HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

LATER MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 311An ambiguous and rather miscellaneous third category consists ofthe less-organised regionalised world chronicles that borrow fromother historiographical types (and subscribe to the imago mundi ideal)but are more the idiosyncratic and often original outcome of individualinterests. Especially among the Franciscans such chroniclesabound. 128 The most famous example is the aforementioned chronicleof Salimbene of Parma, which is the most vivid historical workof the thirteenth century. 129 Other good Franciscan examples are thechronicle of the so-called Anonymous Umber (‘Paulus of Gualdo’), 130 thechronicle of John of Winterthur, 131 the so-called Lanercost Chronicle, 132and the various Anglo-Irish chronicles that combine a rudimentaryuniversal history with a strong regional and even local Franciscanperspective. In this context we can point to the archaic Annals ofMultyfarnam (Annales de Monte Fernandi) compiled by Stephen ofExonia (1246–after 1274), the closely connected Annals of Ossory,the Kilkenny Chronicle, the Annals of Ross and the Annals of JohnClynn (himself also from the Kilkenny friary), the Annals of Nenagh,written after the mid-fourteenth century by Galfridus O’Hogan, andthe Annals of Inisfallen (ca. 1360). 133 We would be equally justifiedto count these latter chronicles among regional or convent histories,were it not for the fact that they are not fully focused on the livesof the local friars, contrary to the annals growing out of the necrologiesand diaries mentioned earlier.A fourth category, which is closely connected with mendicant biblicalexegesis and teaching of biblical theology, contains the variousSummae de aetatibus and Compilationes librorum historialum totius Bibliae thatare mid-way between veritable chronology and the Historia scholasticaof Peter Comestor. Interesting mendicant specimens are the Tractatus128Among the Dominican chronicles, we maybe can place in this category theCronica novella of Herman Corner (ca. 1365–1438), the Collectarium historiarum of JeanDupuy (fl. 1430), and some historical works of Jacob of Soest (†1438/40); seeKaeppeli (1970–93), 2:528–29, 4:168.129See for instance d’Alatri (1988); d’Alatri and Paul (1992); Gujotjeannin (1995)and Roest (1996), 22–26. Guyotjeannin shows that the chronicle of Salimbene isnot without organisation, but that its structuring elements are very associative.130Fossier (1977), 411–83; Vauchez (1990), 274–305.131Arnold (1983), 816–18; Berg (1983), 114–55, (1985), 82–101.132Little (1943), 25–41; Gransden (1974), 494–96; Offler (1984), 45–89. TheLanercost Chronicle transmits parts of a now-lost North-English Franciscan chronicle.133See for the overall relations between these various (and other now-lost) Anglo-Irish chronicles, their manuscripts and partial editions Williams (1991).