Ambrosio de Morales was a historian. After his studies at the University of Salamanca

University of Salamanca

The University of Salamanca is a Spanish higher education institution, located in the town of Salamanca, west of Madrid. It was founded in 1134 and given the Royal charter of foundation by King Alfonso IX in 1218. It is the oldest founded university in Spain and the third oldest European...

 and Alcalá, he took Holy orders

Holy Orders

The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....

. Soon he was elected to the chair of Belles-Lettres at Alcalá. In 1574 he was appointed chronicler of Castile

Crown of Castile

The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...

 and commissioned to continue Florián de Ocampo's Crónica General de España. This he brought down, after ten years of labour on it, to the date of the union of Castile and Leon under Ferdinand I

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558 and king of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526 until his death. Before his accession, he ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs in the name of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.The key events during his reign were the contest...

. His pupil Sandoval continued it down to 1079.

Published works

• Crónica general de España, prosiguiendo adelante los cinco libros que el Maestro Florian Docampo, Coronista del Emperador D. Carlos V dexó escritos (Alcalá, 1574, 3 vols., and see also the ed. of Madrid, 1791-2).
• De las antigüedades de las ciudades de España; and the Viaje por orden del Rey D. Felipe II etc.