The English Reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle · remained subject to speculation.5 Among mediaeval ... occident au XIIe siècle’,Comptes rendus de l’Académie des

1 eBLJ 2002, Article 1

The English Reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s ChronicleJulian Harrison

According to conventional wisdom, Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle enjoyed limitedsuccess in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe.1 Also entitled De tribus maximiscircumstantiis gestorum (‘On the Three Chief Conditions of History’), the work in

question was designed ostensibly as an introductory handbook for the use of historians,though its prologue (teaching an important mnemonic technique) seems to have gainedwider currency, and was sometimes circulated independently of the whole.2 Approximatelyforty mediaeval copies of Hugh’s compilation are recorded as extant, a substantial proportionof which had belonged to religious communities in France, together with a handful ofexamples from both Germany and Italy.3 There are indications, nonetheless, that theChronicle did not rank among his most popular compositions: as Mary J. Carruthers hasremarked, ‘the evidence suggests that this particular treatise was not regarded as major ororiginal enough to deserve wide dissemination, despite its author’s eminence; that it wasnever known much beyond the precincts of St. Victor [in Paris]; and that it sank intooblivion by the early fourteenth century, because it had been superseded by or incorporatedinto other pedagogical tools.’4

The extent to which Hugh’s Chronicle was known directly in the British Isles has hithertoremained subject to speculation.5 Among mediaeval scholars, solely Ralph de Diceto,

1 R.W. Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 2. Hugh of StVictor and the Ideaof Historical Development’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, xxi (1971), pp. 159-79 (pp.172-4); Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory:A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990),p. 81; R. Baron, ‘L’Influence de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale, xxii(1955), pp. 56-71 (p. 60 and n. 28).

2 For the various titles by which this work was transmitted during the Middle Ages, see R. Baron, ‘LaChronique de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, in Giuseppe Forchielli & Alfonso M. Stickler (eds.), Studia Gratiana,xii, Collectanea Stephan Kuttner (Bologna, 1967), vol. ii, pp. 165-80 (pp. 167-8).

3 A total of 39 manuscripts of the Chronicle were listed by Rudolf Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos vonSt.Viktor: Ein Beitrag zur Kommunikationsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 36-43. Reference hassubsequently been made to 44 witnesses, without specifying their location: A. M. Piazzoni, ‘Geschichtestudieren: warum und wie? Die Antwort des Chronicon Hugos von St.Viktor’, in Erik Kooper (ed.), TheMedieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, Driebergen/Utrecht 13-16 July 1996 (Amsterdam-Atlanta, 1999), pp. 212-25 (p. 218). Goy’s survey is supplemented — withoutrelation to the Chronicle — by R. Kurz, ‘Zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung der Werke Hugos vonSt.Viktor. Ergänzungen zu Goys Handschriftenverzeichnissen’, Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte, xlii(1979), pp. 469-82.

4 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 81.5 The present discussion is limited to direct knowledge of this Chronicle. That work also provided source-

material for Richard of Saint-Victor’s Liber exceptionum (composed 1153x1162); while a brief excerpt wasappended to Andrew of Saint-Victor’s commentary on Samuel and Kings (presumably completed before1147): Richard de Saint-Victor Liber Exceptionum, ed. Jean Chatillon (Paris, 1958), pp. 69, 83, 542; Andreae deSancto Victore Opera, ii, Expositio Hystorica in Librum Regum, ed. Frans A. van Liere, Corpus Christianorum,Continuatio Mediaeualis, liiiA (Turnhout, 1996), pp. cvii-cviii. Richard was a native of Scotland, and Andrewtwice abbot (1148x1155, 1161x1163-1175) of the Victorine house at Wigmore (Herefordshire).

dean of St Paul’s Cathedral (d. circa 1200), can be demonstrated to have made extensive useof this work, which he examined when compiling his own historical surveys: it is somewhatunfortunate that the exemplar to which Ralph had access has yet to be discovered.6 One ofhis near-contemporaries, John of Salisbury (d. 1180), may have also been familiar with thesame text, which he described in the preface to his Historia pontificalis, completed between1164 and 1170; but it has previously been denied — probably without good reason — thatJohn had consulted this Chronicle in person.7 The published evidence for the disseminationof Hugh’s treatise in England and Scotland otherwise centres on its presence in a handful ofbook-lists, together with the existence of a single manuscript of questionable English origin.Copies of the Chronicle are noticed in some eleven monastic libraries between thefourteenth and sixteenth centuries, ranging from the cathedral priory of Christ Church,Canterbury, to Kelso Abbey in the Scottish Borders, although not one of the books somentioned has reportedly survived.8 The most comprehensive analysis of this Chronicle’stransmission has similarly drawn attention to a solitary witness which was arguablytranscribed in England (until recently Elverum, Folkebiblioteket, MS. 1, ff. 97r-98v),comprising the prologue alone.9 However, the same study has been tempered with thecaveat that the Elverum manuscript may instead be of French origin, thereby disputing itsconnection with the British Isles.

It is extremely fortuitous that such relatively circumstantial testimony can now bebuttressed by the identification of another six copies of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle, allin the collections of the British Library, and each of undoubted English origin orprovenance:1. Cotton MS. Julius B. XIII, ff. 2r-40v (saec. xii3/4), which belonged to Deeping Priory

(Lincolnshire), a cell of Thorney Abbey;2. Harley MS. 1312, ff. 1v-24v (saec. xiimed), transcribed in France, but removed to England

sometime during the thirteenth century;


The English Reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle

6 G. A. Zinn, Jr., ‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon on the Abbreviationes Chronicorum by Ralphof Diceto’, Speculum, lii (1977), pp. 38-61; B. Guenée, ‘Les Premiers pas de l’histoire de l’historiographie enoccident au XIIe siècle’, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres (1983), pp. 136-52 (pp.139-40, 143-4); Antonia Gransden, ‘Prologues in the Historiography of Twelfth-Century England’, in herLegends,Traditions and History in Medieval England (London, 1992), pp. 125-51 (pp. 139, 150).

7 The Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford, rev. edn., 1986),pp. xxxii, 2 and n. 1; eadem, ‘John of Salisbury as Historian’, in Michael Wilks (ed.), The World of John of Salisbury, Studies in Church History, Subsidia, iii (Oxford, 1984), pp. 169-77 (p. 170, n. 6). Chibnall’sconviction that John had no first-hand knowledge of this Chronicle has been countered persuasively by L. B. Mortensen, ‘Hugh of St. Victor on Secular History. A Preliminary Edition of Chapters from hisChronica’, Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin (Université de Copenhague), lxii (1992), pp. 3-30 (p. 3, n. 2).

8 T. Webber & A. G. Watson (eds.), The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons (London, 1998), pp. 6, 171, 188;R. Sharpe et al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues (London, 1996), p. 723;R.A. B. Mynors, Richard H. Rouse & Mary A. Rouse (eds.), Registrum Anglie de Libris Doctorum et AuctorumVeterum (London, 1991), pp. 234, 249, 254, 259, 275, 299, 302, 305, 312-13; Montague Rhodes James (ed.),The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover: The Catalogues of the Libraries of Christ Church Priory andSt Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury and of St Martin’s Priory at Dover (Cambridge, 1903), p. 36.

9 Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St.Viktor (no. 10), pp. 38, 43.This Elverum manuscript has currentlybeen mislaid, following the reorganization of the Folkebiblioteket in 1976: hopefully, it will soon berediscovered. I am extremely grateful to Steinar Sørensen of the Glomdalsmuseet, Elverum, for pursuing thisbook on my behalf.



3. Cotton MS. Claudius C. IX, ff. 4r-12r (saec. xiiex), from Worcester Cathedral Priory;4. Royal MS. 4 B. VII, ff. 199v-210v (saec. xiiex), from Rochester Cathedral Priory (Kent);5. Egerton MS. 3088, ff. 99r-112v (circa 1243), produced for the Cistercians of Dore Abbey

(Herefordshire);10

6. Cotton MS. Faustina B.VII, ff. 18r-35v (saec. xv1), the work of an English scribe.(A seventh British Library copy of differing origin is Stowe MS. 4, ff. 267r-272v, transcribedduring the final quarter of the twelfth century in the duchy of Lorraine.)11 In addition, theEnglish credentials of the Elverum manuscript can be reiterated: this book has elsewherebeen assigned provisionally to a Cistercian or Victorine convent in the West Country.12 Thecopies of Hugh’s Chronicle attested in England during the Middle Ages are of fundamentalimportance: they suggest that the influence of this handbook on Insular historians, hithertodeemed to have been minimal, requires substantial reappraisal.13

Hugh of Saint-Victor (d. 1141) composed his Chronicle sometime between 1124 and 1137— the traditional dating circa 1130 has yet to be fully substantiated — and addressed itspecifically to those pupils in the Parisian schools embarking upon the study of Scripture.14

The work in question begins with a prologue, four paragraphs long, opening with thepronouncement ‘Fili, sapientia thesaurus est et cor tuum archa’ (‘Child, knowledge is atreasure and your heart is its strongbox’).15This is accompanied by a series of historical tables,which document (among other subjects) the days of Creation, the major protagonists

10 The origins, contents and present whereabouts of this book (olim Phillipps MS. 12200) were unknown toboth Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St.Viktor (no. 5), p. 37, and W. M. Green, ‘Hugo of St VictorDe Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, Speculum, xviii (1943), pp. 484-93 (p. 488). It was acquired onbehalf of the British Library in 1933.

11 This copy of the Chronicle was first identified by Mortensen, ‘Hugh of St. Victor on Secular History’,p. 3, n. 2.

12 L. Gjerlöw, ‘A Twelfth-Century Victorine or Cistercian Manuscript in the Library of Elverum’, Revuebénédictine, lxxxii (1972), pp. 313-38.

13 One supposed witness must be dismissed from consideration, as reported erroneously by Goy, DieÜberlieferung der Werke Hugos von St.Viktor (no. 14), p. 39. Oxford, Bodleian Library,MS.Rawlinson C.97 (S.C.11962), comprises (1) Augustine of Hippo’s Enchiridion (ff. 1r-40v) and De diuersis questionibus (ff. 41r-106r),both transcribed in England during the second half of the twelfth century; (2) an unidentified (andincomplete) history added in the same monastic scriptorium towards the end of that century, with themisleading rubric ‘Incipiunt chronica magistri Hugonis prioris de sancto Uictore Parisius’ (ff. 108r-122v);(3) a list of contents circa 1200, recording the above three items (f. 4v); and (4) a handful of pages from Henryof Sawtrey’s Purgatorium Patricii, appended to De diuersis questionibus late in the thirteenth century (ff. 106r-107v). This revises the inaccurate description (saec. xiv and no stated origin) in Catalogi CodicumManuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ, vol. v, part 2 (Oxford, 1878), p. 34. A second, complete copy of the sameunidentified history is to be found in BL, Harley MS. 957, ff. 34r-80v (England, saec. xii2), there said to beexcerpted from the work of Eusebius of Caesarea. Harley 957 is a composite mediaeval book, which oncebelonged (f. 18v) to William Spynk, monk and later prior of Norwich Cathedral Priory (d. 1503).

14 Analyses which differ from the oft-quoted circa 1130 are Zinn, ‘The Influence of Hugh of St. Victor’sChronicon’, pp. 41-2 and n. 24 (favouring the period nearer 1125); Joachim Ehlers, Hugo von St.Viktor: Studienzum Geschichtsdenken und zur Geschichtsschreibung des 12. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 1973), p. 53 and n. 15(1130x1133); and Baron, ‘La Chronique de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, p. 172, n. 11 (1135, citing the opinionof H. Montag).

