Abbatial Authority and the Writing of

History in the Middle Ages Benjamin

Pohl
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Abbatial Authority and the Writing of
History in the Middle Ages
Abbatial Authority and the Writing
of History in the Middle Ages
B E N JA M I N P O H L
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
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For Leah and Anneli
 Acknowledgements

The motivation for writing this book came from a place of curiosity,
of not knowing. When researching the work of Robert of Torigni,
celebrated abbot-historian of Mont-Saint-Michel, I increasingly found
myself wondering how common (or not) it was for the heads of
medieval monasteries to play an active part in historical writing, be
that by putting their own pen to parchment or by commissioning,
facilitating, resourcing, and managing the historiographical
endeavours of others inside and outside their communities. I found,
to my surprise, that little scholarly attention had been paid to the
subject beyond the level of individual case studies, and except for an
article-length survey written in German some ten years ago—and
still virtually unknown in the anglophone academy—no attempt had
been made to study systematically the important relationship
between abbatial authority and the writing of history in the Middle
Ages. In attending to this desideratum, I have incurred debts that no
honest man can pay. Funding was provided by, in the first instance,
the British Academy (Mid-Career Fellowship, 2019–21; Neil Ker
Memorial Fund, 2018), with further fellow-/scholarships from the
Faculty of Theology, University of Fulda/Bibliotheca Fuldensis
(Gangolf Schrimpf Visiting Fellowship, 2019), Durham University
(Lendrum Priory Residential Research Library Fellowship, 2019),
Fordham University, New York (Faculty Visiting Fellowship, 2019),
and the Newberry Library, Chicago (Center for Renaissance Studies
Faculty Fellowship, 2019). My home institution, the University of
Bristol, granted me research leave, a Seedcorn Research Grant from
the Centre for Material Texts (2020), a Conference/Workshop Grant
from the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts
(2018), a Next Generation Visiting Professorship (to host Scott
Bruce, 2023), an Arts Faculty Visiting Fellowship (to host Nicholas
Paul, 2018), and a Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professorship (to host
Steven Vanderputten, 2017). The monastic community of Downside
Abbey, Somerset (now the Community of St Gregory the Great at
Southgate House, Devon) proved an invaluable partner in my
endeavours, and I am grateful to them for their collaboration and
hospitality. I also thank Downside’s Director of Heritage, Simon
Johnson, and former Outreach Officer, Steven Parsons, for their
support and advice. Others whose judicious counsel and kind
encouragement were instrumental to this book’s completion, and
who are deserving of special mention, include Liesbeth van Houts,
Scott Bruce, Tessa Webber, Laura Gathagan, Brendan Smith, Jamie
Doherty, Simon Parsons, Rick Sowerby, and Richard Allen, who read
drafts of this book (or parts thereof) and helped chaperone it
through to completion. Samu Niskanen, Lauri Leinonen, and Olli-
Pekka Kasurinen granted me advance access to the database of their
ERC-funded project Medieval Publishing from c.1000–1500. My
former PhD students, Dan Booker and Alice Morrey, acted as
research assistants during the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst María
Abellán, a former postgraduate student on Bristol’s MA Medieval
Studies, contributed to the related online exhibition via a work
placement (https://historyandcommunity.com/). Those who kindly
advised me on specific topics and/or provided drafts of their own
work prior to publication include Marie Bisson, James Clark, Laura
Cleaver, Stephen Church, Margaret Connolly, Coraline Coutant, Julia
Crick, Coraline Daydé, David Ganz, Véronique Gazeau, John
Gillingham, Bernd Goebel, Sarah Greer, Martin Heale, Johanna Jebe,
Jesse Keskiaho, Stéphane Lecouteux, Graham Loud, Rosamond
McKitterick, Gert Melville, Carolyn Muessig, Thomas O’Donnell,
Fabien Paquet, Nicholas Paul, Alison Ray, Pascal Rideau, Levi Roach,
Charlie Rozier, Winfried Rudolf, Kathryn Rudy, Francesco Siri,
Alessandra Sorbello Staub, Johannes Staub, Dominique Stutzmann,
Jonathan Turnock, Jan Vandeburie, Steven Vanderputten, Nicholas
Vincent, Björn Weiler, Joshua Westgard, Beth Williamson, Ulrich
Winzer, Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, David Zettl, and Miha
Zor. One person whose guidance and friendship over the years have
contributed more than anyone’s to setting me on the scholarly path,
but who sadly will not witness the publication of this book, is
Christoph Houswitschka—Du fehlst mir, mein lieber Freund und
Lehrer. Thanks are due also to the many libraries and archives (and
their staff) who granted me access to their collections, supplied
photographs, and gave permission for their reproduction (cf. List of
Figures and Bibliography). Finally, I want to thank my loving wife
and learned companion, Leah. Without her, this book would not
exist. During the years it took to conduct and write up my research,
her faith and reassurance brought me back from the brink of
desperation and defeat more times than I can remember; her
patience and sacrifice enabled me to continue even in challenging
times; and her love keeps empowering me to do what I could not do
—and to be who I could not be—on my own. It is to her and our
amazing daughter, Anneli, that this book is dedicated.
 Contents

List of Abbreviations
List of Figures
Introduction
1. Abbatial Authorship
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Writing with Authority
1.3 Historical Writing as Self-Fashioning
1.4 Abbess-Historians—An Exceptionalism?
1.5 Conclusions
2. Abbatial Patronage
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Abbatial Patronage—A Case Apart?
2.3 Resistance and Reinforcement
2.4 Commission, Competition, and Quality Control
2.5 Obscured and Concealed Patronage
2.6 Architects of Memory
2.7 Conclusions
3. Abbatial Book Provision and Library Building
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Book Production and Procurement
3.3 Books as Commemorative Currency
3.4 Resourcing and Collaboration
3.5 ‘Interlibrary Loans’
3.6 Conclusions
4. ‘In studio abbatis’
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Abbatial Workplaces
4.3 Private Collections
4.4 Custodianship, Inheritance, and Bequest
4.5 Conclusions
Conclusion
Appendix: The Abbots of Flavigny and Their Deeds
(Series abbatum Flaviniacensium)

Bibliography
Index
 List of Abbreviations

AASS Acta Sanctorum, ed. by Société des Bollandistes, 68 vols. (Paris:

Palm., 1643–1940).
BBM Bibliotheca Belgica manuscripta, ed. by Antonius Sanderus, 2
vols. (Lille: Insulis, 1641–3).
BMF Bibliothèques médiévales de France: Répertoire des catalogues,
inventaires, listes diverses de manuscrits médiévaux (VIIIe–
XVIIIe siècles), http://www.libraria.fr/BMF/.
CALMA Compendium Auctorum Latinorum Medii Aevi, ed. by Michael
Lapidge et al., 38 vols. (Florence: SISMEL–Edizioni del Galluzzo,
2000–21).
CGM Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques
de France: Départements, 52 vols. (Paris: Plon, 1886–1960).
CHLBI The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, ed. by
Elizabeth Leedham-Green et al., 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006).
CHMMLW The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin
West, ed. by Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, 2 vols.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
CMBLC Corpus of Medieval British Library Catalogues, ed. by Richard
Sharpe et al., 16 vols. (London: British Library, 1990–).
GB Germania Benedictina, ed. by Ulrich Faust et al., 12 vols. (St.
Ottilien: EOS, 1970–2014).
MBKDS Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der
Schweiz, ed. by Paul Lehmann et al., 4 vols. (Munich: Beck,
1918–2009).
MBKÖ Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Österreichs, ed. by Theodor
Gottlieb et al., 5 vols. (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1915–71).
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Epp. Epistolae (in Quart)
 Epp. sel. Epistolae selectae
Poetae Poetae Latini medii aevi
SS Scriptores (in Folio)
SS rer. Germ. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim
editi
SS rer. Lang. Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum
SS rer. Merov. Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum
MLGB3 Medieval Libraries of Great Britain,
http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/.
PL Patrologia Latina, ed. by Jean-Paul Migne, 221 vols. (Paris:
Garnier, 1841–55).
RB The Rule of St Benedict, ed./tr. by Bruce L. Venarde (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
 List of Figures

Cover image Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Lichtenthal 20, fol. 184r,
reproduced with permission.

1.1 Hildegard of Bingen/Rupertsberg and her amanuensis, Volmar. Heidelberg,

Universitätsbibliothek, MS Cod. Sal. X.16, fol. 3v, reproduced under
Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
1.2a Miniature depicting Jerome. Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale, MS 159,
fol. 4r, reproduced with permission.
1.2b Miniature depicting Eusebius. Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale, MS
159, fol. 7v, reproduced with permission.
1.2c Miniature depicting Robert of Torigni and his personal scribe, Adam(?).
Avranches, Bibliothèque patrimoniale, MS 159, fol. 70r, reproduced with
permission.
1.2d Miniature depicting Robert of Torigni and Henry of Huntingdon. Avranches,
Bibliothèque patrimoniale, MS 159, fol. 174v, reproduced with permission.
1.3 Stephen of Saint-Airy and his scribe. Verdun, Bibliothèque d’étude du
Grand Verdun, MS 8, fol. 1v © CAGV, all rights reserved, reproduced with
permission.
1.4a Rupert of Deutz and his scribal assistant. Munich, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm. 14355, fol. 1r, reproduced under Creative
Commons licence CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
1.4b Rupert of Deutz as scribe. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm.
14355, fol. 1v, reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-SA
4.0.
1.5 Hugh of Flavigny’s ‘anti-dedicatory’ poem. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin–Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS Phill. 1870, fol. 7r, public domain,
reproduced with permission in accordance with the German Copyright Act
(UrhG).
 2.1 Leonas of Casauria and Pope Adrian IV. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, MS Lat. 5411, fol. 253r, reproduced with permission.
2.2 Alan de Nesse holding a book. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 39, fol.
169r, reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC 4.0.
2.3 William of Tournai writing in his bed. Paris, Institut de France–Bibliothèque
Mazarine, MS 753, fol. ix, reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC
BY-NC 3.0.
2.4 The ‘Sturmius-pillar’ in the crypt of St Michael’s Church, Fulda.
Michaelskirche–Bistum Fulda, reproduced with permission.
2.5 Eigil of Fulda’s (empty) grave in the crypt of St Michael’s Church, Fulda.
Michaelskirche–Bistum Fulda, reproduced with permission.
2.6 Andreas Lang’s portrait in the Fasciculus abbatum. Bamberg,
Staatsbibliothek, MS RB. Msc. 49, fol. 54v, photo: Gerald Raab, reproduced
under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
3.1 Desiderius of Montecassino and his books. Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1202, fol. 2r, reproduced with permission.
3.2a Berthold of Weingarten’s book list. Stuttgart, Württembergische
Landesbibliothek, MS HB I 240, fol. 43r, public domain, reproduced with
permission in accordance with the German Copyright Act (UrhG).
3.2b Berthold of Weingarten’s gesta. Stuttgart, Württembergische
Landesbibliothek, MS HB I 240, fol. 44r, public domain, reproduced with
permission in accordance with the German Copyright Act (UrhG).
3.3 Warin of St Albans and his books. London, British Library, MS Cotton
Claudius E IV, fol. 125v © British Library Board 02/02/2023, reproduced
with permission.
3.4 Paul of Caen and his books. London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D VII,
fol. 13v © British Library Board 02/02/2023, reproduced with permission.
3.5 Robert de Lindsey presenting the Peterborough Psalter. Cambridge,
Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 12, fol. 139v © The Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, reproduced with permission.
3.6 Hitda of Meschede presenting the Hitda Codex. Darmstadt, Universitäts-
und Landesbibliothek, MS 1640, fol. 6r, reproduced under Creative
Commons licence CC0.
 3.7 Kunigunde of Prague, her nuns, and her two scribes, Colda and Beneš.
Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic, MS XIV A 17, fol. 1v,
reproduced with permission.
3.8 Frowin of Engelberg and his scribe, Richene. Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek,
MS Cod. 5, fol. 1r, reproduced with permission.
3.9a Reinher’s inventory in the Fasciculus abbatum. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek,
MS RB. Msc. 49, fol. 57r, photo: Gerald Raab, reproduced under Creative
Commons licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
3.9b Nonnosus’s inventory in the Fasciculus abbatum. Bamberg,
Staatsbibliothek, MS RB. Msc. 49, fol. 57v, photo: Gerald Raab, reproduced
under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
3.10 Faritius of Abingdon holding a book. London, British Library, MS Cotton
Claudius C IX, fol. 144r © British Library Board 02/02/2023, reproduced
with permission.
4.1 Nineteenth-century portrait of Robert of Torigni in his private study.
Édouard de Bergevin, 1889, public domain (out of copyright).
4.2 Wibald of Corvey’s(?) writing desk. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–
Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS lat. fol. 252, fol. 1v, public domain,
reproduced with permission in accordance with the German Copyright Act
(UrhG).
4.3 Ansbert of Saint-Wandrille and his book chest. Le Havre, Bibliothèque
municipale Armand Salacrou, MS 332, fol. 41v, reproduced with
permission.
4.4 Simon of St Albans and his book chest. London, British Library, MS Cotton
Claudius E IV, fol. 124r © British Library Board 02/02/2023, reproduced
with permission.
4.5 Hamelin of Gloucester(?) receiving a charter from King Henry II. Kew,
National Archives, C 150/1, stamped fol. 18 © The National Archives,
reproduced with permission.

