The Making of Medieval Forgeries (British Library Studies in Medieval Culture): False Documents in fifteenth-Century England - Hardcover

Alfred Hiatt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0712348158 ISBN 13: 9780712348157

Publisher: British Library Publishing Division, 2004

Synopsis

The Middle Ages have long been famous for spectacular forgeries. In this study Alfred Hiatt examines the function of forged documents in late medieval politics and society. In whose interests was it to forge documents? What kinds of narratives were enshrined in forgery? And why did forgery so often escape detection? Both the production and criticism of a range of forgeries are considered, from spurious seventh-century papal bulls of the University of Cambridge, to the "Donation of Constantine", and Hiatt argues that the identification of forgeries was no less ideologically motivated than their perpetration. Indeed, medieval forgeries emerge as a fascinating paradox: an illegitimate form of historical writing crucial to the expression of personal, institutional and national identities whose repudiation became central to the formation of modern discourses of authenticity and value.

About this title

About the Author

Alfred Hiatt is a lecturer in Old and Middle English Literature at the School of English, University of Leeds.

Edition details

• Publisher: British Library Publishing Division
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712348158
• ISBN 13: 9780712348157
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256