Cabinet 18: Chronicles

Numerous chronicles recounting the history of England were produced in London in the fifteenth century, and all were published anonymously. They also all borrowed and copied information from each other, as well as other sources. Robert Fabyan’s (d. 1513) name became attached to a work known as The Newe Cronycles of England and Fraunce, and later, John Stow, in the sixteenth-century, confused this work with another now known today as The Great Chronicle. Whether Fabyan actually had a hand in The Great Chronicle is impossible to tell: at the very least both works draw on the same sources, and manuscripts of them appear to be written in the same hand.

The Great Chronicle of London, edited by A.H. Thomas and I.D. Thornley (London: George W. Jones, 1938) Special Collections DA 677 GS48