Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 259: Ranulf Higden OSB, Polychronicon (to 1338)

purl.stanford.edu/wr788qx9113

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 259: Ranulf Higden OSB, Polychronicon (to 1338)

Alternate Title:

Ranulf Higden Polychronicon

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 204

Dimensions:

275 Height (mm) and 172 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1300 - 1349]

Table of contents:

Polychronicon (to 1338)

Description:

CCCC MS 259 is one of several copies of the Polychronicon by Ranulf Higden OSB (d. 1364), a monk of St Werburga's Abbey, Chester, owned by Parker, and reflecting the latter's interest in British history. The version of this chronicle contained in this manuscript ends in 1338 and was copied not long after the last events it describes in the mid-fourteenth century. The Polychronicon was the most widely read chronicle in late medieval England, and exists in many manuscripts, other copies being CCCC MSS 21, 117, 164, and in English translation in CCCC MS 354 . It has on the front flyleaf a note by the historian John Bale (1495-1563), attributing the text to 'Roger of Chester', a figure sometimes supposed to have written the Polychronicon until Higden's identity was confirmed in the nineteenth century. The provenance of the manuscript is unknown.