RICHARD OF

See also:

• DEVIZES

DEVIZES (fl. 1191)  , English chronicler, was a monk of St Swithin's house at Winchester . His birthplace is probably indicated by his surname, but of his life we know nothing . He is credited by Bale with the composition of the Annales de Wintonia, which are edited by Luard in the second volume of the Annales Monastici . If this statement be correct, then the chronicler survived King Richard I . But the Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, by which Richard of Devizes is chiefly known, only covers the first three years of that king's reign; it is practically an account of events in England and the Holy Land during the Third Crusade . For the events of the crusade itself, Richard is a poor authority . But his account of the preparations for the crusade, and of English affairs in the king's absence, is valuable, in spite of some inaccuracies . The author is intensely conservative, steeped in the prejudices of his order, and particularly hostile to the Jews and to the chancellor, William Longchamp . He writes in a vivid and epigrammatic style; his Latin shows the effect of the 12th-century renaissance in its polish and in its reminiscences of classical poets . See the editions of the Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricatdi Primi by J . Stevenson (Eng . Historical Soc., 1838) and by R .

Howlett in

Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II. and Richard I., vol. iii . (Rolls Series, 1886); the Annales de Wintonia in H . R . Luard's Annales Monastici, vol. ii . (Rolls Series, London, 1864-69) . (H . W . C .