Gaufredus Malaterra

Gaufredus Malaterra was an 11th century Norman chronicler. Exact dates of life are not known.

He may have belonged to the Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Saint-Évroult in the Pays d'Ouche who came to Calabria with Robert von Grantmesnil . Stations of his monastic career were the Abbey of Sant'Eufemia (which had been founded from Saint-Évroult), then the Abbey of S. Trinità di Mileto and finally Sant'Agata in Catania in Sicily , where Count Roger I of Sicily , the he knew personally, with the writing of his (Rogers) and his brother Robert Guiskard's biography.

He wrote a chronicle which, along with William of Apulia and Amatus of Montecassino, is one of the three main sources that report on the activities of the Normans and southern Italy and in the Mediterranean, here mainly on those of Count Roger. Gaufred first reports on Robert Guiscard's Byzantine campaign , but then only on Roger's campaigns on the basis of the oral stories he had collected, and is often the only source.

The report ends in 1099 and until then can be understood as the official historiography of the Rogers court of Sicily. It is dedicated to the abbot and first bishop of Catania , Ansgerius.

plant

• De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius a cura di Ernesto Pontieri, Bologna; Città di Castello, N. Zanichelli; Lapi, 1925
• Ruggero I e Roberto il Guiscardo , Ed. Vito Lo Curto, Cassino, Francesco Ciolfi, 2002, ISBN 88-86810-10-5
• Imprese del conte Ruggero e del fratello Roberto il Guiscardo , Palermo, Flaccovio, 2000, ISBN 88-7804-171-8
• The deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of his brother Duke Robert Guiscard , Ed. Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2005, ISBN 0-472-11459-X

literature

• Max Manitius : History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages . Third part (volume) with Paul Lehmann's participation: From the outbreak of the church dispute to the end of the twelfth century . Munich 1931, pp. 457-458 ( HdAW 9.2.3).
• Errico Cuozzo: Gaufredus Malaterra . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume IV, Col. 1142 f.
• Francesco Panarelli:  Goffredo Malaterra. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 57:  Giulini – Gonzaga. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2001.
• Giuseppe Scellini: I normanni nel Meridione: le analisi storiche di Amato, Guglielmo e Malaterra . Nova Millennium Romae, Roma 2003, ISBN 88-87117-35-7 .
• Alex Heskel : The Historia sicula of Anonymus Vaticanus and Gaufredus Malaterra. A contribution to source studies for the history of Lower Italy and Sicily in the 11th century . Diss., Kiel 1891.
• Erling Albrectsen: Normannernes bedrifter i South Italy . Odense Universitetsforlag, Odense 1981, ISBN 87-7492-329-3 .

Web links

• Writings by and about Gaufredus Malaterra in the SB Berlin PK
• Article in Les Normands, peuple d'Europe
• The Latin Library Latin text as html
• Centro Europeo di studi normanni with the Latin text after the edition by Pontieri as a zip file
• The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of Duke Robert Guiscard his brother , Book I , t. 2 , t. 3 , t. 4 . English translation from Leeds University