HIGDEN, RALPH, or RANULPH, author of the Polychronicon, was a monk of the monastery of St Werburg in Chester. He spent sixty-four years of his life in the convent where he finally died at a very advanced age. The date of his death is assigned to various years between 1360 and 1373. The Polychronicon, bringing down the history of England to 1357, is written in Latin. Of the original only that part has been published which brings down the narrative to 1066; but an English translation of the whole work by John de Trevisa was printed by Caxton at Westminster in 1482, and has been several times reprinted. Trevisa's manuscript is now in the Harleian collection, and seems not to have been very carefully followed by its original publisher.