionist.
He was very careful to retain the sequence of events as recorded in other
sources, but the outcomes he freely changes to suit himself. Never mind
that Caesar's description of the Britons did not include any mention of
advanced civilizations with baths and amphitheaters. Never mind the accounts
of Bede and Nennius which record the defeat of the Britons with little
effort by the Romans. During Caesar's second campaign against the island,
the Britons planted thick metal-tipped spikes "as thick as a man's thigh"
into the bed of the Thames, with the intention of piercing the hulls of
the Roman ships as they sailed upriver. Both Bede and Nennius report that
the Romans easily saw through the trick and avoided the spikes altogether.(49)
Geoffrey, however, claimed that the Roman ships ran upon the spikes
and "[t]housands of soldiers were drowned as the river water flowed into
the holed ships and sucked them down."(50)
With only a cursory examination of the sources, it is obvious that Geoffrey's
version of history is quite at odds with other versions. The question,
then, is why? Why does Geoffrey write what appear to be nothing more than
wild fabrications? One answer might be that he really did have a very ancient
book from which he gleaned the real story. He very adeptly inserted
phrases into his narrative which almost convince the reader that he did
indeed have a book which contained even more detail than he can include.
More likely, though, is that he instead had an agenda, and the audacity
to push the limits of revisionism to extreme lengths to achieve it. Geoffrey's
agenda was to give a more flattering shape to the history of the Britons.
By Geoffrey's time, the Britons had been successively conquered by the
Romans, the Saxons, the Danes, and finally the Normans. Britain's centuries-old
role as doormat for any group of would-be invaders was undoubtedly humiliating.
As a Welshman, Geoffrey's goal was to put the Britons back on an even social
and cultural footing with the rest of the civilized western world. It is
difficult to know to whom he was writing and what precisely he hoped to
achieve, but one thing is certain: Geoffrey's History had far-reaching
and long-lasting effects on British cultural mythology and western European
literature.(51)
The way in which he achieved these effects is brilliant. He began by
establishing the Britons as a dignified and ancient civilization descended
from Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas of Troy. This legitimized the
Britons by connecting them to the classical Mediterranean civilizations,
among them Greece and Rome. Therefore, according to Geoffrey, as Caesar
looked across the Channel from Gaul, he felt a certain kinship to the Britons
based on their common ancestry.(52)
The Trojan connection was not a myth simply created ex nihilo by
Geoffrey; Nennius had mentioned it in minimal detail three hundred years
earlier as one of three conflicting explanations of British origins. Geoffrey
seized upon the idea, fleshed out the gaps in the story, and thereby created
a very respectable past for his people. He attempted to show that in spite
of the many times that Britain had been conquered, her dignified culture
had survived with respectable continuity.
Most of Geoffrey's historical material is appropriated from recognizable
sources and manipulated to produce a pro-British propaganda piece. The
complexity of the finished product is impressive. After giving the Britons
a Trojan origin, Geoffrey begins weaving together many threads, tying the
previously sketchy past to the political present with great artistry. The
next example of British accomplishment comes by way of Belinus and Brennius,
the sons of Dunvallo Molmutius the Law-Giver. According to Geoffrey, the
brothers invaded Gaul and sacked Rome in 390 B.C., "proving" that Britons
had conquered Rome, the greatest civilization in the world, long before
Rome conquered the Britons.(53)
We know from many ancient sources which predate Geoffrey that Rome was
indeed sacked in 390 B.C., and that the raid was led by a man named Brennus,
but he and his invading horde were Gallic, not British.(54)
In this episode several features of Geoffrey's editing method can be seen:
he modified the historical Brennus, created the brother Belinus, borrowed
the Gallic invasion, but omitted the parts where the Gauls seemed weak
or foolish.(55) Like the tale
of Trojan origin, the story of the sack of Rome was not pure fabrication;
it is a creative rearrangement of the available facts, with details added
as necessary. These examples show that Geoffrey was very careful and very
skilled in making sure that all the various strands of his stories come
neatly together at the end to glorify the Briton civilization.(56)
As an historian, Geoffrey had more in common with Walter Scott than
with the Venerable Bede; his lasting contributions are more literary than
historical. Geoffrey's most famous characters are the British King Arthur,
his other-worldly advisor Merlin, and Arthur's legendary court, all of
whom emerge in full vibrant color from the mysterious silences of Gildas
and Bede. Remember, until Nennius heaped together his Historia Brittonum
in the ninth century, there had been no mention of anyone named Arthur
in any of the manuscripts of early British history, or in any Roman annals,
and Nennius's depictions had been sketchy, to say the least. In Geoffrey's
hands they came to life and acquired a "history." It is because of Geoffrey
that nearly everyone in the western world knows who King Arthur is. It
was he who lit the romantic literary flame, with which European writers
had a field day for several hundred years. The medieval romance writers
Chrétien de Troyes and Sir Thomas Malory expanded the Arthurian
story and infused it with contemporary cultural values, and created an
epic tragedy which defined the behavioral code of chivalry. Another little-known
contribution of Geoffrey's to western literature is the story of King Lear,
which William Shakespeare adapted and made famous four hundred years later.(57)
The attempts by his fellow twelfth century English historians to
discredit him as on of their own apparently fell on deaf ears. It was not
until the nineteenth century that Geoffrey's credentials as an historian
were seriously questioned.
