chronicles, medieval

Books modelled on the Old Testament Books of Chronicles. Until the later Middle Ages, they were usually written in Latin by clerics, who borrowed extensively from one another.

Two early examples were written by Gregory of Tours in the 6th century and by Bede. The 9th–12th century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was a monastic compilation. In the later Middle Ages, vernacular chronicles appear, written by lay people, but by then the chronicle tradition was in decline, soon to be supplanted by Renaissance histories.