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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon was the most widely read Latin chronicle of late medieval England. It (and its later continuations) influenced the production of several major chronicles that are frequently employed by scholars of the period, such as the Eulogium historiarum, Henry Knighton's Chronicle, John of Reading's Chronicle, John of Tynemouth's Historia aurea, and Thomas Walsingham's Chronica maiora. The continuations to 1377 are particularly valuable for providing contemporary narratives on the latter years of Edward III's reign, a period which saw hardly any independent historical narrative. Despite this, knowledge of the Polychronicon and its continuations has remained rather opaque and spotty. This article provides an assessment of the texts and manuscripts of the Polychronicon and its continuations to 1377 and beyond and serves as a starting point for further study and the production of much-needed critical editions. It lays out clear details on the development of these texts, including dates of composition and textual relationships. It newly identifies three previously unknown continuations, Crowland (for 1339), Suffolk (1340–73), and Abingdon (1380–1400), and offers information on several little-known continuations past 1377. This article also corrects many errors in previously available knowledge on these texts. It concludes with a detailed list of 188 manuscripts, adding to and correcting the 162 manuscripts scattered across previous works in varying degrees of detail.
This project was made possible only by the selfless assistance of friends and colleagues around the United Kingdom, United States, and Europe who are too many to list here. Marlo Ibex Rowan selflessly rendered the text stemmas in a more legible and professional format. My dozens of trips to examine manuscripts would have been impossible without the generous funding of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary, the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute, the School of History and Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, the Society for French Studies, and the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature. This project stands on the shoulders of V. H. Galbraith, John Taylor, and James Freeman, whose works are fundamental to our understanding of the Polychronicon, and to whom this project owes a great debt. All online resources were last accessed 20 December 2021.
1 For chronicles discussed throughout this article, see generally John Taylor, English Historical Literature in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1987); C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913); and Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 2 vols. (London, 1974–82).
2 John Taylor, The Universal Chronicle of Ranulf Higden (Oxford, 1966), 33–88; A. S. G. Edwards, “Geography and Illustration and Higden's Polychronicon,” in Art into Life: Collected Papers from the Kresge Art Museum Medieval Symposia, ed. Carol Garrett Fisher and Kathleen L. Scott (East Lansing, MI, 1995), 95–113; Peter Brown, “Higden's Britain,” in Medieval Europeans: Studies in Ethnic Identity and National Perspectives in Medieval Europe, ed. Alfred P. Smyth (Basingstoke, 2002), 103–18; James Freeman, “The Manuscript Dissemination and Readership of the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, c. 1330–c. 1500” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 2013), 49–55; and Emily Steiner, “Compendious Genres: Higden, Trevisa, and the Medieval Encyclopedia,” Exemplaria 27 (2015): 73–92, esp. at 76–80.
3 See also Antonia Gransden, “Silent Meanings in Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon and in Thomas Elmham's Liber metricus de Henrico quinto,” Medium Ævum 46 (1977): 231–40, at 231–35.
4 Taylor, Universal Chronicle, 25–29.
5 The Polychronicon is sometimes seen as a (dangerously) huge, intimidating work. See, for example, John V. Fleming, “Medieval Manuscripts in the Taylor Library,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 38 (1977): 107–19, at 109: “It would . . . take the utmost temerity to read Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon in bed. Falling asleep, sometimes encouraged by its less inspired sections, might well prove fatal beneath the heavy blanket of its vast vellum folios.”
6 Taylor, Universal Chronicle, 89–100.
7 V. H. Galbraith, “An Autograph MS of Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon,” Huntington Library Quarterly 23 (1959): 1–18, esp. plate facing 11 of fol. 281r (shows additions made at different times).
