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
Do fhlaithiusaib Hérenn
(366 words)
(Concerning the sovereignties of Ireland) 11th-12th century. Ireland. A tract in Middle Irish which is appended to the various recensions of the
Lebor gabála Érenn (The book of invasions of Ireland). The title is only found in
Lebor gabála recension
a (redaction I), which recounts Ireland's history from the time of Noah until the final invasion by the sons of Míl, from whom all the Irish royal dynasties claim to descend.
Do fhlaithiusaib Érenn is a list of about 150 kings of Ireland, from Éremón son of Míl until the historical kings of the 12th century, with brief descriptions of their r…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dolfin, Pietro
(439 words)
1427-1506. Italy. Venetian merchant, politician, and author of
Annali Veneti (Venetian Annals), a political history of Venice from its origins to 1506 written in Italian. Born in Venice, son of the statesman and historian Zorzi Dolfin, whose chronicle he continued, Pietro was admitted to the Maggior Consiglio at the age of eighteen in September 1445. He assumed several public offices in Venice: as officer on the armed galleys to Alexandria in 1450, as official at the Messeteria in 1452, and lawyer in the court system at the Ducal Palace. After the death of his fa…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dolfin, Zorzi
(335 words)
[Giorgio] 1396 - ca 1458. Italy. Venetian diplomat and office-holder, who wrote a history of Venice that provides the most detailed account of the city under the rule of Doge Francesco Foscari (1427-57). His
Cronica de la nobel cita de Venetia e de la sua provintia et de destretto (Chronicle of the noble city of Venice, of its province and of its district) is a typical vernacular chronicle of Venice, beginning with the passion of Christ and largely derivative of other authors, in this case Antonio Morosini, down to the early Quattrocento. For events the author's maturity, the nar…
Date:
2021-04-15
Domènec, Jaume
(164 words)
14th century. Catalonia (Iberia). A Dominican, Domènec was master of the order in Provence, then provincial of Aragon (1363-7) and inquisitor general in the kingdom of Mallorca. He was closely tied to the court of Pere IV of Aragon and tutor to Joan I. In 1360 Peter IV commissioned him to write a universal history which the king intended would complement the history of his own reign. This work, known as the
Compendi historial, was an adaptation in Catalan of the
Speculum historiale of Vincent of Beauvais. It is conserved in Paris, BnF, esp. 122. Only the first four parts of the work, …
Date:
2021-04-15
Dominican chronicle tradition
(2,068 words)
The Order of PreachersFounded in the years around 1215, the Dominicans were originally and most correctly known as the Order of Preachers (OP =
Ordo Praedicatorum). In England they were often referred to as Black Friars, in France as Jacobins. Like the Franciscans, from whom to some extent they drew inspiration, the Dominicans were a mendicant order, but their focus on preaching made them an altogether more aggressive force. Founded by the Spaniard Dominic of Calaruega (Dominic of Osma, Dominic de Guzmán, ca 1170-1221), their origins lay in the Albigensian controvers…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dominici, Luca
(338 words)
[ser Luca di Bartolomeo Dominici] 1363/64-1410. Italy. Pistoiese civic chronicler, notary, and active participant in the public life of his city-state, serving as a member of the
Consiglio degli Anziani (Council of the Elders) and notary of public offices from the 1390s until his death. He is remembered for two works written in the vernacular and completed at the start of the 15th century: the
Cronaca della venuta dei Bianchi e della morìa (Chronicle of the coming of the Whites and of the plague), which was compiled by his brother, ser Paolo, in 1415 and widely diss…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dominicus de Gravina
(708 words)
[Domenico di Gravina, Domenico da Gravina]14th century. Italy. The chronicle written by Dominic, notary of Gravina in Terra di Bari (Land of Bari), is one of the most important literary and historiographical sources for the history of the kingdom of Naples between 1333 and 1350. In the wake of the murder of Andrew of Calabria in 1345, the south of Italy becomes a battleground between Joanna I of Anjou, queen of Naples, and Louis of Anjou, king of Hungary. Dominic's Latin chronicle, known as the
