The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon - Hardcover
Synopsis
The first major historians of medieval Europe composed histories of the Goths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards. They are the main witnesses to the long epoch--sometimes called "the Dark Ages"--that their writings span, and they have nourished patriotic pride in the modern nations whose origins they are thought to narrate: Jordanes in Germany and Italy, Gregory of Tours in France, Bede in Britain, and Paul the Deacon in Italy. In a book that brings out the conscious creativity of these four writers, Walter Goffart focuses on their goals, scrutinizing what each of them was doing and for whom.
The historians are examined one by one, as called for by the circumstances of their lives, the individuality of their works, and the critical writings each has occasioned. Their opinions and literary talents are taken as seriously as the information they convey. Professor Goffart's findings about their writing and what moved them to produce it clarify a delicate chapter in the history of historical thought and provide new insights into social, religious, and literary life at the dawn of the Middle Ages.
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About the Author
WALTER GOFFART is professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto and Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer in History at Yale University.
Review
"This book will be extremely valuable for those wishing to understand any of its four narrators. In addition to its exciting approach, it is a masterpiece of scholarship, magnificently and precisely noted." —Speculum
"The Narrators of Barbarian History should become essential reading for all early medievalists." —History
" . . . A work of considerable importance. [Goffart's] insistence that these Dark Age historians were literary figures, who had specific goals in mind, and moulded their narratives to suit their ends, is crucial. So too is the notion that the works by these historians, and not the information they contain, are our real incontrovertible 'facts.' . . . His thesis ought radically to transform our approach to the early middle ages." —Canadian Journal of History
". . . A work which will both provoke much discussion of its central ideas and be widely consulted as a standard source of reference for the writers with whom it deals." —Church History
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