12 - Thomas of Bromham and the Eulogium Historiarum

Summary

Around the year 1360 a monk of Malmesbury called Thomas of Bromham set out to write a history of the world, from the Creation to the present day. Bromham's book is generally known today as Eulogium Historiarum although the author called it simply Eulogium. A first draft of the work was completed by 1362, but the author continued to revise the book, adding extra material until late 1366, at which point the chronicle breaks off abruptly. The author's autograph manuscript has survived and is held by Trinity College, Cambridge. While Bromham was not a writer of the calibre of Aldhelm or William of Malmesbury, his work sheds light on the intellectual life and interests of the Abbey in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death.

The writer of the Eulogium was, without doubt, a monk of Malmesbury Abbey. Although the work was a universal history that attempted to summarise in encyclopaedic fashion the totality of human experience, significant prominence was also given to events and personalities relating to Malmesbury. There are frequent references to Malmesbury throughout the text, and the chronicle often juxtaposes events of national or international significance with information about the history of Malmesbury. We are told, for example, that in 637 the Prophet Muhammad died, and that ‘in the same year the monastery of Malmesbury was founded’. Similarly, for 675 the key events considered worthy of record were the devastation of Sicily by Muslim Arabs and Aldhelm's success in moving the Malmesbury community to a site provided by the local bishop. This pattern of juxtaposing local and much wider history can be seen throughout the work. The summary entry for 1215, for example, relates how in that year the baronial enemies of King John seized control of London and Abbot Walter Loring obtained control of Malmesbury Castle.

The Malmesbury provenance of the chronicle is thus patent, but the authorship is less clear. The work is presented as an anonymous text, but the Victorian editor of the Eulogium, Frank Scott Haydon, skilfully worked out that the author's first name was manifestly Thomas. In an account of a miraculous vision towards the end of Book III of the work, the writer refers to St Thomas of Canterbury as ‘nostro patrono’ meaning ‘our patronal saint’.