WRITING MEDIEVAL BIOGRAPHY, 750-1250: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF PROFESSOR FRANK BARLOW; ED. BY DAVID BATES

Biography is one of the oldest, most popular and most tenacious of literary forms. Perhaps the best attested narrative form of the Middle Ages, it continues to draw modern historians of the medieval period to its peculiar challenge to explicate the general through the particular: the biographer's decisions to impose or to resist the imposition of order on biographical remnants raise issues which go to the heart of historical method. This collection, compiled in honour of a distinguished modern exponent of the art of biography, contains sixteen essays by leading scholars which examine the limits and possibilities of the genre for the period between 750AD and 1250AD. Ranging from pivotal figures such as Charlemagne, William the Conqueror and St Bernard, to the anonymous female skeleton in an Anglo-Saxon grave, from kings and queens to clerks and saints, and from individual to the collective biographies, this collection investigates both medieval biographical writings, and the issues surrounding the writing of medieval lives. Professor DAVID BATES is Director of the Institute of Historical Research; Dr JULIA CRICK and Dr SARAH HAMILTON teach in the Department of History at the University of Exeter. Contributors: JANET L. NELSON, ROBIN FLEMING, BARBARA YORKE, RICHARD ABELS, SIMON KEYNES, PAULINE STAFFORD, ELISABETH VAN HOUTS, DAVID BATES, JANE MARTINDALE, CHRISTOPHER HOLDSWORTH, LINDY GRANT, MARJORIE CHIBNALL, EDMUND KING, JOHN GILLINGHAM, DAVID CROUCH, NICHOLAS VINCENT A survey both of medieval biographical writings, and the problems of recovering medieval lives.Biography is one of the oldest, most popular and most tenacious of literary forms. Perhaps the best attested narrative form of the Middle Ages, it continues to draw modern historians of the medieval period to its peculiar challenge to explicate the general through the particular: the biographer's decisions to impose or to resist the imposition of order on biographical remnants raise issues which go to the heart of historical method. This collection, compiled in honour of a distinguished modern exponent of the art of biography, contains sixteen essays by leading scholars which examine the limits and possibilities of the genre for the period between 750AD and 1250AD. Ranging from pivotal figures such as Charlemagne, William the Conqueror and St Bernard, to the anonymous female skeleton in an Anglo-Saxon grave, from kings and queens to clerks and saints, and from individual to the collective biographies,this collection investigates both medieval biographical writings, and the issues surrounding the writing of medieval lives. Professor DAVID BATES is Director of the Institute of Historical Research; Dr JULIA CRICK and DrSARAH HAMILTON teach in the Department of History at the University of Exeter. Contributors: JANET L. NELSON, ROBIN FLEMING, BARBARA YORKE, RICHARD ABELS, SIMON KEYNES, PAULINE STAFFORD, ELISABETH VAN HOUTS, DAVID BATES,JANE MARTINDALE, CHRISTOPHER HOLDSWORTH, LINDY GRANT, MARJORIE CHIBNALL, EDMUND KING, JOHN GILLINGHAM, DAVID CROUCH, NICHOLAS VINCENT CONTENTS ......Page 6 PREFACE ......Page 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......Page 12 Introduction......Page 16 1. Did Charlemagne have a Private Life?......Page 30 2. Bones for Historians: Putting the Body back into Biography......Page 44 3. ‘Carriers of the Truth’: Writing the Biographies of Anglo-Saxon Female Saints......Page 64 4. Alfred and his Biographers: Images and Imagination......Page 76 5. Re-Reading King Æthelred the Unready......Page 92 6. Writing the Biography of Eleventh-Century Queens......Page 114 7. The Flemish Contribution to Biographical Writing in England in the Eleventh Century......Page 126 8. The Conqueror’s Earliest Historians and the Writing of his Biography......Page 144 9. Secular Propaganda and Aristocratic Values: The Autobiographies of Count Fulk le Réchin of Anjou and Count William of Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine ......Page 158 10. Reading the Signs: Bernard of Clairvaux and his Miracles......Page 176 11. Arnulf’s Mentor: Geoffrey of Lèves, Bishop of Chartres......Page 188 12. The Empress Matilda as a Subject for Biography ......Page 200 13. The Gesta Stephani......Page 210 14. Writing the Biography of Roger of Howden, King’s Clerk and Chronicler......Page 222 15. Writing a Biography in the Thirteenth Century: The Construction and Composition of the ‘History of William Marshal’......Page 236 16. The Strange Case of the Missing Biographies: The Lives of the Plantagenet Kings of England 1154–1272......Page 252 INDEX......Page 274 Edited By David Bates, Julia Crick And Sarah Hamilton. Papers From A Conference Entitled The Limits Of Medieval Biography, Held At The University Of Exeter Between 10 And 12 July In 2003. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Presents a survey both of medieval biographical writings, and the problems of recovering medieval lives. This work examines the limits and possibilities of the genre for the period between 750AD and 1250AD