From St Albans to Chartres: John of Salisbury and the Lost Historia Johannis Turonensis

Abstract: Among the books that John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartres, bequeathed to the cathedral chapter library on his death in 1180 was an enigmatic title: "Historia Johannis Turonensis". The present article proposes its identification with the Liber historiarum , in Chartres, Mediathèque l'Apostrophe, ms. 169, the manuscript badly damaged and fragmented during the accidental bombing of the Chartres library in 1944. The physical and virtual reconstruction and re-arrangement of the book has led to a preliminary description of its contents and first observations on its date and origin, tracing the history of the manuscript from the scriptorium of the St Albans Abbey in England to the chapter library at Chartres.