What is “a medieval chronicle” often written by?

The story behind the answer

In the Middle Ages, literacy, parchment, and time to write were concentrated in monasteries and cathedral schools. Monks and other churchmen maintained scriptoria and kept annals tied to the liturgical calendar, expanding them into narratives of wars, rulers, famines, and miracles. Latin training and institutional continuity made these communities the natural custodians of written history.

This origin shapes what we know about the era. Chronicles often center on kings and bishops, interpret events as divine judgment, and preserve saints’ lives and charters, while saying little about everyday peasants or women. Notable examples—Bede’s histories, the St Albans tradition under Matthew Paris, and monastic versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—show how ecclesiastical pens recorded (and filtered) the medieval past.