Circa 1200-1259
English Monk And Historian

Obscure Origins. Matthew Paris was a monk of the Benedictine Order at the Abbey of St. Albans in England in the first half of the thirteenth century. The exact date of his birth is not known, nor are the details of his early life, but his activities become somewhat easier to follow once he became a monk on 21 January 1217 and subsequently expressed himself in many writings.

Monk of the Monastery. It is quite common to associate monks of the Middle Ages with remote monasteries, because generally only monastic monks had the privilege of engaging in a relatively pure religious life, especially important to contemporary notions of spirituality, such as isolation and economic independence of the community. A religious site was founded at St. Albans in Hertfordshire, England, around 793 and developed with construction of the renowned abbey church in 1077, leading to...