Author or Anonymity

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

- Emily Dickinson

In 1967 Roland Barthes claimed that to give a text an author was an imposition to that text. This view was presented in his essay The Death of the Author in which he argued that it was the reader, not the writer, who gave the text its unity and that the writer was a thing of literatures past. Barthes also parenthetically reprimanded the earlier school of New Criticism for not having done away with the author, despire the school's focus on studying the text itself. This idea of a divorce between author and text has recently become very pertinent due to a relatively new literary trend, the autobiographical novel, or - should you prefer - the fictionalised autobiography. The emergence of such novels have caused reviewers and critics to prophesise that the border between fiction and non-fiction will not just be blurred but eventually completely erased.

My personal go-to figurehead of this trend is John Maxwell Coetzee whose autobiographical trilogy - comprising Boyhood, Youth and Summer - chronicles the life of John Maxwell Coetzee told through the voices of a handful of narrators. Although the books are autobiographical in the sense that they are written by the (living) author John Maxwell Coetzee, none of the narrators are Coetzee himself despite John Maxwell Coetzee being the protagonist of all the three novels, although he, interestingly, is dead in the last novel, Summer. In the first two books the narrator is an impersonal, third-person presence that reduces the protagonist to "him", while the last book features a range of narrators, most importantly fictionalised versions of persons who have been important figures in John Maxwell Coetzee's life.

Lately I have become increasingly fascinated with this particulary literary fiction: the creation of an eponymous protagonist who remains separate from the author. This in itself is of course not new. Marcel Proust's Remeberance of Things Past (or, should you prefer, In Search of Lost Time), is perhaps the most monumental work in the umbrella category under which "autobiography", "memoir", "pseudo-autobiography" and "fictionalised autobiography" all may be heaped, and naturally Proust has served as a point of comparison for this recent surge of fictionalised autobiography.

In this genre the author is proved to be very much alive, for the author lends not only his hand but also his name to the narrator or the protagonist. Consequently, however, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between the author/writer and the narrator/protagonist as his or her persona, and despite the expressed independence between the two figures the exact nature of this independence remains elusive.

In addition to the resurrection of the author there is also another interesting consequence to be found in the wake of the fictionalised autobiography, namely that all pretension of anonymity - which is a natural consequence of the author's death - has been utterly abandoned. By writing books whose protagonists are eponymous the author can be more certain of being remembered by readers, reviewers and literary canonists, and their fame may have a greater duration than had their protagonists had more inventive names. It is not to say that this is the desired consequence of the authors - the reasons for writing such novels are as diverse as the novels themselves - but it is nonetheless a natural, if not sought after, consequence. To ensure one's fame in this very public manner is emblematic of our day and age when various forms of social media allows an individual to expose him- or herself to the chosen extent and claim a small spotlight somewhere in cyberspace, not entirely unlike Emily Dickinson's poetic frogs.

There is, however, another kind of fame, a kind of fame that has not taken up arms against the mutability of the world and the inexorable passing of the flesh, a kind of fame that requires dead authors and that to some minds is the preferable alternative. This is the anonymous fame. It may at first sound like a contradiction in terms but anonymity does not preclude a person from becoming famous, sometimes perhaps quite the opposite. To be anonymous means that you present your work and your work alone to be judged, leaving no embarrassing details from one's personal life to hamper the praise of peers contemporary or of ages hence. Anonymity also lends an air of venerability and age to a work since it can not be traced, and this is summed up very beautifully in a poem by Manuel Machado (1874-1947), translated by J. M. Cohen for Penguin Book of Spanish Verse:

Tal es la gloria, Guillén,                     Such is the glory, Guillén,

de los que escriben cantares:           Of those who write songs:

oír decir a la gente                           To hear the people say

que no los ha escrito nadie.              That no one wrote these.

- Coplas by Manuel Machado

There is a glory to be found in anonymity, perhaps a satisfaction derived from the fact that your work has endured without your name to aid it along, or that your work endures without you, that your shadow extends further than yourself. This line of thought is perhaps alien to our times where a name means quite a lot, whether it is your original name or one you have assumed. Interestingly enough, however, we find the same line of thought pursued by Machado in the dedication of a well-known Medieval historiography, namely Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain finished in 1136. In his dedication to the Earl of Gloucester, Henry I's illegitimate son, Geoffrey asks him to correct and embellish the work to the effect that "it must no longer be considered as the product of Geoffrey of Monmouth's small talent" (translated by Lewis Thorpe). Here, too, we see that what Geoffrey considers crucial is the fruit of his labours, not his own personal glory (at least that's what he states). For the benefit of his work Geoffrey is more than happy to relinquish the claim of authorship and recede into oblivion. As history turned out this did not happen, but it is nonetheless interesting to see that an author's zeal makes him willing to do away with himself as author, an end much in the vein of Roland Barthes' dictum.

