Matthew Paris Paris as a historian what did Matthew Paris do as a historian? Paris continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed. what was the history that the predecessors had followed? He derived much of his information from the letters of important people, what did he write about? from conversation with the eyewitnesses of events. did he write about anybody important in history? Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King Henry III, Did he receive letters from the people he wrote about? He derived much of his information from the letters of important people, Did he ever write about historical events? Naturalists have praised his descriptions of the English wildlife of his time, Did he write about any other events or was it just the one? In 1257, in the course of a week's visit to St Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and day, who was Henry? King Henry III,
Did Matthew Paris have anything to do with King HEnry?
Did Matthew Paris have anything to do with King HEnry III?
From 1235, the point at which Wendover dropped his pen, Paris continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed. He derived much of his information from the letters of important people, which he sometimes inserts, but much more from conversation with the eyewitnesses of events. Among his informants were Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King Henry III, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms.  The king knew that Paris was writing a history, and wanted it to be as exact as possible. In 1257, in the course of a week's visit to St Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and day, "and guided my pen," says Paris, "with much goodwill and diligence." It is curious that the Chronica majora gives so unfavourable an account of the king's policy. Henry Richards Luard supposes that Paris never intended his work to be read in its present form. Many passages of the autograph have written next to them, the note offendiculum, which shows that the writer understood the danger which he ran. On the other hand, unexpurgated copies were made in Paris's lifetime. Although the offending passages are duly omitted or softened in his abridgment of his longer work, the Historia Anglorum (written about 1253), Paris's real feelings must have been an open secret. There is no ground for the old theory that he was an official historiographer.  Naturalists have praised his descriptions of the English wildlife of his time, brief though they are: in particular his valuable description of the first irruption into England in 1254 of the common crossbill. CANNOTANSWER
Among his informants were Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King Henry III, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms.
Matthew Paris, also known as Matthew of Paris (; c. 1200 – 1259), was an English Benedictine monk, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire. He wrote a number of works, mostly historical, which he scribed and illuminated himself, typically in drawings partly coloured with watercolour washes, sometimes called "tinted drawings". Some were written in Latin, some in Anglo-Norman or French verse.

His Chronica Majora is an oft-cited source, though modern historians recognise that Paris was not always reliable.  He tended to glorify Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and denigrate the Pope. However, in his Historia Anglorum, Paris displays a highly negative view of Frederick, going as far as to describe him as a "tyrant" who "committed disgraceful crimes".

Life and work
In spite of his surname and knowledge of the French language, Paris was of English birth, and is believed by some chroniclers to be of the Paris family of Hildersham, Cambridgeshire.  He may have studied at Paris in his youth after early education at St Albans School. The first we know of Matthew Paris (from his own writings) is that he was admitted as a monk to St Albans in 1217. It is on the assumption that he was in his teens on admission that his birth date is estimated; some scholars suspect he may have been ten years or more older; many monks only entered monastic life after pursuing a career in the world outside.  He was clearly at ease with the nobility and even royalty, which may indicate that he came from a family of some status, although it also seems an indication of his personality. His life was mainly spent in this religious house. In 1248, Paris was sent to Norway as the bearer of a message from Louis IX to Haakon IV; he made himself so agreeable to the Norwegian sovereign that he was invited to superintend the reformation of the Benedictine Nidarholm Abbey outside Trondheim.

Apart from these missions, his known activities were devoted to the composition of history, a pursuit for which the monks of St Albans had long been famous. After admission to the order in 1217, he inherited the mantle of Roger of Wendover, the abbey's official recorder of events, in 1236.  Paris revised Roger's work, adding new material to cover his own tenure.  This Chronica Majora is an important historical source document, especially for the period between 1235 and 1259.  Equally interesting are the illustrations Paris created for his work.

The Dublin MS (see below) contains interesting notes, which shed light on Paris' involvement in other manuscripts, and on the way his own were used. They are in French and in his handwriting:
"If you please you can keep this book till Easter"
"G, please send to the Lady Countess of Arundel, Isabel, that she is to send you the book about St Thomas the Martyr and St Edward which I copied (translated?) and illustrated, and which the Lady Countess of Cornwall may keep until Whitsuntide"
 some verses
 "In the Countess of Winchester's book let there be a pair of images on each page thus": (verses follow describing thirteen saints)

It is presumed the last relates to Paris acting as commissioning agent and iconographical consultant for the Countess with another artist.

The lending of his manuscripts to aristocratic households, apparently for periods of weeks or months at a time, suggests why he made several different illustrated versions of his Chronicle.

