John Shirley

Book Production in the Noble Household in Fifteenth-century England

Margaret Connolly

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138324794
  9781138324763
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429834493
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

Published in 1998. John Shirley's importance as a scribe of late fourteen-and early fifteenth-century vernacular poetry (in particular the works of Chauncer and Lydgate) has long been recognised. Not only did Shirley bring these works to the attention of a wider audience in his own time, but the survival of some if his manuscripts has perpetuated these texts for future generations of readers. Indeed, some of these poems are now only known through his manuscripts.

In this meticulously researched survey, Margaret Connolly makes a thorough examination of all extent documents relating to Shirley's life and carefully scrutinises the physical characteristics of his manuscripts. In so doing she dispels many of the false interpretations that have arisen from speculation about the nature of Shirley's scribal activities. The book concludes that there is no evidence to suggest that Shirley acted as a bookseller, but plenty to indicate that he lent his books extensively.

This book's survey of volumes owned or used by Shirley provides general insights into the availability and circulation of literary texts in the fifteenth century. Palaeographers and those with a general interest in the history of the book will find this studying fascinating.

1
John Shirley: biography

Shirley's tomb

The sixteenth-century antiquary, John Stow, included an account of John Shirley's tomb in his Survey of London, first published in 1598.¹ Giving a list of monuments in the church at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Stow describes how the brasses on the 'fayre flat stone' of Shirley's tomb show him and his wife Margaret in the habits of pilgrims, and transcribes the epitaph with its claim for Shirley's longevity:

Beholde how ended is our poore pilgrimage,
Of Iohn Shirley Esquier, with Margaret his wife,
That xii. children had together in marriage,
Eight sonnes and foure daughters withouten strife,
That in honor, nurtur, and labour flowed in fame,
His pen reporteth his liues occupation,
Since Pier his life time, Iohn Shirley by name,
Of his degree, that was in Brutes Albion,
That in the yeare of grace deceased from hen,
Foureteene hundred winter, and sixe and fiftie,
In the yeare of his age, fourescore and ten,
Of October moneth, the day one and twenty.

If both Stow's transcription and the epitaph itself are correct in recording Shirley's age at his death in 1456 as ninety, then he must have been born round about 1366, during the reign of Edward III, and subsequently lived through the reigns of five English kings. His great age makes him unusual to say the least. Demographic studies, admittedly based on evidence from the top echelons of society, have shown that men born during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries could expect their lives to be much shorter, probably not above thirty-five years.² Shirley clearly lived much longer, but he may not necessarily have been quite as old as the legendary ninety when he died. Whereas occurrences of his name in official records and other sources are relatively abundant during the final decades of his life, his career before the end of the fourteenth century is difficult to trace. The entry concerning him in the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) makes no attempt, stating vaguely that he is said to have been 'the son of a squire who had travelled widely in foreign countries'; the first mention of any date or location is 1440, when Shirley is reported as living in London.³ Also not mentioned here is Shirley's association with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, a connection which has sometimes been doubted in the past, but which is now beyond question.⁴ The most systematic and careful investigation of Shirley's life to date has been A.I. Doyle's seminal article, 'More Light on John Shirley', published at the beginning of the 1960s.⁵ This essay does not claim to be conclusive: its findings were based on 'a special though by no means exhaustive search in some of the obvious archives', and it ends with the tantalising (and unfulfilled) promise, 'to be continued'.⁶ The continuation, in fact, was to have been bibliographical and palaeographical, and Doyle later cautioned that some details in the article required correction and supplementation, but in spite of this, subsequent commentators on Shirley's manuscripts have tended to treat the study as the last available word on Shirley's life.⁷ Moreover, Doyle was not able to find any concrete references to Shirley before about 1414, admitting from the start: 'it is not until he was nearly 50 that I can begin to trace his career'.⁸

