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The Barbarian Past in Early Medieval Historical Narrative

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The Barbarian Past in Early Medieval Historical Narrative THE BARBARIAN PAST IN EARLY MEDIEVAL HISTORICAL NARRATIVE by Shami Ghosh A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Shami Ghosh (2009) ABSTRACT Title: The Barbarian Past in Early Medieval Historical Narrative Submitted by: Shami Ghosh Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Department: Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto Year of Convocation: 2009 This thesis presents a series of case studies of early medieval narratives about the non-Roman, non-biblical distant past. After an introduction that briefly outlines the context of Christian traditions of historiography in the same period, in chapter two, I examine the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore, and show how they present different methods of reconciling notions of Gothic independence with the heritage of Rome. Chapter three looks at the Trojan origin narratives of the Franks in the Fredegar chronicle and the Liber historiae Francorum , and argues that this origin story, based on the model of the Roman foundation myth, was a means of making the Franks separate from Rome, but nevertheless comparable in the distinction of their origins. Chapter four studies Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum , and argues that although Paul drew more on oral sources than did the other histories examined, his text is equally not a record of ancient oral tradition, but presents a synthesis of a Roman, Christian, and of non-Roman and pagan or Arian heritages, and shows that there was actually little differentiation between them. Chapter five is an examination of Waltharius , a Latin epic drawing on Christian verse traditions, but also on oral vernacular traditions about the distant past; I suggest that it is evidence of the interpenetration between secular, oral, vernacular culture and ecclesiastical, written and Latin learning. Beowulf , the subject of chapter six, is similar evidence for such intercourse, though in this case to some ii extent in the other direction: while in Waltharius Christian morality appears to have little of a role to play, in Beowulf the distant past is explicitly problematised because it was pagan. In the final chapter, I examine the further evidence for oral vernacular secular historical traditions in the ninth and tenth centuries, and argue that the reason so little survives is because, when the distant past had no immediate political function—as origin narratives might—it was normally seen as suspect by the Church, which largely controlled the medium of writing. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a pleasant duty to record my gratitude to the various people and institutions without whose manifold aid I would not have been able to complete this work. I am deeply indebted to my dissertation committee, Nick Everett, Sandy Murray and Andy Orchard, for their judicious criticisms and sage advice, and I am especially grateful for their forbearance with the mad rush I imposed on them during the final stages of completing this dissertation. I should also like to thank my examiners, Tom Hill and Ian McDougall, for their many extremely useful comments. Rob Getz read and commented on chapter six, and Markus Stock read and commented on chapters five and seven, and has been of great support over the years on matters Germanic and otherwise germane to my work; I am thankful to both for their help. At the Centre for Medieval Studies in the University of Toronto, for five years, Grace Desa has been for me—as for so many others—the proverbial mother hen, without whom nothing would have been possible; it is a pleasure to acknowledge my debt to her, and I am truly happy to be able to validate her belief in me by finishing up in time. Also at the Centre, I should like to thank the past associate director and acting director, Lawrin Armstrong, and the current director, John Magee, who have both been very helpful in guiding me during my time as a graduate student; Lawrin has been especially kind in seeing me through a very difficult period in my life. I would also like to record my gratitude for the early inspiration provided by Martin Jones, without which my career would have taken a completely different course, and the memory of whose teaching is a continuing inspiration. In a different vein, I should like to acknowledge Sandeep Kishore, my oldest friend, and fellow graduate student, who taught me to access previously uncorked sources of inspiration, iv as well as many forgettable things about proteins and fish, and with whom I realised that sharing the pain really does makes life so much more liveable. I am grateful to the University of Toronto for the award of a graduate scholarship for the duration of my studies here. In addition, the first year of my doctoral work was partly funded by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the subsequent three years were funded by a Canada Graduate Scholarship; I thank the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for