Adam Usk (Medieval Studies)

Introduction

The chronicler Adam Usk was born in the parish of Usk in South Wales around 1350 and died there in early 1430, but the life he led was far from parochial, involving intrigue, betrayal, great danger, and considerable achievement. Trained as a lawyer at the University of Oxford, he briefly rose to prominence in the service of the archbishop of Canterbury and King Henry IV of England following the latter’s usurpation of the throne in 1399. In the spring of 1401, when he was at the height of his influence, he began writing the chronicle for which he is primarily remembered. Although written as a continuation of the Polychronicon, or universal chronicle, of Ranulf Higden, it is generally treated as a separate chronicle in its own right. It covers the years 1377 to 1421 and describes, often briefly, several of the major events that occurred in England and Wales during the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V but is especially important for its accounts of the downfall of King Richard II and of the Welsh revolt against English rule led by Owain Glyndwr, which are cited by almost all historians of these momentous events. Within a year of starting to write his chronicle, however, Usk decided to go abroad to seek promotion at the papal court in Rome, where his indiscretions led within a few years to him being branded a traitor by Henry IV and deprived of his benefices, so that it was another nine years before he was pardoned and allowed to return to England and a further three before, in 1414, he decided to resume his chronicle, which he continued to do in an increasingly desultory fashion until the summer of 1421. Unusually for a medieval chronicler, Usk wove much autobiographical material into his narrative, but the controversies in which he became embroiled meant that he was obliged to be highly selective in what he wrote, leading to much speculation by modern historians and literary scholars about his truthfulness and his periodically oblique and quasi-penitential mode of narration. In his will of January 1430, he bequeathed his chronicle to a kinsman, Edward ap Adam, but it was not until the 19th century that it was rediscovered and edited, since when it has been extensively used as an important independent account of the events through which Usk lived and in which he participated.

Manuscripts, Editions, and Extracts

The chronicle of Adam Usk is divided between two manuscripts: fos. 155–176 of Additional Manuscript 10,104 in the British Library, London; and an uncatalogued quire of six folios in the muniment room of Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire. That these were originally part of the same manuscript there is no doubt. The British Library manuscript was Usk’s own copy of Higden’s Polychronicon from the creation of the world to 1342, with an anonymous continuation from 1342 to 1377, on the unused folios of which Usk composed his own chronicle before bequeathing the whole manuscript to Edward ap Adam, probably his nephew. Marginal jottings by Elizabethan antiquaries indicate that for some 200 years after Usk’s death, the manuscript remained undivided, but at some point before 1836, when the British Library acquired Additional Manuscript 10,104, the final quire became separated. How and why it ended up at Belvoir Castle is not known. It meant, however, that the first published edition of Usk’s chronicle, by Thompson in 1876, comprised only the twenty-two folios in the British Library manuscript, ending abruptly in 1405. Within another thirty years, remarkably, the final quire, with the text from 1405 to 1421, was discovered and identified at Belvoir Castle, so that Thompson 1904 comprises the first edition with translation of the whole chronicle. Given-Wilson 1997 is similarly based upon both the British Library and the Belvoir Castle manuscripts and is a complete edition and translation with a lengthy introduction describing the manuscripts and the story of their discovery. Given-Wilson 1995 is the most detailed account of the process by which Usk composed his chronicle, which was in four sections: the first covered the years from 1377 to early 1401 and was written in the spring of 1401; the second covered April 1401 to February 1402 and was composed contemporaneously; the third covered February 1402 to February 1414 and was written in 1414; and the fourth covered April 1414 to June 1421 and was composed contemporaneously. Eleven different scribes acted as Usk’s amanuenses in writing his chronicle. Translated extracts from Usk’s chronicle can also be found in Given-Wilson 1993, relating to the capture, deposition, and death of Richard II, and in Livingston and Bollard 2013, and Marchant 2014, on the Glyndwr revolt.