Permissions were obtained from the relevant copyright holders under the licensing
terms indicated above.
 Introduction

From 11–13 June 1480, the Abbey of SS Peter and Paul in Erfurt
played host to the General Chapter of the Bursfelde Congregation, a
confederation of reformed Benedictine monasteries founded in the
early fifteenth century and named after Bursfelde Abbey in present-
day Lower Saxony.1 Twenty-seven heads of house had travelled to
Erfurt at the invitation of Theoderic of Homborch, Bursfelde’s then
abbot (1469–85) and president of the Congregation, with twenty-
three sending deputies or apologies.2 As was customary, Mass was
celebrated by those in attendance and a homily delivered by the
host, Gunther of Nordhausen, Erfurt’s ruling abbot (1458–1501).3
The subject chosen by Gunther was one that could be expected to
ruffle some feathers amongst his peers. Provisionally titled De
historia sermo claustralis, the homily was committed to writing in
January 1481 with the more programmatic title De historiae studio et
utilitate, and it is to this written version made for publication and
circulation that we owe our knowledge of this important text today.4
Judging from De historiae, Gunther began his verbal address with an
elaborate parable: he who compares history with the sun (‘historiam
cum sole comparaverit’) will find that just as the sun invigorates all
life on Earth, history underpins the entire monastic lifestyle (‘historia
vitam, fidem, auctoritatem et stabilimentum donat omnibus rebus in
vita communi’). There is no light without the sun, and no community
without history. Without history, man is not man and monks are not
monks (‘Sine historia homo non est homo. Sine ea non sumus
monachi’).5 Moving on to address his audience directly, Gunther
expresses great astonishment ‘that the study of history […] should
be treated so uncaringly, poorly, and improperly—if indeed it is
treated at all—in our cloisters’.6 To rectify the situation, a ‘doctus
historiarum magister’ should be appointed in every monastery for
the instruction of its monks, even the most senior of whom
(‘seniores’) are but children (‘infantes sunt’) in their historical
studies.7 The term ‘seniores’ here refers to both advanced age and
seniority of office, the insinuation being that even the highest-
ranking individuals in these monasteries—the abbots—were often
very ignorant of the past (‘omnium rerum antiquarum
ignorantissimi’). ‘I was baffled’, Gunther continues, ‘that when I
asked the abbots of our order about their predecessors and the
founders of their monasteries (‘de fundatoribus et antecessoribus
monasteriorum suorum’), I would find them dumbstruck like fish
(‘magis mutos deprehendi quam pisces’) with nothing to respond
(‘[n]ihil enim, plane nihil respondere sciebant’)’.8 As far as Gunther
was concerned, knowledge of the past was a moral imperative,9 and
ignorance of it inexcusable in a monastic superior. Reiterating his
earlier point about history’s centrality to the monastic enterprise, he
cautions his audience to shun this dreadful monster (‘monstrum
horrendum’),10 whose lack of historical knowledge makes him the
beastliest of beasts (‘bestia bestialior erit’),11 and who is therefore
unfit to govern a religious community with authority.
The relationship between abbatial authority and the writing of
history portrayed with great conviction and pathos in De historiae is
the subject of this book, and dwelling on Gunther’s arguments—and
their reception amongst contemporaries—a little longer serves to
introduce the various lines of enquiry I will be pursuing in and across
its individual chapters. To begin with, there is the expectation that
no monastic community, whether large or small, should be exempt
from the duty to record its history in writing. The reason for this, we
are told, is that even the lowliest and most obscure house
(‘vilissimum et obscurissimum omnium’) has a story worth
preserving for posterity. Who were the founders, what were their
intentions, and what did they give? Who were the abbots and
abbesses, how long did they hold the office, and what good and bad
things did they do? How did the community’s fortunes wax and wane
under their abbatial leadership?12 These, Gunther explains, are
questions every monastic superior must be able to answer, and
failure to do so constitutes a violation of abbatial leadership and duty
of care.
A strikingly similar expectation was voiced some thirty years
earlier by Sophia of Stolberg (fl. 1451), abbess of Helfta and author
of her community’s Libellus de fundatione. In a letter addressed to
her peer, the abbot of Halberstadt, Sophia reminds—and perhaps
implicitly reprimands—her correspondent that it would be absurd not
to know the history of one’s own monastery and the names of those
through whose pious deeds and donations it was permitted to thrive
in this world (‘valde absurdum esset ignorare eos, per quos ad talem
proventum felicitatem pervenimus’), which is why Sophia led by
example and spent day and night (‘die noctuque’) gathering sources
from near and far (‘de diversis mundi partibus in unum collecti’) to
write her history of the abbey’s foundation and its benefactors
(‘disposui scribere libellum […] primo de inchoatione claustri nostri
[et] nomina ac genus fundatorum nostrorum’) for the education of
its present and future inhabitants (‘[a]d profectum et utilitatem tam
presentium quam futurorum’).13 Whether Sophia’s words were
meant primarily to justify her own historiographical activity or apply
some peer-pressure on Halberstadt’s abbot to do the same for his
community, not every monastic superior would have been in a
position to follow her example and meet these high expectations,
subsequently reiterated by Gunther, even if he/she were thus
inclined.
In fact, there is evidence that Gunther’s emphatic appeal to the
1480 General Chapter was met with some reservation on the part of
his audience. The subject of the abbots’ scepticism and Gunther’s
response to it are both reflected in De historiae, which includes a
short dialogue that may well resemble the heated conversations that
had ensued following—or even during—the homily’s delivery:

You say: where is an abbot supposed find time for this [the writing of
history] when he must take care of [the monastery’s] sacred and economic
business? [To this I, Gunther, respond:] If indeed he cannot—or does not
 want to—undertake this work personally, is there not someone else suitable
within the monastery to whom he can delegate it by appointment? And if
there is none, there will be someone elsewhere who could be approached to
execute the work well.14

The message is clear: the apprehensions of his peers

notwithstanding, Gunther insists that the responsibility for the
writing of history inside a monastery lies ultimately with the abbot,
who cannot render his community a greater service than through
historical education, the reward of which outweighs all the silver and
gold in this world (‘nec auro vel argento comparandum’).15 What
could be more advantageous, therefore, than if the General Chapter
were to pass a statute (‘statutum’) obliging every abbot to take
personal responsibility for committing his monastery’s history to
writing (‘ut quilibet praelatus de conscribendis annalibus vel historia
monasterii sui sollicitus esse debeat’)? Better still, what if the pope
were to issue a mandate (‘universale mandatum’) compelling all
monasteries and bishoprics to demonstrate the same zeal (‘studium’)
and care (‘curam’) in compiling its domestic annals (‘colligendis
annalibus suis’)? Perhaps the emperor would consider adding a
similar command (‘suum adderet praeceptum’) and oblige his
magnates to imitate their ecclesiastical counterparts by promoting
the writing of history in their secular territories (‘quisque in suo
territorio’)?16 This remained wishful thinking. No pope or emperor
issued a decree formally prescribing the writing of history, nor did
the Congregation respond to Gunther’s fervent call to action with
official legislation. The question, however, is whether his arguments
concerning the abbot’s principal role in the writing of history were so
unrealistic as to be dismissed out of hand, or whether they were
informed, at least partially, by historical precedent and practice. We
already saw one precedent in the Libellus de fundatione monasterii
in Helfta written by Sophia of Stolberg thirty years prior to the
publication of De historiae, but just how far can we trace this
tradition of abbots and abbesses acting as their communities’
historians, and just how widespread was it?
 In 1496, sixteen years after Gunther had delivered his homily at
Erfurt, the Bursfelde General Chapter again provided a platform for a
similar appeal. The speaker designated to address the prelates
gathered at Reinhardsbrunn was Johannes Trithemius, then abbot of
Sponheim (1483–1506), though his words were read out in absentia
by his colleague, Andreas Lang, abbot of Michelsberg in Bamberg
(1483–1502).17 Sponheim and Bamberg had joined the Bursfelde
Congregation in 1417 and 1467, respectively, and their
representatives claimed considerable authority in its assemblies.18
Trithemius used this authority to revive Gunther’s cause and
reprimand his fellow abbots for having allowed the standard of
literacy and scribal expertise to decline dramatically within their
communities, to the detriment of historiography.19 This was not a
new gripe for Trithemius, who just a few years before had published
a treatise in praise of monastic scribes.20 At Reinhardsbrunn, he
doubled down on his arguments by reproaching his peers for
neglecting not only their own education, but also, and worse still,
that of their monks (‘quod gravis est, monachis suis studium legendi
interdicunt’).21 Quick to name and shame, Trithemius singled out the
abbots of Hirsau for having disregarded their community’s long
historiographical tradition ever since the fateful regime of Wigand
(1369–80). Unlike his predecessors—who, as discussed later in this
book, had championed the writing of history and occasionally even
served as scribes themselves—Wigand is said to have misled his
monks by encouraging them to revel in their ignorance and refusing
to read or write about the past.22
Exaggerated though this portrayal of Wigand might be, its
significance lies in the fact that the abbots who followed his example
by neglecting the writing of history in their monasteries are
presented as breaking with historical tradition. To Trithemius,
Gunther, and Sophia, their behaviour stood in sharp contrast with a
‘golden age’ in which monastic superiors took regular charge of their
communities’ historiographical production, not just at Hirsau, but
across the European map. Was this ‘golden age’ a product of their
imagination and nostalgia, or is there evidence to corroborate the
notion that abbots and abbesses were instrumental to the writing of
history in the Middle Ages? And if there is, then how did they use
their abbatial authority and resources to enable historical writing
within their monasteries in addition—or as an alternative—to putting
their pen to parchment? Answering these questions, and others
related to them, is the objective of this book.