enabling my research. The dissertation was written while I was one of the inaugural fellows at the Jackman Humanities Institute in the University of Toronto, and I should like to thank the faculty fellows for electing me, and the director, Bob Gibbs, the associate director, Kim Yates, and the administrator, Monica Toffoli, for providing me with such a pleasant and efficient space to complete my graduate studies; I am also very grateful to all the JHI fellows of 2008–09 for making this past year so intellectually stimulating and creating such a congenial and collegial atmosphere at the institute that it has become like a second home to me. At a more fundamental level, my greatest debts are owed to two people: Andy Orchard—truly lareowa manna mildust ond monðwærust, leorningcnihtum liðost ond leofost —has been in the best sense of the word my Doktorvater for the five years I have been in Toronto: I only hope that in the course of my career I can somehow give back through my teaching all that I have got from him; Manini Sheker, who put up with more years of dead languages and medieval obsessions than anyone should ever have inflicted on them, and has given me, for so many years, a home to come back to. v To both, my most heartfelt thanks: I couldn’t have done it without you, and I hope the end result is worth what you have invested in me. vi CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Abbreviations ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Christian Histories in the Early Middle Ages 3 The Structure of the Present Work 8 Chapter 2: The Gothic Histories of Jordanes and Isidore 17 The De origine actibusque Getarum of Jordanes: Background and Summary 20 Jordanes’s Sources: Oral or Written? 25 Paganism and Arianism in the Getica 40 Goths and Romans: The Purpose of the Gothic Past in the Getica 44 Isidore of Seville’s Historia Gothorum : Background, Summary, and Sources 51 Religious Identities in Isidore’s Historia Gothorum 57 Goths, Romans and Barbarians in Isidore’s Historia Gothorum 64 The Function of Gothic History: Isidore and Jordanes Compared 69 Chapter 3: The Origins of the Franks 77 Gregory, Fredegar and the LHF : Background and Summaries 80 The Trojan Origin of the Franks 85 The Sources for the Trojan Myth 90 The Function of the Frankish Distant Past 97 Chapter 4: Paul the Deacon and the Ancient History of the Lombards 102 Paul the Deacon and his Historia Langobardorum 104 Lombard Oral Tradition in the Historia Langobardorum 109 Catholics, Romans and Lombards in the Historia Langobardorum 127 vii Chapter 5: Waltharius and Waldere 137 Waltharius and Waldere : Authorship, Content, and Historical Background 138 Christianity in Waltharius 148 Waltharius and Germanic Oral Tradition 155 The Distant Past and its Function: Heroic Narrative as Light Entertainment 164 Chapter 6: Beowulf 169 Anglo-Saxon England: Origins, Narratives, and Literary Culture 170 Christianity in Beowulf : The Pagan Past as a Problem 182 Beowulf , Germanic Tradition, and the Anglo-Saxon Past 197 Chapter 7: Vernacular Oral Tradition and the ‘Germanic’ Past 207 Oral Vernacular Historical Material 210 Fashionable Gothicism? The Value of the ‘Germanic’ Past 223 Conclusions 235 Bibliography 242 viii ABBREVIATIONS Aeneid R. A. B. Mynors, ed. 1969. P. Vergilii Maronis Opera , Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ammianus Wolfgang Seyfarth, ed. 1976. Ammiani Marcellini rervm gestarvm libri qvi svpersvnt , Leipzig: Teubner. AQDGM Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters (= Freiherr vom Stein Gedächtnisausgabe). ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle : A = Janet M. Bately, ed. 1986. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition , vol. 3: MS A , Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. B = Simon Taylor, ed. 1983. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition , vol. 4: MS B , Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. C = Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe, ed. 2000. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition , vol. 5: MS C , Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. D = G. P. Cubbin, ed. 1996. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition , vol. 6: MS D , Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. ASE Anglo-Saxon England . ASPR III George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, eds 1936. The Exeter Book , New York: Columbia University Press. BÉFAR Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome. Beowulf R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, eds 2008. Klaeber’s Beowulf. Fourth Edition , TOES 21, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. CCCM Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis. CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. CÉA Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Moyen Âge et Temps Modernes. DA Deutsches Archiv zur Erforschung des Mittelalters . Deor ASPR III, 178–79. EHD Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. 1979. English Historical Documents, c. 500– 1042 , 2 nd edn, London: Eyre Methuen.
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