Authoring the Past surveys medieval Catalan historiography, shedding
light on the emergence and evolution of historical writing and
autobiography in the Middle Ages, on questions of authority and
authorship, and on the links between history and politics during the
period. Jaume Aurell examines texts from the late twelfth to the late
fourteenth century--including the Latin Gesta comitum Barcinonensium
and four texts in medieval Catalan: James I's Llibre dels fets, the
Crònica of Bernat Desclot, the Crònica of Ramon Muntaner, and the
Crònica of Peter the Ceremonious--and outlines the different
motivations for the writing of each.
For Aurell, these chronicles are not mere archaeological artifacts but
rather documents that speak to their writers' specific contemporary
social and political purposes. He argues that these Catalonian counts
and Aragonese kings were attempting to use their role as authors to
legitimize their monarchical status, their growing political and
economic power, and their aggressive expansionist policies in the
Mediterranean. By analyzing these texts alongside one another, Aurell
demonstrates the shifting contexts in which chronicles were conceived,
written, and read throughout the Middle Ages.
The first study of its kind to make medieval Catalonian writings
available to English-speaking audiences, Authoring the Past will be of
interest to scholars of history and comparative literature, students of
Hispanic and Romance medieval studies, and medievalists who study the
chronicle tradition in other languages.