What, then, is the favourable, most honourable course of action? To retain one's name or to pursue one's own oblivion? It is of course very tempting to praise the idea of receding "into the common being", to paraphrase Sir Thomas Browne, but as a historian I prefer very much to have a name - if only a fake one - to attach to a literary corpus. Personally I feel that a writer, artist, architect, musician or any other craftsman has an obligation to posterity to reveal his name, but in this day of self-exposure I would not mind if people were at least somewhat more conscious of anonymity as an alternative.

Da Nobis Tuam Lucem Domine

After Coel's death Constantius himself seized the royal crown and married Coel's daughter. Her name was Helen and her beauty was greater than that of any other young woman in the kingdom. For that matter, no more lovely girl could be discovered anywhere. Her father had no other child to inherit the throne, and he had therefore done all in his power to give Helen the kind of training which would enable her to rule the country more efficiently after his death. After her marriage with Constantius she had by him a son called Constantine.

- The History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth (translated by Lewis Thorpe)

Helena, the Mother of Constantine the Great, was held in high regard by Medieval men and women and she was recognised as an important saint. She was said to have embraced Christianity at an early stage and on a trip to Jerusalem it was claimed she had located the True Cross, an occasion celebrated in the liturgical year as the inventio crucis, the rediscovery of the Cross. Geoffrey of Monmouth, on behalf of the Britons, laid claim to Helena by pronouncing her British by birth and a royal princess by heritage, the daughter of King Coel of established legend. Not all chroniclers were equally blinded by enthusiasm, however. William of Malmesbury soberly followed the ecclesiastical tradition, leaning on Ambrose of Milan's statement that she was the daughter of a stable-boy. Matters of heritage aside she was revered and venerated throughout the Middle Ages and several churches were dedicated to her. One of these churches is St Helen's Church of York.

It is assumed that the veneration for Helena has long roots in the religious history of York, but the oldest sign of a church is the 12th-century font. The church itself has been rebuilt once in the 16th century and twice in the 19th century, but it is believed that the current design echoes that of the 14th and 15th-century architecture to a great extent, with the exception of the chancel built in 1857-58. Facing the church today is St Helen's Square, established in 1732 after the graveyard had been paved over and its bones removed to Davygate where gravestones still can be found.

Both the Anglican and Catholic branches of the modern church are today very aware that the historical Helena had no connection to neither York nor Britain. This is, however, of lesser importance, for in her posthumous life she had had an important place in lay religiosity of several parishes. This particular church, as stated, can only securely be dated to the 12th century, but there was in York also a second church dedicated to Helena, namely St Helen Aldwark which is no longer extant, but most likely of Anglo-Saxon origin. Whether her alleged connection to England, or for that matter York's historical connection to her son Constantine who was proclaimed Emperor by his troops at the Roman headquarter in the city, has in any way influenced her popularity can not be ascertained. She has nonetheless been embraced by York and a statue of her at the town hall.

The earliest reference to St Helen's Church in the sources dates from 1235, but not much of its 13th-century heritage survives today, the exception being a handful of spolia found throughout the church space. Masonry points to construction activity going back to the mid 12th century, and it is speculated that if there stood an Anglo-Saxon minster on this spot, its wooden structure may have been replaced by a stone church at about this time. The High Medieval architectural features are nonetheless scant, outweighed by the Late Medieval remnants such as parts of the stained glass. The 14th and 15th centuries saw the most significant part of the church's Medieval architectural emendations.

St Helen's Church did not have a large congregation and its priest had little in terms of income. Its Medieval parishioners were largely the glass-painters who lived and operated in Stonegate and several of the guild's members were interred in St Helen's throughout the 15th century. The glass-painters' motto was Da nobis tuam lucem Domine, give to us your light, Lord, and their work can be witnessed in the Medieval glasswork still extant in the church.

Flores Historiarum, pt. 4 - The Ethics of Historiography

In short, they are often deceived and deceive by their guesses, though these are quite sophisticated, but by means of trickery in their predictions they lay claim amongst naive people to a foreknowledge of the future which they do not at all possess.