Place-names and personal names: some false trails

The evidence of place-names offers one possible starting-point. There are at least four places called Shirley from which John Shirley or his family might have taken their name: in Surrey, Hampshire, Warwickshire and Derbyshire. Two of these are easily dismissed, as there is no reason to link him with the Shirley east of Croydon, or to confuse him with the John Shirley 'husbondman' of Croydon recorded in 1438;⁹ nor is there any reason to connect him with the Shirley which lies north of Southampton.¹⁰ More promising is the Shirley which lies to the south of Birmingham, not far from the Beauchamp manor of Yardley; since Shirley spent most of his life in the service of Richard Beauchamp, he may have had some connection with this area. Indeed Shirley's later association with the Earl of Warwick would suggest that the most obvious place to look for his origins is amongst the families on the Beauchamp estates; often several generations of one family served the same lord, and in common with the practice of other noblemen at this time, Richard Beauchamp drew his affinity primarily from the families of the local gentry.¹¹ In the fourteenth century, the Beauchamp lands were mostly concentrated in Warwickshire and Worcestershire, with some more scattered manor holdings throughout the Midlands and southern England; they also held Barnard Castle in Durham, and Pain's Castle in the Welsh Marches.¹² Prominent amongst the gentry families of Warwickshire were the Shirleys of Eatington, or Ettington, but their allegiance was to the house of Lancaster and the crown, rather than to Beauchamp.¹³ These Shirleys, who also held lands in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, took their name from the manor of Shirley in Derbyshire, which lay south-east of Ashbourne, one of the lordships of John of Gaunt; Sir Hugh Shirley (1362-1403) was a retainer of Gaunt's between at least 1386-99, and probably for longer; his son, Ralph Shirley (1391-1443) was a crown

Figure 1: The Beauchamp Family

retainer who fought with Henry V in France.¹⁴ There is no evidence that John Shirley may have been related to this family, and in particular he should not be confused with his namesake, the son and heir of Ralph Shirley II (c. 1408-66), who married in 1456 and died in 1485. This John Shirley is mentioned in the will of Joan Clinton, who, before her death in 1453 was a resident at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and therefore a neighbour of our John Shirley, a coincidence which makes the terms of her will potentially confusing; in fact the John Shirley named there was Joan Clinton's grandson, the product of the marriage of Margaret (Joan's daughter from her first marriage to John Staunton) and Ralph Shirley II.¹⁵ Nor was Joan Clinton the only link between the Shirleys of Eatington and St Bartholomew's Hospital: Joan Newmarch, a widow, and one of the daughters of Sir Hugh Shirley (and therefore the other John Shirley's greataunt) was living there before her death, also in 1453.¹⁶ There is a connection here with the Beauchamps, since before 1439 Joan Newmarch was a gentlewoman of Isabel, Richard Beauchamp's second wife; she was granted a bequest of 200 marks 'in gold' in Isabel's will, and in addition the countess agreed 'to bere all Costes as for her bryngynge ynto seynt Katrens, or where-euer she woll be elles'.¹⁷ The network of associations between St Bartholomew's Hospital, the Warwickshire Shirleys and the Beauchamps is difficult to fathom, and there may be some connections which are no longer apparent to us. It does not follow, of course, that Shirley must have been related to the other residents of St Bartholomew's simply because he lived there, but the possibility remains that he may have belonged to one of the more minor branches of the Eatington Shirley family, even if this link can no longer be recovered.¹⁸