Studying the relationship between abbatial authority and historical

writing in the millennium known as the European Middle Ages
(c.500–1500) is no small task, and one that requires consideration,
however brief, of what history was/is, why it was written in medieval
religious communities, by whom, and with whose authorization.
Fortunately, these considerations do not have to start from scratch,
but on the contrary can build on a long and prolific tradition of
scholarship that is, if anything, too substantial to be reviewed in full
here. Beginning with the fundamental question of what can—and, by
implication, what cannot—be considered ‘history’, ‘historical writing’,
and, in a broader sense, ‘historical culture’, much ink has been
spilled by proponents of both inclusive and exclusive definitions,
from meta-level surveys to comparative perspectives and forensic
case studies of individual authors and texts.23 The definition adopted
here is an all-encompassing one that transcends boundaries of
language, form, and ‘genre’ to include a wide range of historical
narratives—that is, texts that present the past, or a version thereof,
in various narrative formats—from Latin to vernacular writings; from
prose to poetry; from books (and their fragments) to inscriptions and
visual depictions; from annals, chronicles, and gesta to the narrative
contents of charters, cartularies, and letters; from local, domestic,
and institutional narratives to so-called ‘universal’ histories; from
first-hand recollections of recent events to collective memories and
imaginations of the distant past; from the deeds of the living
(including autobiographies) to those of the dead; and from
narratives that record the imitable accomplishments of one’s
contemporaries and forebears to those celebrating the exemplary if
ultimately unattainable achievements of saints and other larger-
than-life personae traditionally classified as ‘hagiography’.24
The advantage of such an approach is not only that it reflects an
increasing consensus in scholarship formed by conversations across
the historical disciplines,25 but also that it resonates with medieval
discourse on the subject. We need only look to Gunther’s De
historiae for a conception of historical writing that defies modern
preoccupations with literary form and genre. To Gunther, writing
history is part of the human condition, something that is as natural
to man as flying is to birds and swimming to fish.26 People of all
ages, genders, and ranks take delight in it (‘omnis aetas, omnis
sexus, omnis homo, seu magnus vel parvus ille sit, delectatur
historia’). From the peasants in the alehouses (‘rustici in cauponis
inter se confabulantur’) to the mother soothing her crying child to
sleep (‘ad somnum reduxit mater plorantem infantiam’), every man,
woman, and child turns to history for reassurance, protection, and
comfort.27 What do the prophets relate if not histories (‘Quid
prophetae ad unum omnes enarrant, nisi historias’)? What are the
holy Gospels if not a history book (‘Quid sanctissima evangelia,
quam liber historiarum’)? Scripture is pure history (‘historia et
amplius nihil’) written with God’s own pen (‘stilo divino conscripta’).
Moses and the Evangelists are writers of histories (‘historiarum
scriptores fuerunt’), and he who seeks an accurate understanding of
the world must combine knowledge of sacred and profane history
(‘sacra et profana historia coniugenda est’). Of all subjects taught
and studied in a monastery, history is the queen who reigns supreme
(‘historia triumphat et imperat, ut regina a Deo nobis data’).28
Gunther’s vision of history and its place at the centre of monastic life
and learning owed substantially to the influence of fifteenth-century
humanism and reform,29 and aspects of it might well have struck
earlier medieval audiences as somewhat unusual, if not altogether
unrecognizable. Still, it provides a useful reminder that for the period
covered in this book, and the legacy of Isidore of Seville’s definition
of historia notwithstanding,30 history was written in various guises
and recognized as such, and which shape it took depended as much
on authorial preference as it did on local custom, tradition, and
circumstance.
This brings us to our second consideration, the question of why
history was written in medieval monasteries. Much work has been
done on this subject, though rather than rehearsing what can
reasonably be considered communis opinio, I would like to address
one model of interpretation that has gained ground as a ‘go-to view’
of monastic historiographical activity to a degree that seems
excessive and difficult to justify, and which actually risks having a
reductionist effect on our understanding of history’s role in religious
communities. Rather than seeing the writing of history as an
inherent and integral part of communal life, it has now become
something of a commonplace to present the monastic historian’s
work as a utilitarian exercise in which the decision to commit the
past to writing results primarily from internal crises or conflicts with
external forces (kings, bishops, monastic rivals, etc.). The fact that
some histories were indeed written in response to communal crisis
and trauma or in defence against infringement and alienation must
not give rise to the assumption that monastic historians typically and
by default operated on the back foot,31 and the increasing tendency
to search for catalysts has led some scholars ‘to wonder whether the
model which sees communities turn to the pen to record their
history and identity in moments of crisis can lead to historians
creating or exaggerating crises solely to provide an explanation for
why groups of religious wrote’.32 Perhaps a more helpful position
from which to approach the writing of history in a monastic context
was outlined in a plenary lecture delivered in 2014 by the then
president of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Rudolf Schieffer,
who encourages us to understand the preservation of knowledge
about one’s origins as a basic socio-anthropological constant that is
common to all human life, but which acquires additional significance
in communities whose very existence and identity depend on a
sense of tradition.33 For monastic communities, history thus was
(and is) a natural and necessary part of life, and writing it a means
of self-assurance and, ultimately, survival.
 History’s vital function as a community-building and identity-
affirming life-force means that writing history was a communal
activity that involved various agents within and sometimes without
the monastery, which finally brings us to the question of who
participated in—and, importantly, who authorized—monastic
historiographical production in the Middle Ages. Beginning with the
former, there is now a growing recognition in scholarship that
focusing primarily on the (named) authors of monastic histories only
generates a partial picture of this collaborative mode of production,
and that viewing the full panorama requires consideration of other
contributors such as scribes and copyists, assistants and
amanuenses, librarians and archivists, commissioners and patrons,
all of whom had significant agency in the process and therefore need
to be included in our investigation. Some important work has been
done in this respect,34 including in recent years,35 but we are yet to
witness a breakthrough in scholars’ preoccupation with individual
authors to disrupt the pervasive view of monastic historians as
celebrated soloists and instead allow them to be appreciated as
members of an orchestra. No orchestra can work without a
conductor, and whilst the writing of history in a monastery was a
communal and collaborative exercise, it was not a democratic one.
Certain individuals wielded greater agency and authority than others
by virtue of the offices they held in their communities, but not all
have had scholarship devoted to them. Considerable, and perhaps
disproportionate, attention has been paid to cantors/precentors,
whose increasingly formalized association with the provision and
care of books offered them privileged access to resources
indispensable for historiographical production and publication.36 This
may help explain why several cantors acted as historians
themselves,37 though the absence of a systematic enquiry beyond
the level of individual case studies precludes the identification of a
causal link between the role and the activity. The same caveat also
applies to other monastic historians in roles of responsibility and
institutional leadership, few of whom have had their historiographical
activity contextualized specifically against the backdrop of their
respective offices—a desideratum that, if attended to, would offer
insights into their potential interconnectivity that could be
transformative for our understanding of how history was written in
medieval monasteries.
This book aims to address this desideratum for the office whose
rank and authority within the monastic community were second to
none: the abbot. Seeking to understand the operational dynamics of
a monastery without considering the abbot is rather like trying to
figure out the internal workings of the human body without studying
the head, and the writing of history constitutes no exception here.
And yet, our knowledge so far rests on provisional foundations
provided by, on the one hand, unconnected case studies of
individual abbots and their historiographical activity without wider
comparison or contextualization,38 and, on the other, an article-
length survey of about eighty cases by German historian Norbert
Kersken.39 Published in 2013, Kersken’s pioneering study seems
largely to have eluded scholars’ notice, at least in the anglophone
academy, and though its focus is primarily, and perhaps necessarily,
a quantitative one, the data it generates allows for some important
qualitative observations that are discussed later in this book. These
works apart, the role of medieval abbots—and, even more so, that of
medieval abbesses—in the writing of history has received little
specific treatment to date. Scholarship on the history and
development of the abbatial office tends to gloss over it,40 and
studies of the histori(ographi)cal culture of specific communities
rarely devote more than a few sentences to the principal
involvement of their superiors.41 What is more, whenever abbots are
mentioned, however cursorily, in the context of monastic
historiographical activity, they appear almost exclusively in the
capacity of authors. Even Kersken focuses explicitly and entirely on
abbots who personally wrote works of history during their tenure,
thereby excluding from his survey the various ways in which they
and their peers facilitated historical writing in their communities
without picking up the pen themselves, a key dimension of abbatial
authority and leadership that, as we saw above, was recognized as
having at least equal significance as abbatial authorship, and which
is thus equally deserving of investigation. By approaching the
subject holistically, this study aims to uncover the true extent, and
the many different facets, of the historiographical activity of
medieval monastic superiors and showcase its importance for our
understanding of how, why, and by whom history was written in
medieval monasteries.

This book is organized into four major chapters, each of which is

then divided into several sub-chapters to facilitate navigation and
cross-referencing. The rationale for this design is that each chapter
can be read both as a thematic unit in its own right, complete with
an introduction and conclusion, and as part of an overarching
argument that builds gradually across the entire book and
culminates in the overall Conclusion at the end. The first three
chapters each consider one major facet of the abbot’s role in the
writing of history. Chapter 1 continues where Kersken and others
have left off with a conceptual investigation of abbatial authorship. It
commences with a review of the scholarly état présent (1.1) before
examining the relationship between authorial composition and
authority (1.2), historiography as a strategic means of abbatial self-
fashioning (1.3), and the significance of female abbatial authorship
(1.4), a subject too often glossed over in previous scholarship.
Chapter 2 then turns to patronage as another principal mode of
abbatial historiographical involvement. Introduced by a series of
case studies (2.1), it situates abbatial sponsorship within other forms
of patronage (2.2) before considering ways in which monastic
authors sought to subvert and undermine the authority of abbatial
patrons, and the consequences they faced for doing so (2.3),
external commission, competition, and quality control (2.4), cases of
obscured and/or concealed patronage (2.5), and the role of abbots
as architects of memory (2.6). Chapter 3 completes the picture by
studying the abbatial facilitation of historiographical activity through
book provision and library building. Following a review of the
evidence provided by monastic rules and customaries (3.1), it
discusses various modes of production and procurement (3.2), books
as commemorative currency (3.3), resourcing and collaboration
(3.4), and the importance of library networks and interlibrary loans
(3.5). Chapter 4 has a different remit than the preceding chapters in
that it focuses on the practicalities of historiographical production by
taking us into the physical workplaces inhabited by medieval abbot-
and abbess-historians. Following an introductory case study (4.1), it
provides a survey of abbatial writing and study spaces (4.2) before
discussing the private collection of books (4.3) and their
custodianship, inheritance, and bequest (4.4). This discussion brings
the book full circle by showing us the spaces in which many of the
activities studied in Chapters 1–3 took place and how the availability
of private workplaces influenced the processes of historiographical
production.
Unless otherwise specified, the word abbatial in this book refers
equally to abbots and abbesses. Apart from Chapter 1 that, for
reasons explained there, dedicates a separate discussion to female
authorship (1.4), most arguments developed in this study concern
male and female forms of abbatial authority alike, and the two will
be considered together without categorical distinction. The period
covered by this book is c.500–1500 with a concentration on the high
Middle Ages (c.1000–1250), and the main geographical focus is on
north-western (Latin) Europe with some forays into the wider
medieval world. This wide angle is not intended to conceal or gloss
over chronological developments or geographical differences, and
the emphasis on the continuity of abbatial authority as a conceptual
factor in the writing of history across time and space will be
considered carefully against the backdrop of social, political, and
economic change in specific localities and across the map. Rather
than prioritizing, as some studies of monastic culture do, normative
texts such as monastic rules and customaries, the evidence analysed
in this book is gathered from a wide range of narrative,
documentary, visual, and material sources, including previously
unedited/unpublished materials, from chronicles and other narrative
texts to charters and wills, account books and inventories, personal
letters and memoirs, reports and visitation records, book lists and
library catalogues, inscriptions and engravings, paintings and
manuscript illuminations, buildings, and other forms of art and
architecture. Studying these sources together and in context will
generate new insights into the expectations and realities of abbatial
authority in the medieval period, whilst the book’s broad
chronological and geographical remit will help reveal this authority’s
role in the writing of history with unprecedented clarity and detail.

Abbatial Authority and the Writing of History in the Middle Ages. Benjamin Pohl,
Oxford University Press. © Benjamin Pohl 2023. DOI:
10.1093/oso/9780198795377.003.0001

