History and Historians: Selected Papers of R. W. Southern

R. W. Southern (1912 2001) is widely regarded as one of the greatest medieval historians. His first book, The Making of the Middle Ages (1953), translated into many languages and never out of print, is recognized as a classic. This volume contains the series of reflections on medieval historical writing that Southern produced during his tenure as President of the Royal Historical Society, supplemented by his occasional pieces on two related subjects: the nature of academic history and appreciations of other medievalists, both his teachers and his contemporaries. Their publication here in book format makes these writings by a master medievalist accessible to the wider audience they deserve.

The material is introduced by R. J. Bartlett, himself a prominent medievalist, who sheds light on Southern s outlook and the importance of his work.

Abbreviations.

Place of First Publication.

Preface by Janet Nelson.

Introduction.

Part I: Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing.

1 The Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth.

2 Hugh of St Victor and the Idea of Historical Development.

3 History as Prophecy.

4 The Sense of the Past.

Part II: History.

5 The Shape and Substance of Academic History.

6 The Historical Experience.

7 The Truth about the Past.

Part III: Historians.

8 Review of The Letters of Frederic William Maitland.

9 Sir Maurice Powicke (1879 1963).

10 Vivian Hunter Galbraith (1889 1976).

11 Richard William Hunt (1908 1979).

12 Marjorie Reeves as an Historian.

13 Beryl Smalley (1905 1984)Bibliography of the Publications of R. W. Southern.

Notes.

Bibliography of the Publications of R. W. Southern.

Index

Sir Richard Southern was born in Newcastle–upon–Tyne in 1912 and educated at the Royal Grammar School there and at Balliol College, Oxford. He was a Fellow of Balliol from 1937–61, Chichele Professor of History at Oxford from 1961–9, and President of St John s College, Oxford from 1969–81. He was knighted in 1974. He died in Oxford in 2001.

Robert Bartlett is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Medieval History at the University of St Andrew s in Scotland and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has also taught at the Universities of Edinburgh and Chicago and has held Fellowships at the Universities of Michigan, Princeton and Göttingen. His book, The Making of Europe (1993) won the Wolfson Literary Prize for History.

"This collection of selected papers by one of Britain′s finest historians, edited and introduced with distinction by R. J. Bartlett, captures the essence of Southern′s meditative insights into the nature of the historical experience and the methodologies of historians of tboth the medieval and modern era." History