Pseudo-Ingulf is the name given to an unknown English author of the ''Historia Monasterii Croylandensis'', also known as the ''
Croyland Chronicle
Crowland (modern usage) or Croyland (medieval era name and the one still in ecclesiastical use; cf. la, Croilandia) is a town in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated between Peterborough and Spalding. Crowland c ...
''. Nothing certain is known of Pseudo-Ingulf although it is generally assumed that he was connected with
Croyland Abbey
Crowland Abbey (also spelled Croyland Abbey, Latin: ''Croilandia'') is a Church of England parish church, formerly part of a Benedictine abbey church, in Crowland in the English county of Lincolnshire. It is a Grade I listed building.
History
A ...
.
The ''Historia Monasterii Croylandensis'' is attributed to Abbot
Ingulph
Ingulf ( la, Ingulphus; died 16 November 1109) was the Benedictine abbot of Crowland from 1087.
Life
Ingulf was an Englishman who, having travelled to England on diplomatic business as secretary of William, Duke of Normandy, in 1051, was made A ...
, an 11th-century Abbot of Croyland, but is generally accepted to be a 14th-century work. Those parts of the work written after Pseudo-Ingulf, that is in the 15th century, are considered a valuable source. Pseudo-Ingulf himself is not; while he may have had access to genuine traditions or documents at Croyland, "he misunderstood or garbled these beyond any possibility of recognition".
A number of distinguished 19th-century historians attempted to extract reliable material from Pseudo-Ingulf, notably
E. A. Freeman
Edward Augustus Freeman (2 August 182316 March 1892) was an English historian, architectural artist, and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician during the late-19th-century heyday of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, William Gladstone, as ...
and Sir
Francis Palgrave
Sir Francis Palgrave, (; born Francis Ephraim Cohen, July 1788 – 6 July 1861) was an English archivist and historian. He was Deputy Keeper (chief executive) of the Public Record Office from its foundation in 1838 until his death; and he is ...
, with limited success.
Footnotes
External links
* Ingulphi Abbatis Croylandensis historiarum, Liber I, in ''Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores Post Bedam Praecipui, ex vetustissimis codicibus manuscriptis nunc primum in lucem editi'' (G. Bishop, R Nuberie & R. Barker Typographij Regii, London 1596)
digitized (Google)Google provides a copy of a translation of the text into English.
14th-century English historians
{{England-historian-stub