The work known by the name of Benedict was taken up into his own and carried forward to 1201 by an almost equally important chronicler, ROGER OF HOWDEN (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1868-71). The writer was a northerner who began his history with 732, using for all the first part of it northern historians, with some slight additions between 1149 and 1169. From 1170 he copies nearly all the Gesta Regis Henrici, adding to it occasionally original information and some documents, but the knowledge of value which we derive from his additions is disappointingly small considering that he held official positions under the king and was employed by him on various missions. From 1192 to its close the work is an original and contemporary history, carefully written and of great value, and containing an even larger proportion of documents than Benedict. The chronicle excites less interest in the personality of its author than does its predecessor; is of a somewhat more solemn type, and shows more plainly the traits of the ordinary ecclesiastical writer in its sympathy with current superstitions and its frequent moralizing.
RALPH DE DICETO, Dean of St. Paul's during the last ten years of Henry II's reign and the whole of Richard's, began soon after he became dean a chronicle which he called Imagines Historiarum, or Outlines of History (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1876). It begins with 1148, to which date he had brought down an abstract of earlier chronicles from the creation. To about 1183 the work is based on the writings of others, but from 1162 it becomes more full and contains much that is original in form at least. From 1183 to its close in 1202 it is a contemporary account of the highest value, especially for the reign of Richard. Ralph stood in close relations with Richard Fitz Neal, from 1189 Bishop of London, for forty years treasurer of the kingdom, and himself the author of historical books, and with William Longchamp King Richard's representative. From his official position also he possessed unusually good opportunities of information and means of forming those judgments on affairs which are a feature of his chronicle. He has embodied many important documents in his narrative though sometimes not with the true historian's feeling of the importance of the exact language in such cases. His statements of fact and of opinion both greatly aid our understanding of his times, and his writing has, like Benedict of Peterborough, a straightforward air which itself carries weight.
While the more important chroniclers were writing the secular history of the reigns of Henry II and Richard I, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, of the name of GERVASE (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1879-80), was also writing a chronicle in which he was chiefly interested to preserve the history of the troubles and ecclesiastical controversies of his house and of the archbishopric. Incidentally, however, he gives us some information concerning political events and considerable confirmatory evidence. He began writing about 1188, and his principal chronicle becomes contemporary soon after that date. It exactly covers a century, opening with the accession of Henry I and closing with the death of Richard I. A minor chronicle, entitled Gesta Regum, begun after the close of the other, starts with the mythical Brutus, the Trojan who gave his name to Britain, and comes rapidly down to the accession of John, abridging earlier works. For the reign of John it is a contemporary chronicle, not very full, but of real value. Gervase writes always as a monk, and even more narrowly, as a monk of Canterbury, influenced by the feelings of his order and monastery. His attitude towards the kings under whom he writes is unsympathetic, and his interest in political matters is always very slight, but his references to them are not on that account without a value of their own.
RALPH, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Coggeshall from 1207 to 1218, when he resigned because of illness, wrote a Chronicon Anglicanum (J. Stevenson, Rolls Series, 1875), which extends from 1066 to 1223. To 1186 the entries are brief annals: with 1187 the history becomes more full, but the writer's interest is chiefly in the crusade, of which important and interesting accounts are given from excellent sources; and comparatively little is recorded concerning the history of England proper before the accession of John. For the reign of John the book is one of our most important and trustworthy contemporary sources. Ralph was greatly interested in mythical tales, especially in wonderful occurrences in nature, and he records these at length as he heard of them, but this habit does not affect the character of his historical record proper. As a historian he is very well informed, though he gives but few documents; he saw clearly the essential point of things and had a sense of accuracy.
A compilation from earlier historical works made, in the form in which we have it, at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century and known by the name of WALTER OF COVENTRY (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1872-73), has preserved a continuation of Roger of Howden which is of great value. This is a chronicle of John's reign and the early years of Henry III, from 1202 to 1226, probably written in the monastery of Barnwell about the time the narrative closes, and original and practically contemporary at least from 1212. From 1202 to 1208 the entries are brief and annalistic, with occasionally a suggestive comment. With 1209 the notices begin to be longer, and with 1212 they form a detailed narrative. The writer has a better opinion of John, at least of his ability, than other chroniclers of the time, does not attribute his misfortunes to the king's faults, and has little sympathy with the cause of the barons. He is accurate in his statements, clear in his narrative, and shows a tendency to reflect on the causes and relations of the leading facts.
