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A page from a 13th-century chronicle by Matthew Paris in England shows Noah’s ark resting on a stumpy mountain, visual evidence of one of Armenia’s most striking claims to Judeo-Christian centrality, as the final resting spot of the floating menagerie atop Mount Ararat.

Chronicler Matthew Paris's epitaph reflects the contempt with which John was widely held - but could also be a nod to his unpleasant demise.

The latest addition was a full-sized elephant presented by the King of France, and specially drawn for the record by the indefatigable news-hawk, Matthew Paris.

Peckham’s injunctions to nunneries show widespread breach of enclosure and some suspicious conduct during the ’80s, a nun of Lymbrook is guilty with a monk of Leominster in 1282, and besides Matthew Paris’ account of Grosseteste’s proceedings in the diocese of Lincoln in 1251, we have notice of apostates there in 1295, 1296 and 1298 and in the York diocese in 1286, 1287, 1293 and 1299.

The standard of the chronicles rapidly declined and the best chronicler of the fourteenth century was not a monk like Matthew Paris, but a secular, a wanderer, a hanger-on of princes, Froissart.