Description
Alternative title
Ranulf Higden Polychronicon
Type of resource
mixed material
Extent
ff. 204
Date created
[ca. 1300 - 1349]
Language
Latin
Material
Vellum
paper
Layout
52, 45, 40 lines to a page
Height (mm)
275
Width (mm)
172
Collation
1(12)-17(12) (modern foliation incorrect by two).
Writing
in several hands
Foliation
ff. a-b + i + 1-204 + c-d
Research
This MS. is noticed in the Rolls ed. of the Polychronicon (I p. xx note) as being of the type to which the name of Roger of Chester is attached.
Additions
Notes from Bale on paper flyleaf (f. iv).
2 fo.
l. 6 | bi.
Abstract/Contents
- Summary
- 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.
- Contents
- Polychronicon (to 1338)
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction:
- Images courtesy of The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For higher resolution images suitable for scholarly or commercial publication, either in print or in an electronic format, please contact the Parker Library directly at parker-library@corpus.cam.ac.uk
- License:
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).