Description

Between 1863 and 1876, the Rolls Series published several works from or about the abbey of St Albans, edited by Henry Thomas Riley (1816-78) under the rubric 'Chronica Monasterii S. Albani'. This volume of source material for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, some of it unique, appeared in 1866. It contains texts from several important manuscripts, recording state and church affairs, warfare and diplomacy, and benefactions to the abbey. Recent research suggests that the author of the 1307-23 annals, attributed to John de Trokelowe, was William Rishanger (who appears elsewhere in the Rolls Series); Trokelowe was probably a scribe, while Henry de Blaneforde is named as the continuator. Evidence also exists that the anonymous account of the period 1392-1406 in this volume is in fact part of Thomas Walsingham's Chronica majora, other sections of which were edited separately by Riley. The Latin texts are accompanied by English side-notes.