Hugh of Poitiers, The Vézelay Chronicle and other documents from MS. Auxerre 227 and elsewhere (review)

Reviews 253 the worst from the events mentioned. Of course, events in the Balkans have now outdated the section in Vol. I . on 'Yugoslavia' which wtil also need the addition of '(former)' in future editions. As one who has trodden much of the frustrating path tramped over by Emil Polak (though in pursuit of less demanding material and without the exhaustive attention to Eastern European and former Soviet coUections), I can only congratulate him on his massive pertinacity, his unending research skills, the personal courtesy he displayed towards the librarians he had dealings with (which I know of from personal experience) and his zeal to serve the humanistic community. His coUection is an indispensable aid and should be in every major tibrary where medieval and Renaissance research is conducted, or likely to be conducted. Indeed, i t should be available to aU those who would contemplate the vast and curious past of European cultural ideals and practices: what kind of a society must i t have been that invested so massively and so diversely in the activities meticulously inventoried in these two volumes? W h o were these dictatores (sociologicaUy), with their strange-sounding and often unheard-of names? H o w and what did they teach, and to whom? What use was made of this pervasive instruction? Polak's volumes must represent the fust port of call for anyone wishing to answer these questions. John O. Ward Department of History University of Sydney Scott, John and John O. Ward, ed. and trans., Hugh of Poitiers Vezelay Chronicle and other documents from MS. Auxerre 227 a elsewhere. With notes, introduction, and accompanying material. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies), Binghamton, N e w York, 1992; paper; pp. x, 402; R.R.P. US$12.00. Vezelay, in western Burgundy, is well known to all medievalists for i t s beautiful Romanesque church dedicated to Mary Magdalene, with many marveUous sculptures dominated by the tympanum depicting the Ascension. But the history of the town in the twelfth century, 254 Reviews when this church was built, is hardly known at all. There survives, however, an account of events during this period, composed by the notary Hugh of Poitiers, which i t s translators describe as an 'extraordinarily vivid and meticulous narrative'. Hugh recounts the violent and persistent struggles within the town of Vezelay between the abbots of the monastery and the rapacious counts of Nevers, during the period 1140 to 1167. The abbots appealed at various times to the pope and the king of France, and were supported by both, while the counts had an unlikely ally in the burghers of the town, who were keen to establish a commune independent of the abbey. A U these parties were vigorous in pursuing and attempting to enforce what they saw as their rights. Violence and litigation were endemic. Hugh the notary generally presents the case of the abbey which he served, and pours scorn on 'certain pseudomonks ' who dared to ally themselves with the count against their abbot. But he manages nevertheless to recount the details of the legal proceedings in what appears to be an accurate and fairly objective way. This is more than just a narrative account of events by a careful observer, though. As Scott and Ward point out, the Vezelay material i s an example of a type of compilation or dossier which was far more typical of twelfth-century historical scholarship than the formal work of a single author. MS. Auxerre 227, as well as containing Hugh's formal Vezelay chronicle, is a copy of his collection of documents which was presumably intended for practical polemical purposes. Among the contents are notes on the family of the counts of Nevers, copies of seventy charters relating to the church of Vezelay, and annals covering more than 1,100 years, subsequently continued after Hugh's death in 1167. In a time of great change, twelfth-century monks were intensely interested in accumulating historical knowledge, often as a foundation for the defence of monastic privileges from earlier times, and Hugh's compilation is a good example of this. I t shows something of the raw materials from which narratives like Hugh...