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Urbanski Charity, Writing history for the king: Henry II and the politics of vernacular historiography, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2013, 272 p. ISBN: 9780801451317Compte rendu par/Review by : John SpenceThe Medieval ReviewDate : 7 Sep 2014This book contributes to the growing body of scholarship exploring the agendas and approaches of those innovative twelfth-century vernacular chroniclers who wrote compelling histories in Old French that offered persuasive lessons for their contemporary readers. Charity Urbanksi's aim here is to understand how two such works, Wace's Roman de Rou and Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Chronique des ducs de Normandie, took up this challenge with the added spur that their patron (and possibly their most demanding reader) was Henry II himself, seeking an account of his Norman ancestors. The central proposition of the book is that Wace chose not to satisfy the requirements of a royal commission to recount the king's family history in a manner which suited Henry's needs (given the challenges of his rise to power and his reign), whereas Benoît (as Wace's successor in the role) cleaved closely to a partisan, celebratory approach. In broad outline, this will be familiar to those already acquainted with recent scholarship on Wace and Benoît, such as the work of Elisabeth van Houts, Francoise Le Saux and Jean Blacker, but the argument has been fleshed out in considerable detail by Urbanski.Continue la lecture →