Ranulf Higdon (or
Higden) (c.
1280 - c.
1363), was an
English chronicler and a
Benedictine monk of the monastery of
St. Werburg in
Chester, wherein he lived, it is said, for sixty-four years, and died at a good old age, probably in 1363. He is believed to have
been born in the West of England, took the monastic vow (Benedictine), at
Chester in
1299, and seems to have travelled over the north of England.
Higdon was the author of
Polychronicon a long chronicle, one of several such works of
universal history and
theology. It was based on a plan taken from
Scripture, and written for the amusement and instruction of his society. It closes the long series of general chronicles, which were soon superseded by the invention of printing. It is commonly styled
Polychronicon, from the longer title
Ranuiphi Castrensis, cognomine Higdon, Polychronicon (sive Historia Polycratica) ab initio mundi usque ad mortem regis Edwardi III in septem libros dispositum. The work is divided into seven books, in humble imitation of the seven days of
Genesis, and, with exception of the last book, is a summary of general history, a compilation made with considerable style and taste. Written in
Latin, it was translated into English by
John of Trevisa (1387), and printed by
Caxton (1482), and by others. For two centuries it was an
approved work.
It seems to have enjoyed no little popularity in the
15th century. It was the standard work on general history, and more than a hundred manuscripts of it are known to exist. The Christ Church manuscript says that Higdon wrote it down to the year
1342; the fine manuscript at
Christ's College, Cambridge, states that he wrote to the year
1344, after which date, with the omission of two years,
John of Malvern, a monk of
Worcester, carried the history on to
1357, at which date it ends.
According, however, to one editor, Higdon's part of the work goes no further than 1326 or 1327 at latest, after which time it was carried on by two continuators to the end.
Thomas Gale, in his
Hist. Brit. &c., scriptores, xv. (Oxon., 1691), published that portion of it, in the original
Latin, which comes down to
1066.
Three early translations of the
Polychronicon exist. The first was made by
John of Trevisa, chaplain to
Lord Berkeley, in 1387, and was printed by
Caxton in 1482; the second by an anonymous writer, was written between 1432 and 1450; the third, based on Trevisa's version, with the addition of an eighth book, was prepared by
Caxton. These versions are specially valuable as illustrating the change of the English language during the period they cover.
The
Polychronicon, with the continuations and the English versions, was edited for the
Rolls Series (No. 41) by
Churchill Babington (vols. i. and ii.) and
Joseph Rawson Lumby (1865-1886). This edition was adversely criticized by
Mandell Creighton in the
Eng. Hist. Rev. for October 1888.
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