John Hardyng
Encyclopedia
John Hardyng (1378–1465), English
chronicler, was born in the north.
As a boy he entered the service of Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur)
, with whom he was present at the Battle of Shrewsbury
(1403). He then passed into the service of Sir Robert Umfraville, under whom he was constable of Warkworth Castle
, Northumberland, and Kyme Castle, Lincolnshire. He was in Umfraville's retinue at the Battle of Agincourt
in 1415 and in the sea-fight before Harfleur
in 1416.
In 1424 he was at Rome
, where at the instance of Cardinal Beaufort he consulted the chronicle of Trogus Pompeius. Upon the death of Umfraville
in 1436, Hardyng retired to the Augustinian Priory at Kyme, where he wrote the two versions of his chronicle and where he probably lived till his death about 1465. Hardyng was a man of antiquarian knowledge, and under Henry V
was employed to investigate the feudal relations
of Scotland
to the English crown. For this purpose he visited Scotland, at much expense and hardship.
For his services he says that Henry V promised him the manor of Geddington
in Northamptonshire
. Many years after, in 1440, he had a grant of £10 a year for similar services. In 1457 there is a record of the delivery of documents relating to Scotland by Hardyng to the earl of Shrewsbury
, and his reward by a further pension of £20.
It is clear that Hardyng was well acquainted with Scotland, and James I
is said to have offered him a bribe to surrender his papers. But most of the documents, which are still preserved in the Record Office, have been shown to be forgeries, and were probably manufactured by Hardyng himself.
Hardyng spent many years on the composition of a rhyming chronicle of England. His services under the Percies and Umfraville's gave him opportunity to obtain much information of value for fifteenth century history. It was written and rewritten to suit his various patrons. The original edition ending in 1437 had a Lancastrian
bias and was dedicated to Henry VI and his family. Afterwards he began preparing a version for Richard, Duke of York
, and continued the chronicle for Richard's son, Edward IV
. A reference to Edward's wife, Elizabeth Woodville
, in the prologue indicates that Hardyng was still working on his second version in 1464.
The first version is preserved in Lansdowne manuscript 204 in the British Library
, and the best of the later versions in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Arch. Selden B. 10. Richard Grafton
printed two editions in January 1543 and Stow
, who was acquainted with a different version, censured Grafton on this point somewhat unjustly. Sir Henry Ellis
published the longer version of Grafton with some additions from the Selden and Harley manuscripts in 1812. New editions of the chronicle are being prepared by Sarah Peverley and James Simpson.
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England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
chronicler, was born in the north.
As a boy he entered the service of Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur)
Henry Percy
Sir Henry Percy, also called Harry Hotspur KG was the eldest son of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, 4th Lord Percy of Alnwick. His mother was Margaret Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 2nd Baron Neville de Raby and Alice de Audley. His nickname, 'Hotspur', is suggestive of his impulsive...
, with whom he was present at the Battle of Shrewsbury
Battle of Shrewsbury
The Battle of Shrewsbury was a battle fought on 21 July 1403, waged between an army led by the Lancastrian King, Henry IV, and a rebel army led by Henry "Hotspur" Percy from Northumberland....
(1403). He then passed into the service of Sir Robert Umfraville, under whom he was constable of Warkworth Castle
Warkworth Castle
Warkworth Castle is a ruined medieval building in the town of the same name in the English county of Northumberland. The town and castle occupy a loop of the River Coquet, less than a mile from England's north-east coast...
, Northumberland, and Kyme Castle, Lincolnshire. He was in Umfraville's retinue at the Battle of Agincourt
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 , near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France...
in 1415 and in the sea-fight before Harfleur
Harfleur
-Population:-Places of interest:* The church of St-Martin, dating from the fourteenth century.* The seventeenth century Hôtel de Ville .* Medieval ramparts * The fifteenth century museums of fishing and of archaeology and history....
in 1416.
In 1424 he was at Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where at the instance of Cardinal Beaufort he consulted the chronicle of Trogus Pompeius. Upon the death of Umfraville
Umfraville
Umfraville, the name of an English baronial family, derived from Amfreville in Normandy. Members of this family obtained lands in Northumberland, including Redesdale and Prudhoe, from the Norman kings, and a later member, Gilbert de Umfraville , married Matilda, daughter of Malcolm, earl of Angus,...
in 1436, Hardyng retired to the Augustinian Priory at Kyme, where he wrote the two versions of his chronicle and where he probably lived till his death about 1465. Hardyng was a man of antiquarian knowledge, and under Henry V
Henry V of England
Henry V was King of England from 1413 until his death at the age of 35 in 1422. He was the second monarch belonging to the House of Lancaster....
was employed to investigate the feudal relations
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
to the English crown. For this purpose he visited Scotland, at much expense and hardship.
For his services he says that Henry V promised him the manor of Geddington
Geddington
Geddington is a village and civil parish on the A43 in north-east Northamptonshire between Kettering and Corby.It contains what is thought to be the best surviving Eleanor cross. The monument dates from 1294, when the crosses were raised as a memorial by Edward I to his late wife, Eleanor of...
in Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
. Many years after, in 1440, he had a grant of £10 a year for similar services. In 1457 there is a record of the delivery of documents relating to Scotland by Hardyng to the earl of Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
, and his reward by a further pension of £20.
It is clear that Hardyng was well acquainted with Scotland, and James I
James I of Scotland
James I, King of Scots , was the son of Robert III and Annabella Drummond. He was probably born in late July 1394 in Dunfermline as youngest of three sons...
is said to have offered him a bribe to surrender his papers. But most of the documents, which are still preserved in the Record Office, have been shown to be forgeries, and were probably manufactured by Hardyng himself.
