Richard Fox (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
1448) was a lay clerk at the
abbey of St Albans, where he served as chamberlain to Abbott
John Whethamstede
John Whethamstede (died 20 January 1465) was an English abbot and one of the leading literary figures in fifteenth-century England.
Life
He was a son of Hugh and Margaret Bostock, and was born at Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire, owing his name, ...
. He is notable for compiling, amongst other texts, an expanded version of the ''Brut'' chronicle, which is especially important for including contemporary accounts of the Parliament of Bury and of the death of
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.
[Kingsford, C. L. ''English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century'', 1913, p.129]
Fox also claimed to have information regarding the identity of
Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black ...
leader
Jack Straw from a person who was close to the events in 1381; Straw was identified as a John Tyler of
Dartford
Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and
is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames estuary, is Thurrock in ...
, Kent, who sparked the revolt by killing a tax collector.
[Matheson, Lister M. ''The Peasant's Revolt through five centuries of rumor and reporting'', Studies in Philology, Vol XCV, 2, 121-151]
Little else is known about Fox, though his will of 1454 notes that he possessed several books including copies of the ''Confessio Amantis'' by
John Gower and works by
John Lydgate.
[Lucas, P. ''From author to audience: John Capgrave and medieval publication'', University College Dublin Press, 1997, p.277] Fox seems to have been an avid collector of books, though in this period it was still relatively rare to find a high degree of literacy outside the clergy. He also appears to have had a strong interest in the cult of
Saint Alban.
Sections of the chronicle compiled by Fox, which is found in Woburn Abbey Ms. 181, were published in ''An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI'', edited by J. S. Davies (1856).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Richard
English chroniclers
15th-century English historians