Pagina:Annales monastici Vol IV.djvu/25

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PREFACE. Xvii Continuator of Florence being the chief authority ; later Matthew Paris, and occasionally William of Newburgh, are used, and after 1183 there is much in common with Trivet. It is extremely probable that Trivet, while at Oxford, had access to the Osney chronicle. After 1233, though Matthew Paris was still used, the bulk of the chronicle is original, and continues so (supposing it to be independent of Wykes) till the end of the year 1293, when the original MS, comes to an end. From this to the year 1347, which is the last year of which any events are given, the whole, which was written at the same time and at a date at least as late as the last year, is taken from Higden and his continuator, they being merely transcribed with very slight additions or altera- tions. The only one of importance will be found in pp. 344, 345 under the year 1318, where Higden's ac- count of the pretender to the throne, who asserted that he and Edward II. had been changed at nurse, is given with several additional particulars. The earlier portion of Wykes's history, who begins Sources of with the year 1066, so far as it is independent of the ^j ,^*^5°' Osney chronicle, is taken chiefly from William of New- Thomas burgh, whom he mentions in company with Bede and ^ Matthew Paris, as one of the chief English historians (p. 7) ; though Florence of Worcester and Diceto have been also used, and I believe consulted independently, as well as through the medium of the Osney annals. The same may be said (though rarely) of Kobert de Monte, and once (p. 35) of Hoveden.^ From 1212 Matthew Paris, who has already been occasionally used, is pro- bably the sole authority besides the Osney MS., down to as late as 1250. From that year, or at least from 1202, the chronicle is entirely original ; the author occasionally using, as has already been remarked, a very rhetorical ' Or Benedictus. See ed. Stubbs, i. p. 61.