Arnold FitzThedmar
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Arnold FitzThedmar (1201-1274 or 1275) was the author of the first civil (non-monastic) chronicle in England: the Liber de Antiquis Legibus.
Arnald FitzThedmar was born on 10 August 1201. His father Thedmar was a merchant from Bremen, and his mother Juliana had been raised in London but was the daughter of emigrants from Cologne. Arnold was their only surviving son and he inherited a substantial property in the London ward of Dowgate - which would later become known as the 'Steelyard' - home to the Hanse merchant community of London. FitzThedmar served as a representative of the German merchant community in London and he was also alderman for Billingsgate. Late in his career, FitzThedmar may have had responsibility for the civic government's records. He remained in civic office in London throughout the Second Barons' War, which began in 1264, but he sympathies lay with the Crown against Simon de Montfort and most of the Londoners. By 1269 he had began writing a chronicle, which contains a detailed account of the political landscape of medieval London up to the year 1273/74. His will was enrolled in the Husting on 10 February 1275.
Full of interesting diversions and opinion pieces the chronicle is a fascinating insight into the mind of an influential medieval townsman. The chronicle survives as part of a manuscript known as the Liber de Antiquis Legibus, which is preserved in the London Metropolitan Archives. The main text is in Latin but with some later insertions in Anglo-Norman which continue up to 1327.
An English translation of the chronicle was undertaken by the prolific historian/barrister Henry Thomas Riley in 1863 under the title of: Chronicles of the Mayors and Sherrifs (London, 1863). The original manuscript was transcibed by Thomas Stapleton in 1846 for the Camden Society.
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