- Prologue to Book 1 of Historia Rerum Anglicarum, William of Newburgh

I was first introduced to the Augustinian canon and historian William of Newburgh (b. 1135/6, d. in or after 1198) in a course on literature in the Anglo-Saxon world I took at the University of York. The course, England in Europe, aimed to explore the literary influences and connections between England and the continent from the early Anglo-Saxon period until the Anglo-Norman era of the 12th century. William's History of English Affairs marks the tail-end of the period covered by this course as it was, probably, begun in 1196 and apparently never completed due to his death two years later. Historia Rerum Anglicarum, which I have already mentioned in part two of this series, is famous for its commitment to truth and the ethics of historiography. In his prologue to book 1 - the only part of the book covered on the course - these ethics surface in William's vicious attack on Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain. To me it is a great delight to read these attacks because through his indignation and ferocity William serves a scholarly - albeit severely ungenerous - critique of what he considers imagined history, a critique that is as valid today as it was in the 12th century and - in some cases - equally necessary. In this blogpost I will present some of the highlights from William's prefatory attack on poor historiographical scholarship.

William dedicates most of his prologue to castigate Geoffrey of Monmouth's dishonesty, a dishonesty mirrored by the excellence of the historians Bede and Gildas whom William praises for their research and truthful account. Gildas, William claims, "does not hesitate to write as a Briton about Britons that they were neither brave in war nor trustworthy in peace." This is one of the cruxes of William's antipathy for Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain is very much concerned with how great the old Britons were and, as we shall see, especially King Arthur. This is how William describes his fellow historian:

But in our own day a writer of the opposite tendency [of Gildas and Bede] has emerged. To atone for these faults of the Britons he weaves a laughable web of fiction about them, with shameless vainglory extolling them far above the virtue of the Macedonians and the Romans. This man is called Geoffrey and bears the soubriquet Arthur, because he has taken up the stories about Arthur from the old fictitious accounts of the Britons, has added to them himself, and by embellishing them in the Latin tongue he has cloaked them with the honourable title of history.

Aside from the ethical problems of Geoffrey's rendition of history, William also accuses him of blasphemy or at least irreligion. One of the perhaps most famous passages of History of the Kings of Britain is the prophecies of Merlin, the offspring of a woman - some say a nun - and an incubus. It is Merlin's demonic heritage that allows him to see into the future and to William this is highly troublesome:

In fact we are instructed by both true reasoning and the sacred writings that demons are shut out from God's light, and are wholly unable to have prior knowledge of the future by mentally observing it, though they apprehend certain future events by guesswork rather than knowledge, through signs better known to them than to us.

To a modern mind this might appear petty and pedantic, and I recall two of my fellow students at York being quite amused by this emphasis. To William of Newburgh, however, demons of various kinds - incubi, succubi and the like - were parts of reality and evil parts at that. No wonder, then, that William found Geoffrey's claim preposterous. Geoffrey, he maintains, "has not learnt the truth about events, and so without discrimination he gives space to fables without substance."

Merlin reading his prophecies to King Vortigern

William also finds it hard to swallow Geoffrey's unabashed representation of the British kings as heroes mightier than those of Antiquity. To William this is a perverse distortion of the truth found in the historical accounts he treasures greatly and he does not hold back:

But even a person of dim mental vision can observe how much the unadulterated historical truth preempts the falsehood which has been compiled at this point. Geoffrey makes Arthur himself outstanding and remarkable above all others; he seeks to present him in his achievements according to the free rein of his fancy.

"[T]his is doubtless", William complains, "to make this Briton's [i.e. Arthur] little finger appear thicker than the mighty Caesar's loins." Our Augustinian canon goes further and points out not merely wild heroic fantasies but also grave historical inaccuracies by pointing out that at a feast in praise of Arthur "[t]hree British archbishops, of London, Caerleon and York, are present, and this at a time when the Britons never had even a single archbishop, for Augustine was the first to receive the pallium from the Roman pontiff and to become archbishop in Britain."

After listing a range of Geoffrey's unbridled exaggerations and fantasies William deals his adversary the following blow:

Is he dreaming of another world containing kingdoms without number, in which the events took place which are mentioned by him earlier? Certainly in our world nothing of this kind took place; for how could the historians of old, who took immense pains to omit from their writings nothing worthy of mention, and who are known to have recorded even modest events, have passed over in silence this man beyond compare and his achievements so notable beyond measure?

