ABSTRACT
Thomas Elmham, Thomas Burton and John Whethamsted were all pre-eminent as local historians. The most ambitious work written as a result of the desire to substantiate the history of a religious house was Thomas Elmham’s Speculum Augustinianum. The same motives inspired Elmham, Burton and Whethamsted as caused the lesser monastic chroniclers to write local histories. Elmham’s powers of observation were supported by ability as a graphic artist. His awareness of the physical appearance of documents, seals and the like is well expressed in the pictures with which he illustrated his work. As in earlier times, the monks wrote to strengthen their position. Their objective was partly to increase the prestige of the monastic order and of individual houses, by proving that they had long and glorious pasts. Burton describes the disputes at Meaux from the mid-fourteenth century over abbatial elections and between abbot and convent, while one of Whethamsted’s objectives in writing was to prove the iniquity of his enemies.