8 The three main versions are covered as follows: Ranulf Higden, Polychronicon, ed. Churchill Babington and Joseph Rawson Lumby, Rolls Series 41, 9 vols. (London, 1865–86), text to 8:324 at “mare tranquillitatem, ecclesia libertatem” and sometimes the additional verse in n. 4 (Short Version, following sigla C and D), to 8:336 at “reges, utrinque discessum est” and 338 at “poena capitis ecarceris interdixit” (Intermediate Version to 1340 and 1344, A and B), and to 8:346 and then 407 to n. 3 (Long Version, the base text, E, ending early at 1348, and then equivalent text in A, the Walsingham A Continuation). Note that “ecarceris” is actually “et carceris” in the manuscript.
9 My identification as Short and Intermediate Version texts is according to whichever each most closely resembles.
10 Higden, Polychronicon, ed. Babington and Lumby, from 1:12 at “Intrabo in agros priscorum,” from 1:40 at “Ex senatus consulto censuit,” from 1:40 n. 7 at “Iulius Cesar diuinis humanisque,” and to 8:314 at “superstites fera morte interierunt.”
11 See also nn. 47 and 48, below.
12 On production and ownership, see Freeman, “Manuscript Dissemination” (n. 2 above), 57–138. See also Susan H. Cavanaugh, “A Study of Books Privately Owned in England, 1300–1450” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1980).
13 These are not included in the present study, but see, for example, Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 134–42; A. S. G. Edwards, “Notes on the Polychronicon,” Notes and Queries, n.s. 25 (1978): 2–3; Ronald Waldron, “The Manuscripts of Trevisa's Translation of the Polychronicon: Towards a New Edition,” Modern Language Quarterly 51 (1990): 281–317; John Trevisa, Translation of the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, Book VI: An Edition Based on British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius D VII, ed. Ronald Waldron (Heidelberg, 2004), xi–xii, xvi–xvii, and xxiii–lvii; A. S. G. Edwards and James Freeman, “Further Manuscripts of Higden's Polychronicon,” Notes and Queries, n.s. 63 (2016): 522–24, at 524; and Lister M. Matheson, “Printer and Scribe: Caxton, the Polychronicon, and the Brut,” Speculum 60 (1995): 593–614.
14 Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 142–47; A. S. G. Edwards, “The Influence and Audience of the Polychronicon: Some Observations,” Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society (Literary and Historical Section) 17 (1978–81): 113–19; Eulogium (historiarum siue temporis), ab orbe condito usque ad annum Domini 1366, ed. Frank Scott Haydon, Rolls Series 9, 3 vols. (London, 1858–63); there is another Eulogium witness for Book 5–1240 — New Haven, Beinecke Library, MS Osborn fa72, fols. 1r–63v (s. xiv ex., olim Bristol, Baptist College Library, MS Z C 20) — its current location first noted in the present article: N. R. Ker et al., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1969–2002), 2:188–89; the best text of Knighton's retrospective narrative is unedited: London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C VII, fols. 3r–139r (s. xiv 4/4); Henry Knighton, Chronicle, 1337–1396, ed. Geoffrey H. Martin, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1995); and the earliest and best text of Tynemouth's histories is unedited: London, Lambeth Palace Library, MSS 10–12 (s. xiv). For the texts by Reading, see n. 35; and Walsingham, see nn. 33, 34, and 83, below.
15 Trevor Russell Smith, “The Manuscript Tradition of John of Tynemouth's Historia aurea,” forthcoming.
16 Walter of Guisborough, Chronicon, ed. Hans Claude Hamilton, 2 vols. (London, 1848–49), 2:297–426; V. H. Galbraith, “The Historia aurea of John, Vicar of Tynemouth, and the Sources of the St. Albans Chronicle, 1327–1377,” in Essays in History Presented to Reginald Lane Poole, ed. H. W. C. Davis (Oxford, 1927), 379–98; and V. H. Galbraith, “Extracts from the Historia aurea and a French Brut, 1317–47,” English Historical Review 43 (1928): 203–17, at 203–206 and 208–15.
17 Another two texts with continuations probably went to 1344, but they have lost leaves here (MSS 62 and 108). Compare with the 3/19 Short Version (MSS 2, 10, and 14) and 0/7 Long Version substantial texts and 1/1 Long Version extracts with continuations.
