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History, prophecy and the Apocalypse in the chronicles of Matthew Paris

In the preface to his world chronicle, the Chronica Majora, Matthew Paris (c.1200-

1259), a monk at the English Benedictine abbey of St Albans, expounded on the

utility of history. The passage was copied largely (though with some emendations –

here marked in bold) from Roger of Wendover’s Flores Historiarum (Creation –

1236), which Matthew started revising probably from c. 1240.

“(…) But what shall we say to those sluggish listeners (auditores) who ask by way of

insult what need there is to commit the lives, deaths and varying fortunes of men to

writing, or why one should perpetuate in writing the portents of heaven and earth and

the other elements (prodigia caeli et terrae, vel aliorum elementorum)? These people

should know that the virtuous habits and lives of those who came before us are set

down as an example to posterity, while the examples of the wicked are related not so

that they might be imitated, but so that they might be avoided. As for earlier prodigies

and portents (prodigia vel portenta) whose appearance presaged famine, death or

the other scourges of heavenly vengeance to the faithful, these things are entrusted to

memory in writing, therefore, so that if similar events ever come to pass, the faithful

will hasten quickly to the remedy of penitence so that they might appease God thereby

(…). We should thus pay no heed to those people who maintain that books of

chronicles, especially those written by Catholic authors, are of no importance, because

it is through these works that the determined investigator is able to discover through

memory, learn through understanding, and make known through eloquence whatever

is necessary for human wisdom and salvation.”1

This article will sketch what these abstract statements meant in practice, and explore

the role played by the prognostic and prophetic – understood as writings, sayings, or 1 CM, i.1-2. The translation is based, with some emendations, on that of Roger of Wendover’s preface in Prologues to Ancient and Medieval History, sel. and transl. Justin Lake (Toronto, 2013), 275-6.Throughout, the following abbreviations will be used: CM: Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1872-84); GA: Thomas of Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. H.T. Riley, 3 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1867-9); HA: Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, ed. F. Madden, 3 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1866-9).

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other means of communication identified by the author as foretelling future events –in

Matthew’s chronicles. The undertaking will not be without its challenges. The preface

remains Matthew’s most programmatic statement on the matter. He did not otherwise

expound explicitly on how he expected prophecies to work or prodigies to be

interpreted. Much of this article will therefore be taken up with sketching a

phenomenology of prophetic practice in Matthew’s chronicles – the type of

prophecies he recorded, how he expected them to be used, who experienced them, and

how the chronicler’s interest in prophecy was reflected in his approach to writing

history. Moreover, Matthew was prepared to move beyond the confines set in his

preface. While disasters presaged by portents and prodigies clearly mattered, they

formed only part of a far larger repertoire of meanings conveyed by such occurrences.

Similarly, Matthew’s understanding of the media through which prophecies and

prognostication worked extended well beyond those highlighted in the preface.

Portents were not the only prognostic incidents recorded.

Such complications notwithstanding, Matthew’s use of prophecy merits exploring. It

does so for three principal reasons. First, Matthew Paris was a prolific and perhaps

one of the most important historians of the thirteenth century.2 Even in what are by no

means complete printed editions, his oeuvre numbers almost 7,000 pages, and

encompasses universal histories as well as accounts of the English past, of his

abbey’s, and several saints’ lives. Matthew’s range of reporting was remarkable,

encompassing most of the world known to him and his contemporaries, with coverage

ranging from Armenia to Norway and from Ireland to Hungary. He was also careful

to record his informants and rarely passed over an opportunity to comment on what he

reported. In fact, Matthew’s presence as narrator, as someone who continuously

collected information, passed judgement, and interpreted the news recorded, far

exceeds what we find among most of his peers. Add to this that most of his oeuvre

survives in autograph manuscripts (or versions likely produced under his close

supervision), and we have as good an opportunity as we can hope for to explore one

2 The literature on Matthew Paris is vast. The best introductions remain: Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958); Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (New Haven/CT, 1987); Salvatore Sansone, Tra cartografia politica e immaginario figurativo: Matthew Paris e l’Iter de Londino in Terram Sanctam (Rome, 2009).

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thirteenth-century individual’s way of engaging and coming to terms with the world

around him.

Second, prophecy and the prognostic clearly mattered in Matthew’s writing. A by no

means comprehensive word search in the electronically available editions of his

works resulted in ca. 150 entries for oraculum, vaticinium or propheta and their

derivatives.3 While by no means comprehensive, and while certainly not capturing all

prognostic incidents, this nonetheless conveys just how central to his concept of the

newsworthy visions of the future were. The depth and range of his interest in the

matter has implications for his understanding of what writing history was meant to

accomplish, and the ends to which it could be put, but also how it was meant to be

written. It is therefore surprising to see just how little Matthew’s modern readers have

engaged with his prophetic concerns. Richard Vaughan – whose Matthew Paris

remains the essential starting point for any engagement with the chronicler – merely

states that Matthew ‘was a firm believer in the validity of portents.’4 Karl Schnith,

who in 1974 produced the last comprehensive study of Matthew Paris and Roger of

Wendover, treated the subject only in passing.5 When Matthew’s interest in

prophecies was registered, it was mostly in relation to apocalyptic writings. There has

been general agreement among modern readers that he was a firm believer in the

imminent end of days.6 Similarly, while historians of medieval prophecy have often

consulted Matthew’s works, they also shared an emphasis on apocalyptic materials

and have normally treated only particular written texts, such as the Prophecies of

Merlin, the Cedar of Lebanon or the Tiburtine Sybil. Understandably, they focussed

3 Not all instances were captured (for instance, because Matthew avoided using any of these terms), while some appeared several times (Merlin’s prophecies, for example, but also those that occurred in both the Chronica Majora and the Historia Anglorum). The total also included references to Biblical prophets whose writings (rather than their prophecies) were invoked. The actual number of incidents recorded was closer to a still significant 40-50.4 Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 150.5 Karl Schnith, England in einer sich wandelnden Welt (1189-1259). Studien zu Roger Wendover und Matthäus Paris (Stuttgart, 1974), 165.6 Sarah Hamilton, ‘Tales of wonder in the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris’, Reading Medieval Studies 26 (2000), 113-40; Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris, 103-6. Daniel Connolly even based a whole monograph on this premise: Daniel K. Connolly, The Maps of Matthew Paris. Medieval journeys through space, time and liturgy (Woodbridge, 2009), 15-9.

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on what Matthew’s version of a text could tell about its wider circulation, not on how

it related to Matthew’s own reading and recording of prophecy.7

There are two important (albeit partial) exceptions to this pattern. In her study of

Matthew’s illustrations in the Chronica, Suzanne Lewis dedicated several pages to

considering his illustrations of the prophecies of Merlin, the depiction of Muhammad,

and apocalyptic references in the Chronica.8 Hans-Eberhard Hilpert, in turn, was

chiefly concerned with how far Matthew adopted the language of apocalyptic

invective directed at Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250), while he followed others in

focusing on written prophecies. Still, Hilpert sounded a rare note of caution. In

particular, he pointed to the circumspection with which Matthew cited such materials,

and even postulated a sense of ‘historical criticism’, i.e., a desire to treat prophecies

not as unchanging, but as contingent on and directly relating to a particular set of

circumstances firmly located in the past.9 Hilpert’s work thus ought to inform any

engagement with Matthew’s use of prophecy, even if the parameters within which

Hilpert argued need revising.

This article sets to build on and move beyond this earlier scholarship. It will argue

that an emphasis on written prophecies underestimates the range of prognostic

materials recorded by Matthew Paris. The means by which he believed that the future

could be gauged were considerably more varied. The breadth of materials consulted

and incidents reported also has implications for how we may interpret Matthew’s

undoubted interest in the apocalyptic. Just as an emphasis on written examples

overlooks the range of prophetic materials recorded, so the almost exclusive focus on

apocalyptic texts does not reflect the thematic richness of the prophetic and prognostic

in Matthew’s writing. Matthew, it will be argued, was a believer not so much in the

Apocalypse, as in prophecy.

7 Anne Lawrence-Mathers, The True History of Merlin the Magician (New Haven/CT and London, 2012), 84-5; Anke Holdenried, The Sybil and her Scribes. Manuscripts and interpretation of the Sybilla Tiburtina, c. 1050-1500 (Aldershot, 2006), 147-63; Robert E. Lerner, The Powers of Prophecy. The Cedar of Lebanon vision from the Mongol onslaught to the dawn of the Enlightenment (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1983), 27-9.8 Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 92-106.9 Hans-Eberhard Hilpert, ‘Zu den Prophetien im Geschichtswerk des Matthew Paris’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 41 (1985), 175-91.

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Third, Matthew’s example will prove relevant to those not primarily interested in the

St Albans chronicler. He was not, after all, the first writer of history to show an

interest in the prognostic. Much of Matthew’s preface, for instance, can be traced

back well beyond Roger of Wendover, who had gleaned passages from Adso of

Vienne, writing in the tenth century, and Robert of Torigny, active in the twelfth.

Even the changes Matthew inserted into Roger’s text had been borrowed from Robert.

Matthew similarly reflected a renewed interest in visions, prophecies and portents that

had become much more pronounced since the final third of the twelfth century, and

that turned the thirteenth into a golden age of prophecy.10 Equally, a venerable

tradition of writers used the past as a means of discerning God’s plan for

humankind.11 Of particular importance was the ability to render events in their correct

sequence. Only then would it be possible to discern patterns that could legitimately be

used to evaluate the present and foresee the future. As David Carpenter has shown,

Matthew Paris took a particular interest in these matters.12 History uncovered moral

lessons, and highlighted the meaning of portents. Neither would be possible without

accurately recording and ordering the sequence of events.

10 Björn Weiler, ‘Historical writing and the experience of Europeanisation: the view from St Albans’, in: The Making of Europe. Essays in Honour of Robert Bartlett, ed. John G.H. Hudson and Sally Crumplin (Leiden, 2016), 205-43, at 228-41; Robert Bartlett, The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2008); Uta Kleine, ‘Visionäre, Exegeten und göttliche Orakel: Neue Horizonte der Prophetie im 12. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 97 (2015), 47-88. This is particularly striking in Hans Christian Lehner, Prophetie zwischen Eschatologie und Politik. Zur Rolle der Vorhersagbarkeit von Zukünftigem in der hochmittelalterlichen Prophetie (Stuttgart 2015), where roughly 2/3 of the texts discussed fall into this period.11 Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, ‘Eternity in time, unity in particularity: the theological basis of typological interpretations in twelfth-century historiography’, in: La Typologie Biblique comme forme de Pensée dans L’historiographie Medieval, ed. Marek Thue Kreschmer (Turnhout, 2014), 77-96; and Julian Führer, ‘Hugues de Fleury: l’historiographie et typologie’, ibid., 97-118. Also useful: Jennifer A. Harris, ‘The Bible and the meaning of history in the Middle Ages’, in: The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages. Production, Reception and Performance in Western Christianity, ed. Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (New York, 2011), 84-103.12 David Carpenter, ‘Chronology and truth: Matthew Paris and the Chronica Majora’, http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/redist/pdf/Chronologyandtruth3.pdf (accessed 26 September 2016).

