Between 1863 and 1876, the Rolls Series published several works from or about the abbey of St Albans, edited by Henry Thomas Riley (1816 78) under the rubric 'Chronica monasterii S. Albani'. This two-volume contribution, covering the later fifteenth century, appeared in 1872 3. Volume 2 contains material from MS. Rawlinson B. 332 (some of whose outer leaves were lost) relating to events from 1459 to 1488, beginning with records of church appointments during the final years of the abbacy of John Whethamstede, and covers the abbacies of William Albon (1465 76) and William of Wallingford (from...

Edited by the clergyman and historian James Francis Dimock (1810 76) and published in 1864, this life of the twelfth-century St Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, by his chaplain Adam of Eynsham, is presented in the original Latin. Completed before 1220, after Hugh's death in 1200, this is a detailed portrait of the Carthusian monk, scholar and bishop, by a trusted companion, resulting in an unusually personal and lifelike depiction of Hugh's character. It is one of the last and fullest examples of hagiography from the high middle ages, and is of great interest to historians as Hugh lived through the...

Thomas Wright (1810 77) was a highly prolific scholar of Old and Middle English and archaeology, although some of his work, particularly that on prehistory, was contentious. The present work, which he edited and published in 1863, comprises two texts by Alexander Neckam (1157 1217). The son of Richard I's foster mother, Neckam was a respected teacher and prolific scholar who became abbot of Cirencester. The larger of these texts, De naturis rerum, consists of a scientific manual followed by a theological treatise, a commentary on Ecclesiastes. Neckam later produced an abbreviated verse form...

Published as part of the Rolls Series, this genealogy is attributed to Peter of Ickham (d. 1295), a chronicler and Benedictine monk better known for his Latin chronicle of the Kings of England. It is mainly an Anglo-Norman version of extracts by well-known historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Florence of Worcester, and Ralph de Diceto. The editor, vicar and librarian John Glover (c. 1823 84), published the original text in 1865 together with his own facing-page translation into contemporary English. Glover's scholarship, as well as instances of semi-Saxonised French, will interest...

Edward Edwards (1812 86), librarian, writer and utilitarian, has been described as a founder of modern librarianship. Employed to catalogue the Earl of Macclesfield's library in 1861, he came across the large illuminated manuscript of the chronicle and cartulary that comprise this work, first published in 1866. The Latin text moves chronologically from 455 and the 'Legend of Albina' through six centuries of medieval English history, finishing at 1023 and the reign of King Cnut. Edwards, as editor, displays a librarian's zeal for detail: his extensive introduction provides a thorough history...

This chronicle begins in 1169: it covers the accession of Richard I in 1189 and ends in the Spring of 1192. It is a crucial source of information on the reign of Henry II and consists of annals and a wide variety of documents, presented here in the original Latin. The chronicle was originally attributed to Benedict of Peterborough (c.1135 93), who kept the manuscript in his library. This was disputed by the scholar William Stubbs (1825 1901), who edited this work for the Rolls Series in 1867. It is now widely accepted that the author was Roger of Hoveden (d. 1201/2), clerk to Henry II and...

This chronicle begins in 1169: it covers the accession of Richard I in 1189 and ends in the Spring of 1192. It is a crucial source of information on the reign of Henry II and consists of annals and a wide variety of documents, presented here in the original Latin. The chronicle was originally attributed to Benedict of Peterborough (c.1135 93), who kept the manuscript in his library. This was disputed by the scholar William Stubbs (1825 1901), who edited this work for the Rolls Series in 1867. It is now widely accepted that the author was Roger of Hoveden (d. 1201/2), clerk to Henry II and...

Thomas Beckington (c.1390 1465), Bishop of Bath and Wells, was hugely influential in Church affairs and government during the reign of Henry VI. He had become the king's secretary by 1438 and played an important role in an embassy appointed to negotiate peace with France in 1443. His intimacy with the king undoubtedly aided his compiling of the vast array of documents and letters many from Beckington himself presented in this two-volume work. It was edited for the Rolls Series in 1872 by George Williams (1814 78), a Church of England clergyman and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, who,...

Thomas Beckington (c.1390 1465), Bishop of Bath and Wells, was hugely influential in Church affairs and government during the reign of Henry VI. He had become the king's secretary by 1438 and played an important role in an embassy appointed to negotiate peace with France in 1443. His intimacy with the king undoubtedly aided his compiling of the vast array of documents and letters many from Beckington himself presented in this two-volume work. It was edited for the Rolls Series in 1872 by George Williams (1814 78), a Church of England clergyman and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, who,...

The nineteenth-century antiquarian Thomas Wright (1810 77) was a prolific scholar, editor and bibliographer. His two-volume anthology of twelfth-century Latin poetry, first published in 1872, is the fullest available and this reissue will be especially useful to scholars of medieval schools, religious life and satire, and those interested in medieval literature's relationship with the Latin classics. It remains the only published edition of important poems by Geoffrey of Winchester, Hugh the Chanter, Reginald of Canterbury, Serlo of Bayeux and Gualo Britto. Volume 1 contains Nigel Witeker's...