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(15th century)
Priest and poet. Biographical information is limited to references contained within a collection of poetry that bears his name, held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. He was chaplain to Richard Lestrange of Knockin (d.1449) and chantry priest at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire. It appears that he was living in London in 1417 and the date 1426 appears alongside one of the poems.
The poetry collection exhibits a range of styles and it is not at all clear how many, if any, of the poems were originally written by John Audelay, although his name does appear 18 times. There are invocations of saints (there are two on the local Saint Winifred), moral verses, and carols. They are all religious in theme and typical deal with sin, penitence and divine intervention.
The following work is available in the West Midlands Creative Literature Collection:
The poems of John Audelay edited with introduction notes and glossary by Ella Keats Whiting. Published for the Early English Text Society by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1931.
Marginalia - The website of the Medieval Reading Group of the University of Cambridge http://www.marginalia.co.uk/shared/john_audelay.php
"Swete May, Soulis Leche": The Winifred Carol by John
Audelay by Melissa Jones
Essays in Medieval Studies; Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval
Association Volume 14, 1997
http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol14/jones.html
There is also a good article in the Dictionary of National Biography.
Page created 7 November 2006
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