Matthew Paris On The Writing of History

Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009) 254–278
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Journal of Medieval History

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jmedhist
Matthew Paris on the writing of history

Björn Weiler
Department of History & Welsh History, Aberystwyth University, Hugh Owen Building,
Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY23 3DY, UK
a b s t r a c t
Keywords: Matthew Paris was one of the most prolific and influential
Medieval historical writing historians of the central middle ages. Matthew’s significance rests
Matthew Paris both on the range of his interests and the scope of his writing. Yet,
Chronica majora
even basic questions about his outlook on writing, his concept of
St Albans
history, or the relationship with his audience, have hardly been
Thirteenth-century England,
Thirteenth-century Europe asked. These issues are central themes of this article, and will be
used to consider wider questions about Matthew’s concept of
truth, his handling of information, and his view of the world
around him. The article, furthermore, extends coverage beyond the
Chronica majora or Matthew’s vernacular writings to consider his
concept of history as it emerges from the totality of his oeuvre.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
This article explores the self-perception of a major monastic historian of the thirteenth century:
Matthew Paris. The key questions addressed are how Matthew defined the purpose and practice of
history, and how he sought to reconcile theoretical precept with historiographical reality. This throws
new light not only on the intellectual outlook and cultural mindset of one of the most self-referential
and outspoken chroniclers of the high middle ages, but also on how his writings can be exploited for
the history both of the society within and about which he wrote, and of historical writing in a formative
period of the intellectual and cultural gestation of medieval Europe. Matthew Paris, a member of the
English Benedictine community of St Albans, was one of the most prolific and wide-ranging historians
of his time.1 Active from c.1240–c.1259, he produced the Chronica majora, a history of the world from
E-mail address: bkw@aber.ac.uk

1
Useful accounts of Paris are: Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958); Antonia Gransden, Historical writing in
England c.550–c.1307 (London and New York, 1974), 356–79; Damien Bocquet, ‘Un idéal de théocratie monastique au XIIIe
siècle: Mathieu Paris, Chronica majora, 1235–1259’, Revue Mabillon, new series 6 (1995), 83–100. Useful as a general reminder of
the scope of Matthew’s interests, ranging well beyond the historiographical: David Townsend and A.G. Rigg, ‘Medieval Latin
poetic anthologies (v): Matthew Paris’ anthology of Henry of Avranches (Cambridge University Library Ms Dd.11.78)’, Mediaeval
Studies, 49 (1987), 352–90.
0304-4181/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2009.05.001
B. Weiler / Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009) 254–278 255
the creation to 1259;2 the Historia Anglorum, a history of England from the Norman Conquest to 1250;3
the Gesta abbatum, a history of the abbots of St Albans;4 two further revisions of the Historia, that is, the
Abbreviatio chronicarum and the Flores historiarum;5 as well as Latin Vitae of the Anglo-Saxon kings Offa
I and II,6 archbishops Edmund Rich,7 and Stephen Langton of Canterbury;8 and Anglo-Norman Vitae of
Edward the Confessor,9 St Alban,10 Thomas Becket,11 and, once more, St Edmund of Canterbury.12
Moreover, the Chronica, not the least because its coverage extended to regions as far afield as Norway,
Hungary, Sicily or the crusader states, remains one of the most important surviving documents for the
history of Latin Europe during Matthew’s lifetime. In many cases it is the only, or at least the most
detailed, contemporary account still extant. It is thus one of our key sources not only for the Mongol
invasions, the conflict between Emperor Frederick II and successive popes, the crusades, but also for
English history during the decades between the concession of Magna Carta and the outbreak of the
Barons’ War of 1258–67. The Flores, in turn, were to become one of the most widely copied historical
narratives of thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century England, and provided the narrative and
interpretative model for most English Latin and vernacular historical endeavours well into the four-
teenth century.13 Matthew’s writings were, furthermore, by no means slight pieces: in its nineteenth-
century edition, the Chronica runs to about 3500 printed pages, and the Historia Anglorum still manages
a sizeable 1200. As if all this were not enough, Matthew was also an accomplished draughtsman: the
surviving manuscripts of his work rank among the foremost examples of English Gothic manuscript
2
Matthaei Parisiensis, monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica majora, ed. Henry Richards Luard, 7 vols (Rolls Series, London, 1872–83)
[hereafter CM].
3
Matthaei Parisiensis Historia Anglorum: sive, ut vulgo dicitur, Historia minor: item, ejusdem Abbreviatio chronicorum Angliae,
ed. F. Madden, 3 vols (Rolls Series, London, 1866–69) [hereafter HA].
4
Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, a Thoma Walsingham, regnante Ricardo Secundo, ejusdem ecclesiæ præcentore,
compilata, ed. Henry Thomas Riley, 3 vols (Rolls Series, London, 1867) [hereafter abbreviated as GA]. On the text: Vaughan,
Matthew Paris, 180–9.
5
Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry Richards Luard, 3 vols (Rolls Series, London, 1890).
6
Matthæi Paris monachi Albanensis Angli, Historia major: Juxta exemplar Londinense 1571, verbatı̀m recusa. Et cum Rogeri
Wendoveri, Willielmi Rishangeri, authorisque majori minorique historiis chronicisque MSS, in Bibliotheca Regia, Collegii Corporis
Christi Cantabrigiæ, Cottoniáque, fidelitèr collata. Huic primùm editioni accesserunt, duorum Offarum Merciorum Regum; & viginti
trium abbatum S. Albani vitæ: unà cum libro additamentorum, ed. William Wats (London, 1641), with separate pagination. On the
text: Hans Grüner, Mathei Parisiensis Vitae duorum Offarum (saec. xiii. med.) in ihrer Manuskript- und Textgeschichte (Kai-
serslautern, 1907); Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 189–94; Cynthia Hahn, ‘The limits of text and image? Matthew Paris’ final project,
the Vitae duorum Offarum, as a historical romance’, in: Excavating the medieval image. Manuscripts, artists, audiences: essays in
honour of Sandra Hindman, ed. David S. Areford and Nina A. Rowe (Aldershot, 2004), 37–58; Monika Otter, ‘La Vie des deux Offa,
l’Enfance de Saint Edmond et la logique des ‘‘antécédents’’’, Médiévales: Langue, textes, histoire, 30 (2000), 17–34.
7
C.H. Lawrence, St Edmund of Abingdon. A study in hagiography and history (Oxford, 1960), 222–89; English translation with
a revised commentary in The life of St Edmund by Matthew Paris, trans. C.H. Lawrence (Stroud, 1996).
8
Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, ed. Felix Liebermann (Strassburg, 1879), 323–9; on the text: Vaughan,
Matthew Paris, 160–1; Brenda Bolton, ‘Pastor Bonus: Matthew Paris’ life of Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury
(1207–28)’, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, 84 (2004), 57–70.
9
La Estoire de Seint Aedward le rei attributed to Matthew Paris, ed. Kathryn Young Wallace (Anglo-Norman Text Society 41,
London, 1983); an English translation is available in The History of Saint Edward the King by Matthew Paris, trans. Thelma S.
Fenster and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (Tempe, 2008). The text has triggered a rich secondary literature, of which the most
important items are: Paul Binski, ‘Reflections on La Estoire Seint Aedward le rei: hagiography and kingship in thirteenth-century
England’, Journal of Medieval History, 16 (1990), 333–50; Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets. Kingship and the
representation of power 1200–1400 (New Haven and London, 1995), 58–61; Victoria B. Jordan, ‘The multiple narratives of
Matthew Paris’ Estoire de seint Aedward le rei: Cambridge, University Library MS Ee. III. 59’, Parergon, 13 (1996), 77–92; Françoise
Laurent, ‘‘‘A ma matere pas n’apent de vus dire .’’ La Estoire de seint Aedward le rei de Matthieu Paris ou la ‘‘conjointure’’ de
deux écritures’, Revue des Sciences Humaines, 251 (1998), 125–53. On Matthew’s Anglo-Norman texts in general see: Vaughan,
Matthew Paris, 168–74.
10
La Vie de Seint Auban. An Anglo-Norman poem of the thirteenth century, ed. Arthus Robert Harden (Anglo-Norman Text
Society 20, Oxford, 1968). On the text see also Florence McCulloch, ‘Saints Alban and Amphibalus in the works of Matthew Paris:
Dublin, Trinity College MS 177’, Speculum, 56 (1981), 761–85.
11
Fragments d’une vie de Saint Thomas de Cantorbéry, ed. M. Paul Meyer (Paris, 1885).
12
A.T. Baker, ‘La Vie de Saint Edmond, archevêque de Cantorbéry’, Romania, 55 (1929), 332–81.
13
Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 153–5; Antonia Gransden, ‘The continuations of the Flores historiarum from 1265 to 1327’,
Mediaeval Studies, 36 (1974), 472–92.
256 B. Weiler / Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009) 254–278
art;14 and they include some of the earliest surviving maps of Britain and the Holy Land, focus of
a veritable industry of cartography-related Matthew Paris studies.15
So prolific an output was at least in part possible because not all these writings were wholly Matthew’s
work: he was a reviser and continuator as much as an original composer of narratives. The Chronica
majora, for instance, started out as a continuation (from c. 1235 onwards) and reworking of the Flores
historiarum by Matthew’s fellow monk Roger of Wendover.16 In a similar vein, the Chronica contains
numerous letters, charters and mandates, many of them otherwise lost or unrecorded. In fact, Matthew
produced a whole appendix of such documents, the Liber additamentorum. At the same time, he did not
simply copy letters, but frequently rewrote them, at times creating wholly new documents in the
process.17 While the copying of letters and mandates was a by no means unusual activity among medieval
monk-historians, few offered quite as impressive an array of materials as Matthew Paris. The same applied
to Matthew’s revisions of his own texts. The Historia Anglorum, for instance, was more than just a shorter
version of the Chronica: it also involved a different thematic and interpretative thrust, and d it would
seem d a wholly different audience.18 Equally, the Estoire de Seint Aedward, while ostensibly little more
than a translation into Anglo-Norman of Ailred of Rievaulx’s mid-twelfth-century Vita of Edward the
Confessor, gave the text a new structure and interpretative direction. That is, Matthew engaged in
a continuous process of rewriting, but, unlike William of Malmesbury or Henry of Huntingdon among his
twelfth-century English predecessors, and with the partial exception of the Chronica,19 he tended to offer
his rewritten texts as separate works, as distinct narratives in their own right, not as a series of manuscript
versions of one opus. In each of these texts, Matthew included new materials, at times different inter-
pretations, and quite often a revised narrative framework. While there is thus indubitably a high degree of
repetition, readers of Matthew Paris are well advised to take seriously the distinct identity he assigned his
writings. It is, however, also a lesson that modern students of his oeuvre have often failed to heed.20
Most recent historical work on the chronicler has focused on just one of his writings d the Chronica.
This has limited our perspective: on an elementary level, the most recent edition of his Vitae duorum
Offarum, for instance, was published in 1640; several of Matthew’s shorter texts remain unedited, as
does his version (as opposed to Walsingham’s fourteenth-century redaction) of the Gesta abbatum; and
the Historia Anglorum has not been studied in any detail since Frederic Madden produced his edition of
the text in 1866–69. Only isolated efforts have been undertaken to explore his Latin hagiographical
texts,21 and while the Estoire has attracted the attention of literary scholars, Matthew’s other
vernacular lives remain largely unstudied. Scholarship has also developed along clearly delineated
disciplinary divides, and there has been little attempt to integrate subject-specific findings into a larger
synthesis of Matthew’s approach towards and outlook on history and society. Even basic questions
about Matthew’s world view, method of composition or self-perception, have not been asked. In fact,
there has been no serious attempt to engage with Matthew’s overall oeuvre since Richard Vaughan’s
seminal study of 1958.22 Vaughan, in turn, was primarily concerned with establishing the manuscript
14
Suzanne Lewis, The art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica majora (Berkeley, 1987).
15
P.D.A. Harvey, ‘Matthew Paris’s maps of Britain’, Thirteenth-Century England, 4 (1991), 109–22; P.D.A Harvey, ‘Matthew Paris’
maps of Palestine’, Thirteenth-Century England, 8 (2001), 165–78; D.K. Connolly, ‘Imagined pilgrimage in the itinerary maps of
Matthew Paris’, Art Bulletin, 81 (1999), 598–622; Michael Gaudio, ‘Matthew Paris and the cartography of the margins’, Gesta, 34
(2000), 50–7; Katharine Breen, ‘Returning home from Jerusalem: Matthew Paris’ first map’, Representations, 89 (2005), 59–93.
16
Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 21–34; V.H. Galbraith, Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris (Glasgow, 1944).
17
Hans-Eberhard Hilpert, Kaiser- und Papstbriefe in den Chronica majora des Matthaeus Paris (Stuttgart, 1981), 44–88.
18
Björn Weiler, ‘Stupor mundi: Matthäus Paris und die zeitgenössische Wahrnehmung Friedrichs II in England’, in: Herr-
schaftsräume, Herrschaftspraxis und Kommunikation zur Zeit Friedrichs II, ed. Knut Görich, Jan Keupp and Theo Broekmann
(Munich, 2008), 63–95, at 84–6.
19
Which exists in two versions: Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 49–54.
