Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In his study titled “La historiografía medieval: Entre la historia y la literatura”, Jaume Aurell contends that there is a significant paradigm shift between 11th-12th- and 13th-to-15th century history-writing. Aurell notes that between these two periods there is a shift from genealogical narratives to chronicling. According to Aurell, genealogies were quite popular during the 11th-12th centuries because nascent monarchies were fighting to establish and consolidate their potestas and therefore needed simple genealogical narratives in order to justify their claims to power in the clearest and definitive manner possible. Most genealogies tend to be schematic “narratives of origins” that begin with a mythical hero portrayed as the founder of the dynasty, and subsequently focus on the succession of counts, dukes, princes or kings up to the present, or at least close to the time of the current ruler. Aurell notes that the rhythm of genealogical narratives is sequential and predictable. In contrast, chronicles tend to provide considerably more narrative detail and focus less on chronology. In the above-mentioned study, Aurell illustrates this shift primarily within the framework of Castilian and Aragonese-Catalonian history-writing. In my paper, I assess the viability of this theoretical construct in the case of French history-writing between the 12th and the 15th centuries.

Presenters

Cristian Bratu
Professor of French, Division Director for French and Italian; Associate Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, Baylor University, Texas, United States