FABYAN, ROBERT (d. 1513), English chronicler, be longed to an Essex family, members of which had been connected with trade in London. He married Elizabeth Pake, by whom he had a large family. He was a member of the Drapers' Company, and served as sheriff in 1493-94. In 1496 he was one of those appointed to make representations to the king on the new im positions on English cloth in Flanders. Next year he was one of the aldermen employed in keeping watch at the time of the Cornish rebellion. He resigned his aldermanry in 1502, and spent his latter years on his estate in Essex. He died on Feb. 28, 1513.
Fabyan's Chronicle was first published by Richard Pynson in 1516 as The new chronicles of England and of France. In this edition it ends with the reign of Richard III., and this probably represents the work as Fabyan left it, though with the omission of an autobiographical note and some religious verses, which are first found in the second edition, printed by John Rastell in with continuations down to 1509. A third edition appeared in 1542, and a fourth in 1559 with additions to that year. The only modern edition is that of Sir Henry Ellis, 181r. There is evi dence that Fabyan had continued his Chronicle to 1511, but no trace of the manuscript can now be found.
Fabyan's own merits are little more than those of an indus trious compiler, who strung together the accounts of his different authorities without any critical capacity. Nevertheless he de serves the praise which he has received as an early worker, and for having made public information which through Hall and Holinshed has become the common property of later historians, and has only recently been otherwise accessible. Bale alleges that the first edition was burnt by order of Cardinal Wolsey because it reflected on the wealth of the clergy; this probably refers to his version of the Lollards bill of 1410, which Fabyan extracted from one of the London Chronicles.
See further Ellis' Introduction; W. Busch, England under the Tudors (trans. A. M. Todd, 1895), i. 405-410; and C. L. Kingsford, Chronicles of London, pp. xxvi.—xxxii. (1905).