Chronicon de rebus in Apulia gestis, is the main source for the history of the war in Apulia.The firs…
Date:
2021-04-15
Donato di Neri
(286 words)
early 1300s - 1371/72. Italy. Civic chronicler and cloth merchant from Siena. He is remembered as the author of the
Cronache senesi (Sienese Chronicles) which were composed in the vernacular and treat the years 1352-71. His work follows in the tradition of the Sienese civic histories attributed to the merchant writers Andrea Dei (see
Cronica Sanese) and Agnolo di Tura (see
Cronaca senese detta la maggiore) who recorded the major events of their city from the mid-12th century up to 1352, the opening year of Donato's narrative. Combining municipal patriotism with a cosmop…
Date:
2021-04-15
Donizone di Canossa
(450 words)
1070/2 - post 1136. Italy. Donizone was abbot of Sant' Apollonio OSB in Canossa and author of the Latin verse
Vita Mathildis, a life of the Countess of Canossa with strong elements of a dynastic chronicle, which he wrote between 1111 and 1114. He also wrote a metrical commentary on Genesis.In Donizone's monastery the remains of some ancestors of the Counts of Canossa had been deposited, and the Countess Matilda especially took care to advance the memory of her own family at Sant'Apollonio. In the
Vita Mathildis, which Donizone himself entitled
Liber de principibus canusinis, Donizone tri…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dopełnienie szamotulskie
(215 words)
(Supplement of Szamotuły) 15th century. Poland. Short Latin chronicle spanning the years 1370-1427, dating from the mid-15th century.
Dopełnienie szamotulskie is part of a collection of historical texts written for Piotr of Szamotuły, a dignitary from western Poland. The chronicle was composed in 1427 by an anonymous canon in the Trzemeszno Monastery of Canons Regular, whose goal was to describe the reign of King Władysław Jagiełło. The text is often inaccurate, particularly when it comes to events before the reign of Władysław Jagiełło or during the early y…
Date:
2021-04-15
Doria, Iacopo
(397 words)
[d'Oria] 13th century. Italy. Iacopo is the last author of the
Annales Ianuenses. He was born around 1233 into of one of the most notable Genoese families. His brothers Oberto and Lamba were capitani del popolo and victorious in the battles of Meloria and Curzola respectively. In 1273 Iacopo was appointed podestà of Voltri, and later also served as vicar of the Genoese Commune in the Oltregiogo. He took part in important meetings of the council of the Commune, and acted as ambassador of Genoa to Constantinople and Tunis (1284, 1285, 1287). He died sometime between 1294 and 1305.His most impo…
Date:
2021-04-15
Döring, Dirk
(209 words)
d. 1498. Germany. Leaseholder at the saltworks and town councillor in Lüneburg. Author of a Low German
Historia van her Johan Springenguth or
Historia van der uneinicheit zwischen dem olden und nigen rade to Luneborg (History of the dissension between the old and new council in Lüneburg), which describes in about 20 folios the events of the Prälatenkrieg in Lüneburg from 1450-58, the biggest crisis in the city's history. The council was replaced in 1454, but eventually re-installed in 1456. During these years, the mayor Johan Springintgut, a close relative of Döring, died in pri…
Date:
2021-04-15
Döring, Matthias
(239 words)
ca 1390-1469. Germany. Minister-Provincial of the Franciscan Friars of the Saxonian province. Continuator of the Latin
Speculum seu imago mundi, an abridged version of the
Nova Chronica of Dietrich Engelhus. The chronicle starts with brief notes about the years between 1420-22. For 1423-64 it recounts the current events in an elaborated annalistic form. Döring deals with urgent problems of his time: the threat of the Hussites and the Turks, the Council of Basel, of which he was a strong defender, the reform of the Church and the religious orders, but also natural phenomena and miracles. …
Date:
2021-04-15
Doukas
(493 words)