15 The prologue has been edited by Green, ‘De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, pp. 488-92. Alltranslations are based on Carruthers, The Book of Memory, pp. 261-6.

in Biblical history, the principal geographical features of the world, the historians ofAntiquity, and the names of secular and ecclesiastical rulers from the Incarnation to the timeof writing. Certain of the constituent elements are to be found in very few manuscripts, andare probably accretions to the original text: in particular, the brief tract Tres sorores (thedaughters of St Anne) was added on a singleton to the oldest surviving witness (Paris,Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS. lat. 15009, ff. 1r-40v [f. 18v]), and consequentlyoccurs in just three other extant copies.16 The Chronicle of Hugh of Saint-Victor has neverbeen printed in its entirety, although far more has been published than is often realized (seeTable 1).17 William M. Green’s subdivision of this treatise has been adopted in the presentdiscussion.18

Table 1Editions of the Components of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle

Twelfth-century historians throughout western Europe conventionally began their workswith a dedication to a distinguished contemporary, in the hope of receiving futurepatronage, besides apologizing for their own lack of literary ability, a modesty topos whichfrequently has little real substance.19 The prologue to Hugh’s Chronicle, in stark contrast,adopts a purely functional approach, since it is addressed explicitly to his students at the



III

III

IV

VVIVIIVIIIIXXXI

PrologueCreationRestoration (Hebrewchronology)Kingdoms of the world

Creation & Restoration(Septuagint chronology)Lists of Hebrew namesGeographical namesThe three sistersTable of PopesTables of rulersNames of historiographersChronological table of Popesand emperors

EditionGreen, ‘De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, pp. 488-92Zinn, ‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon’, p. 44unedited

Mortensen, ‘Hugh of St.Victor on Secular History’, pp. 8-18(omitting the Jewish rulers)unedited

uneditedBaron, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor lexicographe’, pp. 139-45Baron, ‘La Chronique de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, p. 170uneditedMortensen, ‘Hugh of St.Victor on Secular History’, pp. 19-30Waitz, ‘Beschreibung von Handschriften’, pp. 307-8Waitz, ‘Chronica quae dicitur Hugonis de Sancto Victore’, pp. 90-7

16 Green,‘De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, pp. 487-8, 493; Baron,‘La Chronique de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, pp. 170, 176. Baron (pp. 169-70, 175-6) also remarked the presence in a handful of manuscripts oftwo further passages, the authorship of which remains uncertain.

17 Those editions hitherto uncited are: (§VI) R.Baron,‘Hugues de Saint-Victor lexicographe.Trois texts inédits’,Cultura Neolatina, xvi (1956), pp. 109-45; (§X) G. Waitz, ‘Beschreibung von Handschriften, welche in denJahren 1839-42 näher untersucht worden sind’, Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde zurBeförderung einer Gesammtausgabe der Quellenschriften deutscher Geschichten des Mittelalters, xi (1853-8), pp. 248-514; and (§XI) GW[aitz], ‘Chronica quae dicitur Hugonis de Sancto Victore’, apud Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica, Scriptores, xxiv (Hanover, 1879), pp. 88-101. A critical edition of the whole Chronicle has beenpromised by A. M. Piazzoni, ‘I Vittorini’, in Giulio D’Onofrio (ed.), Storia della Teologia nel Medioevo, ii, Lagrande fioritura (Casale Monferrato, 1996), pp. 179-208 (p. 185, n. 28).

18 Green, ‘De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, pp. 492-3.19 Guenée, ‘Les Premiers pas de l’histoire de l’historiographie’, pp. 145-51; Gransden, ‘Prologues in the

Historiography of Twelfth-Century England’.

school of Saint-Victor. The Chronicle was undeniably part of that abbey’s curriculum: asHugh informed his pupils, ‘matters we have learned are classified in the memory in threeways; by number, by location, and by occasion.Thus all the things which you hear you willboth readily capture in your intellect and retain for a long time, if you will have learned toclassify them according to this tripartite distinction.’20 The prologue consequently serves asa guide to mnemonic training, here transferred to an historical context: Carruthers hasargued on this basis that its alternative title (De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum) is besttranslated as ‘The Three Chief Memory-Fixes for History’.21

It has previously been argued that the Chronicle was designed to establish the study ofhistory on a footing with other scientific subjects.22 Indeed, Hugh of Saint-Victorrecommended that this discipline might be better comprehended if the core of hishandbook, containing thousands of names and dates, was committed to memory. Hughadvised his readers that any given topic could be memorized if arranged into a rigidframework, which method he described by reference to the psalter.23 In order to recall anindividual psalm, it should first be assigned a number, by which its opening words couldinstantaneously be brought to mind; next, each psalm should be divided into subsections(akin to the verses of popular usage), to be learned a few lines at a time, a techniquepreviously advocated in Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (11.2.27).24 Once this scheme hadbeen mastered, stated Hugh, it could be applied to the accompanying tables.‘There are threematters on which the knowledge of past actions especially depends, that is, the persons whoperformed the deeds, the places in which they were performed, and the time at which theyoccurred. Whoever holds these three memorially in his soul will find that he has built agood foundation for himself, onto which he can assemble afterwards anything by readingwithout difficulty and rapidly take it in and retain it for a long time.’25 Of course, it isunreasonable to expect that Hugh’s students carried out these instructions to the letter, atleast with respect to his Chronicle: in the words of one commentator, such a prospect is ‘aterrifying thought which, one hopes, probably never materialized’.26



20 Green, ‘De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, p. 489: ‘Tribus modis discernenda sunt in animo ea quediscuntur, secundum numerum, secundum locum, et secundum tempus. Ita omnia que audieris et facileintellecta capies et diu memoria retinebis, si ea secundum hanc trinam distinctionem considerare didiceris.’For the origins of this tripartite division, see Baron,‘La Chronique de Hugues de Saint-Victor’, p. 173, n. 20,and A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic literary attitudes in the later Middle Ages (Aldershot, 2ndedn., 1988), pp. 16-17.

21 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 261, n. 1. For discussion of this work as a mnemonic text, see ibid., pp. 80-5, 92-3; G. A. Zinn, Jr., ‘Hugh of Saint Victor and the Art of Memory’, Viator, v (1974), pp. 211-34; and K. Rivers, ‘Memory, Division, and the Organisation of Knowledge in the Middle Ages’, in Peter Binkley(ed.), Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second COMERS Congress, Groningen, 1-4 July 1996(Leiden, 1997), pp. 147-58.

22 Southern, ‘Hugh of StVictor and the Idea of Historical Development’, pp. 172-4.23 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, pp. 82-3.24 Zinn, ‘Hugh of Saint Victor and the Art of Memory’, pp. 214, 222-4. The implications of this mnemonic

method are examined by Rivers, ‘Memory, Division, and the Organisation of Knowledge’.25 Green,‘De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, p. 491:‘Tria igitur sunt in quibus precipue cognitio pendet

rerum gestarum, id est, persone a quibus res geste sunt, et loca in quibus geste sunt, et tempora quando gestesunt. Hec tria quisquis memoriter animo tenuerit, inueniet se fundamentum habere bonum, cui quicquid perlectionem postea superedificauerit sine difficultate et cito capiet et diu retinebit.’

26 Mortensen, ‘Hugh of St.Victor on Secular History’, p. 4.

The prologue further stressed the virtue of always reading a particular text from the samecodex, so that the physical features of each page (the erasures, marginalia and decoration)became imprinted upon the memory.This advice again echoes Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria(11.2.17), to the extent that Hugh of Saint-Victor had possibly read the relevant section ofhis predecessor’s work, of limited circulation during the twelfth century.27 It can likewise beinferred that the layout of the Chronicle’s tables was devised by Hugh himself, on thegrounds that its presentation reflects the mnemonic framework described in the prologue.28

This emphasis on retaining the original format may explain why most copies of Hugh’shandbook are similar in appearance. It is a moot point whether individual scribes made aconscious effort to reproduce that layout exactly. The laborious process of transcribinghundreds of obscure names may equally have influenced transcription of this work,rendering it least demanding for each exemplar to be copied word for word and page bypage.

The substance of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle comprises a series of historical lists,beginning with a pictorial representation of the six days of Creation, and ending with achronological comparison of papal and imperial reigns, terminating in the oldest versionwith Pope Honorius II (1124-30).29 Much of this material reinforced the educationalprogramme at Saint-Victor: for example, study of the Latin Classics required ancillaryknowledge of geography and history, which the Chronicle supplies.30 It is likely, on the otherhand, that elements of this work had little practical application, having been included simplybecause they were present in one of Hugh’s sources.The list of the countries, mountains,rivers, islands and cities of the world was derived to great extent from the earlier work ofIsidore of Seville; while the catalogue of thirty-two ancient historiographers (see Appendix)incorporates names found in the histories of Livy, Josephus, Orosius and Gregory of Tours,allegedly selected with no obvious rationale.31 This is perhaps to deny Hugh of Saint-Victorthe creative impulse behind this chronicle. Much of its theological content can be attributedto Hugh himself, most notably the fundamental distinction between the Creation (conditio)and the succeeding era (restauratio), and emphasis on the Jewish high priests after the returnfrom exile in Babylon (sixth century B.C.), in contrast to the secular rulers favoured byEusebius of Caesarea (d. circa A.D. 339) and his successors.32

The argument for this Chronicle’s transmission to England is based on three classes ofevidence: (1) the survival of some seven manuscripts of English origin or provenance, six ofthem in the British Library and the other last attested in the Folkebiblioteket at Elverum(Norway); (2) the use of that work by Ralph de Diceto during the final decades of thetwelfth century; and (3) the presence of as many as fourteen copies of Hugh’s handbook inmonastic book-lists from the British Isles. Together, this testimony implies that Hugh of



27 Zinn, ‘Hugh of Saint Victor and the Art of Memory’, pp. 214, 223-5. For the mediaeval dissemination ofQuintilian’s treatise, see L. D. Reynolds (ed.), Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford,1983), pp. 332-4: that work was certainly known — if not widely available — in twelfth-century France.

28 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, p. 93; Rivers, ‘Memory, Division, and the Organisation of Knowledge’,p. 154, n. 25.

29 According to Zinn, ‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon’, p. 42, n. 24, the entry for Honoriusdiffers significantly from the preceding material in the oldest surviving manuscript (BN, lat. 15009), theimplication being that this is an addition to the original work.

30 Mortensen,‘Hugh of St.Victor on Secular History’, p. 4, citing the list of Numidian rulers, relevant solely forthe study of Sallust.

31 Baron, ‘Hugues de Saint-Victor lexicographe’, p. 139; Guenée, ‘Les Premiers pas de l’histoire del’historiographie’, pp. 137-9. Several of these historians’ names were mangled either by Hugh or one of hisscribes: for instance,‘Agatharchides Cnidius’ (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XII.5-7) has been rendered as ‘OuidiusSabarcides’, and ‘Berosus’ (ibid., I.93) as ‘Horosus’.

32 Zinn, ‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon’, p. 43.

Saint-Victor’s Chronicle had reached England by 1190 at the very latest, and that it wascopied there for more than 200 years, until at least the first half of the fifteenth century.

The Manuscripts

J Cotton MS. Julius B. XIII, ff. 2r-40v Deeping saec. xii3/4

MS. J comprises an untitled copy of Hugh’s Chronicle, the authorship of which haspreviously been ascribed to Roger Walden, archbishop of Canterbury (1397-9) and bishopof London (1404-6).This misattribution has a complicated history, having arisen after thewhole manuscript was bound together for Sir Robert Cotton (d. 1631).33 Cotton Julius B.XIII contains three independent items, the last of which is the unique witness of Gerald ofWales’s De principis instructione (ff. 48r-173r), transcribed in a mid-fourteenth-centurybookhand.34 An early modern note inserted at the beginning of De principis instructione states‘De hoc argumento scripsit quidam Rogerus Walden’, referring not to the bishop of thatname but to Roger of Waltham, canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, London (fl. 1332), whoseCompendium morale de uirtuosis dictis et factis exemplaribus antiquorum provides exempla relatingto political life.35 By mistaken association, a seventeenth-century scribe has entitled the firsttext in this book (Hugh’s Chronicle) ‘Epitomæ Historiæ Rogeri Waldon’ (f. 2r); thisconfusion is repeated in the list of contents (f. 1r), in the hand of Richard James (d. 1638),Cotton’s librarian, and was retained in the two published catalogues of the Cottoniancollection, compiled by Thomas Smith (1696) and Joseph Planta (1802) respectively.36 Jamesmoreover understood the second item in Cotton Julius B. XIII (ff. 41r-47v) to be part ofthe preceding Chronicle, it instead being a separate, twelfth-century chronicle-fragment forthe years A.D. 1-249.37



33 Cotton MS. Julius B. XIII is first recorded in its present state as no. 293 in BL, Harley MS. 6018 (f. 113v),which inventory was compiled during Sir Robert Cotton’s own lifetime: C. G. C.Tite,‘The Early Cataloguesof the Cottonian Library’, British Library Journal, vi (1980), pp. 144-57 (pp. 146-7).

