Charting History

The final chapter examines histories constructed around diagrams, focusing on genealogies. These works could show the relationships between contempor-aries and their descendants, and allowed for the construction of generational time, rather than histories ordered by year. The makers of these visually appealing diagrams often struggled to reconcile different histories. Particular individuals within genealogies were sometimes selected for emphasis, serving as orientation points for the viewer. Some histories identified Woden as the ancestor of the seven Anglo-Saxon kings of the heptarchy. Others placed emphasis on Alfred as the king who had united England under one rule. Some diagrams associated genealogy within larger conceptions of time, from creation to the Last Judgement. The idea that human lives existed in a world ordered by God raised the possibility that man might be able to predict the future, and the chapter concludes with some of the rare surviving imagery associated with prophecy.