Reference > Cambridge History > From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance > Latin Chroniclers from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries > Gesta Stephani
  Henry of Huntingdon Geoffrey of Monmouth  

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The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance.

IX. Latin Chroniclers from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries.

§ 8. Gesta Stephani.


A chronicler who is as great an authority, for the reign of which he treats, as either William of Malmesbury or Henry of Huntingdon, is the anonymous author of the Acts of Stephen (Gesta Stephani). Not even William himself surpasses this writer in accuracy and vividness of detail. He is a palpable partisan of Stephen, and has been supposed by some to have been the king’s confessor. Nothing, however, better illustrates the general trustworthiness and impartiality of the twelfth century chroniclers than a comparison of the narrative of this historian with those of William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. The Gesta Stephani covers much the same ground as the Historia Novella of William; yet though the two works were composed from opposite standpoints, they differ little in their presentment of the essential facts of the history of the time.   15

CONTENTS · VOLUME CONTENTS · INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
  Henry of Huntingdon Geoffrey of Monmouth  
 
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