History Making in Twelfth-Century Britain between the National and the Supranational

Estella Antoaneta Ciobanu (Ovidius University Constanta, Romania) [BIO]

Email: estellaciobanu@yahoo.co.uk

 

ABSTRACT:

At the dawn of the construction of western European Christian identity in the 12th–13th centuries, two Welshmen’s narratives left their imprint on the English and European imaginary, respectively: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1138) and Thomas of Monmouth’s The Life and Passion of Little Saint William the Martyr of Norwich (c. 1149/50–1172/73). Geoffrey’s Historia, though not the first of its kind in Britain, provided the template for the English historiographic narratives to come: it imposed coherence on a past of polymorphous ethnicity by establishing a line of founding fathers (Brutus and King Arthur) who had erected the British patria. Thomas’ Vita, though recently of disputed primacy, may well document the 12th century beginnings of the accusation of the European Jews of ritual murder; thanks to its hagiographic format, it lent this accusation undeniable authority despite its dubious, retroactively confected, testimony. The two texts share a discursive strategy whose outcome, the parthenogenetic construction of the English and Christian patria, respectively, can only be produced through the suppression of the putatively monstrous other – hence their “mythical” legacy to subsequent discourses on the topic: imputed monstrosity legitimises the “civilizing”-cum-annihilation process undertaken by the self-styled bearers of normality.