Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle
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Subject: History
Edited by: Edited by Graeme Dunphy and Cristian Bratu
The Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle brings together the latest research in chronicle studies from a variety of disciplines and scholarly traditions. Chronicles are the history books written and read in educated circles throughout Europe and the Middle East in the Middle Ages. For the modern reader, they are important as sources for the history they tell, but equally they open windows on the preoccupations and self-perceptions of those who tell it. Interest in chronicles has grown steadily in recent decades, and the foundation of a Medieval Chronicle Society in 1999 is indicative of this. Indeed, in many ways the Encyclopedia has been inspired by the emergence of this Society as a focus of the interdisciplinary chronicle community.
The online version was updated in 2014, 2016 and 2021.
Subscriptions: See Brill.com
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The Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle brings together the latest research in chronicle studies from a variety of disciplines and scholarly traditions. Chronicles are the history books written and read in educated circles throughout Europe and the Middle East in the Middle Ages. For the modern reader, they are important as sources for the history they tell, but equally they open windows on the preoccupations and self-perceptions of those who tell it. Interest in chronicles has grown steadily in recent decades, and the foundation of a Medieval Chronicle Society in 1999 is indicative of this. Indeed, in many ways the Encyclopedia has been inspired by the emergence of this Society as a focus of the interdisciplinary chronicle community.
The online version was updated in 2014, 2016 and 2021.
Subscriptions: See Brill.com
Henry of Herford
(547 words)
ca 1300-70. Germany. Dominican from Minden (Westphalia). Author of a world chronicle. There is little evidence for the life of Henry of Herford. He was presumably born in Herford in Westphalia. After spending his early years in his native town he joined the
ordo praedicatorum as early as 1328 and was supposedly professed in Soest. Henry spent most of his life at the monastery St. Paul in Minden. His stay in Lemgo on 24th April 1328 is the first historically verifiable date in his biography. In 1340 he represented the province of Saxony at the general assembly of the Dominican Order in Milan as
Def…
Date:
2021-11-09
Henry of Huntingdon
(756 words)
ca 1080-1160. England. Secular clerk, archdeacon of Huntingdon, and author of
Historia Anglorum in Latin prose with some verse. Henry of Huntingdon served as archdeacon in the household of Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln and afterwards served Alexander of Blois, who commissioned the
Historia Anglorum. Henry composed and revised his work between 1129 and 1154. His prose and verse chronicle surveys English history from the coming of Julius Caesar in 43 bc to the accession of Henry II. In its final form, the chronicle contained twelve books: 1) the Kingdom of the Romans in…
Date:
2021-04-15
Henry of Livonia
(525 words)
[Heinrich von Lettland; Henricus Lettus] ca 1188 - post-1259. Germany, Eastern Baltic. Author of the first Livonian chronicle,
Chronicon Livoniae. He probably came from the village of Poppendorf near Magdeburg, and spent his childhood in a monastery in Segeberg, Holstein, where he learned Estonian and Latvian while staying with hostages brought from Livonia. He came to Riga in 1205, where he stayed at the court of bishop Albert von Riga. In 1208 he was ordained a priest by him. He received the parish of Papendorf (Rubene) on the river Ymera (Latvian-Estonian border), where he pr…
Date:
2021-04-15
Henry of Marleborough
(399 words)
[Marleburgh] d. in or after 1421. Ireland. Author of a chronicle of the years 1133-1421, entitled
Cronica excerpta de medulla diversorum.The name Marleburg appears in Dublin records from 1219 and Henry Marlborough, clerk, is rector of Kylladown (1398), vicar of Balscadden (1412) and vicar of Donabate (1413). The last mention of his name is a letter of attorney for a journey granted on 22 April 1421. His death is recorded in the
Book of Obits and Martyrology of Holy Trinity priory, Dublin, under 12 May, but with no year given.The early section of the chronicle draws heavily on Pembridge but, …
Date:
2021-04-15
Henry of Silegrave
(208 words)
13th century. England. Nothing is known of this author of a short Latin chronicle of England except his name, which appears at the beginning of his chronicle:
Henricus de Silegrave scripsit Chronicon Angliae. The chronicle is preserved in one 13th-century manuscript, BL, Cotton Cleopatra, A.xii and narrates events from the arrival
