Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150-1220 (review)

The twelfth and the thirteenth centuries witnessed a blossoming of historical writings in England from William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum anglorum to local historians of a monastery such as Jocelin of Brakelonde's Chronicle of the Abbey of Saint Edmund's. Elizabeth Freeman's book offers new readings of the somewhat less studied historical narratives written by English Cistercian monks between 1150 and 1220. Informed by recent historiographical studies, the author brings tools typical of literary criticism to shed light on the meaning, goals, and audience of the texts in question.

Freeman divides her book in four parts with a total of six chapters, and each part focuses on a specific historical narrative or type of narrative: Aelred of Rievaulx's Relatio de Standardo and Genealogia regum Anglorum (Part 1), the recording of history in English Cistercian monasteries of the twelfth century (Part 2), two works written at least in part by Hugh of Kirkstall (the Fundacio abbathie de Kyrkestall, and the Narratio de fundatione Fontanis monasterii) (Part 3), and finally on Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicon Anglicanum (Part 4). The four parts are tied together by a theoretical introduction, where Freeman introduces the themes and goals of her inquiry, even though the different parts had been originally conceived as relatively independent entities (p. 15).

Freeman's emphasis on aspects such as audience reception and manuscript dissemination allows her to take a fresh look at some familiar texts. If, for example, Aelred's Relatio de Standardo seems little more than a traditional description of a single medieval battle, a close reading of the text shows his interest in creating a national identity and the role of the monastic foundations in it. Aelred's success in this goal is paradoxically witnessed by the limited dissemination of the work, read and copied only in the monasteries of northern England. In chapter 2 (Part 1), Freeman enters into a dialogue with Benedict Anderson's ideas on nationalism and community, but also concentrates on the intended audience for the Genealogia regum Anglorum, showing it to be a manual for a king who in himself would represent a strongly male-gendered nation.

After a clear and useful survey of historical writings in medieval England in Part 2, the author investigates in Part 3 the goals of Hugh of Kirkestall's histories from the beginning of the thirteenth century, and especially the presence of the description of the negative and difficult moments of the early story of the monasteries. Freeman convincingly explains the writing of these histories in terms of the creation of the tradition of the Cistercian order. In this context, the pitfalls of the early history of the monastery simply help to confirm the trend toward a resolution of internal conflicts. Also of particular interest is the discussion in chapter 5 (Part 3) of the use of short narrative texts, or exempla, in Hugh's Narracio. Cistercian exempla are a different brand from the later, thirteenth-century exempla used by friars in their preaching, and Freeman argues persuasively that Hugh's use of those short narratives in his Narracio was meant "to speak to individual monks" (p. 165).

The final chapter (Part 4), with the captivating title of "Meanings in the Borders," is devoted to Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicon Anglicanum, and in particular to the way Ralph created his work, what she calls how "the process of narrativization occurs," and not on the work as a finished, polished piece of work (p. 177). In particular, Freeman concentrates on the insertion of fictional and wonder tales into the historical narrative, stressing how, if they do not conform to our modern view of how history should be written, they place Ralph squarely in the tradition of medieval Cistercian...