Given-Wilson, C. Chronicles of the Revolution, 1397–1400. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1993.
DOI: 10.7765/MMSO.35265Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Includes translated extracts from Usk’s chronicle illustrating the importance of his account of the later years and deposition of Richard II.
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Given-Wilson, C. “The Dating and Structure of the Chronicle of Adam Usk.” Welsh History Review 17 (1995): 520–533.
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Demonstrates that Usk’s chronicle was written in four sections over a period of twenty years, from 1401 to 1421.
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Given-Wilson, C. The Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377–1421. Oxford: Oxford Medieval Texts, 1997.
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The standard modern edition and translation of Usk’s chronicle, with a 90-page introduction discussing his life, career, and approach to the writing of history.
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Livingston, M., and K. Bollard. Owain Glyn Dwr: A Casebook. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2013.
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Documents of various kinds, including extracts from chronicles, relating to the Glyndwr revolt and its legacy, in original language with facing-page translations, interspersed with explanatory essays.
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Marchant, A. The Revolt of Owain Glyndwr in Medieval English Chronicles. York, UK: York Medieval Press, 2014.
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A detailed study of the chronicles of the first two decades of the 15th century and their attitudes to the Welsh revolt, which devotes extensive discussion to Usk’s chronicle and includes translated extracts from it in an appendix.
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Thompson, E. Chronicon Adae de Usk 1377–1421. London: Royal Society of Literature, 1904.
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The first complete edition and translation of Usk’s chronicle, following Thompson’s 1876 edition of the first part of the chronicle, also published by the Royal Society of Literature, before the discovery of the manuscript of the latter part of the text.
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Usk’s Life and Career I: The Reign of Richard II

The semiautobiographical nature of Usk’s chronicle makes the story of his life an integral part of making sense of his narrative, although his sense of self-importance and the controversies in which he became involved mean that he did not always tell the whole truth about himself. Local tradition has it that he was born around 1350 in a room above the gatehouse of Usk Castle. As Llewellyn William 1921, Evans 1991, and Courtney 1994 demonstrate, he remained strongly attached to his native town, which his chronicle mentioned on several occasions. The lordship of Usk was held at this time by the Mortimer earls of March, and it was under their patronage that Usk studied law at Oxford during the 1370s and 1380s, following the course of study described in Catto and Evans 1984. In 1388–1389, he was implicated in an affray between northern and southern students at the university; although indicted for insurrection, he escaped serious punishment and held a chair in civil law at the university from 1390 to 1395, when he left the university to work as a lawyer for the archbishop of Canterbury in the Court of Arches. In 1397 the incumbent archbishop, Thomas Arundel, was exiled by King Richard II; when Arundel joined with another exile, Henry, duke of Lancaster, to invade England in 1399, Usk soon joined them, and when Lancaster became King Henry IV, Usk found favor with the new regime, receiving important legal commissions from the king, high-ranking clerics, and nobles. Although Usk was never at pains to understate his own importance, it is clear that during the first two years of Henry IV’s reign he did indeed enjoy considerable influence. However, as shown in Given-Wilson 2003, the usurpation of Henry IV presented him with a conflict of interests, for many contemporaries believed that it was not Henry who was the rightful heir to the throne after Richard II but Edmund Mortimer, the eight-year-old successor to the earldom of March and scion of the family to which Usk owed his career; it was the Mortimer family, he wrote when he began his chronicle in early 1401, which, “being united with the royal line, is in truth worthy to rise to the very highest degrees of honour.” Barely had he written these words, however, when he was confronted by a still greater test of loyalties, the revolt of Owain Glyndwr.

Catto, J., and R. Evans. The History of the University of Oxford I: The Early Oxford Schools. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
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Provides the background to Usk’s time as a student and professor of law at Oxford in the late 14th century.
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Courtney, P. Medieval and Later Usk. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1994.
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Background information on Usk’s native town and the castle where he is said to have been born.
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Evans, J. “Adam of Usk in his Native Place.” Gwent Local History 70 (1991): 15–18.
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Briefly examines the evidence for Usk’s local roots.
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Given-Wilson, C. “Chronicles of the Mortimer Family, c. 1250–1450.” In Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England. Edited by R. Eales and S. Tyas, 67–86. Donington, UK: Shaun Tyas, 2003.
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A study of the corpus of chronicles, including that of Usk, written for or about the Mortimer family in the later middle ages.
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Llewellyn William, W. “Adam of Usk.” Y Cymmrodor 31 (1921): 135–160.
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An early but still useful discussion of Usk’s life and some of the evidential problems in his chronicle.
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Usk’s Life and Career II: The Welsh Revolt, Disgrace, and Last Years

