Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle
Get access
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
| Help us improve our service |
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
Hāfiz-i Abrū
(413 words)
[Ḥāfiz-i Abrū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Lutf Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Rashīd al-Bihdādīnī] d. 833 ah (1430 ad). Persia. Hāfiz-i Abrū took part in several campaigns of
Shāh Rukh (ruler over Persia and Transoxania between 1405 and 1447), whose service he entered after the death of
Tīmūr (known in the west as Tamerlane 1336-1405). He wrote several historical works and also a geographical work in Persian.Hāfiz-i Abrū 's three early historical works were: the
Dhayl-i Djāmiʿ al-tawārikh, dealing with the reigns of Uldjaytū and Abū Saʿīd. A continuation of the work of Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 1318 ad); the
Dhayl-i Zafar…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hagen, Gottfried
(860 words)
ca 1230/40-1299. Germany. Town clerk of Cologne, highly educated and active in various influential positions in Cologne. In 1262 he introduced German (Ripuarian) as a written language for charters; 25 charters by his own hand still exist, most of them in the vernacular. He is the author of the
Reimchronik der Stadt Köln (Rhyme Chronicle of the Town of Cologne), 6292 verses in German, completed in 1270 with an appendix added in 1271.This work, with the manuscript title
Dat boich van der stede Colne, is the first chronicle in German to focus exclusively on the history of a singl…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hagen, Henning
(256 words)
1440 - ca 1503. Germany. Monk and provost at the Benedictine monastery of St. Ludger (Ludgerikloster) in Helmstedt, Lower Saxony, where he probably taught at the local school. In 1490-91, Hagen wrote a Low German prose chronicle of the town of Helmstedt (
Der staed croneke to Helmstede) covering approximately the years 1228 to his present, which survives in an autograph manuscript - Helmstedt, StA, cod. BI8. The chronological order of the work, which was sparsely continued through the 16th century by another hand, is haphazard; its skeleton consists of some four hundred en…
Date:
2021-04-15
Haimo of Auxerre
(234 words)
fl. 840-60. France. Monk and abbot. Probable author of a Latin chronicle. Haimo was a monk at the abbey of St-Germain in Auxerre and abbot at Cessy-les-Bois (Sasceium). He wrote a large number of very widely disseminated commentaries on biblical books; more than 100 manuscripts are known of his commentaries on the Canticles and on the Pauline Epistles. However, much of his work was misattributed to Haimo of Halberstadt or to other writers such as Remigius of Auxerre.He is probably the author of the
Historiae sacrae epitome, sive de Christianarum rerum memoria, an epitome of the eccles…
Date:
2021-04-15
Haimo of Halberstadt
(132 words)
ca 780-853. Germany. Haimo studied together with Hrabanus Maurus at Fulda (and also under Alcuin at Tours), moved then to the abbey at Hersfeld, and in 840 was elected Bishop of Halberstadt, where he remained until his death on March 26, 853. Hrabanus wrote his
De Universo for him. Numerous commentaries and other works were ascribed to Haimo of Halberstadt, but much has now been reassigned, in particular to Haimo of Auxerre (fl. 840-60), who is probably the actual author too of the
Historiae sacrae epitome, sive de Christianarum rerum memoria, an epitome of the ecclesiastical history…
Date:
2021-04-15
Halberstädter Privatchronik
(181 words)
(Private Chronicle from Halberstadt) 16th century. Germany. A compilation of various historiographical notes in German covering the years from 1500 to 1514 without chronological order. The unknown author refers to Halberstadt as his hometown and to the Duke of Lüneburg as his lord. The text is a collection of anecdotes about thunderstorms, fires, crimes, noble marriages, and some political events in the region between Halberstadt, Braunschweig, and Lüneburg showing the author's private historiographical interest. Occasionally, the narrative is in the first pers…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hardyng, John
(922 words)
