Reassessing Spanish Chronicle Writing before 900: The Tradition of Compilation in Oviedo at the End of the Ninth Century

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to the origins of Spanish medieval historiography. I analyze two collections: the collection copied in the 'Soriensis' manuscript, most probably lost in a fire in 1671, and the so-called Chronica Albeldensis. I defend that shortly before the year 900 in Oviedo, Spain, where both these collections derive from, there was an interest in an easily readable kind of 'universal history' based on compilations of previous texts. These compilations were still modelled upon Eusebius/Jerome's Chronicon, but they already supposed a great freedom in the handling of those previous texts, revealing great difficulty in understanding history as synchronic. They also formed an authentic historical canon subject to continuous additions and redesigns, becoming the backbone of Medieval Spanish compilatory historiography until at least the thirteenth century.

Isidore of Seville and Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada

“…For this reason, in Asturias at the time of Alfonso III, the central part of the Chronica Albeldensis was formed by the Ordo Romanorum and the Ordo gentis Gothorum, résumés of Isidore's two texts 19 . The Chronicon and the Historiae were also copied in the "Soriensis" 20 , "Rotensis" 21 and "Alcobaciensis" 22 compilations.…”

“…To these three "Iberian" versions, I also add the Chronica Naiarensis ( ε), copied, according to Alberto Montaner Frutos, between 1190 and 1194 38 . The copy of Isidore's Historiae included in the Chronica Naiarensis is a text contaminated by several different versions: its main model is the text copied in R (γ); the author of the Chronica Naiarensis also used some notes taken from a copy of the "Soriensis" collection (β) 39 .…”

“…This people had been mentioned by Augustine of Hippo, in the De ciuitate Dei (20.11), where he had affirmed that "some suspect that Gethas et Massagethas derive from Gog and Magog". These two peoples were mentioned in the Bible as God's instrument to punish Israel ( Ezekiel 38,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. This Augustinian text is probably the passage Ximénez de Rada was thinking of, because he promptly also referred to the relationship between the Goths and Gog and Magog, mentioned by Isidore (Isid.…”