Flores Historiarum
The Flores Historiarum (Flowers of History) is the name of two different (though related)
Wendover's Flores Historiarum
The first Flores Historiarum was created by St Albans writer,
The book has survived in one thirteenth-century manuscript in the
The sources brought together in the Flores include
The date of creation of the earliest nucleus of the compilation has been disputed. The manuscript in the Bodleian Library, written out ca. 1300, contains a marginal note against the annal for 1188 that reads "up to here in Abbot John's chronicle book".[8] Luard took this to mean that there had existed a core of the Flores going up to 1188, the creation of which had been supervised by John of Wallingford at some point during his tenure as abbot of St Albans between 1195 and 1214.[9] On the other hand, 1188 is also when the first manuscript of Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora concludes, with the end of the reign of Henry II, so an alternative view is that this may have been the chronicle book referred to, which may have been in the possession of a later Abbot John at the turn of the 14th century when the manuscript was written out.[10]
Considering the text itself, some of the earlier parts of the work draw heavily on the Historia scholastica (ca. 1173) of Petrus Comestor, a copy of which was not introduced into the monastery until John of Wallingford's abbacy.[11] (Though Luard elsewhere notes some differences between the treatment of Comestor and that of some other writers).[12] The work of Diceto, which is used throughout the Flores but especially after 1066, was also not copied for the Abbey until 1204.[13] In its final form the annal for 1179 contains a reference to the Lateran Council of 1215,[14] and Vaughan finds that all of the extant manuscripts ultimately descend from a common ancestral exemplar that can be no earlier than 1228.[15] However, Vaughan does not rule out the possibility that there might have been some earlier compilation used by Wendover,[16] and finds some evidence for such a compilation, extending perhaps to 1066.[17]
Paris's Flores Historiarum, and its continuation
The second and more widely distributed Flores Historiarum runs from the creation to 1326 (although some of the earlier manuscripts end at 1306). It was compiled by various persons and quickly acquired contemporary popularity, for it was continued by many hands in many manuscript traditions. Among twenty
It was written originally at St Albans Abbey and later at Westminster Abbey. The earliest manuscript, the basis for all the various continuations, is conserved in Chetham's Library, Manchester. This manuscript was carried down to 1265, with brief notes and emendations in the hand of Matthew Paris. A continuation carried the chronicle down to 1306; the continuation from 1306 to 1325/26 was compiled at Westminster by Robert of Reading (d. 1325) and another Westminster monk.
The second Flores Historiarum was for many years attributed to a "
The Flores Historiarum is markedly opposed to Robert the Bruce. According to the chronicle, after Bruce had had himself crowned king of Scots in the spring of 1306, Lady Elisabeth Bruce tells her husband: "I reckon that you are a summer king; perhaps you won't be a winter one".[21]
Editions
- Wendover's Flores Historiarum
- (in Latin) Henry Coxe (1841–44): vol 1, vol 2, vol 3, vol 4, Appendix
- John Allen Giles (1849): vol 1, vol 2
- (in Latin)
- 13th–14th century Flores Historiarum
- (in Latin) Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, from a single manuscript (1567).
- (in Latin) Thomas Marsh, (1570): vol
- C. D. Yonge (2 vols, London, 1853): vol 1 vol 2
- (in Latin)
Further reading
- Richard Vaughan (1958), Matthew Paris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; in particular pp. 92–109.
- Albert Hollaender (1944), The pictorial work in the Flores Historiarum of the so-called Matthew of Westminster. (Ms. Chetham 6712)
- Judith Collard (2008), Flores Historiarum Manuscripts: The Illumination of a Late Thirteenth-Century Chronicle Series, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte
Notes
- ^ Volume I, Chapter IX, Section 19 of The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
- ^ "Signing of Magna Carta, Runneymede, 1215". Archived from the original on 2017-03-24. Retrieved 2009-11-20.
- Davis, Henry William Carless (1911). "Roger of Wendover". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 455.
- ^ Frederic Madden (1866), Historia Anglorum, vol 3, xxiii
- ^ F. M. Powicke (1906), Roger of Wendover and the Coggeshall Chronicle, The English Historical Review, 21 (82), pp. 286–296
- (to 1216)
- ^ Vaughan (1958), Matthew Paris, p. 24
- ^ "hic usque in lib. cronic. Johannis abbatis".
- ^ Luard (1874, 1880), Chronica Majora, vol 2 pp.x–xii and vol 7 pp ix–xi
- Proc. Brit. Acad. 30, 148–9, and Galbraith, Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris, p. 16 and note 1. Both cited by Vaughan (1958), Matthew Paris, p. 23
- ^ Luard (1872), Chronica Majora, vol 1 p. xxxii; British Library, Royal MS 4 D VII (illustrated catalogue)
- ^ Luard (1872), Chronica Majora, vol 1 p. xli
- ^ Felix Liebermann (1888), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica SS 28 pp.7–8, cited in Vaughan, Matthew Paris, p.22; British Library, Royal MS 13 E VI (Illustrated catalogue)
- ^ Frederic Madden (1866), Historia Anglorum, vol 3, xxiii
- ^ Vaughan, Matthew Paris, p.28
- ^ Vaughan, Matthew Paris, p.23
- ^ Vaughan, Matthew Paris, pp.96–97
- ^ According to Reginald L. Poole, reviewing Luard's 1890 edition in The English Historical Review 7 (January 1892):146–150 p. 148.
- ^ According to Luard.
- ISBN 978-1108-053-34-1. Retrieved 2023-03-09 – via Google Libri.
- ^ John McKinnell Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend 1843840421-p 69 2005 "According to the Flores Historiarum, these were the words of Lady Elisabeth Bruce to her husband Robert after he had had himself crowned king of Scots in the spring of 1306, as part of his campaign to wrest control of ... ... The implication is of a battle between the 'kings' of Summer and Winter43 in which the 'Summer King' is killed, and also that his consort is hostile to him. We have already seen both features in. 19 Ed. Ill, 130; for other 'summer kings', see E. K. Chambers...