Hide
Show all
Email this article 
The Story About the Green Children of Woolpit According to the Medieval Chronicles of William of Newburgh and Ralph of Coggeshall
Abstract
The Augustinian canon, William of Newburgh, who lived in the 12th century, in his chronicle Historia rerum Anglicarum described an unusual event how in the English village of Woolpit two children appeared that had green skin and spoke an unknown language. This same event was also reported by his contemporary – the Cistercian abbot, Ralph of Coggeshall, in the Chronicon Anglicanum. The main purpose of this paper is a comparative analysis of both versions of the story about the green children and its contextual interpretation. The conducted research indicates that despite relatively small differences between both versions, the story probably fulfilled a different function in the two chronicles. One can put forward a hypothesis in reference to Historia rerum Anglicarum that the fragment about the children from Woolpit is a medium of William of Newburgh’s inner anxiety and trauma – a man who considered himself an Englishman but lived in a Anglo-Norman society. In the case of the second chronicle this story could have had a didactic function and Ralph of Coggeshall probably wanted to draw the attention of his listeners towards what is different, unknown.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Printed sources
English Historical Documents, vol. 2, eds. D. Douglas, G. Greenaway, London 1953.
‘Historia rerum Anglicarum’ of William of Newburgh, in: Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I (Rolls Series, vol. 82), ed. R. Howlett, vol. 1, London 1884.
Radulphi de Coggeshall ‘Chronicon Anglicanum’; De expugnatione Terrae Sanctae libellus; Thomas Agnellus: ‘De morte et sepultura Henrici regis Angliae junioris’; Gesta Fulconis filii Warini; Excerpta ex ‘Otiis imperialibus’ Gervasii Tileburiensis (Rolls Series, vol. 66), ed. J. Stevenson, London 1875.
Studies
Adamson M.W., Food in Medieval Times, Westport 2004.
Bartlett R., England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225, Oxford 2000.
Brewer D., The Colour Green, in: A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, eds. D. Brewer, J. Gibson, Woodbridge 1997.
Brewer K., Wonder and Skepticism in the Middle Ages, London 2016.
Briggs K.M., The Fairies and the Realms of the Dead, ‘Folklore’ 1970, 81.
Clark J., ‘Small, Vulnerable ETs’: The Green Children of Woolpit, ‘Science Fiction Studies’ 2006, 33.
Clark J., Martin and the Green Children, ‘Folklore’ 2006, 117.
Clarke C.A.M., Signs and Wonders: Writing Trauma in Twelfth-Century England, ‘Reading Medieval Studies’ 2009, 35.
Cohen J.J., Green Children from Another World, or the Archipelago in England, in: Cultural Diversity in the British Middle Ages. Archipelago, Island, England, ed. J.J. Cohen, Basingstoke 2008.
Freeman E., Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150–1220, Turnhout 2002.
Gransden A., Historical Writing in England c. 550 – c. 1307, London 1974.
Harris P., The Green Children of Woolpit: a 12th Century Mystery and its Possible Solution, ‘Fortean Studies’ 1998, 4.
Houts van E., The Trauma of 1066, ‘History Today’ 1996, 46.
Hutchings J., Folklore and Symbolism of Green, ‘Folklore’ 1997, 108.
Hutton S., ‘The Man in the Moone’ and the New Astonomy: Godwin, Gilbert, Kepler, ‘Etudes Epistémè’ 2005, 7.
Lawton H.W., Bishop Godwin’s ‘Man in the Moone’, ‘The Review of English Studies’ 1931, 7.
Oman C.C., The English Folklore of Gervase of Tilbury, ‘Folklore’ 1944, 55.
Orme N., The Culture of Children in Medieval England, ‘Past & Present’ 1995, 148.
Partner N.F., Serious Entertainments. The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England, Chicago 1977.
Pastoureau M., Średniowieczna gra symboli, transl. H. Igalson-Tygielska, Warszawa 2006.
Thomas H., The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066 – c. 1220, Oxford 2005.
Watkins C., Memories of the Marvellous in the Anglo-Norman Realm, in: Medieval Memories. Men, Women and the Past, 700–1300, ed. E. van Houts, London 2001.
White H., Fabularyzacja historyczna a problem prawdy, transl. E. Domańska, in: H. White, Poetyka pisarstwa historycznego, transl. and eds. E. Domańska, M. Wilczyński, Kraków 2010.
White H., Tekst historiograficzny jako artefakt literacki, transl. M. Wilczyński, in: H. White, Poetyka pisarstwa historycznego, transl. and eds. E. Domańska, M. Wilczyński, Kraków 2010.
Non printed studies
Clark J., The Green Children of Woolpit, https://www.academia.edu/10089626/The_Green_
Children_of_Woolpit [accessed on: 22 I 2019].
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/rh.2020.49.117-132
Date of publication: 2020-12-21 13:05:25
Date of submission: 2018-07-29 19:42:50
Statistics
Indicators
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2020 Michał Madej
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.