Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/John of Glastonbury

1041602Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 29 — John of Glastonbury1892Charles Lethbridge Kingsford

JOHN (fl. 1400), called of Glastonbury, historian, a Benedictine monk of Glastonbury, wrote a history of his abbey. In his preface he states that he had added many things which William of Malmesbury had omitted, and had rearranged the early history in better order. John abbreviated Adam de Domerham's history of the abbey for the years 1126 to 1291 [see Adam of Domerham], and carried his work to about 1400. John also speaks of having made use of the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis and Radulphus Cestrensis (i.e. Higden) in his compilation. A portion of John's history, extending to the year 1334, is contained in Cotton. MS. Tiberius A. v., the writing of which must be attributed to the early part of the fifteenth century. In Ashmole MS. 790, in the Bodleian Library, the history is continued to 1493, and there is further an index by Thomas Wason, who was a monk of Glastonbury about that time (Hearne, pref. p. xxiii). The continuation may therefore be due to Wason. The whole was edited by Thomas Hearne, together with other material relating to Glastonbury, in two vols., Oxford, 1726. Hearne employed for his edition a manuscript belonging to Lord Charles Bruce.

[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 434; Hearne's pref.; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. xxxviii.]

C. L. K.