Two common threads run though the diverse British/English histories
of Gildas, Bede, Nennius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth. The first is that all
were written by men of the Church, being the primary repository of literacy
during the time in question. The second is that of ethnocentrism. Gildas
beat his breast and wailed against the incursions of the Picts, Scots,
and Saxons. Bede, the Anglo-Saxon, hardly saw fit to include any mention
the Britons in his work. Nennius, in spite of his self-uncertainty, felt
compelled to rescue the history of the Britons from the obscurity into
which it was sinking. And Geoffrey, taking it several steps farther, concocted
an ancient and glorious civilization for the Britons, one which was on
a par with that of Rome itself. Beyond this common thread, the Anglo-British
histories, although several also embody the subtheme of the repression
of various heresies, are all quite different in character. Gildas's only
outside source seems to have been the Bible, which he quoted extensively.
He was motivated to write by the rampant depravity which he perceived that
Britain had descended into, and out of the fear of retribution by a vengeful
God. The sole purpose of De Excidio was to issue a broad exhortation
to repentance, a call for the Britons to save themselves and their homeland
through a return to piety. Particularly noxious to Gildas was a resurgence
of the anti-trinitarian "Arian treason, fatal as a serpent, and vomiting
its poison from beyond the sea."(58)
In sharp contrast to Gildas, Bede's history was calm, scholarly, and
well-researched. Bede had the broadest access to source materials of any
of the British or English historians whom have here been discussed, and
he made good use of them. Bede's purpose was twofold: to exercise his scholarly
calling, and to glorify the Church. The Ecclesiastical History shows,
in a manner less strident than that of Gildas, the Augustinian notion of
the hand of God working in history. He also took pains to declare the true
doctrine of the Church and to denounce the hydra-headed Pelagian heresy
which had "sadly corrupted the faith of the Britons." Here the doctrine
of Augustine appears again as Bede affirms his conceptualizations of grace
and original sin over the apostate theology of the Pelagians.(59)
Nennius, in turn, shows a marked contrast both to Bede and to Gildas.
He claimed to have used sources which he named, but he did not always succeed
in transferring the finer form and language of his sources to his own work.
Beyond his personal indignation at state of British (as opposed to English)
historiography and his painful sense of inadequacy, Nennius had no further
overt agenda or distinctive literary tone. Indirectly, he upheld the dogma
of the Church, as God and his saints are peppered throughout the narrative,
as more of an assumed reality than as a direct delineation of doctrine.
Only once does Nennius make a plain doctrinal declaration. While giving
the genealogy of the first Saxon invaders, one of whom claimed descent
from the son of a god, he took care to point out to the reader that it
was not the same as "our Lord Jesus Christ (who before the beginning of
the world, was with the Father and the Holy Spirit, co-eternal and of the
same substance, and who, in compassion to human nature, disdained not to
assume the form of a servant)."(60)
Aside from this impulsive trinitarian declaration, Nennius was more consumed
with the vexing task of writing than with ecclesiastical fervor.
Finally, there is Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose work is clearly of a different
sort than all which had gone before. Although Geoffrey himself was, shortly
before his death, the bishop-elect of St. Asaph's, his History of the
British Kings is remarkably secular in character. God is present, but
only peripherally. This is partly due to the uneven emphasis which Geoffrey
places on certain periods of British history. The greatest number of pages
are devoted to the two eras of Britain's greatest glory: the high civilization
of classical origin which was imported by Brutus the Trojan, and the reign
of Arthur. The former occurs in pre-Christian times, and God is noticeably
absent from this section. The reign of Arthur, whom later writers converted
into a very Christian king, is much less so in Geoffrey's version. It is
only after the passing of Arthur that God steps actively into history.
