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
Pace di messer Iacopo da Certaldo
(287 words)
early 14th century. Italy. Pace di messer Iacopo da Certaldo, a politically active member of Florentine society, was named as the author of the
Storia della Guerra di Semifonte (History of the War of Semifonte)
, a historical narrative recounting the Florentine defeat of Semifonte in Tuscany in 1202. The author of the
Storia states that the work was begun in the year 1320, although the narrative section of the oldest extant manuscript is prefaced by claims that the copy at hand was transcribed from the original by da Certaldo' son.The work begins with an extended introduction concern…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pachymeres, Georgios
(471 words)
1242- post-1308. Byzantium. Georgios Pachymeres was born in Nicaea (today Iznik, Turkey), which after the Fourth Crusade had gradually replaced Constantinople as the most important local centre of the Byzantine Empire. He received a thorough rhetorical and literary education which found its expression in his observable preference for linguistic and verbal archaisms. One of his teachers may have been Georgios Akropolites. After the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople in 1261, Pachymeres soon became deacon and also lawyer (
dikaiophylax) at the Hagia Sophia.Besides numerous …
Date:
2021-04-15
Packington, William
(196 words)
d. 1390. England. Credited by 16th-century antiquarian John Leland with writing an Anglo-Norman chronicle from which Leland transcribed extracts. Although few today credit Packington with the authorship, the chronicle that Leland used was discovered in the early 20th century to be that in BL, Cotton Tiberius ms. A.vi, fol. 121-99, which Taylor names the
Tiberius chronicle. Once described as an Anglo-Norman prose
Brut and covering the years 1042 to the early part of Edward III's reign in 1346, its sources include a version of
Flores historiarum (see Roger of Wendover), the
Annals of
Wa…
Date:
2021-04-15
Page, John
(636 words)
15th century. England. Author of
The Siege of Rouen, a widely circulated 1323-line English vernacular verse chronicle of Henry V’s siege of the city between late July/early August 1418 and 19 January 1419. Page claims that he is presenting an eyewitness account (
at that sege with the kyng I lay, line 22). Bellis classifies it as an example of the 15th-century celebratory, jingoistic political poetry, such as the
Agincourt Carol and the
Battle of Agincourt, that was produced after English victories, observing that it borrows motifs and narrative techniques from chivalric romance. As Druk…
Date:
2016-10-17
Page, John
(636 words)
15th century. England. Author of
The Siege of Rouen, a widely circulated 1323-line English vernacular verse chronicle of Henry V’s siege of the city between late July/early August 1418 and 19 January 1419. Page claims that he is presenting an eyewitness account (
at that sege with the kyng I lay, line 22). Bellis classifies it as an example of the 15th-century celebratory, jingoistic political poetry, such as the
Agincourt Carol and the
Battle of Agincourt, that was produced after English victories, observing that it borrows motifs and narrative techniques from chivalric romance. As Druk…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pagliarini, Giovanni Battista
(188 words)
15th century. Italy. A member of Vicenza's College of Notaries, Battista Pagliarini composed his Latin
Cronicae based on documents and chronicles such as that of Antonio Godi. The earliest extant manuscript, Vicenza, Biblioteca Civica Bertoliana, 409 bis, formerly of the Phillipps Collection, includes an inscription,
Misser Batista Paiarin ha porta qui questo libro in casa mia. This manuscript is the basis for the recent edition by Grubb, who dates the core writing to 1497-8, although the last reference is to 1504. Addressed to deputies in charge of the munic…
Date:
2021-04-15
Paleja
(726 words)
10th century. Bulgaria. Written in Church Slavonic by an anonymous author of the Preslav school. A presentation of biblical history from a Christian teleological point of view. The author aimed at presenting the Old Testament as a model for the New, to prove and inculcate the concept of the supremacy of Christianity over Judaism, Islam, and polytheistic religions.In the Greek manuscript tradition, παλαιά (
