Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reading, Robert de
READING, ROBERT de (d. 1325), historian, was a monk of Westminster. His name occurs with that of John of London, who, like Robert, is connected with the ‘Flores Historiarum,’ in the infirmary accounts of the abbey in 1294 and 1298, and again in the list of monks tried on a charge of having plundered the royal treasury in 1303. He died in 1325 (Flores Historiarum, iii. 232). He was the author of the portion of the ‘Flores Historiarum’ from 1307 to 1325, which is contained in Chetham MS. 6712, and of which there is a copy in Cotton. MS. Cleopatra, A. 16. Dr. Luard says this history ‘must rank of equal authority with the other chronicles of the time. It appears to me independent of them all. The feeling, on the whole, is against the king; the writer is strongly opposed to Gaveston, strongly in favour of Thomas of Lancaster.’ Robert's style is inferior to that of his predecessors, being wordy and bombastic, with occasional insertions of foreign words, Greek, French, or English. This history was printed for the first time in Dr. Luard's edition of the ‘Flores Historiarum’ (iii. 137–232).
[Luard's Flores Historiarum, vol. i. pref. p. xliii, vol. iii. pref. pp. xvii–xix; Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue of British History, iii. 384–5; Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, iii. 115.]