The past in prologues: The origins, form, and function of introductory material in medieval English historical works

388 Pages·2017·3.554 MB·English

by  Lane J. Sobehrad

The Past in Prologues:
The Origins, Form, and Function of Introductory Material in Medieval English
Historical Works

by

Lane J. Sobehrad, M.A.

A Dissertation

In

History

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Approved

John Howe
Chair of Committee

Gretchen Adams

Stefano D’Amico

Abigail Swingen

Mark Sheridan
Dean of the Graduate School

August, 2017
Copyright 2017, Lane J. Sobehrad
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous funds
provided by the Helen Devitt Jones Fellowship, the Rachel E. Hudson European Studies
Scholarship, the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center, and the Department of
History. Special thanks to the Texas Medieval Association, whose annual conferences
helped develop many of the ideas in this project.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. v
ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................................... vii
Why front matter matters .................................................................................................... 1
A Broad View of “History” ............................................................................................................ 10
Steadying Prologues ...................................................................................................................... 18
Scope of the Dissertation ............................................................................................................. 28
Summary of Chapters .................................................................................................................... 31
Conventions Followed in this Dissertation ............................................................................ 33
THE ANCIENT PROLOGUE TRADITION .......................................................................... 36
The Greek Prologue Tradition ................................................................................................... 39
Homer, Demosthenes, Herodotus, and Thucydides ........................................................... 44
The Roman Prologue Tradition ................................................................................................. 57
Vergil, Cato, Livy, Tacitus ............................................................................................................. 79
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 93
THE LATE ANTIQUE PROLOGUE TRADITION .............................................................. 96
Transmitting Prologues from the Ancients to late antiquity ........................................ 100
Victorinus and the Commentary Tradition .................................................................................... 100
Boethius and the Neo-platonic Tradition ........................................................................................ 108
The Hermogenean Corpus ..................................................................................................................... 114
Augustine and the Rhetoric of Christian Doctrine ...................................................................... 121
Chronicles, Epitomes & Breviaries, De viris illustribus ................................................... 127
Eusebius & Jerome .................................................................................................................................... 128
Eunapius, Eutropius, & Festus ............................................................................................................. 136
Late Antique Hagiography ..................................................................................................................... 145
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 155
THE MEDIEVAL PROLOGUE TRADITION ..................................................................... 157
The Encyclopedists ...................................................................................................................... 161
Anselm of Besate and Notker Labeo ...................................................................................... 175
Salutations, Captatio Benevolentiae, and the Ars Dictaminis ......................................... 190
Prothemes and the Ars Praedicandi ....................................................................................... 206
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 227
MEDIEVAL ENGLISH HISTORICAL PROLOGUES ........................................................ 229
English Historical Prologues before the Norman Conquest .......................................... 231
Monastic Chronicles & Local History ..................................................................................... 255
Secular Biographies ..................................................................................................................... 263
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 276
PROLOGUES TO THE ENGLISH ‘NATION’ ..................................................................... 277
What’s in a Name? ........................................................................................................................ 279
Prologues in the North ................................................................................................................ 285
Prologues in the South ................................................................................................................ 297
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 312
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Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 316
Historiography & Prologues in Medieval England ............................................................ 318
Using Prologues to Investigate Medieval History .............................................................. 325
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................... 336
Manuscripts .................................................................................................................................... 336
Primary Sources ........................................................................................................................... 336
Secondary Sources ....................................................................................................................... 350
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Texas Tech University, Lane J. Sobehrad, August 2017
ABSTRACT

Prologues are textual features that can occur before the main part of a work in
virtually every genre of literature. In ancient Greece, history was the first genre to
develop a standard form for the prologue, and histories from Herodotus throughout the
medieval period would continue this tradition. Modern scholars have paid some attention
to historical prologues, but have often ignored the body of prescriptive texts that
underlies their construction, the significance of their historical allusions, and their broad
interdisciplinary context.
Medieval English histories, in part because they had no body of theory to
explicitly address historiographic method, are increasingly interpreted in the context of
the social systems that produced them. Histories served many needs in medieval England,
including uniting people through semi-legendary ethnic origins, legitimizing legal rights
and privileges, establishing community boundaries and power structures, articulating
salvation history, and attempting to accurately recount the past. Prologues to historical
works typically include a wide array of classical and patristic citations as well as standard
topoi and terminology that scholars often dismiss as irrelevant convention.
First, I investigate the theory and practice of prologues in the ancient world to
determine if medieval authors were citing classical authors and ideas because of
convention or utility. Next, I look to early Christian writers, who reconciled the classical
past with a Christian present, establishing the basic format of medieval historical writing
and prologues. Third, I survey prologue theory in the Middle Ages, ranging from
commentaries on the established classical theory to brand new genres of literature that
develop of out of the scholastic method. Finally, I use this information to determine the
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Texas Tech University, Lane J. Sobehrad, August 2017
function of these classically-based, salvational, and prescriptive prologues in medieval
English history, sampling texts from Bede to William of Malmesbury, concluding that
prologues function to introduce not only texts, but also entire cultural and intellectual
systems.
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Texas Tech University, Lane J. Sobehrad, August 2017
ABBREVIATIONS

ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson,
10 vol. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1867-1873.
ASC-CE The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Collaborative Edition, ed. David
Dumville & Simon Keynes, 9 vol. Woodbridge, UK: D.S.
Brewer, 1983-2004.
BL British Library.
CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 211 vol. Turnhout: Brepols,
1953-.
CCCM Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medieaevalis, 343 vol.,
Turnhout: Brepols, 1966-.
CGL Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum, ed. Alessandro Garcia,
http://kaali.linguist.jussieu.fr/CGL/index.jsp.
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 103 vol. Wien,
Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1866-2012. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012-
DNB Dictionary of National Biographyi, ed. David Cannadine. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2017. http://www.oxforddnb.com.
MGH, Auc. Ant. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, Auctores
antiquissimi, 15 vol. http://www.dmgh.de.
MGH, QQ Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Weitere Reihen, Quellen zur
Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 24 vol.
http://www.dmgh.de.
MGH, SS Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, Scriptores (in folio),
39 vol. http://www.dmgh.de.
MGH, SS rer. Germ. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum
Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, 78 vol.
http://www.dmgh.de.
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace,
2 series, 28 vol. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s
Publishing Company, 1886-1900.
PG Patrologia Graeca, ed. Jean-Paul Migne, 161 vol. Paris:
Imprimerie Catholique, 1857-1866.
PL Patrologia Latina, ed. Jean-Paul Migne, 217 vol. Paris, Imprimerie
Catholique, 1841-1865.
RS Stubbs, William; Luard, Henry R.; Riley, Henry T, et al. The
Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland
during the Middle Ages [Rolls Series], 253 vol. London,
1858-1911.
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INTRODUCTION

WHY FRONT MATTER MATTERS

To the Right noble, and Valorous, Sir Walter Raleigh, knight, Lo. Wardein of the
Stanneryes, and her Majesties lieftenaunt of the County of Cornewayll.

Sir knowing how doubtfully all Allegories may be construed, and this booke of
mine, which I have entituled the Faery Queene, being a continued Allegory… I have
thought good aswell to discover unto you the general intention and meaning, which in the
whole course therof I have fashioned, without expressing of any particular purposes or
by-accidents therin occasioned. The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a
gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline.1

In The Faerie Queen (1590) Edmund Spenser tells stories of Arthurian knights,
paying special attention to the virtues they pursued. He uses allegory, specifically
historical allegory, to blend the traditional medieval virtues of temperance, chastity,
justice, and friendship with political and social commentary on Elizabethan England. By
reflecting on the past, even if it was fiction, Spenser hoped his audience would learn
something useful about the present.2 In addition, his epic poem contains ideas about
theology, rhetoric, and poetry blended together to form a beautifully and carefully
constructed story.3
What purpose is served by the letter Spenser affixed to the front of the first three
books of The Faerie Queen? It has inconsistencies with the poem, and the 1596 edition
includes the same letter, but this time dedicated to Queen Elizabeth instead of Sir Walter
Raleigh. This makes sense because Elizabeth was often associated with the Fairy Queen,
but it does not address the content of the letter which is, in fact, a textbook medieval

1 Edmund Spenser, "A Letter of the Authors Expounding His Whole Intention in the Course of the Worke:
Which for That It Giueth Great Light to the Reader, for the Better Vnderstanding Is Hereunto Annexed,” in
The Fairy Queene, ed. T.P. Roche, Jr, (New York: Penguin, 1979), 15.
2 Rudolf Gottfried, "Our New Poet: Archetypal Criticism and The Faerie Queene,” PMLA 83, no. 5 (1968):
1362-1364.
3 Walter Davis, "Spenser and the History of Allegory,” English Literary Renaissance 32, no. 1 (2002):
152–167.
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Texas Tech University, Lane J. Sobehrad, August 2017
epistolary prologue that would fit right in with the medieval curriculum of letter-writing. 4
Spenser appropriately introduces the recipient and ends with his name and date; he
renders the audience benevolent by explaining that reading a book like this benefits one’s
virtues; he explains what authorities he used to construct the book; and he summarizes
the content for easy comprehension. Throughout The Faerie Queene, Spenser constantly
uses old structures and forms, and his prologue is no different.
Prologues anchor texts to a specific theory, methodology, worldview, and cultural
milieu. Scholars generally recognize this. Most monographs and editions that study
historical works spend a good amount of time discussing how the prologue orients the
audience toward the core purpose of the text. History was the first prose genre in western
civilization to develop its own prologues themes.5 By the time Herodotus and Thucydides
wrote their works, standard historical prologues made claims of impartiality, the utility of
history, and of the need to memorialize the deeds of “great men” for the benefit of future
generations.6 Even in older literary traditions, prologues (or at least prefatory language)
were used in texts that addressed topics in the past, such as in the epic poems of Homer
or the mythology of Hesiod. History apparently needed prologues for some reason, and
that required some sort of explanation by the author prior to the main text. The near
ubiquity of prologues in historical texts from Herodotus to the present suggests their
continuing importance. Indeed, the success or failure of the author’s intentions for the
text depends on establishing an intellectual framework through which the audience can
access the text and the past.

4 W.J.B. Owen, “Spenser’s Letter to Raleigh,” Modern Language Review 45, no. 4 (1950): 511-512.
5 Tore Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Convention (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell,
1964), 16.
6 Janson, loc cit.
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