John Shirley

John Shirley ( – 1456) was an author, translator, and scribe. As a scribe of later Middle English literature, he is particularly known for transcribing works by John Lydgate and Geoffrey Chaucer. Biography John Shirley, born about 1366, is said to have been the son of a squire who had travelled widely in foreign countries. He has not been identified with any of the numerous Shirleys recorded in the Stemmata Shirleiana, but he was "a great traveller in divers countries", and on the monumental brass to his memory in St. Bartholomew-the-Less both he and his wife are pictured in the habit of pilgrims. Shirley's career began in the service of Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick. In 1403, Shirley was in Warwick's retinue in the campaign against Owain Glyn Dŵr. In 1414, he collected wages for Warwick's retinue in France and was specified as the earl's secretary in 1420–21. Warwick returned to England between 1428 and 1430 as tutor to Henry VI, from whom Shirley received a new year's gift in 1428. In June 1428, Shirley and other members of the Beauchamp household were admitted to confraternity of St Albans Abbey. In 1432-3, Shirley was Comptroller of Petty Customs in the Port of London, and in 1436 he was recorded as having an income of £10 from lands in Hertfordshire. Between about 1438 and his death Shirley rented four shops from St Bartholomew's Hospital. On the basis of manuscripts copied for Shirley, in his hand, or associated with him, some have speculated that Shirley ran a scriptorium or library from these properties. Shirley both translated works from French and Latin and collected and annotated copies of contemporary vernacular authors, such as Chaucer and Lydgate.