This chapter uses medieval chronicles and annals to explore how river disasters were understood and remembered, and how people chose to tell stories about rivers. A focus on floods brings up issues of risk and resilience, and how floods were interpreted by medieval people. The chapter also focuses on how rivers are connected to other memorable and historic events and why they were such powerful stories. The chapter then turns to the ways that rivers were incorporated into monastic memory and to stories of foundation, and how holy sites were seen as revealed by God and the saints. The chapter ends with a case study focused on St. Sturm and the monastery of Fulda, with a focus on the role of rivers in the house’s history.

This chapter takes the writings of the thirteenth-century chronicler Matthew Paris of St Albans (c.1200-1259) as a case study for recurring themes in this volume. In particular, it draws attention to the complex interplay between the author, his community, and a wider circle of patrons, dependents and visitors. It starts from the premise that historical writing was both a cultural and a social practice. That is, chroniclers did not operate in isolation, but as part of a broader network of those providing models, support and information. In Matthew’s case, a distinctive authorial voice and an equally distinctive manuscript tradition prove especially fruitful. They allow us to gain deeper insights not only into his own approach towards writing about the past, but also the expectations of his fellow-brethren and their benefactors, and into shifting practices in thirteenth-century historical culture at St Albans as well as in England and Latin Europe at large. Key themes include the salvific, hermeneutical and devotional aspects of historical writing, and conventions of genre and historiographical practice.