Geoffrey's treatment of this matter depicts the Britons almost as latter-day
Hebrews. His is a tale of God's chosen people who, in spite of His favor
and blessing, repeatedly backslide until God finally loses patience with
them and abandons them to the fate of their own making. After Arthur receives
his mortal wound and is spirited away to Avalon and the British kingship
begins its irrevocable slide into moral degeneration, God withholds his
intervention and condemns the Britons to a period of dispersion and suffering,
a period which would end at God's pleasure with the return of Arthur to
reunite the scattered Britons.(61)
Just as there was little uniformity in the writing of history within
the geographically confined space of England, neither was there much uniformity
on the European continent before the twelfth century. There are certain
parallels between the two: with few exceptions, most continental histories
were written by men of the Church, and most exhibit the same ethnocentrism
as the English histories. In the sixth century Gothic History of
Jordanes, this ethnocentrism occasionally takes an extreme form, bordering
on xenophobia. The Gothic History was written at the request of
someone named Castalius, whom had asked that Jordanes condense the Gothic
history of Cassiodorus Senator from its original twelve books into one,
and to extend it to the present day. Jordanes agreed, but there was one
small problem: Jordanes was in Constantinople at the time, and the twelve-book
history of Cassiodorus was not. However, as he wrote to Castalius in his
preface, because he had read it twice, he believed that he could adequately
reproduce its essential content from memory, and add other "fitting matters
from some Greek and Roman histories" with which he was also familiar.(62)
He opened his work with the traditional apology for his lack of skill,
only in this case it does not quite ring true. "[R]eproach me not," wrote
Jordanes, "but receive and read with gladness what you have asked me to
write."(63) His thinly disguised
pride at his accomplishment may relate to his later admission that "[I
was] an unlearned man before my conversion."(64)
His pride also extends to his membership within the Gothic tribe; his bias
is unmistakable. A sizeable part of his history deals with European ethnography
and the various "barbarian" tribes which had settled there. In most of
his descriptions, Jordanes is somewhat restrained. Yet when he tells of
"the Huns, [who] flamed forth against the Goths," he exercises no censorship
over his derogatory language. The Huns were "a stunted, foul and puny tribe"
descended, he tells us, from Scythian witches and "unclean spirits."(65)
So horrible was their appearance that it caused their foes to flee in terror,
for the Huns had "a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes
rather than eyes."(66)
The main value of Jordanes's history to contemporary historians is its
content, and not its style. The twelve book Gothic history of Cassiodorus
Senator is lost in its original form, but is preserved somewhat in the
writing of Jordanes. More importantly, Jordanes was the first to attempt
to relate the history of the German migration, for which he had no written
sources. By putting the oral traditions and sagas of the Goths in writing,
he preserved an important piece of history, which now serves as one of
the few sources of that distant and opaque time(67).
His style reflects his status as a latecomer to learning; his work is more
reminiscent of Nennius than of Bede. Jordanes's narrative frequently rambles
and digresses. He is uncritical and in places, quite credulous, especially
with respect to events in Scythia. As mentioned, it is there where the
Huns were spawned by native witches. Also, with apparent belief and sincerity
he relates the origins and practices of a tribe of Scythian Amazons.(68)
One tale in particular embodies both his credulity and his bias, namely
that of Maximin the wrestling giant. Maximin (called Maximus Magnus in
later histories) was a "semi-barbarian," whose father was a Goth, and whose
mother was of the Alani (presumably he inherited his semi-barbarous status
through his maternal lineage). Maximin, in spite of his "most humble parentage,"
was recruited into the service of the Emperor's body guard after his performance
at the Emperor Severus's military games. Severus was impressed "at his
great size -- for his stature, it is said, was more than eight feet," and
at the giant's proficiency at wrestling. Eventually he became Emperor (or
usurper, as later historians would call him) by vote of his army when their
commander was slain. Maximin's one unfortunate vice was that he persecuted
Christians, but Jordanes seemed willing to forgive him this one flaw, preferring
instead to proudly display Maximin as an example of how a low-born Goth
became an emperor by virtue of superior physical prowess.(69)
The tale of Maximin points to one of the most striking features of Jordanes's
history of the Goths as compared with other early medieval histories: God
is consigned to a relatively unimportant role. He is not a central figure
or motivating force behind historical events. The Gothic History
resembles the Greek pagan histories more than the post-Augustinian histories
of other writer who were schooled in the Church. God does not actively
appear until nearly half way through Jordanes's narrative, and then it
is only to justify the Goths' inadvertent burning of a small cabin which,
unbeknownst to them, housed the wounded emperor Valens:
. . . and thus he was cremated in royal splendor. Plainly it
was a direct judgment of God that he should be burned with fire by the
very men whom he had perfidiously led astray when they sought the true
faith, turning them aside from the flame of love into the fire of hell.(70)
Jordanes did not give a date for his conversion to Christianity, but he
did say that he was a man at the time it occurred. Perhaps his late conversion
accounts for the minor role to which God is assigned in his history. Whatever
the reason, Jordanes was foremost a Goth, and secondarily a Christian.