Manuscripts by Matthew Paris

Paris' manuscripts mostly contain more than one text, and often begin with a rather random assortment of prefatory full-page miniatures. Some have survived incomplete, and the various elements now bound together may not have been intended to be so by Paris. Unless stated otherwise, all were given by Paris to his monastery (from some inscriptions it seems they were regarded as his property to dispose of). The monastic libraries were broken up at the Dissolution. These MSS seem to have been appreciated, and were quickly collected by bibliophiles. Many of his manuscripts in the British Library are from the Cotton Library.

 Chronica Majora. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Mss 26 and 16, 362 x 244/248 mm. ff 141 + 281, composed 1240–53. His major historical work (see below), but less heavily illustrated per page than others. These two volumes contain annals from the creation of the world up to the year 1253. The content up to 1234 or 1235 is based in the main on Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum, with additions; after that date the material is Paris' own, and written in his own hand from the annal for 1213 onward. There are 100 marginal drawings (25 + 75), some fragmentary maps and an itinerary, and full-page drawings of William I. MS 16 has very recently had all prefatory matter re-bound separately.
A continuation of the Chronica, from 1254 until Paris' death in 1259, is bound with the Historia Anglorum in the British Library volume below. An unillustrated copy of the material from 1189 to 1250, with much of his sharper commentary about Henry III toned down or removed, was supervised by Paris himself and now exists as British Library Cotton MS Nero D V, fol. 162–393.
 Flores Historiarum. Chetham's Hospital and Library, Manchester, MS 6712. Only part of the text, covering 1241 to 1249, is in Paris' hand, though he is credited with the authorship of the whole text, which is an abridgement of the Chronica with additions from the annals of Reading and of Southwark. Additional interpolations to the text make it clear the volume was created for Westminster Abbey. It was apparently started there, copying another MS of Paris' text that went up to 1240. Later it was sent back to the author for him to update; Vaughan argues this was in 1251-2. The illustrations are similar to Paris' style but not by him. Later additions took the chronicle up to 1327.
 Historia Anglorum. British Library, Royal MS 14 C VII, fols. 8v–156v. 358 x 250 mm, ff 232 in all. A history of England, begun in 1250 and perhaps completed around 1255, covering the years 1070–1253. The text is an abridgement of the Chronica, also drawing on Wendover's Flores Historiarum and Paris' earlier edited version of the Chronica. Bound with it is the final part of Paris' Chronica Majora, covering the years 1254–1259 (folios 157–218), and prefatory material including an itinerary from London to Jerusalem and tinted drawings of the kings of England. All is in Paris' own hand, apart from folios 210–218 and 154v-156v, which are in a hand of the scribe who has added a note of Matthew Paris' death (f. 218v). The Chronica concludes with a portrait of Paris on his death-bed, presumably not by him. By the 15th century this volume belonged to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV, who inscribed it "Ceste livre est a moy Homffrey Duc de Gloucestre". Later it was held by the bishop of Lincoln, who wrote a note that if the monks of St Albans could prove the book was a loan, they should have it back. Otherwise it was bequeathed to New College, Oxford. The fact that the book was acquired by a 16th-century Earl of Arundel suggests that Duke Humphrey's inscription was not entirely accurate, as New College would probably not have disposed of it.
 Abbreviatio chronicorum (or Historia minor), British Library Cotton MS Claudius D VI, fols. 5–100. Another shortened history, mainly covering 1067 to 1253. Probably begun circa 1255, it remained unfinished at Paris' death. Illustrated with thirty-three seated figures of English kings illustrating a genealogy. It also contains the most developed of Paris' four maps of Great Britain.
 Chronica excerpta a magnis cronicis. British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A XX, folios 77r–108v. Covers from 1066 to 1246. Written at some point between 1246 and 1259. Not definitely by Paris, but evidently written under his supervision, with some of the text in his own hand.
 Book of Additions (Liber additamentorum) British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, ff202 in all, contains maps, Vitae duorum Offarum (illustrated), Gesta abbatum, the lives of the first 23 abbots of St Albans with a miniature portrait of each, coats of arms, as well as copies of original documents. A version of his well-known drawing of an elephant is in this volume, as is a large drawing of Christ, not by Paris.
 Life of St Alban etc., dating controversial (1230–1250), Trinity College, Dublin Library, Ms 177 (former Ms E.I.40) 77 ff with 54 miniatures, mostly half-page. 240 x 165 mm. Also contains a Life of St Amphibalus, and various other works relating to the history of St Albans Abbey, both also illustrated. The Life of St Alban is in French verse, adapted from a Latin Life of St Alban by William of St Albans, ca. 1178. The manuscript also contains notes in Paris' hand (see above) showing that his manuscripts were lent to various aristocratic ladies for periods, and that he probably acted as an intermediary between commissioners of manuscripts and the (probably) lay artists who produced them, advising on the calendars and iconography.
 Life of King Edward the Confessor 1230s or 40s, Cambridge University Library MS. Ee.3.59. This is the only surviving copy of this work, but is believed to be a slightly later copy made in London, probably by court artists, of Paris' text and framed illustrations. Based on the Latin Life of Edward the Confessor by Aelred of Rievaulx, c. 1162.
 Life of St Thomas of Canterbury, British Library, Loan MS 88 – Four leaves (the "Becket Leaves") survive from a French-verse history of the life of Thomas Becket with large illuminations. Based on the Latin Quadrilogus compiled by Elias of Evesham at Crowland Abbey in 1198. The illuminations are attributed to Paris by Janet Backhouse, but not by Nigel Morgan. Vaughan had previously noted that the leaves from the Life of St Thomas and the Life of King Edward are of different sizes, and written by different scribes, neither of them Paris himself, so they are not likely to be part of the manuscript that Paris wrote of having lent to the Countess of Arundel; but that, "to judge from the script and the style of illumination" they are "very close copies of Matthew [Paris]'s original".
 Life of St Edmund, a French-verse history of the life of Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1233 to 1240. Based on Paris' own Latin prose life of Rich, composed in the late 1240s, which drew on a collection of materials made at Pontigny, statements from Robert Bacon and Richard Wych, Bishop of Chichester, and other materials including from Paris' own histories. A 14th-century copy of the prose life has survived in British Library Cotton MS Julius D VI, folios 123–156v. One copy of the verse life that was in Cotton MS Vitellius D VIII was destroyed in the fire of 1731; but another copy was discovered in the early 1900s at Welbeck Abbey and is now in the British Library.
 Liber Experimentarius of Bernardus Silvestris, and other fortune-telling tracts. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Ashmole 304, 176 x 128 mm, ff72. Many illustrations: author portraits (many of ancient Greeks – Socrates, Plato, Euclid, Pythagoras), birds, tables and diagrams of geomantic significance. Several later copies of the text and illustrations survive. Provenance before 1602 unknown.
 Miscellaneous writings by John of Wallingford (the Younger), British Library, MS Cotton Julius D VII, 188 × 130 mm, ff. 134. 1247–58. Mostly scribed by John of Wallingford, another monk of St Albans, who also probably did some drawings. A portrait of John, a map of the British Isles, and a Christ in Majesty are all accepted as by Paris. The main text is a chronicle, highly derivative of Paris's. This was John's property, left to his final monastery at Wymondham.