1 Pius Engelbert, ‘Die Bursfelder Kongregation: Werden und Untergang einer

benediktinischen Reformbewegung’, in 925 Jahre Kloster Bursfelde–40 Jahre
Geistliches Zentrum Kloster Bursfelde, ed. by Rüdiger Krause and Thomas
Kaufmann (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2020), pp. 83–101; Walter Ziegler, ‘Die Bursfelder
Kongregation’, in Die Reformverbände und Kongregationen der Benediktiner im
deutschen Sprachraum, ed. by Ulrich Faust and Franz Quartal (St Ottilien: Eos,
1999), pp. 315–407. On the General Chapter, see Paulus Volk, Die Generalkapitel
der Bursfelder Benediktiner-Kongregation (Münster: Aschendorff, 1928).
2 The General Chapter convened at Erfurt on over twenty occasions, second
only to Bursfelde itself; see Ziegler, ‘Kongregation’, pp. 367–72; Matthias Eifler, Die
Bibliothek des Erfurter Petersklosters im späten Mittelalter: Buchkultur und
Literaturrezeption im Kontext der Bursfelder Klosterreform, 2 vols. (Cologne:
Böhlau, 2017), I, 96–7.
3 The Chapter’s procedure is set out in Paulus Volk, Die Generalkapitels-
Rezesse der Bursfelder Kongregation, Vol. I: 1458–1530 (Siegburg: Respublica,
1955), pp. 186–90.
4 Edited in Barbara Frank, Das Erfurter Peterskloster im 15. Jahrhundert
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1973), pp. 382–7 [hereafter De
historiae]; Frank’s view of this text as an early draft of a speech intended for
delivery at the General Chapter of 1485 is unconvincing, and De historiae almost
certainly represents an authorial revision of the 1480 homily made for
dissemination. Gunther’s autograph is lost, and the sole copy (Melk,
Stiftsbibliothek, MS 20, pp. 207–13) produced by Oliver Legipont in the early
eighteenth century is printed in Antiquitates Bursfeldenses, ed. by Johann G.
Leuckfeld (Leipzig: Freytag, 1713), pp. 183–90; Leuckfeld’s transcription contains
many errors, however, some of which are repeated by Frank, which is why
citations hereafter will refer, in the first instance, to Legipont’s manuscript.
 5 MS Melk 20, pp. 207–8 and 211; De historiae, ed. Frank, pp. 382–3 and 385.
6 MS Melk 20, p. 208: ‘Quod cum ita sit, miror sane demirorque, religiosi
sacrae congregationis patres, studium historicum, sine quo nullus solide erudiri
potest, adeo frigide, ieiune et inepte—si tractetur—in monasteriis nostris passim
tractari’; De historiae, ed. Frank, p. 383.
7 MS Melk 20, p. 208; De historiae, ed. Frank, p. 383.
8 MS Melk 20, p. 208; De historiae, ed. Frank, p. 383.
9 On this moral imperative, cf. Sigbjørn O. Sønnesyn, William of Malmesbury
and the Ethics of History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012); Georgia Henley, ‘Geoffrey
of Monmouth and the Conventions of History Writing in Early 12th-Century
England’, in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. by Georgia Henley and
Joshua B. Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 291–314 (p. 296).
10 MS Melk 20, p. 208: ‘Fugite posthac monstrum istud horrendum, cui lumen
rationis ademptum, ignorantiam scilicet historiarum’; De historiae, ed. Frank, p.
383.
11 MS Melk 20, p. 212; De historiae, ed. Frank, p. 386. Gunther was not the
first to describe humans ignorant of the past as irrational beasts. In his Historia
Anglorum, Henry of Huntingdon had similarly distinguished rational creatures
(‘rationabiles’) from brutes (‘brutis’) on the basis that the latter, be they humans
(‘homines’) or beasts (‘animalia’), refuse to learn about the past; Henry of
Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum–The History of the English People, ed./tr. by Diana
E. Greenway (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 4–5. For further
examples, see Antonia Gransden, ‘Prologues in the Historiography of Twelfth-
Century England’, in England in the Twelfth Century, ed. by Daniel Williams
(Woodbridge: Boydell, 1990), pp. 55–81; Matthew Kempshall, Rhetoric and the
Writing of History, 400–1500 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), pp.
260–1. On boundaries between humans and animals in medieval thought, see Ian
P. Wei, Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the
Boundary between Humans and Animals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2020).
12 MS Melk 20, p. 210; De historiae, ed. Frank, pp. 384–5: ‘An non fundatorem
seu fundatricem habuit? Quis vel quaenam ille seu illa? Quae familia, vita et
intentio utriusque fuit? Quae et quanta donatio claustri? Quae privilegia? Quae
series et successio praelatorum seu praelatarum? Quamdiu sedit? Quid quisve seu
quaeve bene vel male egit? Quomodo de saeculo in saeculum monasterium crevit
et decrevit? Ex quibus occasionibus et circumstantiis?’.
13 Hanover, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, Dep. 76, C 113; edited in
Urkundenbuch der Klöster der Grafschaft Mansfeld, ed. by Max Krühne (Halle:
Hendel, 1888), pp. 223–6 (p. 223) (= no. 148); also cf. Hans Patze,
‘Klostergründung und Klosterchronik’, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 113
(1977), 89–121, repr. in Ausgewählte Aufsätze von Hans Patze, ed. by Peter
Johanek et al. (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2002), pp. 251–84 (p. 278); Charlotte
Woodford, Nuns as Historians in Early Modern Germany (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002), pp. 185–6.
14 MS Melk 20, p. 209: ‘Dicis: Unde otium abbati, qui curam debet habere rei
sacrae et oeconomicae? Licet ipse nec velit nec possit hunc laborem in se
suscipere, ac non in conventu idoneus aliquis, quem ad hoc opus deligere et
constitutere valeat? At desit, aliunde petendus erit qui bonum opus perficiat’; De
historiae, ed. Frank, p. 384.
15 MS Melk 20, pp. 208–9: ‘Curate igitur, sacrae congregationis antistites, ut
hoc studium […] in scholis nostris vigeat, floreat, crescat fructusque ferat mortali
et perenni vita dignos […] Nemo poterit certius et iustius admirari providentiam
Divinam in regenda navicula ecclesiae, suae quam hoc modo, si origines et
progressum cuiuslibet in particulari attentius legat’; De historiae, ed. Frank, pp.
383–4.
16 MS Melk 20, p. 209; De historiae, ed. Frank, p. 384. It is not implausible that
Gunther’s suggestion took its inspiration from the precedent of Charlemagne’s
famous Epistola de litteris colendis.
17 Barbara Frank, ‘Ein Entwurf zu einer Kapitelsansprache des Abtes Johannes
Trithemius aus dem Jahr 1496’, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des
Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige 80 (1969), 145–204 (p. 146).
18 Ziegler, ‘Kongregation’, pp. 376–407.
19 De duodecim excidiis observantiae regularis, edited in Frank, ‘Entwurf’, pp.
158–204 [hereafter De duodecim excidiis], with side-by-side versions of the
author’s draft (Oldenburg, Landesbibliothek, MS 99i) and the final published
version.
20 Johannes Trithemius: In Praise of Scribes (De laude scriptorum), ed./tr. by
Klaus Arnold and Roland Berendt (Lawrence, KS: Coronado, 1974); cf. Klaus
Arnold, ‘Von Trittenheim nach Sponheim und Würzburg: Zu Leben und Werk des
Büchersammlers Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516)’, in Johannes Trithemius
(1462–1516): Abt und Büchersammler, Humanist und Geschichtsschreiber, ed. by
Klaus Arnold and Franz Fuchs (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2019), pp.
19–34 (pp. 26–8).
21 De duodecim excidiis, ed. Frank, p. 179.
22 Chronicon Hirsaugiense, in Johannes Trithemius: Opera historica, quotquot
hactenus reperiri potuerunt omnia, ed. by Marquard Freher, 2 vols. (Frankfurt a.
M.: Marne & Aubry, 1601; repr. Minerva, 1966), II, 1–235 (p. 230): ‘Aiunt enim:
Quid nobis scire, conducere potest fundationis monasteriorum nostrorum
antiquitas?’; Noel L. Brann, The Abbot Trithemius (1462–1516): The Renaissance
of Monastic Humanism (Leiden: Brill, 1981), pp. 309–12.
 23 Recent examples of such broader and comparative studies include John H.
Arnold, What Is Medieval History? 2nd ed. (Medford, MA: Polity, 2021); Björn
Weiler, ‘Historical Writing in Europe, c.1100–1300’, in The Chronicles of Medieval
Wales and the March: New Contexts, Studies, and Texts, ed. by Ben Guy et al.
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), pp. 33–67; How the Past was Used: Historical Cultures,
c.750–2000, ed. by Peter Lambert and Björn Weiler (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2018); Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500, ed. by
Jennifer Jahner et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); The Oxford
History of Historical Writing, Vol. 2: 400–1400, ed. by Sarah Foot and Chase F.
Robinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); see also the titles published
since 2015 in the ‘Writing History in the Middle Ages’ series,
https://boydellandbrewer.com/writing-history-in-the-middle-ages/. Works that
remain fundamental to the subject include Hans-Werner Goetz,
Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewußtsein im hohen Mittelalter (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2008); Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion
at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1994); Franz-Josef Schmale, Funktion und Formen mittelalterlicher
Geschichtsschreibung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985);
Herbert Grundmann, Geschichtsschreibung im Mittelalter: Gattungen, Epochen,
Eigenart, 3rd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978). Needless to say,
this list is not exhaustive and inevitably reflects the author’s own training and
specific interests.
24 The relationship between ‘history’/‘historical writing’ and ‘hagiography’ is a
subject of continuing discussion and debate; cf. Samantha K. Herrick,
‘Introduction’, in Hagiography and the History of Latin Christendom, 500–1500, ed.
by Samantha K. Herrick (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 1–10; Felice Lifshitz, ‘Beyond
Positivism and Genre: “Hagiographical” Texts as Historical Narrative’, Viator 25
(1994), 95–113; now also Felice Lifshitz, ‘Still Useless after All These Years: The
Concept of “Hagiography” in the Twenty-First Century’, in Writing Normandy:
Stories of Saints and Rulers, ed. by Felice Lifshitz (London: Routledge, 2020), pp.
26–46; recent case studies include Victoria Hodgson, ‘History and Hagiography:
The Vita Sancti Servani and the Foundation of Culross Abbey’, Downside Review
139 (2021), 65–81.
25 For example, Jennifer Jahner et al., ‘General Introduction’, in Medieval
Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500, ed. by Jennifer Jahner et al.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 1–15; Laura Cleaver and
Andrea Worm, ‘Introduction: Making and Reading History Books in the Anglo-
Norman World’, in Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World: Manuscripts,
Makers and Readers, c.1066–1250, ed. by Laura Cleaver and Andrea Worm
(Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2018), pp. 1–6; Robert F. Berkhofer III,
Forgeries and Historical Writing in England, France, and Flanders, 900–1200
(Woodbridge: Boydell 2022).
 26 MS Melk 20, p. 210: ‘Ad hunc enim nati sumus, ut volucres coeli ad
volandum et pisces ad natandum’; De historiae, ed. Frank, p. 385.
27 MS Melk 20, pp. 207–8: ‘Seu terreas secures et impios, seu consoleris
pavidos et tristes, seu confortes fideles in fide et persecutionibus, historia opus
est, et sine hac nihil unquam efficies’ (ibid., p. 207); De historiae, ed. Frank, p.
383.
28 MS Melk 20, pp. 207–10; De historiae, ed. Frank, pp. 382–5.
29 Kaspar Elm, ‘Monastische Reformen zwischen Humanismus und Reformation’,
in 900 Jahre Kloster Bursfelde: Reden und Vorträge zum Jubiläum 1993, ed. by
Lothar Perlitt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Rupprecht, 1994), pp. 59–111; Klaus
Schreiner, ‘Erneuerung durch Erinnerung: Reformstreben, Geschichtsbewußtsein
und Geschichtsschreibung im benediktinischen Mönchtum Südwestdeutschlands an
der Wende vom 15. zum 16. Jahrhundert’, in Historiographie am Oberrhein im
späten Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Kurt Andermann
(Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1988), pp. 35–87; Paul Joachimsen,
Geschichtsauffassung und Geschichtsschreibung in Deutschland unter dem Einfluss
des Humanismus (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1910; repr. 1968); Hermann Herbst,
‘Niedersächsische Geschichtsschreibung unter dem Einfluss der Bursfelder Reform’,
Jahrbuch des Braunschweigischen Geschichtsvereins 5 (1933), 74–94.
30 Jamie Wood, ‘Isidore of Seville as an Historian’, in A Companion to Isidore of
Seville, ed. by Andrew T. Fear and Jamie Wood (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 153–81;
also cf. David Ganz, ‘Historia: Some Lexicographical Considerations’, in Medieval
Cantors and Their Craft: Music, Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, ed.
by Margot E. Fassler et al. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), pp. 8–22; Robert F.
Berkhofer III, ‘Rewriting the Past: Monastic Forgeries and Plausible Narratives’, in
Rewriting History in the Central Middle Ages, 900–1300, ed. by Emily A. Winkler
and Christopher P. Lewis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022), pp. 151–67.
31 Steffen Patzold, Konflikte im Kloster: Studien zu Auseinandersetzungen in
monastischen Gemeinschaften des ottonisch-salischen Reichs (Husum: Matthiesen,
2000); Markus Krumm, Herrschaftsumbruch und Historiographie:
Zeitgeschichtsschreibung als Krisenbewältigung bei Alexander von Telese und
Falco von Benevent (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021); Klaus Krönert, ‘La production
hagiographique en Germanie à l’époque de Louis le Pieux: Productivité littéraire et
crises, mais quel rapport?’, in Politische Kultur und Textproduktion unter Ludwig
dem Frommen/Culture politique et production littéraire sous Louis le Pieux, ed. by
Martin Gravel and Sören Kaschke (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2019), pp. 269–373;
Alison I. Beach, The Trauma of Monastic Reform: Community and Conflict in
Twelfth-Century Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
32 Daniel Talbot, ‘Review of Charles C. Rozier, Writing History in the Community
of St Cuthbert, c.700–1130: From Bede to Symeon of Durham’, History 106
(2021), 477–8 (p. 478).
 33 This lecture has been published as Rudolf Schieffer, ‘Von der Geschichte der
Äbte und der Klöster zur Geschichte des Ordens: Grundlinien benediktinischer
Historiographie im Mittelalter’, in Benediktiner als Historiker, ed. by Andreas Sohn
(Bochum: Winkler, 2016), pp. 23–39.
34 For example, Matthew N. Fisher, Scribal Authorship and the Writing of
History in Medieval England (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2012);
Monique-Cécile Garand, Guibert de Nogent et ses secretaires (Turnhout: Brepols,
1995); Elspeth Kennedy, ‘The Scribe as Editor’, in Mélanges de langue et de
littérature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance offerts à Jean Frappier, 2 vols.
(Paris: Minard, 1970), I, 523–31; David W. Rollason, ‘Symeon of Durham’s Historia
de regibus Anglorum et Dacorum as a Product of Twelfth-Century Historical
Workshops’, in The Long Twelfth-Century View of the Anglo-Saxon Past, ed. by
Martin Brett and David A. Woodman (Farnham: Routledge, 2015), pp. 95–112.
35 Jeffrey F. Hamburger, The Birth of the Author: Pictorial Prefaces in Glossed
Books of the Twelfth Century (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
2021); Ad van Els, A Man and His Manuscripts: The Notebooks of Ademar of
Chabannes (989–1034) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020); Medieval Publishing from
c.1000–1500, ERC-funded research project (2017–22) at the University of Helsinki
led by Samu Niskanen, https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/medieval-
publishing.
36 See principally Margot E. Fassler, ‘The Office of the Cantor in Early Western
Monastic Rules and Customaries: A Preliminary Investigation’, Early Music History 5
(1985), 29–51; also cf. the more recent contributions to Medieval Cantors and
Their Craft: Music, Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, ed. by Margot E.
Fassler et al. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017).
37 For example, Samu Niskanen, ‘William of Malmesbury as Librarian: The
Evidence of His Autographs’, in Discovering William of Malmesbury, ed. by Rodney
M. Thomson et al. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2019), pp. 117–27; Paul A. Hayward,
‘William of Malmesbury as a Cantor-Historian’, in Medieval Cantors and Their Craft:
Music, Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, ed. by Margot E. Fassler et
al. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), pp. 222–39; Alison I. Beach, ‘Shaping Liturgy,
Shaping History: A Cantor-Historian from Twelfth-Century Peterhausen’, in
Medieval Cantors and Their Craft: Music, Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–
1500, ed. by Margot E. Fassler et al. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), pp. 297–309;
Charles C. Rozier, ‘Symeon of Durham as Cantor and Historian at Durham
Cathedral Priory c.1090–1129’, in Medieval Cantors and Their Craft: Music, Liturgy
and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, ed. by Margot E. Fassler et al.
(Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), pp. 190–206; Charles C. Rozier, ‘Orderic Vitalis as
Librarian and Cantor of Saint-Evroul’, in Orderic Vitalis: Life, Works and
Interpretations, ed. by Charles C. Rozier et al. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2016), pp.
61–77.
 38 For example, Erika S. Dorrer, Angelus Rumpler, Abt von Formbach (1501–
1513) als Geschichtsschreiber: Ein Beitrag zur klösterlichen Geschichtsschreibung
in Bayern am Ausgang des Mittelalters (Kallmünz: Lassleben, 1965); Klaus
Schreiner, ‘Abt Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516) als Geschichtsschreiber des
Klosters Hirsau: Überlieferungsgeschichtliche und quellenkritische Bemerkungen zu
den “Annales Hirsaugienses”’, Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 31 (1966/7), 72–138;
Piotr Górecki, ‘Rhetoric, Memory, and Use of the Past: Abbot Peter of Henrykow as
Historian and Advocate’, Citeaux 48 (1997), 261–94; Arend Mindermann, ‘Abt
Albert von Stade: Ein Chronist des 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Stupor Saxoniae inferioris:
Ernst Schubert zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. by Wiard Hinrichs et al. (Göttingen:
Duehrkohp & Radicke, 2001), pp. 51–8; Benjamin Pohl, ‘Abbas qui et scriptor? The
Handwriting of Robert of Torigni and His Scribal Activity as Abbot of Mont-Saint-
Michel (1154–1186)’, Traditio 69 (2014), 45–86; Laura Cleaver, ‘“A Most Studious
Man, a Researcher and Collector of Sacred and Profane Books”: Robert of Torigni
and the Making of the Mont-Saint-Michel Chronicle (Avranches Bibliothèque
Municipale MS 159)’, in Mapping New Territories in Art and Architectural Histories:
Essays in Honour of Roger Stalley, ed. by Niamh NicGhabhann and Danielle
O’Donovan (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022), pp. 327–39.
39 Norbert Kersken, ‘Äbte als Historiker: Klöster als Zentren der
Geschichtsschreibung im Mittelalter’, in Chronicon Aulae regiae–Die Königsaaler
Chronik: Eine Bestandsaufnahme, ed. by Stefan Albrecht (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter
Lang, 2013), pp. 11–62.
40 For example, Franz J. Felten, ‘Herrschaft des Abtes’, in Herrschaft und
Kirche: Beiträge zur Entstehung und Wirkungsweise episkopaler und monastischer
Organisationsformen, ed. by Friedrich Prinz (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1988), pp.
147–296; Pierre Salmon, L’abbé dans la tradition monastique: Contribution à
l’histoire du caractère perpétuel des supérieurs religieux en Occident (Paris: Sirey,
1992); Martina Wiech, Das Amt des Abtes im Konflikt: Studien zu den
Auseinandersetzungen um Äbte früh- und hochmittelalterlicher Klöster unter
besonderer Berücksichtigung des Bodenseegebiets (Siegburg: Schmitt, 1999);
Martin Heale, The Abbots and Priors of Late Medieval and Renaissance England
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
41 See, for example, the chapters in Écrire son histoire: Les communautés
régulières face à leur passé, ed. by Nicole Bouter (Saint-Étienne: Publications de
l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2005). Notable exceptions include Janneke
Raaijmakers, The Making of the Monastic Community of Fulda, c.744–c.900
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
 1
Abbatial Authorship

