Output details

The volume contains the first and only critical edition of the text, which is preserved in a single medieval manuscript. It is accompanied by a modern English translation and by extensive textual and historical notes. The text is a major source for the history of the first Norman abbey in northern England, and thus for the reintroduction of monasticism to the North in the late eleventh century. It is therefore of considerable importance and deserves to be made available both to scholars and, through the translation, to a wider audience.

This output represents a major scholarly enterprise, involving – as well as complex editing and translation – detailed investigation of the manuscript and textual history, and historical significance. It sheds new light on the cultural milieu of a northern abbey in the twelfth century, and argues that the Historia creates an origin myth for the abbey that gives credibility through linking its history to that of a venerable continental monastery and its foundation to the kings of England: the Historia is a product of particular political and cultural circumstances. The approach that is adopted and the conclusions are marked by originality.