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Matthew was thus a particularly prolific exponent of wider European concerns and

anxieties.13 How he responded to these, how he incorporated them into his own

narratives, was of course conditioned by a variety of factors: the information at his

disposal; the concerns and interests of his patrons and brethren; the historiographical

and literary tradition within which he wrote; and his own preoccupations. There are

limits to his typicality. These are further illustrated by the fact that we know more

about Matthew than of almost any of his contemporaries. We can trace how he

revised not only his own judgement, but also the information he received from

informants and the sources on which he drew. We can glimpse the historian at work.

But then this also enables us to ask questions which we often lack the evidence to

pose in the case of other writers. Being able to ask them, and being able to trace how

one individual adapted and reframed cultural trends, may, however, allow us to

develop a different framework within which to approach Matthew’s less well-

documented and less outspoken contemporaries.14 The English chronicler thus

provides a rare opportunity to see what the Golden Age of Prophecy meant in

practice.

13 As in the case of Matthew Paris, much of the scholarship on history and prophecy has focused on concrete written texts, notions of the apocalypse, and the role of prophecy as a means of political communication: Felicitas Schmieder, ‘Eschatologische Prophetie im Mittelalter - Ein Mittel “politischer” Kommunikation?’, in: Politische Bewegung und symbolische Ordnung: Hagener Studien zur politischen Kulturgeschichte. Festschrift für Peter Brandt, ed. Werner Daum (Bonn, 2014), 17-32; eadem, ‘Gewaltbewältigung in einem “Zeitalter der Gewalt”. Mittelalterliche Prophetie als Sprache politischen Krisenmanagements’, in: Gewalterfahrung und Prophetie, ed. Peter Buschel and Christoph Marx (Vienna, 2013), 415-44; Marco Rainini, ‘Geschichte, Prophetie und Berechnung’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 95 (2013), 333-358; Hans-Joachim Schmidt, ‘Geschichte und Prophetie. Rezeption der Texte Hildegards von Bingen im 13. Jahrhundert’, in: Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld, ed. Alfred Haverkamp (Mainz, 2000), 489-517; Les textes prophétiques et la prophétie en occident (XIIe-XVIe siècle), ed. Andre Vauchez (Rome, 1990). An important exception is provided by Lehner, Prophetie.14 See also Lehner, Prophetie, which adopts a similar approach, though centring on German historical writing from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While comparable structural phenomena are clearly at play, the lack of evidence for individual writers makes it difficult to test the overall model against specific texts. This particularly striking when Matthew’s contemporary Albert of Stade is set alongside the St Albans chronicler (Lehner, Prophetie, 177-93).

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The prophetic and prognostic came in many guises. As scholarship has centred on

Matthew’s use of written texts, it is to these that we turn first. Matthew copied several

lengthier texts into the Chronica, chief among them the so-called Tiburtine Sibyl and

the Prophecies of Merlin. The Sibyl had a venerable pedigree. It was first referenced

in Antiquity, but the text copied by Matthew originated in the thirteenth century. It

related the sayings of Sybil, daughter of Priamos and Hecuba, when asked to explain a

dream experienced by several Roman senators.15 It had not been part of Roger of

Wendover’s Flores, and its inclusion was therefore an editorial decision of

Matthew’s, as was its placement early on in the narrative, in sections dealing with

Roman history. Yet only once did Matthew draw on the Sibyl to interpret

contemporary events. In 1241, he reported that the imprisonment, at the hands of

Emperor Frederick II, of prelates planning to attend a papal council proved true the

Sybil, and proceeded to cite the relevant passage.16 However, Hilpert has shown that

the Sybilline reference was probably borrowed from a papal letter also copied into the

Chronica.17 Matthew did not offer an independent reading of the Sybil. In fact, Anke

Holdenried has shown that he undertook considerable efforts to redact the prophecy

so as to make it fit the period in which it was believed to have originated, even erasing

sections with possible contemporary resonances. 18 That is, the Sybil mattered for

understanding Rome, but held little significance for the world of Matthew Paris. It

was, however, a model for the act of prophecy. When reporting the death of the last of

the sons of William Marshal, Matthew recounted that their mother had predicted that

very course of events, and labelled her a true Sybil (vera Sibilla).19

By contrast, Matthew made frequent use of Merlin’s prophecies. These purported to

record a vision experienced at the time of Vortigern in the fifth century,20 but were

obviously part of a corpus of texts associated with Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing c.

1140. Matthew copied his version from Roger of Wendover, and placed it in his

account of the year 465. Unlike in the case of the Sybil, however, he rarely hesitated

to relate Merlin’s visions to contemporary affairs. For example, Matthew provided a

15 CM, i.42-4.16 CM, iv.130.17 Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’, 180; Hilpert, Kaiser-und Papstbriefe, 201-2.18 CM, i.42-52. Holdenried, The Sybil and her Scribes, 147-63.19 CM, iv.492.20 CM, i.199.

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commentary, in which he noted that Emperor Frederick II would ally with the Welsh

to drive the English from Britain.21 In 1248, Matthew reported, the citizens of London

claimed that the king’s exactions were foretold by Merlin;22 and in 1254 Matthew

described King Henry III as the lynx of Merlin’s prophecy, i.e. the ruler who would

bring about the downfall of his race.23 Merlin’s prophecy was also among the few

prognostic incidents illustrated by Matthew. He inserted an image of Merlin in the

margins of his account of the prophecy, together with three of the mythical beasts

referenced in the text.24 When describing the White Ship disaster of 1120 (the

drowning of King Henry I’s sole legitimate son), Matthew again added a sketch and

rubric referring directly to Merlin’s prophecy.25

The Sybil and Merlin were by far the longest written prophecies recorded by

Matthew, but they were not the only ones. The chronicler also included a series of

shorter prognostic poems. For 1239, he recorded two short texts, described as

pronostica, each containing just a few lines of verse. The first, rumoured to have been

commissioned by Frederick II, appeared inscribed on the walls of the pontifical

bedchamber, and was believed by the emperor’s partisans to foretell the pope’s

imminent demise. The second was penned by allies of the curia in response, and

warned of the eternal damnation awaiting Frederick.26 Matthew did not comment on

the validity of either, although, as we will see, the context of his reporting may

contain a clue as to what he thought of them. Similarly, when reporting the Nativity in

the Chronica, Matthew copied a short poem of three lines, which foretold that the

Antichrist would appear 1250 years after Christ’s birth.27 More common were

prophecies in prose. In his account of the year 1109, Matthew inserted a prophecy in

the form of a letter that suddenly appeared in the hands of an unknown Roman prelate

celebrating mass.28 The report seems to have been designed to foreshadow a similar

21 CM, i.208.22 CM, iv.511.23 CM, v.451.24 Cambridge Corpus Christi College Ms. 26, fol. 66. Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 93-6.25 Cambridge Corpus Christi College Ms. 26, f. 222. Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 98-9.26 CM, iii.551.27 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms. 26, f. 30. CM, i.81. Commentary: Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 101-4.28 CM, ii.135-6.

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occurrence in 1227, recorded by Roger of Wendover, when an almost identical

prophecy was encountered by an anonymous hermit, who found the text miraculously

inserted in the psalter he was reading.29 It was also cited – with Matthew referring

back to his entry for 1109 – when in 1239 Gregory IX once more excommunicated

Emperor Frederick II (and the quotation was immediately followed by the two ditties

already mentioned).30 To these texts should be added the so-called ‘Cedar of Lebanon’

prophecy: in 1239, a short prophetic text, foretelling the demise of Islam, became

miraculously visible to an anonymous Cistercian monk.31

Matthew was clearly interested in recording and incorporating visions of the future.

However, as in the case of the Tiburtine materials, he seems to have been markedly

reluctant to interpret them, and at most did so implicitly. He described the 1227 vision

as potentially explaining the future: its interpretation, Matthew wrote somewhat

enigmatically, would be proven true by future events, if these were carefully

researched.32 The statement could be read as a reference to the third time the prophecy

was cited, in 1239 – 1227 and 1239 being the years when Gregory IX

excommunicated Frederick II. In fact, the prophecy foretold that Roman would rise

against Roman, that the lion would turn into a lamb, and the lamb into a lion: the

natural order would be inverted. That the 1239 entry was immediately followed by

two shorter prophecies, both described in terms that questioned their validity, could be

read as conveying a similar message, as could the fact that Matthew followed these

prophetic texts with copies of a letter by four leading bishops, sent by the emperor to

prove his innocence, and a papal response.33 By inciting hostility towards each other,

pope and emperor threatened to undermine the right order of the world, just as had

been foretold by the mysterious text. Still, the comment on the events of 1239

contained a degree of scepticism, even, as Hilpert suggested, playfulness.34 Thus

Matthew refused to link the 1239 prophecy explicitly to Frederick and Gregory, 29 CM, iii.125. Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’, 177-9 has identified these as part of another Sybilline tradition. There is, though, no evidence that Matthew had been aware of this.30 CM, iii.550.31 CM, iii.538. The ‘Cedar’ quickly emerged one of the most widely circulating prophecies in thirteenth-century Europe: Lerner, Powers of Prophecy.32 CM, iii.125: ‘Hujus autem prophetiae interpretationem sequens rerum eventus luce clarius declarabit, si sollicite indagentur.’33 CM, iii. 551-62.34 CM, iii.550. Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’, 178-9.

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instead referring vaguely to general dangers of the age. It seems, therefore, that in

reporting such occurrences Matthew may simply have aimed to do just that: to

provide a record, to inscribe examples of the prognostic and prophetic. However, he

also suggested and implied, rather than firmly stating, how these materials should be

read. In some ways, Matthew appears to have been hedging his bets.

The impression is strengthened once we turn to a final set of written prophecies:

materials and authors mentioned by Matthew, but not quoted from at length. Relevant

examples include the works of Pseudo-Methodius, Hildegard of Bingen, and Joachim

of Fiore. That he referenced these authors does not mean that Matthew had first-hand

acquaintance with their works. In the Liber Additamentorum, the collection of

documents produced as an appendix to the Chronica Majora, Matthew included

materials foretelling the end of the world, including two sections from Pseudo-

Methodius – one of the most popular apocalyptic texts of the European Middle

Ages.35 However, there were only two other references to Methodius in the Chronica.