1.1 Introduction
At the Bursfelde General Chapter of 1480, Gunther of Nordhausen
voiced the expectation that every monastery should have a written
account of its history, an expectation which he then reiterated in
writing the very next year. One way to satisfy this expectation was
for monastic superiors to lead by example and commit their
communities’ histories to writing personally. As seen above
(Introduction), this was met with some opposition from Gunther’s
peers, some of whom protested that they did not have the time and
resources, nor perhaps the skills and inclination, to act as their
abbeys’ historiographers. Unmoved by such apprehensions, Gunther
reminded his critics that abbots unable—or unwilling—to provide this
crucial service to their monks are obliged all the same to know the
history of their monastery and must be able, when called upon, to
give a full and accurate account of it as if they had written it with
their own pen. The implication, of course, was that they might as
well do the writing themselves by endowing these historical
narratives with their official authorship and auctoritas.
We do not know whether Gunther’s ideal(ized) vision of the
consummate abbot-historian was informed by specific individuals,
and even if he had concrete role models in mind, he did not disclose
their identities. Either way, his cause was soon vindicated thanks to
two abbatial appointments made in 1483, two years after the
publication of De historiae. One was that of Johannes Trithemius,
abbot of Sponheim (1483–1506) and subsequently Würzburg (1506–
16), who would channel the spirit of Gunther’s vision in his own
address to the General Chapter of 1496. Trithemius not only wrote
history for the communities over which he presided, but he also
offered his historical expertise—and his pen—to the abbots of other
monasteries, and even to Emperor Maximilian I (1508–19).1 His
oeuvre includes monastic histories of Sponheim (Chronicon
Sponheimense), Würzburg (Compendium breve fundationis et
reformationis monasterii sancti Iacobi in suburbio Herbipolensi), and
Hirsau (Annales Hirsaugienses and Chronicon Hirsaugiense), all of
which survive as autographs.2 Elected in the same year as
Trithemius, Gunther’s second champion was Andreas Lang, abbot-
historian of Michelsberg (1483–1502). Though Andreas’s profile and
reputation as a writer of history could not rival Trithemius’s, he, too,
embodied Gunther’s vision and even helped promote it by reading
out Trithemius’s De duodecim excidiis at Reinhardsbrunn.3 And just
like Trithemius, Andreas practised what he preached by producing a
portfolio of historical narratives that included the history of his
predecessors in two redactions (Catalogus abbatum and Fasciculus
abbatum), an episcopal chronicle and catalogue (Chronica
episcoporum Babenbergensium and Catalogus Bambergensis
ecclesiae pontificum), a catalogue of saints (Catalogus sanctorum
ordinis sancti Benedicti), and two vitae of Bamberg’s venerated
bishop-saint, Otto (1102–39).4 If Gunther’s critics at Erfurt had
declared it all but impossible to take on the role of monastic
historian in addition to that of abbot, they were surely humbled by
two abbatial authors whose historiographical resourcefulness must
have made such scepticism seem, if not altogether unjustified, then
at least exaggerated. The question is, however, whether cases such
as theirs resemble an exception or a practice that can be observed
more widely across the medieval European map?
To answer this question, we luckily do not have to start from
scratch. In an important study published in 2013, Norbert Kersken
identifies just over eighty abbots who authored works of history
between c.500 and c.1500, with a notable concentration in the
twelfth and fifteenth centuries, each of which accounts for nearly a
quarter of the cases in his survey. The majority (>80%) were active
after c.1100, with Kersken noting just half a dozen cases in the
eleventh century and fewer than ten across the previous five
centuries.5 This sizeable catalogue can be expanded further, and the
total number of cases taken well into the triple digits, by inserting
individuals who slipped through Kersken’s net, especially for the
period pre-1100, and by incorporating certain groups (or ‘types’) of
writers that are excluded, explicitly and implicitly, from his otherwise
commendably comprehensive overview.6 Two such groups/types that
are acknowledged yet omitted by Kersken are those whose
historiographical activity preceded or postdated their abbatial tenure
and monastic superiors who instead of putting their own pen to
parchment used their authority to commission and patronize works
of history from authors both inside and outside their monastic
communities, and who, as shown below (2.2–2.5), acted as powerful
auctores in their own right.7 A third group that is absent from
Kersken’s survey is that of medieval abbesses, an absence which—
unlike that of the previous groups—remains unacknowledged and
unexplained. One is left to wonder whether there simply were no
cases of abbess-historians for Kersken to report, or whether their
involvement in the writing of history differed so profoundly from that
of their male counterparts that discussing the two in a single article
may have seemed unviable. Part of the present book (1.4) is thus
dedicated specifically to reflections on female abbatial authorship
and its relationship with the more prominent male equivalent,
including the crucial question as to whether or not the former
constituted a case apart.
The above is not intended as criticism of Kersken’s work, which
thanks to its robust data and analysis has proved a valuable
foundation, and a useful point of departure, for the research
presented in this book. We should appreciate, moreover, that there
will have been conceptual limitations to the scope and detail that
Kersken—or anyone—could have accommodated realistically within
the remit of an article-length publication, and he even acknowledges
these limitations by suggesting some omitted subjects for the
attention of future research.8 In a sense, therefore, this study picks
up where Kersken left off with a contextual discussion of abbatial
authorship that focuses less on the quantitative picture and more on
the practical conditions and consequences of this historiographical
phenomenon. Before we can commence this discussion, however, we
must return briefly to Kersken’s article and review its main
quantitative and qualitative findings. Even in the face of our
expanded and diversified corpus of case studies, the overarching
trends and distribution patterns identified by Kersken remain
accurate, albeit with a somewhat larger proportion of cases from the
centuries pre-1100. In terms of geographical distribution, the two
main areas of concentration are the medieval German(-speaking)
and Frankish/French territories and polities, which together account
for just about half the corpus, followed by the Low Countries, the
British Isles, the Mediterranean (specifically Italy), and
central/eastern Europe. In terms of their religious and institutional
affiliations, the dominant majority of medieval abbot-/abbess-
historians (between two-thirds and three-quarters) belong to
monastic communities that for ease of reference, yet in full
recognition of the term’s inherent difficulties, can best be described
as ‘Benedictine’, both before and after the formation of the
Benedictine Order proper in the high Middle Ages, with their
Cistercian counterparts taking a distant second place.9 This comes
as no surprise, given that amongst the major traditions of medieval
monasticism—or, to adopt the terminology of a recent study,
monasticisms—the Benedictines were generally the most
historiographically prolific by some margin, though new research into
the writing of history by other religious orders and their members
has produced compelling evidence to suggest that some of them,
specifically the Cistercians, were not as unproductive as traditionally
assumed.10
How, then, do we interpret this quantitative data and its relative
distribution across medieval Europe? On a macro level, we would do
well to heed Kersken’s advice not to delineate the phenomenon of
abbatial authorship chronologically or geographically (‘das Phänomen
der Geschichte schreibenden Äbte weder zeitlich noch räumlich
einzuengen’), but to adopt a broad pan-European view.11 As Kersken
demonstrates, the writing of history by monastic superiors
constituted, if not a formal convention as such, then a notably
widespread practice that, whilst subject to some ebb and flow, can
be witnessed throughout the Middle Ages, and which thus evades
granular periodization.12 Indeed, the general distribution patterns
articulated by Kersken and corroborated by the research in this study
would seem to conform to broader trends and developments of
historiographical production in the Latin West, which, as frequently
noted, increased substantially in the context of the so-called
‘Twelfth-Century Renaissance’ and in the hundred or so years that
preceded the Reformation.13 Considering the proportionally higher
loss rates of texts and manuscripts in earlier medieval centuries, the
numbers referenced here offer evidence that monastic superiors
operated regularly as writers of history, and that their collective
contribution to the corpus of both extant and lost medieval
historiography followed very similar trajectories as that of other
‘types’ of historians.14
More than a third of the abbots studied by Kersken exclusively
wrote domestic history, that is, history concerned primarily, and
explicitly, with the traditions, memories, and identities of their own
institutions, whereas the others also, and sometimes exclusively,
authored histories whose temporal and geographical horizons
significantly transgressed the boundaries of the monastic
communities from which they emanated.15 From about the early
twelfth century, we can see monastic superiors engage with
increasing frequency in the writing of universal histories and ‘world
chronicles’, though as Kersken points out, this ‘trend’ was already in
decline by the late thirteenth century.16 Other types or ‘genres’ of
history written by abbots and abbesses with a primary focus outside
their own communities include dynastic chronicles, national histories
and origo gentis narratives, and histories of bishoprics, courts, and,
less frequently, municipalities.17 One of the best-known examples of
this is the chronicle of northern Germany and Livonia, commonly
known as the Chronica Slavorum, by Arnold, the first abbot (1177–
1211/14) of St John’s Abbey in Lübeck, a principal source for the
German Crusade of 1197–8 that has been dubbed ‘the most
ambitious and sophisticated’ historical narrative to survive from
thirteenth-century Germany.18 The Chronica was not Abbot Arnold’s
only literary endeavour, as he also translated Hartmann von Aue’s
poem Gregorius from the original Middle High German into Latin.19
With the exception of gesta episcoporum, the momentum gathered
by these kinds of histories during the eleventh and twelfth centuries
largely seems to have subsided by the early fourteenth century.
Domestic historiography, by contrast, continued to be a subject of
first-hand abbatial involvement throughout the entire Middle Ages,
most notably in the shape of annalistic records, house chronicles,
historiae fundationum, local saints’ lives and historiae translationum,
and, with an intrinsic focus on the abbatial office, gesta
abbatum/abbatissarum. This is not to suggest, of course, that
producing these kinds of histories was the prerogative of abbots and
abbesses, much less a formal prerequisite of their abbatial tenure,
however much Gunther of Nordhausen and his reform-minded
associates may have wished for this. Whilst no exclusive privilege or
obligation, the phenomenon of abbatial authorship is, as my
discussion will show, fundamental for our understanding of monastic
historiographical culture. Establishing where, when, why, and what
kinds of histories abbots wrote in the Middle Ages is important, and
Kersken’s survey remains invaluable in this respect. Arguably more
important, however, is to establish what difference it made if the
author of a historical narrative was him/herself an abbot/abbess, and
it is this question that forms the core driver of the following
investigation.