ca 1378-ca 1465. England. Northumbrian soldier and squire, spy, forger, and cartographer. Author of two versions of a chronicle in English verse. Born in Northumbria, ca 1378, Hardyng began his career as a soldier and squire to Sir Henry Percy (d. 1403). From 1403-37 he served Sir Robert Umfraville (d. 1437) and acted as a spy for Henry V in Scotland (ca 1418-21). By 1440 he was a corrodarian at the Augustinian priory at South Kyme, Lincolnshire, where he began composing the first version of his
Chronicle (ca 1450).Comprising 2674 rhyme-royal stanzas and seven folios of Latin prose, …
Date:
2021-04-15
Hariulf
(563 words)
ca 1060-1143. France. A Benedictine monk and author of the Latin
Gesta ecclesiae Centulensis or
Chronicon Centulense, a chronicle of the abbey of St. Riquier (Ponthieu) from its foundation in 625 until the end of the 11th century. Having completed a first version in 1088, Hariulf revised and completed the text with a description of the abbacy of Gervin II (1075-96) in 1104-05, before leaving St. Riquier to become abbot of St. Peter's in Oudenburg (Flanders). The chronicle consists of four books, each a self-contained unit, written at different intervals. Book one cent…
Date:
2021-04-15
Harley Brut
(165 words)
mid-13th century. England. Five anonymous fragments of an Anglo-Norman verse translation (3361 alexandrine lines) of books V-X of Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia Regum Britanniae. Fragmentary codex: BL, Harley ms. 1605. Blakey analysed the features of these fragments, in particular the anonymous translator's respect for the source, although key elements related to Welsh place-names, the list of British earls and heroes, and Geoffrey's eulogies of Caerleon and York are omitted. There are expansions of Geoffrey's Latin text, especially in the use of direct speech, and of the Arthur…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hartmann von Heldrungen
(226 words)
ca 1210-1282/83. Germany. Member of the Teutonic Order from 1234, Grand Master from 1273. Author of a
Bericht (report) on the union of the Order of the Brethren of the Sword with the Teutonic Order in 1237, which was almost certainly composed in Middle High German, though the surviving text is Low German. Hartmann's authorship of the
Bericht long remained controversial; the modern consensus accepts the attribution with the proviso that the text may have been edited (or even rendered into prose?) by a later hand. The vivid details of a sojourn at the papal court at Viterbo in 1237 presuppose an e…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hartwich of Győr
(294 words)
[Hartvicus episcopus Iauriensis; Hartvik, Hartwik, Chartvicius] 11th/12th century. Hungary. Author of a life of St. Stephen of Hungary presenting himself as Cartuicus episcopus. He is unknown from other sources, therefore he has been identified with other Hungarian bishops of the time of Coloman the Learned, mainly with Arduin, bishop of Győr. The surviving text opens with a letter of dedication to King Coloman. The work connects two earlier Legends of St. Stephen: the
Legenda maior (ca 1083) and the
Legenda minor (post 1083, possibly ca 1100) and their two different images…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hasištejnský of Lobkovice, Bohuslav
(214 words)
1461-1510. Bohemia. Czech nobleman, representative of the Catholic humanism. Among his many writings there are two historically orientated texts with educational-political and satirical-critical traces:
De situ Pragae et incolentium moribus (on the location of Prague and its deceased inhabitants), a Latin letter, in which he mentions topographical and historical facts about Prague since its foundation, and the Latin poem
Ad sanctum Venceslaum satira, in qua mores procerum et popularium patriae suae reprehendit (satire for St. Wenceslas, in which he denounces the custo…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hauer, Georg
(303 words)
15th century. Germany. Historian and monk, born about 1440 at Schwanenkirchen (near the abbey of Niederaltaich at Deggendorf), date and place of death unknown. He was admitted to the abbey of Niederaltaich and became prior in the year 1478. In 1485 Hauer was chosen as administrator of the abbot Friedrich II, but actually held the position of the abbot. Because of several reproaches he fell in disrepute with the bishop and was under arrest at the abbey for several months in 1490. For the period after 1491 there i…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hayton of Korykos
(707 words)
