John of Wallingford (d. 1214)

He was previously prior of Holy Trinity Priory at Wallingford in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), a cell of St Albans.

According to Matthew Paris's Gesta Abbatum ("Actions of the Abbots"), John came from a moderate family not far from a place called Stodham,[1] presumably today's Stadhampton about five miles north of Wallingford.

He gained an excellent reputation and "in grammar he was considered a very Priscian, in poetry a perfect Ovid, and in physic esteemed equal to Galen".

[3] He rebuilt the refectory and the dormitory, and extended the west front of the abbey church, though not without difficulty: the work "swallowed up the revenues as the sea the rivers, and made no progress", until a simplifed design was eventually completed.

[4] He was regarded by the 19th-century scholar Henry Richards Luard as the originator of the core of Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum, which became the first part of Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora, but this has since been questioned.