Drawing on the primary evidence of the surviving eleventh- and twelfth-century manuscripts, and combining it with recent theoretical work concerning the different modes of literary communication, this article argues that these schools of thoughts are not mutually exclusive. Conceptualising Norman literature and historiography in such a way significantly enriches and transforms our understanding of literary and poetic culture in the Norman and Anglo-Norman worlds.
Concepire in questo modo la produzione documentaria normanna e la storiografia arricchisce e trasforma in maniera significativa la nostra comprensione della cultura letteraria e poetica dei mondi normanno ed anglo-normanni.
Any remaining mistakes are entirely mine, of course. Moreover, I would like to thank Felice Lifshitz, who in reviewing my monograph on the Historia Normannorum has emphasised the desideratum of producing a study that explores the topic of performance and aurality in greater detail. I hope that this article will be able to do just that.
Having benefited from an education that was deeply rooted in the literary and historical traditions of the late Carolingian Empire, Dudo composed his Historia Normannorum hereafter HN in refined Latin prose interspersed with elegant pieces of poetry — a sophisticated style of composition known to scholars as the prosimetrum 3. More than ninety poems can be counted throughout the text, and these are written in over thirty different poetic metres 4.
However, there is evidence to suggest that a new literary and poetic scene emerged at Rouen under the rule of Dukes Richard I and Richard II 6. When the HN was published in or soon afterwards under the commission of Duke Richard II, it was received as something of a novelty item that combined innovative style with contents that adhered firmly to the existing traditions of historical and political thought 8. For the purposes of this study, which again focuses on the material nature of the text, I shall follow this latter line of thought.