[Hetʾum, Hetoum, Ayton, Haytonus; of Corycus] ca 1235/1240-after 1316. Cilician Armenia. Armenian pro-Latin statesman and monk, diplomat, writer, and traveller, author of genealogical, historical, geographical-ethnographic works in Armenian, French, and Latin. Born in Cilicia, Hayton was a relative of the king of Cicilian Armenia Hayton (Hethum) I and became lord of Korykos (modern Turkey) in ca 1280, Premonstratensian monk in Cyprus in 1305, and Constable of Armenia in 1308 or 1309. He composed two genealogies of Eastern-Latin dynasties in Armenian; the chronicle
Patmutʿiwn…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hearne's Fragment
(345 words)
[A Remarkable Fragment of an Old English Chronicle; Howard's Chronicle] 1516-24. England.Perhaps associated with Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Surrey and 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Dealing with Edward IV, Yorkist in sympathy, and presenting itself as the author's personally witnessed recollections, the chronicle emphasizes events beginning with 1459, including Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. It breaks off mid-sentence with an episode of 1470. According to its opening paragraphs, the author was prompted to write by the 1516 publication of Pynson's
New cronycles of Englande …
Date:
2021-04-15
Hebelin, Johannes, of Heimbach
(261 words)
1478-1515. Germany. Canon of Mainz. In 1500, Hebelin of Heimbach composed a
Historia Maguntina, which is still preserved in the autograph. It is dedicated to Jakob Merstetter, a professor at the university of Mainz, and encompasses the period from the legendary founding of Mainz to the year 1484. In its main part the
Historia Maguntina is a chronicle of the (arch)diocese of Mainz, which follows the succession of the bishops and archbishops. Scholarly research has mainly been interested in Hebelin's chronicle because of the inscriptions, in particul…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hechos del condestable don Miguel Lucas de Iranzo
(381 words)
(Deeds of the constable...) 15th century. Castile (Iberia). This chivalric biographical chronicle of the Grand Master of the Order of Santiago, Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, was patronised by Lucas himself. We have no certainty about its authorship: it might have been the work of his servant Juan de Olid, or of Pedro de Escavias or Gonzalo de Mexía, who both loom large in the text.A low-ranked nobleman who was brought to the court by leading noble (and the king's favourite) Juan Pacheco, Lucas had been honoured by Enrique IV with offices and privileges that gained him the envy and mistr…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hedio, Caspar
(824 words)
1494/95–1552. Germany. Theologian, reformer, and translator. Born in Ettlingen, Hedio went to Freiburg im Breisgau to commence his studies, graduating with a master's degree in 1516. Afterwards he continued his academic education in Basel where he received his Licentiate of Theology in 1519. In October 1520, he followed Wolfgang Capito to Mainz and took over the office of Cathedral Preacher from his friend and mentor. Having received the Doctorate of Theology in October 1523, he followed Capito …
Date:
2021-04-15
Heff, Leonhard
(292 words)
15th century. Germany. Professional scribe from Regensburg. Wrote a Latin world chronicle, the
Imago mundi. Heff matriculated at the faculty of arts in Vienna in 1459, graduating in 1461. In 1466 he settled in Regensburg, where he copied a number of Latin literary texts, especially for clerical clients. He is last attested in 1476.In 1470-71, under commission to the Regensburg city treasurer Erasmus Trainer, he made a German translation of the
Chronica summorum pontificum et imperatorum Romanorum of Andreas of Regensburg under the title
Buch von den römischen Kaisern und Päpsten, whi…
Date:
2021-04-15
Hegesippus
(254 words)
2nd century ad (fl. ca 160-80). Palestine. Perhaps a Palestinian Jew who around the middle of the 2nd century converted to Christianity and visited Rome, Corinth and other major ecclesiastical centres throughout the East and West. Author of historical notes in Greek. His intention was to document the ties between these various Christian communities and the primitive church so that he could defend the integrity of the apostolic tradition against the Gnostics and other heretical sects.Around 180 he compiled his data in the five books of his
Memoirs (Ὑπομνήματα), which are completely…
Date:
2021-04-15