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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Lydgate's St. Edmund was written between 1434 and 1439, probably nearer the former than the latter date. Within a few years after 1439 we meet with the writings of Osbern Bokenham, a member of the house of Austin friars at Stoke Glare in the southwestern corner of Suffolk. Altho the two poets were attached by their sympathies to opposite political parties, Lydgate being a staunch Lancastrian and Bokenham an ardent Yorkist, the monk of Bury had no warmer admirer than the friar of Stoke Clare. We cannot be sure that they knew each other personally, but since they lived within less than twenty miles of each other and were both fond of society, if appears very probable. Not only does Bokenham allude again and again to Lydgate (usually coupling his name with those of Chaucer and Gower), but on one occasion he mentions a particular work of Lydgate's, the Life of Our Lady.
1 Lydgate's St. Alban was written in 1439 (St. Albon und Amphabel, ed. Horstmann, p. 195), at the request of Whethamsteade, abbot of St. Albans. As this commission was evidently an imitation of Curteis's, the year 1439 is a terminus ad quem for the St. Edmund (McCracken, Studies, etc.).
2 Bokenham, Legenden, ed. Horstmann, St. Anne, 1. 612.
3 The only evidence of his birthplace is his statement (Leg., Pro., ll. 135 ff.) that near by where he was born was an old priory of Black Canons, in which was the foot of St. Margaret, by which many cures were wrought. Horstmann conjectures, on the basis of his name, that he was born at Bokeham, now Bookham, Surrey, near which, at Reygate, there was a house of Austin Canons, (Leg., p. v). But we do not know that the foot of St. Margaret was at this place, and the houses of the Austin Canons were so numerous that this detail is of no value as corroboration, but is merely a condition that must be fulfilled. The basis of my conjecture that Bokenham was born in Lincolnshire is the familiarity he shows (see passage quoted below, Pro. ll. 215-222) with the vicinity of Burgh and Bolingbroke castle. These localities are, I believe, Old Bolingbroke, and Burgh Le Marsh and Burgh Station, near the coast of eastern Lincolnshire. The Austin Canons had a house at Markby, some 10 miles north of Burgh Station (Tanner, Notitia Monastica, L. 1787, sub loco).
1 Leg., Pro. ll. 175 ff.
1 Leg., p. 267. The statement, added by the second hand, that Bokenham was a Suffolk man, is no evidence that he was born there.
2 There was a convent of Benedictine nuns at Cambridge, near Greencroft (Tanner, Notitia Monastica).
3 Leg., p. xiii.
4 Leg., St. Anne, ll. 65 ff.
1 Ibid., ll. 697 ff.
2 Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History, vi, p. 405. This volume of the Proceedings also contains descriptions of the Denston Church and Denston Hall.
3 See the licence for founding this chantry, dated 1 March, 1475, Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1467-1477, p. 484.
4 See record of a pardon to Robert Atteford of Broghton, co. Huntingdon, “yoman,” for not appearing to answer John Denston touching the detinue of a certain box with charters, etc., therein, before 16 April, 1434 (ibid., 1429-1436, p. 314). This entry is marked “Suffolk” and probably refers to our John Denston. If so, John Denston was of age at that time. This record may possibly relate to John Denston's father. But I believe the father to have been named William, for among the other persons for whom mass was to be celebrated in the Denston chantry we find “William Denston and Margaret his wife.”
1 Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1436-1441, p. 523.
2 Ibid., 1461-1467, pp. 572, 573.
3 Ibid., 1446-1452, p. 299.
4 Paston Letters, i, p. 284.
5 Ibid., i, pp. 285 f. Katherine Denston, according to Proceedings, l. c., was the daughter of William Clopton. As the marriage contract shows that John Clopton's father was William, the identification is pretty certain. But Proceedings does not cite authority for its statement about Katherine's parentage. This marriage, however, did not take place.
6 I regret that I have been unable to identify with any degree of certainty John and Isabel Hunt, for whom Bokenham wrote the legend of St. Dorothy (Leg., St. Dorothy, ll. 239-246). The name John Hunt occurs in a number of Suffolk records, but no satisfactory identification can be established until we find a John Hunt whose wife was named Isabel, for the name is a common one.
