The ''Lanercost Chronicle'' is a northern
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
history covering the years 1201 to 1346. It covers the
Wars of Scottish Independence
The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of ...
, but it is also highly digressive and as such provides insights into English life in the thirteenth century as well as Scottish life. It includes
Robert the Bruce
Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Scottish Gaelic: ''Raibeart an Bruis''), was King of Scots from 1306 to his death in 1329. One of the most renowned warriors of his generation, Robert eventuall ...
.
Origins
The English historian
Andrew George Little
Andrew George Little (28 September 1863 – 22 October 1945) was an English historian, specialising in the Franciscans (known as the Greyfriars) in medieval England. He was Professor of History at the University College of South Wales, Cardiff, ...
concluded that the chronicle is basically a Franciscan chronicle, which has been adapted, abbreviated, and interpolated at the Augustinian
Lanercost Priory
Lanercost Priory was founded by Robert de Vaux between 1165 and 1174, the most likely date being 1169, to house Augustinian canons. The priory is situated at the village of Lanercost, Cumbria, England, within sight of Naworth Castle, with whic ...
. He was able to identify the ''Chronicle'' up to 1297 as a version of a lost chronicle of 'Richard of Durham'; after that he believed a different author (with a keen interest in siege equipment and operations) to be responsible, whom he suspected to have been 'Thomas of Otterburn' whose chronicle is mentioned in the ''
Scalachronica
The ''Scalacronica'' (1066–1363) is a chronicle written in Anglo-Norman French by Sir Thomas Grey of Heaton near Norham in Northumberland. It was started whilst he was imprisoned by the Scots in Edinburgh Castle, after being captured in a ...
''. The second author, says Little, "resembles the first only in being a Franciscan and a patriotic hater of the Scots" but an additional similarity is that they are both North-country men. Where most other chroniclers are unclear on the geography of the Borders, the ''Lanercost Chronicle'' gives the name of the farmstead at which the Scots reached Tynedale in 1346.
The oldest surviving manuscript of the original Latin text is British Library
Cotton Claudius
This is an incomplete list of some of the manuscripts from the Cotton library that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library. Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, and a few are kept in othe ...
D. vii.
Editions and translations
*
Chronicon de Lanercost, 1201-1346: e codice Cottoniano nunc primum typis mandatum', ed. by Joseph Stevenson,
aitland Club, 46(Edinburgh: Impressum Edinburgi/The Edinburgh Printing Company, 1839). Other copie
herean
here
* ''
The Chronicle of Lanercost, 1272-1346'', trans. by Herbert Maxwell (Glasgow: Maclehose, 1913).
[Wilson, J., Maxwell, H., Wilson, J. (1913)]
The chronicle of Lanercost, 1272-1346
Glasgow: J. Maclehose and sons.
Notes
References
* Little, A. G. "The authorship of the Lanercost chronicle", ''English Historical Review'' 31 (1916), pp. 269–279, and vol. 32 (1917), pp. 48–49.
* Limited access via
* {{cite book, first= Sir Herbert , last=Maxwell , title= The Chronicle of Lanercost, 1272-1346: translated with notes , url= https://archive.org/details/chronicleoflaner02maxw , date= 1913 , publisher=Glasgow, J. Maclehose and sons On Archive.or
here
External links
* Extract covering the war between Edward II and Robert the Bruc
English chronicles
History books about Scotland
14th-century history books
14th-century Latin books
Works about wars