The Glyndwr revolt, which broke out in September 1400 and is fully described in Davies 1995, was the defining event of the second part of Usk’s life and is treated with great circumspection in his chronicle. Williams 1976 shows that Welsh clerks always found it difficult to secure advancement in an English-dominated Church, but the early 15th century was doubly dispiriting. As Davies 1978 shows, Glyndwr and his fellow rebels had good reasons to resent the ethnically divisive policies of English landlords and administrators during the 14th century. Glyndwr also attracted a degree of support in England, as demonstrated in Griffiths 1963 and Griffiths 1964. The suspicion that Usk sympathized with the Welsh helped to block his promotion in England and led him to leave for Rome in 1402, where he spent the next four years, infuriating Henry IV by trying to get himself provided by the pope to a succession of sees and becoming caught up in the antipapal riots of 1405. His dislike of Rome is noted in Balzani 1880, and in 1406 he left the city and went through France to Flanders, where he met the exiled earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolf, although he wisely declined their invitation to join their invasion of England. However, worse was to come: as Gabriel 1923 and Matthews 2010 demonstrate, in 1406, when Glyndwr switched the allegiance of the Welsh Church to the antipope Benedict XIII at Avignon, his supporters became schismatics as well as traitors. Nevertheless, Usk threw in his lot with the rebels and in 1406–1407 accepted provision to the bishopric of Llandaff from Benedict XIII. When Henry IV heard this, he declared Usk a traitor and deprived him of all his benefices. However, in the following year, Usk made a deal whereby if he agreed to return to Wales and spy on the Welsh rebels, he would be pardoned and allowed to return to England. This he did, returning to England in 1411, but he never regained his former prominence, and after his patron Archbishop Arundel died in 1414, he gradually faded into insignificance. His last years were spent in Usk, where he made his will, first edited in Owen 1903, on January 20, 1430, and died before the end of March. He is buried in St Mary’s Church, Usk, where his epitaph, translated from Welsh in Morris-Jones 1921, can still be seen.

Balzani, U. “La storia di Roma nella cronica di Adamo da Usk.” Archivio della societa romana di storia patria 3 (1880): 473–488.
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Uses Usk’s account of his time in Rome between 1402 and 1406 to illustrate features of early 15th-century Roman life and papal politics.
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Davies, R. Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1284–1400. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.
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The standard work on Wales under English rule during the 14th century, demonstrating the circumstances leading up to the outbreak of the Glyndwr revolt in 1400.
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Davies, R. The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205081.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The fullest and liveliest account of the Welsh revolt, which was to play such a decisive part in Usk’s career.
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Gabriel, J. “Wales and the Avignon Papacy.” Archaeologia Cambrensis 78 (1923): 70–86.
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Detailed discussion of the Franco-Welsh and papal discussions and their implications for the Welsh Church.
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Griffiths, R. “Some Partisans of Owain Glyndwr at Oxford.” Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 20 (1963): 282–292.
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Examines the role of students at Oxford University, including Usk, in supporting the Welsh revolt.
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Griffiths, R. “Some Secret Supporters of Owain Glyndwr?” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 37 (1964): 77–100.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.1964.tb02108.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Broadens the argument in Griffiths 1963 to examine the extent of support in England for Owain Glyndwr.
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Matthews, T. Welsh Records in Paris. 2d ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2010.
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Second edition, with introduction, of documents relating to Franco-Welsh relations in the early 15th century, including the Pennal declaration of allegiance to the Avignon papacy.
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Morris-Jones, J. “Adam Usk’s Epitaph.” Y Cymmrodor 31 (1921): 112–134.
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A careful and widely accepted elucidation of the epitaph to Usk found in Usk parish church, Gwent.
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Owen, E. “The Will of Adam Usk.” English Historical Review 18 (1903): 316–317.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/XVIII.LXX.316Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Prints and translates Usk’s will, made on January 20, 1430 and proved on March 26, 1430, from the probate registry in Somerset House, London.
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Williams, G. The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation. 2d ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1976.
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Second edition of a comprehensive study charting the growing control by the English of the Welsh Church between the 11th and the 16th century.
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Surveys of Historical Writing in Late Medieval England