20
With the important exception of Rebecca Reader, ‘Sweet charity and sour grapes: the historical imagination of Matthew
Paris’, Medieval History, 4 (1994), 102–18; Rebecca Reader, ‘Matthew Paris and the Norman Conquest’, in: The cloister and the
world. Essays in medieval history in honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. John Blair and Brian Golding (Oxford, 1996), 118–47.
21
Lawrence, St Edmund; Bolton, ‘Matthew Paris’ Life’.
22
Karl Schnith, England in einer sich wandelnden Welt. Studien zu Roger Wendover und Matthäus Paris (Stuttgart, 1974), while
looking at Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris, focuses exclusively on the Chronica, pays little attention to the likely
chronology of composition, and concentrates on issues which, in the wider context of the Chronica, remain marginal.
context and chronology of Matthew’s writings, less so with the wider world view evident in them.
While Vaughan’s study is an essential point of departure for any exploration of Matthew Paris, and
while such endeavours would be impossible without Vaughan’s path-breaking contribution, the time
has perhaps come to ask questions, and to pursue lines of enquiry, that have emerged in the half
century since Vaughan’s book was first published. The most basic of these questions is what exactly
had been Matthew’s attitude towards and concept of history.
In tackling the issue, this article will build on, but also take issue with, a series of recent approaches
to Matthew Paris. Much work by art historians has focused on the degree of innovation in Matthew
Paris d especially his use of marginal illustrations, and his maps d but has not linked these specifically
to the rather more traditional mindset in the writings they were meant to emphasise; literary scholars
have illuminated the value of Matthew’s vernacular works for the study of female religiosity and
gendered spirituality, without necessarily linking his Anglo-Norman texts to the religious norms
propagated in his Latin writings; and historical scholarship has centred on questions of usefulness:
how trustworthy was Matthew as a source for actual events, and should he be used at all? Similarly,
while considerable work has been done on the materials Matthew incorporated into the Chronica, such
studies are often predicated on the assumption that he copied his sources with the mindset of a scribe,
notary or clerk, that is, as someone seeking to offer an accurate rendition of these materials, and not as
a medieval monk-historian who selected and edited his information to reveal higher truths. The
approach is, in fact, indicative of a more general attitude towards Matthew, which views his writings
(and especially the Chronica) either as a storehouse of useful facts, or of entertaining anecdotes that can
be used to illustrate the deeper and more profound truths found in records of royal administration.
Both approaches fail to take into account the complexity of Matthew’s method of composition, and the
degree to which he formed part of an established tradition of writing history. Another key contention of
this article is therefore that, in order to be appreciated fully, Matthew Paris needs to be restored to that
tradition of Benedictine monastic historical writing.
In recent decades, considerable advances have been made in our understanding of medieval
historical writing in general, and of monastic historiography in particular. Bernard Guenée and Hans-
Werner Goetz have pointed to the basic parameters of these writings,23 while their findings have been
fleshed out in case studies relating to Flanders,24 Normandy,25 France,26 and England.27 Furthermore,
building on Helmut Beumann’s seminal study of Widukind of Corvey,28 several individual authors, such
as Otto of Freising,29 Hugh of Flavigny,30 the Gallus Anonymus,31 or Arnold of Lübeck,32 have been the
subject of monograph-length studies. Not all of those focused exclusively or even predominantly on
monastic authors, but certain shared features have nonetheless emerged. Chief among them are
a desire to use history as a means of, on the one hand, offering moral counsel, and, on the other, of
setting events within the broader context of human history and its place within a divine plan of
creation. To these can be added the need to explore the workings of the supernatural and transcen-
dental within earthly society, but also a desire to record and preserve for future generations the history,
the deeds both laudable and damnable of contemporaries, of a monastic community, its patrons, saints
23
Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l’occident médiéval (Paris, 1980); Hans-Werner Goetz, Geschichts-
schreibung und Geschichtsbewußtsein im hohen Mittelalter (Berlin, 1999).
24
Karine Ugé, Creating the monastic past in medieval Flanders (Woodbridge, 2005).
25
Leah Shopkow, History and community. Norman historical writing in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Washington, D.C., 1997).
26
Samantha Kahn Herrick, Imagining the sacred past. Hagiography and power in early Normandy (Cambridge, MA, 2007).
27
Nancy F. Partner, Serious entertainments. The writing of history in twelfth-century England (Chicago, 1977); John Gillingham,
The English in the twelfth century. Imperialism, national identity and political values (Woodbridge, 2003); Sigbjørn Olsen Søn-
nesyn, ‘‘‘Ad bonae vitae institutum.’’ William of Malmesbury and the ethics of history’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Universitetet i
Bergen, 2007), which is shortly to appear in print. An electronic version is available via <https://bora.uib.no/bitstream/1956/
2572/1/D.Avh_Sigbjorn_Sonnesyn.pdf>, accessed 26 Apil 2009.
28
Helmut Beumann, Widukind von Korvei. Untersuchungen zur Geschichtsschreibung und Ideengeschichte des 10. Jahrhunderts
(Weimar, 1950).
29
Walter Lammers, Weltgeschichte und Zeitgeschichte bei Otto von Freising (Wiesbaden, 1977).
30
Patrick Healey, The chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny. Reform and the investiture contest in the late eleventh century (Aldershot, 2005).
31
The Gallus Anonymus and his chronicle in the light of recent research, ed. Jerzy Wieruszowski (Kraków, 2009).
32
Die Chronik Arnolds von Lüttich. Neue Wege zu ihrem Verständnis, ed. Stephan Freund and Bernd Schütte (Frankfurt a.M., 2008).
and leaders. All of these were also central to Matthew Paris’ concept of writing history. Only by viewing
Matthew’s recording of events within this wider context will it be possible to employ his writings as
a source not only for Matthew’s representation of the world around him, but also for the society about
which he wrote.
At the same time, much current work on Latin historical writing has focused on periods other than
the thirteenth century. Exploring how Matthew Paris thought about the writing and purpose of history
will enable us to begin filling another sizeable lacuna in our knowledge of the cultural world of the
thirteenth century. After all, Matthew formed part of two further traditions, so far largely unexplored.
On the one hand, there was a resurgent tradition of writing world history, of placing the history of
a monastic or regnal community within the broader context of the development of human society.
Alongside Matthew Paris, there were thirteenth-century writers such as Lucas of Tuy, Martinus
Polonus, Vincent of Beauvais, Snorri Sturlusson or Saxo Grammaticus who, in at least part of their
writing, pursued similar aims and explored similar themes. They all aimed to place the history of
a particular community d regnal, social, monastic d within the broader framework of human and
more specifically Christian history, and did so on a scope that far exceeded the efforts of preceding
centuries.33 There were, of course, differences in emphasis, and Matthew stands out for a quasi pan-
European perspective, the extent of his collecting and copying activities, and the number and diversity
of his writings. On the other hand, there was a lively domestic tradition of historical writing. The Flores
historiarum by Roger of Wendover, for instance, Matthew’s initial model, runs to about 2000 pages in
its nineteenth-century edition, and the various continuations of Matthew’s Flores historiarum to about
1000. This does not include smaller but still sizeable works by John of Wallingford, for instance,
Thomas Wykes, or the monastic chroniclers of Dunstable, Burton or Bury St Edmunds. Yet, while there
are numerous gaps in our knowledge of Matthew Paris, his thirteenth-century peers remain a collec-
tive terra incognita.34 With the exception of Antonia Gransden’s work on Bury St Edmunds,35 the rich
tradition of historical writing from thirteenth-century England has received very little attention from
historians. Neither has the broader European tradition of which Matthew and his English peers formed
a part, been explored from a comparative perspective. To do so here would exceed the bounds of the
present article. It is hoped the example of Matthew Paris will offer paths of enquiry that may be applied
to his less well-known and less wide-ranging d but no less important d contemporaries and peers;
and interest not only those working on Matthew Paris, but also those exploring the wider world of
historical writing in thirteenth-century Europe.
A start can be made by considering how Matthew himself described the process and purpose of
composition. Probably his most detailed statements on the subject are the prefaces compiled for the
Chronica majora and the Historia Anglorum. Neither is wholly Matthew’s work d both follow, in fact,
that of Robert of Mont-St-Michel’s (Robert of Torigni) twelfth-century continuation of Sigebert of
Gembloux,36 as it could also be found in Roger of Wendover’s Flores historiarum.37 That these were not
33
A convenient overview is provided by the handbook-style Norbert Kersken, Geschichtsschreibung im Europa der ‘nationes’.
Nationalgeschichtliche Gesamtdarstellungen im Mittelalter (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 1995).
34
The best summary overview is that in Gransden, Historical writing in England, 356–439. The situation is somewhat better for
the late medieval period, in no small measure thanks to James Clark, A monastic renaissance at St Albans. Thomas Walsingham
and his circle, c.1350–1440 (Oxford, 2004).
35
Antonia Gransden, Legends, traditions and history in medieval England (London, 1992).
36
As pointed out by the nineteenth-century editors: Roberti de Monte Chronica, ed. L. Bethmann, (Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Scriptores 6 [hereafter MGH SS], Hannover, 1844), 480. See also The Chronicle of Robert of Torigni, in: Chronicles of the
reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. Richard Howlett, 4 vols (London, 1884–9), vol. 4, 612. Luard had pointed to Ado of
Vienne’s Chronicle as another source, but I have been unable to establish parallels with the most recent edition (Chronicon sive
Breviarium chronicorum de sex mundi aetatibus de Adamo usque ad ann. 869, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz (MGH SS 2, Hannover,
1829), 315), or with the one in the Patrologia Latina, ed. J-P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris, 1844–64) [hereafter PL], vol. 123 cited by
Luard. On prefaces in general see Antonia Gransden, ‘Prologues in the historiography of twelfth-century England’, in: England in
the twelfth century. Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel Williams (Woodbridge, 1990), 55–81.
37
Rogeri de Wendover Chronica sive Flores historiarum, ed. H.O. Coxe, 5 vols (English Historical Society, London, 1841–44), vol. 1,
1–3. This edition, unlike the Rolls Series one, does give a reasonably complete version of the text.
original compositions does not, of course, mean that the sentiments expressed were not Matthew’s.
There are, in fact, enough changes to suggest that Paris did not simply copy, but that he took over and
adapted the materials he found to match his own understanding of the role of the author and the
purpose of writing. In the Chronica, Matthew starts out by explaining that he put together, and com-
mented on, a summary of events as they had unfolded since the Creation, together with the succession
of certain kings and kingdoms. He had done so for the benefit and education of those who were to
come after him, so that devout readers might benefit from his short statements.38 He also posed the
rhetorical questions why the deeds and actions of various people and peoples warranted being written
down, and why one would want to give permanent record to prodigal signs occurring in the heavens or
the elements. Matthew responded by pointing out that, first, as signs and portents indicated famine
and other miseries that would befall the human race, knowledge of such occurrences in the past would
be fruitful, as it would allow sinners to hasten more quickly to seek God’s forgiveness. Moreover, the
bad would be shunned, and the good imitated, as exemplified by the biblical stories of Moses, Abel,
Cain, Job, the 11 tribes of Israel and others, to be found in the books of chronicles. To know these was
necessary for human wisdom and salvation, and the studious researcher (studiosus [.] indagator)
d a phrase inserted by Matthew into the text d should strive to memorise, recognise and apply
them.39 History, in short, was a matter of moral instruction, a practical science beneficial to the earthly
and celestial well-being of God’s people.
How far does this differ from Matthew’s models, and how far did he change these statements in the
Historia and the Flores? Compared with Wendover, Matthew’s preface is shorter, and the moral benefits
of history are emphasised more strongly: the passage on knowledge of past portents aiding the
repentant sinner was missing from Wendover’s text, as was the emphasis on the role of the chronicler as
researcher, as guardian and font of communal memory.40 Both Roger and Matthew furthermore
departed from their original model, Robert of Torigni, and did so in their emphasis on the role of the
author in having compiled a list and summary of events. Robert, by contrast, had started out by dealing
with his detractors, before moving on to outline the beneficial effects of reading history, and the writers
on whom one could draw, adding, in the process, a number of post-biblical authors not referred to by
Roger or, in the Chronica, by Matthew Paris (Eusebius of Caesarea, St Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, Prosper of
Aquitaine, Gregory the Great, Marianus Scotus, and Sigebert of Gembloux).41 They are, however,
included in the Historia, and joined by the Venerable Bede.42 On the other hand, the Historia lacks the
reference to the role of the historian as keeper and source of communal memory, and to the studious
researcher who compiled lists of kings and kingdoms. Instead, Matthew included several passages
d not, as the Historia’s nineteenth-century editor had claimed, included in Robert d in which he cites an
anonymous philosopher, and the Psalms: the desire to have access to the knowledge of past generations,
the philosopher explained, was what distinguished man from animals. Without it, one could not lead
a human existence. Citing Psalms 108 and 111, Matthew continued by expounding the need to damn the
memory of those who committed evil deeds, and to praise that of the just.43
While all this may seem a little technical, it contains important pointers to Matthew Paris’ views on
the purpose and function of history. One should thus take note of the emphasis on the beneficial
lessons to be had from knowing the past.44 Writing history, the desire to preserve and pass on the
38
CM, vol. 1, 1.
39
CM, vol. 1, 1–2.