18 The former in MSS 30, 39 with further text, 45, 48, 53, 55, 67, 68, 74 with further text, 87, 91, 92, 100, 106, 109, 112 with further text, 125, and 128; and the latter in MSS 27 with further text, 49, 56, 61 with further text, 66, 102, 114, 115, and 161.
19 Even Taylor was confused here: Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 122. See also Freeman, “Manuscript Dissemination” (n. 2 above), 168–76.
20 Walsingham A is given the sigla A in the Rolls Series edition. Half (9/18) of the Walsingham A texts include signals for change in authorship at the Intermediate Version's end in 1344, and none do so at 1352, when it finishes with the Long Version.
21 My discussion of the standard continuations's development is indebted to that of Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 111–13 and 178–79 col. a (for A), 120–21 and 180–81 col. a (St. Albans A), 113–14 and 178–79 col. b (B), 114–16 and 178–79 col. c (C), 116–17 and 178 col. d (D), 117–18 and 178 col. e (E), 118–19 and 180–81 col. b (St. Albans B), 121–22 and 180 col. c (St. Albans C), 123–23 and 180–81 col. d (Walsingham A), 123 and 180 col. e (Walsingham B), and 123–24 and 180 col. f (Walsingham C); which is revised from John Taylor, “The Development of the Polychronicon Continuation,” English Historical Review 76 (1961): 20–36. See also Galbraith, “Historia aurea,” 390–95 (for St. Albans A and St. Albans B).
22 Taylor also knew of MS 36, but (apparently) not its continuation.
23 For the varying start and end points of A, see n. 47, below.
24 See nn. 14 and 15, above.
25 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 7, pp. 1–182 (1403 x 1422); P. R. Robinson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, c. 737–1600, in Cambridge Libraries, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1988), 1:48 (for dating); “MS 7,” in Parker Library on the Web: Manuscripts in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Stanford, 2009–) <parker.stanford.edu> (dates as s. xv 1/4); and Thomas Walsingham, The St. Albans Chronicle: The Chronica maiora, 1376–1422, ed. John Taylor, Wendy R. Childs, and Leslie Watkiss, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2003–11), 1:xxxi–xxxii, and 2:xx–xxi and xxxi–xxxviii (dates as c. 1420).
26 Note that MS 168's scribe also ends the main text less than half a page earlier than MS 175 and places the Henry V's Agincourt campaign afterwards.
27 For the referenced passage, see Higden, Polychronicon, ed. Babington and Lumby (n. 8 above), 8:338.
28 Other extracts begin at the start of English kings' reigns: MSS 153 (1327), 160 (1307 for Edward II), and 161 (1307).
29 For a brief comparison of the Walsingham amalgamations in MS 187 and Corpus Christi College, MS 7, see Thomas Walsingham, The St. Albans Chronicle, 1406–1420, from Bodley MS 462, ed. V. H. Galbraith (Oxford, 1937), xxvi.
30 See, for example, London, British Library, MS Royal 13 E IX, fols. 177r–326v, at 225v; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316 (SC 2752), fols. 152r–175r, at 153v. See also nn. 33, 34, and 93, below.
31 See nn. 19 and 20, above, and the accompanying discussion.
32 This changeover point at 1360 is also the end point of the four copies of the first recension of the A Continuation, and, as discussed above, might suggest a more labyrinthine development than has been outlined by Taylor.
33 The earliest text of the retrospective narrative is unedited: London, British Library, MS Royal 13 E IX, fols. 177r–240v; and Walsingham, St. Albans Chronicle, 1376–1422, ed. Taylor, Childs, and Watkiss (n. 25 above), 1:xxviii–xxix, xlix, l, and 964–68. See also George B. Stow, “Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316 and the Dating of Thomas Walsingham's Literary Career,” Manuscripta 25 (1981): 67–76.