1 Leg., St. Katherine, ll. 52 ff.
2 Ibid., 1052 ff. The legend is more than 1000 lines in length.
3 D. N. B., xxviii, pp. 42, 43. She was, according to Complete Peerage, vi, p. 47, Katherine, daughter of Sir William de Moleyns of Stoke Pogis, and was married to Howard about 1442. She died in 1465 (Paston Letters, iii, p. 486). It is barely possible that it was her husband who received with Broughton the licence to found the Denston chantry. I believe, however, that he was a different person, for the John Howard named in the licence appears to have been unmarried. I infer this from the fact that his wife is not named among the persons for whom mass was to be celebrated in the chantry.
4 See, for a summary statement, Ten Brink, History of English Literature, iii, p. 237, and, for details and references, Warton, History of English Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, iii, pp. 124, 195, 201, iv, pp. 40, 72, and Skelton, Garlande of Laurell.
5 Paston Letters, ii, p. 336.
1 Leg., St. Elizabeth, ll. 76 ff.
2 Ibid., 1155 ff.
3 See Leg., St. Mary Magdalene, ll. 69 ff., quoted below, and D. N. B., lviii, p. 240.
4 John Howard of Wigenhall (d. 1435) was grandfather by his first wife of Elizabeth Howard who married the Earl of Oxford, and grandfather by his second wife of John Howard of Stoke Neyland (Complete Peerage, vi, pp. 253, 254). For her letters see Paston Letters, i, pp. 261-263; I quote the superscription of the third of them.
1 Ibid., letters 97, 104, 120, 373, 390, 1049, 1050, 1051.
2 Ibid., letter 139.
3 Ibid., letter 105.
4 At the request of her son John de Vere, thirteenth Earl of Oxford, Caxton translated the life of Robert, Earl of Oxford (Blades, Caxton, l. 1882, p. 369).
1 Leg., St. Mary Magdalene, ll. 24 ff.
2 D. N. B., vi, p. 10.
3 Caxton says: “Here begynneth the prologue or prohemye of the book callid Caton/ whiche booke hath ben translated in to Englysshe by Mayster Benet Burgh/ late Archedeken of Colchestre and hye chanon of saint stephens at westmestre/ which ful craftly hath made it in balade ryal for the erudicion of my lord Bousher/ Sone & heyr at that tyme to my lord the erle of Estsex” (Blades, Caxton, p. 278, prolog to Caton). Ms. Harleian 271 contains as its second item: “Liber Catonis compositus per Magrum Benedyctum Bernham? Vicarium de Maldoun in Essexia” (Cat. Harl. MSS., i, p. 101). The text itself of the translation (or rather amplified paraphrase) gives evidence of having been composed for a youth of rank. For example:
and:
Steele (Secrees of Old Philosophers, p. xvii) and Hunt (D. N. B., vii, p. 315) say (the latter with a “probably”) that Burgh was tutor to Bourchier's son, but they offer no authority for their statement. All we know of Burgh's Cato seems to be contained in Caxton's allusion, the ms. note quoted above, and the few allusions in the work itself. These do not suffice for dating the translation with any accuracy. Warton placed it “about the year 1480, or rather before” (History of English Poetry, l, 1778, ii, p. 165), and Hazlitt “about the year 1470” (ibid., ed. Hazlitt, iii, p. 133). The true date, however, is probably much nearer 1440 than 1470, for at the latter date the son and heir of Henry Bourchier had left far behind him the age at which Burgh could have addressed to him the stanzas quoted above, as we may see from Bokenham's allusion to Lady Bourchier's four sons. It is practically certain that Burgh wrote for her eldest son, William, for, tho he did not survive his father, William Bourchier lived to maturity, leaving a son, Henry, who became the second Earl of Essex (D. N. B., vi, p. 11).
