PARIS, Matthew, one of the earliest of English chroniclers, flourished in the thirteenth century, and is supposed (as his surname seems to imply) to have been born or educated in the capital of France. Although a poor Benedictine monk in the monastery of St Albans, he appears to have attained to note in public life. Henry III. held him in great favour and esteem; and the Pope employed him on a mission of reformation to the monasteries of Norway. Still higher was his position as a man of varied acquirements. He was well versed in history, theology, and the general learning of his age; and he was adorned with the accomplishments of an architect, a painter, an orator, and a poet. But it was in the character of a historian that his greatest fame was achieved. Indefatigable in his search after the fullest historical accounts, he embodied in a condensed form all the substance of former chroniclers, and was careful to add all the possible information regarding his own time. His principal work, entitled Historia Major, consists of an emended copy of Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History, carrying the narrative as far as 1235, and a supplement continuing the story down to 1273. It was first printed by Archbishop Parker in 1571, and it has been frequently reprinted both in London and Paris. An English translation, by the Rev. J. A. Giles, forms 3 vols. of Bohn's Antiquarian Library.
To his chief work Matthew Paris wrote an abridgment, entitled Historia Minor, and a supplement containing Lives of the Two Offas, Kings of Mercia, and of Twenty-three Abbots of St Albans, and Additamenta. The former exists only in manuscript, the latter is printed in the edition of the Historia Magna by Dr William Watts, fol., London, 1640.