Western Europe in the later Middle Ages saw a proliferation of universal (or world) chronicles, based on a model developed much earlier by such as Eusebius, Jerome, and Orosius, and utilizing these and others that had been written in the intervening centuries. [1] One of the more popular, especially in Britain, was Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon, which treated the history of the world up to 1352, with later additions by other writers. [2] The text here edited by Cosima Clara Gillhammer is based largely on Caxton’s 1482 printing of John Trevisa’s English translation of the Polychronicon, but carefully blended with other sources, including additions by the compiler, to form a unique chronicle found in just one manuscript, Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29 (hereafter, T). The name of the compiler is not known, although Gillhammer suggests (II: xxvi) that the same scribe (whom she equates with the compiler) also wrote two “sister manuscripts”: London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 84 (L), and San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 144 (H).
The text has, until now, received very little attention. It was described in very spare terms in two reference works, both of which give it the title “History of the Old Testament” [3], which does not do justice to the content, as the edition clearly demonstrates. It has also received some attention from scholars who have worked on some of the compiler’s sources, mainly as an example of reception. So we are in debt to Gillhammer for editing the text and bringing it to a wider audience.
The edition consists of two volumes. Volume I includes the text itself, followed by a few pages of textual apparatus. Volume II has “Introduction, Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliography,” according to the title page, but the introduction is very substantial, as is the commentary. The text found in T (the only text in the manuscript) is a history of the world from the creation, but it abruptly breaks off (in mid-sentence) at the time of Hannibal’s invasion of Italy. As noted above, Gillhammer believes that the same scribe wrote two other manuscripts (L and H), based on the writing, layout, and the overlap in some of the sources. She gives a thorough description of T, with its handwriting, layout, decoration, provenance, and content, really an account of the compiler’s sources:
“The universal history of the world in T is compiled from the Vulgate,
Caxton’s printed version of Trevisa’s translation of Ranulph Higden’s
Polychronicon, Wynkyn de Worde’s print Informacion for pylgrymes
vnto the holy londe, The Tale of Melibee and The Parson’s Tale from
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Peter of Poitier’s Compendium historiae
in genealogia Christi, Gower’s Confessio Amantis, a version of the
Holy Cross legend, a translation of Jacques Legrand’s Book of Good
Manners, and Mandeville’s Travels.” (II: xx)
The Introduction includes short sections on each of these sources and how the compiler uses them. What makes the text special, according to Gillhammer, is the range of the sources and the way the compiler wove them together into a continuous narrative, as she describes in sections on the “Method of Compilation” and “Source Texts” (II: xxxvi-lxi). In fact, while the book was in the press, she published a very good article on this issue, which is worth reading in conjunction with the book. [4] Given this focus, her commentary (II: 1-27) is essential to the project, and it is a considerable achievement, tracing the compiler’s sources throughout the work. The commentary is arranged by lines of text, in sections according to the sources used. Thus, a section dealing with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:
[lines] 4594-4695 ... Based on Genesis xix, sometimes translating
quite closely, in other places summarizing. Additions from
[Polychronicon] I. 14 ... and from [Polychronicon] II, 10 ... Further
additions from unidentified sources in ll. 4634-4641 with details on
the devil preaching in the five cities (a detail which is not biblical),
and in ll. 4675-4680, describing the extent of God’s vengeance.
The Introduction also includes an attempt to identify the author/compiler/scribe, if not by name, at least geographically (based, to a great extent, on orthography and linguistic identity). In combination with the supposed audience for the texts, she concludes that the compiler was probably an Augustinian from East Anglia (II: lxxi-lxxv). The Glossary, which she describes as “selective,” and meant “to provide a guide for readers accustomed to Chaucerian English,” was very helpful to me, especially in one instance. In a passage on Abraham (I, 123), the text says that Cethura “was his secounde wife, and begate on her vj children, as Policronicon seyth, but [t]he Petigrew spekyth but of tweyne.” The commentary identifies the source here as Polychronicon II, 11, but who or what is this Petigrew? Fortunately, the glossary includes the word petigrew, defined as genealogy (cf. pedigree). So it is clear that the reference is to Peter of Poitier’sCompendium Historiae in Genealogia Christi, one of the sources that Gillhammer discusses at length (II: xlix-liii), but it would have been good to elucidate that here.