34 The earliest and fullest texts of the first part of the narrative are unedited: Oxford, Bodley Library, MS Bodley 316 (SC 2752), fols. 152r–175r (1394 x 1397); and MS Bodley 462 (SC 2454), fols. 143v–208r (after 1420); likewise, the best text of the second part, for 1392–1419 and continued to 1422, is unedited: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 7, pp. 137–82 (after 1420). See also Walsingham, St. Albans Chronicle, 1376–1422, ed. Taylor, Childs, and Watkiss (n. 25 above), 1:xxx–xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxvi, xxxvii, xli, xlvi–xlix, l–li, liii, lvi–lvii, lx, lxii, lxiii–lxiv, and lxvi, and 2:xix–xxii, xxix, and xxxix–xl.
35 John of Reading, “Chronicon,” in Iohannis de Reading et Anonymi Cantuariensis, 1346–1367, ed. James Tait (Manchester, 1914), 1–62, 99–186, and 229–355. See also Carole Weinberg, “History and Chivalry in the Brut, 1333–1377,” Trivium 36 (2008): 33–51.
36 Walsingham, St. Albans Chronicle, 1376–1422, ed. Taylor, Childs, and Watkiss (n. 25 above), 1:lxi and n. 100. On Malvern, see n. 73, below, and the accompanying discussion.
37 Chronicon abbatie de Parco Lude: The Chronicle of Louth Park Abbey, with Appendix of Documents, ed. Edmund Venables (Horncastle, 1891), 37, here under 1341. See also Arthur E. B. Owen, “An Early Version of the Louth Park Chronicle,” Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses 30 (1979): 272–75; Trevor Russell Smith, “The Location of the Fullest Manuscript of the Louth Park Abbey Chronicle, Brutus to 1413,” The Library, 7th ser. 21 (2020): 98–101; and Lisa M. Ruch, “New Insights into the Chronicle of Louth Park Abbey,” Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses 72 (2021): 303–307.
38 Trevor Russell Smith, “The Cronica bona et compendiosa and Shorter Fourteenth-Century Histories of England,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 97 (2021): 19–42, at 32–33 (no. 14; note that details on Suffolk are corrected in the present article). For another continuation that begins in such a fashion, see Trevor Russell Smith, “The Malmesbury Continuation of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut, 1332–1357: Text and Translation,” The Medieval Chronicle 14 (2021): 234–67.
39 “Historia Eduardi tertii, e codice ueteri MS describendam curauit cl. Tannerus,” in Historia de rebus gestis Eduardi I, Eduardi II, et Eduardi III, ed. Thomas Hearne (Oxford, 1731), 387–452, at 421–52.
40 Higden, Polychronicon, ed. Babington and Lumby (n. 8 above), 8:338–46 (following B) and 407–28.
41 Adami Murimuthensis chronica sui temporis, ed. Thomas Hog (London, 1846), 174–227.
42 Higden, Polychronicon, ed. Babington and Lumby (n. 8 above), 8:338–44 (following A) and 355–93.
43 Chronica de Reading et Cantuariensis, ed. Tait (n. 35 above), 91.
44 It may be noted that Stow's list of Polychronicon continuations with the second ending is very much incomplete: Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. George B. Stow (Philadelphia, 1977), 46.
45 Equivalent to Thomas Walsingham, Chronicon Angliae, ab anno Domini 1328 usque ad annum 1388, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson, Rolls Series 64 (London, 1874), 1 and 376.
46 This second eulogy has somehow gone unnoticed until now, despite the manuscript receiving considerable attention for containing the unique copy of the Westminster Chronicle.
47 “Historia Eduardi tertii,” ed. Hearne (n. 39 above), 425 and 421.
48 Adami Murimuthensis, ed. Hog, 177.
49 Gransden, who provides the sole sustained description of the text, was aware only of MS 154: Antonia Gransden, “Some Manuscripts in Cambridge from Bury St. Edmunds Abbey: Exhibition Catalogue,” in Bury St. Edmunds: Medieval Art, Architecture, Archaeology and Economy, ed. Antonia Gransden (Leeds, 1998), 228–85, at 248–49 and 280.
50 “qui presentem fecit compilari historiam anno regni sui tercio decimo.” MSS 154 and 165, in later hands, give the year as “quarto decimo” (1390/91), however.
