Matthew Paris (c1210 - 1259). Matthew Paris, known as Matthew of Paris, was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire. He wrote a number of works, mostly historical, which he scribed and illuminated himself, typically in drawings partly coloured with watercolour washes, sometimes called tinted drawings. Some were written in Latin, some in Anglo-Norman or French verse. His Chronica Majora is an oft-cited source, though modern historians recognise that Paris was not always reliable. He tended to glorify Emperor Frederick II and denigrate the Pope. However, in his Historia Anglorum, Paris displays a highly negative view of Frederick, going as far as to describe him as a tyrant who committed disgraceful crimes. In spite of his surname and knowledge of the French language, Paris was of English birth, and is believed by some chroniclers to be of the Paris family of Hildersham, Cambridgeshire. He may have studied at Paris in his youth after early education at St Albans School. The first we know of Matthew Paris is that he was admitted as a monk to St Albans in 1217. It is on the assumption that he was in his teens on admission that his birth date is estimated; some scholars suspect he may have been ten years or more older; many monks only entered monastic life after pursuing a career in the world outside. He was clearly at ease with the nobility and even royalty, which may indicate that he came from a family of some status, although it also seems an indication of his personality. His life was mainly spent in this religious house. In 1248, Paris was sent to Norway as the bearer of a message from Louis IX to Haakon IV; he made himself so agreeable to the Norwegian sovereign that he was invited to superintend the reformation of the Benedictine Nidarholm Abbey outside Trondheim. Apart from these missions, his known activities were devoted to the composition of history, a pursuit for which the monks of St Albans had long been famous. After admission to the order in 1217, he inherited the mantle of Roger of Wendover, the abbey's official recorder of events, in 1236. Paris revised Roger's work, adding new material to cover his own tenure. This Chronica Majora is an important historical source document, especially for the period between 1235 and 1259. Equally interesting are the illustrations Paris created for his work. The Dublin MS contains interesting notes, which shed light on Paris' involvement in other manuscripts, and on the way his own were used. They are in French and in his handwriting: If you please you can keep this book till Easter. G, please send to the Lady Countess of Arundel, Isabel, that she is to send you the book about St Thomas the Martyr and St Edward which I copied and illustrated, and which the Lady Countess of Cornwall may keep until Whitsuntide. some verses. In the Countess of Winchester's book let there be a pair of images on each page thus:. It is presumed the last relates to Paris acting as commissioning agent and iconographical consultant for the Countess with another artist. The lending of his manuscripts to aristocratic households, apparently for periods of weeks or months at a time, suggests why he made several different illustrated versions of his Chronicle. Paris' manuscripts mostly contain more than one text, and often begin with a rather random assortment of prefatory full-page miniatures. Some have survived incomplete, and the various elements now bound together may not have been intended to be so by Paris. Unless stated otherwise, all were given by Paris to his monastery. The monastic libraries were broken up at the Dissolution. These MS seem to have been appreciated, and were quickly collected by bibliophiles. Many of his manuscripts in the British Library are from the Cotton Library. Chronica Majora. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Mss 26 and 16, 362 x 244/248 mm. ff 141 + 281, composed 1240-53. His major historical work, but less heavily illustrated per page than others. These two volumes contain annals from the creation of the world up to the year 1253. The content up to 1234 or 1235 is based in the main on Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum, with additions; after that date the material is Paris' own, and written in his own hand from the annal for 1213 onward. There are 100 marginal drawings, some fragmentary maps and an itinerary, and full-page drawings of William I and the Elephant with Keeper. MS 16 has very recently had all prefatory matter re-bound separately. A continuation of the Chronica, from 1254 until Paris' death in 1259, is bound with the Historia Anglorum in the British Library volume below.