40
Wendover, Flores, vol. 1, 1–3. The Chronica, in turn, also lacks the reference in Roger of Wendover as to the structure of the
subsequent text.
41
Roberti de Monte, Chronica, 480.
42
HA, vol. 1, 4–5.
43
HA, vol. 1, 4. The Flores, Matthew’s final revision of the Chronica, copies in full the Chronica’s original preface.
44
In a twelfth-century English context, this has amply been explored by Partner, Serious entertainments; Nancy Partner, ‘The
new Cornificius: medieval history and the artifice of words’, in: Classical rhetoric and medieval historiography, ed. Ernst Breisach
(Kalamazoo, 1985), 5–59. For a more broadly European perspective, see Richard W. Southern ‘Aspects of the European tradition
of historical writing IV: the sense of the past’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series 23 (1973), 243–63. However,
we still lack an investigation that pursues these questions into the thirteenth century and beyond (see, though, Chris
Given-Wilson, Chronicles. The writing of history in medieval England (London and New York, 2004), 57–78).
knowledge of past events, was by no means a self-serving endeavour, but contributed to the greater
spiritual and material welfare of humankind. In fact, scholarly curiosity pursued as an end in itself,
unrestrained and unguided by a desire to be useful, posed a grave danger to the writer’s chances of
redemption and salvation. This, at least, is the thrust of two episodes recorded in the Gesta abbatum and
the Chronica respectively. The Gesta’s account of the abbacy of William of Trumpington (1214–35)
includes the monitory example of Alexander de Langley, keeper of the abbot’s seal. Alexander had
obtained his position by his skill in rhetoric (he had once written a most elegant letter to the pope).
However, Alexander began to study in an almost manic fashion, became arrogant, and went insane. He
was eventually whipped for his transgressions and transferred to a remote dependency of St Albans,
where he died a miserable and lonely death.45 The dangers of scholarly arrogance, of undue pride in
one’s own abilities, are even more pronounced in the case of Simon of Tournai, a master at the
University of Paris active around 1201 (or so the Chronica suggests).46 One day Simon offered an
especially subtle lecture on the Trinity, and brilliantly resolved problems that others had often
unsuccessfully sought to treat. Exalted by the praise of his students and peers, Simon exclaimed that,
while he had proved the law of God, if he wanted he could also disprove it, and use even stronger and
more powerful arguments to invalidate the teachings of Christ. Instantly, he was not only struck dumb,
but also rendered an idiot, unable to read, babbling in a meaningless and laughable fashion. Simon
never taught or lectured again; though after two years he was able to recite and remember the
Paternoster, but only in a halting and childlike fashion.47 Simon had succumbed to hubris, had lost sight
of the fact that expounding the mysteries of Christian doctrine was a grave responsibility, a humble
endeavour, not a route to worldly glories. This does not mean that Matthew was hostile to scholarly
endeavours per se d in fact, he reported how he had pleaded with King Henry III on behalf of the
scholars at Oxford.48 He seems, however, to have been suspicious of authorial activities that failed to
place the pursuit of knowledge within a context of moral guidance and pastoral responsibility.49
Writing was above all a religious duty, and demanded of its practioners the kind of humility so fatally
lacking in the cases of Alexander and Simon.
The religious and devotional dimension of writing was also evident in the illustrations Matthew
produced for several of his texts. In the Estoire, for example, as Cynthia Hahn and others have
observed,50 the structuring of the illustrations, the legend attached to them, and the text, could provide
a moral compass even to those audience members who might not have been able to follow the written
text.51 The first part of the Chronica similarly concluded with a sketch of the Virgin and Child, together
with a likeness of Christ alive and dead (f. vii recto).52 In the Historia, the Marian imagery is even more
pronounced: folio 6a contains another, this time framed, sketch of the Virgin and Child, taking up about
45
GA, vol. 1, 266.
46
The historical Simon died in 1201. For an overview of his oeuvre see the introductions to Richard Heinzmann, Die ‘‘Insti-
tutiones in sacram paginam’’ des Simon von Tournai. Einleitung und Quästionenverzeichnis (Munich, 1967); and Les Disputationes de
Simon de Tournai. Texte inédit, ed. Joseph Warichez (Louvain, 1932).
47
CM, vol. 2, 476–7.
48
CM, vol. 5, 618.
49
There is no evidence that he encountered resistance from his community. In fact, an unpublished chronicle of his had been
presented by the prior of St Albans to Tynemouth during the 1250s (London, British Library [hereafter BL], MS Cotton Vitellius
A XX, f. 77a–108b. For a discussion of the text see Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 41, 115–16). Similarly that, in the Gesta abbatum, he
could identify where, in the communal charter chest, documents could be found suggests that he had the full support of his
superiors.
50
Cynthia Hahn, ‘Proper behaviour for knights and kings: the hagiography of Matthew Paris, monk of St Albans’, Haskins
Society Journal, 2 (1990), 237–48; Jordan, ‘The multiple narratives of Matthew Paris’.
51
Note also the dedication of Matthew’s Vitae duorum Offarum: Hunc librum dedit frater Matheus deo et ecclesie Sancti
Albani. BL, MS Cotton Nero D I, cited after Grüner, Mathei Parisiensis, 19. The dedication was not included in the 1640
edition.
52
See also Paul Binski, ‘The faces of Christ in Matthew Paris’s Chronica majora’, in: Tributes in honour of James H. Marrow.
Studies in painting and manuscript illumination of the late middle ages and northern renaissance, ed. Jeffrey Hamburger and Anne
Korteweg (London, 2006), 85–92.
80 per cent of the page. Below the frame we find the small figure of a cowering monk, identified, by
a line on his right, as frat[er] Mathias Parisiensis, and a dedication to the Virgin.53 On the one hand, this
is a customary gesture of humility and devotion. On the other, as with the prefaces, just because
Matthew’s imagery was derivative does not mean that it was insincere. In fact, as a closer reading of his
oeuvre will demonstrate, Matthew took very seriously the edifying and religious dimension of authorial
activity. This comes as little surprise in the writings of a medieval monk, but is also an aspect to which
Matthew’s modern readers have not always paid due attention. Moreover, the desire to offer a mirror of
mores, a guide to good behaviour as a means of religious instruction, was inextricably linked to the
nature of writing history as a humble task, undertaken not to glorify the individual author, but to reveal
unchanging and eternal truths.
This basic premise also explains some of the peculiarities in Matthew’s terminology. When, in the
Chronica, he referred to the author as studiosus indagator, as studious researcher, Matthew’s choice of
words was an unusual one. A cursory perusal of the electronic Patrologia Latina database resulted in 127
entries for indagator, but nearly two-thirds of these referred to comments by early modern and
eighteenth-century editors. Of the remainder, nearly half originate in the period after c.1050, with
increasing usage after c.1130.54 Throughout, the context within which the term was employed
remained fairly constant, and denoted three broad, overlapping categories of meaning. Most
commonly, the term was used to describe a thorough reader: St Augustine, for instance, used the term
indagator to describe those perusing the Scriptures to gain wisdom and understanding;55 so did Haymo
of Halberstadt.56 This is closely related to a second meaning, that is, the person who, through careful
study, is seeking to understand the principles underpinning his object of investigation: this is how
Remigius of Auxerre had referred to St Augustine (who was a rerum obscurarum subtilissimus inda-
gator);57 how the Vita of St Maiolus of Cluny referred to the intellectual interests of its subject;58 or Otto
of Freising to part of his intended audience.59 A third meaning referred to those who carefully collated
and collected information for the benefit of future readers: this was how Hericus of Auxerre referred to
Gregory of Tours, who was miraculorum curiosus indagator ac studiosissimus editor;60 the anonymous
Life of St Peter Damian to the cardinal;61 or Bernold of Constance, who described the monk and
historian Herman as egregius calculator et temporum subtilissimus indagator.62 Other examples could be
adduced, but the important point has been made. While we certainly cannot assume that Matthew was
familiar with all or even most of the examples given here, his usage of the word indagator nonetheless
reflected a shared emphasis on the collection, preservation and presentation of material, involving
a careful sifting and ordering of information, undertaken for the moral and spiritual benefit of a writer’s
audience.63
These overlapping aspects of authorial activity were central to all of Matthew’s writings. No pref-
aces survive for his Latin lives, or for those of St Alban, Becket and Edmund Rich, but that for the Estoire
de Seint Aedward stresses both Matthew’s careful use of information d he would not have written what
53
BL, Royal MS 14 C VII, f. 6a. See also: Brian J. Levy, ‘Autoportrait d’artiste, figure de poète: le cas de Matthieu Paris’, in: Figures
de l’écrivain au moyen âge. Actes du colloque du Centre d’études médiévales de l’Université de Picardie, Amiens, 18–20 mars 1988, ed.
Danielle Buschinger (Göppingen, 1991), 193–206.
54
The Brepolis Latin texts database resulted in 35 hits, equally distributed between patristic and high medieval authors,
a bulge under Charlemagne, and one example from the fifteenth century.
55
St Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, in: PL, vol. 34, col. 40. But see also, Sermones ad fratres in eremo commorantes, in: PL,
vol. 40, col. 1311.
56
Haymo of Halberstadt, Historiae Sacrae Epitomae, in: PL, vol. 118, col. 849.
57
Remigius of Auxerre, Enarrationum in Psalmos Liber Unus, in: PL, vol. 131, col. 140.
58
Vita Sancti Maioli, in: PL, vol. 137, col. 750.
59
Otto of Freising, Chronica sive de duabus civitatibus, ed. Walther Lammers, trans. Adolf Schmidt (Darmstadt, 1960), 14–15.
60
Hericus of Auxerre, Miraculi Sancti Germani episcope Antissiodorensis, in: PL, vol. 124, col. 1227.
61
Vita Petri Damianis, in: PL, vol. 144, col. 125.
62
Bernold of Constance, De vitanda excommunicatorum communione, de reconciliatone lapsorum et de conciliorum, canonum,
decretrum, decretalium . liber, in: PL, vol. 148, col. 1206. See also the reference to Rudolph of St Trond in Gestorum abbatum
Trudonensium continuation secunda, ed. R. Koepke (MGH SS 10, Hannover, 1852), 336: multa digna relatione et memoria,
aliorum negligentia ferme oblitterata, studiosus indagator repperit, et in libellos digesta futurae posteritati legenda reliquit.
63
See also his other uses of the word ‘indagator’ in the Chronica: CM, vol. 1, 426, 536; vol. 5, 246, 254, 655, 713.
he wrote, had he not at his disposal a reliable Latin text d and his desire to keep alive the memory of
Edward the Confessor, his love of justice, chastity and humility.64 He also ended the Estoire on a note of
suitable exhortation, outlining the ‘regnal status’ of Westminster, and the duty of all kings to maintain
the honour and status of St Edward’s Church.65 A more prosaic tone is struck in Matthew’s Gesta
abbatum. Here matters are, however, complicated by the fact that his text has yet to be edited: the
nineteenth-century edition by Riley used Thomas of Walsingham’s fourteenth-century revision, not
the thirteenth-century autograph by Matthew Paris.66 There also is the question to what extent the
surviving preface is Matthew’s, rather than that of his source.67 Still, style and sentiment seem to point
towards Matthew, and, with due caution, the text may thus be used. We do find familiar themes: the
Gesta was to provide not only a record of the many gifts that some abbots had procured, but also of the
spoliations inflicted by others. Based on a careful examination of trustworthy and reliable informants,
and the inspection of written works, the authors had ‘sweated’ (desudamus) to produce a diligent and
truthful text. This way neither good nor bad deeds would perish from future memory, and not only
would those of a good mind be spurred to further excellence, but those of an evil disposition would be
struck with terror.68 The author, drawing on reliable and trustworthy testimony, produced not only
a laboriously researched account of what had happened, but also a moral guide for his audience.
All this places Matthew Paris firmly within an established context of writing about history. Writers
as diverse as William of Malmesbury, Gervase of Canterbury or Gerald of Wales had espoused prin-
ciples similar to his. In fact, when set alongside those, Matthew’s musings seem vague and unspecific,
with only the odd variation on familiar themes (as exemplified by his choice of indagator to describe
a common approach to writing history). At the same time, embedded in a time-honoured framework of
presentation (such as the strictly annalistic structure of his histories), there was much that was new
(the use of language, for instance, the deployment of narrative techniques borrowed, it seems, from
vernacular romance,69 the way he used illustrations to structure his texts and guide his readers,70 but
also a world view that inevitably fed on the cultural, political and social transformation of Europe in his
lifetime). The sheer scope of Matthew’s oeuvre, and the range of topics that he explored, make him one
of the few medieval individuals whose outlook on life, thinking and world view we can investigate
with any degree of certainty. Our next step should therefore be to explore how the abstract principles
Matthew had espoused in the prefaces guided his writing in practice. What did Matthew mean when
he referred to the writer as a careful researcher, and history as a storehouse of moral truths?
II
Matthew sought reliable and trustworthy information. However, his definition of what was reliable
and trustworthy also tells us something about his concept of truth, about what he deemed news-
worthy, and about the social dimension of truth. In very basic terms, the more high-ranking the
informant,71 the more reliable was the information he had to offer. Wherever possible, Matthew thus
sought to link his information to people of great status: when recording the deeds of Ferdinand of
Castile, for example, he drew his information from a Castilian envoy of whom he did not even know the
64
Estoire, ll. 29–48.