Also, fragments of a Latin biography of Stephen Langton. Various other works, especially maps.

A panel painting on oak of St Peter, the only surviving part of a tabernacle shrine (1850 x 750 mm), in the Museum of Oslo University has been attributed to Paris, presumably dating from his visit in 1248. Local paintings are usually on pine, so he may have brought this with him, or sent it later.

Paris as an artist

In some of Paris' manuscripts, a framed miniature occupies the upper half of the page, and in others they are "marginal" – unframed and occupying the bottom quarter (approximately) of the page. Tinted drawings were an established style well before Paris, and became especially popular in the first half of the 13th century.  They were certainly much cheaper and quicker than fully painted illuminations.  The tradition of tinted drawings or outline drawings with ink supplemented by coloured wash was distinctively English, dating back to the Anglo-Saxon art of the mid-10th century, and connected with the English Benedictine Reform of the period. A strong influence on one branch of the style was the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, which was at Canterbury from about 1000 to 1640.  This was copied in the 1020s in the Harley Psalter, and in the Eadwine Psalter of the mid-12th century.

Recent scholarship, notably that of Nigel Morgan, suggests that Paris' influence on other artists of the period has been exaggerated.  This is likely because so much more is known about him than other English illuminators of the period, who are mostly anonymous.  Most manuscripts seem to have been produced by lay artists in this period.  William de Brailes is shown with a clerical tonsure, but he was married, which suggests he had minor orders only.  The manuscripts produced by Paris show few signs of collaboration, but art historians detect a School of St Albans' surviving after Paris' death, influenced by him.

