John of Peterborough

JOHN OF PETERBOROUGH. - Author to whom is usually attributed the admirable Chronicon Petroburgense ab a. 654 ad a. C. 1368, contained in ms. Cotton Claudius A. 5.

An annotation written there in a 17th-century hand attributes it to Johannes Abbas, without giving any reference. But there was no abbot at Peterborough with this name between John de Caleto (1250-63) and John Deeping, elected in 1408. Simon Patrick, who in 1686 edited the publication of Simon Gunton's history of the Church of Peterborough, attributes the authorship of the Chronicon to John de Caleto, in which, however, a work is cited that appeared after the death of this abbot. Joseph Sparke in his Historiae anglicanae scriptores varii (1723) considers John Deeping its probable author. J. Leland (1552) considers it probably the work of Johannes Abbas de Burgo; John Pitts (De illustribus Angliae scriptoribus, Paris 1619, pp. 448) says that "Johannes Burgensis"

was a learned and pious Cluniac monk, who flourished ca. 1340. All these appear to be pure conjectures. Casimir Oudin (Commentarius de Script. Eccles., III, Paris 1722, p. 1088), repeats Leland and Pitts. The Chronicon was reprinted in 1845 and in 1849.

Enrico G. Rope