Michel Foucault: Foucault’s ideas: …Histoire de la sexualité (1976; The History of Sexuality) was his exposé of the Frankensteinian machinations that had resulted in the naturalization of the dividing line between the “homosexual” and the “heterosexual.” Yet even in these luminous “histories of the present” something still remained out of view: human freedom. In…

Alphonse de Beauchamp: …first and most popular book, Histoire de la Vendée et des Chouans, 3 vol. (1806; “History of the Vendée and the Chouans”), an account of a counterrevolution in the west of France in the 1790s. Accused of revealing state secrets, he was relieved of his post; when the third edition…

Giacomo Casanova: …published after his death as Mémoires de J. Casanova de Seingalt, 12 vol. (1826–38). (A definitive edition, based on the original manuscripts, was published in 1960–62 with the title Histoire de ma vie [History of My Life].) This work provides an account of Casanova’s dissolute life and established his reputation…

George Sand: …later works are the autobiography Histoire de ma vie (1854–55; “Story of My Life”) and Contes d’une grand’mère (1873; “Tales of a Grandmother”), a collection of stories she wrote for her grandchildren.

Frederick II: Army and the state of Frederick II: …contemporary history and politics; his Histoire de mon temps (1746) is still a source of some value for the period it covers. He produced large quantities of mediocre poetry and composed music. He invited to Prussia several of the leading French intellectuals of the age, notably Voltaire (with whom he…

Jean, sire de Joinville: …the author of the famous Histoire de Saint-Louis, a chronicle in French prose, providing a supreme account of the Seventh Crusade (1248–54).

Camille Desmoulins: Desmoulin’s Histoire des Brissotins (“History of the Brissotins”), issued in mid-May 1793, severely undermined the Girondins’ influence by portraying them as agents in the pay of foreign enemies. On June 2 the Montagnards expelled the leading Girondins from the National Convention and took control of the…

Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, abbé de Raynal: …most important work was the Histoire des deux Indes (History of the East and West Indies), a six-volume history of the European colonies in India and America. The first edition appeared in 1770, followed by several expanded versions. It denounced European cruelty to colonial peoples, which it blamed on religious…

Amable-Guillaume-Prosper Brugière, baron de Barante: Barante’s most important historical work, Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne (1824–28; “History of the Dukes of Burgundy”), won him immediate admission to the Académie Française. Its moving narrative quality, purity of style, and brilliant use of local colour were highly praised; it exhibits, however, a lack of critical discernment and…

Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont: …the First Six Centuries”), and Histoire des empereurs, 6 vol. (1690–1738; “History of the Emperors”), were originally conceived as one work but were published separately. These books deal with the history of the Christian church and the Roman Empire to about ad 515, giving highly objective accounts as well as…

Alphonse de Lamartine: Political career: …same year he published his Histoire des Girondins, a history of the right, or moderate, Girondins during and after the French Revolution, which earned him immense popularity with the left-wing parties.

Reinhart Pieter Dozy: …par les Almoravides, 711–1110 (1861; Spanish Islam, 1913). Dozy, of French Huguenot ancestry, spent 33 years as a professor of history at the University of Leiden. His history, a graphically written account of Moorish dominion in Spain that shed new light on many obscure points, long remained the standard work…

Bernard Le Bovier, sieur de Fontenelle: …was carried further by the Histoire des oracles (1687; “History of the Oracles”), based on a Latin treatise by the Dutch writer Anton van Dale (1683). Here Fontenelle subjected pagan religions to criticisms that the reader would inevitably see as applicable to Christianity as well. The same antireligious bias is…

Ernest Renan: Religious controversies: …des origines du christianisme (The History of the Origins of Christianity). Both these volumes, containing brilliant descriptions of how Christianity spread among the rootless proletariat of the cities of Asia Minor, illustrate his preoccupation with a question, Would the intellectuals of the 19th century lead the masses toward a new…

J.-C.-L. Simonde de Sismondi: …italiennes du moyen âge (1809–18; History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages), which regarded the free cities of medieval Italy as the origin of modern Europe, inspired the leaders of that country’s Risorgimento (nationalist unification movement).