1 Steele, op. cit., p. xvii; he was presented to the living 6 July, 1440. For the marriage, see D. N. B., l, p. 396.
2 Paston Letters, letters 83-87, 89, 90, 205, 292, 293; ibid., i, p. 120.
1 Calendar of the Patent Bolls, 1446-1452, p. 477.
2 Leg., St. Agatha, ll. 55 ff.
3 Italics mine.
1 Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1461-1467, pp. 44, 45. Norfambridge, or Fambridge North, is 6½ m. S. of Maldon, Essex, and Lacheley-hall is in the parish of Lindsell, Essex, which is 5 m. NNE. of Dunmow. The estates of Henry Bourchier were most numerous in Essex, but he had at least 8 estates in Suffolk (Calendarium Inquisitionum Post Mortem, iv, p. 415). John de Vere's son, also named John de Vere, had at least 8 estates in Suffolk, and many more in Essex (ibid., p. 370).
1 Englische Studien, x, p. 6.
2 Anglia, xxviii, p. 297. There is a Clare in Oxfordshire, as well as in Suffolk, but there can be little doubt that this ms. was written in the latter country, for the Duke of York was the Lord of Clare in Suffolk and had (as will be shown later) many local connections with that county. The fact that the Austin friary at Stoke Clare has been founded by a Lord of Clare (see Tanner, Notitia Monastica, sub loco, and Dialogue referred to below) makes it highly probable, if not practically certain, that the Claudian translation was made in the house of which Bokenham was a brother. Bokenham's connections with the Duke's family and the connection the Dialogue establishes between the friary and the Duke of York are also strong evidence.
1 Anglia, xxviii, p. 422. I correct the obvious misprint, iv for vi.
2 Ibid., pp. 255, 256.
3 Ibid., p. 299.
4 Ibid., p. 432.
1 For Bokenham's reference to the Duke of York see his legend of St. Mary Magdalene, ll. 27 ff.
2 The Dialogue cannot be Bokenham's work if Horstmann is right in his inference (see above) that Bokenham died before 1447. In the absence of other evidence the inference is a sound one but is of course not conclusive. I do not wish to be understood as denying Bokenham's authorship of either the Claudian translation or the Dialogue.
3 Leg., p. 269. The date is mccclvi in the text but, as Horstmann observes, it is clear from the lines that follow that a C has been dropped by a scribe or editor. Horstmann prints the text from Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, and the ms. from which Dugdale derived it is not known to exist.
1 Leg., p. 274.
2 Hoccleve's Works, i, Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, EETS., p. 49, ll. 10 ff. The balade is addressed to the Duke of York.
3 Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1446-1452, p. 231. The Duke of York had at least 14 estates in Suffolk (Calendarium Inquisitionum Post Mortem, iv, p. 320.
1 Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1429-1436, pp. 616, 621, 625; 1436-1441, pp. 582, 586, 590, 591; 1441-1446, pp. 470, 474, 478, 479; 1446-1452, pp. 589, 592, 595. These commissions also furnish additional evidence of connection between the Norfolk group of patrons and the Earl of Oxford and Henry Bourchier.
2 See Leg., St. Katharine, ll. 43 ff. The date at which Capgrave became prior is not (so far as I am aware) known.
3 Capgrave's Lives of St. Augustine, etc., ed. J. J. Munro, EETS., p. xiii.
1 Ibid., p. 1.
2 Ibid., p. 60.
1 For the evidence, see ibid., pp. vii, viii.
2 Capgrave, De Illustribus Henricis, ed. Hingeston, Rolls Series, pp. 168, 169. I owe the reference to Furnivall: Capgrave's St. Katherine, ed. Horstmann, EETS., pp. xxxii, xxxiii.
3 Munro, op. cit., pp. 62, 63. This part of the De Illustribus Henricis was written between 1446 and 1453 (Hingeston, p. xlix); the St. Augustine was written before 1451 and the St. Gilbert was written in 1451 (Munro, p. vii).
1 See the list of the estates owned by the family before Sir John's marriage to Elizabeth Phelip, Dugdale, Baronage of England, ii, pp. 50 ff. There are no estates in Norfolk or Suffolk in the list. For the family history, see ibid. and Complete Peerage, i, pp. 284 ff. and Corrigenda, vol. viii.
