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  • Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works
  • Elizabeth Freeman
Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works. Translated by Jane Patricia Freeland; edited, with an Introduction and Annotations, by Marsha L. Dutton. [Cistercian Fathers Series, Number 56.] (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications. 2005. Pp. xii, 306. Paperback.)

This book includes translations of four texts by Aelred of Rievaulx: Genealogia regum Anglorum (as well as the Lamentatio David Regis Scotie, which appears in manuscripts in tandem with the GRA), Vita sancti Edwardi, and De bello standardii. Although it has always been known that Aelred, the great twelfth-century English Cistercian abbot, wrote historical works as well as spiritual treatises, scholarship on his historical writings has no doubt been impeded by the lack of translations. Prior to Freeland and Dutton's book, an English translation of Aelred's Life of Edward the Confessor was available (although not widely disseminated), but there were no full translations of the Battle of the Standard or Genealogy of the English Kings texts. A more or less acceptable Latin text (and modern English translation) of the Lament could be found embedded in the editions of both John of Fordun's Scottish history and Walter Bower's Scotichronicon (given that Fordun incorporated Aelred's Lament, basically faithfully, into his own history and that Bower later relied on Fordun), but reading a text at one or two steps removed like this has hardly been ideal, particularly if one has wanted to engage in close reading analyses rather than general reading. Hence, the very fact that English translations of Aelred's histories have been so lacking means that this book will necessarily become the first port of call for many researchers, and certainly for students. The translations are in modern English, have biblical quotations and reminiscences noted, and provide biographical notes to people mentioned in the texts. The Lament translation is taken directly from a contemporary manuscript source—as mentioned, hitherto there has been no completely acceptable Latin edition, let alone English translation, of this work, so the Lament translation here is certainly a boon to scholarship. The other three translations are made from the Patrologia Latina and Rolls Series editions. Dutton's Introduction is particularly helpful on the questions of dates. For too long scholars have simply copied earlier scholars in assuming certain dates for Aelred's compositions. Dutton's earlier date for the composition of De bello standardii (?1153-54, not the hitherto accepted 1155-57) is important in terms of the political influences behind, and consequences of, Aelred's historical writing. As Dutton shows, all four of the texts presented here were, in their ways, "mirrors for kings," and it is clear that there is more to learn about the ways in which Aelred (for so long misread by modern commentators as an ascetic in retreat from the world, as opposed to the politically shrewd abbot he clearly was) used the written word to agitate for Christian kingship and to influence royal affairs precisely at the time when England was in transition to the Angevins. This set of translations, then, should facilitate the study of the political nature of Aelred's history writing. Finally, readers may be interested to note that the companion to this book (Freeland and Dutton's translation and notes on Aelred's remaining historical works—The Life of Ninian, The Book [End Page 391] of the Saints of the Church of Hexham, and the miraculous story of the nun of Watton—focusing in these instances on 'northern' history as opposed to more widely 'national' English history) was published in 2006, also by Cistercian Publications.

Elizabeth Freeman
University of Tasmania
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