Camden, William

Camden, William (kăm`dən), 1551–1623, English scholar, chief historian and antiquary of Elizabethan times. His two chief works are Britannia (1586) and Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha [annals of affairs in England and Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth]. He was a conscientious scholar in editing old manuscripts and in collecting materials of antiquarian interest. He was also a teacher (1575–97) and headmaster (1593–97) at Westminster School and helped to revive the study of Anglo-Saxon. He wrote a Greek grammar long popular in English secondary schools and aided Sir Robert Cotton in collecting materials.

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Camden, William 

Born May 2, 1551, in London; died Nov. 9, 1623, in Chislehurst, Kent. English antiquarian and humanist historian. Member of the Society of Antiquarians (founded c. 1585).

Camden’s antiquarian-topographical works, Britannia (Latin original, 1586; English version, 1610), Centuries-old Information on England, Normandy, and Ireland (Latin, 1603), and Remaines Concerning Britain (English, 1605), laid the foundation for the critical treatment of historical sources in England. The Chronicle of Events in England and Ireland During the Reign of Elizabeth (Latin, 1615), written from the point of view of a proponent of absolutism and the Anglican Church, is one of the highest achievements in English chronicle-writing.

The Camden Society was founded in 1838; it published a great many sources on English history. In 1897 it merged with the Royal Historical Society.

REFERENCE

Vainshtein, O. L. Zapadno-evropeiskaia srednevekovaia istoriografiia. Moscow-Leningrad, 1964. Pages 440–46. (Bibliography.)