Giuseppe Ferrari: (1851; “Philosophy of Revolution”), and Histoire des révolutions d’Italie, 4 vol. (1858; “History of the Revolutions of Italy”). The latter work was a survey of Italian revolutionary struggles from ancient Roman times to the collapse of the Florentine Republic in 1530 and a glorification of revolution as an impetus to…

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet: The Gallican controversy. of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet: …variations in the Protestant churches, Histoire des variations des églises protestantes, which was followed by information and advice to Protestants, Avertissement aux protestans (1689–91).

François-Xavier Garneau: Garneau’s Histoire du Canada (1845–48), predominantly a political and military account of early Quebec, includes tales of pioneering men and women and descriptions of the major civil, political, and religious leaders. An attempt to conserve Quebec’s religion, language, and laws, the work met with great success…

Michel Bibaud: His most important historical work, Histoire du Canada, sous la domination française (1837), was the first history of French Canada written by a French Canadian. It covers the period from the founding of Canada to 1731; a second volume (1844) brings the story to 1830. (A third volume, treating events…

Manon Lescaut, sentimental novel by Antoine-François, Abbé Prévost d’Exiles, published in 1731 as the last installment of Prévost’s seven-volume opus Mémoires et aventures d’un homme de qualité qui s’est retiré du monde (1728–31; “Memories and Adventures of a Man of Quality Who Has Retired from the

Cornelius Otto Jansen: Last years: …Rapin asserted in his book Histoire du Jansénisme (1861) that Jansen had obtained his bishop’s mitre as a result of the personal intervention of the king of Spain, Philip IV. This sovereign had recognized him for having published a pamphlet entitled Mars Gallicus, in which he strongly criticized the policy…

Antoine de La Sale: …writer chiefly remembered for his Petit Jehan de Saintré, a romance marked by a great gift for the observation of court manners and a keen sense of comic situation and dialogue.

Élie Halévy: (1913–47; A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century). This great work traces the political, economic, and religious developments in Britain after 1815.

Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet: His early writings include Histoire du siècle d’Alexandre le Grand (1762), in which he declared that Nero caused far fewer deaths than Alexander the Great, and Le Fanatisme des philosophes (1764; “The Fanaticism of the Philosophes”), a violent attack on the most widely held doctrines of the Enlightenment. In…

Igor Stravinsky: Life and career: …on Russian folk idioms, while The Soldier’s Tale (1918), a mixed-media piece using speech, mime, and dance accompanied by a seven-piece band, eclectically incorporates ragtime, tango, and other modern musical idioms in a series of highly infectious instrumental movements. After World War I the Russian style in Stravinsky’s music began…

Claude Fleury: ” His 20-volume Histoire ecclésiastique (1690–1720) is the first large history of the Christian church (Fleury’s contribution came down to 1414, and others later completed the history down to 1778). However, because Fleury was sympathetic toward Gallicanism (an ecclesiastical doctrine advocating restriction of papal power), his works were…

Edme Mariotte: The first volume of the Histoire et mémoires de l’Académie (1733; “History and Memoirs of the Academy”) contains many papers by him on such subjects as the motion of fluids, the nature of colour, and the notes of the trumpet.

Étienne Baluze: In 1708 appeared his Histoire généalogique de la maison d’Auvergne, undertaken at the request of the Cardinal de Bouillon. In that work, which purported to trace the cardinal’s descent from the counts of Auvergne in the 9th century, Baluze made use of documents already proved to have been forged.…

Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire: In his Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux, 4 vol. (1832–37; “General and Particular History of Structural Monstrosities in Man and Animals”), he introduced the term teratology for the study of congenital abnormalities.

medal: The Baroque period: …grand propaganda series of the Histoire métallique, a series of medals struck to commemorate Louis XIV’s reign, was envied and imitated throughout Europe, though the Dutch copied it in a manner calculated to ridicule the French. The technical excellence of the Paris Mint was also imitated. The first fully Baroque…

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck: The inheritance of acquired characters: …multivolume work on invertebrate classification, Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres (1815–22; “Natural History of Invertebrate Animals”). Lamarck’s theory of organic development included the idea that the very simplest forms of plant and animal life were the result of spontaneous generation. Life became successively diversified, he claimed, as the result…

Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède: …Garden, where he completed the Histoire naturelle des poissons, 5 vol. (1798–1803; “Natural History of Fishes”). Although the work contained a number of errors because of insufficient research materials, it was recognized as the most original text on the subject at that time. The Histoire naturelle des cétacés (1804; “Natural…

Michel Adanson: He published Histoire naturelle du Sénégal (1757), describing the flora of Senegal, and a survey of mollusks.

