Hugo Falcandus

Hugo Falcandus was a southern Italian historian of the second half of the 12th century.

Life

Hugo Falcandus obviously possessed intimate knowledge of the operations at the royal court in Palermo and had the opportunity to inspect files. The author's name " Hugo Falcandus " is but survives only in a print of the 16th century. Generally accepted knowledge about its origin, biographical data, or his belonging to one of the political groups in the Norman Kingdom does not exist.

The most important work attributed to him is the Liber de regno Sicilie that represents the history of the Kingdom of Sicily 1154-1169. The very negative portrayal of King William I. has greatly influenced the research for a long time. In the hand- written records, the text is accompanied by a historiographical interesting letter to an officer of the Church of Palermo from the crisis period of the Kingdom of Sicily after the death of William II.

In research, several attempts have been made ​​to link the author with a well-known contemporary names ( as with the Sicilian poet Ammiratus and Eugenius of Palermo and Hugo Foucaud, abbot of Saint-Denis V. Hugo ). 2008 Alexander Franke has been suggested that the historical work of Peter is provided courtesy of Blois, who was therefore equated with Hugo Falcandus. Peter had spent some time at the Sicilian royal court and was, according to Franke so disappointed with developments in that country, he anonymously expressed his criticism in the work of history expressed. This view was, however, contradicted decided by Rolf Köhn in an essay of 2011, in which he accused Franke methodological and factual errors; Köhn suspects " Hugo Falcandus ", however, the above-mentioned Hugo Foucaud.

Editions and translations

• Graham A. Loud ( ed.): The history of the tyrants of Sicily by ' Hugo Falcandus ' 1154-69. Manchester Univ. Press, Manchester 1998 ( Manchester medieval sources series). [ annotated English translation ]