John Trevisa finished translating the Polychronicon, a universal history of the world compiled from Latin sources by Ranulf Higden, into English on 18 April 1387. The chronicle foregrounds geography in Book I, which Ranulf calls a mappamundi or a map of the world. The book begins at ‘Inde’ (a nice pun in Middle English) and concludes with England. In the course of the geographical description of England, Ranulf devotes a disproportionate number of words to describing his native city of Chester, thus revealing his loyalty to that place. In a similar manner, Trevisa reveals his loyalty to Cornwall in a series of interpolated notes. These additions make clear that both compiler and translator associate personal identity with place of origin. Their references to Chester and Cornwall respectively reveal a relationship between identity and geography, but because Ranulf and Trevisa are loyal to different places, a new narrative tension arises between Ranulf’s Chester and Trevisa’s Cornwall in the English Polychronicon.

On one side, Ranulf’s historical association with Chester, the acrostic he uses in the Latin Polychronicon, and his description of Chester from Book I of the Polychronicon give pride of place to Chester. Cornwall, though mentioned in passing by several authorities cited in Book I, receives no extended consideration from Ranulf. Trevisa responds to this silence by first acknowledging, then subverting, and finally criticising Ranulf’s connection to Chester. Within the same narrative space, Trevisa tells his own side of the geographical story, interpolating several notes on his native Cornwall. In order to put Cornwall on the map of England and of the world (at least as that map is imagined in Book I of the Polychronicon), Trevisa insists on Cornwall’s rightful place in the English nation, both as a shire and as a part of the see of Exeter, and on its contributions to English language instruction in grammar schools. Then in Book IV, following up on remarks he makes in Book I, he makes comments which can be construed as emphasising the Cornish or Celtic contribution to English national identity as embodied by King Arthur. As a result, the geographical loyalties of the compiler and the translator of the Polychronicon pull against one another, creating a dynamic tension in the English chronicle that was not present in the Latin one.