Since the discovery and publication of Usk’s chronicle in the late 19th century, general works on chroniclers writing in late medieval England such as Kingsford 1913, Gransden 1982, Taylor 1987, Galloway 1997, and Given-Wilson 2004, have consistently noted its importance as a primary source for the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Surveys of chronicles covering the reign of Richard II, such as Duls 1975, Martin 1997, and Taylor 1999, have accorded it a special significance. The passage in Usk’s chronicle that is most frequently quoted is his description of his visit to the Tower of London on September 21, 1399 when, as a member of the deposition committee, he was taken to observe the king while he dined and heard him bemoan his fate and the fickleness of the English people; whereupon, despite Usk’s belief that Richard was the primary author of his own downfall, he departed “much moved at heart.” His accounts of Henry of Lancaster’s seizure of Richard and of the subsequent deliberations of the deposition committee are also widely recognized as a crucial source for the revolution of 1399 in England. Among the other passages in Usk’s chronicle that are often cited as being of particular interest are his account of the riots at Oxford in 1388–1389; his report on Richard II’s Revenge Parliament of 1397–1398; the story of his journey to Rome in the spring of 1402, which included crossing the Alps by the St Gotthard pass, “carried in an oxcart, almost frozen to death from the snow, and blindfolded to stop me seeing the perils of the journey”; the independent and often incidental information that reached him about the Glyndwr revolt, presumably through his contacts in Wales; his description of the customs and games of the Romans, and of the riots there in 1405; the role of prophecy, portents, and dreams in his chronicle; and his unusually revealing autobiographical material. The relationship between Usk’s chronicle and the Polychronicon to which it served as a continuation is discussed in Taylor 1966.

Duls, L. Richard II in the Early Chronicles. Paris: Mouton, 1975.
DOI: 10.1515/9783111392103Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the attitudes of several chroniclers, including Usk, toward Richard II.
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Galloway, A. “Writing History in England.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Edited by D. Wallace, 255–283. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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A survey of historical writing in late medieval England from a literary point of view, covering a lot of ground for a relatively short article.
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Given-Wilson, C. Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England. London: Hambledon, 2004.
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Thematic survey of English chronicles written between c. 1270 and 1420, focusing on chroniclers’ approach to the task of writing history.
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Gransden, A. Historical Writing in England II: c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.
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Encyclopaedic survey of chronicles and other historical material written in England between the early 14th and the early 16th century; an essential work of reference.
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Kingsford, C. English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon, 1913.
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Pioneering study of chronicles and other contemporary material written in England during the 15th century, based on extensive study of manuscripts.
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Martin, G. “Narrative Sources for the Reign of Richard II.” In The Age of Richard II. Edited by J. Gillespie, 51–69. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1997.
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Brief survey of the way in which Richard II was viewed by contemporary chroniclers, including Usk.
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Taylor, J. The Universal Chronicle of Ranulf Higden. Oxford: Clarendon, 1966.
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The standard modern account of the Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden and its continuations, including Usk’s chronicle, which was originally written as a continuation to his own copy of Higden.
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Taylor, J. English Historical Literature in the Fourteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
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Wide-ranging discussion of chronicles, letter collections, and other historical material dating from the 14th century, extensively based on manuscripts.
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Taylor, J. “Richard II in the Chronicles.” In Richard II: The Art of Kingship. Edited by A. Goodman and J. Gillespie, 15–35. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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A survey of contemporary views of Richard II, setting Usk’s view of the king in context.
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Political Background to Usk’s Career

