Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tinmouth, John de
TINMOUTH, JOHN de (fl. 1366), historian, was a native of Tynemouth, and for a time vicar of that town. Afterwards he became a Benedictine monk at St. Albans, of which house Tynemouth priory was a cell. He was the author of: 1. ‘Historia Aurea a Creatione ad tempus Edwardi III.’ Tinmouth's work seems to have ended at 1347, and is so given in Lambeth MSS. 10, 11, 12. A copy of the ‘Historia Aurea,’ also ending at 1347, is contained in Bodleian MS. 240, which was made for the monks of Bury St. Edmunds in 1377. A third copy at Cambridge C.C.C. MS. B i. ii., which was formerly at St. Albans, appears to contain a continuation to 1377. 2. ‘Martyrologium or Liber Servorum Dei Major.’ 3. ‘Sanctilogium; sive, de Vitis et Miraculis Sanctorum Angliæ, Scotiæ, et Hiberniæ,’ also called ‘Liber servorum Dei Minor.’ This is contained in Cotton MS. Tiberius E. 1. A number of lives extracted from the ‘Martyrologium’ or ‘Sanctilogium’ of John de Tinmouth are contained in Bodleian MS. 240. Tinmouth appears to have borrowed his lives of saints largely from the ‘Sanctilogium’ of Guido, abbot of St. Denys from 1326 to 1343. Tinmouth was in his turn laid under contribution by Capgrave, who borrowed from him nearly all the lives in his ‘Nova Legenda Anglie;’ but Tinmouth's collection contains some material not given by Capgrave. A number of Tinmouth's lives of saints are noticed in Hardy's ‘Descriptive Catalogue of British History.’ His life of St. Bregwin is printed in Wharton's ‘Anglia Sacra’ (ii. 75). Tinmouth is also credited with expositions on various books of the Bible, and with a lectionary for all the saints commemorated in the Sarum use.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. xxxiv. 439–40; Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue of British History; Arnold's Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, vol. i. pp. lxv–lxvi, where Tinmouth is confused with John Tyneworth, abbot of St. Edmund's from 1385 to 1389.]