Robert Fabyan
| Robert Fabyan | |
|---|---|
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Pake |
Issue
|
|
| Father | John Fabyan |
| Mother | Agnes (surname unknown) |
| Died | c.1512 London |
| Buried | St Michael's, Cornhill London |
Robert Fabyan (died c.1512) was a London draper, Sheriff and Alderman, and author of Fabyan's Chronicle.
Robert Fabyan was the son of John Fabyan and his wife, Agnes. He is said to have been born in London. He had a brother, John. His nephew, John Fabyan, married Anne Waldegrave, by whom he had a daughter, Mary Fabian, wife of Sir Thomas Spert.
He was apprenticed as a draper to William Holme about 1470, and was granted the freedom of the Company in 1476. In 1485 he served as renter warden of the Drapers, and in 1486 as auditor of the accounts of the City of London. In 1493 he was elected Sheriff, and in the following year as alderman of the ward of Farringdon Without. In 1495 he was elected Master of the Drapers, and in 1496 was chosen to petition Henry VII on behalf of the Company with respect to the levies on cloth exported from England to Flanders. During the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 Fabyan, John Brooke and John Warner were charged with securing Ludgate and Newgate. After the suppression of the rebellion they travelled with the King to . In 1498 he was one of the assessors of a subsidy levied to finance the war in Scotland. In 1501 he was again elected Master of the Drapers. In 1503 he resigned his office of alderman on the ground that he lacked the financial resources to support election as Lord Mayor.
He is best known as the author of the work commonly known as Fabyan's Chronicle, which presents 'parallel histories of England and France', and covers the period from the arrival of the legendary Brutus of Troy in England to the death of Henry VII. Two manuscripts are extant (Holkham Hall, MS 671, and BL, Cotton MS Nero C.xi), and although these are not in Fabyan's hand, it is almost certain that the text is his. The chronicle was initially printed without attribution by Richard Pynson in 1516 as The New Chronicles of England and France, but an edition of 1533 printed by William Rastell bore Fabyan's name on the title page: Fabyans cronycle newly prynted. Both John Bale and John Stow described the chronicle as Fabyan's work, although according to McLaren, Stow also wrongly attributes to him the manuscript of the Great Chronicle (London, Guildhall Library, MS 3313), likely because both Fabyan's Chronicle and the Great Chronicle are written (or copied) in the same hand.
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