Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum The History of the English People (Oxford Medieval Texts) - Hardcover

Henry Of Huntingdon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198222246 ISBN 13: 9780198222248

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1996

Synopsis

This is the first complete edition and translation of the Historia Anglorum ( History of the English People) by Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon (c. 1088-c.1157). The main narrative covers the history of England from the invasions of Julius Caesar down to the accession of King Henry II in 1154, and includes the only contemporary account of the entire reign of King Stephen (1135-54). In the influential circle of successive bishops of Lincoln, Henry was often at the centre of political life - a practical man whose consciousness of the world extended far beyond the limits of his archdeaconry, a visitor to France and Rome. His work is a major source for events in England and Normandy in his lifetime. Henry's pages are filled with good stories, including the first written record of Cnut and the waves, and of Henry's death from a surfeit of lampreys. The final two books consist of poems that show Henry to be one of the finest of Anglo-Latin poets.

Henry's work has never before been published in its entirety. The 1879 edition in the Rolls series provided only a Latin text, omitted three books and other sections of the text, and failed to take account of several manuscripts. The critical edition in the present volume shows the author's successive revisions and continuations of his text. It is offered with parallel translation and historical notes. The introduction provides a fresh appraisal of Henry's career, incorporates new discoveries about his family origins and education, and assesses his importance as a poet and historian.

About this title

Review

Diana Greenway's new edition of Henry of Huntingdon's Historia Anglorum deserves to be welcomed on at leaset two counts: it offers the first complete printed text while adding substantially to the appreciation by Thomas Arnold in his edition 1879 (Rolls Series), and it provides a facing-page translation good enough to wind the adherence of teachers and students. (Thomas N. Bisson, Speculum, A Jnl of Medieval Studies, 2000.)

if the editor has not perfectly solved the problem of fuly representing revisions, excisions, and additions to Henry's source materials, her devices are so sensible and clear as to render much of the first version a new source for English historical knowledge and its representation in the reign of King Henry I. (Thomas N. Bisson, Speculum, A Jnl of Medieval Studies, 2000.)

Diana Greenway deals magisterially with the manuscripts and the problems of textual transmission. (Thomas N. Bisson, Speculum, A Jnl of Medieval Studies, 2000.)

The translation ... is readable, sometimes agreeably colloquial. (Thomas N. Bisson, Speculum, A Jnl of Medieval Studies, 00.)

a helpful translation, which should encourage us to see and teach Henry as a most distinctive historian i his land and age so blessed in its cultivation of the past. Greenway's valuable work complements the new editions, likewise in the Oxford Medieval Texts, of John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury. (Thomas N. Bisson, Speculum, A Jnl of Medieval Studies, 00.)

a massive edition and translation of Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon ... a fascinatingly readable text by the most engaging of the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman historians. (C. P. Lewis, Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature)

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0198222246
• ISBN 13: 9780198222248
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 1078