Matthew Paris

Not to be confused with Matthew Parris.

Matthew Paris (Latin: Matthæus Parisiensis, lit. 'Matthew the Parisian'; c. 1200 – 1259), was an English Benedictine monk, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts, and cartographer who was based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire. He authored a number of historical works, many of which he scribed and illuminated himself, typically in drawings partly coloured with watercolour washes, sometimes called "tinted drawings". Some were written in Latin, others in Anglo-Norman or French verse. He is sometimes confused with the nonexistent Matthew of Westminster.

Quotes

Historia Major and Lives of the two Offas, kings of Mercia, and of twenty-three abbats of St. Albans, together with Additamentorum and Auctarium Additamentorum to the Historia Major. Latin text printed by Dr. Wats, 2nd ed. (London, 1684), and translated into English from the same by John Allen Giles, Matthew Paris's English History, 3 vols. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852, '53, '54)

• Et nos in vitium prona caterva sumus. [We are but cattle prone to vice.]
  • AD 1236
  • Attributed to Mahomet; cf. Saracen

See also

• Roger of Wendover