Flores Historiarum

The Flores Historiarum (Flowers of History) is the name of two different (though related) Latin chronicles by medieval English historians that were created in the 13th century, associated originally with the Abbey of St Albans.

The first Flores Historiarum was created by St Albans writer, Roger of Wendover, who carried his chronology from the Creation up to 1235, the year before his death.

Roger claims in his preface to have selected "from the books of catholic writers worthy of credit, just as flowers of various colours are gathered from various fields."

However, like most chronicles, it is now valued not so much for what was culled from previous writers, as for its full and lively narrative of contemporary events from 1215 to 1235,[1] including the signing of Magna Carta by King John at Runnymede.

[8] Luard took this to mean that there had existed a core of the Flores going up to 1188, the creation of which had been supervised by John of Wallingford at some point during his tenure as abbot of St Albans between 1195 and 1214.

[13] In its final form the annal for 1179 contains a reference to the Lateran Council of 1215,[14] and Vaughan finds that all of the extant manuscripts ultimately descend from a common ancestral exemplar that can be no earlier than 1228.