Palaia, actually ή παλαιά διαθήκη, the old covanent) refers to the Old Testament itself. In the Slavonic tradition this is either translated by ветхий зав…
Date:
2021-04-15
Palencia, Alfonso Fernández de
(447 words)
1424–92. Castile (Iberia). Author of historical works in Latin and Castilian: a history of the reigns of Enrique IV and Isabel I; a chronicle of the war against Granada; lost Latin histories of pre-Roman and Roman Iberia; and Castilian translations of Plutarch's
Lives and Josephus's
The Jewish War. Palencia introduced humanistic historiography to the Iberian peninsula, although his influence in this regard was probably limited. He lived in Rome and Florence from 1442 to 1453, where he worked for Cardinal Bessarion, studied under George of Trebizond, and met numerous important …
Date:
2021-04-15
Palmieri, Matteo
(240 words)
1406-75. Italy. Florentine writer and politician. Partisan of the Medici with a special relationship to Piero il Gottoso. Probably in 1446-48 he wrote his
Liber de temporibus (Book of the times), a world chronicle for 1-1448, synchronizing the years from the incarnation, from the Creation and those of the emperors and popes, adding historical events in a very restricted manner. In his dedication to Piero de' Medici (whose copy is in Florence, Laurenziana, Plut. 65,45) he presents his work as a manual of chronology and not as
historia. Up to 1294 he follows the chronicle of his tea…
Date:
2021-04-15
Palmieri, Mattia
(461 words)
1423-83. Italy. Born in Pisa. Papal abbreviator and secretary. Wrote
De bello italico (on the Italian war) and
De temporibus (on the times).The unedited ten books of the
De bello italico treat in great detail the political events of Italy between 1449 and 1464. The author enjoyed a reputation as a historian in Rome, where he was protected by cardinal Prospero Colonna. The first five books, covering the time till 1458 and the wars of Alfonso of Aragon against Florence, must have been written before the election of Pius II (Eneas Silvius Piccolomini). The second part treats the wars of A…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pane, Ogerio
(414 words)
d. ca 1230. Italy. Communal scribe, ambassador, and fourth official chronicler of Genoa. Although of modest origins, this third continuator of the
Annales Ianuenses appears to have enjoyed a close relationship with Genoese nobility. He was awarded honorary offices and entrusted with delicate diplomatic missions. In 1197, Ogerio became the fourth official city chronicler of Genoa, and would continue in this capacity until 1219, and as he wrote contemporaneously with events, his section of the
Annales covers precisely these years, 1197-1219.Ogerio's chronicle is most importan…
Date:
2021-04-15
Panholz, Leonhard
(237 words)
ca 1430/35-1498. Germany. Native of Opperkofen near Straubing in the diocese of Regensburg, studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Vienna, from which he took a bachelor's degree. From ca 1456 onwards he taught at the monasteries of Prüll and St. Salvator in Regensburg, where he is buried. In ca 1490 he composed a brief Latin continuation to Andreas of Regensburg's chronicle of the Bavarian dukes up to 1486, beginning with an account of the quarrel between Duke Ludwig VII the Bearded and his son (1438-45)
. Although Panholz wrote local history, its scope went beyond Bavaria…
Date:
2021-04-15
Panodorus
(163 words)
5th century ad. Egypt. According to Georgios Synkellos (
Eclogue 35.20-36.5), the early 5th-century Alexandrian monk Panodorus compiled a universal chronicle in Greek which surpassed that of Anianus in length and astronomical learning. Apparently Panodorus established his own chronological system, later referred to as the Alexandrian system, calculating 5493 years from Adam to the birth of Christ whilst trying to reconcile pagan and biblical sources. Despite his admiration for this achievement, Georgios called in question…
Date:
2021-04-15
Papoušek, Jan, of Soběslav
(111 words)
[Iohannes Papussko de Sobieslavia] d. 1454. Bohemia. Czech humanist, active at the University of Prague (1412 Bachelor, 1430 Master of Liberal Arts, 1443 vice-chancellor, 1436 and 1445 Rector). He converted to Catholicism and became Prague Canon in 1453. Author of a lost Latin work on the coronation of Ladislav Pohrobek (Posthumous) in 1453,
Tractatus de coronatione Ladislai. He also collected sources for Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini's
