Michele Campopiano & Henry Bainton 
Universal Chronicles in the High Middle Ages 

New perspectives on and interpretations of the popular medieval genre of the universal chronicle.


Found in pre-modern cultures of every era and across the world, from the ancient Near East to medieval Latin Christendom, the universal chronicle is simultaneously one of the most ubiquitous pre-modern cultural forms and one of the most overlooked. Universal chronicles narrate the history of the whole world from the time of its creation up to the then present day, treating the world’s affairs as though they were part of a single organic reality, and uniting various strands of history into a unifed, coherent story. They reveal a great deal about how the societies that produced them understood their world and how historical narrative itself can work to produce that understanding.

The essays here offer new perspectives on the genre, from a number of different disciplines, demonstrating their vitality, flexibility and cultural importance, They reveal them to be deeply political texts, which allowed history-writers and their audiences to locate themselves in space, time and in the created universe. Several chapters address the manuscript context, looking at the innovative techniques of compilation, structure and layout that placed them at the cutting edge of medieval book technology. Others analyse the background of universal chronicles, and identify their circulation amongst different social groups; there are also investigations into their literary discourse, patronage, authorship and diffusion.


Michele Campopiano is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Latin Literature at the University of York; Henry Bainton is Lecturer in High Medieval Literature at the University of York.


Contributors:Tobias Andersson, Michele Campopiano, Cornelia Dreer, Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Elena Koroleva, Keith Lilley, Andrew Marsham, Rosa M. Rodriguez Porto, Christophe Thierry, Elizabeth M. Tyler, Steven Vanderputten, Bjorn Weiler, Claudia Wittig.

Table of Content

Introduction: New Perspectives on Universal Chronicles in the High Middle Ages – Michele Campopiano

The First Islamic Chronicle: The Chronicle Of Khalifa B. Khayyat (d. AD 854) – Tobias Andersson and Andrew Marsham

Universal Historiography as Process? Shaping Monastic Memories in the Eleventh-Century
Chronicle Of Saint-Vaast – Steven Vanderputten

Writing Universal History in Eleventh-Century England: Cotton Tiberius B. i, German Imperial History-writing and Vernacular Lay Literacy – Elizabeth M. Tyler

Political Didacticism in the Twelfth Century: the Middle-High German
Kaiserchronik – Claudia Wittig

Cosmology, Theology of History and Ideology in Godfrey of Viterbo’s
Pantheon – Michele Campopiano

Écrire l’histoire universelle à la cour de Konrad IV de Hohenstaufen : Rudolf von Ems et la
Weltchronik (milieu du XIIIe siècle) – Christophe Thierry

Écrire la première histoire universelle en français: l’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César de Wauchier de Denain et l’adaptation du modèle latin de l’histoire universelle à un public de laïcs – Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas

How Unusual was Matthew Paris? The Writing of Universal History in Angevin England – Björn Weiler

The Pillars of Hercules: The
Estoria De Espanna (Escorial, Y.I.2) as Universal Chronicle – Rosa M. Rodríguez Porto

La
Vie d’Alexandre dans la
Chronique dite de Baudouin d’Avesnes – Elena Koroleva

Universal Histories and their Geographies: Navigating the Maps and Texts of Higden’s
Polychronicon – Cornelia Dreer

Universal Histories and their Geographies: Navigating the Maps and Texts of Higden’s
Polychronicon – Keith D. Lilley