Johannes de Beke (also Johannes de Beka or Jan Beke) was a 14th-century Dutch priest and historian. He was probably a monk of

Egmond Abbey Egmond Abbey or St. Adalbert's Abbey ( nl, Abdij van Egmond, ''Sint-Adelbertabdij'') is a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of the Annunciation between Egmond aan den Hoef and Bakkum in Egmond-Binnen in the municipality of Bergen in the ...

. In 1346, he wrote a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''Chronographia'' of the

County of Holland The County of Holland was a State of the Holy Roman Empire and from 1433 part of the Burgundian Netherlands, from 1482 part of the Habsburg Netherlands and from 1581 onward the leading province of the Dutch Republic, of which it remained a part ...

and

Bishopric of Utrecht The Bishopric of Utrecht ( nl, Sticht Utrecht) was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries, in the present-day Netherlands. From 1024 to 1528, as one of the prince-bishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire, it w ...

from the time of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

down to his time. He dedicated it to Bishop Jan van Arkel and Count

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087 ...

. His stated aim was to preserve the peace between counts and bishops by demonstrating the common origin and shared history of their territories. Johannes's sources include earlier annals and the ''Rhyming Chronicle'' of

Melis Stoke Melis Stoke ( 1235 – c. 1305) was a Dutch writer who lived in the 13th century. Biography Melis Stoke was probably born in the Dutch province of Zeeland around 1235. He died somewhere around 1305. He started writing in 1290 in Middle Dutch ...

. Continuations were added to his ''Chronographia'' to bring it down to 1393. In 1395, a

Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarch ...

translation was made, to which continuations were added down to 1430. The continuations are an important contemporary source for Dutch history.The Johannes de Beke Chronicle up until 1430
Resources Huygens ING. Retrieved 29 July 2021.

References

{{reflist 14th-century historians from the Holy Roman Empire 14th-century Latin writers Middle Dutch writers People from the county of Holland