Hardyng spent many years on the composition of a rhyming chronicle of England. His services under the Percies and Umfraville's gave him opportunity to obtain much information of value for fifteenth century history. It was written and rewritten to suit his various patrons. The original edition ending in 1437 had a Lancastrian
Lancastrian
Lancastrian is an adjective describing:* A native or inhabitant of Lancashire* A partisan on the side of the House of Lancaster in the Wars of the Roses.* A person associated with Lancaster University....
bias and was dedicated to Henry VI and his family. Afterwards he began preparing a version for Richard, Duke of York
Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York
Richard Plantagenêt, 3rd Duke of York, 6th Earl of March, 4th Earl of Cambridge, and 7th Earl of Ulster, conventionally called Richard of York was a leading English magnate, great-grandson of King Edward III...
, and continued the chronicle for Richard's son, Edward IV
Edward IV of England
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England...
. A reference to Edward's wife, Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483. Elizabeth was a key figure in the series of dynastic civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. Her first husband, Sir John Grey of Groby was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans...
, in the prologue indicates that Hardyng was still working on his second version in 1464.
The first version is preserved in Lansdowne manuscript 204 in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, and the best of the later versions in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Arch. Selden B. 10. Richard Grafton
Richard Grafton
Richard Grafton , was King's Printer under Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was a member of the Grocers' Company and MP for Coventry elected 1562-63.-Under Henry VIII:...
printed two editions in January 1543 and Stow
John Stow
John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...
, who was acquainted with a different version, censured Grafton on this point somewhat unjustly. Sir Henry Ellis
Henry Ellis (librarian)
Sir Henry Ellis was an English librarian.He was born in London and educated at the Mercers' School and St John's College, Oxford, where he acted as an assistant at the Bodleian Library...
published the longer version of Grafton with some additions from the Selden and Harley manuscripts in 1812. New editions of the chronicle are being prepared by Sarah Peverley and James Simpson.
Articles on Hardyng and his Chronicle
- Edwards, A. S. G., ‘The Manuscripts and Texts of the Second Version of John Hardyng’s Chronicle’, in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Daniel Williams (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 75-84.
- Ellis, Henry, ed., The Chronicle of John Hardyng (London, 1812).
- Hiatt, Alfred, ‘Beyond a Border: The Maps of Scotland in John Hardyng’s Chronicle’, in The Lancastrian Court: Proceedings of the2001Harlaxton Symposium (Shaun Tyas: Donington, 2003), pp. 78-94.
- Hiatt, Alfred, The Making of Medieval Forgeries: False Documents in Fifteenth-Century England. The British Library, 2004 ISBN 0-8020-8951-8.
- Kennedy, Edward Donald, ‘John Hardyng and the Holy Grail’, Arthurian Literature, 8 (1989), 185-206.
- Kennedy, Edward Donald, ‘Malory and his English Sources’, in Aspects of Malory, ed. by Toshiyuki Takamiya and Derek BrewerDerek BrewerDerek Stanley Brewer was a medieval scholar, author and publisher.-Life:Born in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a clerk with General Electric, Brewer read English at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was taught, among others, by C.S. Lewis...
(Cambridge, 1981), pp. 27-55, 196-200.
- Kennedy, Edward Donald, Chronicles and Other Historical Writing, vol. VIII of A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, ed. by Albert E. Hartung and J. B. Severs (New Haven, 1989).
- Kennedy, Edward Donald, 'Visions of history: Robert de Boron and English Arthurian chroniclers', in The Fortunes of King Arthur, ed. by Norris J. Lacy (Cambridge: 2005).
- Kingsford, Charles L., ‘The First Version of Hardyng’s Chronicle’, English Historical Review, 27 (1912), 462-82 [1912b].
- Peverley, Sarah L., ‘John Hardyng’s Chronicle: A Study of the Two Versions and a Critical Edition of Both for the Period 1327-1464’ (University of Hull, Ph.D., 2004).
- Peverley, Sarah L., ‘Dynasty and Division: The Depiction of King and Kingdom in John Hardyng’s Chronicle’, in The Medieval Chronicle III: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle Doorn/Utrecht 12 – 17 July 2002, ed. by Erik Kooper (Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2004), pp. 149-70.
- Peverley, Sarah L., ‘Adapting to Readeption in 1470-1471: The Scribe as Editor in a Unique Copy of John Hardyng’s Chronicle of England (Garrett MS. 142)’, The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 66:1 (2004), 140-72.
- Peverley, Sarah L., ‘‘A Good Exampell to Avoide Diane’: Reader Responses to John Hardyng’s Chronicle in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, Poetica, 63 (2005), 19-35.
- Peverley, Sarah L., ‘Political Consciousness and the Literary Mind in Late Medieval England: ‘Men “Brought up of Nought” in Vale, Hardyng, Mankind, and Malory,’ Studies in Philology, 105 (2008), 1-29.
- Riddy, Felicity, ‘Glastonbury, Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail in John Hardyng’s Chronicle’, in The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. by Lesley Abrams and James P. Carley (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 317-31.
- Riddy, Felicity, ‘John Hardyng in Search of the Grail’, in Arturus Rex, ed. by W. Van Hoecke (Leuven, 1991), pp. 419-29.
- Riddy, Felicity, ‘John Hardyng’s Chronicle and the Wars of the Roses’, Arthurian Literature, 12 (1996), 91-108.
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