The first occurred in a passage taken from Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica,

about the descendants of Adam and Eve: Methodius had received a vision of the

world’s history from beginning to end, and could thus confirm that Adam was fifteen

when Cain and his sister Kalmana were born.36 In this instance, Pseudo-Methodius’

prophecy mattered not because it foretold the future, but because it elucidated an

important but obscure point in the Bible. The second is a passing reference to

Methodius’ description of the sons of Ishmael in a letter by the landgrave of Hessen

about the Mongols, also copied into the Liber.37 Furthermore, while it is possible to

identify the passages referred to by the German prince,38 Matthew, it seems, used a

paraphrase or summary of Pseudo-Methodius, rather than a complete copy.39 That is,

35 CM, vi.497. On Pseudo-Methodius see: Palmer, The Apocalypse, 114-9, 125-9. 36 CM, i.3.37 CM, vi.78.38 The Apocalypse of Pseudo Methodius and an Alexandrian World Chronicle, ed. and transl. Benjamin Garstad (Cambridge/MA, 2012), 11.3, 17 (pp. 110-11; 118-9).39 Probably a summary of chapter eight, dealing with Alexander the Great’s incarceration of Gog and Magog (Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, 96-101), and various sections relating to the sons of Ishmael (though these could have been taken from Comestor’s Historia Scholastica, which summarises Methodius’ statements on the sons of Ishmael, and uses an almost identical run of words: PL 198, col. 1096C). Matters are complicated by the fact that the Rolls Series edition does not give the complete text copied by Matthew.

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Matthew’s knowledge of Pseudo-Methodius was mostly indirect, mediated through

the writings of others, and in all likelihood incomplete.40

Matthew described Hildegard of Bingen, in turn, as a great prophetess, whose

predictions circulated widely among the great men of the world.41 However, he

offered no direct quotations from her writings, paraphrasing only one prophecy, and

then very much in passing. When complaining about the actions of the Friars at

Scarborough in 1243, he mentioned that they acted exactly as foretold by Hildegard

(but failed to elucidate just what he meant by this).42 That Matthew included her

among the most notable figures of the period between 1200 and 1250,43 with which he

initially concluded the Chronica, also raises questions as to just how familiar he had

been with Hildegard. She had, after all, died in 1179.44 More striking still is his lack of

engagement with Joachim of Fiore.45 One explanation for this silence may be that

some of Joachim’s teachings had explicitly been banned by the Fourth Lateran

Council in 1215.46 Matthew thus reported that Joachim’s teachings had been

condemned by successive popes,47 included a list of Joachim’s errors,48 and repeated

accusations, levelled against the Dominicans at Paris, that they illicitly taught the

works of the Calabrian abbot.49 There is, however, no evidence that Matthew used or

applied Joachim’s texts. Where echoes of Joachite materials can be traced, Hilpert has

40 Hilbert, ‘Prophetien’, 181-2.41 CM, iv. 82-3.42 CM, iv.280. One possibility may, though, have been Hildegard’s warning, in Scivias, book 2, vision 5, chapter 27, about those who left the well-trodden path of established monasticism, causing schisms in their institutions, and embarking on fruitless wanderings: Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, transl. Columba Hart and Jane Bishop, introduction by Barbara J. Newman, New York 1990, 216-7. 43 CM, v.195. 44 Oddly, when first mentioning Hildegard, Matthew, correctly, described her as having been active at the time of Pope Alexander (III): CM, iv.82-3.45 CM, ii.312, 313.46 In lieu of a very rich literature, see: Joachim of Fiore and the influence of inspiration: essays in memory of Marjorie E. Reeves (1905 – 2003), ed. Julia Eva Wannenmacher (Farnham, 2013); Emmett Randolph Daniel, Abbot Joachim of Fiore and Joachimism (Aldershot, 2011); Brett Edward Whalen, Dominion of God. Christendom and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cambridge/MA, 2009), 100-124; Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the prophetic future. A medieval study in historical thinking (Stroud, 1999).47 CM, ii.313; v.599, 600; vi.335.48 CM, vi.335-9.49 CM, v.599.

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demonstrated, they were copied directly from papal letters incorporated into the

Chronica.50

In short, prophecies and prophetic writings clearly mattered. They were recorded, and

they were referenced, but it seems that Matthew’s knowledge of them was frequently

indirect, and often partial. He seems to have known many prophecies and prophets by

reputation only. Those that he did cite and copy, he was frequently reluctant to

interpret, with Merlin the chief exception. Often, prophecies were either rooted in and

relevant only to a specific moment in a distant past, or too recent for their accuracy

and truthfulness to be judged. Consequently, the very materials on which most

modern scholarship has tended to concentrate were by no means central to Matthew’s

conception and uses of prophecy and the prophetic.51

In fact, the overwhelming majority of prophecies Matthew recorded came in the form

of visions, portents and signs. In writing about the final days of Edward the

Confessor, he included the king’s dream about the future of England, and termed it a

vaticinium (prophecy).52 Similarly, Matthew described as prophetica a dream that

ultimately moved Faukes de Breaute to promise that he would restore goods stolen

from St Albans.53 Here, he was by no means consistent. When reporting the vision

experienced in 1258 by a female recluse associated with St Albans, Matthew specified

that the vision was not a dream, but a heavenly oracle.54 Frequently, people foretold

the future on their deathbeds. In the Historia Anglorum, a curious text begun c. 1254

that was partly a revised version of the Chronica with most of the non-English matter

removed, but partly an entirely new text, Matthew had King Henry I (1100-1135)

50 Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’.51 It is also worth noting how little use Matthew made of Biblical prophecies, as when, in 1187, Hattin was foreshadowed in the Bible (HA, i.440), or in the report of the election of Henry Raspe as anti-king in 1246 (wrongly recorded as occurring in 1243), where Matthew referred to Psalm 82:17 as foretelling the emperor’s humiliation (secundum illud Propheticum): HA, ii.475. Equally, when in 1236 Frederick II waged war on the duke of Austria, this was revenge for Richard I’s imprisonment at the hands of the duke’s forebears, following Exodus 20:12: CM, iii.378. In 1249, natural phenomena seemed to follow the pattern presaged by Habakuk 3:8 (CM, v.177), and in 1251 Guy de Lusignan being awarded the custody of Hastings was described with reference to Jesaiah 5:22, 23 (CM, v.201).52 CM, i.535.53 GA, i.269.54 (…) quae non ut somnium, sed caeleste oraculum (…). CM, v.729.

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explain to the English magnates why he rather than Robert Curthose should become

king. One of them was that William the Conqueror had – quasi prophetico spiritu –

foretold on his deathbed that Henry would inherit the lands and dignities of his

brothers.55 Similarly, when recounting the death of Robert Grosseteste in 1253,

Matthew painted a rich portrait of the bishop, who, crying and gasping for breath,

prophesised that many evils would befall the Church within three years. These were,

in fact, the last words ever uttered by the prelate.56

Marvels and prodigies could similarly foretell future events. In his entry for the year

1233, Matthew expanded on Roger of Wendover’s account of strange natural

phenomena. Several mock suns had appeared in the sky over Worcester and Hereford.

Matthew proceeded to provide a detailed description with a sketch of the phenomenon

in the margins of the Chronica. The report was immediately followed by an account

of the great bloodshed that occurred in these regions shortly thereafter, and the grave

disturbances visited upon England, Wales and Ireland (probably referring to the revolt

of Richard Marshal in 1233-4).57 In fact, knowledge of natural phenomena could help

predict the future. In his record for 1226, Matthew Paris revised a story told by Roger

of Wendover that Henry III had postponed leading a campaign into France, after

Master William, one of his advisors and an expert in astronomy, had declared that the

king of France would not return alive from the expedition he had then been

planning.58 Matthew did not make the connection explicit, but Louis VIII did indeed

die in November 1226.59 Similarly, Matthew reported that the death of Simon de

Montfort the Elder during the siege of Toulouse in 1219 had been foretold by certain

clerici geomantici (clerical geomancers) resident in the city.60 He also related the tale

of Constantia, the daughter of the Greek Orthodox archbishop of Athens, who was so

well versed in the Liberal Arts that she could foretell natural disasters.61 Constantia

was, however, one of only a handful incidents when Matthew reported non-Catholics 55 HA, i.164. The prophecy was repeated HA, i.205.56 CM, v.407.57 CM, iii.242-3.58 CM, iii.111.59 CM, iii.116-7, where no reference was made to the prophecy. Though the illness that cost Louis VIII his life was again invoked when, in 1242, God, or so Matthew claimed, punished the French for their arrogance and unleashed famine, strife and disease upon them in support of the English: CM, iv.225.60 CM, iii.57.61 CM, v.286-7.

14

foretelling the future. A characteristic example is his report that, in 1240, the leaders

of the Saracens in the Holy Land cast lots to find out the plans of the Christians, and

so were forewarned of the imminent arrival of Earl Richard of Cornwall.62 By and

large, however, prophecy (especially correct prophecy) remained the preserve of truly

Catholic Christians. We will return to this point.

The cases of William and Constantia raise broader questions. Their ability to see the

future was qualitatively different from that of the written prophecies recorded.

Pseudo-Methodius and the Sybil treated the end of days, which it was assumed would

occur several centuries after their writing. While Merlin did not treat the Apocalypse,

he was nonetheless foretelling a remote future in which the Saxons and their kin

would be driven off by resurgent Britons. These were highly enigmatic texts, largely

eschewing easily recognisable links with the contemporary, but with just enough of a

hint of what could be meant to enable continuing speculation. Like features are

apparent in the shorter written texts recorded in 1109, 1227 and 1239. Most marvels

and natural phenomena, by contrast, dealt with events that would, as in 1233, occur in

close proximity to the portents recorded (at most within a generation or two). The

pattern applies equally to visions and dreams. In 1077, Gregory VII was reported as

having foretold that Emperor Henry IV would die by the end of the year,63 and

Matthew reported a prophecy by St Edmund Rich (d. 1240) of the future travails of

the archbishop of York at the hands of papal agents (the latter prelate died in 1258).64

However, no qualitative distinction was drawn between the two types of prophecy:

both equally merited, even required, recording. In short, Matthew was clearly

concerned with the prophetic, and his interests were broader and drew on a far wider

range of sources for and types of prognostication than most scholarship on the topic

has recognised. Yet one of the appealing features of Matthew Paris is that he allows

us to see not just what he recorded, but also how he ordered and verified his

information. It is to this aspect that we now must turn.

62 CM, iv.62.63 CM, ii.17.64 CM, v.586, 678-9.

15

Prophecies were a constant of human history. They occurred in Antiquity as much as

in Matthew’s own time, and across the whole known world. They were also by no

means an interest peculiar to Matthew: he found many of the prophecies he reported

in Roger of Wendover’s Flores Historiarum. These included references to several

Sibylline texts (though not the Tiburtine one inserted by Matthew), as well as

prophecies, for instance, by Elphege of Winchester in 946 about St Dunstan,65 by

Godric of Finchale on Hugh Pudsey’s election to the see of Durham in 1189,66 or by

Peter the Hermit, who in 1212 foretold that John would no longer be king by August

1213.67 Moreover, it would have been in the Flores that Matthew found not only

Merlin’s prophecies, but also repeat confirmation that they had indeed come true.68

This does not, however, mean that Matthew simply copied Roger. He clearly

evaluated and, if required, revised his source. Matthew left out a Sibylline text

included by Roger – the so-called Toledo letters.69 When copying Roger’s report that,

in 1210 King John demanded both Irish and English coins to be paid into his treasury,

and that this proved right Merlin’s prophecy, Matthew commented in the margins:

“This is doubtful (dubium est hoc)”.70 In the Historia Anglorum, Matthew similarly

amended some of Roger’s interpretations: where Roger had explained that Eleanor of

Aquitaine’s release from captivity in 1189 proved true Merlin’s prophecy that the

Eagle would be set free, as Eleanor was called an eagle because she had ruled two

kingdoms (England and France), Matthew added that the moniker was also true

because of her all-consuming greed.71 More commonly, Matthew added materials.

