The trustees of the Yorkist History Trust have begun a project to produce a series of translations of contemporary Latin chronicles of the Wars of the Roses. These will be published in parallel with the Latin originals in affordable volumes, accessible to students as well as experienced scholars.
We would be grateful to hear from anyone interested in taking part in this project or with recommendations of additional chronicles worthy of inclusion. For more information please contact: j.l.laynesmith@reading.ac.uk.
The chronicles currently under consideration are:
Abbreviata Chronica ab anno 1377 usque ad annum 1469, ed. J. J. Smith, Cambridge Antiquarian Society 2 (1840) – pilot project
Incerti scriptoris Chronicon Angliae de regnis trium regum Lancastrensium Henrici IV Henrici V et Henrici VI, ed. J. A. Giles (London, 1848). Sections on Henry IV and Henry VI
From Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, ed. J. Gairdner, Camden Society New Series 28 (1880):
– MS Lambeth 448, ‘Brief Notes of Occurrences under Henry VI and Edward IV’
– MS Arundel 5 College of Arms, ‘A Brief Latin Chronicle’ (Henry VI’s birth to death)
From C.L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913):
– Arundel MS 28 f. 28, ‘Yorkist Notes 1471’, pp. 374-5 (Barnet, Tewkesbury and aftermath)
– Cotton Domitian A IV ff. 246-56, ‘Gloucester Annals’, pp. 355-7 (1460s mix of local and national)
– Harley MS 3884 from f. 226, ‘A Chronicle for 1445 to 1455’, pp. 342-5 (includes long and not always accurate list of constituencies but also first Battle of St Albans)
– Stow’s extract from Harley 545 f. 142, from a ‘Chronicle of Tewkesbery of Mastar Somarset’, pp. 376-7 (forced removal of Lancastrians from the abbey)
From Flenley, Six Town Chronicles of England (Oxford, 1911):
– Bodl. Tanner 2 ff. 104-9, pp. 166-84 (1459-1525)
– Bodl. Rawlinson B. 355 ff. 107-113, pp. 101-113 (London perspective on national events 1439-59)
Together with continuation for 1460 in Rawlinson D.913, printed as G. Baskerville, ‘A London Chronicle of 1460’, English Historical Review 28 (1913), 124-7
Selections relating to English affairs from the chronicle of Adrien de But – Chroniques Relatives a l’Histoire de la Belgique: Chroniques des Religieux des Dunes, ed. M. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Brussels, 1870).