Pierre-André Latreille: …published many works, among them Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des crustacés et insectes, 14 vol. (1802–05; “Comprehensive Natural History of Crustaceans and Insects”). In 1829 he succeeded Jean Lamarck as professor of zoology in crustaceans, arachnids, and insects at the National Museum of Natural History.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon: This became his great work, Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (1749–1804), which was the first modern attempt to systematically present all existing knowledge in the fields of natural history, geology, and anthropology in a single publication.

Jardin des Plantes, one of the world’s foremost botanical gardens, located in Paris. It was founded in 1626 as a royal garden of medicinal plants and was first opened to the public in 1650. Under the superintendence of G.-L.L. Buffon (1739–88) the garden was greatly expanded, and it developed into

Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau: Troubled youth: …dedicated to his father; but Histoire secrète de la cour de Berlin (“Secret History of the Court of Berlin”), in which he made unscrupulous use of material derived from his mission in Germany, created a scandal in 1789.

Jean Jaurès: …began to compile his monumental Histoire socialiste de la Révolution française (1901–07; “Socialist History of the French Revolution”). This work, written “under the triple inspiration of Marx, Plutarch and Michelet,” gave new impetus to studies on France’s Revolutionary period.

Théodore-Agrippa d’ Aubigné: The Histoire universelle deals with the period from 1553 to 1602, with an appendix to cover the death of Henry IV (1610); an unfinished supplement was meant to bring the story up to 1622. The chief interest of the Histoire lies in its eyewitness accounts and…

comic strip: The 19th century: …that culminated in his tremendous Histoire…de la Sainte Russie… (1854). This crudely anti-Russian (Crimean War-era) chronicle used a hodgepodge of picturesque and absurd effects arranged casually or with deliberate incongruity into a loose chronological sequence. Léonce Petit, armed with Töpffer’s lightness of graphic touch but lacking Töpffer’s imaginative flair, specialized…

lesion: … (evident to the unaided senses), histologic (evident only under a microscope), or biochemical (evident only by chemical analysis). A typical gross anatomic lesion might be the solid tumour of a carcinoma of the colon, while the corresponding histological lesion would be the atypical cells (dysplasia) that precede or surround the…

histology, branch of biology concerned with the composition and structure of plant and animal tissues in relation to their specialized functions. The terms histology and microscopic anatomy are sometimes used interchangeably, but a fine distinction can be drawn between the two studies. The

rhizomastigote: An important parasitic form is Histomonas meleagridis, the cause of enterohepatitis (or blackhead) in poultry. Cell shape, although variable in this species, frequently is round; cells range from 10 to 14 micrometres (0.0004 to 0.0006 inch) in diameter. H. meleagridis is an active, amoeba-like organism with a flagellate stage and…

blackhead, acute liver and intestinal disease of turkeys, chickens, and other game birds, caused by the protozoan parasite Histomonas meleagridis that lives in eggs of the nematode Heterakis gallinarum. Chief symptoms are listlessness and sulfur-coloured diarrhea. Blackhead is usually fatal in

histone, any of a group of simple alkaline proteins usually occurring in cell nuclei, combined ionically with DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) to form nucleoproteins (q.v.). A unit in which a molecule of a histone is bound to a segment of the DNA chain of genetic material is termed a nucleosome. It has

cell: The differentiated state: DNA methylation occurs when a methyl group is attached to the exterior, or sugar-phosphate side, of a cytosine (C) residue. Cytosine methylation occurs only on a C nucleotide when it is connected to a G (guanine) nucleotide on the same strand of DNA. These nucleotide…

Vasto, town, Abruzzi regione, south-central Italy. It is a beach resort on the Adriatic Sea, with brickmaking, candlemaking, and agricultural-processing industries. The town, the ancient name of which was Histonium, has an archaeological museum. There is a 13th-century castle, and the town

histoplasmosis: >Histoplasma capsulatum, occurring in humans and other animals. The disease is contracted by the inhalation of dust containing spores of the fungus. H. capsulatum prefers moist, shady conditions and is found in woods, caves, cellars, silos, and old chicken houses. The droppings of certain types…

histoplasmosis, infection with the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum, occurring in humans and other animals. The disease is contracted by the inhalation of dust containing spores of the fungus. H. capsulatum prefers moist, shady conditions and is found in woods, caves, cellars, silos, and old chicken