51 MS 165 was likely intended to be decorated as well, as it has several spots left blank for large capitals and text in rubric that were never filled in.
52 For the Cronica bona passage, see Smith, “Cronica bona and Shorter Histories” (n. 38 above), 25. See also n. 89, below.
53 The Church history (also in MS 154, fols. 1r–12v; MS 162, fols. 1r–8v; and MS 165, pp. 13–36) is independent from the Extractus cronicarum, on which see below.
54 The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394, ed. L. C. Hector and Barbara F. Harvey, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1982); Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above); and Adam Usk, Chronicle, 1377–1421, ed. Chris Given-Wilson, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1997). It should be noted that all three of these have earlier, now obsolete editions that are not cited here.
55 Trevor Russell Smith, “Authorship and Further Manuscripts of the Gesta regis Ricardi secundi and Vita Ricardi secundi,” Notes and Queries, n.s. 67 (2020): 475–80 (note that composition dates and manuscript details are silently corrected in the present article, MS Harley 448 is sixteenth-century, and the conclusion of the last sentence of p. 476's first full paragraph should read: “exception of MS 2, which once followed such a sequence, and MS 13, which follows the St Albans B Continuation”). See also Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 123; and Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above), 4, 10–12, 14–17, 21, and 22; which somewhat draws from George B. Stow, “Thomas Walsingham, John Malvern, and the Vita Ricardi secundi, 1377–1381: A Reassessment,” Mediaeval Studies 39 (1977): 490–97.
56 See n. 76, below, and the accompanying discussion.
57 Adami Murimuthensis, ed. Hog (n. 41 above), 228–43; and Higden, Polychronicon, ed. Babington and Lumby (n. 8 above), 8:393–406.
58 I owe thanks to Andrew Beeby (Team Pigment, Durham University) and Kate Fulcher (Bodleian Library) for performing and analysing multispectral imaging on this manuscript for me as follows (personal communication): “This comprised a DSLR (Canon EOS 60D), modified to remove the UV/NIR filter and equipped with an apochromatic lens (Jenoptik UV-vis-IR 60 mm). This camera imaged the page through a series of bandpass filters centered at 365, 400, 450, 500, 550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 825, and 925 nm, with bandpasses of 25 nm for all filtered except the 825 and 925 nm, which are 50 nm. The manuscript was illuminated with a pair of LED illuminators, which allowed the illumination of the book with 365 nm or broad-band visible light (> 430 nm). Images were recorded as both RAW and JPG files and processed using MATLAB. The erased text was revealed by taking the difference between the reflected light image recorded through the 500 nm filter and the UV-induced fluorescence image also recorded at 500 nm. In this way the image of the residual iron from the erased gallo-tannic ink, which quenches the auto-fluorescence of the parchment, can be visualised.”
59 Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above), 46.
60 Kingsford, English Historical Literature (n. 1 above), 23–28 and 155–57; and M. V. Clarke and V. H. Galbraith, “The Deposition of Richard II,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 14 (1930): 125–81, at 149–53.
61 Gesta Henrici quinti: The Deeds of Henry the Fifth, ed. Frank Taylor and John Roskell, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1975); Pseudo-Thomas Elmham, “Gesta Henrici quinti, regis Angliae,” in Henrici quinti, Angliae regis, gesta, ed. Benjamin Williams (London, 1850), 109–63; and “De actibus tempore regis Henrici sexti,” in Chronicon Angliae de regnis trium regum Lancastrensium: Henrici IV, Henrici V, et Henrici VI, ed. John A. Giles (London, 1848), 3:3–48. See also Marvin L. Colker, “A Previously Unknown Manuscript of the Gesta Henrici quinti,” Revue d'histoire des textes 12–13 (1985 for 1982–83): 401–405.
62 Giles also lists an early modern extract, which is omitted from the Table of Manuscripts, below: London, British Library, MS Cotton Titus F III, fols. 256r–260r (s. xvi 1/xvii 1).
