Galbraith, V. H., 'Thomas Walsingham and the Saint Albans Chronicle, 1272-1422', The English Historical Review 47 (1932), 12-30

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Quick Summary

The medieval chronicler Thomas Walsingham censored his work following the accession of Henry IV in 1399

  • Thomas Walsingham was the sole author of the St Albans chronicles
  • He compiled his Chronica Maiora in 1392 by drawing on his own extensive writing
  • Around 1399 he censored his work by removing political sensitive sections of text
Key Conclusion

Galbraith explores a series of chronicles written at the abbey of St Albans between 1380 and 1420. Galbraith concludes that Thomas Walsingham should be credited with their authorship. Previously, historians had postulated the existence of a ‘school’ of historical writers at St Albans at the end of the fourteenth century. Galbraith argues that there was no such school – ‘there was simply Thomas Walsingham’ (p. 28). Sole authorship by Walsingham increases the value of the St Albans chronicles, because it can be demonstrated that they provide a ‘record of one writer whose own political attitude was slowly but completely transformed through a period of revolution’ (p. 29).

Content Overview

By 1380, Walsingham was precentor at St Albans – a monk of high seniority. He remained precentor until the year 1394 when he left St Albans to become prior of Wymondham, but subsequently returned in 1397-8 to work on his chronicle. About 1392, Walsingham began compiling his major work – Chronica Maiora. By this time he had already been writing for more than fifteen years, and his new book was to be a compilation of  both his own existing works and the work of previous chroniclers. His main source, however, was his own ‘large-scale contemporary history’, which he had begun in 1376 and subsequently wrote in successive short sections down to the year 1392 (p. 19).

Further Findings

Following the Lancastrian revolution in 1399, Walsingham ‘suppressed’ (censored) his own work (p. 25). In 1396-7 he had started compiling a ‘handsome royal manuscript’ of his Chronica Maiora (p. 24). However, around the time that it was completed, Richard II was deposed by Henry IV. This caused Walsingham to edit his recently completed manuscript, removing whole sections of text that he’d incorporated from one of his previous works known as the ‘Scandalous Chronicle’. The politically sensitive text of the so-called Scandalous Chronicle – precisely why is was political sensitive is not explored by the article – provided a narrative of the period from the Good Parliament of 1376 to the death of Edward III in 1377.

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