Thomas Walsingham: His Historia Anglicana (ed. H.T. Riley, 2 vol., 1862–64) covers the years from 1272 to 1422 and is a continuation of Paris’ Chronica majora, which itself continues the Flores historiarum by Roger of Wendover (died 1236). Walsingham also prepared an abridged version, the Chronicon angliae, 1328–88…

Aristotle: Travels: …book later known, misleadingly, as The History of Animals, to which Aristotle added two short treatises, On the Parts of Animals and On the Generation of Animals. Although Aristotle did not claim to have founded the science of zoology, his detailed observations of a wide variety of organisms were quite…

Latin American literature: Historiographies: The History of Mexico). Translated into Spanish as Historia antigua de México in the early 19th century, it manifests the Classical erudition of Jesuits in Mexico City and signals the evolution of Creole consciousness. A lawyer and theologian, Antonio Sánchez Valverde wrote important essays on…

Bartolomé de Las Casas: The Apologética and the Destrucción: …he began to write the Historia apologética. One of his major works, the Apologética was to serve as the introduction to his masterpiece, the Historia de las Indias. The Historia, which by his request was not published until after his death, is an account of all that had happened in…

Procopius: The Secret History purports to be a supplement to the Wars, containing explanations and additions that the author could not insert into the latter work for fear of Justinian and Theodora. It is a vehement invective against these sovereigns, with attacks on Belisarius and his wife,…

Augustan History, a collection of biographies of the Roman emperors (Augusti) from Hadrian to Numerian (117–284), an important source for the history of the Roman Empire. The work is incomplete in its surviving form; there are no lives for 244–259. It may originally have begun with one of Hadrian’s

Nennius: …830 compiled or revised the Historia Brittonum, a miscellaneous collection of historical and topographical information including a description of the inhabitants and invaders of Britain and providing the earliest-known reference to the British king Arthur. In the preface to the Historia he describes himself as a disciple of Elvodugus (d.…

Latin literature: The 12th to the 14th century: 1136; The Story of Abelard’s Adversities), recounts the story of his tragic love affair and its theological consequences.

Caffaro Di Caschifellone: …half a century later; and Historia captionis Almariae et Tortuose (“History of the Capture of Almería and Tortosa”), an account of the Genoese expedition to Spain in 1147–48, in which he participated.

John Flamsteed: His own star catalog, Historia Coelestis Britannica (1725), listed more stars (3,000) and gave their positions much more accurately than did any other previous work. Some stars, such as 61 Cygni, are still known by their numbers in his system.

Alexandre Herculano: …da inquisição em Portugal (1854–59; History of the Origin and Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal). Based on hitherto unknown documents, it attempted to demonstrate that royal absolutism and clerical power had been allies in the confiscation of the property of the “New Christians” (converted Jews) through the Inquisition. He…

Victor Balaguer: …had earlier expressed in his Historia de Cataluña y de la Corona de Aragón (1860–63; “History of Catalonia and of the Crown of Aragon”). This narrative, like his Historia política y literaria de los trovadores (1878–79; “Political and Literary History of the Troubadours”), was politically partial in favour of Catalan…

Olaus Magnus: …foremost work, however, is the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555), a history of the northern peoples inspired by humanist historiography and imbued with patriotic warmth, which gives a picture of the countryside and people of Sweden on the threshold of a new era. It appeared in many editions and translations…

Bartolomé de Las Casas: The Apologética and the Destrucción: …introduction to his masterpiece, the Historia de las Indias. The Historia, which by his request was not published until after his death, is an account of all that had happened in the Indies just as he had seen or heard of it. But, rather than a chronicle, it is a…

Ginés Pérez de Hita: …Guerras civiles de Granada (“The Civil Wars of Granada”). The book is considered the first Spanish historical novel and the last important collection of Moorish border ballads, the latter punctuating the book’s narrative.

Johannes Magnus: His Historia de omnibus gothorum sueonumque regibus (1555; “History Concerning All the Gothic and Swedish Kings”) is the primary source for the history of several Scandinavian kings.

Alexandre Herculano: …he worked on his ambitious História de Portugal. He also wrote historical novels in the manner of Sir Walter Scott, a genre he introduced to Portugal.

