Henry Knighton – författare

Henry Knighton, a canon of St Mary's Abbey, Leicester, wrote his Chronicle between 1378 and 1396. Leicester was a fief of the duchy of Lancaster, and the abbey was closely in touch with the households of Henry of Grosmont and John of Gaunt. The Chronicle contains exceptionally vivid accounts of the campaigns in France, in which Duke Henry was one of Edward III's leading generals, of the onset and effects of the Black Death, and of the crises of Richard II's reign. Knighton, whose fellow canon Philip Repingdon was a pupil and early disciple of John Wyclif, was a horrified witness of the rise of Lollardy, his account of which is unmatched.The Chronicle was printed in 1652 in a competent text with a brief Latin commentary, and less satisfactorily in the Rolls Series in 1889-95. This edition includes analysis of the text and its sources, and the first translation of its distinguished and engaging narrative.

This two-volume work was published as part of the Rolls Series between 1889 and 1895. A history of England, it deals principally with the period from 1066 until the death of author Henry Knighton around 1396. An introductory section of material largely drawn from Ranulf Higden adds what Knighton describes as necessary context to the recounting of the Norman Conquest. Volume 1 covers the period up to 1336, just before the start of the Hundred Years' War. It begins with the last century of Anglo-Saxon rule - an age of murders, treachery and 'evil times' - and covers the Norman period and the Plantagenets, culminating in the murder of Edward II. As editor, Joseph Rawson Lumby (1831-95) has been criticised for oversights, errors and omissions. Nevertheless, his detailed contents and marginalia make the Latin text more accessible to the modern reader.