Besides these, most important of the primary authorities, there are a number of others of hardly less value. SIMEON OF DURHAM's Historia Regum (T. Arnold, Rolls Series, 1882-85) becomes an independent chronicle from 1119 to 1129 and is continued by JOHN OF HEXHAM (ed. with Simeon of Durham) to 1154 in a narrative not contemporary, but in many places original, while RICHARD OF HEXHAM (Chronicles of Stephen, etc., iii), perhaps John's predecessor as prior, wrote a contemporary history covering the time from the death of Henry I to early in 1139. All these are of especial value for the affairs of northern England. About the same time Master GEOFFREY GAIMAR, the Trouvère, wrote a chronicle in French verse which is mainly a translation from the Saxon chronicle and other earlier writers (T.D. Hardy and C.T. Martin, Rolls Series, 1888-89). It closes with the death of William Rufus, and is chiefly of interest as giving a glimpse of the opinion held by laymen of the noble class about that king. Valuable evidence regarding the Becket controversy is collected in the seven volumes in the Rolls Series, entitled Materials for the History of Thomas Becket (J.C. Robertson, 1875-85). They contain nine contemporary lives of the archbishop and one later one, and three volumes of letters of Becket and others. On the conquest of Ireland there is an important French poem called the Song of Dermot and the Earl (G.H. Orpen, 1892) that was written in the next century, but based on a contemporary narrative; and GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS (J.S. Brewer, J.F. Dimock, and G.P. Warner, Rolls Series, 186191) gives a lively contemporary account of the Conquest, and descriptions of Ireland as well as of Wales. He also wrote later a book called De Principis Instructione, an avowed attack on Henry II and his sons, against whom he had the grievance of disappointed ambition. The book relates in passing many incidents that fill out our knowledge of the period, and it possesses some value from the very fact of its unfriendly criticism. This, but not much more than this, is also true of RALPH NIGER's contemporary chronicles of Henry II's reign, written in a spirit very unfriendly to the king (R. Anstruther, Caxton Society, 1851). An account of Richard's crusade is preserved in the Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, Chronicles of Richard I, 1864), which is no more than a translation from a contemporary French poem. A biography of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1200, was written after his death by his chaplain and contains many incidental references to public affairs—a few of great value (J.F. Dimock, Rolls Series, 1864). Another biography, written in French verse not quite contemporary, but based on information from a companion of the subject, is the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal (P. Meyer, Soc. Hist. de France, 1891-1901). It follows the life of William Marshal through the reigns of Henry II, Richard, and John, and to his death in 1219. It relates many facts, gives much information as to life and manners and suggestions of interpretation from a layman's point of view. Foreign chronicles, of value on the foreign policy of the English kings, are that of GEOFFREY, Prior of VIGEOIS (in Bouquet's Recueil des Historiens de France), on nearly the whole of Henry II's reign, the contemporary histories of Philip Augustus by RIGORD, and GUILLAUME LE BRETON, and the Histoire des Ducs de Normandie (all in the collections of the Soc. Hist. de France). The last is original and contemporary on the reign of John. Collections of letters like those of Lanfranc, and monastic annals like those of Burton, Waverley, and Dunstable, aid materially in filling out our knowledge. A great school of historical writing was rising into prominence as this period closed, in the monastery of St. Albans. Its first great historiographer, ROGER OF WENDOVER (H.O. COXE, Engl. Hist. Soc., 1841-44), probably did not begin to write his chronicle until after the death of John, but his account of that king's reign, written not long after its close, is original and has the practical value of a contemporary narrative.
Of secondary authorities of importance who have written on this period at any length the list is unfortunately short.
First and foremost for every student of Norman and early Angevin history is the work of Bishop STUBBS. With a more direct, personal interest in the growth of institutions, still in his Constitutional History and in his prefaces to the volumes he edited for the Master of the Rolls he discussed the narrative history of the whole age and very fully the reigns of Henry II and his two sons. The characteristic of Bishop Stubbs's work, which makes it of especial value to the student of the present generation, is the remarkable clearness with which he saw the essential meaning of his material and its bearing on the problem under discussion. While he generally neglected a wide range of material of great value to the historian of institutions—the charters and legal documents—and did not always formulate clearly in his mind the exact problem to be solved, yet the keenness with which he detected in imperfect material the real solution is often marvellous. Again and again the later student finds but little more to do than to prove more fully and from a wider range of material the intuitive conclusions of his master.
For the reigns of the Conqueror and of William II we have the benefit of the minute studies of EDWARD A. FREEMAN in his History of the Norman Conquest and his Reign of William Rufus. The faults of Mr. Freeman's work are very serious, and they mar too greatly the results of long and patient industry and much enthusiasm for his subject. The neglect of unprinted material and of almost all that is strictly constitutional in character, and the personal bias arising from his strongly held theory of Teutonic influence in early English history, make every conclusion one to be accepted with caution, but his long books on these reigns furnish a vast store of fact and suggestion of the greatest importance to the student. The Norman Conquest closes with a summary history to the death of Stephen, which is of considerable value.
The second volume of Sir JAMES RAMSAY's Foundations of England and his Angevin Empire together form a continuous history of the whole age from 1066 to 1216. These books are to be noticed for their careful inclusion of details and their bringing all the sources together that bear on successive facts, so as to furnish an almost complete index to the original authorities.