This brings me to one of my quibbles with the book. While some of T’s sources, especially Higden and Jacques Legrand, generally identify their sources, T rarely does (except to pass on those cited by the sources). That is what makes Gillhammer’s commentary so helpful. I would not expect the editor to also identify all of the sources cited by Higden (there are many, and they are generally well-known: Cicero, Pliny, Livy, Trogus, Jerome, Augustine, Isidore, etc.), but when they are cited by T (or the source) in a highly abbreviated or otherwise obscure form, it would be good to assist the reader by clarifying this. In the cases of Higden or Legrand, this is more important because there is no readily accessible modern edition of their works to which the reader could refer. The Rolls Series edition of the Polychronicon (1865-1886) does not usually identify Higden’s sources in context, but only in a discursive introduction to each book (where they are merely listed, and sometimes wrongly identified). It is also cumbersome to consult. I could give many examples, in addition to “the Petigrew,” but let me just cite a similar one: T cites (I, 141 and 142) “the Maistir of stories” in telling the story of the Exodus. Gillhammer’s commentary says that the sections around this one come from Polychronicon II, 14, Ambrose (whom T cites), or directly from Exodus, but for one of the passages in which we find the “Master of Stories,” she writes “No direct source found.” It took me a bit of Googling to discover that the Master of Stories (Magister Historiarum) is another way that contemporaries referred to Peter Comestor and his Historia Scholastica, [5] a great influence on all the chronicles of the later Middle Ages and one whom Gillhammer mentions in relation to Peter of Poitiers. In fact, Higden cites “Petrus” in numerous places in Polychronicon II, 14. My last example is that of “Hugo de Ar” (I, 20). When I first read this citation, I assumed that Ar was an abbreviation of the place that Hugh came from. But Higden wrote “Hugutio de Arca” (T got “Hugo de Ar” from Caxton’s edition). So, the reference is to the De Archa Noe of Hugh of Saint Victor, a book that I had read, but did not come to mind. The Rolls Series edition of the Polychronicon wrongly identifies the Derivationes of Hugutio Pisanus as one of Higden’s sources here, not Hugh of Saint Victor.
My second quibble with the book concerns bibliography. The bibliography in volume II (46-55) is divided into three sections: Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, and Theses and Dissertations. I do not understand the reason for not simply including theses and dissertations with the other secondary sources, and the separation leads to confusion. Kate Harris had done work on T and its use of Gower’s Confessio Amantis, and Gillhammer lists two of her articles among the secondary sources. In one place (II: lv) she mentions Harris’s work, and cites “Harris 1993.” I wondered why I could not find it in the bibliography until I realized that it was listed in the third section, because it was her dissertation--a needless distinction. I was also puzzled when I tried searching for some of T’s sources in the section on primary sources, and could not find them until I realized that she had arranged them alphabetically by the name of the editor of the edition. Fortunately, the edition of Higden’s Polychronicon was listed first, as the editor was Babington, and this section is only a page and a half, so I was soon able to find the others and label them in the margin. The only exception to this was “Beauvais, Vincent of,” probably because the reference to his Speculum is to a reprint of a very early edition whose editor is not known. Here again, this choice leads to confusion. One of the sources listed is Hans Vollmer’s edition, Ein deutsches Adambuch: Nach einer undgedruckten Handschrift der Hamburger Stadtbibliothek aus dem XV. Jahrhundert (Hamburg: Lütcke und Wulff, 1908). It is only in a footnote to her treatment of Peter of Poitier’s Compendium Historiae in Genealogia Christi as a source for T that we see: “A Latin version of theGenealogia has been edited by Vollmer 1908.” So, one of T’s major sources lies hidden in the bibliography. Finally, T’s main source, Caxton’s edition of Trevisa’s translation of the Polychronicon is not even listed in the bibliography. Gillhammer writes (II, xlii), “There are more than 250 excerpts in T, ranging from a few words to long section spanning several pages, with the compiler copying large parts of Books I, II, and III.” Yet, a bit farther on the same page, she writes: “Collation shows that the source used by the compiler of T is the 1482 print of Trevisa’s translation by Caxton (STC 13428).” There is not even a proper bibliographic citation. This is also true of other incunabular editions of T’s sources, including The Book of Good Manners, of which she writes “The text was translated into English several times and survives in [lists three manuscripts].... The earliest printed edition dates to 1487 (STC 15394)” (II: lvii). Again, there is no bibliographic citation, and nothing in the bibliography. As one who works generally with Latin, and not English, sources I wondered whether this is typical in the field of English studies, but I have been told that it is not. Moreover, another book in the same series does not follow this policy, [6] and lists Caxton’s print of the Polychronicon along with other manuscripts of the English texts, and gives a complete bibliographic description as well as the STC number. It also lists the Rolls Series Polychronicon under Higden, and not Babington, and treats other primary source editions the same.
While I have probably expended far too many words about these quibbles, I would not want them to detract from the overall value of the edition and the contribution that Gillhammer has made here. This is a very interesting text for the reasons given above. That this otherwise unknown author had access to such a wide range of sources and was able to weave them into a unique chronicle interspersed with his or her own observations gives us an unusual perspective on fifteenth-century England. It would be tempting to try to identify this as the hitherto unknown work of some famous contemporary author, which Gillhammer, fortunately, does not do. Despite my criticism of some of the paratextual elements, the edition is valuable, as is the extensive research that she has done to place the work in context.
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Notes:
1. See Graeme Dunphy, “World Chronicles,” in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle Online, ed. G. Dunphy (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
2. See Jane Beal, “Higden, Ranulf,” in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle Online, ed. G. Dunphy (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
3. By Edward Donald Kennedy, in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500, Vol. 8: Chronicles and Other Historical Writing (New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1989), 2662, and by Jane Beal, “History of the Old Testament,” in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle Online, ed. G. Dunphy (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
4. Cosima Clara Gillhammer, “Fifteenth-Century Compilation Methods: The Case of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29,” The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 73, No. 308 (2021): 20-41.
5. See Mark J. Clark, The Making of the Historia scholastica, 1150-1200 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2015), 7.
6. John Trevisa’s Translation of the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, Book VI: An Edition Based on British Library MS Cotton Tiberius D.VII, ed. Ronald Waldron (Universitätsverlag Winter, 2004.)