65
Estoire, ll. 4672–86. See also the lament in the Vitae duorum Offarum, that the early monks of St Albans had forgotten about
their erstwhile patrons: Vitae, 32.
66
For a scathing critique of this edition see Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 182–3.
67
It does, however, survive in Matthew’s autograph, and thus cannot be a later interpolation. For the most recent attempt to
disentangle the various strands of authorship in the Gesta abbatum see Mark Hagger, ‘The Gesta abbatum monasterii sancti
Albani: litigation and history at St Albans’, Historical Research, 81 (2008), 373–98.
68
GA, vol. 1, 3. This is then followed by a short passage that seems a little out of line, which claims that the following would
offer a list of the benefactors of St Albans, with the details of the gift, and the name of the abbot under which it occurred, so that
they may, without falsehood, be remembered. A marginal entry in Matthew’s manuscript at this stage refers to his original
source, the (lost) roll of Adam the cellarer.
69
Hahn, ‘The limits of image and text?’.
70
Jordan, ‘The multiple narratives of Matthew Paris’.
71
Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 13–17, provides a useful list of informants referred to in the Chronica.
name, but who was ‘well-spoken and elegant’;72 when recounting a wondrous tale about the daughter
of the archbishop of Athens, who, widely read in Greek and Latin, and well versed in the liberal arts,
was able to foretell pestilences, thunderstorms and other miraculous occurrences, he cited as his
source John of Basingstoke, the archdeacon of Leicester;73 and when reporting how, in May 1236,
a ghostly band of heavily armed and splendidly adorned knights came riding out of the ground near the
abbey of Roche in Yorkshire, he cited as his source Richard de Clare, the earl of Gloucester.74 There was
perhaps even a degree of infatuation with the great and powerful. At least, Matthew rarely failed to
point out his own proximity to such men: when describing the festive translation of the relic of the
Holy Blood in 1247, Matthew also reported how he had been spotted in the audience by King Henry III,
how the king had called the monk to sit near him, urged him to remember what he had observed, and
invited him and three companions for dinner.75 When, 10 years later, the king visited St Albans,
Matthew again pointed out how, during the week-long sojourn, he was the king’s steady companion,
and how Henry listed the names of the sainted kings of England so that Matthew could insert them in
his chronicle.76
This social dimension of truth was important for a number of reasons. It reflected the nature of the
information Matthew was interested in: he wanted to receive news not only from high-ranking
informants, but from high-ranking informants who had, ideally, witnessed the events they described.
His account of the 1256 Christmas parliament at Westminster, where news of the election of Earl
Richard of Cornwall as king of the Romans and emperor-elect had been broached to the English clergy
and people, was based on the testimony of the bishop of Bangor;77 and his account of the death of
Rainald of Châtillon, the prince of Antioch, executed by Saladin after the battle of Hattin in 1187, had
been related by Richard de Besace, the physician of Richard the Lionheart and later canon of St Paul’s in
London, who had been sent as Richard’s envoy to ransom the prince.78 Matthew, like most of his
contemporaries, defined history as the deeds of great men, and it was only through proximity to great
men that relevant information could be retrieved. Moreover, through repeated reference to sources of
good standing, Matthew testified to the reliability of his information and the thoroughness of his quest
for it. Those further down the social scale, by contrast, were used to testify not to the course of an event,
but its moral meaning. When describing the fall of Hubert de Burgh in 1232, the leading figure of
Henry III’s minority governments, the most forceful condemnation of the earl’s imprisonment was
made not by Matthew, but by an unnamed blacksmith.79 In fact, people of a lower social status
normally functioned as a means by which criticism of political actions was voiced in a morally striking
fashion. It was not, however, called upon to establish the historical veracity of Matthew’s reporting.
Similarly, as will be discussed in more detail below, once Matthew reported anecdotes, visions,
conversations and exchanges for which no witness was named, these passages normally served to offer
a moral interpretation, not a record, of events. At the same time, these moral interpretations received
their validity from the fact that, elsewhere in his writing, Matthew had gone to such extraordinary
lengths to gather, collate and verify his news. By naming his interlocutors, by demonstrating over and
over again that he used only sources both prestigious and reliable, Matthew confirmed his status as
a searcher for historical as well as moral truth.
72
CM, vol. 5, 231–2.
73
CM, vol. 5, 284–7.
74
CM, vol. 3, 367–8.
75
CM, vol. 4, 644–5.
76
CM, vol. 5, 617. Matthew similarly reported with some glee the private conversation he had with King Haakon of
Norway d who, needless to say, regarded the English monk with great affection: CM, vol. 4, 651–2; vol. 5, 36, 44, 201.
77
CM, vol. 5, 601–3. This parliament and Matthew’s account of it have been the subject of some debate. See Hans-Eberhard
Hilpert, ‘Richard of Cornwall’s candidature for the German throne and the Christmas 1256 Parliament at Westminster’, Journal
of Medieval History, 6 (1980), 185–98; Björn Weiler, ‘Matthew Paris, Richard of Cornwall’s candidacy for the German throne, and
the Sicilian business’, Journal of Medieval History, 26 (2000), 72–98.
78
CM, vol. 2, 391; vol. 5, 220–1.
79
The blacksmith, asked to produce a set of iron chains, on hearing that these had been commissioned for de Burgh,
expressed his astonishment that someone who had done so many and great services to the king d all of which were
listed d would be treated in so ignominious and shameful a fashion. CM, vol. 3, 227–8.
This relationship helps to contextualise the range of evidence on which Matthew drew. Where
relevant, he included his own observations as, for instance, in the case of the 1247 celebrations at
Westminster, the fire that devastated Bergen in 1248,80 or the especially rude behaviour of one of the
king’s favourites in the apple garden at St Albans in 1252.81 He similarly used illustrations to verify
particularly important events or artefacts, such as a likeness of a seal of Emperor Frederick II inserted in
the Chronica’s narrative under the entry for 1229.82 There is some evidence for Matthew’s reading: in
a marginal note on a copy of William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum, for example, Matthew noted
conflicting information given by Bede and Gildas (which suggests that he had read all three),83 and he
copied out a manuscript of fortune telling manuals.84 He also mentions a copy of Peter Comestor’s
Historia scholastica, produced by one of the St Albans monks,85 and an otherwise unidentified liber
historialis compiled by the abbey’s prior.86 We know likewise that he had access to Ailred of Rievaulx’s
Vita of Edward the Confessor (on which most of the Estoire is based), and it has been suggested that
much of the Vita duorum Offarum was based on information gleaned from William of Malmesbury and
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.87 There is, in short, ample of evidence to show that Matthew did indeed try
very hard to find authoritative and trustworthy information.
The Chronica is, furthermore, famous for its rich array of letters, mandates and charters, and for
Matthew’s appendix of documents, the Liber additamentorum.88 The Liber, containing over 200 items,
includes charters, some ‘dating’ back to the eighth century, documenting the gifts, grants and rights of
St Albans;89 a list of the gems, artefacts, silks and coverings owned by the abbey;90 a dossier relating to
the canonisation of St Edmund of Canterbury;91 another on the king’s bid for the Sicilian throne;92 and
various documents about the papal-imperial conflict;93 the Mongol invasions of 1241;94 the crusade of
St Louis;95 or the defeat of William of Holland at Walcheren in 1253;96 as well as a short report on the
miraculous recovery of Count Thomas of Savoy through the intercession of Edward the Confessor;97
Robert Grosseteste’s treatise on the Holy Blood at Westminster;98 and a refutation of the teachings of
Joachim of Fiore.99 The Chronica records an equally wide array of documents: among other items,
letters by Emperor Frederick II and his papal adversaries,100 the emperor’s testament,101 a report on the
80
CM, vol. 5, 35–6.
81
CM, vol. 5, 329.
82
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 16, f. 76v.
83
Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 239–40.
84
85
Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 187; GA, vol. 1, 233–4.
86
GA, vol. 1, 294.
87
Richard Martin, ‘The lives of the Offas: the posthumous reputation of Offa, king of the Mercians’, in: Aethelbald and Offa. Two
eighth-century kings of Mercia. Papers from a conference held in Manchester in 2000, ed. David Hill and Margaret Worthington
(British Archaeological Reports, British series 383, Oxford, 2005), 49–54, at 50, but without references.
88
The most detailed study of which remains Hilpert, Kaiser- und Papstbriefe.
89
CM, vol. 6, 1–62, 83–90, 150–2, 202–3, 225–6, 247–9, 268–80, 299, 324–32, 340–8, 372–82, 392–7, 416–39. On Matthew’s
recording of Anglo-Saxon documents see also, Charters of St Albans, ed. Julia Crick (Anglo-Saxon Charters 12, Oxford, 2007),
49–51, 229–31, 233–5.
90
CM, vol. 6, 383–92.
91
CM, vol. 6, 119–29.
92
CM, vol. 6, 400–16.
93
CM, vol. 6, 112–17, 146–8, 299–305.
94
CM, vol. 6, 75–83.
95
CM, vol. 6, 152–70, 191–7, 203–7.
96
CM, vol. 6, 252–5.
97
CM, vol. 6, 92–4; see also CM, vol. 6, 492–6.
98
CM, vol. 6, 138–44.
99
CM, vol. 6, 335–40.
100
CM, vol. 3, 548–50, 546–7; vol. 4, 16–19, 26–9, 65–8, 96–8, 112–19, 175–6, 300–5, 331–6, 445–55, 475–7, 538–44, 570–7;
vol. 5, 61–7.
101
CM, v, 216–17.
abortive Welsh campaign of 1245,102 Richard of Cornwall’s account of his crusade,103 the agreement
between various French nobles to withstand the power of the clergy,104 or the letter by the abbot of
Pontigny, describing the last days and saintly demeanour of St Edmund of Canterbury.105 The Chronica’s
gaze is perhaps more focused on letters and charters than the Liber’s, but then much of the information
in the Liber (such as the miracles of St Edward, or the healing of Thomas of Savoy) would have been
incorporated into the chronicle’s main narrative. In fact, much of the documentation on the
Mongols,106 for example, is cited in summary in the Chronica, with the fuller versions reserved for the
Liber. Text and documentary appendix were mutually reinforced parts of a wider narrative.107
The range of Matthew’s informants, as much as the variety of correspondents whose letters he could
access, may illustrate what Matthew meant when he described himself as indagator, as careful collator,
or as someone sweating to collect information. The letters on the capture of Jerusalem by Khwarizim
Turks in 1244, for instance, included missives by Emperor Frederick II,108 William of Chateauneuf,
master of the hospitallers,109 and the patriarch of Jerusalem.110 When Matthew described the impact of
the Mongols, he relied on, among others, the testimony of ‘Peter, archbishop of the Russians’,111 a letter
by Ivo of Narbonne to the archbishop of Bordeaux,112 another, circulated to the participants of the
council of Lyon, by the bishop of Beirut,113 and one by the emperor to Earl Richard of Cornwall.114 The
last was, in fact, not only one of Matthew’s most widely attested informants,115 but also the source,
recipient or sender of many of the documents collated in the Chronica and Liber.116 Another trusty
informant was Alexander of Swereford, one of the barons of the exchequer, and known as compiler of
the Red Book of the exchequer, a miscellany of documents relating to land-holding and administration,
but also containing a number of letters from Emperor Frederick II and the pope. In fact, Matthew
repeatedly acknowledged Alexander as someone who provided him with details about matters as
diverse as English royal expenditure, or the exact extent of the lands ruled over by the Anglo-Saxon
King Offa.117 Other possible sources include English participants at the council of Lyon, or Walter of
Ocra, one of Frederick II’s chief advisers and a regular visitor to England during the late 1230s and early
1240s.118
As far as the kind of information conveyed in these documents is concerned, there is, perhaps
unsurprisingly, a strong emphasis on documents of legal or administrative significance: much of the
Liber is taken up with materials recording the privileges and properties of St Albans, and the Chronica is
similarly interspersed with papal and royal mandates (some of them repeated in the Liber) relating to
the affairs of St Albans or the Benedictine order in general. Moreover, a number of documents deal
102
CM, vol. 4, 481–4.
103
CM, vol. 4, 138–44.
104
CM, vol. 4, 591–3.
105
CM, vol. 4, 325–8.
106
J.J. Saunders, ‘Matthew Paris and the Mongols’, in: Essays in medieval history presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T.A. Sandquist
and M.R. Powicke (Toronto, 1969), 116–32; Szuszanna Papp, ‘Tartars on the frontiers of Europe: the English perspective’, Annual
of Medieval Studies at the CEU, 11 (2005), 231–46.
107
This extended to the Historia and the Gesta abbatum: HA, vol. 2, 378, 387, 400, 414, 434, 437, 441, 442, 459; GA, vol. 1, 342–4.
108
CM, vol. 4, 300–5.
109
CM, vol. 4, 307–11.
110
CM, vol. 4, 337–44.
111
CM, vol. 4, 386–90.
112
CM, vol. 4, 270–7.
113
CM, vol. 4, 345.
114
CM, vol. 4, 300–5.
115
CM, vol. 4, 146; vol. 5, 111–12, 201, 203, 262, 347, 444, 627–8; vol. 6, 138, 313, 390.