2 Complete Peerage, i, p. 242.
3 For the estates of which William Beaumont, son of Capgrave's Sir John (or Viscount Beaumont) was seized in 1461, see Dugdale, ii, p. 54.
4 Bloomfield, Norfolk, ix, pp. 320, 324.
5 Letters 49, 52, 60, 75, 310, 329, 330, 961. The writers of these letters, however, are not persons dealt with in the present paper.
1 Promptorium Parvulorum, ed. Mayhew, EETS., col. 1.
2 Ibid., col. 3. Cf. also, “Explicit preambulum in librum predictum, secundum vulgarem modum loquendi orientalium anglorum” (ibid.).
3 Juliana of Norwich probably wrote her Revelations of Divine Love previous to 1400, and almost certainly at a date considerably anterior to the period we have been considering (see Grace Warrack's introduction to her edition of the work l. 1901, pp. xi-xix). Two Latin poets, John Seguard and Thomas Langley, of Norwich and Hulm respectively, are said by Warton to have written about 1413 and 1430 (History of English Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, iii, p. 125) but I have no other information about them. The writings of Robert Finingham, a Franciscan of Norwich who is said to have died about 1460, appear to deal exclusively with the defence of the Franciscans against the attacks of their opponents and matters of the canon law (D. N. B., xix, p. 27).
1 I do not wish to be understood as implying that the relations of these persons with each other were always those of a friendly nature. They were often of decidedly the reverse character, as every reader of the Paston Letters knows. But unfriendly relations among some of the persons inclined to the patronage of literature may have proved as favourable to literary production as the most friendly relations could have been.
1 Gollancz accepts 1347-8 as the most probable date (Parlement of the Thre Ages, pp. xiii, xiv. It is clear at any rate from the allusions he points out that the poem cannot have been written long after 1350.
2 Skeat, Joseph of Arimathea, EETS., p. x. A date considerably earlier than 1400 is assured by the fact that the poem is found in the Vernon ms. The date of Willam of Paterne is fixed by the fact that it was written for Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, who died in 1361 (Skeat, William of Paterne, EETS., pp. ix-xi, D. N. B., v, p. 310).
3 Skeat, Piers the Plowman, ii, pp. ix, x (Parallel Text, Oxford, 1886).
4 The handwriting of the ms., says Gollancz, “belongs on the best authority to the latter years of the fourteenth century” (Pearl, p. xxi).
5 Skeat, Piers the Plowman, ii, pp. lxxxiii, lxxxiv. Piers the Plowman's Creed is dated by Skeat (see his edition, Oxford, 1906, p. xx) about 1393, but there is no satisfactory evidence as to the locality in which it was composed.
6 I refer, of course, to the well known passage in the Parson's prolog; this passage should be compared with Winner and Waster, ll. 7, 8, quoted in the next note.
1 Winner and Waster is localised in the west by the lines:
and
William of Palerne is localized in the west by its connection with Humphrey de Bohun, whom the poet himself (l. 166) connects with Gloucester. The A-Text of Piers the Plowman has, in spite of its allusions to other localities, a very real connection with the west of England by virtue of its allusions to the Malvern Hills. Richard the Redeless is shown to be connected with the west by the opening lines:
And Joseph of Arimathea, Patience, and Cleanness are shown by their dialect to have been written in the West Midland.
2 There is of course no novelty in this hypothesis. Ten Brink said, for example, “Trevisa undertook the translation of this work [Polychronicon] under the auspices of Lord Berkeley, who occupies a similar position in the inauguration of English secular prose as do other members of the nobility of West-England in the revival of alliterative poetry” (History of English Literature, ii, p. 82). I regret that I am unable to offer any corroborating evidence of the existence of such a group of patrons in the West Midland. But in the very nature of the case not much can be expected in the way of corroboration, for when the poets themselves are unknown it is not strange that we should be in ignorance as to the patrons for whom they wrote.