The History of the Franks, completed by Gregory of Tours between
591 and 594, is more true to the Augustinian form than is Jordanes's Gothic
History. An Eusebian chronology of the world since Creation opens the
history, and God is active on nearly every page. Accounts of holy miracles
replace the tall sensational tales of Jordanes, and heresy once again rears
its head. Indeed, Gregory devoted the first two pages of Book One of The
History of the Franks to a lengthy declaration of faith, as "established
by the three hundred and eighteen bishops of Nicaea."(71)
Gregory displayed little tolerance of heretics, and he frequently
quizzed the various envoys of the Frankish kings as to the nature of their
faith. If he detected the taint of Arianism, Gregory argued with the heretic
and attempted to convert him to the correct doctrine. He, by his own account,
did not always succeed.(72)
This shows one of Gregory's traits as a writer: he seems quite honest.
There are no undue exaggerations in History of the Franks concerning
events with which Gregory was contemporary. He did not shy away from his
failures to convert heretics, and he freely told of his fellow churchmen
who had fallen into grave error.(73)
Another of his stylistic traits is the galloping pace at which he
wrote. Unlike Bede's calm pious history and unlike Jordanes's meandering
tales, Gregory's narrative moves apace from one thing to the next rather
briskly. The bulk of The History of the Franks is concerned with
matters of the Church and of the Frankish kings and princes. Yet there
are numerous small details embedded in the traditional "kings and Church"
format which reveal some of the habits of the Merovingian culture. Gregory
mentioned various diets, hair styles, the use of a pumice stone as an eraser,
and the use of scissors. There are also multiple asides which describe
the wearing of hair shirts, the presence of glass in church windows, and
descriptions of various types of penance.
During his time there was also an appearance by one whom Gregory described
as an Antichrist. There had been a plague in Gaul, as well as famine and
pestilence. A "certain man of Bourges" had been encompassed by a swarm
of flies during the pestilence, and afterward he wandered from place to
place wearing skins and acting like a holy man. By "evil device[s] of the
devil," this man was able to heal the sick and foresee the future. He professed
that he was Christ, and he traveled with a woman named Mary. Leading his
entourage were "naked men, who leapt and performed antics as they went."
Eventually he gained a following of more than three thousand people, including
a few priests of the Church. As he grew bolder in his role, he began to
threaten those who would not worship him. His march was finally halted
in the territory of Le Velay by bishop Aurelius of Anicium who had the
false Christ cut into three pieces by swords.(74)
The History of the Franks, excluding the Creation chronology,
extends from 397 to 591, or roughly the time during which the great migrations
of the Germanic tribes were nearing their end. Curiously, Gregory's account
makes no mention whatsoever of the Visigothic sack of Rome in 410. It is
not because he excluded the Goths from his narrative; they and their various
conflicts and kings are sprinkled throughout the early part of Gregory's
history. Another hypothesis for Gregory's omission might be that due to
the lack of cultural cohesion and poor communication, he did not know about
it or recognize its importance. This seems extremely unlikely, however,
for to be unaware of the event would have meant that Gregory had never
read City of God. One clue might possibly lie in an account from
Bede: in the "two years before the invasion of Rome by Alaric, king of
the Goths, when the nations of the Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and many others
with them, having defeated the Franks and passed the Rhine . . .
(italics mine)."(75) Possibly
Gregory omitted this important little event because it cast the Franks
in a less than flattering light. However, this explanation does not ring
true either, for to do so would be a violation of his apparent principle
of honesty.
Whatever the reason for the omission, it does little to diminish Gregory's
work. He seemed to have a sense that The History of the Franks had
been a worthwhile labor. At the history's end, Gregory entreats those who
would follow:
These works may be written in an unpolished style, but I adjure
all of you, bishops of the Lord, who after me in my lowliness shall govern
the church of Tours . . . never to let these books be destroyed or rewritten,
by choosing out some parts and omitting others, but to leave them all complete
and intact in your time just as I myself have left them. . . . If aught
therein please thee, I refuse thee not permission to translate it into
verse; but leave my work complete(76)
Fortunately, the future bishops of Tours heeded Gregory's wishes. The
History of the Franks was one of the last wide-ranging historical narratives
to be produced anywhere in the western European continent until several
centuries hence.(77)
During the two hundred year period between the death of Gregory of Tours
in 594 and the advent of the Carolingian renaissance, the familiar ecclesiastical
and ethnic histories almost ceased to be written. In their stead, a new
biographical form was developed. The biography itself was not new, as it
had been a popular literary form in Roman times. But during the medieval
period, under the influence of Augustine, biographies assumed a new shape
and purpose. Most of these fall into the category of hagiography, or lives
of the saints. The hagiographers, and they were numerous, recorded some
material of historical worth, but their primary purpose was to enshrine
the saint. Since one qualification for sainthood was the performance of
miracles, the lives of the saints are duly packed with them. Extracting
factual material from the lives of the saints requires much patience and
a healthy dose of skepticism.
