Madox, Thomas

Thomas Madox, (born 1666, England—died Jan. 13, 1726/27), English legal antiquary and historian whose critical studies of medieval English documents establish him as the virtual founder of British administrative history and the precursor of modern English historical scholarship.

Madox studied common law (though not called to the bar) and was clerk in the office of the Exchequer, later working in the augmentation office, a prime repository of records. Under the patronage of Baron John Somers, the lord chancellor, he wrote his first work, Formulare Anglicanum (1702), a classified collection of charters and legal instruments of Britain from 1066 to 1547. Chosen primarily from the archives of the court of augmentation, this work is considered a landmark in the diplomatic history of post-Conquest charters.

Madox was elected to the Society of Antiquaries (1707/08) and in 1711 published his renowned work, History and Antiquities of the Exchequer of the Kings of England . . . from the Norman Conquest to the End of the Reign of . . . Edward II, a carefully annotated and critical history of the Exchequer and ancient law in England. He was appointed historiographer to King George I in 1714. Madox’s other works are Firma Burgi (1722), of major importance for English municipal history, and Baroni Anglica (1736), a treatise on tenures.