1.2 Writing with Authority

Except for inherently autocentric historical narratives such as
autobiographies, memoirs, and apologiae, cases of which are
discussed later in this book (1.3), histories written by abbots
generally distinguish themselves less through subject matter than by
their intrinsic sense of authority. Theirs is a very special kind of
authority, one that is unique within the monastic historiographical
milieu and manifest not only in the texts themselves, but equally,
and perhaps more significantly, in the broader context of their
production and reception. Examining these manifestations requires
us to consider the abbot as a figure of authority inside and outside
the monastery, and to assess how this ex officio authority was
negotiated with and accommodated by medieval concepts of
authorship. As we will see, the abbot’s principal auctoritas as head of
a religious community and his power and lordship
(potestas/dominium) within society more widely were determining—
and distinguishing—factors for the writing of history and its legacy in
the Middle Ages and beyond.
By putting their names and abbatial titles to historical narratives,
monastic superiors effectively transferred authority onto them,
meaning that the texts themselves and the material artefacts in
which they are preserved—typically manuscripts, but also
inscriptions and forms of visual art—became at once powerful
reifications of their authors’ rank within the institution, commanding
media of communal memory, and official status symbols that were
recognized far beyond the monastic walls within which they
originated. We can see this clearly in how works of history written by
abbots were received and remembered on both the inside and the
outside of their authors’ own communities. A good example of the
former is the work of Eigil, the fourth abbot (818–22) of Fulda, to
whose pen we owe the Life of the monastery’s founding abbot,
Sturmius (744–79).20 The reasons why Eigil personally took on the
task of writing the Vita Sturmi are complex and have been explored
elsewhere, so a summary will suffice here.21 Not only was Sturmius
one of the community’s foundational figures (besides his
contemporary, St Boniface) and a powerful anchor of its collective
memory, as well as Eigil’s kinsman, but the composition of his
abbatial biography marked a crucial moment—indeed a watershed—
in the institution’s historical tradition. Four generations into its
existence, Fulda’s monastery had suffered painful conflicts under
Sturmius’s successors, Baugulph (779–802) and Ratger (802–17),
the latter of whom, Eigil’s predecessor, had caused something of a
communal identity crisis that led to his removal from office.22 Faced
with this difficult legacy, Eigil, who had been a ringleader of the
internal opposition that forced Ratger’s deposition, used his abbatial
authority to launch an ambitious historiographical and architectural
campaign aimed at restoring a sense of unity and promoting
historical continuity.23 Eigil’s Vita Sturmi was the keystone of a
narrative arc that positioned Eigil as Sturmius’s direct heir, and
which, as argued below (2.6), was designed as an authoritative
model and point of departure for a serial abbatial history or gesta
abbatum continued at Eigil’s initiative by Fulda’s monks, one of
whom, Brun Candidus, later wrote Eigil’s vita at the initiative of his
successor, Rabanus Maurus (822–42).24 By forging the first and
formative link in a historiographical chain that also includes the Vita
Baugulphi, Vita Ratgarii, and Vita Aegil, Eigil used the authority
inherent in abbatial authorship to ‘re-boot’ Fulda’s histori(ographi)cal
tradition after a period of trauma with an official account of the
community’s past; or rather, a version of the past that he as abbot
decided to be official.
Cases of abbots who, like Eigil, wrote histories of/for their
communities or vitae/gesta of their revered predecessors are
documented across medieval Europe, such as at Farfa, Corbie, Cluny,
Saint-Denis, Vabres, Andres, Tournai, Lobbes, Saint Trond,
Oudenburg, Metz, Deutz, Bamberg, Scheyern, Vornbach,
Niederaltaich, Żagań, Kłodzko, Zbraslav, Oliva/Gdańsk, Meaux, and
St Albans, to name but a few prominent examples.25 In addition,
there is evidence of monastic superiors who relied not on their own
authority, but on that of their peers for the production of these
important official narratives. In the first quarter of the eleventh
century, Fridebold, abbot (1020–30) of SS Ulrich and Afra in
Augsburg, thus approached the abbot of Reichenau, Bern (1008–
48), to request from him an authoritative re-writing of the Vita of
one of Augsburg’s venerated patron saints, St Ulrich.26 Almost five
centuries later, the abbot of Hirsau, Blasius (1484–1503), made a
similar request to Johannes Trithemius, then abbot of Sponheim and
later Würzburg, ‘urging’ him to compose two ‘enormous books of
histories or annals’ (‘ingentes codices historiarum sive annalium’) of
his monastery known as the Annales Hirsaugienses.27 Blasius passed
away before the work’s completion, and his successor, John (1503–
24), showed himself less than enthusiastic about the
historiographical project whose patronage he had just inherited.
Communications between John and Trithemius broke down over
questions of remuneration, causing the project to stall for over half a
decade before Trithemius, having renegotiated his payment, finally
resumed writing in 1509, by which point he had moved from
Sponheim to Würzburg.28 In 1511, he despatched the presentation
copy of the Annales’s first volume to Hirsau, followed by the second
volume in 1514, both of which (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
MSS Clm. 703 and 704) Trithemius had prepared personally, and
which are written entirely in his recognizable hand.29 What makes
the examples of Fridebold/Bern and Blasius/John/Trithemius
particularly significant is that in both cases the rationale for
entrusting the writing of the monasteries’ official histories to an
external abbot was not a lack of domestic resources or expertise,
but the superior reputation and authority of the particular individuals
and communities approached. Both Hirsau and Augsburg were
prolific sites of monastic book production during the high and later
Middle Ages, the latter even with its own printing workshop, and
their prominent position within the reformed congregations of Melk,
Bursfelde, and, of course, Hirsau itself offered them wide-ranging
connections and influence.30 Still, the status claimed either
institutionally by the abbots of Reichenau, a leading centre of
historical writing and book culture from the Carolingian period
onwards, or individually by Trithemius, whose reputation as a writer
of history radiated far beyond and overshadowed the relatively
humble spheres of influence of his successive home monasteries,
was such that their authorship was recognized widely as a desirable
mark of authority.31
This desirability and cross-institutional recognition of abbatial
authority can be seen not only in the authorship of historical
narratives, but also in their dedication and patronage, cases of which
will are discussed elsewhere in this study (2.2). To mention but one
example here, when in the eleventh century Rodulfus Glaber wrote
his monumental five-volume history of his age, sometimes known by
the non-contemporary title Historiarum libri quinque, he not only
sought to imbue this work with an abbot’s authority through its
dedication, but he also distinguished carefully between the different
degrees of authority that certain potential abbatial dedicatees would
be able to bestow upon it.32 In the work’s preface, Rodulfus reports
to have been commissioned by Odilo, abbot (994–1049) of Cluny,
yet in his Vita domni Willelmi abbatis composed some years earlier,
he recalls conversely that the initial request to produce the Historia
had come from that work’s dedicatee and Rodulfus’s own former
abbot at Saint-Bénigne de Dijon, William of Volpiano (989/90–
1031).33 The evidence provided by an early manuscript copy of the
Historia (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 10912)
that is either a partial autograph or extremely close to one—perhaps
the author’s working copy or a presentation copy—suggests that
both assertions may carry some truth, and that Rodulfus changed
his mind concerning his preferred abbatial patron at some point in
the composition process.34 Palaeographical and codicological
examination reveals the manuscript’s opening quire to be an
addition, the contents of which, including the Historia’s first book
and prologue with the (re-)dedication to Abbot Odilo, were edited
and partially revised, probably by Rodulfus himself, since their
original composition and initial codification. Indeed, there is every
reason to believe the Vita’s proclamation that when Rodulfus
commenced the project and drafted the original version (now
assumed lost) of the Historia’s first book at Dijon, he did so at the
order of his then abbot, William. By the time he completed the
project, however, circumstances had changed considerably. Following
William’s death in 1131, Rodulfus relocated first to Cluny and then to
Saint-Germain d’Auxerre, where he re-wrote the Historia’s beginning
and credited its composition to the abbot who had welcomed him to
Cluny, Odilo. The reason for this decision may well have been that
Odilo’s reputation and authority as a monastic leader and reformer—
and, importantly, as an abbot-historian: Odilo authored the abbatial
Vita of his predecessor, Majolus (964–94), as well as a panegyric
biography of his relative, the Empress Adelheid (962–99), which he
dedicated to the abbot of San Salvatore in Pavia—were unrivalled in
the Latin West and outstripped even the memory of Rodulfus’s
previous patron and celebrated reformer of Burgundy, Lorraine, and
Normandy.35 To Rodulfus’s mind, associating the Historia with Odilo
rather than William might therefore have seemed the more
promising and attractive option.
An abbot’s historiographical activity and the considerable
authority and prestige associated with it did not have to be confined
to the period of his tenure, and there are cases of individuals who
wrote history both during and before/after their abbacies. One such
case comes from Saint-Germain d’Auxerre, the very abbey to which
Rodulfus Glaber moved for the final stage of his career, and where
he re-dedicated his Historia to Odilo of Cluny. About two centuries
later, the community’s then abbot, Jean de Joceval (1250–78),
tasked a local monk called Guy with the production of a cartulary-
chronicle, and the same Guy later became abbot himself (1285–
1313) and, in this capacity, wrote a new history of the monastery.36
Other abbots whose authorship of historical narratives extended
beyond their years of office include Simon, continuator of the
Chronicon Sithiense/Gesta abbatum Sithiensium and briefly abbot of
Saint-Bertin (1131–6), whom we will meet again below (1.3), and
whose continuous historiographical work ‘radically shaped the
memory of more than a century of the communal past [at Saint-
Bertin]’ before, during, and after his abbacy.37 They also include
Ekkehard, who had begun his famous continuation of Frutolf’s
Chronicon universale as a monk of Michelsberg, then continued it at
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Joseph’s encrease in Ægyt is out-stript here with vs. Our planters
hope to haue more then a hundred fould this yere: and all this while I
am within compasse; what will you say of two hundred fould and
vpwards? It is almost incredible what great gaine some of our
English Planters haue had by our Indian Corne. Credible persons
haue assured me, and the partie himselfe auouched the truth of it to
me, that of the setting of 13 gallons of Corne hee hath had encrease
of it 52 Hogsheads, euery Hogshead holding seuen Bushels of
London measure, and euery Bushell was by him sold and trusted to
the Indians for so much Beauer as was worth 18 shillings; and so of
this 13 Gallons of Corne which was worth 6 shillings 8 pence, he
made about 327 pounds of it in the yeere following, as by reckoning
will appeare: where you may see how God blessed husbandry in this
Land. There is not such greate and plentifull eares of Corne I
suppose any where else to bee found but in this Country: because
also of varietie of colours, as red, blew, and yellow, &c. and of one
Corne there springeth foure or fiue hundred. I haue sent you many
Eares of diuers colours that you might see the truth of it.
Little Children here by setting of Corne may earne much more
then their owne maintenance.
They haue tryed our English Corne at new Plimmouth Plantation,
so that all our seuerall Graines will grow here verie well, and haue a
fitting Soyle for their nature.
Our Gouernor hath store of greene pease growing in his garden as
good as euer I eat in England.
This Countrey aboundeth naturally with store of rootes of great
varietie and good to eat. Our Turnips, Parsnips and Carrots are here
both bigger and sweeter then is ordinarily to bee found in England.
Here are store of Pumpions, Cowcombers, and other things of that
nature which I know not. Also diuers excellent Pot-herbs grow
abundantly among the Grasse, as Strawberrie leaues in all places of
the Countrey, and plentie of strawberries in their time, and
Penyroyall, Wintersauerie, Sorrell, Brookelime, Liuerwort, Caruell
and Watercresses, also Leekes and Onions are ordinarie, and diuers
Physicall Herbs. Here are also aboundance of other sweet Hearbs
delightfull to the smell, whose names we know not, &c. and plentie of
single Damaske Roses verie sweete; and two kinds of Herbes that
beare two kinds of Flowers very sweet, which they say, are as good
to make Cordage or Cloath as any Hempe or Flaxe we haue.
Excellent Vines are here vp and downe in the Woodes. Our
Gouernour hath already planted a Vineyard with great hope of
encrease.
Also, Mulberries, Plums, Raspberries, Corrance, Chesnuts,
Filberds, Walnuts, Smalnuts, Hurtleberies, & Hawes of Whitethorne
neere as good as our Cherries in England, they grow in plentie here.
For Wood there is no better in the World I thinke, here being foure
sorts of Oke differing both in the Leafe, Timber, and Colour, all
excellent good. There is also good Ash, Elme, Willow, Birch, Beech,
Saxafras, Juniper, Cipres, Cedar, Spruce, Pines, & Firre that will
yeeld abundance of Turpentine, Pitch, Tarre, Masts and other
materials for building both of Ships and Houses. Also here are store
of Sumacke Trees, they are good for dying and tanning of Leather,
likewise such trees yeeld a precious Gem called Wine Benjamen,
that they say is excellent for perfumes. Also here be diuers Roots
and Berries wherewith the Indians dye excellent holding colours that
no raine nor washing can alter. Also, wee haue materials to make
Sope-Ashes and Salt-Peter in aboundance.
For Beasts there are some Beares, and they say some Lyons also;
for they haue been seen at Cape Anne. Also here are seuerall sorts
of Deere, some whereof bring three or foure young ones at once,
which is not ordinarie in England. Also Wolues, Foxes, Beauers,
Otters, Martins, great wild Cats, & a great Beast called a Molke as
bigge as an Oxe. I haue seen the Skins of all these Beasts since I
came to this Plantation excepting Lyons. Also here are great store of
squerrels, some greater, and some smaller and lesser: there are
some of the lesser sort, they tell me, that by a certaine Skill will fly
from Tree to Tree though they stand farre distant.