116
Including much of the correspondence he received. See, in addition to those listed above, CM, vol. 3, 441–2, 471–3, 474–6,
575–89; vol. 4, 25–8, 577–80; vol. 6, 31–3, 366–7. See also Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 135–6; Hilpert, Kaiser- und Papstbriefe,
90–119.
117
Hilpert, Kaiser- und Papstbriefe, 46–53.
118
Hilpert, Kaiser- und Papstbriefe, 132–52. Gunther Wolf, ‘Anfänge ständigen Gesandtschaftswesens schon zur Zeit Kaiser
Friedrichs II?’, Archiv für Diplomatik- und Urkundenforschung, 37 (1991), 147–53 for his diplomatic career; W.E. Lunt, ‘The sources
for the first council of Lyon’, English Historical Review, 33 (1918), 72–8.
specifically with limitations to be imposed on royal government. Matthew thus included Magna
Carta,119 the coronation charter of Henry I (a document issued in 1100, but central to the build up to
Magna Carta),120 written complaints about royal government,121 or the sentence of excommunication
threatened in 1253 to those who violated the Great Charter.122 Such materials were complemented by
those in which eye-witnesses (or those who had access to eye-witnesses) reported on events of
significance for the history of England and of Christendom: hence the letter about the Welsh campaign,
but also those on St Edmund’s last days, the battle of Walcheren or Richard of Cornwall’s crusade.123
These documents served a clear purpose, outlined in the prefaces to Matthew’s writings: his texts were
meant to be depositories of communal memory, a point of reference to, and a record of, events that
touched on the affairs of his community and peers.
At the same time, writing history also served to maintain a record of praiseworthy deeds to emulate,
and of perfidious ones to shun; and to provide a guide to the miracles, signs and wonders that could
offer a warning to the sinful, and guidance to the righteous. Matthew thus listed the deeds of saintly
men and women, especially when they had a St Albans connection. Among the saints featuring most
prominently in the Chronica are therefore Cecilia of Sanford, who, after her husband’s death, had led
a life of great chastity and devotion, and who was buried at St Albans,124 and Thomas of Hereford,
archdeacon of Northumberland, who was the brother of the abbot of St Albans.125 By comparison
relatively little was made of the great European saints of the thirteenth century, such as St Francis or
Dominic,126 except for those like Rainald of Châtillon, who could be used to underline and propagate
Matthew’s own ideals and values (in this case, the forceful expansion of the Christian faith). Of equal
importance were accounts of the wondrous and the supernatural.127 We have already encountered the
report, received by way of the earl of Gloucester, of the appearance of a ghostly band of riders in
Yorkshire in May 1236,128 and in his entry for the year 1249 Matthew similarly reported how an
unusually small woman had been found in the Isle of Wight, and an incubus of giant proportions in the
Welsh marches.129 While none of these warranted efforts at interpretation d they remained curiosities
d others foretold imminent upheaval. When, in 1232, two suns miraculously appeared above the
border with Wales, this initiated a period of great bloodshed;130 the heavy thunderstorms crossing
England in 1233 similarly signalled bad things to come;131 as did a comet of unusual proportions that
appeared in 1239;132 and the numerous fires, which in 1248 devastated towns and villages in France,
Normandy, Germany, Norway and England.133 What exactly such omens meant was not always clear: it
was only with hindsight, for instance, that Matthew had been able to list the signs that foretold the
capture of Jerusalem by the Khwarizim Turks in 1244.134 As Matthew had declared in his preface to the
119
CM, vol. 2, 604–6.
120
CM, vol. 2, 115; for the background see most recently John W. Baldwin, ‘Master Stephen Langton, future archbishop of
Canterbury, the Paris schools and Magna Carta’, English Historical Review, 123 (2008), 811–46.
121
CM, vol. 4, 463; C.R. Cheney, ‘The ‘‘paper constitution’’ conserved by Matthew Paris’, English Historical Review, 65 (1950),
213–21.
122
CM, vol. 5, 375.
123
St Edmund had, after all, died at Pontigny en route to Rome, while the account of Walcheren had been received by a royal
envoy to the court of William of Holland: CM, vol. 5, 437; though the account in the Liber remains anonymous.
124
CM, vol. 5, 235–6. For the context see Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Saints lives and women’s literary culture c.1150–1300. Virginity
and its authorisation (Oxford, 2001).
125
CM, vol. 5, 383–5.
126
CM, vol. 3, 418, 491 (St Dominic); vol. 3; 51, vol. 4, 82; vol. 5, 195 (St Elisabeth of Thuringia); vol. 3, 119, 131–5, 418 (St
Francis).
127
See also the short survey by Sarah Hamilton, ‘Tales of wonder in the Chronica maiora of Matthew Paris’, Reading Medieval
Studies, 26 (2000), 113–40.
128
CM, vol. 3, 367–8.
129
CM, vol. 5, 82.
130
CM, vol. 3, 242.
131
CM, vol. 3, 254.
132
CM, vol. 3, 566. The event is recorded immediately following a letter by Frederick II protesting against his recent
excommunication.
133
CM, vol. 5, 35.
134
CM, vol. 4, 345–6.
Chronica, it was therefore all the more important that past signs be recorded, and his coverage of
marvels was by no means limited to those occurring during his own lifetime.135 In fact, so important
was a historical record of marvels that when Matthew, not long after 1250, initially drew the Chronica
to a close, he listed important portents that had occurred during the previous 50 years.136 If Matthew
himself could not prophesy, at least his future readers would be able to draw lessons from the
manifestations of the supernatural recorded in his writing.137
Much of the information so far discussed has been taken from the Chronica, and for good reason.
While the Chronica, it seems, had been produced largely for internal consumption at St Albans, it also
constituted the source and reference point for the Historia, the Flores and the Abbreviatio, as much as for
the various saints’ lives. The Chronica provided an encyclopaedic history of the affairs of his community,
England and the world, and Matthew was often considerably more outspoken about his sources,
approaches and interests than in his other works. Yet, the basic principles that guided its composition
extended to his other writings, as Matthew’s account of the abbacy of William of Trumpington (1214–
35) in the Gesta abbatum may illustrate. Although William received a glowing obituary,138 Matthew
started by detailing the many conflicts with the chapter of St Albans that had plagued the abbot’s early
years.139 He also dealt with the deprivations suffered by the community during the civil war and
general turmoil of the early years of Henry III,140 before considering matters of monastic manage-
ment,141 including various legal conflicts (with the relevant documents duly copied),142 and listing
William’s building projects.143 Next to the last it was the wealth of relics William secured for his abbey
that mattered most to Matthew. These included a fragment of the Holy Cross (left, in return for room
and board, by a monk from Outremer, in England to secure himself a priory);144 the arm, clothes and
staff of St Jerome;145 and the cross of St Amphibalus (still speckled with the blood of St Alban).146 In
a similar vein, Matthew reported how the shrine of St Amphibalus, erected at the church of Redburne,
and presented with relics of the martyr and his companions, became the site of numerous miracles.147
The account of William’s abbacy in the Gesta moreover contained episodes like that of the keeper of the
abbot’s seal, encountered earlier in this article, who was driven insane by his self-centred quest for
learning, or the vision in which Fawkes de Breauté d who had repeatedly plundered the abbey d saw
himself crushed by the abbey tower. Discussing the dream with his wife, she d sensibly d suggested
that it might be time for him to make amends, which he duly did.148 Such episodes do, of course, form
the stock in trade of many a monastic chronicle, but this does not mean that we can ignore their
significance. This particular example distils a concern central to Matthew’s writing: the ability of
sinners to redeem themselves through penitent deeds. Equally significant was this tale’s counterpoint:
the unrepentant sinner, who died a cruel and horrible death.149 This had been the fate of several
135
See, for instance, the comet, which, in 497, presaged the future rise of Arthur (CM, vol. 1, 227); another in 1076, the account
of which was immediately followed by a report on the conflict between Emperor Henry IV and Hildebrand (CM, vol. 2, 16); or
the signs and visions foretelling the crusaders’ defeat at Hattin in 1187 (CM, vol. 2, 327), and the death of Richard the Lionheart
in 1199 (CM, vol. 2, 446).
136
CM, vol. 5, 192–7. More importantly, such signs included not only crosses in the sky, solar eclipses, earthquakes, floods,
comets, or infernal Welshmen, but also events and social movements. Matthew’s summary of events between 1200 and 1250
thus included the rise of various mendicant orders, or of the numerous holy men who peopled England, and his account of the
portents foretelling the disaster of 1244 also mentions the rift between empire and papacy: CM, vol. 4, 346.
137
For the wider context see also Hans-Eberhard Hilpert, ‘Zu den Prophetien im Geschichtswerk des Matthaeus Paris’,
Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 41 (1985), 175–91.
138
GA, vol. 1, 303–4.
139
GA, vol. 1, 254–8, 264–5.
140
GA, vol. 1, 258–9, 267–70, 295–9.
141
GA, vol. 1, 260–1; 270–5.
142
GA, vol. 1, 275–9.
143
GA, vol. 1, 279–81, 288–90;
144
GA, vol. 1, 291.
145
GA, vol. 1, 291–2.
146
GA, vol. 1, 292.
147
GA, vol. 1, 282–3.
148
GA, vol. 1, 267–8.
149
Weiler, ‘Stupor mundi’, 75–9.
corrupt retainers of Abbot John I (1195–1214),150 while Ralph of Chenduit, one of the great adversaries
of Abbot John II (1235–60), had swollen to the size of an ox before he died a miserable and lonely
death.151 These tales reflected a deeper desire to record instances of the righteous punishment of cruel
and evil men, while also offering an opportunity for redemption to those who mended their ways. They
reaffirmed the moral right of the community of St Albans to properties alienated or disputed, but they
also offered a moral message as relevant to the monks as it was to their patrons and neighbours.
How does all this relate to Matthew’s prefaces? There is no doubt that he went to extraordinary
lengths to collect and gather information. There were, of course, limitations: unlike his great model,
William of Malmesbury, Matthew did not leave St Albans to undertake this research, did not scout
monastic or cathedral archives, and limited himself to whatever reading material and oral testimony he
could collect with relative ease. In this respect, there were limits to the sweating he was prepared to do.
Even so, Matthew gathered more, and more wide-ranging, information from a greater variety of
sources than any of his peers.152 Furthermore, he left little doubt as to the fact that this collecting was
undertaken with a clear purpose: the information and documents recorded in the Chronica and the
Historia as much as his various Vitae were intended to meet a range of needs. They brought together
news and materials that preserved the memory of his abbey and his order’s freedoms, properties, legal
and moral victories; that defined the relationship between the king and his subjects, both lay and
clerical; that recorded events and movements which transformed the world of Matthew and his
brethren. They also illustrated the working of the divine and the supernatural in human society, and
they aimed to offer moral guidance, to provide a set of tools by which Matthew and his brethren could
fathom the meaning and direction of events as they unfolded around them.
Yet this wealth of information came at a price. Richard Vaughan, for example, felt that information
had been gathered randomly, with Matthew bequeathing his readers a large, often contradictory and
generally unordered mess of gossip, invective, rumour and fact.153 Matthew’s annalistic approach
certainly did not help, and could, in fact, mean that relevant information was dispersed over several
years, repeated in various forms, or contradicted between recordings.154 The manuscript context of
many of his works further underlines this miscellaneous aspect. The Gesta abbatum and Vitae duorum
Offarum, for example, form part of a codex, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D I, which also contains the
Liber additamentorum, in addition to, among other things, the names of Christian kings ruling England,
a map of the itinerary from London to Naples and Apulia, a copy of Magna Carta, various papal priv-
ileges, the pedigree of Count Thomas of Savoy (the queen’s uncle), and the sketch of an elephant.155 A
similar bricolage is apparent in the Chronica majora: Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 26, con-
taining the first part of the Chronica, opens with the map of an itinerary from London to the Holy Land
(f. i recto–vi verso), a brief genealogical chronicle of English kings from Alfred to Edgar, and then
Henry II (f. iv verso), a circular and movable paschal table (f. v recto), a table of Easter dates (f. v verso),
and a calendar of the feasts of d almost exclusively d English saints (f. vi recto).156 It certainly is
tempting to see Matthew’s works as an often haphazard mixture of the curious and the intriguing.
Other readers have, however, been more appreciative: Antonia Gransden, for instance, has pointed
to the encyclopaedic nature of his writing,157 arguing that it was designed as a font of useful
150
GA, vol. 1, 251–2.
151
GA, vol. 1, 319–20.
152
This desire to collate and collect is equally evident in his other writings: his Latin life of St Edmund, for instance, based on
oral testimony and earlier Vitae of the saint, nonetheless contains much additional information (conveniently tabulated in
Lawrence, St Edmund, 100–5).
153
154
Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 130–1, 134–5.
155
For the vexed codicological history of this manuscript, most of it a Paris autograph, though with later, fourteenth-century
inserts, see Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 78–91.
156
Parker Library, MS 16 continues the second part of Chronica, but prefaces the main text with a similar range of miscellanea:
the names of English kings from Ine to Henry III (f. i recto), the fragments of an itinerary (f. iii recto), and yet another sketch of
an elephant (f. ii recto). BL, Royal MS 14 C VII contains the Historia Anglorum, and largely follows the pattern of the first part of
the Chronica. It lacks, however, the paschal table, and the genealogical chronicle, instead adding a map of Britain (f. 5b), a sketch
of the Virgin Mary (f. 6), and a page with imaginary portraits of rulers from William the Conqueror to Henry III (f. 8a).
