skopia
In a Northumbrian monastery in 731, Bede gave the English an origin story, telling their conversion through scenes like the sparrow that flies through a warm hall and back out into the dark.
Runciman tells the Crusades from Constantinople looking west, and the men in armor come off badly. Three volumes of grand narrative build toward his verdict: one long act of intolerance in God's name.
Gregory, bishop of Tours, is the reason sixth-century Gaul is visible at all. He records Clovis splitting a soldier's skull over a looted vase, queens ordering assassinations, and miracles at the saints' tombs.
Plymouth's governor kept the record of his colony year by year, calling the coast a hideous and desolate wilderness. The early chapters carry the founding myth, the closing ones turn to lament.