MATTHEW OF PARIS (d. 1259), English monk and chronicler known to us only through his voluminous writings. He may have studied at Paris in his youth, but the earliest fact which he records of himself is his admission as a monk at St. Albans in the year I 217. His life was mainly spent in this religious house. In 1248, however, he was sent to Norway as the bearer of a message from Louis IX. of France to Haakon VI. of Norway, who invited him, a little later, to superintend the reformation of the Benedictine monastery of St. Benet Holme at Trondhjem. Apart from these missions, he pursued the study of history, following the tradition of the monks of St. Albans. Matthew edited anew the works of Abbot John de Cella and Roger of Wendover, which in their altered form constitute the first part of his most important work, the Chronica maiora. From 1235, where Wendover breaks off, Matthew continued the history. He derived much of his in formation from the letters of important personages, which he sometimes inserts, but more from conversation with the eye-wit nesses of events. Among his informants were Earl Richard of Cornwall and Henry III.
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 good will and diligence." It is there fore curious that the Chronica maiora gives an unfavourable account of the king's policy. Luard supposes that Matthew never intended his work to see the light in its present form, and many passages of the autograph have against them the note o ff endic ulum, which shows that the writer understood the danger which he ran. Unexpurgated copies were made in Matthew's lifetime ; though the offending passages are omitted or softened in his abridgment of his longer work, the Historia Anglorum (written c. 1253). He was not an official historiographer.
Matthew is a vehement supporter of the monastic orders against their rivals, the secular clergy and the mendicant friars. He is
violently opposed to the court and the foreign favourites. He despises the king as a statesman, though for the man he has some kindly feeling. He attacks the court of Rome for its exactions, and displays an intense nationalism. He sometimes inserts rhe torical speeches which are not only fictitious, but misleading. In other cases he tampers with the documents which he inserts (as, for instance, with the text of Magna Carta). In spite of his inex actitude, he gives a more vivid impression of his age than any other English chronicler; and it is unfortunate that his history breaks off in 1259, on the eve of the crowning struggle between Henry III. and the baronage.