Historia Bohemica. Marie BláhováBibliography Literature F. Šmahel, "Enea Silvio Piccolomini a jeho Historie česká", in D. Martínková, …
Date:
2021-04-15
Parenti, Marco
(220 words)
1421-97. Italy. Florentine patrician, merchant and historian. Through marriage to Caterina, daughter of the famous Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, he gained close ties with one of the leading Florentine families; but as this alliance placed him in opposition to the Medici regime, his political career was limited. After the death of Piero de' Medici in 1469 he began to write his
Ricordi storici (Historical Memoirs), but he stopped at the latest in 1478, again for political reasons. His chronologically organized work is written in Italian and covers the short …
Date:
2021-04-15
Parenti, Piero di Marco
(234 words)
1449-1518. Italy. Florentine patrician and historian, author of a town chronicle. Son of Marco Parenti and Caterina degli Strozzi, daughter of the famous Alessandra. Thanks to his father's good connections, he studied with the great humanist scholars Marsilio Ficino and Demetrius Chalcondylas. In 1482 he became a member of the
Signoria.In 1476 he started writing contemporarily his
Storia Fiorentina (History of Florence) in a
volgare (Italian) of a high standard. However he interrupted his work in 1478 and continued only in 1492 when Florentine history was in…
Date:
2021-04-15
Parfues, Jakob
(218 words)
late 15th century. Germany. Monk at the Benedictine monastery of Ensdorf (Oberpfalz, diocese of Regensburg). Apparently he had previously been at the monastery in Lindenhardt by Creußen; the two monasteries had close connections. In 1480 he wrote a history of the house at Ensdorf in German.The chronicle starts in 888 with the founders' genealogy and history, and relates the whole history of the monastery from its foundation in 1121 until 1472. The founding family are the Wittelsbachers, but some of the family members are confused with othe…
Date:
2021-04-15
Parian Marble
(171 words)
[Marmor Parium; Chronicum Parium] 264/3 bc. Greece. A universal chronicle in Greek, originally inscribed on a small marble stele on Paros that now survives in only two fragments, one in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the other in the Paros Archaeological Museum. It presents a combination of Athenian and Greek political, military, religious, and literary history, starting in 1581-80 bc. Its chronology is a count-down to the time of writing, supplemented annually from 683-2 bc with the name of the Athenian archon. It also contains data on well-known mythological figure…
Date:
2021-04-15
Parisius de Cereta
(262 words)
[Parisio da Cerea] first mentioned 1233, died after 1277. Italy. Notary in Cerea with contacts to local authorities in Verona. Author of
Annales veronenses (or
Chronicon veronense). Parisius focuses on Cerea, Verona and the southern March, describing numerous conflicts during the middle third of the 13th century and the reign of Ezzelino III da Romano. At some point he took up the records he eventually inherited from his father, writing henceforth contemporarily with the events until 1277; a detailed historical account begins about 1230. Parisiu…
Date:
2021-04-15
Parleberg, Johannes
(260 words)
15th century. Poland. Around 1475 he wrote a chronicle tract entitled
Cronica de ducatu Stettinensi et Pomeraniae gestorum inter Marchiones Brandenburgenses et duces Stettinenses Anno domini 1464, anchoring the rights of the dukes of Pomerania-Wolgast, Wartislaw IX and Erich II to succession after the death in 1464 of the last duke of Stettin, Otto III, in defiance of the claims of the Margrave of Brandenburg Frederick II (supported by the Emperor, Frederick III). The author cites unknown documents and historical events, drawing among other sources on the
Protocollum of Augustine …
Date:
2021-04-15
Paschale Campanum
(203 words)
6th century. Italy. A Latin Easter table beginning in 464 first compiled in Campania between 512 and 518. To this Easter table the compiler added a variety of short historical notes down to 476 from a recension of the
Consularia Italica. Between 476 and 512, ten random notices were added from the compiler's own knowledge and various other sources. The table was later continued down to 585 and then again to 599, and then compiled prospectively from 600 to at least 613, where the text now breaks off. The text survives in a single manuscript (Vatican, BAV, regin. lat. 2077), copied ca 599. A…
