Ralph Coggshall

Date of birth unknown, may have been from Barnwell in Cambridgeshire ^[4] . Judging by his writings, received a good education.

At the end of the XII century, he became a Cistercian monk , and from 1207 to 1218 he served as the rector of the abbey of this order in Coggshall ( Essex ) ^[5] .

In his own words, his resignation occurred against his will and the desire of the brethren, due to poor health, after which he, apparently, devoted himself entirely to historical works. He died in his monastery, probably in April 1227 ^[6] .

Belonging to Ralph Coggshall’s pen “The Chronicle of England from 1066 to 1200” ( lat. Chronicon Anglicanum ab anno M.Lxvi ad M.cc ) is a continuation of the Latin chronicle, which has long been compiled in its abbey by various chroniclers, and only since 1187 did Ralph set forth her original material ^[7] . Initially, he apparently hoped to continue his work until 1227, but in the surviving autograph it breaks off three years earlier ^[8] .

The work of Ralph Coggshall is not distinguished by literary merits and, in fact, is a compilation of works by historians of the 12th century, including William of Malmesbury , Henry of Huntingdon , William of Newburgh ^[9] , Roger of Khodensky , “Imperial Leisure” (1212) of Gervasia also the chronicles of the Lincoln canon Ralph Niger , covering the events of 1066-1061 ^[10] and various hagiographic works like the life of Bishop Odon , the martyrdom of Thomas Becket , the revelations of St. Nicholas to a monk from Evesham Abbey and pr ^[11] .

Where Ralph Koggsholsky had written sources, he conceived contentedly with a literal reproduction of not only their texts , but also characteristic phraseological features. In other cases, he arranged in chronological order, without any cause-effect relationships, various stories and jokes recorded by random storytellers.

In addition to memorable events and real facts, Ralph cites various folk legends in his work, similar to the legend of two “green children” from Setford Forest, allegedly found in the field by reapers from the village of Wolpit near Bury St. Edmunds Abbey ( Suffolk ), obviously borrowed from William of Newburgh. However, if the latter refers the described case to the time of Stefan Bloisky (1135-1154), Ralph himself places him already at the end of the XII century, claiming that the only girl who survived from a pair of offspring of the “forest people” , baptized as Agnes Barr, was a servant of a friend he knew Knight Richard de Calne, from whom he allegedly heard this story ^{[12] [13]} .

Unlike Roger Khovedensky , Ralph almost does not refer to genuine documents in his chronicle, citing the texts of only three letters: King Richard the Lionheart from the French War, King John about the property of the Cistercian Order and Pope Innocent III calling for a crusade ^{[ 14]} .

On the other hand, the presence of many corrections in his autograph shows that he tried to verify his data. Some of his informants are credible, such as the royal forester Hugh de Neville who was present when Richard the Lionheart concluded an agreement with the Saracens in Palestine ^[15] , or chaplain Richard Anselm, who informed him of the details of his master’s capture by Leopold V of Austria . The details given by Ralph of the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 , also possibly obtained from participants and eyewitnesses, make his chronicle a valuable source on the history of the fourth crusade .

Despite the impassive tone of the chronicle, it contains a number of author's assessments of the described historical characters. So, unlike his predecessor, Niger, Ralph under the year 1161 favorably speaks of King Henry II Plantagenet ^[16] . King Richard I obtains a more balanced characterization of him, whom he calls, on the one hand, a glorious knight, patron of Christianity and protector of the church, popular among the masses, and on the other, notes that the unbearable nature and shortsightedness of this king led to unjustified expenses for his adventures and, ultimately, to the financial crisis and turmoil in the country ^[17] . A convinced Cistercian and a supporter of the Mandeville family, Ralph, like his contemporary Roger Wendoversky , negatively describes Richard's brother, King John ^[18] .

"Chronicle of the Holy Land" ( lat. Chronicon Terrae Sanctae ), or "Book of the Conquest of the Holy Land by Saladin" ( Latin Libellus de expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum ), preserved in the same manuscript with the Ralph Chronicle, studies have shown, was written by another author, but served as one of the sources.

Under 1091, in his chronicle, Ralph also refers to a book he wrote about miracles and visions, which has not been preserved. He also wrote the continuation of the Ralph Niger chronicles from 1162 to 1178, as well as the short annals from 1066 to 1223 ^[19] . The so-called “Book of persecution of the English by King John” attributed to him ( lat. Libellus de motibus anglicanis sub rege Johanne ) is only an excerpt from his chronicle.

The Chronicles of England autograph , along with the continuation of the Niger chronicle, is now in the British Library in the collection of Cotton (Cotton, Vespasian D. X), later copies are stored in the collections of the Heraldic Chamber of Great Britain (London) and the National Library of France (Paris).

The continuation of Ralph Niger's chronicle of Ralph Coggshall for 1161-1178 was published in London in 1851 by Robert Anstruter for the Caxton Society . In 1856, the very chronicle of Ralph Koggshallsky was published there by E.J. Donkin, together with the anonymous "Chronicle of the Holy Land." A commented scientific publication was prepared in 1875 for the Rolls Series by publisher and archivist Joseph Stevenson ^[20] .

• Additiones Monachi de Cogeshale // Radulfi Nigri Chronica: The chronicles of Ralph Niger, ed. by Robert Anstruther. - London: Caxton Society, 1851. - pp. 178-191.
• Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum, De expugnatione Terræ Sanctæ libellus, Thomas Agnellus De morte et sepultura Henrici regis Angliæ junioris, Gesta Fulconis filii Warini, excerpta ex Otiis imperialibus Gervasius Tileburiensis. Ex codicibus manuscriptis edidit Josephus Stevenson. - London: Longman, 1875. - pp. 1-208.
• Ralph of Coggeshall. Chronicle // Andrea, Alfred J. Contemporary sources for the fourth crusade. - Leiden-Boston-Koeln: Brill, 2000.

• William Hunt. Coggeshall, Ralph of // Dictionary of National Biography. - Volume 11. - London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1887. - p. 223.
• Henry William Carless Davis. Ralph of Coggeshall // Encyclopædia Britannica . - Volume 22. - Cambridge University Press, 1911. - p. 872.
• Antonia Gransden. Historical Writing in England, c. 550 to c. 1307 . - London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974. - xxiv, 610 p.
• David Corner. Coggeshall, Ralph of // Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. - Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Freeman Elizabeth. Ralph of Coggeshall // Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. by Graeme Dunphy and Cristian Bratu. - Leiden: Brill, 2016.

• Radulfi Nigri Chronica. Additiones Monachi de Cogeshale (London 1851 Edition)
• Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum (London edition 1875)
• Ralph Coggshall. “Chronicle of England” (Russian translation by G.V. Mikhailov on the site “Oriental literature”)