The Medieval Chronicle Society is an international and interdisciplinary organization founded to facilitate the work of scholars interested in medieval annals and chronicles, or more generally medieval historiography. [1] [2] It was founded in 1999 and in February 2011 had 380 members.
Annals and chronicles were the main genres of historical writing in the Middle Ages. Consequently, they have always been of great importance to historians. The extent to which they are also of interest to students of medieval literature or of historical linguistics was only fully realised in the latter part of the 20th century. Since many chronicles are illustrated, they are also a fruitful object of study for art historians. It was the desire for a forum in which these disciplines could operate together that led to the foundation of the society.
The history of the society began with a series of triennial conferences initially in Utrecht, but later moving from place to place. These early conferences were hosted by Erik Kooper (English studies, Utrecht). It was at the second of these conferences, in 1999, that the society was formally founded.
The society maintains a website financed by the University of Liverpool, and publishes a regular newsletter with information on recent publications in the chronicles field.
The Society's logo, depicting two interlocked dragons, was inspired by a unique series of fifteenth-century Utrecht manuscripts, all containing one or two dragons as part of their historiated initials. These two particular dragons were adopted for the logo because they aptly represented the twin disciplines of history and literature, and the city where the Society was established in 1999.
Volumes of proceedings of the first three conferences were published by Rodopi. [3] When the society was founded, this triennial publication was transformed into a yearbook, now the peer-reviewed journal The Medieval Chronicle. [4] It is edited by Erik Kooper and (since volume 8) Sjoerd Levelt.
The journal is trilingual, with articles in English, French and German. As well as the proceedings of the society's conferences, and also of the Cambridge Chronicle Symposium, the journal includes research submitted independently of the conferences. A number of text editions of chronicles have also been published here.
Conferences to date:
A number of interdisciplinary projects have been inspired by the society, including Repertorium Chronicarum an on-line database of Latin chronicle manuscripts maintained by Dan Embree on the website of Mississippi State university. [8]
A major project of the society was the Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle published in Leiden by Brill, edited by Graeme Dunphy. [9] The EMC contains around 2500 usually quite short articles on individual authors or on anonymous works. A majority of these are from Western Christendom, but there are also entries on Slavic, Byzantine, Syriac, Islamic and Jewish chronicles. These give information on the date, language, form and manuscript tradition, and discuss issues which have been highlighted in recent scholarship. There are also about 60 longer "thematic" articles on particular aspects of chronicles. The two-volume paper edition appeared in 2010 and runs to around 1830 pages, with about 60 black-and-white full-page illustrations. About 450 scholars collaborated in writing it. An electronic edition with additional articles appeared in 2012, co-edited by Cristian Bratu; updates with significant expansions appeared in 2016 and 2021.
Jean Froissart was a French-speaking medieval author and court historian from the Low Countries who wrote several works, including Chronicles and Meliador, a long Arthurian romance, and a large body of poetry, both short lyrical forms as well as longer narrative poems. For centuries, Froissart's Chronicles have been recognised as the chief expression of the chivalric revival of the 14th-century kingdoms of England, France and Scotland. His history is also an important source for the first half of the Hundred Years' War.
Jans der Enikel, or Jans der Jansen Enikel, was a Viennese chronicler and narrative poet of the late 13th century. He wrote a Weltchronik and a Fürstenbuch, both in Middle High German verse.
John Hardyng was an English chronicler. He was born in Northern England.
Williram of Ebersberg was a Benedictine Abbot. He is best known for his 'Expositio in Cantica Canticorum', a complex commentary of the Song of Songs which includes an Old High German translation and a Latin verse paraphrase.
Arnold of Lübeck was a Benedictine abbot, a chronicler, the author of the Chronica Slavorum and advocate of the papal cause in the Hohenstaufen conflict. He was a monk at St. Ägidien monastery in Braunschweig, then from 1177 the first abbot of the newly founded St. John's monastery in Lübeck.
