Scalacronica
The Scalacronica (1066–1363) is a
Britain
until 1363, and is one of the few early chronicles written by a layman.
Overview
The only extant
Henry VIII the antiquary John Leland prepared an abstract of the Scalacronica which he included in his Collectanea. This abstract has proven useful as the original manuscript currently lacks part of the material for the years 1339 and 1356, and all the material from 1340 to 1355, the years in which the author himself had direct experience of events. In addition, at some time before 1567, Nicholas Wotton, Dean of Canterbury, made numerous extracts from the Salacronica (BL MS Harley 902). No complete edition of the original manuscript of the Salacronica has been published, although an edition published in Edinburgh in 1836 (edited by Joseph Stevenson for the Maitland Club) contains the text dealing with the period after the Norman Conquest.[2]
The title of the Scalacronica is not only an allusion to one of its principal sources, the Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden, but also a pun on Grey's surname, as the Norman French word gree meant "step" or "stair", as did the Latin scala, and the title could thus be translated as the "Scaling-Ladder Chronicle", the ladder being a Grey family badge.[2]
In the
Thomas Grey, as soldiers in the Anglo-Scottish and French wars during those reigns.[3]
See also
Notes
- ^ King 2005b, p. xx.
- ^ a b c Archer 1890; Maxwell 1907, pp. viii–x; King 2005a, p. 57; Thiolier 2004.
- ^ Maxwell 1907, p. ix; Archer 1890.
References
- Archer, Thomas Andrew (1890). "Gray, Thomas (c.1369?)". Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1890. Vol. 23. pp. 21–2. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
- King, Andy (2005a). "Scaling the Ladder: The Rise and Rise of the Grays of Heaton, c.1296-c.1415". In Liddy, Christian D. (ed.). North-east England in the Later Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp. 57–74.
- King, Andy, ed. (2005b). Sir Thomas Gray: Scalacronica, 1272-1363. Publications of the ISBN 978-0-85444-064-1.
- Maxwell, Herbert, trans. (1907). Scalacronica; The reigns of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III as Recorded by Sir Thomas Gray. Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Thiolier, J.C. (2004). "Gray , Sir Thomas (d.1369)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11355. Retrieved 17 October 2012. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)