("On the Glory of Chester"), also known as ("The Book of Lucian in Praise of Chester"), is a medieval English manuscript in Latin by Lucian of Chester, probably a monk at the Benedictine Abbey of St Werburgh in Chester. Believed to date from the end of the 12th century, it has been described as "the oldest extant piece of Cheshire writing," and, with its first-hand description of the medieval town of Chester, is one of the earliest examples of prose writing about an English urban centre. It is also notable for the earliest extended description of Chester's county palatine status, which Lucian writes "gives heed ... more to the sword of its prince than to the crown of the king." The original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Excerpts have been published in 1600, 1912 and 2008.
Manuscript
is known from a single copy, MS Bodley 672, held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford, which is believed to be the original copy written by Lucian. It was presented to the Bodleian in 1601, together with eighteen other manuscripts collected by Thomas Allen (1542–1632). Its previous history and how Allen acquired it are unknown, but it is possible that it remained at St Werburgh's until 1539/40, when the library's texts were dispersed on the abbey's dissolution.
The manuscript is a book, in its original binding, of 198 parchment leaves which are 150 mm by 110 mm, with 23–26 lines per page. One or more leaves are missing from the end. It has been dated at around 1194–97, around 1195 or 1195–1200. Robert W. Barrett, Jr, describes it as "the oldest extant piece of Cheshire writing." The manuscript is in prose form, and is a little over 82,000 words long. The opening has a decorated initial in red and blue. There are marginal annotations, which might be by Lucian or another monk at St Werburgh's. These refer to events in 1199–1200.
Author, style and audience
Nothing beyond the text is known of the manuscript's author, Lucian. From the emphasis of the text, he is generally assumed to have been a monk at St Werburgh's Abbey in Chester, possibly the sub-prior or scriptor. Mark Faulkner has suggested he might have been a monk at the Cistercian Combermere Abbey. Lucian writes that he was not born in the town and states that he was educated at St John the Baptist's Church. He was inspired to write by one of St John's canons, whom he refers to as his patron. Lucian writes for both residents of Chester and travellers, and appears to have intended the work to be used as a guidebook, at one point recommending that readers should study "the text with one eye and the streets with the other." Barrett argues that the main audience is likely to be educated clerics of the town, who, unlike the majority of the lay-people, would be able to read Latin. Lucian's Latin is described by Faulkner as "self-consciously filigree", and employs several rare words.
Contents
provides a first-hand account of the town of Chester and its associated county at the end of the 12th century, under Ranulf de Blondeville (1170–1232). It is among the earliest surviving prose descriptions of an English urban centre, as well as of an urban eulogy (encomium urbis) in praise of an English town. An earlier example praising London, Descriptio Nobilissimae Civitatis Londoniae, was written by William fitz Stephen in 1173–75. (Alcuin's Latin poem to York dates from the late 8th century; a 12th-century Old English poem to Durham and another in Latin to Chester, quoted in a 14th-century work, are also known.) The form dates back to Quintilian in the 1st century AD, and was propagated by handbooks by Priscian and others, which Faulkner argues Lucian would probably have read. Lucian cites many classical authors including Horace, Ovid, Seneca and Virgil, as well as the Bible and Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Lucian documents a county that has already acquired a distinct regional identity, differentiated not only from Wales but also from the adjacent areas of England. He describes the people of Chester as being generally similar to the Welsh (Britons), "through a long transfusion of morals." He gives the earliest extended description of the county of Chester's special administrative position, later formalised as the county palatine or palatinate, whereby the Anglo-Norman Chester earldom took on the power of the English crown, writing:
A marginal note adds "the earl is obeyed, the king is not feared."