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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hadenham, Edmund of

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745248Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 23 — Hadenham, Edmund of1890Reginald Lane-Poole

HADENHAM, EDMUND of (fl. 1307), chronicler, was a monk of Rochester, to whom is ascribed, on the authority of William Lambard, the Kentish topographer, an historical work preserved in the Cottonian Library (Nero, D. II.) in the British Museum. This manuscript, according to Wharton, contains a chronicle in one handwriting down to 1307, which is a copy of Matthew of Westminster, excepting that it contains a number of interspersed notices relating to the history of Rochester. These Rochester annals are printed in Wharton's 'Anglia Sacra,' i. 341-355 (1691). After 1307 there is a continuation in another hand, extending to 1377, but not dealing with Rochester affairs. The manuscript formerly belonged to John Joscelin, who, however, was ignorant of the authorship ('Catal. Hist.' in Robert of Avesbury, Hist. Edw. III, p. 293, ed. Hearne); and it may be presumed that Lambard, in attributing the work to Hadenham, had a different copy before him, which is not now known to exist.

[Wharton's Anglia Sacra, pref xxxi-xxxiii; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 368.]