63 Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above), 46. For the Henry IV narrative, see “De rebus gestis Henrici IV,” in Chronicon Angliae, ed. Giles, 1:3–63.
64 John Taylor, The Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, Thoresby Society 42 (Leeds, 1952), 12–13 and 35–36; Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 132–33; and Chronicles of the Revolution, 1397–1400: The Reign of Richard II, ed. Chris Given-Wilson (Manchester, 1993), 8–9, 10, 37, and 153.
65 “Text of the Short Chronicle,” in Taylor, Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, 98–129; and “Chronicle of Dieulacres Abbey, 1381–1403,” in Clarke and Galbraith, “Deposition of Richard II,” 126–37 and 164–81.
66 “Another Deposition of Richard II?” in Clarke and Galbraith, “Deposition of Richard II,” 157–61; and “A Northern Chronicle, 1399–1430,” in Kingsford, English Historical Literature (n. 1 above), 35–36 and 279–91.
67 Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above), 46.
68 Trevor Russell Smith, “Assembling Chronicle Continuations: A Variant Version of the Vita Ricardi secundi for 1377–1455,” forthcoming.
69 It has been not-so-charitably described as “moins une suite du Polychronicon qu'une série de notes rassemblées dans le plus grand désordre” by R. Planchenault, “De l'utilité pour l'histoire de France de quelques chroniques anglaises de la première moitié du xv e siècle,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 85 (1924): 118–28, at 121 (on the continuation in MS 92). Planchenault here also mistakenly suggests that two texts, MS 127, fols. 226r–228v, and MS x1, have Polychronicon texts continued well into the fifteenth century.
70 “The Latin Brut,” in Kingsford, English Historical Literature (n. 1 above), 310–15, 323–37, and 320–23, respectively, at 331 onwards. See also Lister M. Matheson, The Prose “Brut”: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle (Tempe, AZ, 1998), 42–46; Julian M. Luxford, “A Previously Unlisted Manuscript of the Latin Brut Chronicle with Sherborne Continuation,” Medium Ævum 71 (2002): 286–93; Edward Donald Kennedy, “Glastonbury,” in The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature: The Development and Dissemination of the Arthurian Legend in Medieval Latin, ed. Siân Echard (Cardiff, 2011), 109–31, at 119–22; and Mary Bateman, “A Newly Discovered Latin Prose Brut Manuscript at Downside Abbey,” Downside Review 137 (2019): 166–81. The four new manuscript witnesses are MS 61, fols. 194v–195v (to 1422 only); MS 87, fols. 298v–301r; MS 92, fols. 286r–288r; and MS 112, fols. 244v–246r.
71 “A Chronicle for 1445 to 1455,” in Kingsford, English Historical Literature (n. 1 above), 342–45.
72 Kingsford, English Historical Literature (n. 1 above), 342. The second part's text for 1400–1418 is shared with Hatfield House, MS Cecil Papers 281, fols. 1r–23v, at 20r–23v, a portion of which for 1416–18 is edited as “A Chronicle for 1416–18,” in C. L. Kingsford, “An Historical Collection of the Fifteenth Century,” English Historical Review 29 (1914): 505–15, at 510–13; on which see Smith, “Assembling Chronicle Continuations.”
73 For the note, see Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector and Harvey (n. 54 above), xvi.
74 J. Armitage Robinson, An Unrecognized Westminster Chronicler, 1381–1394 (London, 1912).
75 Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 122 and 127–28; Stow, “Thomas Walsingham, John Malvern, and the Vita Ricardi secundi” (n. 55 above), 490–92 and 495–97; and Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above), 10–12, 14–17, and 21–22.
76 Smith, “Authorship of the Gesta regis Ricardi secundi” (n. 55 above), 476–77. See also Chronica Iohannis de Reading, ed. Tait (n. 35 above), 44, n. 1.
77 Compare this, for example, with the confusion over who wrote the Historia aurea due to the various names given to the writer in manuscripts: Smith, “The Manuscript Tradition of Tynemouth's Historia aurea” (n. 15 above).