Of the Waters of New-England, with the

things belonging to the same.
 New-England hath Water enough both salt and fresh, the greatest
Sea in the World, the Atlanticke Sea runs all along the Coast thereof.
There are abundance of Ilands along the Shore, some full of Wood
and Mast to feed Swine; and others cleere of Wood, and fruitfull to
beare Corne. Also wee haue store of excellent harbours for Ships,
as at Cape Anne, and at Masathulets Bay, and at Salem, and at
many other places: and they are the better because for Strangers
there is a verie difficult and dangerous passage into them, but vnto
such as are well acquainted with them, they are easie and safe
enough. The aboundance of Sea-Fish are almost beyond beleeuing,
and sure I should scarce haue beleeued it, except I had seene it with
mine owne Eyes. I saw great store of Whales, and Crampusse, and
such aboundance of Mackerils that it would astonish one to behold,
likewise Cod-Fish in aboundance on the Coast, and in their season
are plentifully taken. There is a Fish called a Basse, a most sweet &
wholesome Fish as euer I did eate, it is altogether as good as our
fresh Sammon, and the season of their comming was begun when
wee came first to New-England in June, and so continued about
three months space. Of this Fish our Fishers take many hundreds
together, which I haue seene lying on the shore to my admiration;
yea their Nets ordinarily take more then they are able to hale to
Land, and for want of Boats and Men they are constrained to let a
many goe after they haue taken them, and yet sometimes they fill
two Boates at a time with them. And besides Basse wee take plentie
of Scate and Thornbacks, and abundance of Lobsters, and the least
Boy in the Plantation may both catch and eat what he will of them.
For my owne part I was soone cloyed with them, they were so great,
and fat, and lussious. I haue seene some my selfe that haue
weighed 16 pound, but others haue had diuers times so great
Lobsters as haue weighed 25 pound, as they assure mee. Also
heere is abundance of Herring, Turbut, Sturgion, Cuskes, Hadocks,
Mullets, Eeles, Crabbes, Muskles and Oysters. Besides there is
probability that the Countrey is of an excellent temper for the making
of Salt: for since our comming our Fishermen haue brought home
very good Salt which they found candied by the standing of the Sea
water and the heat of the Sunne, vpon a Rocke by the Sea shore:
and in diuers salt Marishes that some haue gone through, they haue
found some Salt in some places crushing vnder their Feete and
cleauing to their Shooes.
And as for fresh Water the Countrey is full of dainty Springs, and
some great Riuers, and some lesser Brookes; and at Masathulets
Bay they digged Wels and found Water at three Foot deepe in most
places: and neere Salem they haue as fine cleare Water as we can
desire, and we may digge Wels and find Water where we list.
Thus wee see both Land and Sea abound with store of blessings
for the comfortable sustenance of Man’s life in New-England.

Of the Aire of New-England with the

temper and Creatures in it.
The Temper of the Aire of New-England is one speciall thing that
commends this place. Experience doth manifest that there is hardly
a more healthfull place to be found in the World that agreeth better
with our English bodyes. Many that haue beene weake and sickly in
old England, by comming hither haue beene thoroughly healed and
growne healthfull strong. For here is an extraordinarie cleere and dry
Aire that is of a most healing nature to all such as are of a Cold,
Melancholy, Flegmatick, Rheumatick temper of Body. None can
more truly speake hereof by their owne experience then my selfe.
My Friends that knew me can well tell how verie sickly I haue bin and
continually in Physick, being much troubled with a tormenting paine
through an extraordinarie weaknesse of my Stomacke, and
aboundance of Melancholicke humors; but since I came hither on
this Voyage, I thanke God, I haue had perfect health, and freed from
paine and vomiting, hauing a Stomacke to digest the hardest and
coursest fare, who before could not eat finest meat; and whereas my
Stomacke could onely digest and did require such drinke as was
both strong and stale, now I can and doe often times drink New-
England water verie well; and I that haue not gone without a Cap for
many yeeres together, neither durst leaue off the same, haue now
cast away my Cap, and doe weare none at all in the day time: and
whereas beforetime I cloathed my selfe with double cloathes and
thicke Wastcoates to keepe me warme, euen in the Summer time, I
doe now goe as thin clad as any, onely wearing a light Stuffe
Cassocke vpon my Shirt, and Stuffe Breeches of one thicknesse
without Linings. Besides I haue one of my Children that was formerly
most lamentably handled with sore breaking out of both his hands
and feet of the King’s-euill, but since he came hither hee is very well
ouer he was, and there is hope of perfect recouerie shortly euen by
the very wholesomnesse of the Aire, altering, digesting and drying vp
the cold and crude humours of the Body: and therefore I thinke it is a
wise course for al cold complections to come to take Physick in New
England: for a sup of New-England’s Aire is better then a whole
draught of old England’s Ale. In the Summer time in the midst of July
and August, it is a good deale hotter then in old England: and in
Winter January and February are much colder as they say: but the
Spring and Autumne are of a middle temper.
Fowles of the Aire are plentifull here, and of all sorts as we haue in
England as farre as I can learne, and a great many of strange
Fowles which wee know not. Whilst I was writing these things, one of
our Men brought home an Eagle which hee had killed in the Wood:
they say they are good meate. Also here are many kinds of excellent
Hawkes, both Sea Hawkes & Land Hawkes: and my selfe walking in
the Woods with another in company, sprung a Partridge so bigge
that through the heauinesse of his Body could fly but a little way:
they that haue killed them, say they are as bigge as our Hens. Here
are likewise aboundance of Turkies often killed in the Woods, farre
greater then our English Turkies, and exceeding fat, sweet and
fleshy, for here they haue aboundance of feeding all the yeere long,
as Strawberries, in Summer all places are full of them, and all
manner of Berries and Fruits. In the Winter time I haue seene
Flockes of Pidgeons, and haue eaten of them: they doe fly from Tree
to Tree as other Birds doe, which our Pidgeons will not doe in
England: they are of all colours as ours are, but their wings and
tayles are far longer, and therefore it is likely they fly swifter to
escape the terrible Hawkes in this Country. In Winter time this
Country doth abound with wild Geese, wild Duckes, and other Sea
Fowle, that a great part of winter the Planters haue eaten nothing but
roast meate of diuers Fowles which they haue killed.
 Thus you haue heard of the Earth, Water and Aire of New-
England, now it may bee you expect something to bee said of the
Fire proportionable to the rest of the Elements. Indeede I thinke
New-England, may boast of this Element more then of all the rest:
for though it bee here somewhat cold in the winter, yet here we haue
plenty of Fire to warme vs, and that a great deale cheaper then they
sel Billets and Faggots in London: nay, all Europe is not able to
afford to make so great Fires as New-England. A poore seruant here
that is to possesse but 50 Acres of Land, may afford to giue more
wood for Timber & Fire as good as the world yeelds, then many
Noble men in England can afford to do. Here is good liuing for those
that loue good Fires. And although New-England haue no Tallow to
make Candles of, yet by the aboundance of the Fish thereof, it can
afford Oyle for Lampes. Yea our Pine-Trees that are the most
plentifull of all wood, doth allow vs plenty of Candles which are very
vsefull in a House: and they are such Candles as the Indians
commonly vse, hauing no other, and they are nothing else but the
wood of the Pine Tree clouen in two little slices something thin,
which are so full of the moysture of Turpentine and Pitch, that they
burne as cleere as a Torch. I haue sent you some of them that you
may see the experience of them.
Thus of New-England’s commodities, now I will tell you of some
discommodities that are here to be found.
First, in the Summer season for these three months, June, July,
and August, we are troubled much with little Flyes called Musketoes,
being the same they are troubled with in Lincolneshiere and the
Fens: and they are nothing but Gnats, which except they bee
smoked out of their houses are troublesome in the night season.
Secondly, in the Winter season for two months space, the earth is
commonly couered with Snow, which is accompanied with sharp
biting Frosts, something more sharpe then is in old England, and
therefore are forced to make great Fires.
Thirdly, the countrey being very full of Woods, and Wildernesses,
doth also much abound with Snakes and Serpents of strange
colours, and huge greatnesse: yea there are some Serpents called
Rattlesnakes that haue Rattles in their Tailes, that will not fly from a
man as others will, but will flye vpon him and sting him so mortally,
that hee will dye within a quarter of an houre after, except the partie
stinged haue about him some of the root of an Hearbe called Snake-
weed to bite on, and then hee shall receiue no harme: but yet
seldome falles it out that any hurt is done by these. About three
yeares since, an Indian was stung to death by one of them, but wee
heard of none since that time.
Fourthly and lastly, Here wants as it were good company of honest
Christians to bring with them Horses, Kine and Sheepe to make vse
of this fruitfull Land: great pitty it is to see so much good ground for
Corne & for Grasse as any is vnder the Heauens, to ly altogether
vnoccupied, when so many honest Men and their Families in old
England through the populousnesse thereof, do make very hard shift
to liue one by the other.

