MATTHEW PARIS - b. ~1200 ?, d. ~1259 ? - WGA

MATTHEW PARIS

(b. ~1200 ?, d. ~1259 ?)

Matthew Paris was an English chronicler and manuscript illuminator. In 1217 he became a Benedictine monk at St Albans and in 1236 succeeded Roger of Wendover as the abbey’s chronicler. Although his surname, which he usually wrote Parisiensis, could suggest French origins, he was most probably an Englishman characteristically trained in both Latin and Anglo-Norman. References in his works to the University of Paris, however, raise the possibility that he had studied at one of the schools in Paris. Paris maintained a wide range of contacts with the outside world through the steady flow of documents to St Albans and through the abbey’s many visitors, including Henry III and his brother, Richard of Cornwall. He attended many important royal celebrations at Westminster, Canterbury, Winchester and York, and in 1248 he was sent to Norway to reform the monastery of St Benet Holm.

Book of Additions

This manuscript contains maps, the lives of the first 23 abbots of St Albans with a miniature portrait of each, and a version of his well-known drawing of an elephant on folio 169v, shown here.

This animal was drawn after nature, Matthew Paris saw himself it after it had been given to Henry III in 1235.

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Historia Anglorum, Chronica majora, Part III

The manuscript includes two autograph copies of historical works by Matthew Paris (c. 1200-1259), artist and historian. with prefatory material. The decoration includes maps in colours and gold of an itinerary from London to Apulia, and to the Holy Land, as well as one large framed tinted drawing of the Virgin and Child (folio 6r), and a series of tinted drawings of the kings of England.

The picture on the frontispiece (folio 6r) of the “Historia Anglorum” represents the Virgin and Child with the artist kneeling. The style of it is outline drawing, tinted with colour. This technique is very old and it had been momentarily revived by Matthew Paris and his associates.

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Historia Anglorum, Chronica majora, Part III

The roads and rivers of medieval Europe were crowded with travellers: royal households on the move, government couriers on diplomatic missions, ecclesiastics going to Rome and back, pilgrims on journeys to Jerusalem or Compostela which could take months or even years. This in spite of the fact that maps were rudimentary, carriages uncomfortable and the dangers of robbery real.

Matthew Paris, a monk of St Albans, composed a pictorial itinerary to illustrate the route from London to Apulia. Towns are shown one day’s journey apart. The detail shown here, beginning at the bottom, takes us from Rochester via Canterbury to Dover.

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