The Library
1780 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
101–200
1 work
c. 140; survives in fragments
Greek
Phlegon of Tralles
A chronicle by a freedman of Hadrian, lost apart from quotations. Origen and Africanus report that it recorded a great eclipse and an earthquake in Bithynia in the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, and Origen adds that Phlegon mentioned Christ's foreknowledge of events.
501–600
4 works
begun c. 530, continued to the 9th century
Latin
Liber Pontificalis
Anonymous
Serial biographies of the bishops of Rome from Peter onward, recording each one's origin, building projects, ordinations, and burial place.
c. 565
Greek
Chronographia
John Malalas · c. 491 – c. 578
World history from Adam to Justinian in eighteen books, written in the spoken Greek of the streets rather than the literary language, and cheerfully mixing myth, scripture, chariot-racing factions, and what people were wearing.
c. 566–570
Latin
Victor of Tunnuna · d. c. 570
An African bishop's year-by-year record, written across a decade of imprisonment and exile for refusing to condemn the Three Chapters, and ending at the year he ran out of freedom to write.
c. 590
Latin
John of Biclaro · c. 540 – c. 621
A continuation of Victor of Tunnuna covering 567 to 590, by a Goth who studied at Constantinople and was exiled for ten years by an Arian king before the conversion he lived to record.
601–700
5 works
c. 630
Greek
Chronicon Paschale
Anonymous
A world chronicle from Adam to 628, organised around the Easter cycle, with a detailed eyewitness account of the Avar siege of Constantinople.
c. 660
Latin
Anonymous
A Frankish world chronicle continuing Gregory of Tours, in Latin so broken that historians use it to study the emergence of the Romance languages.
c. 660–680
Syriac
Anonymous
A short Syriac chronicle covering the end of the Sasanian empire and the Arab conquest, written by a Christian in what is now south-western Iran.
c. 664; survives in fragments
Syriac
Anonymous
A short Syriac chronicle recording, among other things, a debate held before Mu'awiya between Jacobites and Maronites, the caliph's judgement and the fine imposed on the losers, and his prayer at Golgotha and Gethsemane after taking power at Jerusalem.
c. 690
Coptic
John of Nikiu · 7th century
A world chronicle by a Coptic bishop whose closing books describe the Arab conquest of Egypt from the point of view of the conquered population.
701–800
2 works
725
Latin
The Venerable Bede · c. 673–735
A universal chronicle from creation to 725 arranged in six ages, forming the closing section of On the Reckoning of Time.
c. 775
Syriac
Anonymous
A world chronicle whose final book is a monk's eyewitness account of plague, famine, locusts, and Abbasid taxation in northern Mesopotamia.
801–900
4 works
c. 810–814
Greek
Chronographia
Theophanes the Confessor · c. 758–818
A year-by-year chronicle from 284 to 813, drawing on sources now lost and covering the Arab conquests and the first iconoclasm at length.
c. 866–872
Greek
George Hamartolos · 9th century
A world chronicle from Adam to 842 written by a monk for monks, long on iconoclasm and moral judgement and short on secular politics.
begun c. 890, continued to 1154
Old English
Anonymous
Year-by-year annals kept at several monasteries, from Julius Caesar to the twelfth century, terse for most years and vivid in crisis.
c. 880–890
Latin
Anonymous
An Asturian chronicle tracing the northern Christian kingdom back to the Visigoths and telling the story of the stand at Covadonga.
901–1000
5 works
c. 908
Latin
Regino of Prüm · c. 840–915
A world chronicle whose later books cover the collapse of the Carolingian order, the Viking and Magyar raids, and the rise of regional dukes.
c. 930–940
Arabic
Nazm al-Jawhar
Eutychius of Alexandria · 877–940
A world history from creation to the author's own day by a physician who became patriarch of Alexandria, covering both Christian and Islamic history.
c. 942
Arabic
Kitab al-Unwan
Agapius of Hierapolis · 10th century
A history from creation to the tenth century preserving material from lost Syriac and Greek chronicles, including notices about the first century.
c. 950–961
Greek
Anonymous, commissioned by Constantine VII
History from 813 to the writer's own day, commissioned by an emperor about his own dynasty — so the iconoclast emperors are monsters, Michael III a drunk, and Basil I, who murdered his way to the throne, a providential deliverer.
c. 967–968
Latin
Adalbert of Magdeburg · d. 981
A continuation of Regino's chronicle to 967 by a monk who had led a failed mission to the Rus and returned with nothing to show for it.
