When modern historians encounter legal documents in medieval historiography, Henry Bainton writes, they see nothing more than an act of duty. A simple “documentary gesture” of copying something legally important to preserve it for posterity that has often been tied to the increasing sophistication of governmental bureaucracy (1). However, in History and the Written Word: Documents, Literacy, and Language in the Age of the Angevins, Bainton argues that the motivation for the inclusion of these documents is more complex than may first appear. His approach is threefold: first, that the relationship between documentary history writing and the formation of the bureaucratic state was not exclusive; second, that written record was a form of memory rather than a replacement of it; and third, that language should be thought of in terms of literate power instead of bureaucracy, so the vernacular should be studied on the same level as Latin. With these ideas in mind, the first step of analysis is to define what is considered a document. Bainton distinguishes between documenta and scripta, with the former referring to texts medieval historians quoted for didactic purposes and the latter a broader administrative term used to refer to letters and official documents.

In his first chapter, Bainton argues that the term scripta is most fitting because it draws attention to the written nature of the documents. This written nature is what made scripta so effective within medieval historiography: they flowed naturally with the narrative and appeared to be objective. To illustrate this point, Bainton uses Alan of Tewkesbury's work on Thomas Beckett to demonstrate how effectively scripta could be deployed within narratives. In his vita sancta Thomae, Alan combined John of Salisbury's vita of Beckett with his own compilation of Beckett's letters. Referring to the work of narratologist Hayden White, Bainton argues that medieval historians utilizing scripta like Alan of Tewkesbury were able to “emplot” them in such a way to present the narrative in exactly the manner and order they wanted, thus making them a valuable historical tool (27). These scripta were also a memorial tool, because by including them within their histories, medieval writers were giving them afterlives: they were able to be used, interpreted, and preserved by each new reader or listener.

Bainton's second chapter concerns the act of quotation, and the intertextuality involved in compiling and quoting scripta. This connects with his main argument that modern historians have failed to realize the true significance of quoted documents: by utilizing scripta, he writes, medieval historians were able to “tell stories that they had emplotted and to tell stories that the scripta themselves did not necessarily tell” (37). So instead of producing a mere derivative or mindlessly copying to preserve something for the future, medieval historians were instead subordinating scripta to their own point of view and purpose. By quoting a text, these historians were reframing its meaning and changing its status as an independent text into another plot point. This relates back to the cultural memory of texts. Bainton writes that scripta obtain meaning not from their original author, but from those who repeated and commemorated them. Therefore, instead of simply attempting to “reduplicate the textual residue of the past when they reframed scripta,” medieval writers were trying to promote an “active engagement with the past” (46).

Because the narrative gives the scripta meaning, it also creates memory, which leads to Bainton's third chapter, in which he discusses how this memory was formed and disseminated in a literate society. In this chapter, Bainton argues that scholars have largely ignored the Angevin emphasis on the public performance of writing as a way of constructing memory. Many medieval historians wrote with a listening audience in mind, and this created the idea of a “memorial public” consisting of an elite group that shaped its identity through publicly remembering the past (60). But this “memorial public” did not gather all the time—it mostly assembled during important, likely political, events. Thus, Bainton argues, the memorial public was also a political public, and the connection between history writing, performance of scripta, and assembly politics was reinforced by literacy.

Bainton's fourth chapter concerns the connection between what he calls “literate performances” and literate government (74). Here, Bainton examines the relationship between Angevin history writing and the increasingly sophisticated governmental administration. He notes that many historians from this period were also government officials, but he cautions against the assumption that these men wrote at the behest of the state. Instead, Bainton focuses on “literate lordship” (76) and gives several examples of how the written word was wielded as a weapon at the local level. Building on the political public discussed in the previous chapter, Bainton gives an example from Richard of Devizes in which two bishops publicly read letters in their battle for supremacy. While Richard I was on crusade, the bishops of Ely and Durham were fighting for preeminence and had letters written to them by the king read publicly. Because Ely's letter was more recent and specific, he won the battle, and he referred to the scripta in question as a clava (club) that he used to beat his opponent into submission (77). Bainton therefore argues that the written word was used as a physical intervention in local power struggles, and that it mattered where and when the scripta was performed, and by whom. Writing thus had discernable political consequences in the exercise of lordship, and its very visibility was fundamental.

Ultimately, Bainton argues that the proliferation of scripta included in Angevin chronicles was not a direct effect of the increasingly sophisticated governmental system, but rather they were instruments of literate lordship. Scripta were utilized to affect change at a local rather than a national level. Quoting scripta in chronicles was therefore far from a passive duty to medieval historians; rather, it was an act of mobilizing the power of the past to affect the present and the future. In History and the Written Word, Bainton illustrates this thesis through well-organized chapters and multiple theoretical approaches. This book, ideal for those interested in Angevin historians in particular and medieval history writing in general, asks us to look more closely at an idea most modern historians have taken for granted. And through Bainton's thoughtful mobilization of evidence, and deployment of theories of narratology and memory, we can see that the “duty” of medieval historians copying scripta was really a powerful historical act.