A sign of the times is the beginning of civic chronicles.  The London series alone is important for English history.  It begins with the Liber de Antiquis Legibus, or Chronica Majorum et Vicecomitum Londoniarum (1188-1274, ed.  T. Stapleton, Camden Soc.).  The work of ARNOLD FITZTHEDMAR, alderman of the German merchants in London, it is copious for the years 1236 to 1274, and is, with Wykes, the only chronicle of the Barons’ Wars written with a royalist bias.  Fourteenth century civic chronicles, based upon Flores Historiarum, and continued independently, form the main contents of the two volumes of Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and II. (ed. by Dr. Stubbs for the Rolls Series).  These are:  (1) Annales Londonienses, perhaps written by ANDREW HORN, chamberlain of London, and compiler of the Liber Horn; they have much general value for the period 1301 to 1316, and deal more narrowly with London history from 1316 to 1330, when they conclude. (2) Annales Paulini, 1307-1341, compiled by one of the clergy of St. Paul’s, but not by Adam Murimuth.  These take up Dr. Stubbs’s first volume.  The second contains:  (1) JOHN OF LONDON’S Commendatio Lamentabilis in Transitu magni Regis Edwardi quarti, a funeral eulogy containing the most elaborate contemporary analysis of Edward’s character. (2) The CANON OF BRIDLINGTON’S Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvon, with a continuation down to the death of Edward III., of little value after 1339.  It has frequent reference to the vaticinations of the local prophet, John of Bridlington, and was not put in its present shape before 1377.  Its first part is based on earlier sources, and it is, for lack of better, a prime authority for north-country history and Anglo-Scottish relations; the continuation contains the best account of Edward Balliol’s attempts on the Scottish throne. (3) Vita Edwardi II., from 1307 to 1325, attributed by Hearne on slight grounds to a MONK OF MALMESBURY, with many notices of the history of Gloucestershire and Bristol, of which the famous rising is described at length.  The writer is the most human of the annalists of the reign, prolix, self-conscious, moralising, and somewhat incoherent.  He is the most outspoken of all the fourteenth century critics of the Roman curia, and has more insight than most of his contemporaries.

The following are of primary importance for the early years of Edward III.; it is significant that they are nearly all secular, not monastic, in origin. (1) Continuatio Chronicorum, 1303-1347, by ADAM MURIMUTH, a canon of St. Paul’s much employed by Edward III. (ed.  E.M.  Thompson in Rolls Series), a mere continuation of the Flores until 1325, thence enlarged from personal sources, but still meagre until 1337, when it becomes a first-rate authority to 1346.  Murimuth’s adoption of Michaelmas day as the beginning of the year has often confused those who have imitated him.  Chief among these