34 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, viii, De Principis Instructione Liber, ed. George F. Warner, Rolls Series (London, 1891),pp. vii-ix.This is the copy which passed through the hands of John Leland, as recorded in Index BritanniaeScriptorum: John Bale’s Index of British and Other Writers, ed. Reginald Lane Poole & Mary Bateson, with anintroduction by Caroline Brett & James P. Carley (Cambridge, rev. edn., 1990), p. 425.

35 Roger of Waltham should not be confused with his near namesake, as has hitherto been the case: RichardSharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), pp. 597-8.

36 Thomas Smith, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford, 1696), pp. 5-6 (‘HistoriaRogeri Walden…’); J. Planta, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, deposited in the British Museum(London, 1802), pp. 7-8 (‘Rogeri Walden Episc. Londin. Historia…’).

37 This fragment is in the same hand as the opening pages of the Melrose Chronicle (ff. 2r-8r): the last-namedhas been reproduced in facsimile as The Chronicle of Melrose from the Cottonian Manuscript, Faustina B. IX inthe British Museum, ed.Alan Orr Anderson, Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson & William Croft Dickinson (London,1936).

Two scribes shared transcription of the Chronicle of Hugh of Saint-Victor, theirhandwriting being datable to the third quarter of the twelfth century (1150x1175).The firstproduced the prologue alone (ff. 2r-3v), written in a regular Protogothic bookhand, whilehis colleague assumed responsibility for the adjoining tables (ff. 4r-40r), introducingdocumentary elements into his script. The prologue contains a number of errors oftranscription, but most of these mistakes were emended by the same scribe, with acontemporary editor adding other corrections in the margins. A complete set of tables isattached, save for the habitual omission of §VII (Tres sorores). Most notably, the depiction ofthe Creation (§I) lacks the crescents which normally illustrate Hugh’s scheme.38 This secondscribe made his final contribution to the table of Popes and emperors (§XI) with the nameof Honorius II, before extending its annal numbers to the year 1174, ending at the foot off. 40r. It is highly improbable that this annal number ‘1174’ marks the time of writing: itmerely brings the relevant page to its close. Other scribes made additions to the remainderof this table, one of whom continued the annal numbers to 1220 (f. 40v). In the same handwas likewise noted the papal succession as far as the eleventh regnal year (1208) of PopeInnocent III (1198-1216): in this instance, the final entry presumably does date that scribe’sintervention.

It cannot be proved beyond doubt that this witness of the Chronicle was produced inEngland: in particular, the minims of the first hand lack the horizontal feet usually found inthe Insular script of this period.39 However, MS. J is certainly of English provenance, sinceit contains an erased ex libris in the lower margin of f. 2r, which reads (under ultra-violetlight) ‘Liber de prioratu sancti Iakobi de Est Deping’. This is the inscription of DeepingPriory, founded in 1139 as a cell of Thorney Abbey (Cambridgeshire).The item in questionis the sole surviving book attributable to the monastic community at Deeping.40

H Harley MS. 1312, ff. 1v-24v France saec. xiimed

MS. H of Hugh’s Chronicle, transcribed during the middle of the twelfth century, has thecontemporary title ‘Incipit liber de tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum, id est personis,locis, temporibus’. Its authorship was nonetheless attributed tentatively in the HarleianCatalogue to Roger of Waltham, undoubtedly under the influence of the publisheddescriptions of Cotton Julius B. XIII.41 Harley 1312 was produced in France, to judge by itsscript and parchment, perhaps as early as the 1140s. It had been transferred to England bythe beginning of the fourteenth century at the very latest, when a twelve-line passage onthe death and burial of King Edward the Martyr (975-8) was added to its preceding page.



38 For these crescents in BN, MS. lat. 15009 (f. 3v), see Green,‘De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum’, plateA, and Carruthers, The Book of Memory, plate 3.

39 N. R. Ker, English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1960), pp. 23, 35, 37.40 N. R. Ker (ed.), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (London, 2nd edn., 1964), p. 57.

A fourteenth-century Deeping cartulary is also extant (BL, Harley MS. 3658), which is prefaced (ff. 2r-7v)by the calendar of those monks: G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain: A Short Catalogue(London, 1958) (no. 304), p. 36. The death of St Guthlac (sub anno 715), patron of neighbouring CrowlandAbbey (Lincolnshire), was recorded by a twelfth- or thirteenth-century scribe in the Deeping copy of Hugh’sChronicle (the left-hand margin of f. 35v). Crowland itself possessed this work by the early fourteenth century,according to the Franciscan survey, Registrum Anglie: was the Deeping manuscript obtained from Crowland?

41 A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols. (London, 1808-12), vol. ii, p. 2(‘adjudicanda forte cuidam Rogero de Waltham’).



Fig. 1. Lists of Norman and Lombard rulers. Harl. MS. 1312, f. 24v

This copy of the Chronicle is a wholly undistinguished production.The upper right-handcorner of the first five leaves has been partially eaten away, an apparent sign of rodentdamage. However, on closer inspection it transpires that the text was written around thisimperfection, which was evidently present in some form when the book was made. Thewhole work should probably be assigned to a single scribe, although the prologue (ff. 1v-3r) has been written in pale brown ink, and the tables (ff. 3v-24v) in a far darker colour.This scribe was exceedingly careless: a contemporary editor has made some twentycorrections to the prologue alone, with many more errors having been overlooked.

MS. H terminates prematurely with its list of the dukes of Normandy and rulers of theLombards (part of §IX; see fig. 1), though it is clear that no pages have been lost, becausethe contemporary end-leaf contains imprints of the Chronicle’s red rubrication. Twosignificant additions have been made to this copy.The papal register (§VIII) ended originallywith Honorius II, but the names of Innocent II (1130-43), Celestine II (1143-4) andLucius II (1144-5) have been added in a subsequent hand, with a fourth name, presumablythat of Eugenius III (1145-53) having been cropped from the lower margin (f. 21r).The listof Norman dukes (f. 24v) itself concluded originally with Henry I of England (1100-35),but a separate, English scribe has appended the names of Stephen (1135-54), Henry II(1154-89), Richard I (1189-99) and John (1199-1216).This second series of additions wasundoubtedly made in England, and may be evidence that H had left France as early as thefirst decade of the thirteenth century.

Another indication of this book’s English provenance is its memorandum of KingEdward the Martyr, entered circa 1300 in a cursive bookhand (f. 1r; fig. 2).42

King Edgar died in the year 975, leaving his son Edward as heir both of his kingdomand his character. In the same year of the Lord, the holy archbishops Dunstan andOswald, with their fellow bishops, consecrated and anointed him king. However, in theyear of the Lord 978, Edward, king of the English, was slain unjustly by his own menat the place which is called Corfe, by order of his stepmother Ælfthryth, and wasburied (contrary to royal custom) at Wareham. His brother Æthelred [the Unready]succeeded him. In the year of the Lord 969 [correctly 979], Ælfhere, ealdorman of theMercians, came to Wareham with a great crowd of people, and directed that the holybody of the precious king and martyr Edward be lifted out of the tomb. When thebody had been uncovered, it was discovered to be sound and untainted by any damageor infection.Washed and clothed in new garments, it was borne to Shaftesbury, andburied in honourable fashion.There is another King Edward, named the Elder, son of



42 For Edward’s murder and subsequent cult, see Christine E. Fell (ed.), Edward King and Martyr (Leeds, 1971);eadem,‘Edward King and Martyr and the Anglo-Saxon Hagiographic Tradition’, in David Hill (ed.), Ethelredthe Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, BAR, British Series, lix (Oxford, 1978), pp. 1-13; Susan J.Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England:A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge,1988), pp. 44-50, 154-75; D. W. Rollason, ‘The Cult of Murdered Saints in Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England, xi (1983), pp. 1-22; and idem, Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989),pp. 142-4.



Fig. 2. Memorandum on King Edward the Martyr. Harl. MS. 1312, f. 1r

King Alfred, who reigned in England in the year of the Lord 901.There is also a third,St Edward the Confessor.43

This description is based almost verbatim on the account of Edward’s reign in John ofWorcester’s Chronica chronicarum, compiled during the early decades of the twelfth century.44

Six manuscripts of John’s work have survived, together with a seventh containing anabbreviated version (the chronicula): these books were once the property of the Benedictineconvents of Abingdon (Berkshire), Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) and Worcester, and perhapsthose at Coventry (Warwickshire), Gloucester and Peterborough (Northamptonshire).45

Unfortunately, the passage copied here is too brief to determine from which (if any) of thesewitnesses it may have been adopted.

C Cotton MS. Claudius C. IX, ff. 4r-12r Worcester saec. xiiex

Cotton Claudius C. IX comprises three mediaeval books bound together during theseventeenth century, with the front- and end-leaves (ff. 1r-3v, 204r-209v) being made up ofmiscellaneous early modern material.46 The first mediaeval portion constitutes a truncatedversion of the Chronicle under consideration, followed in the same late-twelfth-century handwith an annalistic text concluding with the year 1171 (ff. 12v-17v).This final work containsannotations pertaining to Worcester Cathedral Priory, to which community the wholebooklet undoubtedly belonged.The remaining sections supply a thirteenth-century copy ofWilliam of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum (ff. 18r-102v), whose provenance can beassigned to Battle Abbey (Sussex);47 and a documentary collection (ff. 105r-203v)



43 ‘Rex Edgarus anno nongentesimo septuagesimo quinto defungitur, qui filium suum Edwardum et regni etmorum reliquit heredem. Quem eodem anno domini sancti Dunstanus et Oswaldus archipre<su>les cumcoepiscopis suis consecrauerunt et in regem unxerunt.Anno uero domini nongentesimo septuagesimo .viiio.rex Anglorum Edwardus iussu nouerce sue Alfrithe in loco qui Coruesgate dicitur a suis iniuste occiditur, etapud Werham non regio more sepelitur. Cui successit frater eius Ethelredus. Anno domini nongentesimosexagesimo nono dux Merciorum Alferus cum multitudine populi Werham uenit, sanctumque corpuspreciosi regis et martiris E<d>wardi de tumulo subleuari precepit. Quod dum esset nudatum, sanum atqueintegrum ab omni clade et contagione est inuentum. Lotum inde nouisque uestimentis indutum adSeftesbiriam est delatum et honorifice tumulatum. Est alius rex Edwardus cognomento senior filius Elfrediregis qui regnauit in Anglia anno domini nongentesimo primo. Est et tercius sanctus Edwardus confessor.’

44 The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ii, The Annals from 450 to 1066, ed. and trans. R. R. Darlington, P. McGurk& Jennifer Bray (Oxford, 1995), pp. 424-31.

45 Ibid., pp. xxi-lxv.46 Smith, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ, p. 42; Planta, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in

the Cottonian Library, pp. 194-5.This early modern material includes letters patent of Elizabeth I, naming JohnJoscelyn (d. 1603), Latin secretary of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury (f. 1r); and a letter by theantiquary Roger Dodsworth, dated 16 January 1645/6 (f. 207r).

47 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, ed. and trans. R. A. B.Mynors, R. M.Thomson & M.Winterbottom (Oxford, 1998), vol. i, p. xvi.The Battle provenance derivesfrom the appended copy of the Award of Norham (5-6 June 1291), addressed specifically to that abbot andconvent (ff. 102v-103r). (This document is in a much later hand than Gesta regum Anglorum, contrary to thestatement by Mynors, p. xvi, n. 15.)

from the monastery at Abingdon, much of which was transcribed during the third quarterof the twelfth century, probably no later than circa 1170.48

This copy of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle is untitled, and omits the prologue andseveral other items, presumably representing a deliberate selection of material. It begins withthe Restoration (§II), followed in sequence as far as the list of geographical names (§VI),and terminates with the table of Popes (§VIII), which in this instance extends only toSeverinus (d. 640).A complex series of sigla has been employed to link passages overrunningfrom one page or column to the next.The same feature characterizes Hugh’s Chronicle inRoyal MS. 4 B.VII (R below), intimating that it reflects the layout of a common exemplar.