157
Gransden, Historical writing, 363–4.
information that encompassed in equal measure the material and the spiritual, the edifying, the
beneficial and the noteworthy. This reflects more closely how the chronicler himself described the
process of writing, but it also leaves several questions unanswered. How, for instance, did Matthew
seek to order his materials? How did he select information, and how did he attempt to forge it into
a reasonably coherent whole? These issues are entwined with another question: how did the moral
dimension of history guide Matthew’s selection and presentation of material? We have, in his
recording of prodigies and marvels, of instructive tales and anecdotes, already encountered examples
of him seeking to satisfy the moral imperative of history. Those do not, however, exhaust the means at
his disposal, and it is to these that we now must turn.
III
Matthew’s chief concerns were the history of his abbey and his kingdom. This is worth emphasising, as
work on Matthew Paris has all too often centred on the Chronica as a source for the history of thir-
teenth-century Europe at large. The Chronica stands, however, in splendid isolation amongst a sea of
lives of English saints, short treatises on English history, or the Chronica’s more narrowly England-
centred revisions. Even in the Chronica, moreover, Matthew repeatedly apologised for straying from the
history of English affairs,158 and he always sought to show how events beyond the Channel mattered
above all because of their impact on England. When Matthew reported the Mongol invasion of
Hungary, for instance, one of the first items he recorded was that their arrival dramatically increased
the price of herring at Yarmouth.159 Similarly, many of the dramatic events surrounding Emperor
Frederick II mattered largely because they highlighted the honour and standing of the English realm.160
In the Historia, the Chronica’s first and most extensive revision, the emphasis on matters English
became not only a matter of content, but also of textual representation. The preliminary matter in
Matthew’s manuscript thus included a map of Britain, and a pictorial representation of the post-
Conquest English kings, as well as the itinerary from England to Jerusalem familiar from the Chronica.
The narrative, similarly, started out with the Norman Conquest, rather than the creation, and bypassed
much of the matter recorded in the Chronica. New materials introduced refer to English affairs, such as
the repeated references to Henry I’s coronation charter and its dissemination;161 Thomas Becket’s
return to England in 1170, including his praise for the abbot of St Albans;162 the final days of King
John;163 or a revised version of the account of the Earl Marshal’s rebellion of 1233–34.164 This is not to
say that Matthew ignored what went on beyond the Channel: there is still more about mainland
Europe in the Historia Anglorum than in many a recent history of England. Matthew understood
England to be part of a greater whole, its affairs inextricably linked to those of Christendom at large.
That relationship played itself out on several levels. There were, for example, the immediate affairs
of the kings of England, their ambitions and claims, but also their family connections and networks of
patronage. Matthew frequently sought to link wider European developments to plans for the recovery
of Henry III’s inheritance in Normandy, Poitou and Anjou,165 and he was quite willing to see French
trickery at play when things went badly for certain Englishmen (it was only the king who was blamed
for his own mishaps, but then he listened to Frenchmen, not Englishmen). Matthew similarly lamented
what he perceived as the king’s undue patronage of his foreign favourites and relatives (Henry’s
Lusignan half-brothers and the queen’s Provençal relatives),166 and he often saw this wider world as
158
CM, vol. 4, 546; vol. 5, 92, 287, 294. See also Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 111–12.
159
CM, vol. 3, 488.
160
Weiler, ‘Stupor mundi’, 65–7.
161
HA, vol. 1, 176–7; 180–1.
162
HA, vol. 1, 359–62.
163
HA, vol. 2. 191–3.
164
HA, vol. 2, 364–7.
165
See, for instance, CM, vol. 3, 393–4.
166
A full list of references would double the length of this article. For especially striking examples see: CM, vol. 3, 623; vol. 4,
15, 61, 85–8, 103–5, 259–60; vol. 5, 184, 317, 329, 470, 626, 672.
threatening to engulf the realm of England, as in the case of the Capetian invasion of England in 1216–
17,167 or of rumours that Emperor Frederick II was plotting to conquer the kingdom.168 Political events
were but one level on which the relationship between England and the world around it unfolded. Just
as important were wider European movements and institutions. Some of the latter, friars and popes
chief among them, incurred Matthew’s deep and lasting enmity.169 Others he embraced with enthu-
siasm: Matthew was, for example, an ardent supporter of the crusades, meticulously listing crusading
saints and heroes,170 and he took great interest in the affairs of the Templars and Hospitallers,171 or in
attempts at the unification of Christendom.172 In fact, the willingness of political actors to aid the
recovery or defence of the Holy Land was a key criterion by which he judged the legitimacy of their
actions.173 This was not a case of monkish armchair valour, but rather revealed Matthew’s profoundly
religious outlook: in his eyes, Islam was but one of the challenges that threatened the right Christian
order of the world, and it did so alongside the Mongols; plots against Christendom perpetrated,
Matthew tells us, by Jews, Muslims and perfidious Christians;174 outbursts of popular piety like the
shepherds’ crusade of the 1250s;175 and the fact that heresy had begun to touch even English soil.176
Knowledge of such events was essential for understanding England’s place in the world. More
importantly, it highlighted the precarious situation of both England and the community of which it
formed part. This is not to say that Matthew believed his world was doomed: while there were many
dangers, and while many of them originated in internal squabbles, in greed and ambition, there also
were signs of hope, men (and women) who took seriously prodigies and signs, sinners who mended
their ways and returned to the path of righteousness. Recording both was part of the moral and reli-
gious duty of writing.
Finally, the wider world of Latin Christendom provided an arena in which Englishmen could
perform valiant and pious deeds. When, in 1229, Frederick II restored Jerusalem to Christian control,
167
CM, vol. 3, 8–13; GA, vol. 1, 258–9.
168
CM, vol. 4, 313–14.
169
Matthew Paris’ attitude towards the papacy was, however, complex, and is in need of a more detailed exploration. He was,
for instance, a great admirer of Pope Alexander III (not the least, because he had supported Thomas Becket: CM, vol. 2, 317; vol.
4, 14), and, in the Vitae duorum Offarum, fully accepted the legitimising authority of the papal court (Vitae duorum Offarum,
29–30; see also Stephen Matthews, ‘Legends of Offa: the journey to Rome’, in: Aethelbald and Offa, ed. Hill and Worthington,
55–8). A good introductory survey is that provided by Robert M. Brentano, Two churches. England and Italy in the thirteenth
century (Princeton, 1968), 327–8. As far as the friars were concerned, Matthew clearly distinguished between St Francis, and the
friars at large: Williel R. Thomson, ‘The image of the mendicants in the chronicles of Matthew Paris’, Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum, 70 (1977), 3–34.
170
See, for instance Raymond of Châtillon (CM, vol. 5, 220–1), the count of Clermont (CM, vol. 5, 159; vol. 6, 441); or William
Longespee (CM, vol. 3, 369; vol. 4, 44; vol. 5, 76, 130–4, 142, 147–8, 150–4, 173, 280, 342). On the last see also: Simon Lloyd and
Tony Hunt, ‘William Longespee II: the making of an English crusading hero’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 35 (1991), 41–69; 36
(1992), 79–125.
171
Sophia Menache, ‘Rewriting the history of the Templars according to Matthew Paris’, in: Cross cultural convergences in the
crusader period. Essays presented to Aryeh Grabois on his sixty-fifth birthday, ed. Michael Goodich, Sophia Menache and Sylvia
Schein (New York, Bern and Frankfurt a.M., 1995), 183–213; Helen Nicholson, ‘Steamy Syrian scandals: Matthew Paris on the
Templars and Hospitallers’, Medieval History, 2 (1992), 68–85.
172
Andrew Jotischky, ‘Penance and reconciliation in the crusader states: Matthew Paris, Jacques de Vitry and the eastern
Christians’, in: Retribution, repentence and reconcilliation, ed. K. Cooper and J. Gregory (Studies in Church History 40, Wood-
bridge, 2004), 74–83, provides a good introduction into an as yet underexplored topic.
173
See, for instance, Christoph T. Maier, ‘Civilis ac pia regis Francorum deceptio: Louis IX as crusade preacher’, in: Dei gesta per
Francos: Études sur les croisades dédiées à Jean Richard, ed. M. Balard, B.Z. Kedar and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot, 2001), 57–63. This,
too, is an aspect of Matthew’s thinking that still requires further exploration, and would have to include coverage of his
vernacular lives, especially that of St Alban (as Jocelyn Wogan-Browne will demonstrate in her new commentary on and
translation of the text).
174
Sophia Menache, ‘Tartars, Jews, Saracens and the Jewish-Mongol ‘‘plot’’ of 1241’, History, 81 (1996), 319–42; James M.
Powell, ‘Matthew Paris, the lives of Muhammad, and the Dominicans’, in: Dei gesta per Francos, ed. Balard, Kedar and
Riley-Smith, 65–9.
175
CM, vol. 5, 246–54; HA, vol. 3. 112.
176
CM, vol. 5, 253. See, also, the implicit accusation against the friars in Matthew’s rendition of Robert Grosseteste’s definition
of heresy: CM, vol. 5, 401–2.
this was not the emperor’s doing, but that of the bishop of Winchester;177 and when, in 1247, an
imperial army besieged Parma, this was divine punishment for the robbing of the bishop of London
while staying in the city a few years before.178 Similarly, the king apart, most Englishmen who ventured
onto the wider European scene quickly became famous for excelling at their tasks: Matthew Paris (the
Norwegians even secured a papal mandate to obtain his services in overseeing reform of their Bene-
dictine houses),179 Richard of Cornwall (who ransomed failed crusaders wherever he turned,180 sought
to restore peace between pope and emperor,181 and, once elected king of the Romans, freed towns and
regions from manifold exactions182), and William Longespee, one of the few true crusading heroes of
the thirteenth century. The theme surfaces elsewhere in Matthew’s writing. In the Vitae duorum
Offarum, for example, Offa II successfully warded off, and even won grudging respect from, Charles
Martel and Charlemagne.183 In the Estoire, Matthew included a tale about the barbarous customs of the
empire and the more civilised mores of England: when an English princess (Gunnilda) married an
emperor, she was accused of adultery, and had to purge her name through trial by combat. Having
proved her innocence with the aid of a dwarf, she repudiated her husband.184 The chief purpose of that
tale was probably that it offered yet another example of sturdy English virtue vindicated, and that it
established an implicit contrast between St Edward and the emperor in question (Edward’s court was
an altogether more genteel environment, and his chastity was sought by, not forced upon, him). It may
also contain echoes of a rival cult. Matthew named Henry III (1039–56) as the jealous emperor, and
Henry’s first wife had, indeed, been an Anglo-Scandinavian princess. However, there was an eleventh-
century emperor venerated as a saint, and canonised (in 1146): Henry II (1002–24). The cult, in turn,
centred on Henry’s chastity, extended to his wife (Kunigunde, canonised in 1200), and included stories
of a trial by ordeal in which Kunigunde had to prove her fidelity.185 There is no reference to either cult in
Matthew’s writing, but then this does not mean he was unaware of it d in fact, Innocent III had made
extensive reference to Kunigunde, and news of her canonisation may have reached St Albans by way of
the papal chancery. If that had been the case, it would add another dimension to Matthew’s episode,
further strengthening and emphasising Edward’s superior claim to sanctity.186 The evidence can be
stretched only so far and, unless new material is unearthed, a contrast with St Henry II cannot be more
than a tantalising possibility. What mattered was that Matthew sought to celebrate and maintain the
memory of England’s prominence in Latin Christendom. Matthew’s oeuvre was not a random selection
of information, but was meant to illustrate and convey deeper moral and political truths, to serve as
a storehouse of communal memory not only because of the charters and documents it preserved, but
also because it aided the moral interpretation of a community’s past, the understanding of the chal-
lenges it faced in the present, and of those that might confront it in future.
177
CM, vol. 3, 490. On the historical context see K.R. Giles, ‘Two English bishops in the Holy Land’, Nottingham Medieval Studies,
31 (1987), 46–57; Nicholas Vincent, Peter des Roches. An alien in English politics 1205–1238 (Cambridge, 1996), 229–58.
178
CM, vol. 4, 637–8.
179
CM, vol. 5, 44.
180
CM, vol. 4, 143–4.
181
CM, vol. 4, 148–9.
182
CM, vol. 5, 695–8.
183
Vitae, 12–16.
184
Estoire, ll. 506–31, History of St Edward, 60.
185
History of St Edward, 123–4, n. 66, confuses Cnut’s daughter and the empress in question, and makes no reference to the
cult. For the latter see, among the more recent literature: Renate Klauser, Der Heinrichs- und Kunigundenkult im mittelalterlichen
Bistum Bamberg (Bamberg, 1957); Roman Hankeln, ‘Properization’ and formal changes in high medieval saints’ offices: the
offices for Saints Henry and Kunigunde of Bamberg’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 10 (2001), 3–22; Kunigunde consors regni, ed.
