Lived in the last half of the 12th century having probably been born in Howden in Yorkshire. His Latin Chronicle ends with the year 1201. He was a member of the royal household of Henry II. His Chronicle was first printed in 1596. It was edited by Stubbs for the Rolls Series (1868–71) and translated by Riley (1853).
If we consider his diligence, his knowledge of antiquity, and his religious strictness of veracity, he may be considered as having surpassed not only the rude historians of the preceding ages, but even what could have been expected of himself. If to that fidelity, which is the first quality of a historian, he had joined a little more elegance of Latin style, he might have stood the first among the authors of that class.
He is the chiefest (if not sole) Lay-Historian of his age; who, being neither Priest nor Monk, wrote a “Chronicle of England,” beginning where Bede ended, and continuing the same until the fourth of King John. When King Edward the First layed claim to the Crown of Scotland, he caused the “Chronicles” of this Roger to be diligently searched, and carefully kept many authentical passages therein tending to his present advantage.
His most meritorious work was, his annals of England, from A.D. 731, when Bede’s ecclesiastical history ends, to A.D. 1202. This work, which is one of the most voluminous of our ancient histories, is more valuable for the sincerity with which it is written and the great variety of facts which it contains, than for the beauty of its style, or the regularity of its arrangement.
On many accounts one of the most valuable historical writers of this age.
Hoveden is of all our old chroniclers the most of a matter-of-fact man; he indulges occasionally in an epithet, rarely or never in a reflection, his one notion of writing history seems to be to pack as many particulars as possible into a given space, giving one the notion in perusing his close array of dates and items that he had felt continually pressed by the necessity of economizing his paper or parchment. It is true that he has no notion of the higher economy of discrimination and selection; but among the multitude of facts of all kinds that crowd his pages are many that are really curious and illustrative.
Roger of Hoveden’s Chronicle was based first upon a compilation made probably at Durham between the years of 1148 and 1161, and known as the “Historia Saxonum vel Anglorum post obitum Bedæ.” This chronicle was compiled from the histories of Simeon of Durham and Henry of Huntingdon. Roger of Hoveden added to this an account of the miracles of Edward the Confessor; an abstract of a charter of William the Conqueror, granting Heminburgh and Brackenholm to Durham; a copy of a charter by which Thomas I., archbishop of York, released Durham churches in his diocese from customary payments to the Archbishop; a list in French of warriors at the siege of Nice; and about eight other additions. The part of Hoveden’s Chronicle which extends from 1148 to 1170 is not founded upon any written authority except the chronicle of Melrose…. The Melrose Chronicle was based upon Simeon of Durham until the year 1121, and was then continued until 1169 with contemporary record. Between 1163 and 1169 Roger of Hoveden draws largely from the lives of Becket in the record of his quarrel with the king…. From 1169 to the spring of 1192 Roger of Hoveden’s Chronicle embodies, with occasional divergence, and addition of documents, chiefly northern, that of Benedict of Peterborough; and from 1192 to 1201, at which date the chronicle ends, the addition of documents especially relating to the north of England becomes a marked feature of the work. This is the part of the chronicle in which Roger of Hoveden is historian of his own time, and his work is of the highest value. The reputation of the chronicle was in its own time so good that Edward I. is said to have caused diligent search to be made for copies of it in the year 1291, in order that on its evidence he might adjust the disputes as to homage due to him from the Crown of Scotland.