Date:
2021-04-15
Passio Pragensium
(264 words)
1483. Bohemia. An anonymous prose narrative in Latin and German versions, dealing with the rebellion in Prague in September that year. The text was written at the end of October in one of the Northern Bohemian towns, based on the accounts of direct participants who had fled from Prague before the rebellion, probably monks and Catholic clergy. It was long known only as a German text, but the recently discovered Latin version appears to be original. The translation enjoyed a wide distribution in manuscripts and i…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pastoralet
(164 words)
15th century. France. Chronicle in Middle French, written between 1422 and 1425 by an anonymous author known as "Bucarius", who was probably a native of Picardy. The text is an account of the conflict between Armagnacs and Burgundians disguised as a pastoral fiction, where John the Fearless is
Leonet, Louis d'Orléans
Tristiféridés, Isabeau of Bavaria
Belligère, Charles VI
Florentin, etc.; the text presents a Burgundian perspective on the political events. It is based on the
Grandes Chroniques de France, the
Chronique de l'abbaye de Cercamp (actually an unpublished cartulary of …
Date:
2021-04-15
Patria Constantinoupoleos
(605 words)
[Pseudo-Kodinos] 10th century. Byzantium. A group of works on the history and topography of Constantinople. Two of these texts in particular are designated as
Patria Constantinoupoleos. The first, with the title Πάτρια Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κατὰ Ἡσύχιον Ἰλλούστριον (The origin and the history of Constantinople according to the illustrious Hesychius) was taken from the lost world chronicle of the 6th-century pagan Hesychius of Miletus and describes the history of the city of Byzantium from its foundation up to the time when it was renamed as Constantinople (3…
Date:
2021-04-15
Patricius Ravennas
(309 words)
[Patrizio Ravennate] 1310/30–ca 1380. Italy. Author of a chronicle of the town of Ravenna. Patricius gives no indication of his family, social class or profession, although he seems to have had a scholastic education at the
Studium generale of Bologna.His chronicle goes from 1000 to 1378 but is extremely uneven in its coverage of dates, giving specific information for less than 150 of the years covered. A traditional town chronicle at the beginning, it gradually includes more and more details on communal and signorial affairs until t…
Date:
2021-04-15
Paulinus of Milan
(365 words)
4th-5th century. Italy. Secretary to Ambrose of Milan ca 394, later deacon of the same see, who was sent to North Africa on behalf of the church of Milan in the early 5th century. He supported Augustine of Hippo during the Pelagian controversy, writing a
libellus to Pope Zosimus in 417. His principal work, the
Vita Ambrosii (Life of Ambrose of Milan), is a Latin prose hagiography written in an unadorned style (
inculto
sermone, according to Paulinus). It was commissioned by Augustine and was the earliest life of Ambrose. Its date is controversial, some arguing for 412…
Date:
2021-04-15
Paulinus of Venice
(653 words)
[Paolino Veneto, Paulinus Minorita] d. 1344. Italy. Paulinus of Venice was born in that city, probably to a patrician family. He entered the Franciscan order while still a young man. He first made his mark when he wrote the
Trattato de regimine rectoris (Treatise on the conduct of a lord, 1313-15), which he dedicated to Marino Badoer, Duke of Crete. Paulinus took the
De regemine principum (Of the conduct of princes) of the Augustinian Egidio Colonna (ca 1247-1316) as a model but whereas Egidio was long-winded, Paulinus wrote in Venetian dialect, kept his chapters shor…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pauli, Theodericus Franconi
(459 words)
[Dirk Frankenszoon Pauw] ca 1416 - ca 1493. Low Countries. Born in Gorinchem, County of Holland; priest, canon and subdeacon at the church of St. Martin and St. Vincent in this town, where he also died. Probably three autograph compilations of historiographic and hagiographic works are known. These may have served as reference books for his own use. Several chronicles and other texts in Latin and Middle Dutch are attributed to him. Some were taken from or added to the compilations.