Sometime between 829 and 836, a man named Einhard wrote The Life
of Charlemagne. This biography was an exception to almost all of the
historical forms and traditions previously discussed. The Life of Charlemagne
was not the life of a saint, nor did it follow the hagiographic pattern;
it was nearer in form to the ancient Roman imperial biographies. Nor was
it written by a cleric. Einhard had been one of the beneficiaries of Charlemagne's
effort to produce a secular class of literate men upon which he could draw
to assist him in the administration of his widening empire. As a child
"of [a] comparatively noble" Frankish family, Einhard was sent to be educated
at the monastic school at Fulda, of which his family was a benefactor.
Later he was selected by Charlemagne to continue his education at state
expense in the Palace School at Aachen.(78)
In 794 he began his employment as secretary to the court of Charlemagne.
Einhard's stated goal was not to recount deeds of antiquity, yet he
did give a brief account of the transition from the Merovingian to the
Carolingian dynasty. In his brief opening chapter, one thin thread of continuity
bridges the gap of the two intervening centuries which separated Einhard
and Gregory of Tours. When the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, was
deposed by Pope Stephen II, his long hair, the badge of his kingship (a
custom described by Gregory) was shorn and he was shut up in a monastery.(79)
But Einhard wasted little time on this sort of history; it was important
to him only inasmuch as it paved the way for the eventual ascension of
Charlemagne, that "most distinguished and deservedly most famous king."(80)
Of Charlemagne's boyhood, Einhard says nothing. The reason, he claimed,
was that he had no personal knowledge of the matter, and he "therefore
decided to leave out what [was] not really known" in favor of the king's
deeds and habits, of which he had more direct evidence.
This statement tells the reader much about Einhard's education. "What
was really known" had not been a uniformly important criterion for determining
whether or not a story merited inclusion within a history since the classical
Roman period. In the early medieval period there were very few exceptions
to this generalized acceptance of facts without evidence, one of whom was
Bede. And indirectly, it was in fact Bede's disciplined scholarship which
influenced Einhard's decision to omit the childhood narrative due to a
lack of direct knowledge. At Aachen, Einhard had been taught by the famous
scholar Alcuin, and Alcuin had in turn been taught by Egbert, who had been
a student of Bede's.(81) Einhard,
as the great-grand-student of Bede, had inherited the disciplined critical
method of Anglo-Saxon England's greatest scholar.
Even so, Einhard did little to disguise his admiration for Charlemagne,
although his prose style is restrained and even. He first recounted the
numerous wars waged by Charlemagne as part of his empire-building campaign.
Curiously, Einhard seemed quite neutral in his accounts of the skirmishes
with the Danes, the Avars, the Bretons, the Bavarians, and the Slavs. Yet
when he speaks of the conflict with the Saxons, he speaks with an uncharacteristic
distaste. Of the Saxons, he said they were "ferocious by nature" and "much
given to devil worship."(82)
Einhard then moves on to Charlemagne's personal life. He does not shy
away from describing his neck as "short and rather thick" and his stomach
as "a trifle too heavy." In this section of the biography it becomes clear
that Einhard knew Charlemagne well. His is a portrait of a man who slept
lightly, loved to swim, loved to eat, and loved to learn. However, he apparently
had no talent for penmanship. Einhard tells that Charlemagne kept writing
tablets under his pillows so he could practice forming letters before going
to bed. "[A]lthough he tried very hard," said Einhard, "he had begun too
late in life and he made little progress."(83)
So devoted was Charlemagne to education that he even schooled his
daughters.(84) At meals he enjoyed
having Augustine's City of God read aloud to him while he ate.(85)
The combination of Einhard's education, literary skill, and his firsthand
knowledge of his subject produced an extremely satisfying, if somewhat
biased, biography which is a tribute to Charlemagne's belief in education.
Charlemagne's appreciation for history had, as mentioned earlier, prompted
him to require that monastic annals be kept throughout his empire. After
his death, his empire quickly dissolved, but the efforts of Alcuin and
the assembled literati at Aachen had a much longer lasting effect on European
culture. After this point in history, the immense intellectual void which
characterized the seventh and early eighth centuries gave way to the gradual
resurgence of literacy.(86)
Tracing this thread back to the study of the historiography of the British
Isles, there are rough parallels between it and the continental works produced
during the period between the death of Charlemagne and the twelfth century.
Monastic chronicles continued to be kept after Charlemagne's demise, thus
perpetuating the recording of events, if not the actual writing of history.