78 John Herryson, Abbreuiata cronica, ab anno 1377 usque ad annum 1469, ed. J. J. Smith (Cambridge, 1840); and Gransden, Historical Writing (n. 1 above), 2:250.
79 Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London, 2005), no. 3632. See also Linne R. Mooney, “Lydgate's ‘Kings of England’ and Another Verse Chronicle of the Kings,” Viator 20 (1989): 255–89.
80 Adam Murimuth, “Continuatio chronicarum,” in Adae Murimuth; Robertus de Avesbury, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson, Rolls Series 93 (London, 1889), ix–xxii, xxvi–xxxii, lxiii, and 3–276; and Trevor Russell Smith, “A Handlist of Manuscripts Containing Adam Murimuth's Continuatio chronicarum,” Scriptorium 73 (2019): 144–64, at 154–56 and 159–60 (note that n. 14's “MSS 2 and 3” should read “2, 3, and 16,” n. 15's “MSS 1, 4, and 15” should read “1 and 4,” MS 2 is s. xiv 1, MS 5 is s. xv 1/4, MS 5a is s. xvi, MS 9 is s. xiv 4/4, MS 10 is s. xv in. or xv 1, MS 11 is s. xiv 1, MS 14 is s. xiv 2, MS 15 is s. xiv 4/4, MS 17 is c. 1380 and its Canterbury Chronicle ends on fol. 115v, MS 18 is s. xiv ex., MS 20's Passio ends on fol. 279v, and MS 22 is s. xiv 1).
81 See nn. 14 and 15, above.
82 See n. 33, above.
83 See n. 34, above. See also V. H. Galbraith, “Thomas Walsingham and the Saint Albans Chronicle, 1272–1422,” English Historical Review 47 (1932): 12–30, at 20, 22, and 27, n. 8 for Short Version epitomes. The epitome in MS 51 is identified here for the first time.
84 Matthew Paris, Flores historiarum, ed. Henry Richards Luard, Rolls Series 95, 3 vols. (London, 1890), here MS T; and Trevor Russell Smith, “Further Manuscripts of Matthew Paris’ Flores historiarum and Continuations,” Notes and Queries, n.s. 67 (2020): 6–7.
85 Walter of Guisborough, Chronicle, ed. Harry Rothwell, Camden Third Series 89 (London, 1957), here MS C.
86 Vita Edwardi secundi, ed. Wendy R. Childs, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2005), also see xvi–xix.
87 “A Wigmore Chronicle, 1355–77,” in Taylor, English Historical Literature (n. 1 above), 285–300, which is revised from John Taylor, “A Wigmore Chronicle, 1355–77,” Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society (Literary and Historical Section) 11 (1964): 81–94. See also Chris Given-Wilson, “Chronicles of the Mortimer Family, c. 1250–1450,” in Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England: Proceedings of the 1997 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Richard Eales and Shaun Tyas (Donington, 2003), 67–86, at 69 and 81–82.
88 On this complicated textual tradition, see Smith, “Malmesbury Continuation” (n. 38 above), 240–42.
89 Smith, “Cronica bona and Shorter Histories” (n. 38 above), 33–34 (no. 16, in thirteen other MSS).
90 Smith, “Cronica bona and Shorter Histories” (n. 38 above), 33 (no. 15, in two other MSS).
91 Smith, “Cronica bona and Shorter Histories” (n. 38 above), 34 (no. 17, in one other MS). Several other such short texts are included in this manuscript.
92 For the last five of these texts, see Smith, “Cronica bona and Shorter Histories” (n. 38 above), 35–36 (nos. 19–23, no other MSS).
93 Smith, “Cronica bona and Shorter Histories” (n. 38 above), 35 and 42, n. 67 (under no. 22, in one other MS).
94 See Freeman, “Manuscript Dissemination” (n. 2 above), 183–86; and Cornelia Dreer and Keith D. Lilley, “Universal Histories and their Geographies: Navigating the Maps and Texts of Higden's Polychronicon,” in Universal Chronicles in the High Middle Ages, ed. Michele Campopiano and Henry Bainton (Woodbridge, 2017), 275–301.
