Chronicle
The chronicle of a member of the religious house at Leicester, written in the last decades of the fourteenth century. A hostile contemporary witness to Wycliffe and his followers, and an English view of the papal schism.
Knighton belonged to the religious house at Leicester, in the county where John Wycliffe held his parish of Lutterworth. For the years of his own lifetime he copies documents in full and adds his own comments.
He writes as an opponent of Wycliffe. That is what gives his complaint about the English Scriptures its value for Wycliffe and the First English Bible: a man with no wish to credit Wycliffe names him as the one who turned the Gospel from Latin into English. For the Great Western Schism he gives the cardinals’ own letter announcing the election of Urban VI and then records their revolt.
Cited in
- 1347 to 1351, estimated date
- 1378 to 1417, firm date
- about 1382, estimated date