RICCARDO di CLUNY (di POITIERS). - Chronicler and poet, born probably in Aunis around 1120, died after 1188.
From his works it may be inferred that he was a monk at the Cluniac priory of the Isle of Aix near Rochefort. A journey to England, between 1143 and 1154, filled him with great enthusiasm, as his poems show; but his principal work is a universal chronicle from the Creation to 1171. It is a compilation of earlier chronicles, subsequently used by Martino di Troppau (Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum) and by Bernardo Gui (Flores chronicorum); three different recensions are known, extending respectively to 1153, 1162, and 1171; the last, reworked by another hand, was continued to 1174. There also remain a Catalogus Romanorum Pontificum, from the apostle Pietro to Alessandro III, containing notices on the abbots of Cluny, and a chronicle of Aunis which, in the tearful style of the prophets, recounts the destruction of Châtel-Aillon.