The classical works transcribed by the Aachen scholars were recopied and
circulated, which, if nothing else, increased the availability of intellectual
literature. Contact with Arabic scholars in occupied Iberia also contributed
to the increasingly intellectual climate of the early High Middle Ages.
By the beginning of the twelfth century, narrative histories had once more
emerged from the disjointed and uneven chronicles of the monkish keepers
of events.
In 1095 Pope Urban II sent out the call for what would later be called
the First Crusade, an event which would have an impact on European culture
which he could not possibly have foreseen. Though the first and following
crusades were failures with respect to their intended purposes, the effects
of the re-exposure to lost learning which was a by-product of the crusades
were profound. Historiography had already reacquired a narrative form,
as is evident in Fulcher of Chartres's chronicle of the First Crusade.
Furthermore, Fulcher's narrative exhibits a fine, crisp dramatic style.
Describing the circumstances which led to Urban II's decision to call for
the crusade, Fulcher wrote in bold, rhythmic form:
He saw that the faith of Christianity was being destroyed to
excess by everybody, by the clergy as well as by the laity. He saw that
peace was altogether discarded by the princes of the world, who were engaged
in incessant warlike contention and quarreling among themselves. He saw
the wealth of the land being pillaged continuously. He saw many of the
vanquished, wrongfully taken prisoner and very cruelly thrown into the
foulest dungeons, either ransomed for a high price or, tortured by the
triple torments of hunger, thirst, and cold, blotted out by a death hidden
from the world. He saw holy places violated; monasteries and villa burned.
He saw that no one was spared of any human suffering, and that things divine
and human alike were held in derision.(87)
Fulcher's intriguing, metered style continues throughout his account of
the First Crusade, and is somewhat reminiscent of a heroic, driving chanson
de geste. The lowly historical chronicle had begun to acquire a literary
quality.
It was upon this literary quality which Geoffrey of Monmouth and others
seized. Historical accounts became lyrical and readable, and increasing
filled with drama. Though falling short of modern standards, when the historiography
of the twelfth century is compared to that of the sixth, it is truly a
marvelous development. Although the eschatological Augustinian world view
still prevailed, it was as if the literati of Christendom, realizing that
seven or eight hundred years after the fall of Rome the millennium had
still not arrived, had decided to spend its latter days more aesthetically
than ascetically.
It is odd that during this "dark" period of history, it was insular
England which was able to preserve and develop historiographic traditions,
and to eventually retransmit them to continental Europe. It is not easy
to explain this phenomenon. Like the continent, it too had its share of
disruptive "barbarian" invasions. Furthermore, Britain lost its Roman culture
earlier than the rest of Europe. Its most crucial historical phase, that
of the Roman exodus and the Saxon incursion, was also its "darkest" with
respect to historical writing. Yet Anglo-Britain managed to produce the
finest historian of the early Middle Ages, Bede the Venerable. It also
was the birthplace of a unique historiographic innovation, the monastic
annals.
In the final analysis, it is astonishing how influential the Venerable
Bede actually was. Humble Bede, who declined to be raised to the position
of abbot of the Jarrow monastery lest it detract from his scholarly pursuits,
was the wellspring from whence came the scholar Alcuin, who in turn directed
the educational facet of the Carolingian renaissance. Furthermore, the
Carolingian renaissance, as we have seen, was the first spark which ignited
the slow burn which, although it did not set Europe aflame, did manage
to provide enough light to permit the copying and production of manuscripts.
This was sufficient to maintain the art of learning until other tinder
boxes cast other wild sparks upon the dry straw of the European intellect.
ANCIENT SOURCES
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical
History of England, also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle with Illustrative Notes,
a Map of Anglo-Saxon England, and a General Index, ed. J. A. Giles.
2d ed. Translated J.A. Giles. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849; reprint, New
York: AMS Press, 1971.
Augustine. City of God. In Basic Writings of Saint
Augustine, Vol. 2, ed. Whitney J. Oates. Translated by M. Dods, G.
Wilson, and J. J. Smith. New York: Random House, 1948.
Bede, the Venerable. Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum.
In The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, also the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle with Illustrative Notes, a Map of Anglo-Saxon England,
and a General Index, ed. J. A. Giles. 2d ed. Translated J.A. Giles.
London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1971.
Einhard. The Life of Charlemagne. In Two Lives of Charlemagne,
ed. Betty Radice. Translated and with an introduction by Lewis Thorpe.
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1969; reprint, 1976.
Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History. 2 Vols. Translated by Roy J.
Deferrari. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
1953; reprint, 1965.