95 On such texts and visual aids, see Freeman, “Manuscript Dissemination” (n. 2 above), 178–82; and Trevor Russell Smith, “National Identity, Propaganda, and the Ethics of War in English Historical Literature, 1327–77” (Ph.D. diss., University of Leeds, 2017), 73–74.
96 For the well-known and major texts influenced by the Polychronicon, see n. 14, above.
97 Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 152–59 and 178–81.
98 Edwards, “Notes on the Polychronicon” (n. 13 above).
99 Freeman, “Manuscript Dissemination” (n. 2 above), 207–339.
100 Edwards and Freeman, “Further Manuscripts” (n. 13 above).
101 None of the known fuller manuscripts appears to be the parent for any of these now shorter copies. Taylor's suggestion that MS 153 was once part of MS 24 is unconvincing: Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 122, n. 3.
102 See Lynda Dennison and Nicholas Rogers, “A Medieval Best-Seller: Some Examples of Decorated Copies of Higden's Polychronicon,” in The Church and Learning in Later Medieval Society: Essays in Honour of R. B. Dobson, ed. Caroline M. Barron and Jenny Stratford (Donington, 2002), 80–99, at 80–81 and 96–99; Freeman, “Manuscript Dissemination” (n. 2 above), 341–50; and Edwards and Freeman, “Further Manuscripts” (n. 13 above), 524.
103 It is difficult to determine how far a text can deviate from its source, and in what ways, before it ought to be considered an independent text. On this, see, for example, Heather Pagan, “When Is a Brut No Longer a Brut? The Example of Cambridge, University Library, Dd.10.32,” in L'Historia regum Britannie et les “Bruts” en Europe, ed. Hélène Tétrel and Géraldine Veysseyre, 2 vols. to date (Paris, 2015–), 1:179–92, at 179–80; and Erik Kooper, “Longleat House, MS 55: An Unacknowledged Brut Manuscript?” in The Prose “Brut” and Other Late Medieval Chronicles: Books Have their Histories. Essays in Honour of Lister M. Matheson, ed. Jaclyn Rajsic, Erik Kooper, and Dominique Hoche (Woodbridge, 2016), 75–93, at 88–89.
104 Note that continuation identification in catalogues and other like resources are disregarded in the present article, as they are nearly always incorrect, due to the inability to compare with other versions in their scattered manuscripts. There are several texts with continuations that Taylor lists only in his table of Polychronicon manuscripts, without any mention of their continuations.
105 Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 122 and 123, n. 3 (Gesta regis Ricardi secundi), 127–29 (Westminster Chronicle), 129–31 (Adam Usk's Chronicle), and 132 (Vita Ricardi secundi).
106 Stow, “Thomas Walsingham, John Malvern, and the Vita Ricardi secundi” (n. 55 above), 492–93; and Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above), 22–29 and 46 (misidentifies MS 188 as a variant text). Taylor mentions MSS 7 and 11, but he does not connect them to the Vita.
107 Smith, “Authorship of the Gesta regis Ricardi secundi” (n. 55 above).
108 Taylor misidentifies this as the Vita Ricardi secundi, while Stow merely notes that it is unrelated to the Vita: Taylor, Universal Chronicle (n. 2 above), 132, n. 1; and Historia uitae et regni Ricardi secundi, ed. Stow (n. 44 above), 39, n. 174.
109 MS 122 was kindly examined on my behalf by Carmel Ferragud Domingo.
110 Freeman, “Manuscript Dissemination” (n. 2 above), 57–102 and 215–339.
111 Ker's Medieval Libraries of Great Britain and the reprinted Bodleian Library Quarto Catalogues are excluded here.
112 Only one text has had its medieval provenance traced outside of England: MS 117.
113 See nn. 97–100, above.
114 Although MSS 50 and 168 include the first recension of A to 1360 followed by full copies of continuations to 1377 immediately afterwards, these are considered as supplementary continuations rather than separate histories, and are thus not given separate entries.