This was most strikingly the case with his insertion of the Tiburtine Sybil, and his

commentary on Merlin. The majority of new materials were not, however, written

prophecies, but visions and marvels, such as Gregory VII foretelling the death of

Henry IV; a lunar eclipse in 1109;72 the – unspecified – indigna pronostica about

65 CM, i.457-8.66 CM, ii.352.67 CM, ii.535.68 CM, ii.191-2 (Treaty of Winchester), 347 (Eleanor of Aquitaine released from captivity in 1189), 530 (in 1210, King John demanded both Irish and English coins). Similarly, HA i.388 (the captivity of William the Lion). HA i.463 (Treaty with Philipp Augustus), ii.4 (the release of Eleanor, also in 1189).69 Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’, 179. On the Toledo letters, Lehner, Prophetie, 223-4.70 CM, ii.530.71 HA, ii.4.72 CM, ii.137.

16

King John while he was still in his mother’s womb;73 or a prophecy attributed to

Thomas Becket (1166), in which the archbishop told the monks of Pontigny that they

would one day receive the remains of one of his successors (Edmund Rich of

Canterbury).74 As elsewhere in his oeuvre, Matthew was hardly ever a mere copyist,

but actively rewrote and refashioned his material. He may have inherited a record of

prophecies and prognostications, but it fell to him to evaluate the sources at his

disposal. It was a task on which Matthew embarked with rigour and, it would seem,

some trepidation.

Reporting prophecies was, after all, a grave responsibility. This was partly so because

they were in most cases a token of divine favour, a gift granted by God to certain

individuals that allowed them to see things that otherwise only God could behold.

Most of those experiencing prophecies were thus renowned for their piety: Pseudo-

Methodius received a vision of the whole of human history as the result of arduous

prayers; Thomas Becket was exiled for his defence of the Church when he told the

monks of Pontigny about the relics of St Edmund; and the bishop of Fern, who

predicted that William the Marshal’s sons would all die during Henry III’s life-time,

was of well-known sanctity (sanctitate perspicuus).75 We should similarly note the

circumstances under which several written prophecies appeared: in 1109, a text

miraculously became visible to a prelate celebrating Mass, and in 1227 another one to

a hermit studying his psalter. In fact, Matthew was explicit about the divine origins of

prophecies: Sybil, for instance, travelled throughout the East, offering her prophecies,

as had been ordained by the Lord (prout Dominus ordinaverat);76 the twelfth-century

recluse Christina of Markyate received her gift of prophecy from Christ;77 and God

had imbued Hildegard of Bingen with both the gift of prophecy and a perfect mastery

of the science of letters.78 As a rule, therefore, only men and women of the highest

moral and religious standing experienced prophecies: saintly bishops (Elphege of

Winchester, Becket, the bishop of Ferne), hermits (Godric of Finchale, Peter), pious

73 HA, i.369.74 HA, i.339.75 Episode: CM, iv.491-5. Quote: 493.76 CM, i.42.77 GA, i.101.78 CM, iv.82.

17

monks (the Cistercian witnessing the Cedar of Lebanon prophecy) or devout women

(Christina, Hildegard, the wife of William Marshal).

Exceptions to this rule were few. In the 1220s, Faukes de Breaute – a frequent

despoiler of the estates of St Albans – may have received a prophetic dream, but he

still required his more virtuous wife to interpret it for him. When recounting William

the Conqueror’s statement that Henry I would one day succeed both his brothers,

Matthew similarly rewrote Wendover’s account. Rather than simply recording the

claim (as Roger had done), Matthew had the prophecy reported and described as such

by Henry I in a speech to the English barons. The change merits consideration. First,

Henry was a morally ambivalent figure: once enthroned, Matthew reported, Henry

turned into a tyrannous oppressor of the Church. Second, prophecies were normally

reported by the chronicler. Matthew might indicate that there were observers who

could testify to a prophecy having been uttered, or that a prophecy appeared in writing

(and could thus be verified), but the voice of record was that of the author. It similarly

fell to him, not his sources, to term a vision, experience or saying prophetic. Henry’s

was, in fact, the only instance I could find where someone other than Matthew

labelled a (legitimate) prophecy as such. That Matthew still included the episode may

reflect the fact that not only Roger, but also two of Matthew’s sources recorded it:

William of Malmesbury and Robert of Torigny. The tale was too well attested simply

to be dismissed. Even so, additional confirmation was needed, and Matthew

proceeded to copy Wendover’s account of a comet and the appearance of two moons

earlier in 1106, which thus proved true William’s statement – carefully described not

as a prophecy, but as something a dying William had said to his son (Sicque impletum

est quod rex Willelmus Henrico filio suo moriens dixit).79 Contextualised in this

manner, the Henry I episode illustrates Matthew’s desire to verify prophecies (Henry

may claim to have been the subject of one, but it took additional portents to prove his

claim). It also highlights just how unusual it was for as morally ambivalent a figure as

Henry to be associated with true prophecy.

The distinction became especially important in Matthew’s treatment of non-Catholics.

Constantia, the daughter of the Greek Orthodox bishop of Athens was not, for

instance, a prophetess: she could foretell natural disasters because she mastered the 79 CM, ii.132.

18

Liberal Arts. In fact, Constantia was virtuous, but she was able to foresee pestilence,

storms, and earthquakes because she knew the sciences of the trivium and

quadrivium.80 There was nothing divine about her abilities. Moreover, she could

foresee that a disaster would take place, but could not identify what it meant, whether

it was a natural phenomenon or a portent.81 The Muslim leaders who foretold Richard

of Cornwall’s crusade were similarly not granted the gift of prophecy. Rather, they

found out about Richard’s crusade because, ‘according to their abominable traditions

of the necromantic science or the mathematical arts, having made burned offerings

and [performed] horrible invocations of demons, [they] cast lots’.82 Catholics received

the gift of prophecy from God, or otherwise interpreted the signs that God sent them.

Muslims, by contrast, were at the mercy of demons and maths wizards.83

For these reasons, non-Christians and non-Catholics frequently harboured false

prophets. The connection was made most explicitly when Matthew wrote about Islam.

In his account of the year 1236, he included two reports on Muhammad and his

teachings. Neither deviates much from common Christian polemics against Islam as

they had been circulating since the twelfth century.84 While Muhammad was

described as prophet of the Saracens (propheta Saracenorum),85 Matthew left little

doubt as to how preposterous he thought the claim to be. Most importantly,

Mohammad, in Matthew’s account, violated too many moral norms to be a true

prophet: he was driven by a lust for power;86 happily accepted spoils gained from the

massacre of women and children;87 ordered those to be executed who did not believe

his prophecies;88 and poisoned close attendants.89 His prophecies normally turned out 80 CM, v.286-7. 81 CM, iii.57.82 CM, iv.62: ‘ (…) secundum traditiones abominabiles scientiae nicromanticae vel artes mathematicae, Sarraceni Orientales, facta immolatione et horribili invocatione daemonibus, sortem jecerunt (…).’83 And still, they were right. Which was perhaps why Matthew, when revising the Chronica, marked the passage as impertinens: CM, iv.63. 84 John V. Tolan, Saracens. Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York, 2002), 135-69. On Matthew’s account: James M. Powell, ‘Matthew Paris, the lives of Muhammad, and the Dominicans’, in Dei Gesta per Francis: Festschrift for Jean Richard (Aldershot, 2001), 65-69.85 CM, iii.343.86 CM, iii.345.87 CM, iii.347.88 CM, iii.348-9.89 CM, iii.350.

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to be wrong – most notably when he foretold that he would rise from the dead after

three days;90 and were, in fact, the result not of divine inspiration, but of epilepsy.91

Moreover, Mohammad owed much to a renegade monk, excommunicated for heresy,

who embroidered Mohammad’s sayings with prophecies from the Old and New

Testament, so as to ensnare the uneducated and credulous, who were indeed the only

ones taking seriously his teachings.92 In short, Mohammad was constructed as the

very opposite of a true prophet.

Matthew applied the same narrative strategy to heterodox Christians. In 1251, the

leader of the Shepherds’ Crusade in France, on entering Orleans, assumed the habitus

of a prophet when preaching to the townsmen.93 This may seem innocuous. However,

when first reporting on the campaign, Matthew described that (anonymous) leader as

an apostate who had promised the sultan of Babylon to lead as many Christians as

possible into captivity, so that, deprived of inhabitants, Christendom could more

easily be invaded by the Saracens.94 He was furthermore assisted by a former leader of

the Children’s’ Crusade, a false Dominican.95 Together, they incited their credulous

followers to hatred against all religious orders,96 and ordered all those to be killed who

opposed them.97 In short, like other heterodox leaders, those of the Shepherds’

Crusade were false prophets. Their authority was rooted in presumption and apostasy,

not true devotion and Christian mores. Even then, though, we should note that heretics

and Muslims were often capable of claiming prophetic gifts only by their association

with apostate Christians: in the case of Muhammad, a Nestorian monk, and in France,

a renegade Friar. The Muslims in the Holy Land, by contrast, cast lots and invoked

demons. Prophecy, even if false or pretend, remained the preserve of Christians.

Catholics, by contrast, did not normally engage in false prophecy. The premise may

help explain Matthew’s striking silence about Joachim of Fiore’s teachings or on the

texts attributed to him. Joachite writings suffered from the whiff of illegitimacy:

90 CM, iii.351.91 CM, iii.360.92 CM, iii.352.93 (…) velut propheta signipotens (…). CM, v.249.94 CM, v.246-7.95 CM, v.247.96 CM, v.249.97 CM, v.247, 249-50.

