Dudo of St Quentin: History of the Normans - by Eric Christiansen (Hardcover)

About the Book

First English translation of key chronicle for study of the rise of the Normans.

Book Synopsis

First English translation of key chronicle for study of the rise of the Normans.

This is the first English translation of a powerful work of semi-imaginary history which gave the Normans a past, present, and future at the outset of their triumphant century. Completed in or soon after 1015 by a visiting Frenchscholar, it is a study in verse and prose of one family's rise from defeat and exile in the world of the heathen Vikings to an honoured place among the great territorial rulers of France. It recounts two campaigns in England by the founder, Rollo, and a series of stirring political, military and religious events on the Continent, most notably the dreadful murder of Rollo's son William, and the kidnapping, escape and precarious early career of Dudo's firstpatron, Count Richard I.
The author's exuberant imagination is matched by his language, so presenting the unwary reader with difficulties, which ERIC CHRISTIANSEN notes and discusses throughout, defining and explaining themany poetic metres and prose embellishments used, and identifying the sources of numerous borrowings; he also re-examines and collates the manuscripts and printed versions of the text, and considers the most recent scholarship inthe field.

The late ERIC CHRISTIANSEN was Fellow of New College and University Lecturer at Oxford.

Review Quotes

Doubly valuable. The translation is fairly true to Dudo's style while at the same time being readable, [and] the introduction is the best brief introduction to early Norman history and its intellectual milieu... His overview of the early Norman world is sane, balanced and indispensable.-- "ANGLO-NORMAN ANONYMOUS"

Lively translation...makes more widely accessible [Dudo's] work... The introduction and copious notes will help greatly to explain the text's intellectual and cultural background.-- "ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW"

Magisterial English translation... Moreover, his historical and literary commentaries are models of information-packed brevity.-- "JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY"

The translation is judicious and readable... even more valuable are the introduction and notes, which comprise the best brief introduction to early Norman history and its intellectual milieu - should now be the starting point for discussions of tenth-century Normandy.-- "SPECULUM"