Fact and Pattern in Heroic History: Dudo of Saint-Quentin
Eleanor Searle
Around the turn of millenium, Dudo St.-Quentin, an
ecclesiastic in service Norman Duke, was commissioned to
write an account Viking invasion by Duke's grandfather
Rollo, who captured Rouen late ninth or early tenth century.
That has long been puzzle and irritant to historians, for it
has shown be factually unreliable where it can checked
against other sources. The irritation is all greater because of
the potential importance work, which only source we have
about events century within area that becoming
Normandy.
This paper argues if work read as essentially a
heroic epic, pattern key their
significance meaning, then author recounting a revealing
story. Read art, Dudo's book concerns legitimacy: the
God-bestowed legitimacy lineage chieftains now
and forever -- those have accepted the
leadership lineage. These acceptors Rouen, pattern
implies, are new invaders, mid-tenth century, sealed their
alliance with earlier, seriously threatened, group great
marriage (followed series marriages) added imperatives
of kinship advantages collective coordinated action. Dudo's
facts about Rollo, first, God-chosen leader, are, this
reading, mere embellishments his eulogy own patrons' success
in creating proto-state, capable providing safety stability in
the lands so recently conquered.
Such reading shifts establishment Normandy from the
late introduces principle of
state-formation tested more easily understood
sources eleventh
Viator