Escaping the Island of Tyrants: Pseudo-Hugo Falcandus, Sicily, and European Historical Writing in the Twelfth Century Philippa Byrne (University of Oxford, UK)
Introduction: a note of caution THIS PAPER TAKES as its subject a work which the most eminent modern historian of Norman Sicily has warned ‘must be used with extreme caution’, a work which – even by the standards of medieval historical writing – poses seemingly insoluble riddles of authorship and provenance. This is the Liber de Regno Sicilie, better known in English translation as the History of the Tyrants of Sicily, a text usually ascribed to Hugo, or Pseudo-Hugo, Falcandus. The History is the major narrative source for events in the Norman kingdom of Sicily between the years 1154 and 1169, and, consequently, an indispensable text for the historian of Norman Sicily. But any historian wishing to discuss the History must reckon with the fact that we know so little about its composition. It is perhaps easier to state what is securely known about the History: its author was present in Sicily to witness at least some of the events he narrates, and he displays considerable erudition and knowledge of the Latin classics. Almost nothing else about the work is settled, and many of the uncertainties surrounding the text stem from the uncertainty surrounding authorship. Although the oldest surviving
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