The book under review here pursues an argument that is at once straightforward and complex: namely that, in the author’s own words, “during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there was an attempt to elevate history from the position of teaching aid to a subject of serious inquiry,” a “disciplinization of history,” so to speak (11). What is more, this proposed transformation of historical study—and, specifically, historical writing—from an auxiliary science into a scholarly discipline avant la lettre is presented as borrowing both conceptually and methodologically from the established “toolkits” (ibid.) of medieval—and, by extension, classical—lawyers and theologians, with chroniclers increasingly availing themselves of reference tools and techniques that combine into something akin to the modern critical apparatus. Such a proposal may well raise some eyebrows due to its implicit sense of teleology, but also because it seems to posit a periodisation that operates primarily on the basis of difference rather than similarity, of change rather than continuity. On the one hand, the premise of historical scholarship in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is being contrasted with modern academic study, which according to the author operates with a clear distinction between history and fiction; an assessment that seems rather questionable from a post-structuralist perspective, however, all the more so in the brave new world of generative AI. On the other hand, it is contrasted with earlier medieval historiography, which is presented as having been characterised less by established convention than by creative licence. Grabowski is aware of these caveats, and he explicitly addresses some of them in the book’s substantial, carefully prepared introduction, as well as, to a lesser degree, in its subsequent chapters. Still, perhaps the balance in the introduction could have been shifted a little more towards the period that preceded the chronological focus of this study and away from well-rehearsed post-nineteenth-century developments.
Structurally, the book is organised into five main chapters that address different but related aspects of the “new” ways in which history was written and compiled in the period under consideration. Scaffolding this chapter organisation is a secondary structure, one that operates more chronologically by considering a selection of four chronicles produced between the first half of the twelfth and the second half of the thirteenth century: the Status imperii Iudaici, whose anonymous author self-identifies as “compilator” and is referred to as such throughout the book; the two chronicles of Hélinand of Froidmont and Alberic of Trois-Fontaines; and Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum historiale. In essence, therefore, Grabowski’s book is a comparative case study of these four texts set against the wider background of historiographical theory and practice during the collective life spans of their respective authors. This is not intended as a criticism, even if Grabowski seems to anticipate the reader’s scepticism (or even disapproval) in his justification of the book’s methodology (35-37), which strikes me as needlessly apologetic. In fact, there is, to my mind, a lot to commend in each of the five chapters, even if I do not always agree with the overall conclusions.
A particular highlight is the comparatively brief but insightful discussion of the craft—or perhaps rather the art—of compilation as a sophisticated historical method in its own right provided in the book’s first chapter. Scholars for too long have been viewing compilation as secondary to authorial composition, often treating medieval historians who compiled rather than composed histories as second-class writers. Grabowski effectively challenges this notion by showcasing the skilful and conscientious working methods of twelfth- and thirteenth-century compilers (or “compilators”) of history as firmly rooted in self-reflective heuristic methods paired with an acute sense of source criticism. Of equal insight and import are Grabowski’s reflections on authors (auctores) and authorities (auctoritates), which he develops across the book’s third and fourth chapters. Combining close textual analysis with at times forensic manuscript study, Grabowski sheds important light on the production and intended use of lists of authors/authorities, at the same time as engaging productively with the long-standing tradition of scholarship on the medieval meaning(s) of the Latin term auctor and its cognates actor and autor championed by Marie-Dominique Chenu and, more recently, Jan-Dirk Müller, whose work is, however, absent from the footnotes and bibliography.
More noticeable, and puzzling, is the complete absence of illustrations, which, given the book’s subject, would have greatly enhanced the reading experience and made Grabowski’s commendably detailed descriptions and often persuasive interpretations of specific codicological phenomena and the working methods of individual authors/scribes much easier to follow. Another questionable choice is the Appendix (207-220) dedicated to the use of source marks in the early and high Middle Ages, which in its present form lacks a clear sense of coherence and direction, and which due to its placement feels more like an afterthought or “leftover content” than an integral part of the argument. This is a shame, as much of the information gathered in this appendix from a laudably broad chronological survey could have been included elsewhere in the book to further enhance the arguments of individual chapters.
In sum, Grabowski’s thought-provoking book makes an original and provocative contribution to scholarship that challenges existing knowledge about the conventions of historical compilation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by nuancing our understanding of medieval chroniclers’ tools and working methods. Whether the findings generated across its chapters combine into a sufficiently coherent picture to allow us to identify a conscious and programmatic effort amongst these chroniclers “to change the methods of compiling historical works” (18) remains debatable, however.