Somewhere, Frank Barlow must be smiling. Any historian would smile to have a collection as good as this as one's Festschrift. Quite apart from the fact that the articles, all by senior scholars, are uniformly excellent and immensely thoughtful, they pay tribute to Barlow by displaying his own characteristic virtues as a biographer of medieval subjects: careful and critical towards sources, yet still able to write clearly, in a style elegant in its simplicity, and to make judgments with great common sense and a leavening dose of wit. David Bates' splendid preface makes these virtues come alive.
Despite recurring themes and a focus (largely but not exclusively) on England, the articles are extremely diverse in their chronology and topics. Since it is impossible to do justice to each of them in the space of a review, I will simply list them, giving only very brief indicators of their subjects and ending with some broad comments.
An introduction by the editors provides a condensed history of biographical writing, emphasizing both the continuing importance of biographical genres but also their adaptability to different purposes and needs. In "Did Charlemagne Have a Private Life?" Janet Nelson continues her quest to find "the voice of Charlemagne." Building on an excellent discussion of Einhard's rare uses of "private" and "public," Nelson accepts the difficulty of writing biographies for an age when these words denoted entirely different contrasts than today. Yet she still manages to find indicators of Charlemagne's personality, including an earthy, body-oriented sense of humor; a gift for friendship; a closely related greatness of feeling that allowed him to shed tears publicly (his magnanimitas trumping patientia and pietas); and a weakness for girls. (Nelson continues to note possible innuendos of incest, though she also still tends to discount the likelihood.)
Robin Fleming's "Bones for Historians" is a dense but unusually enlightening survey of analyses of skeletal remains excavated from medieval English sites. Among the findings she culls from the studies is the truly shocking amount of stress people lived with and died from, children especially, with clear signs of endemic malnutrition and anemia, leading to stunted growth through adolescence (not necessarily beyond) and early death in adulthood. She also rightly draws our attention to the human and social implications of the studies, not least, a large number of motherless children and the welcome security and support found in nucleating settlements. On the other hand, nucleation had its downside in much higher loads of parasites and pathogens. Her list of bugs found in excavated latrines and cesspits is guaranteed to bring of horrified squeals to any lecture hall of undergraduates.
Barbara Yorke examines the small number of hagiographical treatments of Anglo-Saxon saints that appear to have been written by individuals with direct or indirect personal knowledge of their subjects. Focusing especially on Leoba and Edith, and in particular on the former's correspondence, Yorke argues that the saint herself took much more initiative than Rudolf's later Life allows, while staking much on her kinship ties to an important man (Boniface). Yorke also finds that later hagiographies did faithfully represent many aspects of her life, because they were founded on traditions that went back to contemporaries.
Richard Abels provides a very useful survey of biographies of Alfred, from Asser to Charles Plummer, Alfred Smyth, and his own 1998 biography, setting Plummer especially in a Victorian context of prudish self-congratulation. Even more interesting is Abels' account of how his own thinking about Alfred developed, and his discovery that despite his best efforts he ended up writing a very traditional biography. His explanation is that we are all writing from "twice-told tales." In other words, the sources we have (Asser included) present the tales Alfred wanted told. Though we cannot escape them, they do nevertheless reflect something of Alfred himself, including his tendency to lecture everyone from bishops to dog-keepers like "a pious and earnest micromanager."
Revisiting his study of Æthelred, Simon Keynes argues that the early Viking attacks of the reign looked much different at the time than they were remembered even a few years later. As the attacks gathered force and coordination, ecclesiastical leaders called for a program of reform, visible, if one looks for it, in a wide variety of sources, including Abingdon's 993 charter of liberties (of which Keynes provides a superb analysis), Aelfric's homilies and lives of saints, and the "apparently systematic promotion" of the cult of saints between 995-1005. The king's own confession of guilt for the sins of his youth was part of this program. Keynes also provides an important warning: contemporaries' analysis of the travails in terms of sin, punishment, and reform may have been entirely conventional; it was no less important and sincere.
Writing of the eleventh-century queen Emma, Pauline Stafford appeals to Pierre Bourdieu's contention that structure does not determine individuals' actions but rather creates possibilities around which individuals must make choices. Following the death of Cnut in 1035, for example, Emma found herself the widow of two different kings and mother of sons by each. As Stafford comments drily, "The script here was no simple guide." Social roles did not dictate Emma's actions but rather created "room for agency."
