The Cambridge Companion to Matthew Paris

James G. Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He has written widely on the culture, intellectual and religious life of monasteries in medieval England and their legacies after the Reformation. His books include A Monastic Renaissance (2004), The Benedictines in the Middle Ages (2011) and The Dissolution of the Monasteries (2021).

'A compelling collection of essays that brings together scholars to shed new light on the highly distinctive monk of St Albans: Matthew Paris, historian, chronicler, biographer, hagiographer, cartographer, scribe, and artist. There is an appealing freshness here, that enriches our understanding of the breadth and depth of Matthew's achievements, his abilities acutely to observe those with whom he came into contact, his understanding of his own environment and the world around him, and to convey the 'lived experience' of one of England's great Benedictine abbeys.' Janet Burton, Professor Emerita, University of Wales Trinity Saint David

• Preface; 1. Introduction: the making of Matthew Paris James Clark; 2. Matthew Paris and the Chronica maiora: chronology, truth and the crisis of 1258 David Carpenter; 3. Matthew Paris and the Plantagenet regime James Clark; 4. Matthew Paris, Europe & Christendom Bjorn Weiler; 5. Matthew Paris and the secular church Philippa Hoskin; 6. Matthew Paris and the British Isles Andy King; 7. Matthew Paris' pictorial life of St Alban Kathryn Gerry; 8. The Becket Leaves Cecily Hennessy; 9. Manuscript design in production and transmission Jessica Coatesworth; 10. Matthew Paris and heraldry Adrian Ailes; 11. Matthew Paris and his maps Paul Harvey; 12. Matthew Paris as scribe: idiosyncrasy and collaboration Manuel Muñoz Garcia; 13. The vernacular culture of Matthew Paris Marianne Ailes; 14. Afterlife James Clark; 15. Matthew Paris' manuscripts: working books and artefacts in medieval and early modern collections Andrew Dunning; 16. Digitising Matthew Paris: challenges, processes and outcomes Estelle Gittins, Alison Ray, Caroline Harding and Claire McNulty; Bibliography; Index.