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during the 1250s accusations of engaging with his writings proved a major line of

attack on the Parisian mendicants.98 Still, Joachite materials proved extraordinarily

popular, especially among Matthew’s contemporaries. The Pseudo-Jeremiah

commentary, for instance, had been written in the 1240s, Gerard of Borgo’s Eternal

Gospel c. 1254-55, and the Pseudo-Isaiah commentary c. 1260. They frequently

combined criticism of the current state of the Church and rejection of imperial or

royal claims with visions of an imminent age of the Holy Spirit and the second

coming of Christ.99 Many of the Sibylline texts circulating equally had Joachite

overtones, as did several versions of Merlin’s prophecies. That is, Matthew not only

lived in what could be described as a Golden Age of Joachite prophecy, but also drew

on some of the same materials consulted and used by Joachite writers. Yet, as Hilpert

has shown, there is no evidence that he shared their outlook.100 In fact, Matthew seems

to have sought to purge his narrative of Joachite echoes. In the case of the Tiburtine

Sybil, as we have seen, he removed any contemporary resonances and situated the

text firmly in Late Antiquity. Even more striking is his redaction of the so-called

Toledo letters, that, in the 1229 version reported by Roger of Wendover, had

distinctly Joachite overtones. In the Chronica, Matthew simply omitted them.101 That

many of these materials had been penned in the wider environs of the papal court may

have contributed further to Matthew’s unease.102 The Toledo-letters, for instance, had 98 Sita Steckel, ‘Professoren in Weltuntergangsstimmung. Religiöse Debatte und städtische Öffentlichkeit im Pariser Bettelordensstreit, 1252-1257’, in: Pluralität - Konkurrenz - Konflikt: Religiöse Spannungen im städtischen Raum der Vormoderne, ed. Susanne Ehrich and Jörg Oberste (Regensburg, 2013), 51-80; eadem, ‘Narratives of resistance: arguments against the mendicants in the works of Matthew Paris and William of Saint-Amour’, in: Authority and Resistance in the Age of Magna Carta: Thirteenth Century England 15, ed. Janet Burton, Phillipp Schofield and Björn Weiler (Woodbridge, 2015), 157-77.99 David Morris, ‘In search of Pseudo-Joachim of Fiore: understanding the so-called Isaiah commentary’, Franciscan Studies 73 (2015), 255-274; Brett Whalen, ‘Antichrist and the Scandal of the Eternal Gospel’, in: “Ioachim posuit verba ista”: gli pseudoepigrafi di Gioacchino da Fiore dei secoli XIII e XIV: atti del 8o Congresso internazionale di studi gioachimiti, San Giovanni in Fiore - 18-20 settembre 2014, ed. Gian Luca Podesta and Marco Rainini (Rome, 2016), 105-118; idem, Dominion of God, 172-5. 100 Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’.101 RW, iv.180-2, 194-5; Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’, 179. On the Toledo letters: Hermann Grauert, ‘Meister Johannes von Toledo’, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1911), 111-325, at 165-7.102

Christian Jostmann, ‘Prophetie an der Kurie im 13. Jahrhundert’, in: Endzeiten. Eschatologie in den monoteheistischen Weltreligionen, ed. Wolfram Brandes and

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likely been composed by Cardinal John of Toledo, while Cardinal Rainer of Viterbo

drew on Joachite imagery in his attacks on Emperor Frederick II.103 Joachite writings

were tainted equally by a reputation for heterodoxy and an association with the papal

court, which may also help explain why Matthew was both concerned about and

hesitant in commenting upon the dubious prognostications penned by papal and

imperial partisans in 1239. After all, they seemed to suggest that, at times, the

dividing lines between true (Christian) and false (heretical) prophecy could be

blurred.

This made it all the more important to verify prophecies, to figure out patterns with

which legitimate prognostication could be distinguished from illegitimate. The

religious and moral standing of those experiencing or making prognostications was

one means by which such distinctions could be drawn. Another was that false

prophets were most eagerly embraced by the uneducated, as Matthew claims to have

been the case with Islam and the Shepherd’s Crusade. A third was that legitimate

visions of the future always turned out to be true. Gregory VII may thus have wrongly

foretold the death of Henry IV in 1077, but he was still right in that a king did die

(Rudolf of Rheinfelden, a rival claimant to the throne). When redacting Roger’s

account of 1210, what was at stake was similarly the interpretation of Merlin’s

prophecy, not its accuracy. Merlin was right, but Roger linked his prophecy to the

wrong event.

Wise men therefore heeded prophecies, or even sought them out. When reporting the

coronation of King John in 1199, Matthew Paris inserted a passage, in which Hubert

Walter, the archbishop of Canterbury, warned John that he had been elected not

because he was closest in kin to Richard I, but because he promised to be the ablest

candidate. This was a particularly important distinction for Matthew to draw. When

reporting the 1153 Treaty of Winchester in the Historia Anglorum, an agreement that

Felicitas Schmieder (Berlin & New York, 2008), 215-30; idem, Sibilla Erithea Babilonica. Papsttum und Prophetie im 13. Jahrhundert (Hanover, 2008).103 Matthias Thumser, ‘Kardinal Rainer von Viterbo (+ 1250) und seine Propaganda gegen Friedrich II.’, in: Die Kardinäle des Mittelalters und der frühen Renaissance, ed. Jessica Novak, Jürgen Dendorfer and Ralf Lützelschwab (Florence, 2013), 187-200; Robert E. Lerner, ‘Frederick II. Alive, aloft and allayed, in Franciscan-Joachite eschatology’, in: The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages (Leuven, 1988), 359-84.

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ended the civil after the death of Henry I in 1135 when Stephen adopted as son his

rival Henry II, the chronicler concocted an elaborate tale in which the Empress

Matilda revealed to Stephen that he was in fact Henry’s father.104 Henry II’s kingship

maintained rather than that it restored a hereditary line of succession, one that was

normative and that, if necessary, had to be established in the face of whatever

evidence to the contrary may have existed. Matthew’s account of Hubert Walter’s

speech therefore constitutes a marked departure. More important still is the reason

that Archbishop Hubert gave for his speech. He explained that he thought carefully

about the matter, and had deduced from and found certified by various oracles (quibus

oraculis edoctum et certificatum fuisse) that John would corrupt the crown of England

and throw it into confusion. To prevent John from being able to do so, Hubert had him

become king by election rather than hereditary succession.105 The prelate’s

forebodings proved to be right, of course: by 1213, the barons began to look for

another king, and some of them ultimately found one in Louis, the eldest son of the

king of France.

Hubert Walter’s example highlights a particular function of prophecies: heeding them

could convey moral legitimacy onto an individual or course of action. We should thus

note how both Roger and Matthew used prophecy to justify resistance towards King

John. That motivation played a prominent part in the prophecy of Peter the Hermit in

1212. Peter had foretold that John would cease to be king within a year. John

promptly ordered Peter to be imprisoned. In the meantime, word of Peter’s

prognostication spread throughout the realm, where many had become dissatisfied

with John’s tyranny to such an extent that several barons invited the king of France to

claim the English throne.106 Deposing John was not an act of rebellion, but of doing

God’s bidding. At the same time, contrary to a well-established strand in modern

work on medieval prophecy, the political uses of prognostic incidents remained

few.107 More commonly, prophecies highlighted the piety and religious fervour of

those the subject of one. Elphege of Winchester thus singled out St Dunstan because 104 HA, i.294-5.105 CM, ii.454-5.106 CM, ii.535.107 Matthew Paris may have had some doubts about this passage – he termed the prophecy slightly offensive (offendiculum). He did, however, repeat it in the Historia Anglorum, and added that Pope Innocent III was trying to incite the clergy of England to stand up to the king: HA, ii.130.

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of the latter’s devotion, Godric of Finchale did the same with Bishop Hugh of

Durham, or Edmund Rich with Bishop Richard Wyche of Chichester.108 Equally,

when Thomas Becket told the monks of Pontigny that they would one day receive the

remains of Edmund Rich, this served to highlight the latter’s devotion and sanctity (as

well as, of course, Becket’s embrace by God). Experiencing and receiving prophecies

imbued individuals with an air of moral and religious excellence.

Furthermore, just as the direct use of prophecies to further particular political aims

was unusual, so was their outright rejection. Even King John did not dismiss Peter the

Hermit, but merely imprisoned him to see whether or not his words would prove true.

When rejection did occur, the consequences were swift and devastating. A

particularly striking example was William Marshal the Younger, who had been

warned by the bishop of Fern that neither he nor his brothers would enjoy for long the

properties that they had seized from the prelate’s Church. As William refused to make

amends, both he and his siblings died within a few years.109 Similarly, Faulkes de

Breaute, while having been convinced by a prophetic dream to promise restoration of

the goods stolen from St Albans, he ultimately refused to do so. The vengeance of St

Alban, the Gesta Abbatum (Matthew’s history of the abbots of St Albans) informs us,

was swift: most of Faukes’ followers were hanged, while he died miserably, probably

of poison, without having received the last rites.110 In this respect, the rejection of

prophecy followed a similar moral trajectory as the other episodes discussed:

prophecies always turned out to be true. Good people heeded them, while those of a

dubious moral disposition did not, and would suffer horribly as a result. They had

been offered a chance at redemption, but had failed to take it.

Of course, this made it all the more important to identify a prophecy correctly, and to

understand properly its meaning. The latter was relatively easy with most of the

prophecies so far discussed: there was little doubt as to what Peter the Hermit’s

meant, and the same was true of Becket’s prophecy, that of the bishop of Fern, or

Gregory VII’s. They were either quite specific (a king would die, or be deposed

within a year) or, while once enigmatic, could, with the benefit of hindsight, be

108 CM, v.369. 109 CM, iv.494-5.110 GA, i.269.

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clearly linked to a specific outcome (the monks of Pontigny would receive Edmund’s

remains). They were also representative of how most of the prophecies recorded by

Matthew worked: they offered guidance on an immediate course of action, and clearly

foretold events which, by the time of Matthew’s writing, had indeed turned out to

have come true. In fact, we should take note of what Hans-Eberhard Hilpert has

termed Matthew’s historical criticism when dealing with the majority of prophecies

he recorded: he went to considerable lengths to evaluate and judge them.111

Sometimes – as in the case of Henry I – this might well mean that Matthew was

forced to accept as true prophecies that, in many other respects, violated the norms he

otherwise sought to uphold. By taking seriously his duties as historian, Matthew was

able to ascertain whether prophecies were true, add to and revise the materials he

found. He operated with the benefit of hindsight. The rich historical record on which

Matthew drew may thus also explain why Merlin’s was the only written prophecy

which he felt confident to interpret openly – there were numerous instances when

Merlin’s sayings could indeed be related to subsequent events, even to those of

Matthew’s own life-time.

Still, doubt as to the meaning of prophecy was justified. They could be misread – as

had, indeed, been the case with Wendover’s interpretation of events in 1210.

Sometimes, an event prophesied lay so far in the future that ordinary mortals could

not fully grasp its meaning. This happened at Pontigny in 1166, when, according to

Matthew, the monks replied to Becket’s prophecy: ‘”We willingly defer to what your

words lay upon us.” However, they had not understood what he meant [the words].’112

There similarly were instances when the meaning of a portent or prophecy could at

best be implied. When recounting events of the year 1204, Matthew inserted a lengthy

section that combined the record of a lunar eclipse with a series of short notices about

the appointment of Simon of Wells as bishop of Chichester, of Baldwin of Flanders as

emperor of Constantinople, the death of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the foundation of

Beaulieu Abbey. By far the longest of these notes referred to the loss of Rouen, which

completed Philipp Augustus’ conquest of Normandy.113 Matthew left it to his readers

111 Hilpert, ‘Prophetien’, 178-9.112 HA, i.339: At ipsi, “Libenter verba nobis injuncta deferemus.” Nec tamen verba intellexerunt.113 CM, ii.488.