Chronicon Hollandiae, Latin, ca 1471, chronicle of the County of Holland and the Diocese of Utr…
Date:
2021-04-15
Paul the Deacon
(1,037 words)
[Paulus Diaconus] ca 720-99. Italy. Benedictine monk of Montecassino, author of Latin histories of Italy and of the diocese of Metz.Paul the Deacon was born of a noble Lombard family sometime around 720. We know very few details about his life before 782, as a result of which his biography has been the subject of much speculation. He was probably educated at the court of King Ratchis in Pavia, after which he may have remained at court, or he may have become a monk. His first dated work was written in 763, a poem addressed to Adalperga, daughter of the Lombard ki…
Date:
2021-04-15
Paulus de Praga
(384 words)
1413-71. Bohemia. Paulus de Praga was a Jewish scholar and encyclopaedist. He was the author of a number of texts including a didactic tract with a historical section. He was born in Prague, brought up in a Hussite family, and later converted to Catholicism. He studied in Prague, Vienna, Padua, and Bologna, where he received his doctorate in medicine. He lectured at universities in Prague and Kraków, from 1466 he was active at the court of the Czech king Georges of Poděbrady. There he was asked to write a guide on how to rule and learn from the past and from nature, writte…
Date:
2021-11-09
Paumgartner, Peter
(313 words)
d. 1525. Germany. Son of a wealthy citizen of Wasserburg am Inn. Studied in Vienna and Italy, became professor of canon law in Ingolstadt in 1479 and rector of the university from 1490 (or possibly 1503). Ducal councillor and chancellor in Landshut from 1514.Paumgartner is thought to be the author of a continuation of the
Bayerische Chronik of Ulrich Fuetrer covering the years till 1511, and written in German ca 1511-14. The continuation is quite different in tone from the original chronicle. For example, Paumgartner eschews the mixture of folk-tale and…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pʿawstos Buzand
(288 words)
[Faustus of Byzantium] ca 470. Armenia. Author of the
Buzandaran Patmutʿiwnkʿ (Epic Histories), which relates the history of Arsacid Armenia from ca 330 (the death of Trdat III) to the Roman/Persian partition of Armenia in 387. The identity of Pʿawstos is a mystery - the name Buzand, also given in places as Biwzandacʿi ("of Byzantium"), was taken by many medieval and modern scholars to indicate that Pʿawstos was a Greek, or an Armenian of Greece, who may have originally composed the history in Greek or Syriac in the 4th century, well before the Armenian script was invented. More recently, Gar…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pedro Afonso
(746 words)
[Pedro de Barcelos] d.1354. Portugal. The Count of Barcelos in northern Portugal, he was an illegitimate son of King Dinis of Portugal, and a great grandson of Alfonso X of Castile and León. He dedicated his mature years to intellectual work, composing the two most valued historical works of the time.The
Livro de Linhagens do Conde D. Pedro (Lineage Book of Count Pedro) is a compilation of lineage data from the previous
Livros de Linhagens, and a revised version of the Navarrese
Liber regum and the lost
Crónica Portuguesa de Espanha e Portugal. These sources are a mixture of family mem…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pedro de Escavias
(164 words)
1417? - 1482/1500. Castile (Iberia). Alcaide (Head of the Garrison) and Alcalde Mayor of Andújar (Jaén), a city he turned into a loyalist stronghold during the years of the revolts of the nobility against King Enrique IV (1460-1473). Author of
Repertorio de príncipes de España (Index of Princes of Spain).The
Repertorio is a prose historical summary composed in 1467-70 (chapters 1-146) and 1475 (chapter 147). It is essentially an account of Spanish history, starting with the foundation of Spain by Hercules, up to the death of King Enrique IV. Its main sources are Alfonso X's
Estoria de Esp…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pedro de Valencia
(196 words)
16th century. Navarre (Iberia). A monk who completed a pre-existing chronicle of the kings of Navarre. The
Crónica de Pedro de Valencia is a composite history of the Kings of Navarre made up of three parts: the first and by far most extensive covers the period 994-1150 and appears to have been written at this period in support of the monastery of Nájera and in particular King García Ramírez. It contains significant elements of epic origin. The second section, covering the years 1150-1425 was added subsequently, and is all but annalistic in nature. The final sec…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pelayo of Oviedo
(374 words)