In "The Flemish Contribution to Biographical Writing in England in the Eleventh Century," Elisabeth Van Houts notes the disproportionate contribution of eleventh-century Flemish writers to Anglo-Saxon hagiography. She explains it partly in terms of the absence of notable patronage in Flanders and its ready availability in England, but she also insists on a characteristic not often enough recognized: the sheer literary genius of Flemish writers. Van Houts also perceptively notes these writers' unusual sympathy towards women. Here her explanation is that they shared with women a knowledge of what it was like to be strangers in foreign lands and households.
David Bates' article calls for a new biography of William the Conqueror, with a new narrative informed by better understandings of our sources. To that end, he discusses recent interpretations of William of Jumièges, William of Poitiers, Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury, and the D-recension of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pointing out, for example, that William of Poitiers can best be read as trying to respond to William of Jumièges' criticisms. On the other hand, Bates also finds plenty of evidence of satisfaction with William's actions, even in the Chronicle. With this understanding of the diversity of perspectives of our sources about William, Bates turns David C. Douglas' summation of William's character on its head: it was not William's personality that was full of contradictions but rather contemporary judgments about him.
Jane Martindale discusses two fabulously rare eleventh-century autobiographical fragments produced by lay princes: William IX of Aquitaine's poem "Pos de chantar" and Fulk le Réchin's account of his ancestry. She identifies the distinctive characteristics of Fulk's history, including an obbligato insistence on his ancestors' military exploits, a complete disregard of women, and the calculated omission of obvious facts, like his usurpation of his county from his nephew. She also confirms what other studies have found: that a family's memory, when dependent entirely on oral transmissions unaided by written or material memorials, did not go back much more than a century. Insightfully, Martindale also notes that Fulk and Abelard both begin their autobiographical accounts in the same way, directly and simply, with an account of their family origins initiated by the first-person singular "ego." Finally, she points out that for both princes, "probitas"/"proeza" and "honor"/"onor" were central to their self-representations.
Christopher Holdsworth takes seriously the accounts of Bernard of Clairvaux's miracles in the Vita Prima. Noting that far more miracles were recorded of Bernard than of any contemporary saints, he attributes this to the public sphere of Bernard's activities, especially on his travels. He further emphasizes that not just the writers of the Vita Prima but also members of Bernard's own family treated those miracles cautiously, even skeptically. Indeed, Bernard himself was ambivalent about his abilities. At the same time, Holdsworth argues that we can trace a change in Bernard's attitude towards his own miracles, as over time he gained confidence in them, even as he realized that to a certain extent their success was the result of people's expectations, primed by his fame.
Lindy Grant performs a great service in uncovering a network of bishops linked to Geoffrey of Lèves, bishop of Chartres (1115-49). Largely unheralded by historians, in Grant's careful unraveling of the sources, he turns out to have been "the great conciliator of his time" and mentor to a group of pragmatic reformers in the French church--a group Grant calls Ligerian (because of its gravitation around the Loire valley). Fervent supporters of a reformed monastic and canonical life, Geoffrey and his disciples (who included Arnulf of Lisieux) still stood for strong episcopal leadership within the church. Not great writers (which is why their influence is so hard to trace), they were, however, effective politicians (which is why they were so important).
In "The Empress Matilda as a Subject for Biography," Marjorie Chibnall gives substance but also sympathy to the usual characterizations of Matilda as arrogant. Through her early marriage with Henry V, she learned "the status and duties of a queen that she remembered all her life," later refusing even to rise to greet her uncle, the king of Scotland, and throughout her life using a seal with the inscription "Regina Romanorum." Much of Chibnall's article, however, is devoted to understanding Matilda's failure to impose herself after her father's death, a failure Chibnall locates primarily in Stephen's quick and successful seizure of the throne in England. Once that was done, given the weakness of her support in Normandy, Matilda had little choice but to play a diplomatic game at Rome. Chibnall also exonerates Robert of Gloucester from the charge of double-dealing, justifying his quick submission to Stephen by arguing that if he had not submitted quickly, his castles would have been forfeited, leaving him without any capacity to aid Matilda at all.
