Hovedon, ROGER OF

Hovedon, ROGER OF, an old English chronicler, most probably born at Howden, in Yorkshire, who was attached to the household of Henry II., and was employed in missions to the lords of Galloway and to the heads of the monastic houses. In 1189 he was appointed an itinerant justice for the forests in the northern counties, and he seems to have spent his last years in Yorkshire, probably at Howden. It may be supposed that he did not survive 1201, as his Chronicle ends with that year. It commences with the close of the Chronicle of Bede in 732, and is divided by Bishop Stubbs into four parts: the first, ending with 1148, consisting chiefly of the Historia post Bedam; the second, ending with 1169, mainly based on the Melrose Chronicle; the third, ending with 1192, mainly an abridgment of Benedict's Chronicle; and the fourth, ending with 1201, a record of contemporary events, not without value. The Chronicle was first printed in Sir H. Saville's Scriptores post Bedam in 1596. There is an English translation by H. F. Riley in Bohn's 'Antiquarian Library' (2 vols. 1853). The original forms 4 volumes (1868-71) in the Rolls series, under the editorship of Bishop Stubbs.