Matthew Paris

His Chronica Majora is a renowned Medieval work, in many cases being a key source for mid-13th century Europe, partially due to his verbose insertion of personal opinions into his narrative and his use of sources such as records, letters, and conversations with witnesses to events including the English king Henry III, earl Richard of Cornwall, the Norwegian king Haakon IV, a number of English bishops, and many others. Modern historians recognise Paris's biases. He often tended to glorify Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and denigrate the pope,^[2] expressing strong criticism of centralised church authority and at times royal power. However, in his Historia Anglorum, Paris displays a highly negative view of Frederick, going as far as to describe him as a "tyrant" who "committed disgraceful crimes".^[3]

In spite of his surname and knowledge of the French language, Paris was of English birth, and is believed by some chroniclers to be of the Paris family of Hildersham, Cambridgeshire.^[4] He may have studied at Paris in his youth after early education at St Albans School, however this is simply conjecture. The first we know of Matthew Paris (from his own writings) is that he was admitted as a monk to St Albans in 1217. It is on the assumption that he was in his teens on admission that his birth date is estimated; some scholars suspect he may have been ten years or older; many monks only entered monastic life after pursuing a career in the world outside. He was clearly at ease with the nobility and even royalty, which may indicate that he came from a family of some status, although it also seems an indication of his personality. His life was mainly spent in this religious house. In 1248, Paris was sent to Norway as the bearer of a message from Louis IX to Haakon IV; he made himself so agreeable to the Norwegian sovereign that he was invited to superintend the reformation of the Benedictine Nidarholm Abbey outside Trondheim.


Apart from these missions, his known activities were devoted to the composition of history, a pursuit for which the monks of St Albans had long been famous. He inherited the mantle of Roger of Wendover, at that time the abbey's foremost chronicler, after Wendover's death in 1236. Paris revised Wendover's work, a chronicle covering Creation to 1235 known as the Flores Historiarum, and added new material of an annalistic nature from 1236 onwards which Paris sustained until his death in 1259. This work, known as the Chronica Majora, was thus not only useful to readers of Paris's time, and has been used by modern historians as a source document for the period between 1235 and 1259. While this makes Paris's Chronica currently his most famous work, within the first few hundred years after Paris's death this was not the case. Paris scribed 2 major abridgements of his Chronica: his Historia Anglorum, and a work named like that of Wendover, the Flores Historiarum. This manuscript, unlike his Chronica, was copied multiple times and at multiple places and within 250 years of the writing of Paris's Flores, over 20 copies were made. Paris also is known for his illustrations and cartographic ability, often found as marginalia however sometimes being given full pages.


The Dublin MS (see below) contains interesting notes, which shed light on Paris's involvement in other manuscripts, and on the way his own were used. They are in French and in his handwriting:


It is presumed the last relates to Paris acting as commissioning agent and iconographical consultant for the Countess with another artist.


The lending of his manuscripts to aristocratic households, apparently for periods of weeks or months at a time, suggests why he made several different illustrated versions of his Chronicle.

Paris as a historian[edit]

From 1235, the point at which Wendover dropped his pen, Paris continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed. He derived much of his information from the letters of important people, which he sometimes inserts, but much more from conversations with the eyewitnesses of events. Among his informants were Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and King Henry III, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms.


The king knew that Paris was writing a history, and wanted it to be as exact as possible. In 1257, in the course of a week's visit to St Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and day, "and guided my pen," says Paris, "with much goodwill and diligence." It is curious that the Chronica Majora gives so unfavourable an account of the king's policy. Henry Richards Luard supposes that Paris never intended his work to be read in its present form. Many passages of the autograph have written next to them, the note offendiculum, which shows that the writer understood the danger which he ran. On the other hand, unexpurgated copies were made in Paris's lifetime. Although the offending passages are duly omitted or softened in his abridgement of his longer work, the Historia Anglorum (written about 1253), Paris's real feelings must have been an open secret. There is no ground for the old theory that he was an official historiographer.


Naturalists have praised his descriptions of the English wildlife of his time, brief though they are: in particular his valuable description of the first irruption into England in 1254 of the common crossbill.^[23]

Studies of Matthew Paris[edit]

The relation of Matthew Paris's work to those of John de Celia (John of Wallingford) and Roger of Wendover may be studied in Henry Luard's edition of the Chronica Majora (7 vols., Rolls series, 1872–1881), which contains valuable prefaces. The Historia Anglorum sive historia minor (1067–1253) has been edited by Frederic Madden (3 vols., Rolls series, 1866–1869).


Matthew Paris is sometimes confused with Matthew of Westminster, the reputed author of the Flores historiarum edited by Luard (3 vols., Rolls series, 1890). This work, compiled by various hands, is an edition of Matthew Paris, with continuations extending to 1326.


He wrote a life of St Edmund of Abingdon, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury.^[26]


He also wrote the Anglo-Norman La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei (the History of Saint Edward the King), which survives in a beautifully illuminated manuscript version, Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS. Ee.3.59. The manuscript has had a varied publication history.^[27] Sections were printed in Francisque Michel's Chroniques Anglo-Normandes. Luard's edition for the Rolls series^[28] was severely criticised;^[29] it was re-edited for the Anglo-Norman Text Society by K. Y. Wallace.^[30] A facsimile for the Roxburghe Club was edited by M. R. James,^[31] and the whole manuscript has been digitalized and can be seen online.^[32]


Paris House at St Albans High School for Girls is named after him.