It is this precise refutation and the ones above, which make me greatly appreciate William of Newburgh as an historiographer. He shows in this prologue commitment to truth, to a work-ethos and to Orthodoxy that to my mind appears staggeringly precocious in comparison with Geoffrey's more far-fetched imagined past. This is not to say, however, that William himself is singular in his ethics and nor does it mean he was precocious to his age - although it may appear thus to modern historians thoroughly familiar with the advent of the humanist ad fontes approach of Lorenzo Valla. Medieval historians, it is true, did not have the benefit of methodological tools burgeoning from centuries of academic evolution, but - as we can see in the case of William of Newburgh - they were far from indifferent or careless in their commitment to the transmission of history.

Flores Historiarum, pt. 2 - The Purpose of History

It is my considered opinion that the sweetest relief from suffering and the best comfort in affliction that this world affords are to be found almost entirely in the study of literature, and so I believe that the splendour of historical writing is to be cherished with the greatest delight and given the pre-eminent and most glorious position. For nothing is more excellent in this life than to investigate and become familiar with the course of worldly events.

- Historia Anglorum, Henry Huntingdon (translated by Diana Greenway)

This blogpost is an adaptation of a draft for one of my thesis chapters, focussing on various sources for the life, times and cult of Edward the Confessor. My emphasis in this essay is the purpose of history, why chroniclers spent time and faculties to record past events. The selection is rather minute, but it does include some of the most important figures in the literary history of the English High Middle Ages.

One of the chief strands of purpose detectable in the tapestry of Medieval histories is the idea of history as a looking-glass in which one can learn of good deeds to emulate and wicked deeds to shun, learning by example and counter-example alike. This approach is widely disseminated in the monastic tradition, as exemplified by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the writings of William of Malmesbury, where scribes and authors were primarily subjects of their superior clerics rather than the milieu of a temporal court and thus less likely to indulge excessively in dithyrambics and eschewed reality in favour of a worldly prince. However, it would be exceedingly naïve to suggest that the monastic historiographers were unscathed by the temporal influences; both the above examples prove cases in point. The C manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for instance, shows a very partisan quill in favour of the Godwin family, while William of Malmesbury, in his own words, was spurred on his historiographical task by Queen Matilda and later sought the patronage of her daughter Empress Matilda. No wonder, then, that the Empress is spoken of with unquestionable, albeit modest, favour in William's last opus, Historia Novella.

Another important strand of purpose is the exaltation of an individual, often with didacticism as an important, but secondary, object. This tradition is closely connected with the temporal world, native to the court and the deeds of princes, nobles, kings and emperors whose names are found in its titles. For instance we have Gesta Fredericii, a chronicle of Frederick Barbarossa's Lombard campaign, or Gesta Stephani, concerning the reign of King Stephen of England. Like the general histories or annals these, too, are written by clerics, but the audience is of the court, not the monastic sphere, and the purpose of such works is first of all to record illustrious deeds and make sure that the fame and glory of the subject-matter is passed on to posterity.

These features are are also found in the lives of saints, only with a more clearly didactic aim. Hagiographers chiefly sought to illustrate how Christian life should be led through accounts of various religious paragons whom Christians could emulate. Naturally there were other considerations at stake as well, such as establishing a cult that could rival that of a neighbouring family, diocese, realm or branch of Christianity, but regardless of such personal incentives saints' lives were didactic texts where, unlike general histories, lessons were taught through the good examples of forebears whom, as guaranteed by the Church, God had included among his sanctorum communionem of the Apostolic Creed.

All in all there are few major differences in how hagiography and historiography, as subgenres, approach the matter of history: both are didactic and both are written with one eye on the author's contemporaneity and the other fixed on posterity. The authors, however, are not always equally conform, especially with regards to their incentives to write history. In this chapter I will consider how the authors of various sources to Edward the Confessor approach history and what they state as their purposes for writing. This exploration of Medieval historical writing will also include various texts written during the 12th and early 13th centuries where Edward the Confessor is of minor or no importance, but whose authors are partakers in the same tradition as the authors who deal with Edward in greater detail. In this way I hope to elucidate why history was written and how this affects the way we consider these texts as sources for Edward the Confessor.

The form of Medieval historical writing was heavily indebted to two traditions: the Jewish as found in the Old Testament and the Roman as found chiefly in the works of Poets as Lucan and Virgilius. Roman historians left relatively few fingerprints in the pages of Medieval historiographies, but were important to the genesis of hagiography due to their emphasis on exhaltation of individuals through rhetoric. The main influence with regards to form, however, must be said to have been Eusebius' church history whereas philosophically Medieval historians were indebted by Augustine's De Civitate Dei, both due to its sharp division between matters temporal and spiritual and its division of history into the six ages corresponding the allegorical days of Creation. In this chapter my emphasis is on the English tradition which, in addition to the antecedents already mentioned, draws on the work of Bede, both when it comes to form and purpose.

