] Year 1255: "Missus est in Angliam quidam elephas quem rex
Francorum pro magno munere dedit regi Angliae.... Nec credimus alium
unquam visum fuisse in Anglia." "Abbreviatio Chronicorum," following the
"Historia Anglorum" in Madden's edition, vol. iii. p. 344.

[319] "Chronica Majora," vol. iii. pp. 162 ff. The story of Cartaphilus
was already in Roger de Wendover, who was also present in the monastery
when the Armenian bishop came. The details on the ark are added by
Matthew.

[320] "Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, monachi Cestrensis ... with the
English translation of John Trevisa," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls,
1865 ff., 8 vols. Higden died about 1363. See below, p. 406.

[321] See below, p. 405.

[322] A great many other English chroniclers wrote in Latin, and among
their number: Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Fitzstephen, the
pseudo Benedict of Peterborough, William of Newburgh, Roger de Hoveden
(d. ab. 1201) in the twelfth century; Gervase of Canterbury, Radulph de
Diceto, Roger de Wendover, Radulph de Coggeshall, John of Oxenede,
Bartholomew de Cotton, in the thirteenth; William Rishanger, John de
Trokelowe, Nicolas Trivet, Richard of Cirencester, in the fourteenth. A
large number of chronicles are anonymous. Most of those works have been
published by the English Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries,
and especially by the Master of the Rolls in the great collection: "The
Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland ... published
under the direction of the Master of the Rolls," London, 1857 ff., in
progress. See also the "Descriptive Catalogue of materials relating to
the History of Great Britain and Ireland, to the end of the reign of
Henry VII." by Sir T. D. Hardy, Rolls, 1862-6, 3 vols. 8vo.

[323] The contrast between the time when Richard writes and the days of
his youth, when he studied at Paris, is easy to explain. The Hundred
Years' War had begun, and well could the bishop speak of the decay of
studies in the capital, "ubi tepuit, immo fere friguit zelus scholae tam
nobilis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis orbis terrae....
Minerva mirabilis nationes hominum circuire videtur.... Jam Athenas
deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius praeterivit, jam ad
Britanniam, insularum insignissimam, quin potius microcosmum accessit
feliciter." "Philobiblon," chap. ix. p. 89. In the same words nearly,
but with a contrary intent, Count Cominges, ambassador to England,