John de Taxster

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates John de Taxster, Taxter, or TaysterTemplate:Sfnp ( or ; died Template:C.), sometimes erroneously called Taxston,Template:Sfnp was a 13th-century English chronicler and monk at Bury St Edmunds Abbey. Nothing is known of his life apart from what is reported in or understood from his work on the 13th and 14th-century Bury Chronicle.

Life

File:Abbey Garden Ruins (2615188195).jpg

The ruins of Bury St Edmunds Abbey.

Nothing is known of John de Taxster except what is recorded in or understood from his own work.Template:Sfnp His surnameTemplate:Mdashgiven as Taxster in one manuscript and Tayster in anotherTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Mdashmay be a variant of , a weaver.Template:Sfnp

He noted in his section of the Bury Chronicle that he was professed as a Benedictine monk at Bury St Edmunds Abbey in Suffolk, England, on 20 November 1244Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp or 1255.Template:Sfnp He does not seem to have held any notable position at the abbeyTemplate:Sfnp and is remembered for his contribution to the Bury Chronicle, where he seems to have written the section from the Creation to 1265Template:Sfnp during the early 1260s.Template:Sfnp It is possible that the version of the chronicle in British Library Cotton Julius MS A 1 was Taxster's own holograph.Template:Sfnp If so, he wrote a cursive book hand in black ink with important passages marked in red.Template:Sfnp

Taxster's chronicle is an important early source on the aftermath of King John's 1215 granting of the Magna Carta and a contemporary source for the 1264–1267 Second Barons' War that upheld its place in English law.Template:Sfnp Overall, Taxster himself seems to have supported the baronial party, criticizing the severity and foreignness of King HenryIII and Queen Eleanor and noting the popular veneration of Simon de Montfort.Template:Sfnp

Taxster probably died around 1265, when his portion of the chronicle ends.Template:Sfnp His notice of the miracles credited to Simon de Montfort's relics appear to have been scratched from the Cotton Julius manuscript, probably around 1266 when HenryIII returned to power.Template:Sfnp

Works

Taxster's chronicle forms the first part of the Bury Chronicle, in which he seems to have been followed by two other writers. His section covers all of the time from the Creation to 1265 but nearly all of the early entries are simply copied from John of Worcester and other sources.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp His original content is usually considered to begin with the entry for the year 1212,Template:Sfnp although it's a bit uncertain given that surviving manuscripts of the Annals are missing their final pages.Template:Sfnp

See also

• John of Eversden, author of a chronicle at Bury St Edmunds continuing John de Taxster's work
• Jocelyn de Brakelond, author of the Chronicle of the Abbey of St Edmunds Template:C.–1202
• Chronicle of John of Oxnead, another chronicle of the era written at St Benet's Abbey in Norfolk
• Geoffrey de Runcey, a later chronicler from Bury St Edmunds

References

Bibliography

• .
• Template:Catholic
• .
• .
• .
• .
• Template:Cite DNB