ABSTRACT
The city of Cambrai enjoys one of the richest documentary troves in Europe to have survived from the central Middle Ages. The deeds of its bishops, from the see’s founder Vedast down to the prelates of the late twelfth century, fill around 185 printed pages in two volumes of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. The episcopal gesta are further supplemented by a generous collection of diplomatic and narrative sources, including annals, chronicles, and saints’ lives.1 Medieval Cambrai held a further distinction, one commented upon by historians since the nineteenth century: it was a Grenzprovinz, a border diocese.2 The city’s status as
This essay was conceived and written under the welcome auspices of a Mellon PostDoctoral Fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Ontario, in 2004-2005. An abridged version of this article was first presented at the annual meeting of the Medieval Association of the Pacific in San Francisco, 10-12 March 2005. The author thanks the audience of that session, especially Jehangir Malegam, for their feedback, and above all John Eldevik, Brigitte Meijns, Diane Reilly, and Anna Trumbore Jones for their generous reading of this article. They are in no way responsible for any faults, errors, or omissions it may still contain.