de primis Germaniae populis through the reign of Henry III, ending with his death in the year 1272 with additional brief notes to 1274. Since he includes a list of the names of the archbishops of the Church of Canterbury …
Date:
2021-04-15
Henry of Žďár
(375 words)
[Henricus Sarensis; Henricus Sculptor] 1242-post 1300. Germany, Czech lands. Son of the builder and stonemason Ekward, who settled in Žďár (German Saar) in the Bohemian and Moravian Highland (now Žďár nad Sázavou, Czechia) in 1257, to work on the construction of the Cistercian monastery. Henry studied at the monastery school, becoming a monk in 1259. He knew also the "Slavonic language" (Czech). His ordination as subdeacon followed in 1263. In 1267/8 he fled the monastery, but returned in 1294. The abbot imposed penance upo…
Date:
2021-04-15
Heraldry
(2,573 words)
Heraldry is "the science that studies armorial bearings, the coloured emblems pertaining to an individual, a family or a community" (Pastoureau). Heraldry is often important in chronicle studies as a subject which the chroniclers themselves were interested in and reported on; also because of the role of heralds as informants and witnesses, sometimes acting themselves as royal chroniclers; and finally because of the presence of heraldic motifs in chronicle illustration and also to indicate the ownership of manuscripts.As knights participating in tournaments went into the
mêlée wi…
Date:
2021-04-15
Heraut Beyeren
(860 words)
(Bavarian Herald) ca 1350-1414. Low Countries. A herald at the Court of Holland from 1403 until his death. Author of the
Corniken des tijts and the
Hollantsche cronike, each written in two versions, in Middle Dutch prose, with inserts in verse. His personal name, Claes Heynensoon or Heynen soen, is recorded in two deeds dated 1400 and 1411, but scholarship prefers to refer to him by the titles he used himself: in the dedication-manuscript of the
Hollantsche cronike II, which has survived in autograph, he calls himself
Beyeren quondam Gelre armorum [rex] de Ruyris (Bavaria, formerly Gelr…
Date:
2021-04-15
Herdegen, Konrad
(217 words)
1406-post-1479. Germany. Benedictine in St. Egidien, Nuremberg. Son of Herdegen Schreiber (Herdegen Olprecht). Author of the
Nürnberger Denkwürdigkeiten.This small 10-page prose chronicle in Latin was started in the 1460s, its last entry reaching the year 1479. Herdegen's account lists a personal selection of events. First, it recalls dates of death of his kinsmen, and of acquaintances in monasteries and in town. Summaries of donations and wills preserve information on his family's social network and possessions…
Date:
2021-04-15
Heriger of Lobbes
(223 words)
d. 1007. Low Countries. Benedictine monk then abbot of Lobbes (near Thuin), where he began his career as
scholasticus under the abbacy of Folcuin (965-90). He was a friend of Notker, the bishop of Liège, and travelled to Italy at least once (989). His Latin chronicle,
Gesta episcoporum Tungrensium, Traiectensium et Leodiensium (Deeds of the bishops of Tongeren, Maastricht and Liège), covers a period extending from the age of St. Materne, bishop of Cologne (beginning in the 4th century) to that of St. Remaclus (d. 667). It was continued into the 11th century by Anselm of Liège, canon of the…
Date:
2021-04-15
Herkommen der Schwyzer und Oberhasler
(325 words)
later 15th century. Switzerland. Anonymous Latin chronicle of the origins of the inhabitants of Schwyz and Oberhasli, often attributed to Heinrich von Gundelfingen, preserved also in a Middle High German version.The
Herkommen der Schyzer und Oberhasler attempts to explain the peregrine origins of the inhabitants of the Swiss canton Schwyz and the Bernese Valley Oberhasli as well as to legitimise their imperial freedom. According to this entirely fictitious narrative, people from Sweden and Frisia were forced to leave their countries because of a famine and thus settled in Schw…
Date:
2021-04-15
Herman de Tournai
(279 words)
ca 1090-post 1147. Low Countries. Abbot of Tournai (modern Belgium). Wrote a town chronicle in Latin prose. Probably the third son of Ralph of Noyon and Mainsendis, Herman became oblate of St. Martin's monastery in Tournai (Benedictine) in 1094/5, he attended the Council of Reims (1119), served as prior (1126), became abbot of St. Martin's (1127), directed the disinterment of the body of Charles the Good (1127), and resigned the abbacy of St. Martin's in 1137. In Rome, he received papal letters for the archbishop of Reims (1140). He was present in Tournai a…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hermann of Lerbeck
(649 words)
ca 1350-post-1403. Germany. Little is known about Hermann of Lerbeck, apart from the facts that he was a Dominican at St. Paul's monastery in Minden (Westphalia), was probably a commoner rather than a member of the nobility, and became
