perfect and sincere observance of religion for upwards of thirty years. In 1400 Richard was in the infirmary of the abbey, where he died in the following year. His only known extant work is Speculum Historiale de Gestis Regum Angliae, 447–1066. The MS. of this is in the university library at Cambridge, and has been edited for the Rolls Series (No. 30) by Professor J. E. B. Mayor (2 vols., London, 1863–69). It is in four books, and at the conclusion of the fourth book Richard expresses his intention of continuing his narrative from the accession of William I., and incorporating a sketch of the Conqueror's career from his birth. This design he does not, however, appear to have carried into effect. The value of the Speculum as a contribution to our historical knowledge is but slight, for it is mainly a compilation from other writers; while even in transscribing these the compiler is guilty of great carelessness. He gives, however, numerous charters relating to Westminster Abbey, and also a very complete account of the saints whose tombs were in the abbey church, and especially of Edward the Confessor. The work was, however, largely used by historians and antiquaries, until, with the rise of a more critical spirit, its value became more accurately estimated. Besides the Speculum Richard also wrote, according to the statement of William of Woodford in his Answer to Wyclifie (Edward Brown, Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum, p. 193), a treatise De Officiis; and there was formerly in the cathedral library at Peterborough another tractate from his pen, entitled Super Symbolum. Of neither of these works, however, does any known copy now exist.
The Speculum affords the most conclusive proof of the spuriousness of another work attributed to Richard and long accepted by the learned world as his. This was the De Situ Britanniae, an elaborate forgery relating to the antiquities of Roman Britain, which first appeared at Copenhagen in the year 1747. It was printed with the works of Gildas and Nennius, under the editorship of Charles Julius Bertram, professor of English in the academy of Copenhagen in the middleof the 18th century, with the following special title: “Richardi Corinensis monachi Westmonasteriensis de situ Britanniae libri duo. E. Codici MS. descripsit, Notisque et Indice adornavit Carolus Bertram.”
This forgery was accepted as genuine by a well-known antiquary of the 18th century, Dr William Stukeley, and under the sanction of his authority continued for a long time to be regarded in the same light by numerous scholars and antiquaries, includin Gibbon and Lingard. On the other hand, critics of a 'later dite gave expression, on various grounds, to a contrary conclusion. All doubt on the subject may, however, be held to have been effectually set at rest by the masterly exposure of the whole fraud drawn up by Professor Mayor in the preface to the edition above referred to of the Speculum. He has there not only demonstrated, from the external and internal evidence alike, the spuriousness of the whole treatise, but in a collation (extending to nearly a hundred pages) of numerous passages with corresponding passages in classical medieval authorities, has also traced out the various sources whence Bertram derived the terminology and the facts which he reproduced in the De Situ. (J. B. M.)
RICHARD OF DEVIZES (fl. 1191), English chronicler, was a monk of St Swithin's house at Winchester. His birthplace is probably indicated by his surname, but of his life we know nothing. He is credited by Bale: with the composition of the Annales de Wintonia, which are edited by Luard in the second volume of the Annales Monastici. If this statement be correct, then the chronicler survived King Richard I. But the Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, by which Richard of Devizes is chiefly known, only covers the first three years of that king's reign; it is practically an account of events in England and the Holy Land during the Third Crusade. For the events of the crusade itself, Richard is a poor authority. But his account of the preparations for the crusade, and of English affairs in the king's absence, is valuable, in spite of some inaccuracies. The author is intensely conservative, steeped in the prejudices of his order, and particularly hostile to the Jews and to the chancellor, William Longchamp. He writes in a vivid and epigrammatic style; his Latin shows the effect of the 12th century renaissance in its polish and in its reminiscences of classical poets.
See the editions of the Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi by J. Stevenson (Eng. Historical Soc., 1838) and by R. Howlett in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II. and Richard I., vol. iii. (Rolls Series, 1886; the Annales de Wintonia in H. R. Luard's Annales Monastici, vol. ii. (Rolls Series, London, 1864–69). (H. W. C. D.)
RICHARD OF HEXHAM (d. 1141), English chronicler, became prior of Hexham about 1141, and died between 1163 and 1178. He wrote Brevis Annotatio, a short history of the church of Hexham from 674 to 1138, for which he borrowed from Bede, Eddius and Simeon of Durham. This is published by J. Raine in The Priory of Hexham, its Chroniclers, Endowments and Annals (Durham, 1864–65). More important is his Historia de gestis regis Stephani et de bello Standardii, very valuable for the history of the north of England during the earlier part of the reign of Stephen, and especially for the battle of the Standard. This history, which is a contemporary one, covers the period from the death of Henry I. in 1135 to early in 1139. It has been edited for the Rolls Series by R. Howlett in the Chroniclers of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II. and Richard I., vol. iii. (1886); and has been translated by J. Stevenson in the Church Historians of England, vol. iv. (1856).
RICHARD OF ILCHESTER (d. 1188), English statesman and prelate, was born in the diocese of Bath, where he obtained preferment. Early in the reign of Henry II., however, he is found acting as a clerk in the king's court, probably under Thomas Becket, and he was one of the officials who assisted Henry in carrying out his great judicial and financial reforms. In 1162, or 1163, he was appointed archdeacon of Poitiers, but he passed most of his time in England, although in the next two or three years he visited Pope Alexander III. and the Emperor Frederick I. in the interests of the English king, who was then engaged in his struggle with Becket. For promising to support Frederick against Alexander he was excommunicated by Becket in 1166. Before this event, however, Richard had been appointed a baron of the exchequer, his great industry and exceptional abilities as an accountant being recognized by giving him a special seat at the exchequer table, and from 1168 until his death he frequently acted as one of the itinerant justices. Although totally immersed in secular business he received several rich ecclesiastical offices, and in May 1173 he was elected bishop of Winchester, being consecrated at Canterbury in October 1174. Richard still continued to serve Henry II. In 1176 he was appointed justiciar and seneschal of Normandy, and was given full control of all the royal business in the duchy. He died on the 21st or 22nd of December 1188, and was buried in Winchester cathedral. Richard owes his surname to the fact that Henry II. granted him a mill at Ilchester; he is also called Richard of Toclyve.
See the article by Miss K. Norgate in the Dict. Nat. Biog., vol. xlviii. (1896); and W. R. W. Stephens and W. W. Capes, The Bishops of Winchester (1907).
RICHARD OF ST VICTOR (d. 1173), theologian and mystic of the 12th century. Very little is known of his life; he was born in Scotland or in England, and went to Paris, where he entered the abbey of St Victor and was a pupil of the great mystic, Hugh of St Victor. He succeeded as prior of this house in 1162, and was continually contesting the tyrannical authority of the abbot Ervisius. His-writings, some of which are still in manuscript, are very numerous, the best known being his mystical treatises: De statu horninis interior is, De praeparatione anirni ad contemplation em, De gratia conternplationis, De gradibus caritatis, De arca nuptica, and his two works on the Trinity: De trinitate libri sex, De tribus appropriates personis in Trinitate. As is the case. with all the Victorines, his mysticism was a reaction against the philosophy of the schools of his time, a perpetual justification of contemplation as opposed to logical reasoning. According to him, six steps lead the soul to contemplation: (1) contemplation of visible and tangible objects; (2) study of the productions of nature and of art; (3) study of character; (4) study of souls and of spirits; (5) entrance to the mystical region which ends in (6) ecstasy. His theory of the Trinity is chiefly based on the arguments of Anselm of Canterbury, although a certain deification of the social sense is evident.
