The English reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor's Chronicle

Abstract

Explicit evidence for the reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor's Chronicle, a twelfth-century Biblical, historical and geographical compendium, has previously been limited to mainland Europe, predominantly France, Germany and Italy. This list can now be extended to include the British Isles, based on the identification of a further seven manuscripts of that work, six of them in the British Library, and all of English origin or provenance. Each of these manuscripts is here described in turn, together with the evidence of mediaeval library-catalogues, and the historical writings of Ralph de Diceto, canon of St Paul's Cathedral. It is consequently suggested that this Chronicle's reputation in England reached its zenith between 1150 and 1250, that it was most popular among the regular religious Orders, and that Hugh's influence on English historians was more substantial than could hitherto be imagined.