Fulcher of Chartres. The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres, Book
1. Translated by Martha E. McGinty. In The First Crusade,
ed. Edward Peters. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain. Translated
and with an introduction by Lewis Thorpe. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England:
Penguin Books Ltd, 1966; reprint, 1968.
Gildas. De Excidio Britanniae et Conquestu. Translated and edited
by J. A. Giles, Six Old English Chronicles. London: George Bell
and Sons, 1900.
Gregory of Tours. The History of the Franks. Translated and with
an introduction by O. M. Dalton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927; facsimile
edition, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1969.
Jordanes. The Gothic History of Jordanes. Translated and with
a commentary by Charles Christopher Mierow. 2d ed. Princeton University
Press: 1915; reprint, Cambridge: Speculum Historiale, 1960.
Nennius. Historia Brittonum. Translated and edited by J. A. Giles,
Six Old English Chronicles. London: George Bell and Sons, 1900.
BOOKS
Barker, John. The Superhistorians. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1982.
Curley, Michael J. Geoffrey of Monmouth. Twayne's English Authors
Series. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994.
Gransden, Antonia. Historical Writing in England, c. 550 - c.1307.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974; reprint, 1982.
MacDougall, Hugh A. Racial Myth in English History: Trojans, Teutons,
and Anglo-Saxons. Montreal: Harvest House, 1982.
Thompson, James Westfall, and Bernard J. Holm. A History of Historical
Writing. Vol. 1. From the Earliest Times to the End of the Seventeenth
Century. The Macmillan Company, 1942; reprint, Gloucester, Mass.: Peter
Smith, 1967.
1. Jordanes, The Gothic History of Jordanes,
translated and with a commentary by Charles Christopher Mierow, 2d ed.
(Princeton University Press: 1915; reprint, Cambridge: Speculum Historiale,
1960), 92.
2. Ibid., 93.
3. Ibid., 94.
4. Ibid.
5. Augustine, City of God, in Basic
Writings of Saint Augustine, vol. 2, ed. Whitney J. Oates, translated
by M. Dods, G. Wilson, and J. J. Smith (New York: Random House, 1948),
4-5.
6. James Westfall Thompson and Bernard J. Holm, A
History of Historical Writing, vol. 1, From the Earliest Times to
the End of the Seventeenth Century ( The Macmillan Company, 1942; reprint,
Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967), 126.
7. Ibid., 127-8.
8. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, vol.
1, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1953; reprint, 1965), book 1 passim.
9. Thompson, History of Historical Writing,
129.
10. Augustine, City of God, 10.
11. Ibid., 36.
12. It should be noted that using the year 410 as
a marker for the end of the western empire is somewhat arbitrary, and more
a product of historical hindsight than of contemporary awareness. Jordanes
the Goth continued to refer to the Roman empire as existing well beyond
410, as did other writers.
13. Augustine, City of God, 243.
14. Ibid., 190, 197.
15. John Barker, The Superhistorians (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982), 47.
16. Augustine, City of God, 284.
17. Ibid., 569. All of his examples given
here are more or less credible, with the exception of his claim that mares
in Cappadocia are impregnated by the wind.
18. Ibid., 630-41. Other interesting questions
which Augustine tackles: Will those who died as infants be resurrected
as babies or adults? Will women, tainted by the sin of Eve, be instead
resurrected as men? Will those with infirmities (including the overweight
and the malnourished) be healed? Generally speaking, the answer to these
questions is that all will be resurrected as adults and retain their original
sex, and they will all be attractive, and of average weight.
19. Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae et Conquestu,
trans. and ed. by J. A. Giles, in Six Old English Chronicles, (London:
George Bell and Sons, 1900), 2.3. I'm not sure what he meant by "towards
the south," nor do I recall ever seeing any commentary on it.
20. De Excidio is also called, in other places,
Liber querulus de excidio Britanniae. See Thompson, History of
Historical Writing, 154.
21. Gildas, De Excidio, 1.1.
22. Ibid., 2.26.
23. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum,
n The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, also the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle with Illustrative Notes, a Map of Anglo-Saxon England, and a
General Index, ed. and trans. J. A. Giles (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849;
reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1971), xi, 297.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 123. By unanimous decree of the
Church, the names of several apostate kings were "erased from the catalogue
of Christian kings, and no date ascribed to their reign."
26. Ibid. For controversy over the date of
the Easter observance, see 104-6 and 153-60. On the introduction of sacred
music, see 173.
27. Ibid., 227-8, 237-41.
28. At one point in the Ecclesiastical History,
Bede, having just sung the praises of the virgin abbess Queen Etheldrida,
just can't resist inserting a hymn of his own composition dedicated to
the Holy Virgin. See 207-8.
29. Ibid., 123.
30. Ibid., 2-3.
31. Thompson, History of Historical Writing,
158.