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to decide what exactly the eclipse notified, or whether it in fact notified anything at

all.

On occasion a prophecy was verified only by subsequent portents, or portents

followed an event to give it meaning. The former was evidently the case in Henry I’s

the succession to the English throne. The latter may be illustrated by an entry for the

year 1109, which should also constitute a warning as to how difficult it can be to gage

meaning from considerable chronological distances. We may thus never know why

Matthew later labelled as ‘impertinent but true (impertinens sed verum)’ a story he

reported for that year: at Liege a sow was born which had the four legs of a pig, but

the face of a human.114 At best, given that the entry followed immediately on reporting

the elevation of Ely to a bishopric, and taking into account the fraught relations

between St Albans and Ely (the latter claimed that they were, in fact, in possession of

the relics of St Alban), this pairing may allow us to speculate as to the significance of

this particular porcine portent.

Of course, the difficulty of attaching meaning to prophecies and portents was even

more pronounced when they occurred during Matthew’s lifetime. Just as the monks of

Pontigny could not know what Becket’s words meant (because almost eighty years

would pass before they received Edmund’s remains),115 so the chronicler had to

proceed with particular caution when dealing with prognostications and portents

experienced by his contemporaries. We have already seen that he was reluctant to

interpret many of the written prophecies, with the sequence of texts recorded in 1107,

1227 and 1239 both an exception from and a conformation of the general pattern.

Portents were similarly often linked implicitly to what they might have foretold. Even

when Matthew referred specifically to a prophecy, as we have seen, he seems to have

used interpretations with which he was familiar from other sources – papal letters in

the case of the Sybil, or those of the landgrave of Hessen and possibly Peter Comestor

for Pseudo-Methodius. It was one thing to record a prophecy. It was a somewhat

different matter to identify clearly what it meant.

114 CM, ii.136. 115 This may, of course, have echoed their lack of respect for Edmund Rich: in fact, so disappointed was the saint with his treatment at their hands, or so Matthew claimed in the Chronica, that he soon ceased to work miracles for them: CM, v.113-4.

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An additional challenge was posed by the need to distinguish between portents and

natural phenomena.116 As only the former were the result of divine intervention, only

they could hold prognostic meaning.117 Matthew thus copied William of Conches’

Dragmaticon Philosophiae, a twelfth-century dialogue about ‘various subjects, such

as demons, angels, the four elements, the world, astronomy, creation, animal life, the

seasons, meteorology, and human biology.’118 Yet it is difficult to prove any direct

influence of William on Matthew’s interpretation of natural phenomena. At best, the

chronicler’s cautious stance may reflect William’s efforts to explain those in purely

natural terms. The Dragmaticon’s section on comets, for instance, recounts several

theories about their origins, all of them stressing that they resulted from natural

processes. No mention was made of any prognostic potential.119 Equally, Matthew

participated in the production of a well-known collection of fortune telling manuals:

Bodleian, Ms Ashmole 304.120 Yet the procedures proposed rarely surface in

Matthew’s chronicles. One way of gaging the future outlined in the Ashmolean

manuscript was to draw a number at random, and to link it to a series of short verses.

45, for instance, stated ‘You will buy and sell, thus you will be rich. (Emes et vendes;

unde eris dives)’; and 139 explained ‘You will change your fortunes for the better;

God will aid you. (Fortunam in bono mutabis; Deus tibi auxiliabitur).’121 Both texts

nonetheless testify to Matthew’s efforts to understand the phenomena he recorded,

116 I have left discussion of this aspect to a minimum, as Nathan Greasley is preparing a more detailed study on the subject.117 In drawing this distinction, Matthew reflected key contemporary debates. How far he was familiar with these remains, however, open to question. Among Matthew’s contemporaries, one of the leading thinkers on the subject was William of Auvergne, the bishop of Paris (1228-49) [Bartlett, The Natural and the Supernatural, 21-3; Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of our Era, 2 vols. (New York, 1923), ii.338-71; Neil Lewis, ‘William of Auvergne’, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (2008) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/william-auvergne/ (accessed 15 October 2015)]. Matthew, in turn, was certainly familiar with William (CM, iii.167; iv.111, 397; v.3-4; vi.750). Yet there is no evidence that he knew William’s writings. 118 Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 255.119 William of Conches, A Dialogue on Natural Philosophy (Dragmaticon Philosophiae), transl. Italo Ronca and Matthew Curr (South Bend/IN 1997), Book 5, chapter 8, pp. 107-9.120 Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 257-8. On the manuscript: Allegra Iafrate, ‘Pythagoras’ Index: Denoting authorship in Sortes books’, in: Dialogues among Books in Medieval Western Magic and Divination, ed. Stefano Rapisarda and Erik Niblaeus (Florence, 2014), 77-100. A reproduction is now available in: Matthew Paris, Le moine et le hasard: Bodleian library, ms ashmole 304, intr. Allegra Iafrate (Paris, 2016).

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and to familiarise himself with the means with which portents could be identified and

read. He may not himself have engaged in fortune telling, but he was interested in

finding out how it worked, not the least because it allowed for the truly prophetic to

be more easily identified. Similarly, the Dragmaticon may have been useful above all

because it allowed Matthew to distinguish between the ability of Constantia of Athens

to read natural phenomena, and the gift of prophecy granted by God.

Matthew’s concern for chronology points in a similar direction. It manifested itself,

for instance, in the moveable Easter table that prefaced the Chronica,122 together with

a list of concurrentes, that is of the weekday on which Easter would fall between 1116

and 1620,123 or the calendar of saints that followed them.124 Sacred time had to be

carefully identified and recorded. This did not, however, mean that Matthew always

reported dates accurately.125 His ability to reconstruct the sequence of events was

constrained by the materials at his disposal. It is, however, worth noting that, once

Matthew wrote more closely to the events recorded, he increasingly ordered his

materials so that the various stages of an event were reported as and when they

occurred. In fact, David Carpenter has shown that, once Matthew returned to working

on the Chronica from c. 1254, he took particular care to record that the exact

sequence in which events unfolded.126 Sometimes, this made for a disjointed narrative,

but it certainly aided those who would scout Matthew’s writings in trying to

understand how events were linked, how signs and portents could be interpreted.

None of this did, of course, militate against Matthew imposing an interpretation by

selecting which events he reported and how he did so. He was, after all, a master of

the implicit contrast and the insidious parallel. He was similarly an often outspoken,

121 L.M. Brandin, ‘Les prognostica du Ms. Ashmole 304 de la Bodléienne’, A

Miscellany of Studies in Romance Languages and Literature presented to Leon E. Kastner, ed. Mary Williams and James A. de Rothschild (Cambridge 1932), 57-67, at 59, 61. 122 Cambridge, Corpus Christi Ms. 26 fol. vr.123 Cambridge, Corpus Christi Ms 26, fol. vv.124 Cambridge, Corpus Christi Ms. 26 fol. vv.125 Matthew was, in fact, notoriously unreliable about the election and consecration of bishops: Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 443. On Matthew’s errors see Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 130-1, 132, 136. 126 Carpenter, ‘Chronology and truth’.

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even splenetic, commentator on the affairs of his time. This makes the relative

hesitation with which Matthew engaged in the interpretation of prophecy all the more

striking. Yet there were also striking parallels in Matthew’s approach to writing

history and to verifying prophecies.127 Recording the past was at least in part

concerned with outlining – and thus with instructing readers on how to connect –

deeds and their moral outcomes. Most prophecies similarly offered guidance on

actions on which people were about to embark or the consequences they would face if

they failed to do so. Could this be taken further? Is there any indication that Matthew

may have used the affairs of his own time to give an indication of the future? If

history helped illuminate the meaning of portents, could the writing of history become

an act of prognostication?

Matthew took seriously the prophetic dimension of history: the past could illuminate

the future. Perhaps the most striking illustration of this approach is Matthew’s Lives of

the Two Offas, probably produced in the mid-1250s.128 The Lives narrates the

foundation of St Albans, but does so in a somewhat roundabout way. It begins by

recounting the life and deeds of a fictional Anglo-Saxon king, Offa, and his

(considerably) later descendant, Offa II, king of Mercia. The narrative is structured

along a series of parallels – both Offas were disabled, miraculously recovered, faced

powerful opponents, overcame foreign invasions and domestic rivals, suffered marital

travails, and promised to atone for their deeds or to express their gratitude for

miraculous interventions by endowing a monastery. There are some differences –

Offa I was a better king, but failed to make true his vow of endowing a community of

monks. This militates against too simplistic a reading of Offa I as representing the

type of the Old and Offa II that of the New Covenant, similar to the Old and New

Testament. Offa II fulfilled Offa I’s promise, but he was not morally superior to his

eponymous forebear. Even so, almost every step in the narrative of the first Offa is

echoed – and thus makes it possible to foretell and evaluate – actions taken in the

second. Similarly, how the community of St Alban was established mirrors that of the

127 Björn Weiler, ‘Matthew Paris on the Writing of History’, Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009), 254-78, at 262-3.128 The Lives of Two Offas, ed. and transl. Michael Swanton (Exeter, 2010).

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saint’s cult. The monks became the communal embodiment of their patron saint. The

Lives thus uses the past not only to help elucidate its own internal patterns, but also to

frame the history of St Albans. Furthermore, the highly schematic structure of the text

could suggest that the Lives was intended not only to teach the monks about the

foundation of their community (an event that takes up less than 10% of the overall

text), but also on how to read, use and apply history. If knowing the past enabled

readers to look for patterns, link signs with what they signified, and uncover the moral

consequences of human actions, few texts constitute as readily accessible an example

of how this could be accomplished as the Lives of the Two Offas.129

It is, however, difficult to conclude that Matthew composed his other chronicles with

a similar design in mind. This is especially important in the case of the Chronica

Majora, where, at first sight, some evidence exists that Matthew had envisaged an

overarching narrative structure. Initially, Matthew had drawn the Chronica to a close

with his entry for the year 1250. He probably did so in 1251 or 1252. On first

concluding the Chronica, he explained that with the year 1250 the fiftieth half-century

since the coming of Christ had come to an end. During these fifty years, there had

been many more novelties and wondrous occurrences than through any other half-

century. What they might hold for the future one could contemplate only with

horror.130 Matthew proceeded to list these chief events, before stating: “Here end the

chronicles of Brother Matthew Paris, monk of St Albans. They were put into writing

for the benefit of future generations, for the love of God, and in honour of the blessed

Alban, prothomartyr of the English, so that antiquity and forgetting may not delete the

memory of modern events.”131 He added a short poem and a statement to the effect

that there had been no half-century during which Easter fell on 27 March, except in

the year 1250, before adding yet another passage, stating that mention ought to be

made of many unusual natural phenomena: a strange fire appeared on Christmas Day,

while the earth around Norwich was filled with heavy winds and great thunder,

serious flooding occurred on the coast, and an earthquake in the Chilterns. Finally,

129 Forthcoming article by author.130 CM, v.191.131 CM, v.197: Hic terminantur fratris Mathaei Parisiensis, monachi Sancti Albani, Cronica. Quae pro utilitate posteritatis subsecutore, Dei pro amore et beati Albani Anglorum prothomartyris honore, ne memoriam eventuum modernorum vetustas aut oblivio deleat, literis commendavit.

