John Shirley

John Shirley ( – 1456) was an English 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.

Shirley speaks of his own "symple understondynge", and, according to Skeat, he was "an amateur rather than a professional scribe"; but Richard Sellyng sent Shirley his poem to revise. In 1440 he was living "att the full noble, honourable, and renomed cité of London" "in his great and last age".

Shirley died on 21 October 1456 and was buried at St Bartholomew's. His epitaph was later recorded by Stow, who owned several manuscripts copied by or associated with Shirley.

Manuscripts The surviving manuscripts associated with Shirley can be categorized into three groups: those in Shirley's own hand, those that he annotated, and those apparently derived from manuscripts probably owned or annotated by him. Examples of Shirley's hand can be found at the digital project, Late Medieval English Scribes.

Manuscripts copied by Shirley or containing substantial items in his hand include the following:

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.20 British Library, Add. MS 16165 and Harley MS 78, folios 80r–83v Lambeth Palace Library, MS Arc. L.40.2/E.44 (formerly at Sion College) Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 59 San Marino, Huntington Library, MS EL 26.A.13

Manuscripts annotated by Shirley or containing his distinctive mark of ownership and motto (a crowned A with the words ma ioye) include the following:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61 Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 669*/646 Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.1.33 British Library, Royal MS 20 B XV London University Library, MS 1 New Haven, Yale University Library, Osborn a29 and Takamiya MS 16

Manuscripts apparently or possibly derived in part from exemplars written or annotated by Shirley include the following:

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.19 and MS R.3.21 Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Eng 530 British Library, Add MS 5467, Add. MS 34360, Cotton MS Titus A.xxvi, Harley MS 2251, and Harley MS 7333.