[Pelagius episcopus Ovetensis] early 12th century. León/Asturias (Iberia). Bishop of Oviedo (Northern Spain) and author of
Liber Testamentorum and the
Corpus Pelagianum. Nothing is certain on Pelayo's life until his consecration as bishop in 1098, possibly as an auxiliary to Martin I (1094-1101) whom he eventually succeeded. Pelayo was active in court and diocese until his deposition at the Council of Carrión (1130). He temporarily re-occupied his see in 1142-3 before returning to obscurity until his death on 28th January 1153.Pelayo was aggressive in protecting Oviedo's in…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pelhisson, Guillaume
(307 words)
[Guilhem] d. 1268. France. Dominican friar at Toulouse. Active from the 1230s. Some years before his death, he wrote an unpretentious prose chronicle of the early years of his house, one of the earliest Dominican foundations, re-established in 1229 after the defeat of Toulouse in the Albigensian Wars. His brief chronicle covers the first fifteen years after that event, recording mainly actions taken by the Dominicans against suspect or manifest heretics.Pelhisson, who served as ambulant inquisitor in several campaigns, was well-placed to record names, circumstances, an…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pembridge, John de
(533 words)
[Christopher] fl. 1333, d.1347(?). Ireland. Anglo-Irish Dominican and author of the Latin
Annales Hibernie ab anno Christi 1162 usque ad annum 1370. The Trinity College manuscript has, at the conclusion of 1347, a rubricated note which states
Hic finitur cronica Pembrig. Pembridge is presumed to be John de Pembridge, prior of the Dublin Dominicans several times between 1331 and 1343. The forename Christopher appears to originate with Harris, who possibly misinterpreted the letter
C (indicating
cronica) as a forename. Pembridge used the Cistercian
Annals of St Mary's, Dublin, as a …
Date:
2021-04-15
Perceval de Cagny
(259 words)
[Robert] 1436-38. France. A loyal servant writing in his 46th year of employ to the house of Alençon. His two-part, 44,000-word prose chronicle in Middle French consists of a short genealogical memoir of the house of Alençon to the year 1436, followed by a longer general chronicle, sometimes narrowly and inaccurately titled
Chronique
des ducs d'Alençon (Chronicle of the Dukes of Alençon).Perceval's greatest contribution is to record his own and his master Jean II's eyewitness account during critical decades of the Hundred Years War (1393-1438), which includes his insider's a…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pere d'Arenys
(219 words)
[Peter of Arenys] 1349–1419. Catalonia (Iberia). Born in Arenys de Munt in 1349, he entered the Dominican house of Santa Caterina (Barcelona) in 1362 and was ordained priest in 1371. From 1374 to 1378 he studied theology in Barcelona, Toulouse and Paris. He was subsequently professor of theology in Bologna and Perpignan. In 1407 he was appointed provincial of the Dominican Order in the Holy Land, but he gave up the post and remained in Barcelona until his death. He is the author of a
Chronicon in Latin, which is a mixture of political and ecclesiastical history, and which extend…
Date:
2021-04-15
Peregrinus Priscanus
(173 words)
[Pellegrino Prisciani] 1435-1518. Italy. Humanist, ambassador, historian, astrologer and university lecturer. Born in Ferrara (Emilia-Romagna), Priscianus was one of the most influential academics in Ferrara in the years of governance of Leonelle d'Este (1407-50) and Borso d'Este (1414-71), the lords of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio Emilia. Under the rule of Ercole I d'Este (1431-1505), Priscanus became ambassador in Venice (from 1481) and at the papal court in Rome (from 1485). In the years 1483-84 he was ennobled as a
podestà in Emilia-Romagna.As ducal archivist, astrologer a…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pérez de Guzmán, Fernán
(483 words)
1377/79-1460. Castile (Iberia). Lord of Batres, near Madrid. Combatant in the aristocracy's struggle with the Crown and Álvaro de Luna. One of the most revered poets of his time. Retired to Batres in 1432, where he wrote his Castilian vernacular
Generaciones y semblanzas in the 1450s.The prologue contains a concise
ars historica and the author's appraisal of contemporay official historiography. Since he diagnoses a crisis in the institutionalized writing of history, he conceives of an improvement on the defective Royal chronicle of his time. How…
Date:
2021-04-15
Pero Vaz de Caminha
(1,235 words)