At the end of the geographical inventory (f. 11v), and repeated beneath the papalcatalogue (f. 12r), occurs the rubric ‘Expliciunt cronica ueteris testamenti’, written in redink. The ensuing annalistic text (A.D. 1-1171) has the heading ‘Cronica noui testamenti’(f. 12v), implying that it continues the preceding, even though it forms no part of Hugh’scompilation. This final item was transcribed in conjunction with the aforementionedChronicle, and is related directly to another annalistic record from Rochester (again part ofMS. R).49 The work in question was Norman in origin — it demonstrates great affinitywith the archiepiscopal see at Rouen — but had probably been maintained in England fromthe beginning of the twelfth century. In this copy, the annal-numbers extend to 1178 (thefoot of f. 17v; fig. 3), but the final entry reports a thunderstorm during the night of 25December 1171.This concluding notice has previously been cited as evidence for the timeof transcription, on the mistaken assumption that the appended chronicle is an originalcomposition.50 However, comparison with its Rochester counterpart indicates that MS. Cis derived from an exemplar which ended with the year 1171, and so need not have beentranscribed at that very juncture. Although the script is coterminous with the end of thetwelfth century, it is unwise to date this booklet with too great precision.51

After the present components of Cotton Claudius C. IX had been gathered together, SirRobert Cotton himself ascribed the opening portion to Abingdon, by reference to theother contents of the manuscript.52 However, it has subsequently been recognized that theannalistic chronicle has mediaeval additions relating to the bishopric of Worcester, testimony for the provenance of the book in question.53 These Worcester entries notice the accession



48 Joseph Stevenson (ed.), Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, 2 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1858), vol. i, pp. xiv-xvii; S. E. Kelly (ed.), Charters of Abingdon Abbey, 2 vols.,Anglo-Saxon Charters vii-viii (Oxford, 2000-1), vol.i, pp. liii-lviii; Ker (ed.), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, p. 3; Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (no.3), p. 2; N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. xiv, n. 2.

49 These two chronicles have been edited (in conjunction with a third from Battle) by F. Liebermann,Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen (Strasbourg, 1879), pp. 31-49. This Battle work (BL, CottonMS. Nero D. II, ff. 238v-241r) was originally compiled circa 1119 and continued until 1206; it shares a partial,common source with MSS. C and R, but is in essence an independent composition. See further An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany: British Library Cotton Tiberius B. V Part I together with leaves fromBritish Library Cotton Nero D. II, facs. ed. P. McGurk et al. (Copenhagen, 1983), pp. 15, 25, 28, 39, 104-6 andplates 1-8.

50 Andrew G.Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of ManuscriptsThe British Library, 2 vols. (London, 1979), vols. i, p. 100, and ii, plate 93.

51 The handwriting was assigned to the early thirteenth century by Liebermann, Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, p. 32.

52 ‘Liber Mon:Abbingdonensis’ (f. 4r).53 Liebermann, Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, p. 32; Ker (ed.), Medieval Libraries of Great

Britain, p. 207;Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, vol. i, p. 100.



Fig. 3. The annalistic text appended to Hugh’s Chronicle. Cotton MS. Claudius C. IX, f.17v



of Bishop Bosel (sub anno 680), his succession by Bishop Oftfor (689), and the consecrationof Bishop Ecgwine (693); and the consecration (1062) and death (1095) of BishopWulfstan II, first incumbent of that see under Norman rule.54 The first series has beenentered in a single cursive bookhand, datable to the end of the fourteenth century; thoserelating to Wulfstan are substantially earlier additions, having been inserted sometime duringthe thirteenth century.55 Worcester is mentioned nowhere else in the chronicle, though it isunnecessary to infer that C was transcribed at another scriptorium. It is logical to assumethat this booklet was produced on behalf of Worcester, based on an earlier manuscript, andonly customized for that house at a later date.

A further superscription demonstrates conclusively that this copy of Hugh’s Chroniclebelonged to the monastic community at Worcester. In the upper margin of f. 12v can beread the partially cropped signature ‘Johannes Musart’, who is attested as a member of thatcathedral priory in the sixteenth century.56 John Musard (variously spelt Musart, Myssard)was ordained as an acolyte in April 1504, as subdeacon and then deacon in September andDecember of the same year, and as priest in June 1508.57 Most significantly, Musard wasemployed repairing books in the library of Worcester Cathedral (1527/8), and purchasedmaterials for the same purpose in 1531.58 His monastic career soon took a dramatic turn:he was arrested in July 1531, and imprisoned on the charge of having robbed the prior of‘certen plate & other things’.59 He remained in prison when, on 31 January 1536, headdressed to Thomas Cromwell a letter entitled ‘The decayes of your honorable lordshypsmonastery att Worcettur, and the occasion there of ’, in which he condemned his detractorsand begged for relief.60 Musard is last recorded in May 1538, when he was granteddispensation to put aside his habit.

MS. C provides new evidence for knowledge of Hugh’s writings at Worcester CathedralPriory. This is otherwise restricted to a handful of extant books and three complete treatises,namely De archa Noë, De arrha anime and his commentary on the Lamentations ofJeremiah.61

54 Liebermann, Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, pp. 36, 44, 47.55 Liebermann dated these notices of Wulfstan to the end of the thirteenth century, but this is probably too late.56 Musard’s name also occurs in BL, Add. MS. 25031 (f. 5r);Worcester, Cathedral Library, MSS. F. 53 (f. i and

the rear pastedown); F. 90 (f. 270v); and F. 93 (f. 211v): R. M.Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the MedievalManuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library, with a contribution on the bindings by Michael Gullick(Cambridge, 2001), pp. 32, 58, 65.

57 Joan Greatrex, Biographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories of the Province of Canterbury c. 1066 to 1540(Oxford, 1997), pp. 853-4.

58 Ethel S. Fegan (ed.), Journal of Prior William More, Worcestershire Historical Society (Worcester, 1914),pp. 256-62, 322, 324;Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library,pp. xxxviii, xlii-xliii, xlvi.

59 Fegan (ed.), Journal of Prior William More, pp. 330-1.60 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII., ed. James Gairdner, vol. x (London, 1887)

(no. 216), pp. 75-6; Fegan (ed.), Journal of Prior William More, pp. ii-iii. Musard’s holograph is BL, Cotton MS.Cleopatra E. IV, ff. 116v-117r.

61 These other books are Cambridge, University Library, MS. Kk.4.6 (De archa Noë, ff. 86v-107r); BL, RoyalMS. 5 C.VI (De substantia dilectionis, ff. 34r-35r);Worcester Cathedral, MSS. F. 75 (De arrha anime, ff. 213r-219v); Q. 48 (commentary on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, ff. 1r-50r); and perhaps F. 114 (excerpts fromDe quinque septenis, f. 67r/v). This extends the list in Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the MedievalManuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library, p. xxiv.



R Royal MS. 4 B.VII, ff. 199v-210v Rochester saec. xiiex

This copy of Hugh’s Chronicle should undeniably be regarded as the sister manuscript of thatfrom Worcester, since it contains the identical rubrics and sigla, and is followed by the sameannalistic text extending originally to A.D. 1171 (ff. 211r-218v). Furthermore, MS. Rpresents a superior and more complete version of Hugh’s work, and could almost be theother’s exemplar, were it not for minor variations in the appended annalistic record, and anoccasional variant in the Chronicle itself. (The traditional assumption that Royal 4 B.VII isa substantially later book seems to be unfounded.) To err on the side of caution, it might beposited that an earlier copy of the Chronicle, transcribed circa 1171, lies behind both MSS. R and C.

Royal 4 B.VII belonged to the cathedral priory of Rochester — it has a fourteenth-century ex libris, ‘Liber psalterii de claustro Roffensi’ (f. 2r),‘psalterii’ being added in anotherhand — and was presumably a product of that scriptorium.62 The Chronicle of Hugh ofSaint-Victor is the final item in this volume, being preceded (ff. 194r-199r) by theCompendium historie in genealogia Christi (Genealogia historiarum) of Peter of Poitiers,chancellor of Paris (d. 1205).63 These texts accompany Lethbert of Saint-Ruf ’s Florespsalmorum, with the preface by Bishop Walter of Montpellier (ff. 2r-165v); a partial copy ofRichard of Saint-Victor’s Allegorie in Nouum Testamentum (ff. 166r-178r);64 and twoanonymous sermons (ff. 178r-179v) followed by brief expositions of Scripture (ff. 180r-192r). The entire book probably belongs to a single campaign, although the handwriting ofHugh’s Chronicle is larger and slightly more spiky, and may be the work of a separate scribe.

The dating of R and the remainder of this manuscript is problematical. The compilersof the Royal Catalogue assigned the book in question to the thirteenth century, stating thatthe writing of the concluding chronicle ‘appears to be distinctly later than either 1171 or1184 [when its continuation ends]’; while Felix Liebermann dated Royal 4 B.VII to themiddle of the thirteenth century.65 This line of reasoning is also dictated by the apparentomission of this volume from the Rochester library catalogue which was finalized circa 1202(BL, Royal MS. 5 B. XII, ff. 2r-3r), written on the fly-leaves of an early-twelfth-centurycollection of works by Augustine of Hippo.66 The supposition that MS. R postdates 1202must nevertheless receive fresh examination. It is noticeable, for example, that its script anddecoration is consistent with the end of the twelfth century, as reinforced by thehandwriting of a cursive note in the lower margin of an otherwise blank page (f. 193v),which reads somewhat mysteriously ‘Librum Johannis Cassiani. Similitudines Anselmi’.67

62 George Warner & Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections,4 vols. (London, 1921), vol. i, pp. 83-4.

63 Philip S. Moore, The Works of Peter of Poitiers, Master in Theology and Chancellor of Paris (1193-1205) (NotreDame, 1936), p. 103.

64 Richard de Saint-Victor Liber Exceptionum, ed. Chatillon (no. 82), p. 36.65 Warner & Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, vol. i, p. 84;

Liebermann, Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, p. 32.66 Sharpe et al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries, pp. 497-526 and plate 6; S. Harrison Thompson, Latin

Bookhands of the Later Middle Ages 1100-1500 (Cambridge, 1969), no. 88.The dating-clause of this cataloguehas been added in a separate hand, and seemingly applies to an inspection of that collection (‘Anno abincarnatione domini .mo.cco.iio. hoc est scrutinium librarii nostri’). The inventory itself was compiled andrevised by a number of scribes: it may theoretically have been started several years before 1202.

67 This note perhaps refers to John Cassian’s Collationes, together with Ps.-Anselm’s Similitudines: Rochester isnot recorded to have owned the second-named work.



There are also indications that some Rochester books were not recorded in the above-citedinventory, since they were stored elsewhere at that house.68 It might therefore be positedthat Royal 4 B.VII did not originally form part of the communal collection, because it bearsthe inscription ‘Territii infirmarii’ (f. 2r), and so had arguably once been kept in theinfirmary.69

The Rochester catalogue in question does record a copy of Lethbert’s Flores psalmorum,stated to have been the gift or personal possession of Prior Robert of Walton (Rochester’scell at Felixstowe). Prior Robert’s book has elsewhere been identified as BL, Royal MS. 2F. XI, transcribed towards the end of the twelfth century.70 This is undoubtedly correct: theprincipal hand of Royal 2 F. XI is the same as that of the sole surviving book with aFelixstowe ex libris, namely BL, Royal MS. 7 A. VII, containing Peter of Waltham’sRemediarium conuersorum, and produced (in smaller format) at approximately the sameperiod.71

Irrespective of its date, MS. R supplies an excellent witness to the presence in Englandof Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle.This copy begins with the final two paragraphs of itsprologue, followed by the depiction of the Creation (§I; fig. 4) and other tables, andconcludes (as in C) with the list of Popes to Severinus. At the close of the geographicalinventory is the rubric ‘Expliciunt cronica ueteris testamenti’ (f. 210r); while the heading‘Incipiunt cronica noui testamenti’ commences the table of Popes (f. 210v), a slight variationupon its position in MS. C. A single scribe was responsible for the entire Chronicle andaccompanying annalistic text, the latter being written in one stint to the year 1171, withnotices for 1172-84 having been added in paler brown ink.72This continuation contains twoentries relating specifically to Rochester, recording the burning of its church (11 April1179) and death of Bishop Walter (1182).