Now, thus you know what New-England is, as also with the
commodities and discommodities thereof: now I will shew you a little
of the Inhabitants thereof, and their gouernment.
For their Gouernors they haue Kings, which they call Saggamores,
some greater, and some lesser, according to the number of their
Subjects.
The greatest Saggamores about vs can not make aboue three
hundred Men, and other lesse Saggamores haue not aboue fifteene
Subjects, and others neere about vs but two.
Their Subjects aboue twelue yeares since were swept away by a
great & grieuous Plague that was amongst them, so that there are
verie few left to inhabite the Country.
The Indians are not able to make vse of the one fourth part of the
Land, neither haue they any setled places, as Townes to dwell in, nor
any ground as they challenge for their owne possession, but change
their habitation from place to place.
 For their Statures, they are a tall and strong limmed People, their
colours are tawny, they goe naked, saue onely they are in part
couered with Beasts Skins on one of their shoulders, and weare
something before their priuities: their Haire is generally blacke, and
cut before like our Gentelewomen, and one locke longer then the
rest, much like to our Gentelmen, which fashion I thinke came from
hence into England.
For their weapons, they haue Bows and Arrowes, some of them
headed with Bone, and some with Brasse: I haue sent you some of
them for an example.
The Men for the most part liue idely, they doe nothing but hunt and
fish: their wiues set their Corne and doe all their other worke. They
haue little Houshold stuffe, as a kettle, and some other Vessels like
Trayes, Spoones, Dishes and Baskets.
Their Houses are verie little and homely, being made with small
Poles pricked into the ground, and so bended and fastned at the
tops, and on the sides they are matted with Boughes and couered on
the Roofe with Sedge and old Mats, and for their beds that they take
their rest on, they haue a Mat.
They doe generally professe to like well of our comming and
planting here; partly because there is abundance of ground that they
cannot possesse nor make vse of, and partly because our being
heere will bee a meanes both of reliefe to them when they want, and
also a defence from their Enemies, wherewith (I say) before this
Plantation began, they were often indangered.
For their religion, they doe worship two Gods, a good God and an
euill God: the good God they call Tantum, and their euill God whom
they feare will doe them hurt, they call Squantum.
For their dealing with vs, we neither feare them nor trust them, for
fourtie of our Musketeeres will driue fiue hundred of them out of the
Field. We vse them kindly, they will come into our Houses sometimes
by halfe a douzen or halfe a score at a time when we are at victuals,
but will aske or take nothing but what we giue them.
 We purpose to learne their language as soone as we can, which
will be a meanes to do them good.

Of the present condition of the Plantation,

and what it is.
When we came first to Nehumkek, we found about halfe a score
Houses, and a faire House newly built for the Gouernor, we found
also aboundance of Corne planted by them, very good and well
liking. And we brought with vs about two hundred Passengers and
Planters more, which by common consent of the old Planters were
all combined together into one Body Politicke, vnder the same
Gouernor.
There are in all of vs both old and new Planters about three
hundred, whereof two hundred of them are setled at Nehumkek, now
called Salem: And the rest haue planted themselues at Masathulets
Bay, beginning to build a Towne there which wee doe call Cherton,
or Charles Towne.
We that are setled at Salem make what haste we can to build
Houses, so that within a short time we shall haue a faire Towne.
We haue great Ordnance, wherewith wee doubt not but wee shall
fortifie our selues in a short time to keepe out a potent Aduersary.
But that which is our greatest comfort, and meanes of defence
aboue all other, is, that we haue here the true Religion and holy
Ordinances of Almightie God taught amongst vs: Thankes be to
God, wee haue here plenty of Preaching, and diligent Catechizing,
with strickt and carefull exercise, and good and commendable orders
to bring our People into a Christian conuersation with whom wee
haue to doe withall. And thus wee doubt not but God will be with vs,
and if God be with us, who can be against us?
Here ends Master Higgeson’s Relation of
New-England.
 A Letter sent from New-England, by Master
Graues,
Engynere now there resident.
THus much I can affirme in generall, that I neuer came in a more
goodly Country in all my life, all things considered: if it hath not at
any time beene manured and husbanded, yet it is very beautifull in
open Lands, mixed with goodly woods, and againe open plaines, in
some places five hundred Acres, some places more, some lesse, not
much troublesome for to cleere for the Plough to goe in, no place
barren, but on the tops of the Hils; the grasse & weedes grow vp to a
man’s face, in the Lowlands & by fresh Riuers aboundance of grasse
and large Meddowes without any Tree or shrubbe to hinder the Sith.
I neuer saw except in Hungaria, vnto which I alwayes paralell this
countrie, in all our most respects, for euery thing that is heere eyther
sowne or planted prospereth far better then in old England: the
increase of Corne is here farre beyond expectation, as I haue seene
hereby experience in Barly, the which because it is so much aboue
your conception I will not mention. And Cattle doe prosper very well,
and those that are bredd here farr greater then those with you in
England. Vines doe grow here plentifully laden with the biggest
Grapes that euer I saw, some I haue seene foure inches about, so
that I am bold to say of this countrie, as it is commonly said in
Germany of Hungaria, that for Cattel, Corne, and Wine it excelleth.
We haue many more hopefull commodities here in this countrie, the
which time will teach to make good vse of: In the meane time wee
abound with such things which next vnder God doe make vs subsist,
as Fish, Foule, Deere, and sundrie sorts of fruits, as musk-millions
water-millions, India-Pompions, Indian-Pease Beanes, & many other
odde fruits that I cannot name; all which are made good and
pleasant through this maine blessing of God, the healthfulnesse of
the countrie which far exceedeth all parts that euer I haue beene in:
It is obserued that few or none doe here fal sicke, vnless of the
Scuruy that they bring from aboard the Ship with them, whereof I
haue cured some of my companie onely by labour. [Thus making an
end of an imperfect Description, and committing you to God, &c.
A Catalogue of such needefull things as
euery Planter doth or ought to prouide to go
to New-England
as namely for one man, which being doubled, may
serue for as many as you please, viz.
Victuals for a whole yeere for a man, and so after the rate for
more.
8 Bvshels of meale. 1 Gallon of Oyle.
2 Bushels of pease. 2 Gallons of Vinegar.
2 Bushels of Otemeale. 1 Firkin of Butter.
1 Gallon of Aquavitæ.

Apparell.
1 Monmoth Cap. 4 Paire of Shooes.
3 Falling bands. 2 Paire of Sheets.
3 Shirts. 7 Ells of Canuas to
1 Wast-coat. make a bed and
1 Suit of Canuase. boulster.
1 Suit of Frize. 1 Paire of Blankets.
1 Suit of Cloth. 1 Course Rug.
3 Paire of Stockings.

Armes.
1 Armor compleat. 1 Bandilier.
1 Long peece. 20 Pound of Powder.
1 Sword. 60 Pound of Lead.
1 Belt. 1 Pistoll and Goose shot.

Tooles.
 1 Broad Howe. 1 Broad Axe.
1 Narrow Howe. 1 Felling Axe.
1 Steele Handsawe. 1 Gimblet.
1 Whipsawe. 1 Hatchet.
1 Hammer. 2 Frowes.
1 Shouell. 1 Hand-Bill.
1 Spade. 1 Grindstone.
2 Augres. 1 Pickaxe.
4 Chissels. Nayles of all sorts.
2 Percers stocked.

Houshold implements.
1 Iron pot. 1 Spit.
1 Kettel. Wooden Platters.
1 Frying pan. Dishes.
1 Gridiron. Spoons.
2 Skellets. Trenchers.

Spices.
Sugar. Cinnamon.
Pepper. Nutmegs.
Cloues. Fruit.
Mace.

Also there are diuers other things necessary to bee taken ouer to
this Plantation, as Bookes, Nets, Hookes and Lines, Cheese, Bacon,
Kine, Goats, &c.
 The names of the most remarkable
places in New-England.
The old names. The new names.
Cape Cod. Cape Iames.
The Harbor of Cape Cod. Milford Hauen.
Chawum. Barwick.
Accomack. Plimouth.
Sagoquas. Oxford.
Massachusets Mount. Cheuit Hils.
Massachusets Riuer. Charles River.
Totan. Famouth.
A great Bay by Cape Anne. Bristow.
Cape Tragabig sanda. Cape Anne.
Naembeck. Bastable, so named by King
Charles: But by the new
Planters now called Salem.
Aggawom. Southampton.
Smiths Iles. Smiths Iles.
Passasaquack. Hull.
Accominticus. Boston.
Sassanows Mount. Snowdon hill.
Sowocatuck. Ipswich.
Bahanna. Dartmouth.
A good Harbor within that Sandwich.
Bay.
Ancociscos Mount. Shuters hill.
Ancocisco. The Base.
Anmoughcawgen. Cambridge.
Kenebecka. Edenborow.
 Sagadahock. Leth.
Pemmayquid. S. Iohns towne.
Segocket. Norwich.
Mecadacut. Dunbarton.
Pennobscot. Aberden.
Nusket. Low mounds.
Monahigan. Barties Iles.
Matinack. Willowbies Iles.
Metinacus. Haughtons Iles.
But whosoeuer desireth to know as much as yet can be discouered, I
aduise them to buy Captaine John Smiths booke of the description of
New-England in Folio; and reade from Fol. 203. to the end; and there
let the Reader expect to haue full content.

Finis.
SOME BRIEF COLLECTIONS
&c.
 Some brief collections out of a
letter that Mr. Higginson sent to his friends
at Leicester.

THERE are certainly expected here the next spring the coming of
60 familyes out Dorcettershire,[5] who have by letters signified so
much to the Goverour to desyre him to appoint them places of
habitations they bringing their ministers with them. Also many
families are expected out of Lincolnshire[6] and a minister with them,
and a great company of godly Christians out of London. Such of you
as come from Leister, I would counsell you to come quickly and that
for two reasons. 1st, if you linger too long, the passages of Jordan
through the malice of Sathan, may be stopped, that you can not
come if you would. 2dly, Those that come first speed best here, and
have the priviledge of choosing choice places of habitations. Little
children of 5 years ould may by setting corne one month be able to
get their owne maintenance abundantly. Oh what a good worke
might you that are rich do for your poore brethren, to helpe them with
your purses onely to convey them hither with their children and
families, where they may live as well both for soule and body as any
where in the world. Besides they will recompense the cost by helping
to build houses and plant your ground for a tyme; which shall be
difficult worke at the first, except you have the helpe of many hands.
Mr. Johnson out of Lincolnshire and many others, have helped our
godly christians hither to be employed in their worke, for a while, and
then to live of themselves. We have here about 40 goats that give
milke, and as many milch kyne; we have 6 or 7 mares and an horse,
and do every day expect the coming of half a score mares more, and
30 Kyne by two shipps that are to follow us.[7] They that come let
them bring mares, kyne, and sheepe as many as they can: Ireland is
the best place to provide sheepe, and lyes in the way. Bring none
that are in lambe, nor mares in foale; for they are in more danger to
perish at sea. Of all trades carpenters are most needful, therefore
bring as many as you can. It were a wise course for those of abilityes
to joyne together and buy a shipp for the voyage and other
merchandize. For the governour would that any man may employ his
stocke in what merchandises he please, excepting only beaver
skins, which the company of merchants reserve to themselves, and
the managing of the publique stocke. If any be of the mynde to buy a
shipp my cousin Nowell’s[8] counsell would be good. Also one Mr.
[Beecher] a very godly man and the master of the ship we went in,
and likewise one Mr. Graves the master’s maite dwelling in Wapping
may herein staund you in stead. The payment of the transportation
of things is wondrous deare, as 5l a man and 10l a horse and
commonly 3l for every tunne of goodes: so that a little more than will
pay for the passage will purchase the possession of a ship for all
together.
No man hath or can have a house built for him here unlesse he
comes himselfe, or else send servants before to do it for him. It was
an errour that I now perceive both in myselfe, and others did
conceive by not rightly understanding the merchaunts meaning. For
we thought that all that put in their money into the common stocke;
should have a house built for them, besides such a portion of the
land; but it was not so. They shall indeed have so much land allotted
to them when they come to take possession of it and make use of it,
but if they will have houses they must build them. Indeed we that are
ministers, and all the rest that were entertained and sent over and
maintained by the rest of the company, as their servants, for such a
tyme in such employments, all such are to have houses built them of
the comyanies charge and no others nor otherwise. They that put
money into the stocke, as they do a good worke to helpe forwards so
worthy a plantation, so all the gayne they are likely to have, is
according to the increase of the stocke at 3 years end, by the trade
of beaver, besides the lands which they shall enjoy when they will.
All that come must have victualls with them for a twelve month, I
meane they must have meale, oatmeale and such like sustenaunce
of food, till they can gett increase of corne by their owne labour. For,
otherwise, so many may come without provision at the first, as that
our small beginnings may not be sufficient to maintayne them.
Before you come be carefull to be strongly instructed what things
are fittest to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at
sea, as also for your husbandrey occasions when you come to the
land. For when you are once parted with England you shall meete
neither with taverns nor alehouse, nor butchers, nor grosers, nor
apothecaries shops to helpp what things you need, in the midst of
the great ocean, nor when you are come to land here are yet neither
markets nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to
furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you come; as
meale for bread, malt for drinke, woolen and linnen cloath, and
leather for shoes, and all manner of carpenters tools, and a good
deale of iron and steele to make nails, and lockes, for houses, and
furniture for ploughs and carts, and glasse for windowes, and many
other things which were better for you to think of them than to want
them here.
Whilst I was writing this letter my wiffe brought me word that the
fishers had caught 1600 basse at one draught, which if they were in
England were worth many a pound.
NOTES