Background
Matthew Paris, sometimes referred to as Matthew of Paris, was born circa 1200 in England (despite his surname and knowledge of the French language), No information exists concerning his parentage or his early life.
(Vaughn's well received 1984 translation is here augmented...)
Vaughn's well received 1984 translation is here augmented with color reproductions of over 100 of the drawings in the manuscript. Paris's Latin chronicle, covering 1247-50, is valuable for its detail and its scope, noting and commenting on events all over Europe and the Near East as well as in London and Britain. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0750902760/?tag=2022091-20
(Book by Paris, Matthew, Lawrence, C.H.)
Book by Paris, Matthew, Lawrence, C.H.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0750911662/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0866983902/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0862993040/?tag=2022091-20
Matthew Paris, sometimes referred to as Matthew of Paris, was born circa 1200 in England (despite his surname and knowledge of the French language), No information exists concerning his parentage or his early life.
Paris received his training as a scribe and artist and, under Roger Wendover, as the abbey's historiographer at St. Albans.
Paris became a monk at the Abbey of St. Albans in England in 1217. After Roger Wendover's death in 1235, Matthew incorporated Roger's Flores historiarum into his own chief work, the Chronica majora (“Major Chronicles”), revising Roger's text and extending it from 1235 to 1259. A prolific and indefatigable writer, he wrote some 300, 000 words in his section alone. As a respected intimate of such important figures as Henry III and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, among many others, Matthew's fame as a chronicler was so widespread that distinguished guests at St. Albans freely shared their adventures with him, supplying him with details for his chronicle.
In 1248-1249 Paris was called upon by Norway's King Haakon IV and by Pope Innocent IV to adjust the financial and spiritual affairs of the Benedictine abbey of St. Benet Holm on the island of Niderholm in Norway. Except for this successful journey, Matthew, for the most part, remained at St. Albans, assiduously recording contemporary events. He assiduously collected, albeit not always accurately, about 350 documents in an appendix to his Chronica, the Liber additamentorum. His abridgments of the Chronica majora - the Historia Anglorum (“History of the English”), devoted primarily to English affairs, and the Abbreviatio chronicorum (or Historia minor), concentrating on the period 1067-1253 contained differing versions of the same events. In his Gesta abbatum, Matthew recorded the lives of the first 23 abbots of St. Albans and sketched a miniature portrait of each.
In addition to his Latin biographies of Edmund Rich and Stephen Langton, Matthew wrote in Anglo-Norman verse the lives of Saints Alban, Edward the Confessor, Thomas Becket, and Edmund Rich, each work amply illustrated. Paris also wrote a history of his own house, the Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani (“Deeds of the Abbots of the Monastery of St. Albans”).
Paris was noteworthy for his detailed knowledge of events all over Europe; for his use of information obtained from the leading figures of his day, such as Henry III and Richard, Earl of Cornwall, both of whom he knew well; for the large number of documents that he included either in his chronicle or in an appendix to it; and for the outspoken expression of his prejudices against, in particular, the king, the foreign favourites at court, and the papacy. Matthew's valuable contributions to cartography included the earliest known detail maps of England and Scotland, listing as many as 280 place names.
(Vaughn's well received 1984 translation is here augmented...)
(Book by Paris, Matthew, Lawrence, C.H.)