During the opening decades of the thirteenth century, the Rochester copy of Hugh’sChronicle was utilized at that convent in order to create another historical work. BL, CottonMS.Vespasian A. XXII contains (among other items) a chronicle from the Creation to A.D.738 (ff. 2v-8v); the separate Annals of Rochester (ff. 9r-34r); and a register from the samefoundation (ff. 60r-129v).73 The first-named text is based primarily on Bede’s Chronica

68 Mary P. Richards, Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory,Transactions ofthe American Philosophical Society, lxxviii, part 3 (Philadelphia, 1988), p. 45.

69 The extant Rochester books frequently contain such inscriptions, though their historical worth is not alwaysreliable: Sharpe et al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries, pp. 465-6.

70 Warner & Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, vol. i, p. 67; Sharpeet al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries, (B.79.237), p. 525; Richards, Texts and Their Traditions, pp. 18, 41.

71 Warner & Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, vol. i, p. 165.Themonks of Rochester Cathedral Priory ultimately owned at least three copies of Lethbert’s work, the thirdbeing that in BL, Royal MS. 2 D.VI, ff. 1r-95v (saec. xiii1): James P. Carley (ed.), The Libraries of King HenryVIII (London, 2000) (H2.807, 816, 906; H4.103), pp. 153-5, 171, 262. (Each item in Royal 2 D. VI, acomposite Rochester book, is of a different date, some being as early as saec. xii2.)

72 Excerpts from this text have been edited by Liebermann, Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen,pp. 35-49.

73 Smith, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ, pp. 108-9; Planta, Catalogue of the Manuscriptsin the Cottonian Library, p. 437; Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (no. 821), p. 93; M.P.Richards, ‘MSCotton Vespasian A. XXII: the Vespasian Homilies’, Manuscripta, xii (1978), pp. 97-103. The whole bookbelonged to Rochester Cathedral Priory. It passed through the hands of the Kentish antiquary WilliamLambarde (d. 1601) in 1598; while another signature, quite possibly to be read as John Joscelyn, lies largelyerased beneath that of Sir Robert Cotton (f. 2r).



Fig. 4. The prologue and diagram of Creation. Royal MS. 4 B.VII, f. 199v



maiora, but it also incorporates a list entitled ‘Sacerdotes post transmigrationem’ (f. 4r/v;),borrowed directly from that in Royal 4 B.VII (ff. 200v-201r).74 The handwriting of thescribe responsible for copying this passage and much of the same chronicle (ff. 2v-6r) canbe dated with some accuracy, since it recurs in the register and as the principal hand of theAnnals of Rochester, to the middle of the entry for 1225 (ff. 9r-33v).75 His first stint in thisannalistic work ended with the year 1214, being augmented at periodic intervals, a sign ofcontemporaneous reporting. On this basis, it can be proposed that MS. R was put topractical use at Rochester as early as 1214, and presumably no later than 1225.

E Egerton MS. 3088, ff. 99r-112v Dore circa 1243

Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle is the seventh article in Egerton 3088, a collection ofcomputistical and historical works made for the Cistercians of Dore Abbey.76 One of thismanuscript’s scribes, responsible for the tables of Hugh’s handbook (ff. 101v-112v) andmuch of the Annals of Dore (ff. 118r-134v), was demonstrably writing in the period1243x1254.77 The preceding texts are in coeval hands, the whole codex having beengathered together at an early stage, as indicated by the presence of contemporary quiresignatures.

MS. E is the work of two scribes, and is introduced by the title ‘Incipit prologus magistriHugonis in libro chronicarum’, the accompanying tables being headed ‘Incipit libercronicarum Hugonis’.The prologue is divided into a series of unnumbered chapters, eachwith its own rubric, unattested in the other British Library manuscripts of this work.Thehistorical tables commence with the Creation (§I), in which the requisite crescents haveagain been omitted, and end with the table of rulers since the time of Christ (§IX).The listof dukes of Normandy, continued as the kings of England, ends with Henry III (1216-72;see fig. 5); while the papal register extends as far as the reign of Gregory IX (1227-41), thusconfirming the approximate date of transcription. Two notes have been added at the footof the final page, entitled ‘Anni ab origine mundi rationabiliter probati’ and ‘Anni abincarnatione domini secundum euangelicam ueritatem’ respectively: these presumably relateto Hugh of Saint-Victor’s compilation.

74 Rochester is not otherwise known to have possessed a copy of Chronica maiora (which may have beenborrowed from elsewhere). It is also possible that this source-material included an unattested continuation toBede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, for the years 728-738. (This cannot have been the extant RochesterBede, BL, Harley MS. 3680.)

75 Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, vols. i, p. 108, and ii, plate 120.76 Eric George Millar, The Library of A. Chester Beatty:A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts, 4 vols.

(London, 1927-30), vol. ii, pp. 65-70; The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1931-1935(London, 1967), pp. 306-9; Catalogue of the Renowned Collection of Western Manuscripts the Property of A. ChesterBeatty, Esq.:The Second Portion, which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby and Co. (London, 9 May 1933)(lot 49), pp. 95-7; EGM[illar], ‘Three Manuscripts from the Chester Beatty Collection’, British MuseumQuarterly, viii (1933-4), pp. 17-18 (p. 18); C. W. Jones, ‘Manuscripts of Bede’s De Natura Rerum’, Isis, xxvii(1937), pp. 430-40 (pp. 432-3).

77 These dates are established by his concluding contribution to the Annals of Dore, for the year 1243, and thedeath of Innocent IV (7 Dec. 1254), the last Pope he names in the continuation to Nicholas Maniacutius’sAd incorrupta pontificum nomina conseruanda (f. 117r/v). Egerton 3088 was dated circa 1244 by Watson, Catalogueof Dated and Datable Manuscripts, vols. i, p. 117, and ii, plate 139.



Fig. 5. The Dukes of Normandy. Eg. MS. 3088, f. 112v



Although E’s exemplar has not been identified, several other items in Egerton 3088 weredemonstrably copied from a twelfth-century book which belonged originally toWinchcombe Abbey (Gloucestershire) (BL, Cotton MS.Tiberius E. IV).78 It might feasiblybe proposed that the monks of Winchcombe also possessed a copy of Hugh’s Chronicle,which was transcribed on behalf of the Cistercian community at Dore, located some fortymiles to the west. However, it should also be noted that Cotton Tiberius E. IV may itselfhave left Winchcombe sometime during its early history.This book was produced in twodistinct phases: its earliest portion (ff. 46r-181v) contains Bede’s De temporum ratione andsimilar texts, and is datable to the opening decades of the twelfth century; whereas theremainder (ff. 1r-42v) should be assigned to the middle and second half of the twelfthcentury, its principal component being the primary recension of the Annals of Winchcombe(ff. 1r-27v).79 The intervening three leaves (ff. 43r-45v) nonetheless supply documentsrelating to the bishopric of Worcester and to the refoundation of Gloucester College,Oxford (1291), originally dependent on St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester, but subsequentlyadmitting candidates from other Benedictine monasteries in England. Whether CottonTiberius E. IV was removed from Winchcombe — presumably for either Gloucester orWorcester — can no longer be established with any certainty.80 One book which arguablydeparted that convent for St Peter’s, Gloucester, is now BL, Royal MS. 11 D.VIII, a twelfth-century copy of the Collectio Lanfranci.81

F Cotton MS. Faustina B.VII, ff. 18r-35v England saec. xv1

Faustina B.VII is a typical example of a composite Cottonian manuscript, formed in thisinstance of five or more independent booklets sewn together to create a larger volume.Thesecond such portion is a shortened version of Hugh’s Chronicle, as described by both ThomasSmith and Joseph Planta (§§13-16).82 That work is now accompanied by a series ofmiscellaneous ecclesiastical lists, based in part on the Opuscula of Ralph de Diceto andpreliminary matter of John of Worcester’s Chronica chronicarum (ff. 2r-17v);83 a catalogue of

78 Jones, ‘Manuscripts of Bede’s De Natura Rerum’, pp. 432-3, 439-40; The British Museum Catalogue of Additionsto the Manuscripts 1931-1935, p. 307.

79 Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, vols. i, p. 107, and ii, plate 106; Richard Gameson, TheManuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford, 1999) (nos. 408-09), p. 103; R. R. Darlington,‘Winchcombe Annals 1049-1181’, in Patricia M. Barnes & C. F. Slade (eds.), A Medieval Miscellany for DorisMary Stenton, Pipe Roll Society, lxxvi [corr. lxxiv], New Series, xxxvi (London, 1962), pp. 111-37; E.Temple,‘The Calendar of the Douce Psalter’,The Bodleian Library Record, xii (1985-8), pp. 13-38 (pp. 23-6);Byrhtferth’sEnchiridion, ed. Peter S. Baker & Michael Lapidge, E.E.T.S., s.s., xv (Oxford, 1995), pp. lvii-lx, lxxxvii-lxxxviii;M. Gullick, ‘The English-Owned Manuscripts of the Collectio Lanfranci (s.xi/xii)’, in Lynda Dennison (ed.),The Legacy of M. R. James: Papers from the 1995 Cambridge Symposium (Donington, 2001), pp. 99-117 (pp. 113-14 and n. 44).

80 Cotton Tiberius E. IV was damaged by fire in 1731, and its leaves have been remounted on paper (the entryin Planta, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, p. 40, should therefore be disregarded): all traceof its original arrangement has been destroyed.

81 Gullick, ‘The English-Owned Manuscripts of the Collectio Lanfranci’, pp. 112-14; Gameson, The Manuscriptsof Early Norman England (no. 539), p. 117.

82 Smith, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ, pp. 152-3; Planta, Catalogue of the Manuscriptsin the Cottonian Library, p. 607.

83 Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica:The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, ed.WilliamStubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1876), vol. ii, pp. 184-91, 196-210; Florentii Wigorniensis MonachiChronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Benjamin Thorpe, 2 vols. (London, 1848-9), vol. i, pp. 231-46;The Chronicle of Johnof Worcester, ed. and trans. Darlington et al., vol. ii, pp. lxv-lxvii, lxxiv-lxxvi; Watson, Catalogue of Dated andDatable Manuscripts, vols. i, p. 102, and ii, plate 124.



Cistercian abbeys, transcribed in England late in the twelfth century or early in thethirteenth, and extended during the fourteenth century to include subsequent foundations(ff. 36r-39v);84 a brief account of the kings of Wessex and England from Ine (d. circa 726) toHenry III, in a fifteenth-century hand (f. 40v); a universal chronicle which incorporatesPeter of Poitiers’s Compendium historie in genealogia Christi, compiled circa 1216 but latercontinued to the burial of Edward II in 1327 (ff. 41r-71v);85 and the fifteenth-centuryregister of the Honour of Richmond (ff. 72r-136r).86 The first item in this manuscript cantentatively be assigned to Evesham Abbey (Worcestershire), owing to its affinity with thathouse;87 while occasional annotations in the universal chronicle manifest interest in easternEngland, though that text may feasibly have been written and illustrated elsewhere.88

Hugh of Saint-Victor’s handbook is primarily the work of a single, fifteenth-centuryscribe, commencing (as in MS. R) with the final two paragraphs of the prologue, andconcluding with its list of geographical names.The Chronicle is itself unattributed, save forthe opening rubric ‘Incipit prologus subsequentis operis’; while the diagram of the Creationhas once again been omitted. Despite its late date, this copy is related in many respects tothat from Rochester, although collation with both MSS. R and C indicates that all three areultimately derived from the same parent text, to which F has made several innovations. Mostsignificant in this context is the addition of a new paragraph at the end of the prologue (f. 18v), which provides a brief commentary on the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2.8).Thereare similar explanatory notes prefixed to §§II and IV (ff. 19r, 26v), the authorship of whichis unestablished.

84 Edited by W. de G. Birch, ‘On the Date of Foundation Ascribed to the Cistertian Abbeys in Great Britain’,Journal of the British Archaeological Association, xxvi (1870), pp. 281-99, 352-69 (pp. 281-92), stating in error thatthis copy was produced in France.The first section of this list (ff. 36r-38v) was presumably transcribed before1214, because the convent which removed to Dieulacres (Staffordshire) in that year is recorded under itsoriginal location of Poulton (Cheshire) (f. 38r).