Vicente Aleixandre: …human life is found in Historia del corazón (1954; “History of the Heart”) and En un vasto dominio (1962; “In a Vast Domain”), works that deal with time, death, and human solidarity.

José Francisco de Isla: …de Campazas, alias Zotes (1758; History of the Famous Preacher Friar Gerundio of Campazas, alias Zotes). This work is a brilliant satire on the vain and tastelessly bombastic preaching that predominated in Spanish churches. The book provoked a controversy that ended with its being banned by the Inquisition in 1760.…

Arrigo Caterino Davila: The success of the Historia delle guerre civili di Francia (1630; The History of the Civil Wars in France) was immediate and enormous. More than 200 editions followed, of which perhaps the best is one published in Paris in 1644. Davila was murdered while on his way to take…

Guido Delle Colonne: …Guido’s poetry, however, is his Historia destructionis Troiae (“History of the Destruction of Troy”), which he completed about 1287. Thought to be a condensed version of the French Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Guido’s work was widely translated throughout Europe. William Caxton, the first English printer, translated it…

Flodoard: …919 to 966, and the Historia Remensis ecclesiae (“History of the Church in Reims”), provide the essential documentation for this period.

Orderic Vitalis: …a historian who in his Historia ecclesiastica left one of the fullest and most graphic accounts of Anglo-Norman society in his own day.

Eusebius of Caesarea: …centuries of Christianity, in his Ecclesiastical History, is a landmark in Christian historiography.

Socrates: …church historian whose annotated chronicle, Historia ecclesiastica (“Ecclesiastical History”), is an indispensable documentary source for Christian history from 305 to 439. Through excerpts from the 6th-century Latin translation ascribed to Cassiodorus and Epiphanius, it provided the medieval Latin church with a major portion of its knowledge of early Christianity.

Angle: …the Venerable Bede in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, their Continental homeland was centred in Angulus, traditionally identified as the Angeln district in Schleswig between the Schlei inlet and the Flensburger Förde, which they appear to have abandoned at the time of their invasion of Britain. They settled…

Icelandic literature: The 18th century: …Jónsson, bishop of Skálholt, wrote Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ (1772–78), which covers the history of Christianity in Iceland. Jón Espólín published Íslands árbækur (1822–55; “Annals of Iceland”), a history of Iceland from 1262.

Anthony Wood: …various colleges was published as Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis (1674; History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford). His vast biographical dictionary of the writers and ecclesiastics who had been educated at Oxford appeared as Athenae Oxonienses (1691–92). Wood lived in Oxford as a near recluse close to Merton…

Albert of Aix: …chronicle on the subject, the Historia expeditionis Hierosolymitanae (“History of the Expedition to Jerusalem”). His work remains an important source on the First Crusade and the history of the kingdom of Jerusalem until 1120 and is the sole document on the People’s Crusade of 1096, led by Peter the Hermit.…

Aimoin: His Historia Francorum, or Libri IV de gestis Francorum, was compiled from texts from the Merovingian period that were rewritten by Aimoin in better Latin. Later, 12th-century historians expanded and refined his history of the Franks. His biographies of Abbon and St. Benedict offer more direct…

biography: Middle Ages: Bishop Gregory of Tours’s History of the Franks depicts artlessly but vividly, from firsthand observation, the lives and personalities of the four grandsons of Clovis and their fierce queens in Merovingian Gaul of the 6th century. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, of the 8th century, though lacking…

Diego Barros Arana: …diplomat best known for his Historia general de Chile, 16 vol. (1884–1902; “General History of Chile”).

Tirso de Molina: …order’s official historian he wrote Historia general de la orden de la Merced in 1637. He was also a theologian of repute. Guided to drama by an inborn sense of the theatrical and inspired by the achievements of Lope de Vega, creator of the Spanish comedia, Tirso built on the…

encyclopaedia: Special interests: The result, the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (“General History of the Matters of New Spain”), was a magnificent record of the Aztec culture as recounted by the American Indians of south-central Mexico. The arrangement of this work, written in pictorial language as well as…

Latin American literature: Historians of the New World: …Historia general del Perú (General History of Peru).

Germanic religion and mythology: Early medieval records: …mentioned in his fairly comprehensive Historia Langobardorum (“History of the Lombards”). Paul used written sources available to him and seemed also to draw upon Lombard tradition in prose and verse.

