In 1394 he became notary Apostolic and in 1395 a canon of St. Thomas at Strasburg, where he was placed in charge of the archives and kept the stock books and registers.
Early in life, he had devoted himself to historical studies, and a Latin "Chronicle" is extant, written by him before he became a priest (edited by Louis Duchesne in Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für die Erhaltung der geschichtlichen Denkmäler im Elsass, second series, IV).
Recognizing the needs of his time, he wrote it for the Klugen, that is, cultivated, laymen, "who read such things as eagerly as learned parsons".
He possessed a good knowledge and availed himself freely of the sources of medieval prose and poetry (particularly Ekkehard, but also Eusebius, Bede, Hermannus Contractus, Martinus Polonus, and others).
The last chapter of the Chronik contains an alphabetical list of historical events with dates, and forms thus a kind of compendium of history, and was often copied separately.