oa Contextualizing the Publication of Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s Historia Normannorum

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This chapter discusses the publication of Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s Historia Normannorum. The focus is the author’s relationship with his commissioners, who were Dukes Richard I and Richard II of Normandy and Count Rolf of Ivry, and his dedicatee, Bishop Adalbero of Laon. Archbishop Robert of Rouen also played a significant role in the publication, as is evident from the numerous poems by which he is addressed at key junctures in the work. It is proposed that Dudo’s choice of dedicatee reflected his objective of reaching his wider target audience, namely the classrooms of Normandy and France, and that this aspect is also evident in the work’s contents. Building on the evidence of the manuscripts, the paper proposes that explanatory rubrics accompanying the verses in Historia Normannorum were directed towards that same end of gaining school readerships. The extant manuscripts, which include neither authorial nor primary copies, suggest that Dudo’s publication plan proved successful only in part. The work was circulated in Norman monasteries and cathedrals and thus contributed to the establishment, shaping, and preservation of memories of the duchy’s past, one of Dudo’s other main objectives. Yet, the absence of pertinent evidence implies that the intended penetration into schools in France was not accomplished, at least for a significant while. The identification of Historia Normannorum’s publication context helps us more accurately to appreciate Dudo’s authorial intention and voice.