A Study and Edition of The Chronicle Richard Fox from Richard II to Henry VI

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This project aims to provide a study and edition of the 1448 Chronicle of Richard Fox of St Albans, found in Woburn Abbey MS 181. In approximately 180,000 words, the Chronicle covers over five centuries of history, from Alfred the Great (871-899) to Henry VI (1422-61). However, it is the final quarter, from the reign of Richard II, where Fox may have had access to eyewitness accounts of the events he narrates making it a valuable source for historians. Comparisons between Fox's work and his source material also illuminate the unique contribution that the history makes in expanding our knowledge of the late medieval era. It is this section that contains several unique anecdotes which shed light on important events such as the potential origins of the peasants' revolt and hitherto unknown stories from British history, including Richard II's premature birth. Some of these anecdotes remained influential in histories into the late nineteenth-century.Examining other documents associated with Fox, including his will listing all his books and his literary miscellany exhibiting his connections with other authors, as well as the historical records associated with St Albans will build a clearer picture of Fox's social and intellectual environment. My thesis will situate the production of his Chronicle within the broader framework of fifteenth-century authorship. The main output will be a PhD thesis comprising a study of what is known about Fox, his manuscript, and his social and intellectual milieux, and an edition of the final quarter of Fox's Chronicle, covering the reign of Richard II to that of Henry VI. The edition will be accompanied by full textual and critical apparatus contextualising the narrative.