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BOKENAM, OSBERN (1393?-1447?)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 156 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BOKENAM, OSBERN (1393?-1447?) , See also:English author, was See also:born, by his own See also:account, on the 6th of See also:October 1393. Dr Horstmann suggests that he may have been a native of Bokeham, now Bookham, in See also:Surrey, and derived his name from the See also:place. In a concluding See also:note to his Lives of the See also:Saints he is described as " a Suffolke See also:man, See also:frere Austyn of Stoke See also:Clare." He travelled in See also:Italy on at least two occasions, and in 1445 was a See also:pilgrim to See also:Santiago de Compostela. He wrote a See also:series of thirteen legends of See also:holy maidens and See also:women. These are written chiefly in seven-and eight-lined stanzas, and nine of them are preceded by prologues. Bokenam was a follower of See also:Chaucer and See also:Lydgate, and doubtless had in mind Chaucer's See also:Legend of See also:Good Women. His See also:chief, but by no means his only, source was the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, See also:archbishop of See also:Genoa, whom he cites as " Januence." The first of the legends, Vita Scae Margaretae, virginis et martinis, was written for his friend, See also:Thomas See also:Burgh, a See also:Cambridge See also:monk; others are dedicated to pious ladies who desired the See also:history of their name-saints. The See also:Arundel MS. 327 (See also:British Museum) is a unique copy of Bokenam's See also:work; it was finished, according to the concluding note, in 1447, and presented by the See also:scribe, Thomas Burgh, to a See also:convent unnamed " that the nuns may remember him and his See also:sister, See also:Dame Betrice Burgh." The poems were edited (1835) for the See also:Roxburghe See also:Club with the See also:title Lyvys of Seyntys ..., and by Dr Carl Horstmann as Osbern Bokenams Legenden (See also:Heilbronn, 1883), in E. Kolbing's Altengl. Bibliothek, vol. i. Both See also:editions include a See also:dialogue written in Latin and English taken from See also:Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum (ed.

1846, vol. vi. p. 1600); " this dialogue betwixt a See also:

Secular asking and a Frere answerynge at the See also:grave of Dame Johan of Acres shewith the lyneal descent of the lordis of the honoure of Clare fro . . . MCCXLVIII to . . . MCCCLVI" Bokenam wrote, as he tells us, plainly, in the See also:Suffolk speech. He explains his lack of decoration on the plea that the finest See also:flowers had been already plucked by Chaucer, See also:Gower and Lydgate.

End of Article: BOKENAM, OSBERN (1393?-1447?)

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