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[Hulme] ca 1333. England. Unedited Latin annals, from the Nativity, with emphasis on events from 1100 to 1333, in BL, Cotton Vitellius ms. D.ix, fol. 5-22. Luxford associates them with the Benedictine monastery of St. Benet at Holme in Norfolk primarily because of references to St. Margaret, who was buried there, and to Cnut, who founded the monastery in 1019. The annals refer to events in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and the Holy Land with emphasis upon English saints and kings. They are followed by a brief continuation concerned primarily with the Peasants' Revolt (1382) …

11th-13th century. England, France. Several lives of Edward the Confessor were written after the Conquest, some as hagiography, but some of historical importance.The earliest is the 11th-century Vita Aedwardi regis qui apud Westmonasterium requiescit, known as the Anonymous Life, preserved in BL, Harley ms. 526 (ca 1100). A Latin prose account with a verse prologue and some Latin verses, it was written shortly after 1066 by a monk of St. Bertin (St.Omer, France), who boasts that he was the first to write the history of those times. He claims to have known some of t…

14th century. Wales. The chronicle of the Cistercian abbey of Tintern (Monmouthshire), preserved in BL, Royal 14.C.6, covers the years 1305-23 and is added to the conclusion of the version of Flores Historiarum which is an abridgment of Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora. The manuscript was originally produced at the abbey of St. Benet at Holm but was moved to Tintern in early 1305. It includes both details relating to the abbey, such as the confirmation of its liberties in 1307, and events, both national (troubles during the reign of Edward II, the Battle of Bannockburn in 1313, the civil …

1455-60. England. A Latin chronicle found in London, BL, Harley MS 3884, ff. 228-29, following what Kingsford described as one of the longer versions of the Latin Prose Brut with a fuller account of the reign of Henry V. It is noteworthy for its inclusion of an inaccurate list of constituencies represented in the Parliament of 1445-46. Its reference to the books ( libris …preciosis, pulchris, et sumptuosis) that Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, brother of Henry V and Lord Protector during the minority of Henry VI, gave to Oxford University suggests that the author was an Oxford scholar. Edward…

13th-16th century. Scotland. Scottish regnal lists were lists of kings that functioned as non-diagrammatic genealogies to indicate the relationship of kings to their predecessors. They were originally recited at Scottish coronations to bolster the belief that Scotland had been independent since antiquity, in contrast to England, which had been ruled by Britons, Romans, Danes, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans. Although at times the lists, like genealogical chronicles, had brief accounts of the kings' re…

[Annales Plymptonienses] 12th century. England. Annals of the Augustinian priory (Canons Regular) of Plympton in Devon, preserved in BL, add. 14250 (12th century). They consist of two short tables of events, one from ad 1 to 81 and the other from 1066-1177, added to the final folios of the priory's copy of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, a book given to the priory shortly after it was founded in 1121. The second set of annals are a mix of local news, ominous occurrences (e.g., the moon turned red for a time in 1136, the year after Stephen became king), national problems (struggles against…

14th century? Scotland. The title Skene gave to a Latin regnal list of Scottish and Pictish kings to the death of Lulach ca 1058 that survives in an early 15th-century manuscript, Edinburgh, NLS, Advocates 34.7.3, transcribed by John Gray, priest of the diocese of Dunblane, during the reign of James V.See also the Anglo-Norman Chronicle of the Picts and Scots, and Regnal lists of Scotland. Edward Donald KennedyBibliography Text W.F. Skene, Chronicles of the Picts, Chronicles of the Scots and Other Early Memorials of Scottish History, 1867, 148-523. Literature RepFont 3, 446.

possibly 13th or 14th century. England. An abbreviated version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae, from Brutus to 689, incorrectly said by the 16th and 18th-century antiquarians John Bale and Thomas Tanner to be based upon a lost source by the 14th-century Augustinian Friar John Bramis (Bramus, Bromus) since the author refers to a former compilation as haec Bream or de compendio Brome. Bramis's authorship of the source is questionable, since at least one manuscript of the Historia is older than an Anglo-Norman romance, Waldef, that Bramis is known to have trans…

[Annales Corbeienses]9th-12th century. Germany. A set of annals written in margins of a manuscript of Anglo-Saxon Easter tables which were taken from England to Germany: The manuscript is still in Westphalia: Münster, SA, Msc. I, Nr. 243.The manuscript and the tables themselves probably originated at Bede's monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in the North of England (not Lindisfarne as scholars once believed) in the mid-eighth century. Annals concerning Northumbria began to be written on it in the 8th century (see Frankish Annals of Lindisfarne and Kent), after which it was transfer…

13th century. England. A short 9-folio chronicle in French from the Incarnation to 1087, ending with the appointment of Guy as abbot of the Benedictine abbey of St. Augustine, Canterbury, preserved in Canterbury, Cathedral Library, add. ms. 17 (late 13th century), undoubtedly intended to teach the Normans some of the early history of the land they now occupied. Unedited. Edward Donald KennedyBibliography Literature N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 2, 1977, 305-6.

