The upheavals following the Norman Conquest of the kingdom of the English inspired an unprecedented flourishing of historical writing on both sides of the Channel, of which Matthew Paris can be seen as the last great representative. This abundance of material has sparked great interest among historians closer to our own time, first as sources of factual information about the events chronicled in them, and later as resources for studying the world views and historical consciousness of the authors themselves. Laura Cleaver's book is a highly significant contribution to the field of high medieval historiography and serves to establish the author as one of the leading voices of this growing field of study.
This study approaches medieval historiography not through its canonical texts, but through its most significant books, as physical objects where the text is merely one among many significant and informative features. That does not, however, mean that this is merely “book history.” From its moving dedication onward, this book points toward the individuals and communities who commissioned, produced, read, and shared books about the past, and towards the human bonds that these books established and maintained across time. As the title implies, the focus is on decorated books where a visual program complements the text and provides vital information about the human beings by whom and for whom these objects were made. The book is truly interdisciplinary; the author combines her strong expertise in art history with impressive historical, paleographical, and codicological sensitivities, from which platform something of a redirection of a field becomes possible. This redirecting is twofold: away from a focus on individual authors and texts, and toward the production of history books seen as by and for communities and an inclusion of pictorial material in the analysis of historical writing as an integral feature of history books in this crucial period.
In this way, Cleaver's book manages to fulfil three separate functions: first, it provides a concise summary of scholarship on medieval historiography, with a representative selection of references that makes this a very good text for teaching; second, it points the way to rejuvenating the field by extending an invitation to reconsider a large and important body of material from new and illuminating perspectives rooted in imagery, marginalia, and decorations; and third, it offers an original research contribution through her study of specific manuscripts. Here, the great potential inherent in using visual images to gain a more comprehensive understanding of medieval historical culture is brought out.
The book is well organized, allowing the reader to process ever new facets of medieval history books in an ordered and intelligible sequence. The introduction presents the scope and structure of the book and also provides a compact and concentrated narrative of the study of historical writing from this period. Chapter 1 begins from a general account of the flourishing production of history books in Normandy between the Conquest in 1066 and King John's loss of Normandy in 1204. This chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book by demonstrating, with a wealth of detail, how reductive it is to think of history books simply in terms of individual authors and their texts.
Chapter 2 takes this framework as a point of departure for analyzing the interplay between word and image in historical books, showing how imagery could be used deliberately and intelligibly to guide the reader's experience of the text. Starting from the manuscripts of the Worcester Chronicle, via copies of Henry of Huntingdon, Gerald of Wales, and other later twelfth-century historians, and ending with the early autographs and copies of the histories of Matthew Paris, Cleaver demonstrates the uniqueness of each book of history, bringing out how a shared stock of illustrations and other visual aids were adapted to the individual communities by and for which a particular book was produced.
The third chapter looks in particular at charters and records, demonstrating how imagery could be used to underpin and reinforce a document's claim to authenticity and authority. Again, Matthew Paris is the culmination of a longer development, and Cleaver shows convincingly the many ways in which Paris used visual imagery to support documents central to the historical and contemporary claims and possessions of St Albans.
The fourth and final main chapter discusses the use of tables and diagrams to make complex historical narratives more immediate and intelligible. Cleaver shows how what Hugh of St Victor identified as the three supporting pillars of history—that is, persons, places, and times—recur in visual aids intended to bring out and clarify salient aspects of historical narratives. Again, we are also shown how individual books adapted widespread visual forms to emphasize what was relevant for each particular community.
Cleaver's concluding reflections bring together the individual themes of the book, uniting them into an integrated and comprehensive picture not only of the books of history preserved until our time, but the human beings by and for whom these books were produced.
The book is richly illustrated with images from the manuscripts discussed, and it is fitting that Cleaver's book in this way becomes an example of the very phenomenon to which she wants to draw our attention. The illustrations work to clarify the text, adding rich layers of information and understanding that could hardly have been communicated in any other way. This is what Cleaver wants us to realize and make use of when it comes to understanding medieval historical culture as well. She shows us, by her own case studies, the substantial rewards scholarship may gain from taking the books as physical, visual objects into account, while bringing into focus the human beings and communities, and their interests, values, and understanding of past and present, that these books can make vividly present for us if we learn how to look. As this book shows, Cleaver is an ideal teacher of this very skill.