ca 1400 - after 1462. Byzantium. A member of the influential Doukas family, and grandson of Michael Doukas, who was important in the Civil War of the 1340s. Neither his first name nor precise dates are known.Doukas composed a kind of universal chronicle with the title Ἀριθμοὶ ἐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ἀνθρώπου ἕως τῆς ἡμετέρας γενεᾶς (The total of all years beginning from the first man up to our generation), which is commonly and rightly seen by modern scholars as a history of the relations between Ottomans and Byzantines between the ye…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dover Chronicle
(159 words)
13th century. England. Benedictine chronicle in Latin covering ad 1-1286 from St. Martin’s Priory, Dover, a cell of Christ Church, Canterbury. From 1242-70 it is similar to the
Chronicle of Christ Church,
Canterbury (see Chronicon anonymi Cantuariensis). It is less annalistic from 1258 with informed accounts of events in South East England leading up to the Mise of Lewes, the settlement between Henry III and Simon de Montford subsequent to the Battle of Lewes. Its pro-baronial stance is demonstrated by the incorporation of letters from the barons to Henry III and the account of St. Thomas…
Date:
2021-04-15
Drechsler, Leonhard
(181 words)
[Leonardus Tornatoris] late 15th century. Austria. Author of a Latin chronicle of events in the diocese of Salzburg and the Austrian Empire, spanning the years 580 till 1495. It was incorrectly published under the title
Chronicon Anonymi Auctoris Sanpetriensis (Chronicle by an Anonymous Author from the Monastery of St. Peter), as the author Leonardus Tornatoris (Leonard Drechsler) was considered to be only the copyist.Up to the year 1452 the chronicle is an almost exact copy of the list of the bishops of Salzburg from Johannes Serlinger's
Catalogus Pontificum Salisburgensium, only …
Date:
2021-04-15
Duchesne, Jean
(285 words)
[du Quesne] 15th century. France. Scribe, translator and chronicler from Lille, writing for the house of Burgundy. In 1473, he produced the first complete translation into French of Caesar's
De bello Gallico for Charles the Bold. However, Jean reworked Caesar's text, adding a large number of allusions to the greatness of the house of Burgundy, as well as some excerpts from other sources.In the prologue, Jean announced his intention to write a world chronicle spanning antiquity to the late 15th century. It has been generally considered that he abandoned this ambitious proje…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dudo of St. Quentin
(332 words)
965?-1043? Normandy. Canon of the collegiate church of Saint-Quentin in the Vermandois. Author of
De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum, composed between 996 et 1015. It was commissioned by Duke Richard I and completed in the reign of his successor Richard II, to whom Dudo was chaplain. Each of the four separate books is devoted to a different leader, Hasting, Rollo, William Longsword and Duke Richard I, in a relatively rare style, the prosimetrum, a sophisticated mix of historical prose and 88 poems in diverse metres. While it is true that the author consulted the
Annales of Flodo…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dullaert, Adriaan
(247 words)
d. 1471. Low Countries. Town clerk of Brussels. Author of the
Origo sive exordium monasterii nostri Domini de Gratia ordinis Carthusiensium iuxta Bruxellam in Schute (origin or beginning of the monastery of our Lord for the benefit of the order of Carthusians near Brussels in Scheut).Dullaert, a powerful follower of one of the Brussels factions, wrote this chronicle in order to legitimate the disputed subsidization by the town of Brussels of the erection of the monastery of Scheut in Anderlecht, near Brussels, and to highlight his own role. It forms a fascinating, detailed…
Date:
2021-04-15
Dunstable Annals
(392 words)
[Annales de Dunstaplia; Chronicle of Richardus Anglicus] 13th century. England. Latin chronicle from the Austin Priory of Dunstable (Canons Regular), covering ad 33-1297, found in London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A.x. Prior Richard de Morins (r. 1202-42) — who is probably to be identified with Ricardus Anglicus, a canonist who lectured in Paris and Bologna in the 1180s-90s — initiated the keeping of annals at Dunstable around 1210. The pre-1202 annals are derived from the
Abbreviationes chronicorum and
Imagines historiarum of Ralph of Diceto, and specifically from a St Albans manu…
Date:
2021-04-15