85 W. H. Monroe, ‘A Roll-Manuscript of Peter of Poitiers’ Compendium’, The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museumof Art, lxv (1978), pp. 92-107 (pp. 97-8 and nn. 18, 20-1, pp. 101, 105, figs. 5 and 8); Nigel Morgan, EarlyGothic Manuscripts [I] 1190-1250, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, iv (London, 1982)(no. 43b), pp. 91-2;Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, vols. i, p. 102, and ii, plate 118.Thedate proposed by Watson for this text’s transcription (1208x1215) should be revised: the scribe who laid downhis pen after reaching f. 69v made reference (f. 69r/v) to the sixteenth year of the pontificate of Innocent III(1213-1214) and the sixteenth regnal year of King John (1214-1215); while his contemporary whocontinued this work in lighter brown ink (ff. 69v-70r) concluded with the death of Pope Innocent (16 July1216).

86 Roger Gale (ed.), Registrum Honoris de Richmond exhibens Terrarum & Villarum quæ quondam fuerunt EdwiniComitis infra Richmundshire Descriptionem (London, 1722);Davis,Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (no. 1311),p. 152.

87 The scribe responsible for beginning the English episcopal lists noted that both Bishops Wulfsige of London(d. 909x926) and Æthelwine of Wells (dep. 1021x1024) had formerly been abbot of Evesham (ff. 6r, 7r), thesecond entry being found in John of Worcester’s preliminary matter; furthermore, a slightly later annotationbeside the name of Bishop Ecgwine of Worcester (d. 717) states ‘Hic construxit cenobium Eoueshammense’(f. 9r).

88 Alongside the account of the dedication of ‘Medeshamstede’ by Archbishop Deusdedit of Canterbury (d. 664)— itself unusual in a work otherwise focusing on national affairs — a mediaeval scribe has written the morefamiliar name ‘.Burg.’ (Peterborough) (f. 59v); while the foundation within the fenland of the abbeys ofThorney and Ramsey is remarked in a very similar hand, a third name — most probably that of Peterborough— having been cropped by a binder (the upper margin of f. 65r). (The last-named events, with the tenth-century restoration of the religious community at Peterborough, are themselves noticed in the universalchronicle.)



MS. F contains no sign of mediaeval provenance, but a sixteenth- or early-seventeenth-century signature ‘Thomas Barnes’ is to be found in the lower segment of f. 27r. At present,Barnes defies identification: he may have been an acquaintance of Sir Robert Cotton, or amuch earlier owner of this booklet.

Q olim Elverum, Folkebiblioteket, MS. 1, ff. 97r-98v ?West England saec. xii2

The Elverum manuscript is a theological miscellany, comprising works by Hugh of Saint-Victor, Richard of Saint-Victor and Bernard of Clairvaux, among them being the prologueto Hugh’s Chronicle. A detailed study of this book has assigned its origin to England, andmore specifically to the West Country; but a separate, more cursory survey has proposedeither France or England as its home.89 Of these two alternatives, the English candidature ismuch to be preferred.

The mediaeval history of this manuscript is unknown, the earliest indication ofownership being ‘Lib. Ric. <followed by an erasure>’, dated 30 November 1685 (f. 1r).Another two Englishmen subsequently inscribed MS. Q, namely one ‘Thomas Bichoppers’(f. 120v), and James Everett, a Methodist preacher and writer (d. 1872) (f. iir).That volumewas subsequently purchased by Helge Vaeringsaasen in 1893, from an unknown party, andbequeathed to the Folkebiblioteket at Elverum in 1917.This last collection was divided intotwo in 1976, after which our book has regrettably gone astray.

The most significant feature for localizing MS. Q during the Middle Ages is the presenceof Drogo’s Meditatio in passionem et resurrectionem Domini (ff. 45v-53r), in a version foundonly in England.90 Other copies of the same treatise have been identified in two survivingbooks from St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester (Hereford, Cathedral Library, MSS. O.I.2, ff. 11r-15r, and O.II.8, ff. 34r-40r), another from Worcester (Worcester, Cathedral Library, MS. Q.48, ff. 50r-60v), and a fourth volume from the same region (Eton, College Library, MS. 38,ff. 203v-210v).91 Extracts are likewise attested in a book from Buildwas Abbey (Shropshire)(Oxford, Balliol College, MS. 150, sermo lxxiii) and in three other English witnesses(Lincoln, Cathedral Library, MS. 201 [C.3.6], ff. 94r-95r; BL, Royal MS. 4 B. X, ff. 58r-59r;and Oxford, Allestree Library, MS. F.1.1, f. 281r).92 All nine manuscripts were transcribedbetween the middle of the twelfth century and the first half of the thirteenth: three also

89 Gjerlöw, ‘A Twelfth-Century Victorine or Cistercian Manuscript’; Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos vonSt.Viktor, p. 38.

90 Gjerlöw, ‘A Twelfth-Century Victorine or Cistercian Manuscript’, p. 317; Jean Leclercq, Recueil d’études sursaint Bernard et ses écrits, vol. i (Rome, 1962), pp. 105-6.

91 R.A. B. Mynors & R. M.Thomson, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Hereford Cathedral, with a contribution onthe bindings by Michael Gullick (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 3-5, 14-15;Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of theMedieval Manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library, p. 148; N. R. Ker & A. J. Piper, Medieval Manuscripts in BritishLibraries, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1969-92), vol. ii, pp. 666-72, further noting (p. 673) that the copy in another Englishbook (Eton College, MS. 39, ff. 102r-110v) belongs to a separate version.

92 R. A. B. Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College Oxford (Oxford, 1963), pp. 135-6; Jennifer M.Sheppard, The Buildwas Books: Book Production, Acquisition and Use at an English Cistercian Monastery, 1165-c. 1400, Oxford Bibliographical Society, 3rd series, ii (Oxford, 1997) (no. 22), pp. 109-13; R. M.Thomson,Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 162-4; Warner &Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, vol. i, pp. 85-6; Ker & Piper,Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, vol. iii, pp. 593-5.



contain Hugh’s commentary on the Lamentations of Jeremiah (Eton 38, Hereford O.II.8,Worcester Q. 48); two his Homilie in Ecclesiasten (Elverum 1, Hereford O.II.8); and anotherthree Richard of Saint-Victor’s Beniamin minor (Elverum 1, Hereford O.I.2, HerefordO.II.8). It can therefore be deduced that the Elverum manuscript is of probable WestCountry origin, the contents suggesting that it possibly belonged to a Victorine orCistercian convent.93

MS. Q supplies solely the prologue of Hugh’s Chronicle, inserted among selections fromhis letters and minor works. The final paragraph, which applies to the historical tablesforming the core of Hugh’s handbook, has been omitted.This is no real surprise, since theprologue was valued as a guide to mnemonic training.

S Stowe MS. 4, ff. 267r-272v North-East France saec. xiiex

Stowe 4 contains a series of excerpts from Hugh’s Chronicle (ff. 267r-272v), appended to alate-twelfth-century copy of Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica (ff. 2r-266v), which lacksthe continuation added by Peter of Poitiers.94 (Comestor completed this work while inretirement at Saint-Victor, early in the 1170s.)95 The entire codex should be attributed to asingle scriptorium, and a single campaign of transcription. Its handwriting is characteristicof the region centring on the duchy of Lorraine, while the decoration is restricted to simplered initials and rubrics.96 Unfortunately, Stowe 4 contains no mark of mediaeval ownership,because the first two leaves of Historia scholastica have become detached.97

Only the tables of Hugh’s work are represented here, and their order has been rearranged.The first item is the kingdoms of the world (§III), followed in turn by the table of rulerssince the time of Christ (§IX), miscellaneous lists of Hebrew names (§V), geographicalinventory (§VI), and the list of historians (§X).The usual columnar arrangement has beenabandoned, much to the detriment of the original scheme. These excerpts contain twofeatures valuable for dating and localizing this book. First, the catalogue of dukes ofNormandy (f. 270v) ends with Henry the Younger (1170-83), son of Henry II, none of theother lists in S having been updated. Secondly, a later mediaeval scribe has added new names to the list of European cities (f. 272r), namely Metz, Utrecht, Magdeburg, Riga and Prague,with Senones (Vosges) being placed at the head of another column (fig. 6).98 Both Metz and

93 Gjerlöw, ‘A Twelfth-Century Victorine or Cistercian Manuscript’, pp. 337-8.94 Revising the dating proposed apud Catalogue of the Stowe Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols. (London,

1895-6), vol. i, pp. 3-4.This copy of Historia scholastica is not recorded in the check-list published by FriedrichStegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. (Madrid, 1950-80), vol. iv, pp. 288-90. For the authorshipof the section on Acts of the Apostles, see Moore, The Works of Peter of Poitiers, pp. 118-22.

95 D. Luscombe, ‘Peter Comestor’, in Katherine Walsh & Diana Wood (eds.), The Bible in the Medieval World:Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley, Studies in Church History, Subsidia, iv (Oxford, 1985), pp. 109-29 (pp. 118-21).

96 The script should be compared with Charles Samaran & Robert Marichal, Catalogue des manuscrits en écriturelatine portant des indications de date, de lieu ou de copiste, v, Est de la France (Paris, 1965).

97 According to a note made on behalf of a subsequent owner, Ralph Palmer III of Little Chelsea (f. 1r), theseleaves were missing by 1747.

98 The addition of Senones may be insignificant, since it already formed part of Hugh’s list: Baron, ‘Hugues deSaint-Victor lexicographe’, p. 145.



Senones are in Lorraine, implying that this book was made nearby, quite possibly at aVictorine house. This manuscript ends in its present state (f. 272v) with a short series ofcommentaries on Scripture, untraceable to any known authority.99

The original contents and history of Stowe 4 can be further illuminated by the survivalof what is a virtual replica, now Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preussischer Kulturbesitz,MS. theol. 864.100 This second book was produced in the fifteenth century, for anunidentified home: it contains Comestor’s Historia scholastica, with the addition of thesection on Acts of the Apostles (ff. 1r-290v); the identical excerpts from Hugh’s Chronicle,in the same order (ff. 290v-297r); the commentaries on Scripture (f. 297r/v); and theCompendium historie in genealogia Christi of Peter of Poitiers (ff. 298r-310v).There can be nodoubt that Stowe 4 was a direct ancestor of Berlin MS. theol. 864. In turn, it is clear thatStowe 4 is imperfect at its end as well as its beginning, as might have otherwise beenanticipated from its present quire arrangement.

Ralph de Diceto

Ralph de Diceto, consecutively archdeacon of Middlesex and dean of St Paul’s Cathedral,London, was author of two substantial historical works, together with numerous shortertracts on the same theme.101 His Abbreuiationes chronicorum spans the period from theCreation to A.D. 1148; the narrative is continued in Ymagines historiarum, to the coronationof King John (27 May 1199); while Ralph’s minor writings, collected as the Opuscula,comprise various surveys of historical subjects plus excerpts from his own and otherchronicles.102 Ralph’s works have conventionally been assigned to the final years of theirauthor’s career.103 Indeed, the oldest surviving witness of these treatises (London, Lambeth

98 The addition of Senones may be insignificant, since it already formed part of Hugh’s list: Baron, ‘Hugues deSaint-Victor lexicographe’, p. 145.

99 These final four paragraphs begin ‘Iosyas rex iustus tres habuit filios’. However, this is not to be equated withthe commentaries on the Lamentations of Jeremiah of either Jerome or Rabanus Maurus, both of whichcontain that sentence: Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, Series Latina [Patrologia Latina], ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols.(Paris, 1844-64), xxiv, col. 813; cxi, col. 973.

100 Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St. Viktor, p. 42; Valentin Rose, Verzeichniss der LateinischenHandschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, ii, Die Handschriften der Kurfürstlichen Bibliothek und derKurfürstlichen Lande, part 3 (Berlin, 1905), pp. 1018-20.This relationship has hitherto been unrecognized.

101 For Ralph’s life and writings, see Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs; D. E. Greenway,‘The Successionto Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul’s’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xxxix (1966), pp. 86-95;John Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300, i, St Paul’s, London, ed. Diana E. Greenway (London,1968), pp. 5-6, 15-16, 79, 90;Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974),pp. 230-6; Beryl Smalley, The Becket Conflict and the Schools:A Study of Intellectuals in Politics (Oxford, 1973),pp. 230-4; and eadem, Historians in the Middle Ages (London, 1974), pp. 114-19.