13th century. England. Latin annals beginning with the birth of Christ and extending to ad 594. They include events from the Bible (beheading of John the Baptist in ad 32), accounts of Christian martyrs, the conversion of the Britons to Christianity in the 2nd century, the discovery of the Cross in 323, and Arthur's battle against Morded and his being taken to Avalon in 468 (instead of 542 as in Geoffrey of Monmouth). Sources include some universal chronicles and possibly Bede as well as Geoffrey. The text is preserved in London, BL, Cotton Domitian A.xiii, fols. 1-6. It was probably i…

late 13th century. England. Annals running from the Incarnation to 1280, surviving in Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Bodley 91. They are identical to the so-called Reading Annals in BL, Vespasian E.iv for 1-1202. Completed before the Benedictine abbey at Hyde surrendered to Winchester, they were the source for the Winchester Annals for 1202-77. Their preface in Bodley 91 was cut from the manuscript and attached to the MS of the Worcester Annals, BL, Cotton Caligula A.x. The annals of Hyde, Waverley, and Reading are all believed to be descended from a lost Winchester chronicle ( Wintoniens…

[Historia de origine Britonnum et Anglorum à Bruto ad finem R. Henrici secundi] late 14th or early 15th century. England. Latin national chronicle in five books, beginning with a description of Britain (probably suggested by Higden's Polychronicon) and the account of Brutus's settling in Britain and ending with the accession of Richard I.The chronicle is a compilation from several sources, much of which Coxe and Fletcher believed was taken directly from Higden. Much, however, is not in Higden, including an account of Joseph of Armathea's arrival in Britain somewhat different …

fl. 1420. England. Possibly the northern English clerk who became rector of Chingford in 1393, he is to be distinguished from the 14th-century Franciscan chronicler of the same name. He wrote a Chronica [or Chronicon] regum Angliae, a Latin chronicle from Brutus until 1420, about half of which is devoted to the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. It survives in BL, Harley ms. 3643 (15th century) and in a 16th-century transcript, BL, Cotton Vitellius ms. F.ix, which was the basis for Thomas Hearne's edition (1732). John Stow's 16th-century translation of the parts concerned wit…

[Crokesden] 14th century. England. The annals from the Cistercian abbey of Croxden surviving in BL, Cotton Faustina B.vi, are divided into three groups: 1) ad 1-977 (fols. 41-65); 2) brief annals from the beginning of the world (fols. 66-68); 3) annals compiled by monk William Schepsheved from 1066-1320 and continued by other hands to 1374 (fols. 69-71).The first of these testify to the mechanics of writing annals: they were written onto a chronological framework prepared in advance with many years left blank but entries for other years taking up mor…

d. 1474. England. Vicar of Harlington 1443-71, rector of Broughton 1471-74, probably educated at Oxford. Author of a rather long chronicle from Adam to 1462 that was a part of his commonplace book, preserved in Dublin, Trinity College, ms. 516, and first edited (for the years 1400-62) in 1972. Sources include Higden, Bede, John of Worcester and Geoffrey of Monmouth, as well as some prose Brut chronicle. From ca 1440 it is important for the political history of the period, particularly of London, and for much of this history Benet apparently drew upon newslett…

(Chronicle of the anonymous of Canterbury) 14th century. England. Latin prose account of English conflicts with the French between 1346-65 (or 1367 in two manuscripts), added to a version of the Latin prose Brut. Four manuscripts: Reigate (Surrey), Cranston Library of St. Mary's Parish Church, Item 1117; London, Lambeth Palace, ms. 99; BL, Cotton Julius B.iii; Oxford, Magdalen College, ms. 200. Cranston, the earliest and only complete manuscript, is an apparent autograph unknown to the chronicle's earlier editor Tait, but the basis of the 2008 edition. Tait named the author the "…

[The Chronicle to 1440] 1440. England. A brief (10-folio) English prose chronicle, datable from a reference to Henry VI, in whos xviii yere this short trety was ended. It includes a genealogy from Adam to Henry VI derived from Aelred of Rievaulx and a description of England based upon book I of Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon. The author, like Higden, was probably from Chester since he writes at the outset that he intends to present a history of that city, but the manuscript breaks off in the midst of his description of the see of Chester. Unedited, it survives in only one manuscript: London, BL, a…

11th-13th century. England. Annals in manuscript BL, Cotton Caligula ms. A.xv, in Anglo-Saxon and Latin, covering 988-1268, with an additional entry for 925 noting the birth of St. Dunstan. Begun at the Benedictine priory of Christ Church, Canterbury ca 1073 with the annals to that date written in one hand. Although referred to by some as the "I" version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and although a few entries are related to versions A and F of that chronicle, it is primarily a local chronicle with brief references to events at Christ Church and to royal de…

[Chronicle of the Scots] ca 1482-1530. Scotland. A brief account of the six ages of the world in Scots English prose, followed by a list of major events in Scottish (and, to some extent, English and Continental) history from the origin of the Scots until 1482. Its most detailed entries concern James III and the Wars of the Roses. It survives only in BL, Royal ms. 17.D.xx, although it has been confused with the Brevis cronica and thus has been said to appear in manuscripts in which it does not (Edinburgh, NLS, Adv. ms. 19.2.3 & 19.2.4). It was probably written to teach major points about Sc…