Paris' style suggests that it was formed by works from around 1200.  He was somewhat old-fashioned in retaining a roundness in his figures, rather than adopting the thin angularity of most of his artist contemporaries, especially those in London.  His compositions are very inventive; his position as a well-connected monk may have given him more confidence in creating new compositions, whereas a lay artist would prefer to stick to traditional formulae.  It may also reflect the lack of full training in the art of the period.  His colouring emphasises green and blue, and together with his characteristic layout of a picture in the top half of a page, is relatively distinctive. What are probably his final sketches are found in Vitae duorum Offarum in BL MS Cotton Nero D I.

Paris as a historian
From 1235, the point at which Wendover dropped his pen, Paris continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed. He derived much of his information from the letters of important people, which he sometimes inserts, but much more from conversation with the eyewitnesses of events.  Among his informants were Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King Henry III, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms.

The king knew that Paris was writing a history, and wanted it to be as exact as possible. In 1257, in the course of a week's visit to St Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and day, "and guided my pen," says Paris, "with much goodwill and diligence." It is curious that the Chronica Majora gives so unfavourable an account of the king's policy.  Henry Richards Luard supposes that Paris never intended his work to be read in its present form.  Many passages of the autograph have written next to them, the note offendiculum, which shows that the writer understood the danger which he ran. On the other hand, unexpurgated copies were made in Paris's lifetime.  Although the offending passages are duly omitted or softened in his abridgment of his longer work, the Historia Anglorum (written about 1253), Paris's real feelings must have been an open secret.  There is no ground for the old theory that he was an official historiographer.

Naturalists have praised his descriptions of the English wildlife of his time,  brief though they are: in particular his valuable description of the first irruption into England in 1254 of the common crossbill.

Paris as cartographer
Outstanding among his other maps were (four versions of) a pilgrim itinerary charting the route from London to Rome in graphic form. A sequence of pictures of towns on the route marked the terminus of each day's travel, enabling the viewer to envisage and follow the whole journey rather like a comic strip – an achievement unprecedented elsewhere in the medieval world.

Studies of Matthew Paris
The relation of Matthew Paris's work to those of John de Celia (John of Wallingford) and Roger of Wendover may be studied in Henry Richards Luard's edition of the Chronica Majora (7 vols., Rolls series, 1872–1881), which contains valuable prefaces. The Historia Anglorum sive historia minor (1067–1253) has been edited by Frederic Madden (3 vols., Rolls series, 1866–1869).

Matthew Paris is sometimes confused with Matthew of Westminster, the reputed author of the Flores historiarum edited by Luard (3 vols., Rolls series, 1890). This work, compiled by various hands, is an edition of Matthew Paris, with continuations extending to 1326.

He wrote a life of St Edmund of Abingdon, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury.

He also wrote the Anglo-Norman La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei (the History of Saint Edward the King), which survives in a beautifully illuminated manuscript version, Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS. Ee.3.59. The manuscript has had a varied publication history. Sections were printed in Francisque Michel's Chroniques Anglo-Normandes. Luard's edition for the Rolls series was severely criticized; it was re-edited for the Anglo-Norman Text Society by K. Y. Wallace. A facsimile for the Roxburghe Club was edited by M. R. James, and the whole manuscript has been digitalized and can be seen online.

Paris House at St Albans High School for Girls is named after him.

Notes

Bibliography
  (on manuscripts, and artistic style)

External links

Images
Stanford Digitized texts – Works by and about Paris, including Vaughan etc, in huge pdf files
JSTOR review of Vaughan book
Matthew Paris' Jerusalem pilgrim's travel guide: information, zoomable image British Library website
Art Bulletin article on his maps;Imagined Pilgrimage in the Itinerary Maps of Matthew Paris. 12/1/1999 by Connolly, Daniel K
Latin Chroniclers from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries:Matthew Paris from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume I, 1907–21.
Life of St Edward the Confessor, Cambridge Digital Library
Fully annotated copy of Matthew Paris's Claudius Map, with translations and transcriptions

1200 births
1259 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
People from St Albans
English Benedictines
English Christian monks
English chroniclers
English cartographers
English historians
Historians of the Catholic Church
Heraldists
Manuscript illuminators
Writers who illustrated their own writing
Medieval European scribes
People educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire
Artist authors
Medieval English painters
13th-century Christian monks
13th-century painters
13th-century English artists
13th-century Latin writers
13th-century English writers
13th-century English people
13th-century historians
Oil and Vinegar is a screenplay that was written but never filmed. It is a screenplay that John Hughes wrote and that Howard Deutch planned to direct. It would have starred Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick.

Plot
A soon-to-be-married man and a hitchhiking girl end up talking about their lives during the length of the car ride.

Production

Casting
The film was set to have Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick as the two main characters.

