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John of Hexham

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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JOHN OF HEXHAM ( c. 1160-1209), English chronicler, is known to us merely as the author of a work called the Historia XX V. annorum, which continues the Historia regum of Simeon of Durham and contains an account of English events 1130-1153. From the title, as given in the only manuscript, we learn John's name and the fact that he was prior of Hexham. It must have been between 1160 and 1209 that he held this position; but the date at which he lived and wrote cannot be more accurately determined. Up to the year 1139 he follows closely the history written by his predecessor, Prior Richard; thenceforward he is an independent though not a very valuable authority. He is best informed as to the events of the north country; his want of care, when he ventures farther afield, may be illustrated by the fact that he places in 1145 King Stephen's siege of Oxford, which really occurred in 1142. Even for northern affairs his chronology is faulty; from 1140 onwards his dates are uniformly one year too late. Prior Richard is not the only author to whom John is indebted; he incorporates in the annal of 1138 two other narratives of the battle of the Standard, one in verse by the monk Serlo, another in prose by Abbot Ailred of Rievaux; and also a poem, by a Glasgow clerk, on the death of Sumerled of the Isles.

Literature. - The Life of John of Damascus was written by John, patriarch of Jerusalem in the 10th century (Migne, Patrol. Graec., xciv. 429-489). The works were edited by Le Quien (2 vols., fol., Paris, 1712) and form vols. 94 to 96 in Migne's Greek series. A monograph by J. Langen was published in 1879. A. Harnack's History of Dogma is very full (see especially vols. iii. and iv.; on the image-worship controversy, iv. 322 seq.), and so are the similar works of F. Loofs-Seeberg. and A. Dorner. See also O. Bardenhewer's Patrologie, and other literature cited in F. Kattenbusch's excellent article in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopadie, vol. ix.

The one manuscript of John's chronicle is a 13th century copy; MS. C. C. C. Cambridge, cxxxix. 8. The best edition is that of T. Arnold in Symeonis monachi opera, vol. ii. (Rolls Series, 1885). There is an English translation in J. Stevenson's Church Historians of England, vol. iv. (London, 1856). (H. W. C. D.)