Usk lived through turbulent times, and his chronicle frequently laments the troubles of the age and the impact they had on his own life and career. He regarded King Richard II, with whose accession in 1377 his chronicle begins, as foolish and vainglorious, broadly substantiating the view of the king to be found in modern studies of the reign such as Saul 1997 and Bennett 1999, both of which use his work extensively. Thus when the exiled Henry of Lancaster and Archbishop Arundel returned to England in July 1399, Usk joined them at Bristol and accompanied their army of invasion to Chester, where he witnessed first-hand both the downfall of Richard and the duplicity used by Lancaster to capture him, the latter ably demonstrated in Sherborne 1989. Within another few days, Usk was appointed to the committee charged with drafting a legal justification for Richard’s deposition and Henry’s usurpation. Yet, as noted in Clarke and Galbraith 1930 and Sayles 1981, Usk’s account of the deposition process, like his account of Henry’s invasion, was by no means simply an exercise in pro-Lancastrian propaganda, being tempered not least by his high regard for the Mortimer family. Thus, despite his support for the overthrow of Richard II, Usk’s attitude to the new king, Henry IV, was ambivalent, and he evidently regarded the disorder and rebellions that followed Henry’s usurpation, which are fully described and analyzed in Walker 2000, Dunn 2003, and Dodd and Biggs 2003, as stemming to some degree from Henry’s mode of governance. Usk’s absence from England between 1402 and 1411 means that his narrative of these years is sketchy, but following his return to England in 1411 his chronicle once again becomes a useful source. It is clear that he admired Henry V more than he had admired Henry IV, and he had nothing but praise for the king’s suppression of the Lollard uprising of 1414 and his exploits in France from 1414 to 1420, thereby broadly agreeing with the views of Allmand 1992 and Harriss 1987. However, as his chronicle came to an end in the summer of 1421, his last words were of warning to the king, that his “unbearable impositions” of taxation on the English people were being “miserably wasted on this enterprise,” and he prayed that as a result Henry V would not “incur the sword of the Lord’s fury.”

Allmand, C. Henry V. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1992.
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The most complete biography of Henry V, focusing especially on the king’s war in France.
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Bennett, M. Richard II and the Revolution of 1399. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1999.
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An examination of Ricardian politics at home and abroad that deals with more than just the revolution of 1399.
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Clarke, M., and V. Galbraith. “The Deposition of Richard II.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 14 (1930): 125–181.
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Locates Usk’s account of Richard II’s capture and deposition within the contemporary chronicle tradition, especially the context of Lancastrian propaganda.
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Dodd, G., and D. Biggs. Henry IV: The Establishment of the Regime. York: York Medieval, 2003.
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A wide-ranging volume of articles analyzing the difficulties faced by Henry IV in the years following his usurpation.
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Dunn, A. The Politics of Magnate Power in England and Wales, 1389–1413. Oxford: Clarendon, 2003.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263103.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of the political alliances and rivalries of the great noble families of the period, including Usk’s patrons, the Mortimers.
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Harriss, G. Henry V: The Practice of Kingship. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
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A thoughtful collection of articles dealing mainly with the king’s domestic rule rather than his foreign policy.
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Saul, N. Richard II. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
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The standard modern account of the king under whom Usk rose to prominence and to whose deposition committee he was appointed.
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Sayles, G. “The Deposition of Richard II: Three Lancastrian Narratives.” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 54 (1981): 257–270.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.1981.tb01233.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study of three texts describing the process of Richard’s deposition, with which Usk’s account is contrasted.
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Sherborne, J. “Perjury and the Lancastrian Revolution of 1399.” Welsh History Review 14 (1989): 217–242.
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Demonstrates the extent to which Henry IV perjured himself in his capture of Richard II and usurpation of the throne in 1399.
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Walker, S. “Rumour, Sedition and Popular Protest in the Reign of Henry IV.” Past and Present 166 (2000): 31–65.
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Study of the part played by rumor and prophecy in stirring up sedition against Henry IV.
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Usk as a Writer

