ABSTRACT
As one element of his inaugural lecture at the University of Birmingham, Nicholas Brooks examined the role of ‘national myth’ in the definition of peoples, in particular the Normans and the English.1 The Norman ‘myth’ of distinctiveness, reinforced in part by means of an outlandish haircut, was set alongside the English ‘myth’ of unity and concern over whether this myth had been effectively distinguished from historical reality. Almost 20 years later, there is still much to be said on the issue of national myth in the medieval period, not only in terms of meaning and understanding but, indeed, on subjects as fundamental as appropriateness of the term ‘national’. The problem, in the main, is one of definition, as historians and others are seeking to understand the ‘varieties of collective cultural identification, and the similarities and differences between ethnic and national identities’.2 Yet if there is no immediate agreement on exactly how we should refer to the groups in question, there is more of a consensus on how we might study and understand them. The identity structures which are reflected in the ‘myths’ that peoples such as the Normans and English recorded (and, indeed, in their relationship to reality) retain a vital role in our examination of medieval groupings.