Stefanie Dick, Jörg Jarnut and Matthias Wemhoff (Munich, 2004); Kunigunde: Eine Kaiserin an der Jahrtausendwende, ed. Ingrid
Baumgärtner (Kassel, 1997); Klaus Guth, Die heiligen Heinrich und Kunigunde. Leben, Legende, Kult und Kunst (Bamberg, 1986);
Ingrid Bennewitz, ‘Kaiserin und Braut Gottes. Literarische Einwürfe weiblicher Heiligkeit’, Bericht des historischen Vereins für die
Pflege der Geschichte des ehemaligen Fürstbistums Bamberg, 137 (2001), 133–48; Elisabeth Roth, ‘Sankt Kunigunde d Legende
und Bildaussage’, Bericht des historischen Vereins für die Pflege der Geschichte des ehemaligen Fürstbistums Bamberg, 123 (1987),
5–68.
186
Jürgen Petersohn, ‘Die Litterae Papst Innozenz’ III zur Heiligsprechung der Kaiserin Kunigunde (1200)’, Jahrbuch für
fränkische Landesforschung, 37 (1977), 1–25; Michael Goodich, ‘Innocent III and the miracle as a weapon against disbelief’, in:
Innocenzo III: Urbs et Orbis, I, ed. Andrea Sommerlechner (Rome, 2003), 456–70.
All this required Matthew to provide his readers with an aid to interpretation to unlock the
storehouse of morally edifying and instructive tales that he had constructed for them. Matthew was
not the kind of author who kept his readers guessing. It is the always audible voice of the author,
Matthew’s inability or unwillingness to restrain his desire to pass comment, which has both irritated
many of his modern readers, and which has made his writings enjoyable and entertaining. We need
to distinguish, however, between the audiences for which he wrote (or appears to have written), and
when he wrote. Extensive political commentary seems to have been reserved largely for those works
with a predominantly domestic audience, confined to St Albans and Matthew’s fellow-monks: the
Chronica and the Gesta. While, in these works, Matthew may have taken pride in his proximity to
great and powerful men, he certainly was no sycophant; for instance, Richard of Cornwall was
described as famous for his insatiable thirst for money, and lusting after worldly honours.187 Henry III
fared even worse. Matthew may have enjoyed the king’s company in 1257, but he was also quite
happy to describe him as a buffoon, rolling around on the floor of his palace in idiotic joy over being
offered the kingdom of Sicily by the pope;188 of joining the pope to act like a pack of wolves in
plundering the English Church;189 and as a money-grabbing miser: in 1250, Henry even broke with
the time-honoured tradition of distributing Christmas gifts, yet still demanded presents for himself,
his courtiers and his family.190 Even otherwise admired figures did not escape censure: in the Gesta
abbatum, William of Trumpington, a glowing obituary notwithstanding, was still maligned for his
worldly pursuits,191 and unfair treatment of the monks.192 In his Vita of St Edmund of Canterbury,
Matthew reported how some observers had been surprised by the archbishop’s decision to have his
remains interred at Pontigny: ‘had [Edmund] been a real saint, he would not have cared to be buried
in a Cistercian house. Almost all the glorious saints lie in houses of Black Monks, few or none in
Cistercian ones.’193
Such direct and immediate commentary does not exhaust the ways in which Matthew sought to
offer a moral interpretation of events. More often, he used contrasts and comparisons, as may be
exemplified by his description of the wedding between Emperor Frederick II and Isabella, the king of
England’s sister, in 1235, on the one hand, and that between King Henry III and Eleanor of Provence in
1236 on the other. The accounts of the two events are constructed along very similar lines: Matthew
gave a short sketch of the marriage negotiations, named the envoys sent to escort the bride to her new
kingdom, described her festive reception by foreign rulers, such as the count of Champagne, or (in
Eleanor’s case) King Louis of France, as well as by the citizens of respectively Canterbury and London,
and Cologne and Worms, before elaborating on the wedding itself.194 Such structural similarities made
it possible to distinguish more easily between the English and the imperial court, and between the
English and the imperial wedding. Matthew thus catalogued in detail Isabella’s dowry, and the taxes
raised to pay for it; by contrast, he made no mention of payments offered on Eleanor’s behalf.195 More
importantly, he stressed that the emperor had sent home Isabella’s English companions, as she should
be educated in the customs and laws of her new realm.196 This contrast, in turn, set the scene for how
Matthew subsequently referred to the wedding.197 In 1238, for instance, Richard of Cornwall was said
to have castigated the king for failing to follow the example of Frederick II and other rulers: the
187
CM, vol. 5, 346–7.
188
CM, vol. 5, 457–8.
189
CM, vol. 4, 313.
190
CM, vol. 5, 199. See also, for further examples, Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 146–7.
191
GA, vol. 1, 254.
192
GA, vol. 1, 255–8.
193
Lawrence, St Edmund, 276; trans. The Life of St Edmund, 160.
194
CM, vol. 3, 334–9.
195
CM, vol. 3, 319–20, 327. For the historical background: Christiane Wolf di Cecca, ‘Der Brautschatz der Isabella von England
1235 mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Brautschatzkrone’, Archiv für Diplomatik und Urkundenforschung, 41 (1995), 137–45;
Margaret Howell, Eleanor of Provence. Queenship in thirteenth-century England (Oxford, 1998), 13, 280–1, 292–3.
196
CM, vol. 3, 325.
197
Further underlined by later, considerably more outspoken comments: CM, vol. 3, 362, 387, 388, 411, 413, 471, 476.
emperor had, after all, sent home his wife’s companions, instead of showering them with lands and
estates; the king of France, similarly, did not alienate the royal domain to satisfy the greed of his wife’s
relatives and favourites.198 On this occasion, Matthew did not directly criticise the king, but then there
was no need to do so: the difference was obvious enough to those who read the Chronica. Such
contrasts, implicit yet open, were among his favourite techniques: Matthew’s account of the festive
1256 Christmas parliament, during which Richard of Cornwall’s election as king of the Romans was
announced, thus turned into a scathing critique of the king’s own attempts to establish a cadet branch
in the realm of Sicily.199 That critique, in turn, depended on step-by-step contrasts between how the
brothers had secured their respective thrones. In Henry’s case, it could be fathomed only by those who
remembered how, elsewhere in the Chronica, Matthew had sought to illustrate the king’s ineptitude.
This approach extended beyond the English royal court, into sometimes dangerous territory: compare
the pious death of Emperor Frederick II, who departed a repentant sinner,200 or that of his son
Conrad IV,201 with the demise of Pope Innocent IV, their great adversary and Matthew’s bête noire, who
died writhing in pain, and whose otherworldly sufferings became the subject of two separate visions in
the Chronica.202 Such parallels are not always immediately obvious d the contrast between Frederick’s
death and Innocent’s, for instance, has been overlooked by several modern commentators.203 They are,
however, integral to Matthew’s method of writing, and one of the principal means by which he sought
to judge and evaluate the events which he described.
Innocent’s demise also brings us back to Matthew’s use of third parties. In this case, the chronicler
resorted not to anonymous blacksmiths, but to the pontiff’s successor and a cardinal. Matthew cites no
source for Innocent’s vision: one night, the recently deceased Bishop Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln had
appeared to the pope in a dream, and reprimanded him for exploiting the English Church. The prelate
became so enraged that he hit the pope with his episcopal staff. The next morning, Innocent awoke
with great pain in his sides, and coughed all day, unable to drink or sleep. Failing to mend his ways, he
died miserably and painfully.204 Some time later, first Pope Alexander IV and then an unidentified
cardinal experienced visions informing them of Innocent’s posthumous travails: the Virgin listed the
late pontiff’s many crimes against the Church, and Innocent was sent to a place that Matthew refused to
name, but of which he claimed that it would be generous to assume that it was Purgatory. The cardinal
awoke screaming when he realised the severity of the pope’s punishment.205 Matthew did not
normally go to such lengths to make a point (that is, he did not, as a rule, invoke saints or the Virgin, but
made do with foreign rulers, papal officials or anonymous craftsmen).206 The episode is, however,
representative of a technique he employed frequently, and it is also representative of the moral values
that he sought to uphold (in this case, the liberty of the English Church, its freedom from papal or royal
interference). This is not the place to offer a detailed analysis of Matthew’s moral values, which would
require a study of their own.207 Even so, it is worth noting how, in the Chronica, a generous obituary is
normally reserved for those who, in one way or another, had come into conflict with monarch or
pope;208 how a number of otherwise quite undistinguished knights and nobles had merited their
obituary chiefly, it seems, because they had been among the witnesses of Magna Carta of 1215;209 and
198
CM, vol. 3, 477.
199
Weiler, ‘Richard of Cornwall’s candidacy’.
200
CM, vol. 5, 216.
201
CM, vol. 5, 460.
202
CM, vol. 5, 429–30, 470–2, 491–2.
203
Schnith, England, 152–4; Andrea Sommerlechner, Stupor mundi? Kaiser Friedrich II und die mittelalterliche Geschichts-
schreibung (Vienna, 1999).
204
CM, vol. 5, 429–30, 470.
205
CM, vol. 5, 470–2, 491–2.
206
See, for instance, his various portrayals of Sultan al-Kamil as deterred from converting to Christianity by the antics of the
friars, the military orders, and the papacy (CM, vol. 3, 178–9, 486–7; vol. 4, 524–6; vol. 5, 193); the statement by King Hakon IV
of Norway that he would fight the enemies of the Church, but not those of the pope (CM, vol. 5, 201); or a fictitious conver-
sation, in which a papal notary outlined how corrupt an idea it was to have an English prince rule Sicily (CM, vol. 5, 457–8).
207
See, in the meantime, for a suggested reading of Paris’ moral universe in the Chronica: Bocquet, ‘Un idéal de théocratie’.
208
In addition to the example of Robert Grosseteste, see CM, vol. 3, 334, 366, 373, 489–91; vol. 5, 138.
209
CM, vol. 3, 366, 373.
how Matthew wrote the lives only of bishops who had resisted and had spoken out against royal or
papal power.210 Clearly, resistance towards those in power (as long as it came from prelates, monks and
nobles) was a token of great moral stature.211
That Matthew preferred to voice his views indirectly was not, however, a sign of fear. When,
probably after 1250, he revised the Chronica, he may have erased several of his more barbed comments
about the king. However, at roughly the same time he also considerably strengthened his
condemnation of the pope: in the Historia, for example, completed by c.1254, Matthew constructed an
especially damning obituary for Pope Innocent III.212 As far as the king was concerned, Matthew toned
down the language of criticism, but not its direction. Far from mellowing with age,213 he became more
forthright and outspoken. Moreover, when Matthew resumed work on the Chronica from c.1254, his
comments reached a new peak of bitterness and invective, and it is in the passages written from then
onwards that we find his most outspoken and damning caricatures of Henry III.214 That, by this stage,
his historiographical endeavours were known to the king did little to deter Matthew, and he similarly
had few scruples maligning even those like Richard of Cornwall, on whose patronage and support he so
evidently relied. Fear was not an issue. Rather, the use of indirect commentary reflected Matthew’s self-
confidence, and the moral purpose of history. Matthew was interested in establishing moral truths.
Sometimes, as in the case of the English and German weddings, or Richard’s German kingship, it was
enough to record events: the contrasts and differences, parallels and comparisons were too obvious to
warrant further commentary. In such instances, readers did not require the author’s guiding hand. In
other cases, the moral outrage committed d or the moral standards upheld d warranted more
detailed treatment. That, in turn, might be provided either by the chronicler (who could, for instance,
highlight the foolishness of Henry’s Sicilian ambitions by describing the king as behaving like an
imbecile), or by individuals whose standing and prestige heightened the moral message Matthew
sought to convey. Innocent’s crimes were enumerated not by Matthew, but a saintly English bishop and
the mother of God; and they were witnessed not merely by an English monk, but by the pope’s
successor and one of his cardinals. That it was them, not than the author, who condemned the sinner, or
who witnessed his condemnation, only underlined the depravity of the late pontiff, and issued all the
sterner a warning to his successors. Indirect commentary was a matter of reinforcing the message, not
softening it.215
This raises important questions about Matthew’s concept of truth.216 Richard Vaughan felt that
Matthew had ‘something of the forger in him’, prone to ‘unscrupulous falsification’.217 It is, for instance,
highly unlikely that he had reliable informants for the visions of and about Innocent IV, and it is worth
noting that he does not claim that he did. In this particular case, the pope’s numerous misdeeds
warranted the employment of a literary device that underlined the moral truth of his injustice, and not
necessarily the actual events surrounding his death. The same principle probably applied to other
instances where Matthew had anonymous sources comment on events, or where he does not identify
those who had informed him about the utterances, for instance, of foreign lords and rulers. Moreover,
the desire to show what things actually meant extended to Matthew’s handling of sources. Hans-
Eberhard Hilpert, for example, has pointed out just how much some papal and imperial letters in the
210
That is Thomas Becket, Stephen Langton, and Edmund Rich. See also the case of Richard of Chichester: although, in the
Chronica, references to his life are unspecific (beyond a general praise of his sanctity), the known sources for Richard’s life stress
how he had been a repeated and outspoken critic of his king: see Saint Richard of Chichester. The sources for his life, ed. David
Jones (Sussex Record Society 79, Brighton, 1995).
211
See also GA, vol. 1, 254–7; and, generally, Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 139–41.