102 Certain aspects of these works have been scrutinized by C. Duggan & A. Duggan,‘Ralph de Diceto, Henry IIand Becket with an Appendix on Decretal Letters’, in Brian Tierney & Peter Linehan (eds.), Authority andPower: Studies on Medieval Law and Government presented to Walter Ullmann on his Seventieth Birthday(Cambridge, 1980), pp. 59-81; and J. Gillingham, ‘Historians without Hindsight: Coggeshall, Diceto andHowden on the Early Years of John’s Reign’, in S. D. Church (ed.), King John: New Interpretations(Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 1-26 (pp. 8-9).

103 Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, vols. i, p. xciv; ii, pp. viii-x, xv-xvi; Gransden, Historical Writing inEngland, p. 231.



Fig. 6. Lists of cities of the world and historians of Antiquity (col. 2, lines 9-26). Stowe MS. 4, f. 272r



Palace, MS. 8), produced at St Paul’s itself, was compiled and revised during the late 1180sand the 1190s, though copied in part from an earlier exemplar or notes.104 The precise dateof Ralph’s death — commemorated at St Paul’s on 22 November — is unknown, butpresumably occurred in either 1199 or 1200.

Ralph de Diceto made explicit use of the historical handbook assembled by Hugh ofSaint-Victor.105 It has previously been recognized that Ralph quoted verbatim from theprologue’s opening paragraph in the introductory section to Abbreuiationes chronicorum; headopted Hugh’s explanatory diagram of the Creation, together with the chronology to theIncarnation (§§I-II); while Ralph’s account of the origins of the Franks has also been traceddirectly to his predecessor’s work.106 This indebtedness can now be extended to include thelists of secular rulers — Roman, German and Byzantine emperors, kings of the Franks,Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians, Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Lombards, dukes ofNormandy, Sicily and Apulia, and counts of Anjou and Flanders — which form part of theOpuscula, and originated as §§III and IX of Hugh’s handbook.107 Ralph’s first version ofthese tables, as represented in Lambeth MS. 8 (ff. 153v-154v), most closely reflects his sourcematerial: regrettably, the published edition invariably reproduces the revised lists found inthe later manuscripts, and omits a few entirely, most notably the dukes of the Normans andcounts of Anjou (Lambeth MS. 8, f. 154r).108

Equally significant is the indirect influence of Hugh’s Chronicle on the historicalconsciousness of Ralph de Diceto. It is possible, for example, that the prologue’srecommendations for the organization of material, and its stress on the physical layout ofthe page, inspired Ralph to devise his system of marginal symbols, used to draw attentionto particular topics of interest.109 It would likewise seem that Ralph’s determination to makehis writings more accessible, as exemplified by the abstracts which form the Opuscula, wasconditioned by his reading of Hugh of Saint-Victor.110 The list of famous historians

104 Montague Rhodes James & Claude Jenkins, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of LambethPalace (Cambridge, 1930-2), pp. 20-1. According to Stubbs (vols. i, pp. 23-4; ii, pp. viii-ix), Lambeth 8 statesthat Ymagines historiarum originally terminated with the year 1190. In fact, the entry in question once read1193 (‘.m.c.xc.iii.’), the final three digits having been erased to allow for its further continuation, and neverreplaced (f. 6r). In BL, Cotton MS. Claudius E. III (Stubbs’s MS. B), the same notice reads 1197 (‘.m.c.xc.’followed by a space, with ‘.vii.’ being noted in the margin) (f. 6v).

105 Zinn,‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon’, pp. 39-41; Guenée, ‘Les Premiers pas de l’histoire del’historiographie’, pp. 139-40, 143-4; Gransden, ‘Prologues in the Historiography of Twelfth-CenturyEngland’, p. 139.

106 Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, vol. i, pp. xxi, 31, 34-7, 47, 49-50, 52-3, 79-80; Zinn, ‘TheInfluence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon’, pp. 38-54; Smalley, The Becket Conflict, pp. 232-3. It is impossibleat present to determine from which manuscript-tradition of Hugh’s Chronicle these passages are derived.

107 According to Zinn,‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon’, pp. 54-6 and n. 82, these lists paralleledthose in the Chronicle, but ‘none exhibits enough similarity to Hugh’s work to warrant a suggestion ofdependence’. However, Zinn stated this without having examined Lambeth MS. 8 (p. 45, n. 44).

108 Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, vol. ii, pp. 213-22, 241-2, 267-70, 275-6. Both the omitted listsconcluded originally with Henry II of England (d. 1189), the name of Richard I being added in anotherhand.

109 Smalley, The Becket Conflict, pp. 232-3; eadem, Historians in the Middle Ages, pp. 118-19. For the list of signs inLambeth MS. 8 (f. 1v), see Gransden, Historical Writing in England, plate VII.

110 Noted by Gransden, Historical Writing in England, pp. 233-4, without direct reference to Hugh.



incorporated by Ralph de Diceto in the introduction of Abbreuiationes chronicorum alsomirrors the similar treatment by Hugh.111 It is noteworthy how few of the forty-one namesrecorded by Ralph correspond to the thirty-two in Hugh’s handbook; but it can surely beno coincidence that both catalogues begin with Pompeius Trogus, a Roman historian in thefirst century before Christ.112

Although Ralph de Diceto was undeniably acquainted with the Chronicle composed byHugh, there is no trace of the manuscript to which he had access.113 The origins of thatexemplar remain unestablished. It has previously been suggested that Ralph’s copy wasborrowed from the monks of St Albans, or acquired through the mediation of Bishop Arnulfof Lisieux (d. circa 1182), his friend and correspondent, who retired to the abbey of Saint-Victor.114 However, there is another, simpler explanation to account for the witness availableat St Paul’s. Ralph had himself been a student in Paris, presumably no earlier than the 1140s.It is highly likely that he would have first encountered Hugh’s Chronicle during his residencein that city.115

The St Albans connection nonetheless deserves more detailed consideration. Simon,successively prior and abbot (1167-83) of that house, is known to have written to PriorRichard (1162-73), his famous counterpart at Saint-Victor, lamenting that many of Hugh’streatises could not be obtained in England.116 Simon enclosed a list (the contents of whichare not recorded) of those works which St Albans already possessed, and requested that amember of his community be permitted to visit Paris in order to transcribe the remainder.It cannot be proved whether a monk of St Albans ever fulfilled this mission, but it is likelythat Simon’s petition received a positive response: an inventory of Hugh’s writings(Indiculum omnium scriptorum magistri Hugonis de sancto Uictore), arguably forming Richard’sreply, is preserved uniquely in Oxford, Merton College, MS. 49, ff. 81r-82v, resembling asimilar list of St Albans’s books compiled during the second half of the twelfth century.117

Furthermore, it should be noted that the convent of St Albans had obtained a copy ofHugh’s Chronicle by the early years of the fourteenth century, as recorded in the unioncatalogue (Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum ueterum) compiled by the OxfordFranciscans.118 On the other hand, it is clear that St Albans need not have been the solemedium for the Chronicle’s dissemination in England. Numerous religious houses were inpossession of that text, and might feasibly have loaned their copy to Ralph de Diceto, if onewere not already available at St Paul’s.

111 Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, vols. i, pp. 20-4; ii, pp. xvii-xix.112 The other names in common are Hegesippus, Josephus, Justin, Orosius and Sextus Iulius Africanus. Hugh’s

full list is reproduced in the Appendix.113 Hugh’s Chronicle is not recorded in any of the published library catalogues cited by N. R. Ker, ‘Books at

St Paul’s Cathedral before 1313’, in his Books, Collectors and Libraries: Studies in the Medieval Heritage (London,1985), pp. 209-42 (p. 209).

114 Zinn, ‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’s Chronicon’, pp. 59-61.115 Of particular value in this context is the letter addressed to Ralph on his second visit to the Parisian schools,

provisionally dated 1160: Frank Barlow (ed.), The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux (no. 26), Camden Society, 3rdseries, lxi (London, 1939), pp. 35-6.

116 Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne, cxcvi (epistle viii), cols. 1228-9; Zinn, ‘The Influence of Hugh of St.Victor’sChronicon’, pp. 60-1; Rodney M.Thomson, Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1066-1235, 2 vols. (Woodbridge,1982), vol. i, pp. 64-6.

117 R.W. Hunt, ‘The Library of the Abbey of St Albans’, in M. B. Parkes & Andrew G.Watson (eds.), MedievalScribes, Manuscripts & Libraries: Essays presented to N. R. Ker (London, 1978), pp. 251-4, 269-73; Thomson,Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey, vol. i, p. 65.

118 Mynors, Rouse & Rouse (eds.), Registrum Anglie, p. 259.



The Book-Lists

Pre-Dissolution records attest to the presence of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle in elevenmonastic libraries in the British Isles (Barnwell, Brinkburn, Christ Church Canterbury,Crowland, Kelso, Leicester, Merton, Newminster, St Albans, Stoneleigh and St Mary’sYork).119 The late-fifteenth-century library catalogue of Augustinian Leicester Abbeyindicates that those canons had two copies of this work;120 John Leland (d. 1552) witnessedanother in the book-collection of the Augustinians of Barnwell (Cambridgeshire);121 afifteenth-century catalogue from St Mary’s, York, records a manuscript of the same text,with a note questioning the ascription of authorship;122 while Hugh’s Chronicle is the finalitem in a book described in the early-fourteenth-century catalogue compiled for ChristChurch, Canterbury.123 The York and Christ Church copies of the Chronicle are similarlynoticed in the fourteenth-century Franciscan survey of Insular libraries (Registrum Anglie),together with those in a further seven religious houses (Brinkburn, Crowland, Kelso,Merton, Newminster, St Albans and Stoneleigh).124 In two instances, the other contents ofthese books are reported. One of the Leicester copies was preceded by Gregory the Great’sRegula pastoralis and Jerome’s Liber questionum hebraicarum in Genesim; while that at ChristChurch followed Hugh’s commentary on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Eutropius’sBreuiarium historie Romane,Richard Pluto’s Unde malum and De gradibus uirtutum, and Adelardof Bath’s Questiones naturales.125 The title of Hugh’s handbook is recorded variously as ‘Hugode iijbus circumstanciis gestorum, personis, locis et temporibus’ (Leicester), ‘Cronica magistriHugonis compendiosa’ (in the library catalogue of St Mary’s, York), and ‘Chronica Hugonisde S. Victore. Fili sapientia thesaurus est’ (by Leland). This title is conflated somewhat inRegistrum Anglie, where it reads ‘Cronica de tribus maximis circumstanciis’.

These records demonstrate that Hugh’s Chronicle was once in the possession of fiveBenedictine convents in England and southern Scotland (Christ Church Canterbury,Crowland, Kelso, St Albans and St Mary’s York), together with four Augustinian houses(Barnwell, Brinkburn, Leicester and Merton) and two Cistercian abbeys (Newminster andStoneleigh).This repeats the pattern in mainland Europe,where the Chronicle was reportedlymost popular with members of the regular monastic Orders, and less so among theirmendicant counterparts.126

119 There were possibly other copies at Bridlington Priory (East Riding, Yorkshire) and Durham CathedralPriory, described in both instances as ‘Cronica Hugonis’. However, these may equally be identified as theChronicle of Hugh of Fleury (often ascribed to Ivo of Chartres):Webber & Watson (eds.), The Libraries of theAugustinian Canons (A4.53), p. 15; Thomas Rud, Codicum Manuscriptorum Ecclesiæ Cathedralis DunelmensisCatalogus Classicus (Durham, 1825), p. 433; Catalogi Veteres Librorum Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Dunelm. [ed. BeriahBotfield], Publications of the Surtees Society, [vii] (London, 1838), pp. 31, 109.This Durham witness, attestedin 1391 and again in 1416, was preceded by Palladius’s De agricultura.

120 Webber & Watson (eds.), The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons (A20.290c, 358-9), pp. 171, 188.The ‘TabulaBiblie’ (A20.290d) which follows De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum must surely represent Hugh’shistorical lists.

121 Webber & Watson (eds.), The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons (A2.1), p. 6.122 Sharpe et al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries (B120.392), p. 723.123 ,James (ed.), The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (§175), p. 36.124 Mynors, Rouse & Rouse (eds.), Registrum Anglie (R97.34), pp. 234, 249, 254, 259, 275, 299, 302, 305, 312-13.125 Richard Pluto was a monk of Christ Church: neither of his works listed here are known to have survived.

