John of Wallingford (d. 1258)

[1] He is now mostly known through a manuscript containing a miscellaneous collection of material, mostly written up by Wallingford from various works by his contemporary at the abbey Matthew Paris, which survives as British Library Cotton MS Julius D VII.

[7] A heavily abridged extract from the chronicle had previously been printed by Thomas Gale in 1691 in his Historiæ Britannicæ Saxonicæ Anglo-Danicæ Scriptores XV.

[10]William Hunt, writing for the Dictionary of National Biography in 1899, considered that The author evidently used several excellent authorities, such as Bede, the Saxon priest's Life of Dunstan, Florence of Worcester, and the like; but, though he makes some attempts at comparison and criticism, has inserted so many exaggerations and misconceptions apparently current in his own time, and has further so strangely confused the results of his reading, that his production is historically worthless.

[11]The chronicle writer is nonetheless still occasionally quoted, for example his remark preceding his account of the St. Brice's Day massacre of the Danes in 1002 during the reign of Ethelred the Unready is a common historical misconception.

He asserted that the Danes, thanks to their habit of combing their hair every day, of bathing every Saturday and regularly changing their clothes, were able to undermine the virtue of married women and even seduce the daughters of nobles to be their mistresses.