Edmund King reexamines the form and substance of the Gesta Stephani. He remains unconvinced by Ralph Davis' claim that the anonymous author was the bishop of Bath, Robert of Lewes. Instead, King suggests that the author was perhaps a canon or monk in a London house with good court connections. He also does not see any sign that the author wrote in two separate campaigns, the second following his repudiation of Stephen. Rather, the author continued to support Stephen, simply on the grounds that he remained the anointed king, and continued to reject Matilda's claims on the grounds that the oath made to her had been coerced.
In an admirable piece of research, John Gillingham rewrites much of the biography of Roger of Howden, author of three important histories. In part he deepens his and others' earlier observations about Roger, emphasizing in particular that he remained in royal service throughout his career, and that he developed a hands-on expertise in northern affairs (both Yorkshire and Scotland) that eventually brought him a benefice in Glasgow. Beyond this, a careful analysis of patterns in Roger's writings allows Gillingham to pinpoint hitherto unsuspected embassies led by Roger not just to Scotland but to Rome and Germany on behalf of the king. The result is another example of the multi-tasking skills required of royal agents, along with an invaluable incidental discussion of the ways the royal court publicized its itinerary throughout the country.
In a delightful, almost rakish article, David Crouch examines the anonymous History of William Marshal. He does not believe that the text is a uniquely surviving specimen of a once common genre. Instead, he holds that nothing quite like the History had ever been written before, leading Crouch to an imaginative analysis of the way the author worked, the precedents and sources he used, and the conscientiousness with which he tried to fulfill his commission. Crouch believes that the author's few written sources included old account rolls that gave the terms of William's contracts at early tournaments and a souvenir roll for the 1179 tournament of Lagny. He also argues that many of the most distinctive themes of the History were introduced at the urging of the Marshal's son (who commissioned the work) in order to defend his father's reputation against charges of profiteering and negligence in his duties towards Henry II's son. Not the least of Crouch's insights is his ability to recover the voice of the Marshal himself, in stories he had told so often that they had become worn smooth.
Finally, in "The Strange Case of the Missing Biographies," Nicholas Vincent poses the kind of question I wish historians asked more often: why are there no official or quasi-official biographies of Plantagenet rulers, as there are of Capetian and Staufen? One explanation Vincent offers is that the model of history which governed Plantagenet kingship was the Old Testament, leading to the triumph of "the biblical and Bedan tradition of chronicle writing" in England. This is not wholly convincing, given that the same traditions were prominent in France. More convincing are Vincent's two other suggestions. First, Becket's murder made it impossible to celebrate Plantagenet kingship too uncritically. Second, given the rivalries that tore apart the ruling family, especially at successions, no Angevin/Plantagenet king had any reason "to commission eulogies of their immediate predecessors."
In trying to cull general principles from a collection of such wealth, I would single out three. First, Bates gives Barlow's own justification for the length of his biography of Edward the Confessor: "As every fact is doubtful, every action capable of half-a-dozen different explanations, it was fraudulent to write briefly. One simply had to discuss." The articles in this collection amply demonstrate the difficulties of writing biographies of even the best documented medieval subjects, but they also point out the great value of trying to write them--in other words, the value of the discussion. Second, it is no coincidence that such stellar articles were written by such senior scholars. Quite apart from the truth of Stafford's remark (which certainly matches my own experience) that something happens as one ages that makes one more attuned to individuals, there is also the fact that in order to find traces of individuals in sources as refractory as ours, one simply needs a great deal of experience. Without it, one cannot distinguish the rare from the ordinary. Finally, it has proved nearly impossible for me to do justice to the articles in this collection, for despite the relative coherence of the authors' programs, their subjects, approaches, and periods are simply too diverse. One needs to have very latitudinarian curiosity to be equally enthralled by articles on Charlemagne and Bernard of Clairvaux, Anglo-Saxon female saints and William Marshal, bones and poems. Yet this very problem points to another reason the attempt to write biography remains valuable even when it cannot succeed. No genre of history engages more intensely with period and place. None exposes so effectively the dual failings of excessive specialization and excessive theorization. None demands quite so unforgivingly that we test generality and abstraction against the concrete and specific. Few may read all the articles in this collection, but reading any of them will make one a better historian.