Chronica MajoraChronica Majora

Provenance

Prologue to the Chronica Majora

“The lives and customs of good men from the past are revived here for subsequent imitation; the examples of evil men are not described to be emulated but to be shunned. Moreover, past prodigies and portents, whether they be famine, death, or other scourges of divine punishment, are given as signals to the faithful insofar as their memory is committed in writing so that, if ever similar events occur again, sinners who have incurred God’s wrath may repent and appease him.” –Roger Wendover, trans. Suzanne Lewis

“The lives and customs of good men from the past

are revived here for subsequent imitation; the examples of evil men are not described to be emulated but to be shunned. Moreover, past prodigies and portents, whether they be famine, death, or other scourges of divine punishment, are given as signals to the faithful insofar as their meory is committed in writing so that, if ever similar events occur again, sinners who have incurred God’s wrath may repent and appease him.” –Roger Wendover, trans. Suzanne Lewis

Prologue to the Chronica Majora

Texts

Audience

Constructing the Manuscript

Dimensions

260 x 195mm Vellum Double columns of 56 lines 13 quires varying between 8, 10 and 12 folios 5 half-leaf insertions, 1 full-leaf 6 further leaves with itineraries at the beginning 2 with illustrations at the end 2 fly leaves on the front, one at the back

Quire Numbering

A Tale of Two Books

Fly Leaf

Headings

The Stormin’ Normans

Authorship

Scribe’s Hand

Rubric

“A magnificent historian and chronicler…an artist unequalled in the Latin world”, “his excellence in . . . painting is clear enough” – Thomas Walsingham, St. Alban’s chronicler (Lewis 15; Vaughan 209)

“…not a highly original or forward-looking artist”

(Lewis 16)

Matthew Paris – which was he?

“When, at the end of his life . . . Matthew found it impossible to continue writing, he handed over his pen to his assistant, whose hand . . . took over the decorative and minor

pictorial work . . . clearly what happened was that Matthew called in a helper who . . .

executed as best he could the pictorial work” (Vaughan, 215-6)

Itineraries and Maps - Jerusalem

Folio i V

Folioii R

Itineraries and Maps – Mappa Mundi

Folio vii V

“ . . . Matthew’s scheme appears to have been at least partly dictated by the format of the page, so that the northern and western coasts of Europe are absolutely straight, without attempting to represent the true coastline” (Lewis 372)

Hereford Mappa Mundi

MarginsCrucifixionFolio 18 R

BaptismFolio 127 V

Battle (of Hattin, under Saladin) Folio 140 R

CuriositiesFolio iii VFolio iii V

Part 2

Curiosities

Folio 12 Verso

Folio 11 Recto

Folio 65 Recto

Folio 66 Verso

Curiosities

Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. Introduction to

manuscript studies. Cornell University Press, 2007. Print. Connolly, Daniel K. “Imagined Pilgrimage in the Itinerary

Maps of Matthew Paris.” The Art Bulletin 81.4 (1999): 598-622. Web. 30 Nov. 2011.

Finegan, Jack. Encountering New Testament Manuscripts: A Working Introduction to Textual Criticism. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1980. Print.

Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410. Pearson Education, 2005. Print.

Lewis, Suzanne. The art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica majora. University of California Press, 1987. Print.

Paris OSB, Matthew. Chronica maiora.

Works cited