capellanus honestus to Pope Boniface IX in 1391. Judging from his writings he seems to have been informed only of his immediate regional surroundings plus possibly Hamburg and the county of Holstein which at that time was under Schaumburg rule. Hermann wrote three historical works: an episcopal and a ducal chronicle; both of them in Latin …
Date:
2021-04-15
Hermann of Niederaltaich
(716 words)
(Hermannus abbas Altahensis) 1200/01-75. Germany. Abbot of the Cisterciensian monastery of Niederaltaich. Author of a volume of annals, several chronicles on his monastery, a short autobiography, and a genealogy of Otto II of Bavaria, all in Latin. He also collected various administrative sources for his monastery. Hermann, who had probably lived in the monastery since his childhood, became Abbot of Niederaltaich in 1242. He was a frequent visitor to the papal court on the monastery's behalf, and represented an identifiably pro-papacy position.Hermann wrote his annals betwee…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hermann of Reichenau
(517 words)
[Herimannus Contractus (the Lame); Herimannus Augiensis (of Reichenau)] 18th July 1013 - 24th September 1054. Southern Germany. Though paralysed from birth, this member of the local nobility was one of the most outstanding scholars of his time. His
Chronicon states for 1020:
Ego Herimannus litteris traditus sum 17. Kal. Octobris (I, Herimannus, was consigned to the sciences on the 17th calends of October). Having entered the Benedictine monastery of Reichenau, he excelled in theology, mathematics, astronomy, history, poetry and musical theory, being probably most renowned …
Date:
2021-04-15
Hermann of Wartberge
(215 words)
14th century. Livonia (Eastern Baltic). A chaplain of the Livonian master of the Teutonic Order. Author of a Latin
Chronicon Livoniae, written in prose, probably shortly after 1378. Arranged in yearly parts from about 1180 to 1378, the
Chronicon tells of the German colonisation of Livonia and the wars fought by the Teutonic Order against Lithuanians and Russians. The author was a participant in at least some of the events described. On behalf of the Order he took part in negotiations with the Bishop of Riga, which he outlines in the chronicle and extensively describes in his tract
Relatio de…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hernando del Pulgar
(397 words)
[Fernando] ca 1425 - ca 1500. Castile (Iberia). From Pulgar, near Toledo (Spain). Councillor of State at the Castilian court under Queen Isabella. Author of a
Cronica de los Reyes Catholicos, which exists in two versions: the "inédita" (Madrid, BNE, ms. 18062) and the "impresa" (Madrid, BNE, ms. 1769). Despite the fact that it ends in 1490 because of the author's illness, it is regarded as the main chronicle of the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella). The Queen herself entrusted Pulgar with composing this chronicle during the royal council held in Toledo in 1480, after Alfonso …
Date:
2021-04-15
Herodian
(338 words)
fl. 240s ad. Italy. Probably born in a Greek city of Asia Minor at the end of the 2nd century, and perhaps a freedman, Herodian was for some years a subordinate official in Rome. His
History of the Empire after Marcus (ad 180-238), written in Greek in eight books, is chronologically divided according to the reigns of the emperors following Marcus (from Commodus to Gordian III) and focuses on struggles for power and civil wars, thus giving only slight attention to the relationships between Rome and the provinces, and to social and economic factors.Herodian embodies the viewpoint and the …
Date:
2021-04-15
Herryson, John
(432 words)
d. 1473. England. Cambridge-educated writer of a
Polychronicon continuation known as the
Abbreviata cronica 1377-1469. Herryson earned his MA by 1449-50. He was admitted into the MB programme, but he was twice fined in 1456 and 1464 for not showing interest in medicine. Some scholars have argued that Herryson was Chancellor of Cambridge 1465-68, but, as Emden notes, this must be disallowed on grounds of a misreading of the manuscript.Herryson's work is transmitted in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, ms. 249/277. This is a collection of chronicles, genealogies, reports of comets…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hesychius of Miletus
(229 words)
ca 500-550 ad. Byzantium. An inhabitant of Miletus (modern Turkey), Hesychius is the author of three works. His world history in six books started with the reign of the Assyrian king Belos and focussed mainly on Roman history. It ended with the death of the emperor Anastasius I. The starting point may indicate influence of Castor of Rhodes. The section known as the Πάτρια κατὰ Ἡσύχιον (Patria according to Hesychius) is preserved in a single 9th-century manuscript (Heidelberg, UB, gr. 398); otherwise only a few fragments survive. The Πάτρια, which may be abridged and inte…
Date:
2021-04-15