Well, depends on what mean by greatest & by English, but Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12thC HRB surely most influential!https://twitter.com/holland_tom/status/675971168290152448 …
@holland_tom > But Medieval English history not so neat ;) See the most popular vernacular history, the 15thC Middle English Brut: runs >
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@holland_tom > Brutus & daughters of Diocletian through to near contemporary 14/15thC history & was 'standard version' of history in 15thC -
@holland_tom (tbh another good contender for a truly great Medieval English historian is the L13thC original drafter of the Brut chronicle > -
@holland_tom > who created original of this standard version of history in Anglo-Norman, prob writing at Barlings in Lincolnshire ;) )
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@caitlinrgreen Yes, all identity is fluid, blah blah, but Geoffrey is self-consciously writing a history that is not English. That's his gig -
@caitlinrgreen I think, in that context, it's as perverse to define him as English as it would be to define Bede as Welsh. -
@holland_tom I think you have a very restrictive definition here, lol! There's no solid evidence for Geoffrey's origins, he wrote in Latin > -
@caitlinrgreen Only because the period in which he is writing is crucial to the development of English/Welsh/British identity. -
@caitlinrgreen It's precisely the period when English/Welsh identity IS becoming more restrictive - & Geoffrey's important in that process. -
@holland_tom Yes and no---*if* Harke et al right, then v much more restrictive in pre-Viking era. But again, it's a definition thing-- > -
@holland_tom > If you only want ppl who have a pro-English outlook & write about the English, then he doesn't fit... -
@holland_tom ...but he is clearly a great, vastly influential historian working in England whose work was defended as true English history >
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