La lotta delle due nature in Guglielmo d'Aquitania, ovvero quel che resta di un aristocratico carolingio

This article presents an impression of the different ways in which count William of Toulouse (c. 750-814) is remembered in the medieval source record. Focusing on his two “natures” – the saint and the warrior – this article analyses how William earned his place in history, and how his reputation is not built upon any historical reality, but on the development of the stories that emerged in his wake. These narrative “ideal types” show the complexities shaping the memory of any famous individual. Their deeds, in the end, are less important than the stories about them: it is through the evolution of these stories that we can trace the development of a legacy that, in the eyes of modern historians, should be the kernel of a single personality – but which over the centuries has become multiple actors, vying for attention and struggling to make a mark on subsequent historiography.