Literate Sociability and Historical Writing in Later Twelfth-Century England

This essay draws out the connections between the performance of literary and historiographical texts – Wace's livres, estoires et gestes- and other public uses of the written word in the late twelfth century. More specifically, it explores how the recitation of documents could act as a form of public, and authorized, storytelling in the lands either side of the English Channel in the High Middle Ages.