1001–1100
3 works
c. 1025–1034
Latin
Adémar of Chabannes · c. 989–1034
A history of the Franks and of Aquitaine by a monk who also forged an apostolic pedigree for his own monastery's patron and staged a council to confirm it.
c. 1077–1080
Latin
Lampert of Hersfeld · c. 1028–c. 1085
A hostile account of Henry IV's reign, containing the celebrated description of the king waiting barefoot in the snow at Canossa for three days.
c. 1073–1082
Latin
Marianus Scotus · 1028–1082
A world chronicle by an Irish monk enclosed as a recluse in Germany, arguing that the received date of the incarnation was twenty-two years out.
1101–1200
4 works
c. 1113
Old Church Slavonic
Povest' vremennykh let
Attributed to Nestor the Chronicler · c. 1056–c. 1114
The history of the Rus from the flood to 1110, including the envoys sent to compare religions who reported that in Constantinople they did not know whether they were in heaven or on earth.
c. 1140–1150
Greek
John Zonaras · 12th century
A world history from creation to 1118, preserving long stretches of Roman historians whose own texts have since been lost.
c. 1160–1180
Greek
Michael Glykas · 12th century
A world chronicle whose opening section on creation is packed with natural history, and whose author also wrote a prison poem in the vernacular.
c. 1195
Syriac
Michael the Syrian · 1126–1199
A world chronicle in parallel columns for sacred and secular events, quoting sources back to the sixth century that survive nowhere else.
1201–1300
4 works
c. 1240–1259
Latin
Chronica Majora
Matthew Paris · c. 1200–1259
A vividly opinionated chronicle of Europe from a St Albans scriptorium, illustrated by its author's own hand, hostile to papal taxation and to almost everyone in authority.
c. 1280–1286
Syriac
Bar Hebraeus · 1226–1286
A world history in secular and ecclesiastical parts, and a shorter Arabic version written at the request of Muslim friends who wanted to read it.
c. 1282–1290
Latin
Salimbene de Adam · 1221–c. 1290
A gossipy friar's chronicle of everything he saw and heard across Italy and France, including his father's fury at his joining the order and his opinions of everyone.
c. 1300–1320
Greek
Anonymous
A verse chronicle of the Frankish principality in the Peloponnese, told from the crusaders' side in vernacular Greek and openly contemptuous of the Byzantines.
1301–1400
1 work
c. 1370–1400
Old French
Jean Froissart · c. 1337–c. 1405
A chronicle of the Hundred Years' War by a cleric who travelled to interview participants, including the peasant risings, the plague, and the schism as they were experienced.
1401–1500
3 works
c. 1420–1422
Latin
Lawrence of Březová · c. 1370–c. 1437
A moderate Hussite's account of the revolution and the first crusades against it, critical of the radicals at Tábor as well as of the crusaders.
c. 1420–1424
German
Ulrich Richental · c. 1360–1437
A townsman's illustrated account of the council — who came, what they wore, what the town charged for lodging, and the burning of Hus described as he saw it.
1493
Latin
Liber Chronicarum
Hartmann Schedel · 1440–1514
A world history from creation to the present in seven ages, with over eighteen hundred woodcuts of cities, saints, and the coming of antichrist.
1601–1700
1 work
c. 1615
Spanish
Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala · c. 1535–c. 1616
Twelve hundred pages and four hundred drawings by an Andean nobleman, addressed to the king of Spain, documenting Inca history and the abuses of colonial rule.
37 of 1780 works