Although the following selection belongs to the English tradition it should be noted that the term "English" is used because of its convenience rather than its accuracy since the array of authors - named and anonymous alike - encompasses the Anglo-Norse, the Anglo-Norman and the Plantagenet political landscapes. In addition we must consider the various spheres, both geographic and religious, to which the authors belonged. Accordingly I will below present the various authors chronologically, giving a brief outline of their potential biases and certain characteristics where necessary.

Henry [of Huntingdon] (c. 1088 - c. 1157) was of Anglo-Norman origin and dedicated his book Historia Anglorum to Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, a Norman who during his episcopate was praised as a patron of learning, commissioning for instance Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini. In his prologue to book I of Historia Anglorum Henry expresses his enthusiasm with regards to the study of literature, claiming it to be one of the greatest forms of solace in this world. Further on he praises history, considered a subgenre of literature, to be a better teacher of right and wrong than moral philosophy since it offers example of what to emulate and what not to emulate. History, Henry says, "allows judgement of the future by representing the past" and he goes on to state that history "distinguishes rational creatures from brutes", pointing out that there is something inherently noble in desiring knowledge of one's own origin and history. His main incentive for writing history, it appears, is for the sake of erudition, teaching by example and counterexample in the manner of Bede. Such erudition is inherently moral since it calls for the emulation of good - i.e. moral - values and deeds, but Henry was not content with merely illustrating good and bad examples, he also emphasised divine vengeance, treating the five invasions of Britain as punishments by God. This was a literary tradition with firm roots in Christian literature found in works by Alcuin, Gildas, Nennius and Bede. Henry relied in great part on Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but there are influences by other works as well, for instance Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and he himself became widely read and very influential, leaving his traces in the works of important historians such as William of Newburgh and Matthew Paris. To consider him a reliable source, however, is problematic since he allows himself a certain poetic - or perhaps educational - license, when describing the Battle of Lincoln through invented speeches of leading combatants.

William of Malmesbury (c. 1090 - c. 1042) was a Benedictine monk of Anglo-Norman ancestry (prologue book II) he pursued from early years a love of reading and learning, and in the prologue to book IV of Gesta Regum Anglorum he exudes a particular dedication to historical Truth in a discussion concerning the problems of objectivity inherent in the writing of contemporary history. He also states, in the prologue to book I that he is spurred on in his labours both by love of his country and the encouragement of friends. He is not deterred, it appears, despite love for friends and country, from committing himself to historical truth, and like Horatius he stresses the twofold virtue of history: teaching good deeds by example and counter-example. To exonerate him from bias, however, will not do, and it would be contrary to William's own stated caution to presume that he was not influenced by his ties to the royal family, ties which he asserts in his letter to Empress Matilda and which become quite evident in his Historia Novella, as stated above. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that despite such biases and loves, William writes first and foremost for the sake of learning, with the object of educating his contemporaries and his posterity and to pick up the historiographical tradition from the Venerable Bede.

Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. 1154/55) is included here quite simply because he is a bit odd. He does not shed any light on Edward since his works deal with the history of the Britons up until the death of Cadwallader in 689, but he was a very influential writer of history and he represents a slight anomaly with regards to the historiographical commitment to which some of his contemporaries subscribed. In his prefatory dedication to Robert of Gloucester, Henry I's illegitimate son, Geoffrey states that his work is a translation of a work "in the British language" concerning the forefathers of the Britons and he expresses a deep interest in the oral accounts of his native Britain. Geoffrey himself was most likely a Welshman, at least he had a strong affection for Welsh history and he was bishop of St. Asaph, known as Britain's smallest cathedral. This Welsh bias permeats his History of the Kings of Britain, a book written - or translated if we are to believe him - because the deeds of the ancient kings "deserve to be praised for all time". This is somewhat reminiscent of William of Malmesbury's professed love for literature since Geoffrey's incentive seems to be that the story must be told because it is a good story. There might be a purpose of erudition here as well, but if that is the case it resembles more the tendency of hagiography where example is set first and foremost by men of glorious character. In any case we are not expressly told, as we are with several other historiographers, that Geoffrey seeks to educate his readers in any particular way, nor that the praiseworthy deeds are worthy of emulation as well as praise. This last point may be ascribed to the severe political implications of such emulation, but that cannot be settled here.

Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-67) is undoubtedly Edward the Confessor's most important hagiographer, writing the first saint's life of Edward, Vita S. Eduardi regis et confessoris in 1162/63, a work commissioned by Lawrence of Westminster and heavily reliant on Osbert of Clare's edition of Vita Ædwardi. Aelred's Vita is an interesting work not only because of its importance to the emerging Angevin cult but also because of the cultural landscape it is situated in. It is a book about an Anglo-Saxon king written by a seneschal at the Scottish court turned Cistercian monk at the behest of the Abbot of Westminster, a Benedictine monastery, and dedicated to the Angevin king, Henry II. However, the most important aspect of Aelred's Vita in this respect is the stated purpose of its composition. From the very start the reader is told that Aelred's purpose is to present examples of virtue from the past to those who live in the present, inspired by "the endeavor of many ancients". It is also very fascinating to note that the book is expressly dedicated to the king for the edification of his own kingship. In his letter to Robert of Gloucester William of Malmesbury flatters Earl Robert by writing that the illustrious deeds of his forebears are already found in him and Robert needs no education on the subject. Aelred, however, states very overtly that Edward the Confessor is a suitable model for kingship and begs Henry II to emulate his predecessor's noble virtues.

Also worth including in this array is William of Newburgh (1135/6 - c. 1198), historian and Augustinian canon at the monastery of Newburgh. His work Historia rerum Anglicarum is concerned with the history of England after the Norman invasion and as such is not a source to the life of Edward the Confessor, nor is there any mentioning of the Angevin cult, an omission quite puzzling since the work was commissioned by Ernald, abbot of Rievaulx, a Cistercian monastery and home to Aelred, Edward's most important hagiographer. Nonetheless William offers a very interesting approach to history because of his fervent commitment to historical truth and a textual scrutiny reminiscent of the much later and more famous Lorenzo Valla. In his prologue to Historia rerum Anglicarum William launches a vitriolic attack against Geoffrey of Monmouth on grounds that he is a story-teller, fabulator, and not a proper historian, treating honourable history and local legends with the same credulity and even adding to them himself. In the same spirit of historiographical commitment, but with a gentler voice, he commends the historian Gildas (fl. 5th and 6th centuries) for the latter's willingness to condemn "many evil traits" of the old Britons. This historical criticism has earned him a high standing in the eyes of subsequent historians, although is reputation has waned somewhat in recent decades. Like William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon before him, William of Newburgh writes history to edify, stating in his prologue that the purpose of his book is to "advance the knowledge and circumspection of posterity".

The last historian to be included is Matthew Paris (c. 1200 - 1259). Little can be ascertained with regard to his personal life or origin aside from his early attachment to the Benedictine monastery of St. Albans. Throughout his works we also find a fervent Anglocentrism and this, along with arguments made by Paul Meyer on grounds of phonology, suggests he was an Englishman. Already in his own time he achieved a certain reputation as a writer, gained in large part by his Chronica Majora, and he had friends and connections reaching far and wide, ranging from native aristocratic women with whom he corresponded to the courts of Håkon IV of Norway and Louis IX of France. Matthew Paris was a many-faceted writer and supervisor of a number of works, including "five chronicles, six hagiographies, two domestic histories, a cartulary, and a collection of fortune-telling tracts. They amount to well over a million words, most of them penned by Paris himself." Although a diligent writer he was less concerned with whether his writings reflected truth and he did not shy away from a little manipulation of history could it serve his needs. In his verse life of Edward the Confessor Matthew Paris turns to the saint, asking him to "have regard" for him as a sinner who has translated his deeds into French that "memory of thee may spread." Although the stated purpose is piously simple and straightforward - and a literary device - it is nonetheless evident that Paris uses this hagiography as a vehicle for his own politics. For instance we find in Matthew's work praise for Edward's eschewing of foreigners, a sentiment echoing his own Anglocentric opinions rather than any attitude of Edward. It is likely that Matthew Paris wrote his life of St. Edward to provide King Henry III with a model for royal behaviour, perhaps inspired by Aelred's dedication to Henry II in his Life of St. Edward, which was Matthew's source, where Aelred begs king Henry II to emulate his virtuous and blessed predecessor.

As we have seen the Medieval historiographers had various reasons for embark on their literary quests, but didacticism and a love of literature remained important incentives throughout the period here covered. When we look at this aspect of historiography we catch small glimpses of the authors themselves, centuries away, and we learn to appreciate what an important part in their lives the history and the recording of history must have been.