Poetry, punctuation and performance: Was there an aural context for Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s Historia Normannorum?
Benjamin Pohl
This article explores the possibility of an aural and/or performative context for ­reception and dissemination Dudo Saint-Quentin’s Historia Normannorum. Scholarship to date has produced two main schools thought concerning Normannorum’s target audiences during eleventh twelfth centuries, one which discusses Dudo’s work in capacity a Latin school book, thereby emphasising its didactic educational purpose, whereas other identifies circles reception at courts Norman dukes their peers, thus stressing text’s potential dynastic self-fashioning, ritual display. Drawing on primary evidence surviving eleventh- twelfth-century manuscripts, combining it with recent theoretical different modes literary communication, this argues that these thoughts are not mutually exclusive. Based detailed study manuscripts’ punctuation mise-en-page (including use colour), showcases Normannorum as “multimedia text” rather naturally lent itself being read performed setting. Conceptualising literature historiography such way significantly enriches transforms our understanding poetic culture Anglo-Norman worlds.
Tabularia|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)