468 CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



allude to are William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Roger of 

 Hoveden,' in England ; Otho of Frisingen, Otfrid of Viterbo, and Conrad of 

 Lichteiiau, in Germany ; Leon, Cardinal of Ostia, in Italy ; and Roderick 

 Ximenes, in Spain (Fig. .361). Of the Chronicles in the vulgar tongue the 

 most remarkable is that of Nestor, written in the Slav tongue in a monastery 

 at Kieff about 1116. To the historians who succeeded these in the various 

 countries of Europe we have not space to allude, and it is the less necessary to 

 do so as their names are scarcely remembered. 



We must not, however, pass over the universal Chronicle of Matthew 

 Paris, who was a monk and historian in the Benedictine Abbey of St. Albans, 

 in the diocese of Lincoln, and who gave the title of "Historia Major 

 Anglorum " to his history of the English, composed from the various 

 Chronicles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Matthew Paris is certainly 

 one of the most remarkable historians of the Middle Ages, and his great work 

 concerns not less France than England, especially with regard to the latter 

 part, in which he described, after what he himself had witnessed, the events 

 occurring between 1235 and his death in 1259. At this time the best 

 historians were to be found in France, and their numbers continued to 

 increase when they had created a school of history, which became of the 

 more importance as Latin was gradually replaced by French in general 

 conversation. As early as the middle of the twelfth century, fifty years 

 before Villehardouin, in his Chronicle of the conquest of Constantinople, 

 had proved that the vulgar idiom was well suited to works of history, Suger, 

 Minister of State under Louis VI. and Louis VII., had, it is said, perceived 

 that this idiom, which had long been in general use at court and among 

 the upper classes, might be employed to advantage in the Royal Chronicles, 

 which had been compiled for the last three centuries at the Abbey of 

 St. Denis, where he died in 1152, and of which he was abbot. This fact 

 is not absolutely certain, but Suger, who had written in Latin, though of a 

 somewhat obscure style, the Life of Louis the Fat and part of the Life of 

 Louis the Young, deserves to be given a prominent place in the list of 

 French historians. 



The Latin Chronicles of the royal Abbey of St. Denis had long been 

 famous, and there were deposited the most valuable manuscripts of French 

 history. 



The writers of the romances and chansons do gcstc, with a view of obtaining 