212
HA, vol. 2, 215.
213
As suggested by Gransden, Historical writing, 370–1; Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 124.
214
See Weiler, ‘Matthew Paris’, passim, though the somewhat uncritical use of ‘propaganda’, and the perhaps too simplistic
description of Matthew as a ‘journalist’ should also be noted.
215
This contrary to Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 135.
216
Which he never discussed explicitly: CM, vol. 5, 262, 470.
217
Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 134. Schnith, England in einer sich wandelnden Welt, 211–13, by contrast, sees Matthew as the
unwitting victim of a clash between a search for transcendental and actual truth. Neither author, incidentally, made reference to
Matthew’s own definition of historical writing and its purpose.
Chronica differ from those copies surviving elsewhere. In some instances, this may have been the result
of different versions of the same text being circulated,218 but there is clear evidence that Matthew
inserted passages that expressed his views and criticisms. It is, for example, highly unlikely that the
patriarch of Jerusalem would have inveighed, in a letter addressed to the Roman cardinals, at great
length against the curia’s avarice, greed, lust for power and domination (exemplified by its claims to
lordship over England), and manifold exactions.219 Matthew similarly revised his models: when
rewriting Roger of Wendover’s account of King John’s election in 1199, he inserted a lengthy passage in
which the archbishop warned the new king that he had been chosen to perform an office, and that
another ruler might be chosen if he failed to perform his duties;220 and when dealing with the
emperor’s response to his excommunication in 1227, Matthew added a lengthy passage to Wendover’s
summary of the emperor’s arguments, about the manifold crimes committed by the papal court, its
exactions, tyranny and greed, once again illustrated by Pope Innocent III first leading on and then
betraying the barons in 1215.221 Investigation of Matthew’s redaction and rewriting of documents has
so far focused largely on his papal and imperial letters, and has yet to extend to other materials in the
Chronica and Liber.222 It seems, however, that, just as in the narrative sections of the Chronica, Mat-
thew’s recording of sources was guided by the need to evaluate them by standards of morally
appropriate sentiment and behaviour.
To point out that Matthew prioritised moral over historical truth is no criticism, nor is it voicing
disappointment at the failure of a thirteenth-century monk to abide by the norms of twentieth- or
twenty-first-century academic historians. It is, rather, meant to highlight an essential feature of
Matthew’s approach to history, and one that needs to be kept in mind if one wants to use his writings to
ask wider questions about thirteenth-century society and life. Just because Matthew reported
a particularly poignant bon mot, episode or saying, does not mean that it had been voiced by the person
to whom he attributed it, or that it had occurred as he described it. Some of the most famous quotes
recorded by him where probably his own inventions.223 At the same time, even some of Matthew’s
more outlandish episodes can be linked to events for which independent evidence exists.224 What this
means is that he rarely made up things entirely, but that his desire to offer a moral interpretation also
required him to present events in a manner that made their deeper meaning, their ethical value and
message, discernable to his readers. Especially, but not exclusively, with those developments occurring
outside England, with no immediate legal or administrative significance for the community of St
Albans, it was that moral message which had to be highlighted. It was in such instances, too, that it was
legitimate to speculate about what was said, or how events had unfolded (and it is worth noting that, in
the great majority of cases, it was with reference to wider European events, or with those in the distant
past, prior to the time he himself had witnessed or at least lived through, that Matthew freely exercised
his exegetical imagination). After all, such occurrences had merited recording primarily because they
could serve to highlight England’s place in Christendom, and to outline both the dangers facing the
wider community of Christians, and how they might be met. Matthew Paris simply took seriously his
duty to provide moral guidance and instruction.
218
Hilpert, Kaiser-und Papstbriefe, 59–61.
219
CM, vol. 3, 455–60; Hilpert, Kaiser- und Papstbriefe, 61.
220
CM, vol. 2, 454–5.
221
CM, vol. 3, 152–3.
222
See, though, Powell, ‘Matthew Paris, the lives of Muhammed’ and ‘Patriarch Gerold and Frederick II: the Matthew Paris
letter’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999), 19–26, both of which, however, assume that Matthew copied the information he
received more or less verbatim.
223
See, for instance, Matthew’s statement that Richard of Cornwall had turned down the offer of Sicily by claiming that it was
the equivalent of the pope telling him ‘I give or sell you the moon; now go and get it.’ However, Matthew reports a private
conversation between the pope and his secretary (and stresses how secretive the conversation was, which, should it have taken
place, clearly excluded witnesses), and claims that the secretary repeated a conversation which he had secretly had with the
earl of Cornwall (CM, vol. 5, 457–8).
224
CM, vol. 5, 361: Richard inquiring, in 1254, of Conrad IV how it might best be possible to expel him from the kingdom of
Sicily; Calendar of Liberate Rolls 1251–60 (London, 1959), 114: an exchange of emissaries between the English and the Sicilian
royal courts.
It was not an approach that he applied schematically. One should thus take note of his rather
different reporting of events or documents with immediate relevance to St Albans. While texts like the
Vitae duorum Offarum, or the lives of St Alban and St Amphibalus, were as much concerned with
reconstructing the abbey’s early history as with encouraging Matthew’s brethren to revive the inevi-
tably higher standards of those days,225 the documentation inserted in the Gesta and Chronica, as long
as it dealt with the abbey’s affairs during Matthew’s lifetime, sought to provide as accurate a record of
the community’s legal claims, travails and victories as possible. There seems to have been few attempts
to revise and amend the materials that passed through Matthew’s hands.226 While, at first sight, this
may seem to contradict what has just been argued, it reflects closely entwined yet distinct aspects of
the utility of history. On the one hand, there was history’s role as storehouse of edifying and instructive
anecdotes, as a means by which the course of human affairs could be interpreted, and by which morally
appropriate behaviour could be exemplified. In order to fulfil this function, it was at times required of
those writing history that they press home moral lessons, that they go beyond what actually happened
to elicit the deeper meaning of events. On the other hand, there was the role of history as a means of
preserving communal memory, of creating a reference point from which to respond to legal and
political challenges, as testimony to a community’s successes and tribulations. In the former case, an
accurate depiction of what had happened was less important d and, considering the limitations of
networks and routes of communication, not always feasible d than outlining the meaning of what had
happened. In the latter case, what mattered was to have access to the evidence with which challenges
could be rebutted.227 This is not to suggest that the two approaches did not overlap: as we have seen
with the Gesta abbatum, the opposite was clearly the case. However, while a successful suit also
established the monks’ moral victory, the historian’s duty was to preserve not only the memory of that
victory, but also of the tools by which it had been won, and with which it might in future be defended.
The utilitarian dimension of history may also explain the different tone struck in those writings
aimed at an audience beyond St Albans. Here, Matthew did not change the general thrust of his
interpretation, of the moral principles he sought to uphold or of the lessons that he sought to convey,
but he proceeded in a more subtle fashion, offering guidance through example and admonition, not
invective, mockery and satire. The Historia may serve to exemplify this approach. Much about the text,
including its audience, is still uncertain. Its nineteenth-century editor suggested it was aimed at a court
audience, possibly the king, possibly members of the wider royal family.228 There certainly is
a distinctly royalist streak to the text. At the same time, while some of the more vituperative comments
about Henry III had been removed, Matthew did not hold back from moral admonition, stressing the
king’s obligation and duty to take the advice and counsel of his barons, and stay clear of undeserving
aliens, etc. Certainly, the emphasis on the pious deeds of St Edmund of Canterbury (including several
illustrations) and his admonitions to the king should warn us against thinking that Matthew put
soothing the ego of his patrons above telling what he perceived to be the moral truth. What was
different, however, was the tone of admonition: we no longer have the invective for which the Chronica
is famous, but advice and remonstration. That shift is even more pronounced in Matthew’s vernacular
writings. In the Estoire, for instance, or the life of St Alban, this emphasis extended to the illustrations
accompanying the text: as Cynthia Hahn and others have argued, the combination of rubric, text and
illustration provided a guide to proper behaviour for kings and knights. Matthew sought to offer moral
225
Otter, ‘La Vie des deux Offa’, passim.
226
This is based on private communication with Dr Henry Summerson, who is currently preparing a more detailed study on
Matthew’s reporting of legal matters.
227
Such concern might, furthermore, have applied to his meticulous recording of marvels and prodigies: in order to make
appropriate and successful use of his testimony, it had to be as accurate as possible. It was, after all, often only through
hindsight that the true meaning of such occurrences revealed itself: a record that described what actually happened was thus
essential if these accounts were to be put to good use. This may, in turn, have been an issue in Matthew’s early exercises in
describing natural phenomena, such as the impact of an earthquake on the pillars in Wells Cathedral in 1248 (CM, vol. 5, 46), or
of an unusual kind of bird appearing at St Albans in 1251 (CM, vol. 5, 254–5). If meaning revealed itself through unusual natural
phenomena, these had to be accurately described. Their moral significance would only reveal itself at a later stage. See also, for
a somewhat different approach, Jacques Le Goff, ‘Bulletins météorologiques au XIIIe siècle’, in: Milieux naturels, espaces sociaux.
Études offertes à Robert Delort, ed. Elisabeth Mornet and Franco Morenzoni (Paris, 1997), 55–64.
228
HA, vol. 3, xxxii. I hope to explore this argument further in a separate investigation.
guidance by showing how morally appropriate actions unfolded and worked in history.229 That the
Estoire was produced for members of the court points in a similar direction, especially considering its
image of kingship as an exercise in consultation and cooperation between the king and his native
subjects, so admirably explored by Paul Binski.230 Matthew never abstained from offering moral
commentary, but he tailored the type of commentary he offered, and the language in which it was
proffered, to the audience which he sought to address.
IV
What, in conclusion, does all this tell us about Matthew Paris? On a most elementary level, it is
important to approach his works as a whole. This is not only a matter of ranging beyond the Chronica,
but also of giving due consideration to those texts and those sections of texts which he had copied
from elsewhere. After all, as discussed in relation to his prefaces, Matthew frequently imbued
inherited paradigms with a reading and interpretation of his own. Equally, Matthew understood
himself to be part of an established tradition of writing history, and it is with reference to that
tradition that he sought to define the purpose and uses of history. The exact relationship of Matthew’s
writings to those of his contemporaries in England and the wider world of Latin Christendom awaits
a more detailed investigation, but certain shared features have nonetheless emerged. History was
meant to provide an encyclopaedia of useful information about the dangers that had faced the
community of Matthew’s readers in the past and of those that might face it in future. Writing,
therefore, and the writing of history especially, was a pious task, a duty before God and towards
humankind. Moreover, much of that ethical dimension of writing, its complexity and pervasiveness,
becomes apparent only once Matthew’s oeuvre is approached not as a depository of fact, as a store-
house of entertaining anecdotes, but as a series of interrelated meditations on shared themes and
concerns. At times, different audiences and different genres moved Paris to adopt somewhat different
approaches, but the overarching moral and interpretative thrust remained fairly constant. He may
have criticised King Henry III in a more outspoken fashion in the Chronica, but the norms of political
behaviour that he espoused there were equally evident in the Estoire or the Historia. This is not to say
that he did not contradict himself, or that he did not change his mind: as the Chronica was composed
in an increasingly annalistic fashion, and as he so frequently and extensively revised his writings, it
was inevitable that he did both. Yet it was not Matthew’s set of principles that changed, or the
purpose of his writing, but the willingness of individual actors to abide by the moral code that he
upheld.231 It was this moral and utilitarian imperative, that made his oeuvre both one of the most
fascinating and one of the most irritating sources for the history of thirteenth-century Europe.
Matthew frequently looked beyond the British Isles because he knew that England was but one part of
a greater whole, yet he also selected and interpreted that information with very domestic concerns in
mind. He prided himself on being truthful, but to him truthfulness meant, by modern standards,
sometimes quite different things. Yet he also gave us the means by which to navigate these seeming
contradictions, to gain deeper insights into his perception of the past, and to use his representation of
it as a point of departure for investigations and explorations of our own.
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper were presented to a conference on medieval authorship at the Uni-
versitetet i Bergen, and the California Medieval History Seminar at the Huntington Library. I would like
to thank Warren Brown, Christoph Egger, Joanne Rappaport, Nicholas Vincent and Nicholas Watson for
229
Hahn, ‘Ideal behaviour’ and ‘The limits of text and image’; Jordan, ‘The multiple narratives’.
230
Binski, ‘Reflections’.
231
The changing portrayal of Robert Grosseteste may serve as an example: over several years, and as his relationship with the
papal curia deteriorated, the prelate was transformed from a ruthless hammer of monks into a steadfast champion of eccle-
siastical liberties. See Weiler, ‘Stupor mundi’, 78–9.
their thoughtful comments and suggestions; Slavica Rankovic and Piotr Górecki for their kind invi-
tations; and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard for providing the stimulating
intellectual environment without which this paper could not have been written.
Björn Weiler is Reader in Medieval History at Aberystwyth University. His previous publications include King Henry III of England
and the Staufen empire, 1216–1272 (2006) and Kingship, rebellion and political culture. England and Germany, c. 1215–c. 1250 (2007).

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Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009) 254–278

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Journal of Medieval History

Matthew Paris on the writing of history

E-mail address: bkw@aber.ac.uk

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