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[Chronik des Stiftes SS. Simon und Judas in Goslar; Chronicon Goslariense] 13th century. Northern Germany. The anonymous Low German imperial chronicle was originally written about 1294 at the Goslar Imperial collegiate church, which was closely connected with the nearby Imperial palace founded by emperor Henry II. In the 11th-13…

1310/20-75. Germany. Carmelite theologian and historian, scribe, and author of the popular Historia trium regum (History of the three kings), theological works and letters. A pupil of Johannes Corvus at Hildesheim, he entered the Carmelite monastery at Marienau near Hamelin. After studies in Avignon and Paris he was prior in Kassel, then Strasbourg, met pope Urban V in 1367 in Rome, and ended his life as prior back at Marienau. Around 100 surviving letters show the influence of early humanism and attest his contacts with Gregory XI, Charles IV, and prominent scientists, clerics an…

10th-12th century. Germany. Anonymous Latin prose annals by several Hildesheim authors, some of whom were clerics of St. Michael. One author may have been the cathedral’s decanus monasteriiThangmar, presumed biographer of St. Bernward. Beginning with the creation of the world and extending to the year 1137, they are one of the important German sources for the period. The annals up to the year 814 are adaptations of Isidore of Seville, the Chronicon Laurissense Breve and others, and the account of the  9th-10th century derives from the lost Annales Hildesheimenses maiores, which in t…

(Annals of Pöhlde) 12th century. Northern Germany. World chronicle in Latin prose, written at the monastery in Pöhlde (Lower Saxony) before 1197 by a Premonstratensian cleric, known in German as the Pöhlder Annalen or Pöhlder Chronik. Pöhlde was an imperial palace of the Ottonian era, but the despite their title, the Annals pay very little attention to its history.The text commences with extensive adaptations mainly from Honorius Augustodunensis and Ekkehard of Aura, continued from 469 on by an otherwise unknown Theodorus. Later parts are based on Paul the Deacon, and the annals en…

ca 1390/1400 - 1451. Germany. Knight of the Teutonic Order, high-ranking patrician of Cologne. Overstolz was the head of a wealthy Colog…

[Matthäus Marschall von Pappenheim-Biberbach] 1458-1541. Germany. Canon of Augsburg cathedral. Chronicler and genealogist of Swabian nobility. Born at Biberbach castle as the last male descendant of the Biberbach line, he belonged to the widespread Frankish-Swabian Pappenheim (formerly Cal[l]atin) family, famous for their honorary office at the coronations of the German kings and emperors since the 12th century. After studies in Heidelberg and Ingolstadt, he achieved the degree of doctor iuris utriusque at Paris university in 1482. In 1495 he became a canon at Augsburg cathedral. As a humanist he was friends with such important German authors as Konrad Celtis, Konrad Peutinger and Johannes Aventinus.About 1495 he finished the chronicle of his own family, beginning with fictitious origins in ancient Rome (manuscript lost; printed in 1554). It was based on older notices by an ancestor but enlarged by Matthäus' life-long studies in several monasteries, libraries and archives. He also contributed to the chronicle of the Waldburg family, the so-called …

11th-15th century. Germany. Anonymous Latin prose chronicle on the history of the Hildesheim bishopric 815-1079, begun soon after 1079. This important chronicle was inspired by bishop Hezilo of Hildesheim (1054-79) and begun soon after his death, obviously by an anonymous cathedral cleric, at the same time as the Fundatio ecclesiae Hildesheimensis .The chronicle opens with several lists of the Hildesheim bishops, of the clerics who became bishops or archbishops elsewhere, and of deceased priests, deacons and sub-deacons, followed by a list of Frankish-German kings up to Heinrich …