The second Leicester copy was reportedly found in the same volume as Freculf of Lisieux’s Chronicle, thoughit is stated elsewhere (A20.614) that this abbey possessed a book containing Freculf ’s work alone: it is possiblethat one of these entries is in error.

126 Goy, Die Überlieferung der Werke Hugos von St.Viktor, p. 43.



127 Mynors, Rouse & Rouse (eds.), Registrum Anglie, p. 313; Sharpe et al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries,pp. 606-8.

128 Bermondsey (Sharpe et al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries [B10.44], p. 27); Christ Church, Canterbury(Cambridge, Corpus Christi College [CCCC], MS. 76, ff. 2-19, 22-24); St Albans (BL, Royal MS. 13 E.VI);Southwark (BL, Cotton MS. Faustina A. VIII, ff. 52r-110v); St Mary’s, York (BL, Add. MS. 40007); Lewes(BL, Cotton MS. Otho D.VII, severely damaged by fire); Osney (BL, Cotton MS.Tiberius A. IX, ff. 2r-51v);Winchester (BL, Cotton MS. Claudius E. III, ff. 3v-168r). Another, unprovenanced witness of Ralph’sOpuscula is CCCC MS. 313, vol. ii. Cotton Claudius E. III, Royal 13 E. VI and CCCC 76 are all productsof the St Paul’s scriptorium, and should presumably be regarded as presentation copies.

129 Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, vol. ii, pp. lviii-lix; Gransden, Historical Writing in England, pp. 332,359, 364, 366-7, 395-6, 412, 444, 504; eadem, Historical Writing in England, ii, c. 1307 to the Early SixteenthCentury (London, 1982), p. 126; C. R. Cheney, ‘The Making of the Dunstable Annals, A.D. 33 to 1242’, inhis Medieval Texts and Scribes (Oxford, 1973), pp. 209-30 (pp. 214-19).

130 R.Vaughan,‘The Handwriting of Matthew Paris’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, i (1949-53), pp. 376-94 (pp. 381, 391).

131 I should like to thank Michelle Brown, Diana Greenway, Michael Gullick and Colin Tite, all of whom haveassisted immeasurably with the writing of this survey.

Conclusions

The present analysis outlines the evidence, some of it explicit, for the reception of Hugh ofSaint-Victor’s Chronicle in the British Isles.At least fifteen religious communities owned copiesof this handbook, encompassing convents with a rich intellectual heritage (Christ Church,St Albans and Worcester) and less prominent houses whose literary history is comparativelyobscure (Brinkburn and Deeping).127 There can be no doubt that other English examples wereformerly in existence: even if Hugh’s Chronicle may never have been widely disseminated, itreached a greater potential audience than has hitherto been appreciated.

The surviving testimony also permits speculation with regard to the production andtransmission of this work. Five of the extant manuscripts of English origin or provenancewere transcribed between the middle of the twelfth century and circa 1250, therebymirroring the Chronicle’s heyday in mainland Europe. It can be postulated that most of thecopies attested in Insular book-lists were made at a similar period: that at Christ Church,for example, contained four other twelfth-century texts, the most recent author being theCanterbury monk, Richard Pluto (d. circa 1181). It is equally noteworthy that thetranscription of Hugh’s Chronicle was sometimes divided between two scribes, one takingresponsibility for the prologue and the other the accompanying tables, as in MSS. J and E.The second portion was clearly the more arduous task: it cannot often have been allocatedto an inexperienced scribe. Likewise, each witness of the Chronicle, with the notableexception of that attested at St Paul’s, is associated with a house occupied by regular monksor canons. That work seemingly had most relevance to those religious confined within thecloister, both as a compendium for the study of Biblical and mediaeval history, and as a toolfor enhancing the memory’s capability.

There is one other dimension to the use of this Chronicle in the British Isles. No Englishauthor scrutinized that compilation more thoroughly than Ralph de Diceto, whose ownhistorical writings were demonstrably obtained by the convents of Bermondsey, ChristChurch Canterbury, St Albans, Southwark and St Mary’s York, and perhaps by theircounterparts at Lewes, Osney and Winchester.128 These works were further utilized by thechroniclers of Bury St Edmunds, Dunstable, Norwich and Waverley, at St Albans by Rogerof Wendover (d. 1236), Matthew Paris (d. circa 1259) and Thomas Walsingham (d. circa 1422),and by the Dominican friar Nicholas Trevet (fl. 1334).129 Matthew Paris even annotated thesurviving St Albans copy of Abbreuiationes chronicorum.130 The inference is clear: these laterhistorians were all indebted to Ralph; while he in turn owed much to his study of Hugh’shandbook. It can confidently be asserted that Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle exertedgreater influence upon English historical scholarship than has previously been envisaged.131



Appendix:The Historians of Antiquity

Hugh’s list of ancient historians has previously been published by Georg Waitz, based on thecopy in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS. lat. 4891, with additional readings fromthat in Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS. theol. 350.132 Most of these names have beenidentified successfully by Bernard Guenée, who also consulted the version in BN, MS. lat.15009.133 It should be noted, however, that ‘Cornelius’ represents Cornelius Tacitus,occurring in Orosius, Historia aduersum paganos (VII.27), in the combination ‘PompeiumTrogum et Cornelium Tacitum’ (and not Cornelius Nepos = Dares of Phrygia as suggestedby Guenée).134

‘De nominibus historiographorum’ is reprinted here in order to facilitate comparisonwith the similar catalogue compiled by Ralph de Diceto, part of the introductory matter tohis Abbreuiationes chronicorum.135 The present text is that of Cotton Julius B. XIII (fig. 7), butStowe 4 (f. 272rb) has also been examined: this second BL witness contains manyorthographical variants, and is headed ‘Nomina hystoriographorum’ (see fig. 6).

The following abbreviations have been employed for Hugh’s sources:Gregory: Gregory of Tours, Historiarum libri decemJosephus: Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (in Latin translation)Livy: Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita libriOrosius: Paulus Orosius, Historia aduersum paganos

Cotton MS. Julius B. XIII, f. 27v

De nominibus historiographorum.

[1] Pompeius Tro<g>us. Pompeius Trogus (first century B.C.), author of Historiae Philippicae, nowknown mainly through an epitome by Justinus: Orosius (VII.27 etc.)

[2] Cornelius. Cornelius Tacitus (fl. A.D. 118), author (among other works) of the Agricola,the Germania, the Histories and the Annals: Orosius (VII.27 etc.)

[3] Iulianus Affricanus. Sextus Iulius Africanus (fl. c. A.D. 220), Christian philosopher and authorof Chronographies in 5 books, a source of Eusebius’s Chronicle

[4] Iustinus. Justin (Marcus Iunianus Iustinus), author of a Latin epitome of PompeiusTrogus, Historiae Philippicae: Orosius (I.8, 10; IV.26)

[5] Palefatus, de Palaephatus (late fourth century B.C.), author of a Peri apiston (‘On incredibilibus mundi. incredible things’), which survives in a single excerpt: Orosius (I.12-13)

[6] Herodotus de regibus Herodotus of Halicarnassus (d. c. 420 B.C.), author of the earliest extant Egiptiis. historical narrative, book II of which deals with Egypt: Josephus (VIII.157 etc.)

[7] Renatus Frigeridus. Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, author of a lost History: Gregory (II.8-9)[8] Sulpitius Alexander. Sulpicius Alexander (fourth century A.D.), also author of a lost History:

Gregory (II.9)[9] Valentinus. a misreading of Gregory (II.9)[10] Fabius. Quintus Fabius Pictor (fl. 216 B.C.), reputedly the first Roman historian, who

wrote in Greek: Orosius (IV.13); Livy (I.44 etc.)[11] Ireneus. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (d. c. A.D. 202), Christian theologian and author of

Aduersus hereses, primarily extant only in Latin translation

132 Waitz, ‘Beschreibung von Handschriften’, pp. 307-8.133 Guenée, ‘Les Premiers pas de l’histoire de l’historiographie’, pp. 137-9.134 Ibid., p. 137.135 Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, vols. i, pp. 20-4; ii, pp. xvii-xix.



Fig. 7. Hugh’s list of ancient historians. Cotton MS. Julius B. XIII, f. 27v



[12] Cinnius Alimentius. Lucius Cincius Alimentus (fl. 210 B.C.), author of a history of Rome (in Greek): Livy (XXI.38)

[13] Helius. Quintus Aelius Tubero (late-first century B.C.), author of Annales and a Roman history in at least 14 books: (?)Livy (IV.23)

[14] Claudius qui et annales Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, author of a history of Rome in at least 23 Acilianos de Greco in books, and reputedly translator of a history of Rome (in Greek) by Gaius Latinum transtulit. Acilius: Livy (XXV.39); Orosius (IV.20 etc.)

[15] Suetonius Tranquillus. Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus) (d. c. A.D. 130), author of De uirisillustribus and De uita Caesarum: Orosius (VI.7 etc.)

[16] Alexander Polistor. Alexander ‘Polyhistor’ (first century B.C.), compiler of various treatises ongeography, philosophy and marvels: Josephus (I.240-1)

[17] Ieronimus Egiptius de Hieronymus the Egyptian, who composed a history of Phoenicia: Josephusantiquitate Phenicie. (I.94)

[18] Manasseas Damascenus. a conflation of Mnaseas of Patura (fl. c. 200 B.C.), author of a collection ofmythological tales, with Nicolaus of Damascus (no. 25), derived from thefaulty Latin translation (‘Mnaseas Damascenus’) of Josephus: Josephus (I.94)

[19] Horosus de istoria Berosus (fl. 290 B.C.), author of a Babylonian history in at least 3 books,Caldeorum. now preserved only in fragments: Josephus (I.93 etc.)

[20] Megastenis de istoria Megasthenes (d. 290 B.C.), author of a history of India: Josephus (X.227)Indica.

[21] Diocles de historia (?)Diocles of Peparethos (probably third century B.C.), whose work was Coloniarum. utilized by Quintus Fabius Pictor: Josephus (X.228)

[22] Philostratus, de historiis Philostratus: Josephus (X.228)Indicis et Phenicis.

[23] Ouidius Sabarcides de Agatharchides of Cnidus (fl. 145 B.C.), Greek historian and philosopher:successoribus Alexandri. Josephus (XII.5-7)

[24] Polibius Megalopolitanus, Polybius of Megalopolis (d. c. 118 B.C.), author of Histories (in Greek) in 40de Tholomeis. books, of which only the first five survive intact: Josephus (XII.135-7, 358-9);

Orosius (IV.20)[25] Nicholaus. Nicolaus of Damascus (first century B.C.), author of a universal history in

144 books, repeating no. 18: Josephus (I.94, 108 etc.)[26] Arnobius rethor de a probable conflation of Arnobius the Elder (fl. A.D. 310), teacher of rhetoric

diuersitate linguarum in and author of Aduersus nationes in 7 books, with Arnobius Junior (fifth expositione psalmi .ciiii. . century A.D.), who wrote allegorical commentaries on the Psalms

[27] Titus Lunus. Livy (Titus Livius) (d. A.D. 17), author of Ab urbe condita libri in 142 books,of which only books 1-10 and 21-45 survive intact: Orosius (III.21 etc.)

[28] Anneus Florus. Lucius Annaeus Florus (second century A.D.), author of Epitome bellorumomnium annorum .dcc.

[29] Iosephus antiquitatum et Josephus (Flavius Josephus) (first century A.D.), author of De antiquitatibusde excidio Ierosolimorum. Iudaicis and De bello Iudaico: Orosius (VII.6, 9)

[30] Egesippus. Hegesippus (second century A.D.), author (according to Eusebius) of 5 books of Memoirs

[31] Orosius de hormesta Paulus Orosius (fl. A.D. 417), author of Historia aduersum paganos(De ormesta mundi) in 7 books

[32] Victor de historia Victor, bishop of Vita (fl. A.D. 488), author of Historia persecutionis Africanae Affricana. prouinciae

Documents

The English Reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Chronicle · remained subject to speculation.5 Among mediaeval ... occident au XIIe siècle’,Comptes rendus de l’Académie des