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Truth or Consequences: Fiction vs Fact in Historical Research

William of Aquitaine

William of AquitaineTruth or Consequences: Fiction vs Fact in Historical Research

By N. Lee Wood

The Profane Arts of the Middle Ages, Vol.4:2 (2005)

Introduction: At this year’s International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, I had the good fortune to hear a paper given by Dr. Marc Wolterbeek (College of Notre Dame) on Inventing History, Inventing Her Story; The Story of William of Aquitaine’s Marital Affairs, in which he questioned the validity of William of Tyre’s Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum as the primary documentation for William of Aquitaine’s supposed first marriage to “Hermingerda”, daughter of Fulk of Anjou, in 1089 and their subsequent divorce in 1091. Historians have long accepted William of Tyre’s word for it without question. Until very recently. William of Tyre’s account was written well over 70 years after the supposed marriage, none of his contemporaries nor any of Duke William and Ermengard of Anjou even mention such a marriage, and William of Tyre incorrectly identifies Bertrad de Montfort as Ermengard’s mother, all of which cast serious doubt on his accuracy.

Dr. Wolterbeek has attempted to apply objective standards of modern journalism to original source material — charters, decrees, obituaries and contracts — with the objective of reconstructing the past as close to the actual events as possible. This was not, however, the objective for medieval chroniclers such as William of Tyre. Even the term chronicler is instructive; tales, epics and legends, even vague rumors and vicious gossip were as important to the medieval mind as were just the facts, ma’am. The Counts of Anjou were quite proud of having Melusine, a supernatural demoness who could shape-shift and fly, as one of their ancestors. Did any of the Counts of Anjou actually believe it? Possibly. How much credence would the modern historian give this notion? Probably not much.

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Would the Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal be considered an objective and reliable biography of William Marshall, or an exciting episodic narrative based on the True Story, slightly polished here and there by his not-so-impartial family editors?

So… When is a story a story and not a record of history?

Click here to read this article from Leeds Trinity University

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