R. W. Southern 
History and Historians 
Selected Papers of R. W. Southern

This book makes a selection of writings by the great medieval
historian, Sir Richard Southern, available to the wider audience
they deserve.

* * A collection of writings by the great medieval historian, Sir
Richard Southern.

* Offers a fascinating insight into the beliefs and ideas that
underpinned Southern’s work.

* Contains the series of reflections on medieval historical
writing that Southern produced during his tenure as President of
the Royal Historical Society.

* Also includes pieces on the nature of academic history, as well
as Southern’s appreciations of other medievalists.

* Brings together texts that would otherwise be difficult to
locate.

* Makes these writings accessible to the wider audience they
deserve.

Table of Content

Abbreviations vii

Place of First Publication viii

Preface by Janet Nelson x

Introduction 1

Part I Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing

1 The Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth 11

2 Hugh of St. Victor and the Idea of Historical Development 30

3 History as Prophecy 48

4 The Sense of the Past 66

Part II History

5 The Shape and Substance of Academic History 87

6 The Historical Experience 104

7 The Truth about the Past 120

Part III Historians

8 Review of The Letters of Frederic William Maitland 137

9 Sir Maurice Powicke (1879-1963) 144

10 Vivian Hunter Galbraith (1889-1976) 168

11 Richard William Hunt (1908-1979) 193

12 Marjorie Reeves as a Historian 218

13 Beryl Smalley (1905-1984) 225

Notes 240

Bibliography of the Publications of R. W. Southern 260

Index 271

About the author

Sir Richard Southern was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1912
and educated at the Royal Grammar School there and at Balliol
College, Oxford. He was a Fellow of Balliol from 1937-61, Chichele
Professor of History at Oxford from 1961-9, and President of St
John’s College, Oxford from 1969-81. He was knighted in 1974.
He died in Oxford in 2001.

Robert Bartlett is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Medieval
History at the University of St Andrew’s in Scotland and a
Fellow of the British Academy. He has also taught at the
Universities of Edinburgh and Chicago and has held Fellowships at
the Universities of Michigan, Princeton and Göttingen. His
book, The Making of Europe (1993) won the Wolfson Literary
Prize for History.