Development
The screenplay was written by Hughes, with Howard Deutch set to direct. Its style was said to be similar to The Breakfast Club (1985) but instead of taking place in detention, it would have taken place in a car with Ringwald's and Broderick's characters both discussing their lives to each other.

Future
When asked about Oil and Vinegar Howard Deutch said,

Yes. That was John's favorite script and he was saving it for himself, and I convinced him to let me do it. It was the story of a traveling salesman that Matthew Broderick was going to play, and a rock-and-roll girl, a real rocker. Polar opposites. Molly [Ringwald] was going to play that. And I had to make a personal decision about whether to go forward or not. We had rehearsals in a couple weeks, and I was exhausted, and my girlfriend Lea Thompson, who became my wife, said, "You're going to die. You can't do this. I'm not going to stick around and watch that." And I think it was also sprinkled with the fact that I wanted to do one movie that was my movie, not necessarily in service to John, even though I loved John. So between the two things, I didn't... It could still happen. I would do it. Not with Matthew and Molly anymore, but the script is still there. It doesn't need anything. It's one of his great scripts. He had so many great scripts. For instance, he would stay up all night, music blasting, and at like 5:30 or 6 a.m., he'd hand me what was supposed to be a rewrite on Some Kind of Wonderful. We needed five pages, and it was 50 pages. I said, "What did you do?! What is this?" and he said, "Oh, I didn't do that. I did something else. Tell me what you think?" And it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He wrote the first half of the movie in, like, eight hours, and then finished it a couple days later. That was John. I never knew a writer who could do that. No one else had that ability. Even the stuff I fished out of the garbage was gold.

References

Unproduced screenplays
Films with screenplays by John Hughes (filmmaker) Aaron of York or Aaron fil Josce was a Jewish financier and chief rabbi of England. He was born in York before 1190 and died after 1253. He was probably the son of Josce of York, the leading figure in the York pogrom of 1190.

Chief Rabbi
Aaron appears to have obtained some of his father's money and commercial connection, for he was appointed Presbyter Judaeorum, or senior representative, of the Jews of England in 1237, in succession to Josce of London. This would imply that he was very wealthy, as only the wealthiest of the Jews obtained this position. He did not hold the office more than a year, as he was succeeded in 1237 by Elias of London (Prynne, Short Demurrer, ii.38).

Transactions
In 1219 he was appointed by the King to act as a talliator (assessor of tallage) and was among the twelve wealthiest Jews of the Kingdom

In 1221 on the marriage of the King's sister to Alexander II of Scotland, Aaron paid £14 15s towards her dowry.

In 1223 he paid £43 towards a tallage of £3000, making the second highest payment.

In 1235 Henry III had made an agreement with him that he would only tax him 100 marks, reduced to 60. This was never honoured

In 1236, Aaron agreed to pay to King Henry III of England 100 marks a year to be free of all taxes (Tovey, Anglia Judaica, Oxford, 1738, p. 108). Notwithstanding this, in 1273 he was mulcted 4,000 marks of silver and four of gold (Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iv.260). This was not an unusual occurrence, for in 1250 he was fined 14,000 marks of silver and ten of gold for the use of the Queen, on the charge of having falsified a deed. On this occasion he told Matthew Paris himself that he had paid the king altogether no less a sum than 30,000 marks in silver and 200 in gold (ibid. v.136). A number of Hebrew sheṭarot dealing with Aaron's transactions still exist, one of them entirely in his own handwriting.

When Henry III went to war in 1243 in his absence Aaron of York was accused of transgressions against the King; these are not recorded. He was sent to prison and managed to leave when he paid a fine of £100. The following year he was accused of forging a deed and was summoned before the King. On threat of imprisonment he paid the sum of £30,000 marks in silver to the King and 200 gold marks as a gift to the Queen. At this time the King was desperate for money as the war in France had not gone well. This left Aaron of York in ruins and the King realised that he was no more use to him and dismissed him from his office.

References

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography 
Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iv.260, v.136;
M. D. Davis, Sheṭarot, Nos. 93, 102, 108, 109 (autograph), 196-198;
M. Adler, Jews of Medieval Britain (Cheshire, Sheratt & Huges, 1939)
Papers of Anglo-Jewish Exhibition, 1887, p. 41;
Tovey (1738), Anglia Judaica, p. 108;
R. Davies, "On the Medieval Jews of York", in Yorkshire Archeological and Topographical Journal, iii.147-197;
Moses Margoliouth (1851), History of the Jews in Great Britain, i.164.

Notes 

12th-century births
13th-century deaths
Clergy from York
12th-century English Jews
English Orthodox Jews
13th-century English rabbis