Rishanger, WILLIAM

Rishanger, WILLIAM, a monk of St Albans, who styles himself 'Chronigraphus' in an extant memorandum written by himself in 1312. He tells us, moreover, that he had been forty-one years a monk, and was then sixty-two years old, so that he must have been born in the year 1250. It has been usual to consider his Chronica, which covers the period from 1259 to 1307, as a continuation of Matthew Paris, and it has been to a large extent borrowed from the Annales of the Dominican Friar, Nicholas Trivet. For example, as Mr Gairdner points out, the whole reign of Edward I. is almost exactly identical in the two. As a chronicler Rishanger is full and truthful, but his work is fragmentary towards the close, and besides some confusion has crept into the order of the narrative. The story is told with considerable spirit, and reveals high admiration for Simon de Montfort. The Willelmi Rishanger Chronica et Annales, forming vol. iii. of the Chronica Monasterii S. Albani, was edited for the Rolls series by H. T. Riley (1865).