Thomas Elmham (1364in or after 1427) was an English chronicler.

Life

Thomas Elmham was probably born at

North Elmham North Elmham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 1,428 in 624 households at the 2001 census, including Gateley and increasing slightly to 1,433 at the 2011 Census. For ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. He may have been the Thomas Elmham who was a scholar at King's Hall, Cambridge from 1389 to 1394. He became a

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 ...

monk at

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

, and then joining the

Cluniac The Cluniac Reforms (also called the Benedictine Reform) were a series of changes within medieval monasticism of the Western Church focused on restoring the traditional monastic life, encouraging art, and caring for the poor. The movement began wi ...

s, was prior of

Lenton Priory Lenton Priory was a Cluniac monastic house in Nottinghamshire, founded by William Peverel ''circa 1102-8''. The priory was granted a large endowment of property in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire by its founder, which became the cause of violent di ...

, near

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

; he was chaplain to Henry V, whom he may have accompanied to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

in 1415, and may have been present at the Battle of Agincourt.

Works

Elmham wrote a history of the

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

of St. Augustine at Canterbury, which was edited by Charles Hardwick for the ''

Rolls Series ''The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages'' ( la, Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores), widely known as the is a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources publish ...

'' (1858); and a ''Liber metricus de Henrico V'', edited by C. A. Cole in the ''Memorials of Henry V'' (1858). As well as this verse life of Henry V, Elmham himself says he wrote a prose biography of the king. The eighteenth-century editor of the ''Vita et Gesta Henrici V'', Thomas Hearne, made a claim for Elmham's authorship of that biography but, in fact, it was written in the mid-1430s, long after Elmham's death. The attribution was rejected by the early twentieth century and the ''Vita et Gesta'' since then has gone by the designation of "Pseudo-Elmham" (this biography was the main source of the ''Vita Henrici Quinti'' by

Tito Livio Frulovisi Tito Livio Frulovisi ( 1430s–1440s) was a humanist scholar and author, who is best known for his biography of King Henry V of England in Latin, the ''Vita Henrici Quinti''. Life and work Frulovisi was from Ferrara and grew up in Venice. I ...

). In the early twentieth century, it was suggested instead that Elmham's prose life could be equated with the ''

Gesta Henrici Quinti The ''Gesta Henrici Quinti'' ("Deeds of Henry the Fifth") is a medieval Latin chronicle written by an anonymous author. History The book was published in 1975 by Frank Taylor and John Roskell Smith. There are currently only two manuscripts of ...

'', which is the best authority for the life of Henry V from his accession to 1416. This work, sometimes referred to as the chaplain's life, and thought by some to have been written by

Jean de Bordin Jean may refer to: People * Jean (female given name) * Jean (male given name) * Jean (surname) Fictional characters * Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character * Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations * J ...

, was first published for the English Historical Society by B. Williams (1850). However, the modern editors of the ''Gesta'' convincingly rejected this attribution to Elmham. In short, the prose life by Thomas Elmham is not known to survive.

References

Literature

* C. L. Kingsford, "The Early Biographies of Henry V", ''English Historical Review'', xxv (1910), pp. 58–92. * F. Taylor & J. S. Roskell ed., ''

'' (Oxford, 1975), pp. xviii – xxiii and iid., "The Authorship and Purpose of the Gesta Henrici Quinti: I", ''Bulletin of the John Rylands Library'', liii (1970–71), pp. 428–464.

External links

* *The Text of the ''Liber Metricus De Henrico V'' https://books.google.com/books?id=hLeUGlUjqoAC 1364 births 1420s deaths English Benedictines English Roman Catholics Roman Catholic writers 15th-century English historians People from North Elmham {{England-historian-stub