An inside account of Bury St Edmunds under Abbot Samson, written while the events were fresh. For 1200 it shows a great abbey dealing with the new king: Samson's attendance on John, the royal demands for money and knights, disputes with the townsmen and with the knights of the honour, and the abbey's own elections and quarrels. Nothing on high politics, but the best picture of how a lord abbot, his convent and his tenants actually lived in the year.
About this source
- Title
- Cronica Jocelini de Brakelonda
- Author
- Jocelin of Brakelond
- Author's dates
- about 1155 to after 1215
- Written
- about 1198 to 1203
- Language
- Latin
- Covers
- 1173 to 1202
- Kind
- Chronicle
Diana Greenway and Jane Sayers's Oxford World's Classics translation (1989) is under copyright. The Latin of Rokewode and the Jane translation are public domain but were not located online in this pass.
Where to read it
Editions
- J. G. Rokewode (ed.), Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda, Camden Society 13 (1840) (not freely online)
- H. E. Butler (ed. and trans.), The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, Nelson's Medieval Texts (1949), not free (not freely online)
Translations
- E. Clarke (ed.), The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond: A Picture of Monastic Life in the Days of Abbot Samson (1903), English
- L. C. Jane, The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond (1907), English (not freely online)