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Matthew added two lines of verse, calling on himself not to search out what the future

might hold.132

These statements could be read alongside an entry early on in the Chronica, just after

Matthew recorded the Nativity. It was inserted in the margins, alongside a sketch of

the infant Christ and the Virgin, and consists of a short poem declaring that Antichrist

would rise 1250 years after the birth of Christ.133 Superficially, this suggests an easily

recognisable design for the Chronica. Matthew, it would seem, recorded the trajectory

of human history from the beginning to the end of times. The destination of

Matthew’s narrative was predetermined by the Apocalypse, expected to occur around

the middle of the thirteenth century, and the Chronica should thus be read with this

fixed chronology in mind. So straightforward a reading is not, however, supported by

the surviving evidence. It remains uncertain as to when exactly Matthew penned the

poem – it could serve as proof of an overarching design only if it had been present

from the beginning. However, its place in the manuscript suggests that it was a later

addition. While the chronicler frequently provided additional text to accompany

marginal illustrations, such passages normally referred back to an event recorded in

the main text.134 They illustrated and expanded upon what was written already, rather

than – as was the case here – introducing entirely new materials. While the illustration

clearly refers to the birth of Christ referenced in the main narrative, no mention is

made there of the year 1250, the Antichrist, or the end of days.

Circumstantial evidence also suggests that the poem may have been a later addition.

Matthew cited the verses again in a letter, dated to 1242 and copied into the Liber

Addimentorum, in which a Hungarian abbot described the devastation wreaked by the

Mongols.135 It may well be that this letter constituted Matthew’s ultimate source.

Moreover, while the Hungarian missive had originally been sent in 1242, Matthew did

not, it seems, start compiling the Liber until after 1247.136 Matthew may, of course,

132 CM, v.197-8.133 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms 26, fol. 30. Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 101-6.134 See, for example, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 16, Chronica Maiora, fol. 126, 151. 135 CM, vi.80.136 Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 70. This is further supported by Matthew’s erroneous report that Henry Raspe was elected anti-king in Germany in 1243 – an event that

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have had the letter in his possession before then. However, he made no reference to it

when writing about the Mongol attacks on Hungary,137 and we may thus assume that

he acquired it closer to the time when he started compiling the Liber, and therefore at

a point when work on the Chronica was already well under way. Consequently,

Matthew was unlikely to have made the connection between 1250 and a looming

Apocalypse until close to the year itself. These doubts are reinforced by Matthew’s

explicit statements on concluding the Chronica: he expressed hope that the chronicle

would prove useful to future generations, and that it would save the history of modern

times from oblivion. He is unlikely to have done so if he did indeed feel that there

would be no future generations. In short, there is insufficient evidence to support the

notion that Matthew had conceived of the Chronica as ending in 1250 because he

expected the Antichrist to rise in that year or around that time.138

It would at the same time be mistaken to dismiss the evidence that does exist for

Matthew’s concerns about the end of days. He certainly lived in an environment that

took seriously eschatological writings. In the early thirteenth century, Abbot John had

presented a manuscript to the chapter of Hereford Cathedral that contained, among

other items, Adso’s De Antichristo, a widely read apocalyptic text dating from the

tenth century.139 Similarly, Hans-Eberhard Hilpert has drawn attention to a thirteenth-

century apocalyptic text from St Albans now preserved at the Pierpont Morgan

Library in New York.140 And it seems that Matthew became increasingly concerned

about Doomsday. The sense of worry and unease in his conclusion for the year 1250

certainly remains striking: the elements were in turmoil, and Matthew dreaded to

contemplate what the future might hold. We have also seen that he referenced, and

actually occurred in 1246 (HA, ii.475; the mistake was contained already in the Chronica: CM, iv.268). This would suggest that Matthew wrote his account of 1243 three years later at the earliest, and would thus also put his account of 1242 in chronological proximity to the period when Matthew would first have received the Hungarian letter. 137 CM, iii.488-9, 639; iv.76-8, 298.138 This contrary to Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, 104-6; Connolly, Maps of Matthew Paris, 18.139 London Lambeth Palace Library 420, ff. 88v-90v: Rodney M. Thomson, Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1066-1235, 2 vols. (Woodbridge, 1982), i.117-8 (no. 69). On Adso: Bernd Schneidmüller, ‘Adso von Montier-en-Der und die Frankenkönige’, Trierer Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst des Trierer Landes und seiner Nachbargebiete  40/41 (1977/78), 189-199.140 Hilpert, ‘Prophetie’, 185-6.

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sometimes copied, apocalyptic texts. Still, when he did reference the Apocalypse,

those passages were anything but straightforward. Instead, they contained the very

features we have encountered elsewhere in Matthew’s handling of the prognostic:

caution, circumspection, and a careful consideration of context. These were reinforced

by the particular nature that marked out apocalyptic as unlike other prognostications.

By definition, their validity was, at the time of recording them, very much unproven.

What, then, did Matthew have to say about intimations of the end of days, and how

did go on about reporting them?

When reporting the fall of Jerusalem to Khwarizim Turks in 1244, Matthew recounted

several prognostic incidents foretelling the conquest. In Mecca, an image of

Mohammed had collapsed, while several events seemed to tally with the warnings of

the Apocalypse found in the New Testament: there had been two solar eclipses in

three years (an unheard of number), comets appeared and the stars seemed to fall off

the sky, sects multiplied, the Faith became weak, while the conflict between the

Church and the empire had become greater than ever before, the army of the king of

France was plagued by pestilence, and in Cyprus and mainland Greece cities were

destroyed by earthquakes.141 Several of these phenomena resurfaced in Matthew’s

summary of the year 1248. While the harvests had been good, affairs in the Holy

Land had taken a turn for the worse, as had those in Italy, Germany, England and

France. All across Christendom treasuries had been exhausted. The end of the world

was indicated by many pieces of evidence, most notably – citing Luke 21:10 – that

people rose against people, and that the earth would move in many places.142 To

Matthew, the chief culprit in all of this was the papal court. Finally, in December

1250, the Chilterns in England experienced a severe earthquake, which Matthew

discussed in some detail. He deemed the event unusual, as the geology of the region

did not normally lend itself to tremors. Moreover, during the earthquake a great

thunder could be heard underground, while the birds nesting in trees and shrubs had

taken off in fright just before the tremor, only to return later. ‘This,’, Matthew

141 CM, iv.345-6.142 CM, v.47. The full quote is Luke 21:10-11: ‘Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.”’

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explained, ‘was believed to have been a sign for future events.’143 For in that year

there had been many and horrible commotions in the earth and at sea, reflecting the

warning of the Gospel of Luke that this was how the end of days would begin.144

Perhaps significantly, while not explicitly linked to the Chiltern earthquake, Matthew

nonetheless followed his account with a report of the continuing struggles between

pope and emperor, including a letter that predated the earthquake by nearly three

weeks.145

The entry for 1250 merits further consideration. The tremor had occurred on 13

December. Somewhat later, Matthew reported that Emperor Frederick II had died on

that very day (news that, he stated, had not been made public until 26 December):

Frederick, the greatest of the worldly princes, wonder of the world and its equally

wondrous transformer, had died, absolved, it was said, from his excommunication

after having adopted the habit of a Cistercian, miraculously humble and penitent.

This, so Matthew, suggested that the Chiltern earthquake did indeed foretell events

and was not for nought.146 News of Frederick’s death were almost immediately

followed by Matthew’s summary of the previous fifty years, which led one

commentator to suggest that the description of Frederick as stupor quoque mundi et

immutator mirabilis, as both wonder of the world and its wondrous transformer,

hinted at apocalyptic imagery.147 Yet there is little evidence to support this. Much

hinges on the language employed. Matthew did, for instance, describe Pope Innocent

III as stupor mundi … et immutator seculi. However, while Matthew continued to

point out that Innocent’s death was undoubtedly an act of divine judgement because

the pope had revoked Magna Carta,148 Frederick II died a good death: his demise was

mourned by the French crusaders who had now lost all hope of succour, while in his

testament (which Matthew copied into his appendix of documents) Frederick had

ensured that the Church was compensated for the damages he had caused. Moreover, 143 ‘Unde eventuum futurorum creditur fuisse significativus.’144 CM, v.187.145 CM, v.188-90.146 ‘Obiit autem circa eadem tempora principum mundi maximus Frethericus, stupor quoque mundi et immutator mirabilis, absolutus a sententia qua innodatur, assumpto, ut didictur, habitu Cisterciensis, et mirifice compunctus et humiliatus. Obiit autem die Sanctae Luciae, ut non videretur ea die terraemotus sine significatione et inaniter evenisse.’, CM, v.190. 147 Schnith, England in einer sich wandelnden Welt, 165 n.96.148 HA, ii.215.

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the term stupor was used as a positive epithet by writers as diverse as Matthew of

Rievaulx, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, and the anonymous compiler of the Liber

Custumarum – all of them active in England or the wider Angevin world, and thus

likely sharing cultural reference points with Matthew. In fact, the Liber Custumarum

was preserved in the Red Book of the Exchequer, compiled by one of Matthew’s key

informants.149

Immutator, on the other hand, did have apocalyptic connotations.150 It normally

referred to the devil and his agents, and was employed in this sense by Cardinal

Rainer of Viterbo who described Frederick as inversor fidei, immutatuor seculi,

dissipator orbis et terre malleus universe,151 as perverter of the Faith, transformer of

the world, destroyer of the globe and hammer of all lands. However, Matthew’s use of

the adjective mirabilis (wondrous) is significant. It clearly conveyed positive

meaning. While Matthew’s precise combination of immutator mirabilis was unique,

comparable pairings were not uncommon, and referred to a change for the better

worked by God, or to the expectation of such change.152 At best, the chronicler’s

terminology may reflect his somewhat ambivalent attitude towards the emperor as

someone who was both a great friend of the Holy Land, unjustly pursued by greedy

popes, and a tyrant and oppressor of the Church, prone to hubris and acts of

extraordinary cruelty. Yet Frederick’s act of atonement, and the good death ascribed

to him, placed the emperor firmly within a well-established pattern in Matthew’s

writing, where even great sinners could atone for past misdeeds, and where they did

149 John Gillingham, ‘Stupor mundi: 1204 et un obituaire de Richard Coeur de Lion depuis longtemps tombé dans l’oubli’, in: Plantagenêts et Capétiens: confrontations et héritages, ed. Martin Aurell and Noël-Yves Tonnerrre (Turnhout, 2006), 397-412; André Wilmart, ‘Les mélanges de Mathieu préchantre de Rievaulx au début du XIIIe siècle’, Revue Bénédictine 52 (1940), 15-84.150 Hansmartin Schaller, Kaiser Friedrich II. Verwandler der Welt (Göttingen, 1964), 85.151 Das Brief- und Memorialbuch des Albert Behaim, ed. Thomas Frenz and Peter (Munich, 2000), no. 51; Schnith, England in einer sich wandelnden Welt, 165.152 Florus of Lyon, Adversus Joannis Scoti Erigenae erroneas definitiones liber, PL 119, col. 24; Exordium Magnum Cisterciense siue Narratio de initio Cisterciensis Ordinis, ed. B. Griesser, CCM 138 (Turnhout, 1994), Dist. 3, cap. 34; Peter of Blois, Sermones, PL 213, col. 509; The Letters of Peter of Celle, ed. Julian Haseldine (Oxford, 2001), no. 159.