Although Shirley cannot be linked with any of the Warwickshire gentry families, a search of printed records relating to Warwickshire and Worcestershire yields some slight possibilites. A John Shirleye is mentioned amongst those swearing oaths at an inquisition on 'Monday after SS Peter and Paul, 49 Edward III', that is, the Monday after 29 June 1376, before Thomas Walshe, escheator in the county of Warwick; the inquisition relates to the late John Keynes' possession of the manor of Oxeshulne in Warwickshire.¹⁹ The John Shirley mentioned in this instance is too early to be the same, but there may be some familial connection here. The name 'Shirley' also occurs twice in the Warwickshire assize rolls for 1385. In one entry Thomas, 'quondam seruiens Iohannis Shirleye', was indicted for the murder in Coventry of a wiredrawer, John de Lincolne; William de Shulton, another wiredrawer, was an accessory to the crime.²⁰ Another entry for the same year records that goods belonging to a Thomas Shirley - presumably the same servant since he is described as 'indictati de feionia et fugitiui' - were seized by Hugh, bailiff of William Hayly of Shotteswell.²¹ Later records confirm the presence of a family of Shirleys in the Coventry area: in 1420 two John Shirleys, elder and younger, and presumably father and son, were in gaol at Warwick; both were said to come from Coventry, and both gave their trade as wiredrawers.²² The name certainly seems to have been prevalent in the Midlands. In 1433, a John Shirley, gentleman of Derby, was in gaol at Nottingham; despite the epithet 'gentilman', he may easily be distinguished from our John Shirley whose provenance by this date was regularly described as 'of London'.²³ One further John Shirley may also be eliminated from enquiries: this is the 'Johannes Shirley' who is listed amongst the grooms of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, and who in 1419 travelled to Normandy with the household of the duchess and her sons.²⁴

Your humble servant: Shirley and the Earl of Warwick

The earliest record of Shirley's association with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, dates from October 1403, when Shirley was part of Beauchamp's retinue in the campaign against Owain Glyn Dwr.²⁵ At this time Shirley would have been thirty-seven; he was some sixteen years older than Beauchamp, who only reached his majority in 1403.²⁶ Before Richard Beauchamp's inheritance of the earldom in 1401, certain evidence of Shirley's employment is lacking, but there are some possibilities to be explored. Since it was both common and sensible for heirs to retain the services of those who had served their predecessors, it may be that Shirley was part of the retinue of Richard's father, Thomas (1339-1401).²⁷ Thomas Beauchamp was one of the Lords Appellant who opposed Richard II in 1387. This group, which consisted of Beauchamp; Gloucester; Arundel; Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham; and Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, remained in control of government for more than a year after the Merciless Parliament of 1388. In 1397 Richard II retaliated against some of these men: Arundel was executed, Gloucester reportedly 'died' in prison at Calais, and Thomas Beauchamp was exiled to the Isle of Man; in addition, their lands were forfeited, and redistributed amongst the king's supporters. Beauchamp's lands in the Welsh marches were given to Sir William Lescrope, his gaoler on the Isle of Man; his castle and his manors in Warwickshire were granted to Thomas Holand, Earl of Kent and newly created Duke of Surrey; Thomas Mowbray, who had changed sides, also received some of the spoils.²⁸ The Beauchamp affinity must also have suffered some dislocation at this point and, since Richard II had been steadily increasing his support amongst the gentry for the past decade, it is not unlikely that after 1397 some of Beauchamp's displaced retainers might have been subsumed within the king's own affinity.²⁹ This was certainly the case for at least one of Thomas Beauchamp's life annuitants, namely Walter Power, who was retained for life in 1398 by Richard II.³⁰ Clear evidence for John Shirley's whereabouts and affiliation during these years is lacking, but two instances of the name 'John Shirley' amongst the patent rolls for 1399 and 1400 may well refer to him. On 24 March 1399 a John Shirley is recorded as receiving for life certain l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of plates
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 John Shirley: biography
• 2 'þis litell book': MS BL Additional 16165
• 3 John Shirley, esquire, of London
• 4 MS Trinity College Cambridge R.3.20, its partners and progeny
• 5 Books connected with John Shirley
• 6 Translations: 'his symple warke'
• 7 His last anthology: MS Bodley Ashmole 59
• 8 Afterwards: the lost manuscripts and Shirley's successors
• 9 Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index of Manuscripts
• General Index