“…not as history, but…”: The Cistercian Abbot Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167), A Writer of History in Many Genres

Resumen

What is a historical text, and what are the differences between such a text and other written genres? This question has occupied modern scholars of medieval Europe, medieval European authors themselves, and many others. Prompted by recent scholarship into the benefits, or otherwise, of trying to isolate distinct genres within what one scholar has referred to as “the whole mass of medieval historiography”, this article examines the so-called “historical” texts composed by the medieval English Cistercian abbot Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167). None of these seven texts fits into the classic genre of the history, and yet the article argues that all are indeed historiographical texts. Aelred wrote all these works while he was abbot of Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, and the article suggests that Aelred’s experiences and responsibilities as abbot gave him both the skills to combine many literary genres – vita, genealogy, lament, relatio, translatio, exemplum, sermon, letter – when writing about the past as well as the desire to combine such genres so as to provide his readers with models of hope, and occasionally stern advice, from the past to use in the future.

Bibliographical references

Sources

Manuscript sources

London, British Library, Cotton Ms. Vitellius F III.

York, York Minster, Archives and Manuscripts, Ms. XVI/I/8.

Printed sources

AELRED OF RIEVAULX – Aelred of Rievaulx, The Historical Works. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland. Ed. Marsha L. Dutton. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2005.

AELRED OF RIEVAULX – Aelred of Rievaulx: The Lives of the Northern Saints. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland. Ed. Marsha L. Dutton. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2006.

AELRED OF RIEVAULX – Opera Omnia VI. Opera historica et hagiographica. Ed. Domenico Pezzini. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis, 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.

AELRED OF RIEVAULX – Opera Omnia VII. Opera historica et hagiographica. Ed. Francesco Marzella. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis, 3A. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.

CICERO – De inventione. De optimo genere oratorum. Topica. Trans. H. M. Hubbell. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann, 1949, “De inventione”, pp. 1-345.

CICERO – Ad C. Herennium de ratione dicendi (Rhetorica ad Herennium). Trans. Harry Caplan. London and Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1964.

CICERO – De oratore. Trans. E. W. Sutton and completed by H. Rackham. London and Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1967.

The Durham ‘Liber vitae’: London, British Library, MS Cotton Domitian A.VII. Edition and Digital Facsimile with Introduction, Codicological, Prosopographical and Linguistic Commentary, and Indexes, Including the Biographical Register of Durham Cathedral Priory (1083-1539) by A. J. Piper. Ed. David and Lynda Rollason, vol. 3. London: British Library, 2007.

GEFFREI GAIMAR – Estoire des Engleis | History of the English. Ed. and trans. Ian Short. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

GERVASE OF CANTERBURY – The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury. Ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 73, vol 1. London: Longman, 1879, “Chronicle of Gervase”.

Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores Decem. Ed. Roger Twysden and John Selden. London, 1652.

ISIDORE OF SEVILLE – Isidori Hispalensis episcopi. Etymologiarum sive originum. Libri XX, vol. 1. Ed. W. M. Lindsay. Oxford: Clarendon, 1911.

LAURENCE OF DURHAM – “Epistola Laurentii ad amicum suum Ethelredum”. Ed. Dom A. Hoste – “A Survey of the Unedited Work of Laurence of Durham With an Edition of His Letter to Aelred of Rievaulx”. Sacris Erudiri 11 (1960), pp. 249-265, at pp. 263-265.

RICHARD OF HEXHAM – The Priory of Hexham, its Chroniclers, Endowments, and Annals, vol. 1. Durham: Surtees Society, 1864, “Prior Richard’s History of the Church of Hexham” [Ricardus prior Hagustaldensis et statu et episcopis Hagustaldensis Ecclesiae], pp. 1-62.

WALTER DANIEL – The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx. Trans. F. M. Powicke. London: Nelson, 1950.

WALTER DANIEL – The Life of Aelred of Rievaulx by Walter Daniel. Trans. F. M. Powicke. Intro. Marsha Dutton. Kalamazoo, MI and Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1994.

WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH – The History of English Affairs. Book I. Ed. and trans. Patrick G. Walsh and Michael J. Kennedy. Oxford and Havertown, PA: Oxbow, 1988.

Studies

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