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so by dying a pious death and making amends for their transgressions. There was, in

short, nothing apocalyptic about the depiction of Frederick.153

We should further note the chronology of apocalyptic references. They became more

frequent from 1239 onwards, that is, in passages probably written from c. 1244-5. The

timing matters: these years witnessed a mushrooming of apocalyptic imagery,

employed by both papal and imperial apologists,154 in relation to the Mongols,155

discussed by scholars as diverse as Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, and William of

Auvergne,156 and circulating by no means solely among Latin Christians.157 It thus

seems plausible that Matthew’s attitude may have changed. The more he began to

deal with the affairs of his own age, the more frequently he would have encountered

references to the end of days. His concerns would perhaps have been heightened by

cataclysmic events like the Mongol invasions or the conquest of Jerusalem in 1244.

The Apocalypse may have seemed an ever more likely prospect.

153 Björn Weiler, ‘Stupor mundi: Matthäus Paris und die zeitgenössische Wahrnehmung Friedrichs II. in England’, in: Herrschaftspraxis, Herrschaftsräume und Kommunikation zur Zeit Friedrichs II., ed. Theo Boeckmann, Jan Keupp and Knut Görich (Munich, 2008), 63-96, at 73-83.154 Matthias Kaup, ‘Antichrist und Endkaiser: Friedrich II. in der eschatologischen Propaganda des 13. Jahrhunderts’, in: Apokalypse oder goldenes Zeitalter? Zeitenwenden aus historischer Sicht, ed. Walter Koller (Zurich, 1999), 105-124; Hannes Möhring, ‘Die Weissagungen über einen Kaiser Friedrich am Ende der Zeiten’, in: Endzeiten, ed. Brandes and Schmieder, 201-214; Thumser, ‘Kardinal Rainer von Viterbo’.155 Charles Burnett, ‘An apocryphal letter from the Arabic philosopher Al-Kindi to Theodore, Frederick II’s astrologer, concerning Gog and Magog, the enclosed nations and the scourge of the Mongols’, Viator 15 (1984), 151-167; Felicitas Schmieder, ‘Christians, Jews, Muslims - and Mongols: fitting a foreign people into the Western Christian apocalyptic scenario’, Medieval Encounters 12 (2006), 274-295.156 Mark T. Abate, ‘The reorientation of Roger Bacon: Muslims, Mongols, and the Man Who Knew Everything’, in: East meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: transcultural experiences in the premodern world, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin, 2013), 523-574; Amanda Power, ‘”In the last days at the end of the world”: Roger Bacon and the reform of Christendom’, Canterbury Studies in Franciscan History 1 (2008), 135-151. See also, generally, Whalen, Dominion of God, 149-76; and for examples from Germany – strikingly clustered among Matthew’s contemporaries – Lehner, Prophetie, 214-6.157 David Cox, ‘Apocalyptic incidents during the Mongol invasions’, in: Endzeiten, ed. Brandes and Schmieder, 293-312; Michael Oberweis, ‘Jüdische Endzeiterwartung im 13. Jahrhundert - Realität oder christliche Projektion?’, in: Antichrist. Konstruktionen von Feindbildern, ed. Wolfram Brandes and Felicitas Schmieder (Berlin, 2010), 147-158.

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Still, we must not overlook just how circumspect Matthew was in treating visions of

Doomsday. Most importantly, that something intimated the Apocalypse was normally

framed as a possibility, not a certainty. In 1244, warnings seemed to tally with the

Gospels’ prediction (Cum haec videritis, imminet iudicium ‘generale’);158 in 1248, the

end of the world was indicated by many tokens (Mundi finis multiplicibus argumentis

indicativus);159 and in 1250, the Chiltern earthquake was believed to have signified the

course of future events (Unde eventuum futurorum creditur fuisse significativus).160

Earthquakes, the papal-imperial conflict, and falling stars could suggest that the end

of days was nigh, but there was no certainty that they did. In this context, Matthew’s

handling of the 1250 episode is particularly noteworthy. He went to considerable

lengths to confirm that the tremor was indeed something out of the ordinary, and did

therefore have prognostic potential. Equally, the degree to which he used context so

that it suggested rather than confirmed meaning remains striking: on the one hand, a

series of entries on the papal-imperial conflict suggest a link with the Gospel’s

description of the precursors of the Apocalypse. On the other hand, once news of

Frederick II’s death had reached England, Matthew assigned to the Chiltern

earthquake a more generically prognostic significance, little different from the

calculations that, earlier in the Chronica, had indirectly been linked to the death of

Louis VIII of France in 1226.161 Still, Matthew stopped short of connecting the

tremor’s prognostic potential exclusively to just one event.

This circumspection comes as no surprise. We have already seen how Matthew aimed

to ensure the correct interpretation of signs, and we have discussed his reluctance to

define what they meant unless he had firm evidence with which to work. His caution

further reflected concerns about false prophecies, and the need to distinguish

legitimate prognostication from mere marvels. Prophecies were, after all, meant to

provide guidance on how to act, and could fruitfully be used only once both the

legitimacy of the vision and its precise meaning had been ascertained. Viewed in this

light, the Apocalypse posed particular challenges. To Matthew, it would likely have

been inevitable – it had, after all, been foretold in the Bible. It had equally been a

legitimate concern among his brethren, and was frequently invoked by his 158 CM, iv.346.159 CM, v.47.160 CM, v.187.161 CM, iii.111, 116-7.

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contemporaries. Yet false prophecies of the End also abounded. Moreover, getting it

wrong would mean that warnings might not be heeded in future and that the faithful

were left unprepared for Judgement Day. To complicate matters further, by their very

nature, prophecies of the Apocalypse could not be verified: quite evidently, the end of

days had not yet come, Antichrist not yet risen, and Christ not yet returned. There was

no way of knowing whether the Chiltern earthquake did indeed herald the end of

days, or merely the death of an emperor. But it made sense to record the possibility

that it did foretell either or even both. As with other prognostic incidents, putative

harbingers of the End merited recording, once their legitimacy had been ascertained.

But it was left to future generations and to Matthew’s audience to interpret them.

This ambivalence brings us also back to the overall relationship between history and

prophecy: how far could a record of the past become itself an act of prognostication?

To answer the question, we should heed the moral dimension both of recording the

past, and of reading portents, so central to Matthew’s preface to the Chronica. History

preserved the memory of past events, signs and deeds, and did so for the benefit both

of a writer’s contemporaries, and of future generations. By tracing portents and

establishing their meaning, it became possible both to discern God’s plan for

humankind, and to link actions to their moral outcomes. Writing history and recording

the past was a means of commemoration, but also of moral instruction. The

knowledge of history, the careful perusal of the past, allowed for lessons to be drawn

and disseminated, for good deeds to be emulated, and for bad ones to be, if not always

shunned, so at least atoned for in a timely fashion. The past, Matthew seems to

suggest, could be read as a series of patterns. This did not mean that history repeated

itself, but that broadly comparably sequences of events unfolded in a broadly

comparable fashion in otherwise distinct circumstances. Once those patterns had been

deciphered, the prognostic and moral meaning of history could be ascertained. In that

sense, history did not so much constitute an act of prophecy, as that it provided an

essential tool without which neither the legitimacy of a prognostic act could be

ascertained nor signs be interpreted. There could be no prophecy without history.

Yet such utility was predicated on the assumption that an author’s reporting was

reliable and truthful. Veracity, in turn, encompassed both recording what actually

happened, and evaluating its moral significance. In this sense, the writing of history

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and the interpretation of prophecy called for similar approaches. If anything, dealing

with the prognostic called for even greater caution. Prophecy was, after all, made

possible by God, and served to communicate his warnings to those willing and able to

listen. Yet it also had to be distinguished from the merely natural and the false.

Reading and writing history, if done with sufficient care, provided the means if not

always to determine what a portent or sign meant, so certainly to distinguish it from

the unusual or false. In this respect, recording the past, and preserving for the benefit

of future generations an account of one’s own times served a commemorative as well

as a salvific function.

How representative Matthew may have been of his contemporaries remains to be

seen. His example does, however, suggest that the emphasis on written prophecies

and the Apocalypse, so prevalent in current scholarship, overlooks important evidence

for – and equally important aspects of – thirteenth-century engagements with the

prognostic. Written prophecies were not all there was: in Matthew’s case they were

outnumbered by a factor of ten by other means of foretelling the future. Equally,

eschatological visions remained but one of a range of means with which the course of

human history might be fathomed. This matters. The proliferation of prognostic

writings in the thirteenth century reflects a deepening desire to catalogue, identify and

classify, to reorder and collect information that drove not only historiographical

endeavours on the monumental scale of Matthew’s efforts, or those of Vincent of

Beauvais and Alberic of Troisfontaines, but also the recasting of knowledge in the

work of early encyclopaedists like Bernardus Anglicus, and of theologians and

scholars like Robert Grosseteste, William of Auvergne or Roger Bacon.162 This desire

also brought with it new ways of verifying the supernatural, as in Matthew’s lengthy

discussion of the Chiltern earthquake, his scrupulous handling of William the

Conqueror’s deathbed prophecy, or his revising and redacting of prognostic incidents

in both Roger of Wendover and his own writings. Furthermore, just because someone

recorded eschatological writings this did not mean that he necessarily believed the end

and of days to be immediately at hand. Instead, visions of the end existed on a

162 Gert Melville, ‘Spätmittelalterliche Geschichtskompendien – eine Aufgabenstellung’, Römische Historische Mitteilungen 22 (1980), 51-104; Mary Franklin-Brown, Reading the World. Encyclopedic writing in the Scholastic Age (Chicago, 2012); Weiler, ‘Historical writing’, 226-41.

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continuum of the prognostic that, in most cases, was rather more concerned with the

moral consequences of human actions. As it was normally left to future generations to

identify a prophecy’s or sign’s precise meaning, often all Matthew could do was to

record them. That he did, allows us to explore what the Golden Age of prophecy that

the thirteenth-century undoubtedly was may have meant in practice, how the

prognostic was handled not only by scholars and theologians, Friars and their

adversaries, cardinals and papal scribes, but also by those who found themselves

confronted with a veritable cornucopia of visions, signs and portents, and who

struggled to sift through, verify, and order these manifestations of the divine. That

Matthew proceeded with such extraordinary care, and on so vast a scale should both

humble his modern readers and spur them on to follow suit.