L’identità normanna: nelle cronache della Normandia e dei paesi dell’espansione normanna tra X e XII secolo

[Machine translation] This study aims to investigate how the discourse on Norman identity evolved between the tenth and twelfth centuries in Normandy, England and southern Italy, through the use of literary, historiographical sources. , The first part of the thesis analyzes the evolution of Norman identity in what I have defined as official tradition, namely the one that originated from Dudone da San Quintino and that has remained essentially faithful to his version of the Norman past. It includes: 'Guglielmo di Jumièges, Orderico Vitale, Roberto di Torigni, Wace with Rou and Benoît de Sainte-Maure. It represents the first and fundamental ethnogenesis of the Norman people and was founded on the principle of integration into the Frankish and Christian world in close connection with the political will of the dukes. , To carry out the analysis, some fundamental themes were identified on which the identity discourse was built and then studied transversely with the authors of the official tradition. In fact, despite their substantial fidelity to the project developed by Dudone, it is possible to trace over time changes in the reconstruction of the Norman past in these authors. The changes are precious indicators of a change in the political context and in the perception of identity, which make it possible to reconstruct a path of evolution of Norman identity between the tenth and twelfth centuries. , The second part of the thesis, on the other hand, is dedicated to alternative identities to that proposed by the official tradition, which emerged in England and in southern Italy. William of Malmesbury offers a version of the Norman past that goes beyond ideology and more attuned to reality. In England, then, there was an attempt at a new foundation of Norman memory through the proposal of an ideal ancestry of the Anglo-Norman kings to the Breton kings, and in particular Arthur, with Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Brut of Wace; however, later, the Norman ancestry of Henry II came back to the forefront, with the Rou and the Chronique by Benoît. Finally, southern Italy, with Amato di Montecassino, Guglielmo il Pugliese and Goffredo Malaterra, is the scene of a last alternative identity: for political and social reasons linked to the story of the Normans in the South, the problems that had gripped Norman memory and identity in the duchy did not arise, giving rise to a new foundation free from the past.