Ralph Niger,

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

Radulphus Niger or Radulfus Niger,

anglicized Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

Ralph the Black (c. 1140 – c. 1217), was an Anglo-French theologian and one of the English chroniclers. He was from Bury St. Edmunds,

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

, and became Archdeacon of Gloucester. From around 1160 to 1166, Niger studied in Paris, where he was a student of

John of Salisbury John of Salisbury (late 1110s – 25 October 1180), who described himself as Johannes Parvus ("John the Little"), was an English author, philosopher, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres. Early life and education Born at Salisbury, ...

and Gerard la Pucelle, and, at some point in his life, probably also in

Poitiers Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglome ...

. At Paris, he may also have been a teacher of

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...

and

dialectics Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to ...

. Niger was part of

Thomas Becket Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then ...

's entourage during the latter's exile in France in the early 1160s and played an important role in connecting the exiled archbishop with Pope Alexander III's German ally Conrad of Mainz. After the reconciliation between Henry II and Becket, he was employed by the king, but he left England for France after Becket's murder in 1170. After Henry's death in 1189, he returned to England, where he became a canon in Lincoln.

Works

Apart from several theological works, Niger wrote two chronicles in Latin, one on the German emperors and the kings of France and England, which runs up to 1206, and the other one treating history from the world's origin up to the year 1199. In his chronicle, he remained a “violent partisan” of Becket and a critic of Henry, declaring that “the king let no year pass without molesting the country with new laws.” His English chronicle was continued by Ralph of Coggeshall. Niger also wrote a treatise ''De re militari'' in which he was critical towards the

Third Crusade The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt by three European monarchs of Western Christianity ( Philip II of France, Richard I of England and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor) to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by ...

. Niger is an important source for late

medieval music Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance ...

in Britain. A collection of four offices – Nativity, Annunciation, Assumption, and Purification — composed by him, both notation and text, is preserved in the library of

Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...

(15, fols. 33–43, excepting 42). He introduces the offices with a short Latin treatise on the

feasts A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival con ...

. Most of his works are secular.

Manuscripts

* Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library: ''In Librum Numerorum''; ''In Leviticum et Deuteronomium''; ''In I–II Regum''; ''In III–IV Regum''; ''In Patalipomena et Esdram''.

Editions

*''Chronicon''. Edited by Robert Anstruther. Caxton Society, 1851. Full tex
online
with list of known works in preface. *''De re militari et triplici via peregrinationis Ierosolimitane''. Edited by

Ludwig Schmugge Ludwig Schmugge (born 28 November 1939) is a German historian. Life Born in Berlin, Schmugge completed his dissertation on John of Jandun in 1964 in Paris with the help of a six-month scholarship from the Commission for the Study of the History ...

De Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

, 1977.

Sources

* ''Lexikon des Mittelalters'' (München/Zürich, 1977–1999) * K. Peltonen, ''History debated. The Historical Reliability of Chronicles in Pre-Critical and Critical Research. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society'' 64 (1996), 42, n. 125
Bibliography
at ''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The ''Monumenta Germaniae Historica'' (''MGH'') is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of Northwestern and Central European history from the end of the Roman Empir ...

'' * P. Buc, "Exégèse et pensée politique: Radulphus Niger (vers 1190) et Nicolas de Lyre (vers 1330)", in Joël Blanchard (ed.), ''Représentation, pouvoir et royauté à la fin du Moyen Age'' (Paris: Picard, 1995), 145-164''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niger, Ralph 12th-century Latin writers 12th-century English historians Archdeacons of Gloucester 12th-century births 13th-century deaths 13th-century English historians 13th-century Latin writers