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Home  »  The Cambridge History of English and American Literature  »  § 12. Richard Fitz-Neale

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).>br>Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance.

IX. Latin Chroniclers from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries

§ 12. Richard Fitz-Neale

Stubb’s conjecture that the chronicle may have been the work of Richard Fitz-Neale, and is a transcript of that writer’s lost Tricolumnis, “merely altered from its inconvenient tripartite shape” has not found much acceptance among scholars. Fitz-Neale, who was treasurer of England from 1168—98, and bishop of London from 1189—98, is best known as the author of the famous Dialogus de Scaccario, or Dialogue of the Exchequer. That work, written in the form of a dialogue, in two books, between the master and the pupil, is one of the chief sources of our knowledge of constitutional principles and practice in England before the Great Charter; it “stands out as an unique book in the history of medieval England, perhaps in the history of medieval Europe.”