From the late 20th century, literary scholars took a deeper interest in Usk’s chronicle. Galloway 1997 points to the penitential posture and allusive style that Usk adopted, whereby he perhaps hoped to deflect the reader’s attention from the consequences of the political choices he was forced to make in a world made slippery by treason and schism. Justice 2015 notes that at several points in his chronicle Usk seemed to want to reveal secrets but then pulled himself up short. The effect of this guilt that could not quite express itself produced an anxious tone of narration; on the other hand, Usk seemed at other times quite happy to recount facts that, on the face of it, needed to be concealed. This also leads Justice to analyze Usk’s use of the ars dictaminis, the vocational training in the art of rhetorical letters that was second nature to most lawyers; as Justice notes, it was at the point that Usk came into conflict with royal power that his careful attention to the ars dictaminis began to waver, thereby producing the more unsettling style that is characteristic of most of his chronicle. Marchant 2014 focuses on the occasions in the chronicle when he wrote about his internal mental and spiritual struggles, sometimes referring to his private doubts and at other times interpreting dreams that he believed to have been divinely inspired. The profusion of prophecies, portents, and dreams in Usk’s chronicle is noted in a number of works that examine the use of prophecy in medieval historical writing, such as Taylor 1911, Coote 2000, and Giffin 1941, the last of which focuses on the special importance of prophecy in the works of Welsh writers. Yandell 2004 focuses on Usk’s view of the relationship between prophecy and history, arguing that the ambiguity and potency of prophecy provided him with a way of negotiating a dangerous world. The same might be said at times of Usk’s narration of public events: Given-Wilson 1993 explains how, although Usk pointed out that he was present throughout Richard II’s controversial Revenge Parliament of 1397–1398, thereby investing his account of it with eye-witness authority, he nevertheless chose to base his account of it on a semiofficial tract that probably originated in the royal chancery; however, he also felt at liberty to amend or distort this tract in order to present a less favorable view of the king.

Coote, L. Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England. York, UK: York Medieval Press, 2000.
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An up-to-date study of the role of prophecy in late medieval English public and political life, including a list of manuscripts that contain political prophecies.
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Galloway, A. “Private Selves and the Intellectual Marketplace in Late Fourteenth-Century England: The Case of the Two Usks.” New Literary History 28 (1997): 291–318.
DOI: 10.1353/nlh.1997.0022Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Studies the “penitential posture” adopted by Usk in his chronicle and notes the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in his mode of narrative presentation.
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Giffin, M. “Cadwaladr, Arthur and Brutus in the Wigmore Manuscript.” Speculum 16 (1941): 109–120.
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A study of the “matter of Britain” and its role in inspiring later medieval Welsh and prophetic texts, including Usk’s chronicle.
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Given-Wilson, C. “Adam Usk, the Monk of Evesham, and the Parliament of 1397–8.” Historical Research 66 (1993): 329–335.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.1993.tb01817.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that Usk and at least one other chronicler based their accounts of Richard II’s “Revenge Parliament” on a semiofficial tract.
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Justice, S. Adam Usk’s Secret. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
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A literary study of the hidden meanings in Usk’s chronicle and the secretive voice that he employed to compose it, concluding that the chronicler’s “secret” was “a trick of style.”
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Marchant, A. “Adam, You Are in a Labyrinth: The First-Person Voice as the Nexus between Body and Spirit in the Chronicle of Adam Usk.” In Conjunctions of Mind, Soul and Body from Plato to the Enlightenment. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 15. Edited by D. Kambaskovic-Sawers, 47–68. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Spring, 2014.
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Examines Usk’s mode of narration, especially the way he alternates between a reflective first-person mode and a more detached third-person mode.
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Taylor, R. The Political Prophecy in England. New York: Columbia University Press, 1911.
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Pioneering study of the various political prophecies appearing in English chronicles, their development, and the ways in which they were used.
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Yandell, S. “Prophetic Authority in Adam of Usk’s Chronicle.” In Prophet Margins: The Medieval Vatic Impulse and Social Stability. Edited by E. Risden, K. Moranski, and S. Yandell, 79–100. New York: Peter Lang, 2004.
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An examination of the role and uses of prophecy in Usk’s chronicle, arguing that the relationship between prophecy and history was one of the ways in which Usk sought to establish his own authority.