Medieval England and France, 700–1200

Communities from the largest kingdoms to the smallest dioceses had their own stories integrated into a larger narrative of Christian salvation. Works by leading historians like the Venerable Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth were disseminated widely throughout the medieval period, becoming international best sellers. 

The Venerable Bede

The Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People) of the Venerable Bede (b. c. 673, d. 735) is considered by many to be one of the greatest works on the history of Britain ever produced. A monk at the monastery Wearmouth-Jarrow near Newcastle, Bede completed the Ecclesiastical History in 731. It describes the conversion of the English people to Christianity, beginning with Roman Britain and continuing to subsequent attempts to convert the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, including Mercia, Sussex and Northumbria. About 160 manuscript copies survive today containing the complete work, including one copy probably made within a few decades of Bede’s death (now British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius C II).

Bede’s History was widely read in continental Europe as well as England. Scribes working in Reims produced a manuscript copy of the text (now British Library, Harley MS 4978), in the third quarter of the ninth century. By the 12th century, this manuscript had lost one of its original sections and a new one was supplied, perhaps in Chartres. This interest in reproducing the complete text illustrates the continuing popularity of Bede’s work, which was copied throughout the Middle Ages.

Baudri of Bourgueil

Baudri of Bourgueil (b. c. 1046, d. 1130) produced one of the most sophisticated accounts of the First Crusade (1095–1099), the Historia Hierosolimitana (History of Jerusalem). The First Crusade was the first military campaign of the Levantine Crusades which lasted until the 13th century. The aim of the Crusades first instigated in 1095 by Pope Urban II (b. c. 1035, d. 1099) was to capture Jerusalem and other Christian holy sites in the Near East. An abbot of Bourgueil nears Angers, France, Baudri recorded the events of the First Crusade soon after they occurred c. 1105, including accounts from eyewitness testimonies. Over the following centuries, crusading literature was written by multiple authors and proved popular in all parts of Latin Europe. One manuscript of Baudri’s Historia may be contemporary to his lifetime (British Library, Harley MS 3707), dating from the second quarter of the 12th century.

William of Malmesbury

Many of the most popular medieval historical works focused on secular communities – in particular, kingdoms and their rulers. Arguably the leading English historian of the 12th century was William of Malmesbury (b. c. 1095, d. c. 1143), a Benedictine monk at Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire, England. His Gesta regum Anglorum (Deeds of the Kings of the English) focused on political history and its protagonists, the kings. It traces English history from Roman times to Anglo-Saxon rulers and the Norman Conquest of 1066, continuing until the reign of King Henry I of England (r. 1100–1135).The work found a substantial readership in both England and France. Its Continental appeal may perhaps be explained in part by the political unity of England and Normandy at that time. 

William of Malmesbury drew from a great reserve of classical learning. Although history was not an independent academic discipline at schools and universities, the curriculum included many works of historical content by ancient Roman authors such as Sallust (b. 86 BC, d. c. 35 BC), a classical writer of historical prose read in medieval schools. Other set texts featured historical content, such as the poetic works of Lucan (b. 39, d. 65) and Vergil (b. 70 BC, d. 19 BC), as did popular Latin poems on the Trojan war and the story of Thebes.

Geoffrey of Monmouth

The most popular of all 12th-century historical works was the Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) of the Anglo-Norman cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth (b. c. 1100, d. 1154). Geoffrey was William of Malmesbury’s contemporary, and his work presents the history of Britain before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, including the first substantial treatment of legendary King Arthur’s life and reign. Both a historical and literary text, Geoffrey’s History became enormously popular and survives in over 220 medieval copies today, of which roughly one-fifth are now in the British Library collections. 

Geoffrey’s work contained a number of proverbs and moral exempla, and evidence shows that contemporary readers engaged with this material. The notes of a medieval reader can be found in one copy of the History produced c. 1200 (now British Library, Stowe MS 56). The reader highlighted several passages, by writing ‘N’ in the margin of the text, representing nota (note). An example of this can be seen in the margin of a speech by King Androgeus, a legendary figure who features in Geoffrey’s narrative:

Non est diligendus princeps qui in bello est mitis ut agnus, in pace ferus et leo.

(‘No one can love a prince who is gentle as a lamb in war, and in peace as fierce as a lion.’)  

The same reader annotated similar passages in Geoffrey’s text, and also in other historical texts that appear in the same manuscript, for example the following sentence, found in a history of the First Crusade by Fulcher of Chartres (b. 1059, d. after 1128):

Nichil enim est inter homines utilius disciplina.

(‘Nothing is more useful than discipline amongst humans.’)

The historical writing of Geoffrey and others demonstrate the importance in medieval society of describing and preserving the stories and deeds of the past for future generations to learn from and enjoy.