Giovanni da Pian del Carpini: …in the manuscripts extant as Historia Mongalorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus (“History of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars”) and Liber Tartarorum (“Book of the Tartars”), or Tatarorum. He divided his treatise into eight chapters on the country of the Mongols, their climate, customs, religion, character, history, policy, and…

Johann Jakob Dillenius: …Sherard Garden at Eltham, and Historia Muscorum (1741), which contains descriptions and illustrations of more than 600 species of “mosses,” an assemblage of true mosses, liverworts, lycopods, algae, lichens, and other lower plants. The Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, who visited Dillenius in 1735, dedicated his own Critica Botanica to him and…

José de Acosta: …moral de las Indias (1590; Natural and Moral History of the Indies), the earliest survey of the New World and its relation to the Old. His works, missionary and literary, mark the zenith of the period of religious and scientific incorporation of the newly discovered lands into Western culture.

Natural History, encyclopaedic scientific work of dubious accuracy by Pliny the Elder, completed in 77 ce as Naturae historiae and conventionally known as Naturalis historia. Although Pliny did not distinguish between fact, opinion, and speculation in his 37-volume treatise, he can be credited with

Karl Friedrich Philipp von Martius: In his Historia naturalis palmarum, 3 vol. (1823–50; with others), Martius observed that leaves on a plant stem appear to form distinct arrangements, or phyllotaxis, and seem to be arranged in a spiral pattern which follows fixed geometric rules. Martius published numerous other studies, most notably Flora…

Edmer: …greatest works are a six-book Historia novorum in Anglia (c. 1115), an account of events in England as seen from Canterbury, stressing Anselm’s role in the Investiture Controversy between the political and clerical authorities, and the Vita Anselmi (c. 1124), an authoritative biography of Anselm’s private life. Edmer’s importance in…

Diadochus Of Photice: …chronicle, Historia persecutionis Vandalorum (1535; The Memorable and Tragical History of the Persecution in Africke) by Victor, bishop of Vita, commends Diadochus’ catholic doctrine and indicates that he was abducted by marauding Vandals and taken to Carthage, where he probably died.

John Ray: Important publications: … he constructed his masterwork, the Historia Plantarum, three huge volumes that appeared between 1686 and 1704. After the first two volumes, he was urged to compose a complete system of nature. To this end he compiled brief synopses of British and European plants, a Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium (published…

Gaspard Bauhin: …botanist, is known for his Historia plantarum universalis (1650–51; “General History of Plants”), in which he rendered elaborate descriptions of more than 5,000 species.

Victor Balaguer: This narrative, like his Historia política y literaria de los trovadores (1878–79; “Political and Literary History of the Troubadours”), was politically partial in favour of Catalan nationalism and was also often factually inaccurate. As a poet, Balaguer was reminiscent of Manuel José Quintana in his patriotic songs, of José…

John Of Salisbury: His Historia pontificalis (c. 1163) gives a vivid description of the papal court during this period, partly through its character sketches. From 1153 John’s main duty was to draft the archbishopric’s official correspondence with the Curia, especially in connection with appeals. In the late summer of…

Historia regum Britanniae, fictional history of Britain written by Geoffrey of Monmouth sometime between 1135 and 1139. The Historia regum Britanniae was one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages. The story begins with the settlement of Britain by Brutus the Trojan, great-grandson of Aeneas,

William Of Newburgh: …Ernald, abbot of Rievaux, William’s Historia rerum Anglicarum (1196–98; “History of English Affairs”) covers the period from 1066 to 1198. William’s erudition included knowledge of the classical writers Virgil, Horace, Cicero, and Livy; the early church historians Eusebius, Gregory, and Augustine; and the English chroniclers Bede, Henry of Huntingdon, Simeon…

William of Tyre: …lost; but his second work, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum (“History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea”), a history of the Latin kings of Jerusalem, has been preserved. It is a scholarly account of the history of the Latin East from 614 to 1184.

Hesychius Of Miletus: …Justinian I, Hesychius wrote the Historia Romaike te kai pantodape (“Roman and Universal History”) in six books. The chronicle extended from the Assyrian ruler Belus, the reputed founder of the Assyrian empire (2nd millennium bc), to the emperor Anastasius I (died 518). It also contains a long passage, the Patria…