Stowe MS 64

THE POLYCHRONICON of Ranulph Higden, in seven books, continued to 1377. No title, the first leaf of the index (which precedes the text) and the first two leaves of the text [from "Post praeclaros artium scriptores" to "veritas non vacillet," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 16] being cut out and supplied in a hand of the 16th cent. The text, after the Prologue, begins (f. 12b) "Ex senatus consulto," and the sixth book ends (f. 201) "manus ei dederunt." The seventh book is in 51 chapters; the continuation from 1342 begins in the middle of ch. 46 (f. 239b), "die S. Nicholai obiit papa Clemens VI.," and ends with the preaching of Wiclif at Oxford in 1377, "palam in eorum sermonibus praedicantes." This continuation is identical with that contained in MS. 82 at Caius College, Cambridge [B in the Rolls Series edition], with which this MS. corresponds generally in text throughout (though including the section on Brabant, in bk. i. c. 28, which is wanting in B). There is no colophon or break at the year 1327, nor at 1342 ; but opposite the end of 1360 (f. 240) is written, in a later hand [apparently that of Ethelbert Burdet, see below], "hic finitur policronicon compositum per Ranulphum monachum cestrensem et continuatur hec historia per Jobannem Trevisam per 55 annos,"

with a quotation from the 1557 edition of Bale's Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Catalogus, p. 518, on which the reference to Trevisa is apparently based, stating that the 55 years covered by the continuations are from 1342 to 1397. Vellum; ff. 243. Early xvth cent. Initials of chapters in blue and red; titles of chapters and references to authors in red; 45 lines to the page. In the margin are dates and occasional notes. Belonged (see f. 2) to Ethelbert Burdet, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 1546, Canon of Lincoln 1565 (Foster, Alumni Oxon., vol. i. p. 211), "ex dono M^ri Anthonii Masonii." Folio.

Ranulph Higden, Chronicler: Polychronicon, continued to 1377: early 15th cent.

England General Chronicles and History: R. Higden, Polychronicon, to 1377: early 15th cent.