Paris is responsible for the earliest maps of Great Britain we have; we quote the British Library, which has some copies:
This is the most comprehensive and artistically successful of four maps of Great Britain drawn by the 13th-century historian Matthew Paris, who was a monk at St Alban’s Abbey. Many geographical features are recognisable. His are the earliest surviving maps with such a high level of detail. They stand out in the history of medieval mapmaking as the first attempts to portray the actual physical appearance of the country rather than represent the relationship between places in simple schematic diagrams.
The accompanying illustration of Scotland they published is below.
The library has this to say about Paris:
He entered the Abbey of St Alban as a monk on 12 January 1217, and was probably born some 17 years earlier. Matthew spent the rest of his life there, apart from visits to the royal court in London, and a year-long mission that took him to an abbey in Norway. As his map shows, St Alban’s was the first stop on the journey north from London, a resting place for travellers who, no doubt, carried the latest news and gossip.
Matthew Paris produced the most important historical writings of the 13th century. His chief work, the ‘Chronica Major’, chronicled events from the creation of the world until 1259, the year he died. For its greater part, the ‘Chronica Major’ is a revision and expansion of an existing chronicle by an earlier St Alban’s monk, called Roger of Wendover. From 1235 onwards, however, it’s the first-hand record of events the author heard about or witnessed for himself.
Paris is one of the most engaging of medieval chroniclers. His accounts are detailed and well informed, with lively descriptions of people involved and analysis of the causes and significance of the events recorded. Matthew’s connections made him a well-placed observer of contemporary affairs. He was on personal terms both with the king, Henry III, and his influential brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall. At their courts he must have gained many insights into domestic and foreign politics.
His writings reveal a man of strong opinions who was not afraid to speak his mind. Being befriended and publicly honoured by Henry III on several occasions did not prevent him from being as critical of the king’s lack of prudence in political matters as he was praising of his piety in religion.
Paris was also an accomplished artist, providing many expert drawings in the margins of his manuscripts to illustrate the events he described. Among these are the first known views and plans of London. This map of Great Britain was intended as a complement to his shorter chronicle of English history.
Besides the accounts mentioned we also learn from The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe (2014) about Paris's description of the Mongols. Michael Pye sets it up this way:
...[W]hen Franciscans on a papal mission reached Kiev they saw for themselves what it meant to be defeated by the Mongols: 'an innumerable multitude of dead men's skulls and bones lying upon the earth'. 'They have no human laws, know no mercy, and are more cruel than lions or bears,' Matthew Paris wrote.'
There were no phones, no printing presses, of course, in this world. When a monk wrote an account the result was not a draft, it was the final copy, the only record, until someone perhaps copied it out again, to share. Matthew Paris did his own illuminations in the margins, also. This image is said to be a self-portrait of Matthew Paris:
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