HOVEDEN, ROGER DE, descended of an illustrious family, was born in Yorkshire, most probably at the town
of that name, some time in the reign of Henry I. After Howard. he had received the rudiments of education in his native country, he studied the civil and canon law, which were fashionable and lucrative branches of learning. He became domestic chaplain to Henry II. who employed him to transact several ecclesiastical affairs, in the conduct of which he acquitted himself with honour. He was by profession a lawyer, but, like other lawyers of the time, belonged to the church, and also officiated as professor of theology at Oxford. After the death of Henry, he applied himself to history, and composed annals, which commence at the year 781, where Bede's ecclesiastical history terminates, and extend to the third year of King John, or 1202. These annals were first published by Saville, amongst the Historici Angliei, 1595, and were reprinted at Frankfort, 1601, in two books, folio. The style of Hoveden is barbarous, like the age to which it belongs; but in diligence, knowledge of antiquity, and that fidelity which is the first quality of an historian, he not only surpassed the rude historians of the preceding ages, but left an example which many of his successors, in more enlightened times, failed to imitate. According to Vossius, Hoveden also wrote a history of the Northumbrian kings, and a life of Thomas à Becket. Edward III. when endeavouring to ascertain his title to the crown of Scotland, caused a diligent search to be made for the works of Hoveden; a circumstance which shows the estimation in which they were held, not only by the monarch himself, but by the age in which he flourished. (A.)