Abstract

There are six, to a degree overlapping, parameters which might be used to explore the limits of a distinction between history and fiction in the Middle Ages. 'They are authenticity, intent, reception, social function, narrative syntax, and narrator involvement. Intent and reception, specifically writers; claims of historical authenticity, and the influence of purportedly historical literature on society and on history, are the two key parameters. There was a concept of history which was distinct from fiction, but historical truth did not imply, as it does for us, authenticity of facts and events. Rather, history was what was willingly believed, historical truth anything that belonged to a widely accepted tradition