Psaki, F. Regina

English

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Contemporary theory likewise goes unconsidered here, particularly as it relatesto conceptions of the self and interiority. That oversight seems especially ashame as the kind of subject Abbott describes Julian to be differs not only fromthe conception of the subject that is commonly held today, but also from thestatic, undifferentiated conception of the subject that for too long has beenconsidered the medieval paradigm of selfhood.These omissions aside, Abbott's study is a welcome addition to scholarship onJulian of Norwich. His account of Julian's development of the concept of themystical subject offers an important starting point for further consideration ofthe complexities and differences that distinguish medieval identities, especiallyas they are grounded in faith, and offers a much-needed disruption to theprogress narrative that for so long has characterized discussions of the "historyof the self."Mary PetersUniversity of OregonGabriella Brooke, TheWords of Bernfrieda: A Chronicle ofHauteville. Cheney,Washington: Eastern Washington University Press, 1999.258 pp., $18.95.The long subtitle of this novel, elegantly laid out on its title page, reflects in itsdiction and even in its hierarchy of scripts the conventions of the sources onwhich it is based, "contemporary accounts and histories of the Normans inFrance and Italy:"The Chronicle of the Life of FredesendaWife of Tancred of Hauteville andMother of Robert Guiscard Duke ofApulia and Rogier Count of Mileto fromher Birth in 1000Anno Domini atGranville in Normandy until her Deathand Burial at the Abbey of SantaEufemia in Apulia in 1063Anno DominiThe Words of Bernfrieda by her HandWritten at the Abbeys of Santa Eufemiain Apulia and Santa Agatha in Cataniaby the Grace of GodThis enjoyable buuk is a fictionalized account uf the other Norman Conquest, urrather the first, in which Southern Italy became Norman after long occupation bythe Byzantines and the Muslims. The novel thematizes its competition with themore familiar Norman Conquest even in its material incarnation: the map whichopens the book, labelled "Normandy and her Neighbors in 1066," relegates to itsupper margin the southern coast of England, where only two towns are labelled.These are of course Pevensey and Hastings, but both words are literallytruncated horizontally so that we see only the bottom half of the letters. Thiseffect, intentional or not, is both pleasing and exemplary of the twisting offamiliar perspective which characterizes the entire book.Infact, TheWords of Bernfrieda is a pleasant read throughout. Nowadays it is alltoo easy to encounter novels set in the Middle Ages, whether murder mysteriesor bodice-rippers, though it is less easy to enjoy reading them: their veryapproximate portrayals of the Middle Ages often make them useful mainly asunintentional comedy. (There are also, I'm happy to say, many exceptions to thisfrequent mediocrity.) Gabriella Brooke's book belongs to the more restrictedcategory of historical novels intended to illuminate some element or aspect of theMiddle Ages, rather than simply using the period as a decorative stage-setting.Its epigraphs from primary and secondary sources, its glossary, bibliography,maps, and the Hauteville family tree make it clear that this author cares that weunderstand the historical context; its detailed descriptions of scriptoriumpractice are careful and minute.Like Marion Zimmer Bradley's TheMists ofAoalon, by now so often imitated asto no longer seem original, The Words of Bernfrieda renews a familiar tale bypresenting its events as a story which happened to the women involved. It thusgains that novelty of perspective which Emerson tells us to seek by looking at theworld through our splayed legs, backwards and upside-down. It does, it is true,organize the events of the Norman conquest of Southern Italy according to thosetypically characterized as belonging to the private domain of women(infatuations, weddings, births, deaths) rather than to the public domain of men(conquests, battles, confrontations). However, in keeping with the task Brookesets herself, it does weave the two together, both literally and imagistically (as inthe "bow and mirror safe in Senda's chest," the two devices by which a revengekilling is effected by a male character and concealed by a female one [156]). Italso thematizes the particular issues of women's literacy, women's (indirect andunofficial) political power, women's autonomy (or lack thereof), women'sstanding in the church, in ways which are more reminiscent of earlier women'sstudies-approaching women's history from within the dominant paradigmrather than reconfiguring the questions we ask of the past. Within thatframework, however, the novel beautifully illustrates for us the limitations ofliDwomen's purview and the astonishing breadth of their expertise in an eleventh-century aristocratic milieu.Like Stephen J. Rivele's novel A Booke of Days: A Novel of theCrusades, then, TheWords of Bernfrieda portrays "world historical events" through a lens ofnarratorial personality and sentiment, the very lenses which medieval chroniclesso sedulously avoid. Because the modernity of the treatment is so visible in bothcases, however, it does not threaten to overrun the integrity of the events or ofour sources for them. In both novels the first-person accounts, the focus on dailylife, the window on intimate emotion, are characteristic of our own time ratherthan theirs, but they do help us to imagine their world from a closer point ofview. The inevitable distortion may result in a few infelicities of phrasing, aswell as in a sneaking suspicion that the authors are modernizing too much; butoverall the pleasure of the reading outweighs these small reservations.F. Regina PsalciUniversity of Oregonm

Gabriella Brooke, The Words of Bernfrieda: A Chronicle of Hauteville. Eastern Washington University Press, 1999

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1305&amp;context=mff

Gabriella Brooke, The Words of Bernfrieda: A Chronicle of Hauteville. Eastern Washington University Press, 1999

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