La cronología de la “Historia Wambae”

Abstract

Historic and literary interpretations of the «Historia Wambae» take always for granted that the work was written not long after the events that it narrates, around 673 or 674 after Christ. The only evidence that supports this date is the panegyric component attributed to this text. But, in fact, this component is no­where to be found in the forms canonised by the antique literary tradition. On the contrary, no mention has been made of much more objective elements that relate this work to juridico-politic measures than Julian wants to impose when he ascends the Erwigius throne in 681, precisely to avoid the course that the Reign of Wamba had taken. This connection can be checked from both formal and ideo­logical points of view though it is the latter that we will explote mostly: 1) comparing the Story with the certificates of the XIIth Council of Toledo and with Erwigius' legislation. 2) analyzing the contradictions between the monography and the sources that were, with no doubt, redacted during the events of 673: the militar law that Wamba promulgated that very year and the so-called Ludicium, a document that endorses the spirit of this king's decree and that was redacted by Juan himself. The fact of transfering the story to, at least, 681 reopens the ques­tion of the motives that guided its redaction -some suggestions about it are pro­posed-, brings in a new element to take in consideration about the obscure cir­cunstances that surrounded Wamba's dethronement and, as a las point, locates Julian's manuscript in this wide high Middle Ages historiographic tradition that used the manipulation of the past to justify and give importance to present.