[Pedro Vaz de Caminha, Pêro Vaz de Caminha]ca. 1450-15 December 1500. Portugal. Pero Vaz de Caminha was a Portuguese knight who served as a secretary for Pedro Álvares Cabral’s fleet. He accompanied Cabral to India and wrote a detailed report of the Portuguese discovery of Brazil in April 1500.Pero was the son of Vasco Fernandes de Caminha, a knight of the household of the Duke of Guimarães (later Braganza). He probably accompanied Afonso V of Portugal in the campaign against Castile and participated in the Battle of Toro, in March 1476. That…
Date:
2022-11-07
Peter Comestor
(694 words)
d. 1178. France. Chancellor of Notre Dame and professor of theology. Peter Comestor is best known for his authorship of the
Historia scholastica, though he also wrote 150 sermons, commentaries on the Gospels, and two religious poems,
De beata virgine and
De sacramentis.The
Historia scholastica was written before 1173 and dedicated to William, Archbishop of Sens. This lengthy work in Latin prose, 600 columns in the
Patrologia Latina, is based on the author's teaching at Paris and is primarily intended as a textbook. In its focus on the historical sense of the Bible, it …
Date:
2021-04-15
Peter of Alexandria
(255 words)
10th century. Byzantium. The otherwise unknown author of a short world chronicle up to 912/13. The chronicle begins in the year 230 of Adam and contains information on Jewish History before the Babylonian captivity, history of the Persian and Egyptian kings and Roman and Byzantine emperors down to the reign of Leo VI and Alexander. Seven ecumenical councils are also mentioned. This is the only Byzantine source that alleges that the emperor Staurakios was poisoned by Prokopia, the wife of Michael I Rangabe.Peter's sources include the Bible and Apocrypha, Jewish historians, ear…
Date:
2021-04-15
Peter of Dusburg
(509 words)
fl. 1326. Low Countries/Germany. A priest of the Teutonic Order. Initially it was thought he was from Duisburg/Rhine (Germany), and in many texts he is referred to as "Peter of Duisburg", but new research indicates he may rather have come from Doesburg/Ijssel (Netherlands). Author of
Cronica terrae Prussiae, the first major chronicle of the Teutonic Order written in Prussia. The letter of dedication to the grand master, Werner von Orseln, indicates the official status of the work. The Latin prose chronicle, completed about 100 years after the invasion of the Ba…
Date:
2021-04-15
Peter of Eboli
(259 words)
fl. 1194-1221. Southern Italy. Latin didactic poet, chronicler and monk in the service of Emperor Henry VI. His most important work is
Liber ad honorem Augusti (Book in honour of the Emperor), a poem in 3 books subdivided into 52
particulae (little parts). The
Liber was composed between the end of 1194, when Henry VI took possession of the southern Italian territories, defeating Tancredi count of Lecce, and Henry's death in 1197. The first two books describe the war for the succession to the Sicilian throne after the death of Wilhelm II, while the third, the
ad honorem Augusti proper, is the…
Date:
2021-04-15
Peter of Herentals
(567 words)
1322-90/1. Low Countries. Premonstratensian monk at Floreffe (Diocese of Liège, county of Namur) from 1342, chaplain of abbot Diederik of Warnant (1342-61) and later prior of the abbey. During his monastic career at Floreffe, Peter produced at least two, possibly four works of both universal and local history, all in Latin. He was also well-known for his theological works, especially Bible commentaries.His most important work, the
Compendium chronicorum de imperatoribus et pontificibus Romanorum, is a papal and imperial chronicle in prose, finished in 1386. The firs…
Date:
2021-04-15
Peter of Ickham
(494 words)
[Petrus de Ykham, Yckham] d. 1295. England. Benedictine monk of Christ Church, Canterbury. Possible author of three historical works, though the attribution is doubtful. Peter entered Christ Church Cathedral priory by 1264. He studied at Paris and probably had legal training.The most likely attribution is the
Compilatio de gestis Britonum et Anglorum, sometimes titled
Chronicon de Regibus Angliae. The 16th-century archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker, many catalogues, and Sharpe ascribe the
Compilatio to Peter; but Hardy, Glover, and Ramsay challenge the attribution, n…
Date:
2021-04-15
Peter of Mladoňovice
(395 words)
ca 1390 - 1451. Bohemia. Preacher and Prague university professor, a rector in 1439, dean of Faculty of Arts in 1441/2. In 1414/5. He composed reports, written in Latin prose, about Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague in Konstanz. During the Hussite revolution he represented the moderate University Masters.In 1414/5 Peter was in Konstanz as a secretary of the Czech delegation and confidential of Jan Hus. There he learned all the details of Hus' trial and execution, which he recorded and after his return incorporated in the report about the events of Summer 1414 til…
Date:
2021-04-15