Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholas de Walkington

896686Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 40 — Nicholas de Walkington1894Albert Frederick Pollard

NICHOLAS de Walkington (fl. 1193?), mediæval writer, perhaps a native of Walkington, Yorkshire, entered the monastery of the Regulars at Kirkham in the same county; he was not, as has been frequently stated, a Cistercian. Bale says that he lived about 1193. He was author of ‘Nicolai Walkington de Kirkham brevis narratio de Bello inter Henricum I Regem Angliæ et Ludovicum Grossum R. Francorum; item de Bello contra Scotos quod dicitur de Standardo;’ a manuscript copy of this work, which consists of only one quarto page, written on paper during the 15th century, is Cotton MS. Titus A xix. f. 144. Nicholas has also been credited with the description of the battle of the Standard, including an account of Walter Espec, founder of Rievaulx, really written by Etheldred (1109?–1166) [q. v.], abbot of Rievaulx. Bale also attributes to Nicholas a treatise ‘De virtutibus et vitiis,’ which is not known to be extant.

[Cotton MS. Titus A xix.; Visch's Biblioth. Scriptorum S. Ordinis Cistercensis, ed. 1649, p. 206; Fabricius's Biblioth. Med. Ævi, v. 136; Pits, De Rebus Anglicis, p. 260; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.; Wright's Biog. Litt. ii. 467; Hardy's Descr. Cat. ii. 204–5; Chevalier's Répertoire; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. vi. 384.]

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