The Writing of History in the Middle Ages

Sir Richard Southern occupies a unique position among living historians. His studies in the Middle Ages continually betray a wide and general interest in the past: he has a rare capacity for entering into the mina and heart of an age long gone and for bringing its concerns before his readers with complete freshness. He can tell us what everyone in 750 or 1200 took for granted, the assumptions which governed discourse, the air that medieval men and women breathed. It is all done with massive knowledge of the detail and yet with a literary elegance and grace seldom matched. He has won, over many years, the affection and admiration of a multitude of pupils and fellow scholars, A group of them have been gathered by the distinguished editors of the present volume, with a brief to write papers on a subject to which Sir Richard has himself made notable contributions, as for example in his Presidential Addresses to the Royal Historical Society. The variety of their approach reflects the many-sidedness of Sir Richard's own interests.