Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes

Written c.1290, this chronicle follows the pattern of similar texts in recording historical events through using earlier sources; but, by adapting and editing what he chose to include, the author produced a unique work. He is able to provide greater depth and detail to the descriptions of events closer to his own time, yet the text finishes abruptly in a passage concerning the contemporary theologian Robert of Winchelsea. Published in the Rolls Series in 1859, the work was edited by Henry Ellis (1777-1869), the librarian of the British Museum. Topics covered in the chronicle include Henry II’s crowning of his eldest son as ‘Henry III’, and their joint rule until the latter rebelled against his father; the ‘extreme cruelty with which the Jews were treated in England’; and ‘an occurrence which continued … to our own time, namely, the inundation of Westminster Hall by the River Thames’.