Book Description

“Ironically first edited from an Anglo-Norman copy, then, definitively, from a manuscript from the author’s native Touraine, the Histoire des ducs de Normandie after many years of neglect has received in the last twenty years significant attention, culminating in this authoritative translation with notes by the foremost Anglo-Normanist Ian Short. Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s massive enterprise (it numbers 44,544 lines, of which the last quarter are translated here) was started soon after his celebrated Roman de Troie and at the request of Henry II takes up the task relinquished by Wace in the Roman de Rou. Writing in French in rhyming octosyllabic couplets Benoît provides a monastic, providentialist view of his subject, seeking to reconnect Henry’s French-speaking aristocracy to their Continental heritage and to give a wider secular audience access to the Latin sources. Short’s translation brings to a wider readership a work that fills a significant gap in the development and character of vernacular historiography.” — Anthony Hunt, University of Oxford (Back cover)