Word & Image:
The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608

Thomas Trevelyon: the man and his sources

Thomas Trevelyon was sixty years old when he created what is now known as "The Trevelyon Miscellany." While the compiler reveals little about himself in the manuscript, he reveals much about the mental world of ordinary Protestant Londoners in the early seventeenth century. In order to make his book, Trevelyon copied and adapted material from a variety of sources, ranging from tiny almanacs to large chronicles to individual woodcuts.

John Stow (1525?-1605)
A summarie of Englyshe chronicles, conteynyng the true accompt of yeres
London, 1565
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Trevelyon lists thirty-three sources at the top of the page, above left: "The Names of the Authour In this Booke Alledged." However, these are not the authors that Trevelyon used for his book, but the ones that John Stow used for his.Trevelyon copied this list from Stow's A summarie of Englyshe chronicles (London, 1565), above right. He took other material from Stow as well, including descriptions of England, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall, descriptions of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and "A Perfect Rule to know the beginning and ending of every Tearme."