Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes
Récits d’un bourgeois de Valenciennes aka The Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes is a vivid 14th-century vernacular chronicle written by an anonymous urban chronicler from Valenciennes in the County of Hainaut. It survives in a manuscript that describes local and regional history from about 1253 to 1366, blending chronology, narrative episodes, and eyewitness-style accounts of political, military, and social events in medieval France, Flanders, and the Low Countries. The work begins with a chronological framework of events affecting Valenciennes and its region under rulers such as King Philip VI of France and the shifting allegiances of local nobility. It includes accounts of conflicts, sieges, diplomatic manoeuvres, and the impact of broader struggles like the Hundred Years’ War on urban life in Hainaut. Written from the perspective of a burgher (bourgeois) rather than a monastery or royal court, the chronicle offers a rare lay viewpoint on high politics and warfare, reflecting how merchants, townspeople, and civic institutions experienced the turbulence of the 13th and 14th centuries. Its narrative style combines straightforward reporting of events with moral and civic observations, making it a valuable source for readers interested in medieval urban society, regional politics, and the lived experience of war and governance in pre-modern Europe.
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Avebury Type Cove
Arbor Low Henge and Stone Circle
Avebury North Circle Cove
Longstones Cove aka Devil's Quoits
Stanton Drew Cove
Stenness Type Cove
Stones of Stenness
Cove is in Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age Monuments.
Cove describes a either a three-sided structure, the Avebury Type, formed from upright stones typically at the centre of a Stone Circles or the end of an Avenue, or the Stenness Type: three stones, inline, with the middle offset, as per the following diagram:
A Avebury Type Cove describes three stones set in a C shape.
Arbor Low Henge and Stone Circle [Map]. Aubrey Burl, in his book "A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany", states "The three sided Cove is now prostrate, two huge sides tumbled outwards, a long low stone on edge like a sill or septal slab between them at the east and other little stones nearby. A skeleton of a man about 5ft 5ins tall was buried againbst the eastern corner. Immediately east was a deep pit with a human armbone in it. "It is possible", wtrote the excavator, "That a skeleton or skeltons may have been removed from here".
A Stenness Type Cove describes three stones, inline, with the centre stone offset, as per the diagram:
3100BC. The Stones of Stenness [Map] is a Henge and Stone Circles erected around 3100BC based on radio-carbon dating; it isn't clear who undertook the dating? Aubrey Burl, in his book "A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany", states "The setting [Stenness Type Cove] had consisted of three erect stones, two in line side by side, N-S, separated by a narrow gap behind which the third stood like the backstone of a chamber. It is a form of Cove.