Description

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.