Osbern Bokenam

Osbern Bokenam (c. 1393 – c. 1464, also spelt Bokenham) was an English Augustinian (Austin) friar and poet. He was a follower of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Life Osbern Bokenam was born, according to his own account, on 6 October 1393. His name suggests he may have been a native of Bokeham, now Bookham, in Surrey, or of Buckenham in Norfolk. In a concluding note to his Lives of the Saints, Bokenam is described as a "Suffolke man, frere Austyn of Stoke Clare" (friar at Clare Priory in Suffolk).

Bokenam travelled in Italy on at least two occasions, possibly living for a time in Venice and Rome. In 1445 he was a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Writings Bokenam wrote a series of 13 legends of holy maidens and women, chiefly in seven and eight-lined stanzas. Nine of these have prologues. Bokenam was a follower of Chaucer and Lydgate, and doubtless had in mind Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. His chief, but by no means only source was the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, whom he cites as "Januence". The first of the legends, Vita S[an]cae Margaretae, virginis et martyris (Life of St Margaret, Virgin and Martyr), was written for a friend, Thomas Burgh, a Cambridge monk. Others are dedicated to pious ladies who desired the history of the patron saints after whom they had been named.