32. Ibid., 160.
33. Ibid., 160-1.
34. J. A. Giles, preface to The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
xxxvi.
35. Ibid., xxxi-xxxiii.
36. Gildas, De Excidio, 1.1.
37. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 3-4.
38. The true identity of Nennius, including questions
of when his history was written, whether Nennius actually wrote it, or
if his name was really Nennius, is still debated. For the purpose of this
paper I shall sidestep this complex debate and treat him and his history
at face value, according to the most commonly cited manuscript of his work.
39. Nennius, Historia Brittonum, trans. and
ed. by J. A. Giles, in Six Old English Chronicles (London: George
Bell and Sons, 1900), 1.1.
40. Ibid., 3.2.
41. Ibid., 3.2, 1.1.
42. Similarly, Bede ignored Patrick completely.
43. One hundred and eight-six manuscripts of the
History of the Kings of Britain have survived, forty-eight of which
are complete, and two of which, although fragmentary, date to Geoffrey's
own century. See Lewis Thorpe, introduction to History of the Kings
of Britain, 28.
44. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings
of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.,
1966; reprint, 1968), 51.
45. Lewis Thorpe, introduction to History of
the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, 16.
46. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings
of Britain, 73-4.
47. Ibid., 94, 100. Geoffrey tells us that
King Alfred later took this body of law and translated it into Saxon, calling
it the "Mercian Law" after wise Queen Marcia the Briton.
48. Gildas, De Excidio, 2.3. For Caesar's
brief monologue on the common Trojan heritage of the Britons and the Romans,
see Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, 105.
49. Nennius, Historia Brittonum, 3.20, and
Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 8.
50. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings
of Britain, 112.
51. Hugh A. MacDougall, Racial Myth in English
History: Trojans, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons (Montreal: Harvest House,
1982), 7.
52. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings
of Britain, 105.
53. Ibid., 98-9.
54. Michael J. Curley, Geoffrey of Monmouth,
Twayne's English Authors Series (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994), 24.
55. Ibid., 26. The name "Belinus" appears
in Nennius's Historia Brittonum (3.19), but he is a Roman proconsul
contemporary with Julius Caesar.
56. Sections of the preceding five pages excerpted
from Sheila Brynjulfson, "Geoffrey of Monmouth and The History of the
Kings of England," unpublished paper, 1996.
57. Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England,
c. 550 - c.1307 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974; reprint, 1982),
203. Geoffrey's Lear was spelled "Leir," and his rule is alleged to be
contemporary with the founding of Rome. See Geoffrey of Monmouth, History
of the Kings of Britain, 81-7.
58. Gildas, De Excidio, 2.12.
59. Augustine, City of God, 585; Bede, Ecclesiastical
History, 26, 32.
60. Nennius, Historia Brittonum, 3.50.
61. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings
of Britain, 261, 280-4.
62. Jordanes, The Gothic History, 51.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., 127.
65. Ibid., 85.
66. Ibid., 86-7.
67. Thompson, History of Historical Writing,
147.
68. Jordanes, The Gothic History, 64, 66.
69. Ibid., 74-6.
70. Ibid., 90.
71. Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks,
trans. and with an introduction by O. M. Dalton (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1927; facsimile edition, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1969), 5-6.
72. Ibid., 214-7, 271-4.
73. See the tale of Dagulf the abbot who, when caught
in bed with a "strange woman," is hacked to death with an axe by the strange
woman's husband. This was only one of Dagulf's several transgressions.
Ibid., 344.
74. Ibid., 461-3.
75. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 18. However,
I can find no direct reference to the conflict between the Franks and Goths
in Jordanes's Gothic history either. There are a few disdainful offhand
comments about "the barbarous Franks," but Jordanes preferred to give his
almost undivided attention to the far more barbarous Huns.
76. Ibid., 477.
77. Thompson, History of Historical Writing,
151.
78. Lewis Thorpe, introduction to Einhard, The
Life of Charlemagne, in Two Lives of Charlemagne, ed. Betty
Radice, trans. by Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin
Books Ltd, 1969; reprint, 1976), 13.
79. Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne, 55.
80. Ibid., 51.
81. Ibid., 189.
82. Ibid., 61. Of this conflict, the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle says only: "780: This year the Old-Saxons and the Franks
fought." See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 340.
83. Ibid., 79.
84. Ibid., 74.
85. Ibid., 78.
86. Thompson, History of Historical Writing,
165.
87. Fulcher of Chartres, The Chronicle of Fulcher
of Chartres, book 1, trans. by Martha E. McGinty, in The First Crusade,
ed. Edward Peters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971),
26. The rhythm of this passage reminds me of Jefferson's list of grievances
from the Declaration of Independence.
