The chronicles of Rome

The two Middle English chronicles presented here record the lives of the popes and emperors of Rome; they are the only surviving Middle English texts devoted principally to such material. The first is the fourteenth-century Chronicle of Popes and Emperors, a translation and abbreviation of Martinus Polonus's thirteenth-century Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum; it served as a reference book for clerics and religious institutions, providing some three hundred biographies. The second is the Lollard Chronicle, a selection of popes' and emperors' biographies aiming to discredit the papacy and justify the sovereignty of secular authorities in accordance with Wycliffite doctrines; it provides vital evidence for a Lollard reading of history.