The Jüngere Hochmeisterchronik, Croniken van der Duytscher Oirden, or Utrecht Chronicle of the Teutonic Order is a Middle Dutch chronicle of the Teutonic Order. It was written in or around the city of Utrecht in the Low Countries in several phases: around 1480, around 1491, and with some minor alterations after 1492. It has been referred to as “the final piece of the puzzle that is the official historiographic tradition of the Teutonic Order”. The anonymous chronicle was likely authored by the land commander of the Utrecht bailiwick of the Teutonic Order, Johan van Drongelen, in cooperation with his personal secretary Hendrik Gerardsz. van Vianen.
The Auchinleck Chronicle, titled in its original manuscript form as Ane Schort Memoriale of the Scottis Corniklis for Addicioun, is a brief history of Scotland during the reign of James II (1437–1460).
Albert Suho was a cleric and writer. He enjoyed a successful church career in his home town of Osnabrück, and represented the town at the Council of Basel. He wrote a number of theological works in Latin and a world chronicle in Middle Low German.
The Lignages d'Outremer describe the pedigrees of the most important Crusader families.
Bartolomea Riccoboni was a Dominican nun in the convent of Corpus Domini in Venice. She wrote a chronicle of the convent, and a necrology. She has been studied as a good example of the beginnings of women's writings in the late medieval mendicant orders. In addition to matters relating to her own convent, she records the events of the Papal Schism, in which she is an adherent of Gregory XII.
The Corpus Chronicorum Bononiensium is a collection of Renaissance-era chronicles dealing with the history of Bologna.
The Chronica sancti Pantaleonis, also called the Annales sancti Panthaleonis Coloniensis maximi, is a medieval Latin universal history written at the Benedictine monastery of Saint Pantaleon in Cologne. It was written in 1237 and covers the history of the world in a series of annals from Creation down to the year of composition. A continuation down to 1249 was added later. Up to the year 1199 it relies heavily on other sources; from 1200 it is an independent source.
The Chronica regia Coloniensis, also called the Annales Colonienses maximi, is an anonymous medieval Latin chronicle that covers the years 576 to 1202. The original chronicle only went up to 1197, but a continuator later added the following few years' events. According to the historian Manfred Groten, the Chronica was probably first compiled about 1177 in Michaelsberg Abbey, Siegburg, and then continued in Cologne. The earliest manuscript only contains an account down to 1175.
The Polish–Hungarian Chronicle or Hungarian–Polish Chronicle is a medieval Latin chronicle which exists in two redactions in five manuscripts kept in Polish libraries, including the Zamojski Codex from the second half of the 14th century and its 15th-century copy. Its full title is Chronicle of the Hungarians Attached to and Mixed with Chronicles of the Poles, and the Life of Saint Stephen. According to the Hungarian historian György Györffy, it "contains a fair number of absurdities".
Katherina von Gebersweiler was a German Dominican who was active in the convent at Underlinden in the 1320s. She wrote a sisterbook entitled Vitae Sororum, which survives in manuscripts in Paris and Colmar.
The Brut Chronicle, also known as the Prose Brut, is the collective name of a number of medieval chronicles of the history of England. The original Prose Brut was written in Anglo-Norman; it was subsequently translated into Latin and English.
The Winchcombe Annals or sometimes Later Winchcombe Annals are a Latin chronicle compiled c. 1240 by an anonymous monk at the Benedictine abbey, Winchcombe Abbey.
Quaedam narracio de Groninghe, de Thrente, de Covordia et de diversis aliis sub diversis episcopis Traiectensibus, usually just Quaedam narracio for short, is an anonymous Latin prose chronicle written in 1232–33 by a Frisian clergyman attached to Bishop Willibrand of Utrecht. It was written during the Drenther uprising of 1227–1232.
Graeme Dunphy is a British professor of translation.
Menko or Menco was a priest and chronicler. He entered the Premonstratensian abbey of Bloemhof in Wittewierum in 1230 and was ordained as a priest in 1238. Over the next five years he served as vestiarius, cellarer and schoolmaster before being elected Bloemhof's third abbot in 1243. During his abbacy, he wrote a continuation of the Latin house chronicle, Cronica Floridi Horti, begun by the first abbot, Emo. He has an important account of the Frisian crusaders on the Eighth Crusade in 1269–1270. His continuation runs to 1273. He died in 1276. His autograph manuscript survives, as does a later copy of his chronicle with an anonymous continuation down to 1296.