Writing History for the King: Henry II and the Politics of Vernacular Historiography

Conclusion

207 Since there were already perfectly good Latin histories of his Norman ancestors that would have served Henry II’s purposes (Robert de Torigny’s F redaction of the Gesta Normannorum ducum would have done an excellent job), and neither Wace nor Benoît significantly extended the material covered by their Latin sources, Henry II must have commissioned a vernacular history of his dynasty in the hope that it would reach the widest audience possible—a mixed audience that was not necessarily literate in Latin. It is possible, of course, to argue that Henry merely wanted a vernacular history of his ancestors that he could read. Although this may have played into his decision, I strongly doubt that it was his only motive for two reasons. The first reason is that private reading appears to have been uncommon in the twelfth century. Both Wace and Benoît indicate that they expect their histories to be read aloud before an audience, not read privately by the king, and the act of reading aloud is implicit in the titles of clerc lisant and maistre lisant that both authors claim for themselves. Second, in commissioning a dynastic history in Old French, Henry was actually appropriating a genre that had been pioneered by the Anglo-Norman nobles and clergy, who had already been commissioning and consuming vernacular verse histories recounting the deeds of the Britons , Anglo-Saxons, Trojans, and Romans since at least 1135. These histories were tailored to the tastes of Henry’s own barons and clergy, those with Conclusion 208 CONCLUSION whom he competed for power in the Anglo-Norman realm, those who wielded influence and might orchestrate a rebellion or affect the succession. In short, Henry appropriated the preferred genre of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and clergy and used it in an attempt to insist on his own interpretation of Norman history and the legitimacy of the very policies that had incensed his nobles and clergy. The larger mission of Henry II’s historiographical enterprise was to portray Henry I’s government as a golden age of peace, prosperity, and order that Henry II was restoring, to forcefully articulate royal arguments in what amounted to an ongoing public debate over the proper balance of power between the king and his nobles and clergy, and to enshrine hereditary right (and arguably primogeniture) as the only consideration governing the royal succession. How likely is it though that the contemporary Anglo-Norman nobility or clergy would have been swayed by such a history? They had their own memories and there was no shortage of competing narratives. Wace himself demonstrates that this was the case in the way he narrates events occurring in the Bessin (the area surrounding Bayeux and Caen). Surely Henry II was not so naïve as to think that he could convince a contemporary audience that their memories were defective and that other narratives were lies? Even though Henry must have hoped to influence the present by selectively representing the past, he must have also taken a longer view and wished to control the memory of his dynasty in the eyes of posterity. Like a countless number of monarchs and counselors before them, Henry II and his advisers grasped that they could seek to influence the present and future by controlling the representation of the past.1 As Wace himself and other historians have reminded us, human memory ultimately fades and variant representations fall away. Although the desired effects might not be produced immediately and in every quarter, the king apparently hoped to produce a royalist interpretation of the past that would eventually take hold and spread. Henry’s choice to disseminate this history in the vernacular, and in a genre favored by the Anglo-Norman nobles, is particularly important in this regard. A Latin history conveying a royalist account of the past might have been useful, but it would surely have reached a more limited audience. By commissioning this history in the language of the Anglo-Norman aris1 . See Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance; Yitsak Hen and Matthew Innes, eds., The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000); McKitterick, Carolingians and theWrittenWord; McKitterick , History and Memory; McKitterick, “Constructing the Past,” Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories; and Goffart, Narrators of Barbarian History. CONCLUSION 209 tocracy and clergy, Henry attempted to ensure that it would circulate widely among the very classes whose opinion...