Thomas Sprott or Spott ( fl. 1292) was an English

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

chronicler, a monk of

St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury St Augustine's Abbey was a Benedictines, Benedictine monastery in Canterbury, Kent, England. The abbey was founded in 598 and functioned as a monastery until its dissolution in 1538 during the English Reformation. After the abbey's dissolution, ...

Chronicles

Sprott wrote a history of St Augustine's Abbey. His work was used and acknowledged by the chroniclers

Thomas Elmham Thomas Elmham (1364in or after 1427) was an English chronicler. Life Thomas Elmham was probably born at North Elmham in Norfolk. He may have been the Thomas Elmham who was a scholar at King's Hall, Cambridge from 1389 to 1394. He became a Bened ...

and William Thorne. Thorne copies him freely to 1228, where he says Sprott's share ends. He elsewhere stated that Sprott's work ended in 1272, a point that is unclear in surviving manuscripts (which had later additions, and some damage). John Leland mentioned a chronicle by Sprott that extended to 1272, which

Casimir Oudin Remi-Casimir Oudin (14 February 1638 – September 1717) was a French Premonstratensian monk and bibliographer, who later in life was a Protestant convert, and a librarian in Leyden. He engaged in controversy with Anselmo Banduri. His major work ...

stated was among the manuscripts of

Walter Cope Sir Walter Cope ( – 30 July 1614) of Cope Castle in the parish of Kensington, Middlesex, England, was Master of the Court of Wards, Chamberlain of the Exchequer, public Registrar-General of Commerce and a Member of Parliament for Westminst ...

Manuscripts and misattributions

The text of Sprott's chronicle survives in two variant 13th-century manuscripts (

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is situated in north Lambeth, London, on the south bank of the River Thames, south-east of the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, on the oppos ...

MS 419,

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

s 111–60; and

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

Cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

MS Tiberius A.ix, folios 107–80), and in several later transcripts. However, it has never been printed. Two texts falsely attributed to Sprott have been published: *A roll, with no title, in the possession of Joseph Mayer, was printed in facsimile and ascribed to Sprott. It contained brief chronicles from the beginning of the world to 1307. This work dates from the 15th century, and is no longer considered to be by Sprott. It consists almost entirely of abstracts from the ''

Flores Historiarum The ''Flores Historiarum'' (Flowers of History) is the name of two different (though related) Latin chronicles by medieval English historians that were created in the 13th century, associated originally with the Abbey of St Albans. Wendover's '' ...

'' formerly ascribed to "

Matthew of Westminster Matthew of Westminster, long regarded as the author of the '' Flores Historiarum'', is now thought never to have existed. The error was first discovered in 1826 by Francis Turner Palgrave, who said that Matthew was "a phantom who never existed," an ...

". A translation of the roll, with the title ''Sprott's Chronicle of Sacred and Profane History'', was issued by William Bell (Liverpool, 1851). *A chronicle of general history from the creation to 1339 was printed by Thomas Hearne in 1719 as Sprott's; with a number of ''Fragmenta Sprottiana'', from a manuscript of Sir Edward Dering. The chronicle is of the late 14th century, and attribution to Sprott is no longer supported.

Notes

Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Sprott, Thomas 13th-century English writers Benedictine monks English chroniclers