Geoffrey Spirleng (c. 1426-c. 1494) was an English scribe. He worked for John Fastolf, and was common clerk of Norwich from 1471 to 1491. As common clerk of Norwich, he was responsible for the register known as the Old Free Book.[1] Spirleng is best known to English literary history as the scribe of MS Hunter 197 (U.1.1), a volume of the Canterbury Tales that he copied with his son, Thomas.[2][3]
Further reading
edit- Deborah Thorpe, "Documents and Books: A Case Study of Luket Nantron and Geoffrey Spirleng as Fifteenth-Century Administrators and Textwriters," Journal of the Early Book Society (2011): 195–215
- Richard Beadle, "Geoffrey Spirleng (c. 1426c. 1494): A Scribe of the Canterbury Tales in His Time," in Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, Their Scribes and Their Readers: Essays Presented to M. B. Parkes, ed. Pamela Robinson and Rivkah Zim (Aldershot, UK: Scolar Press, 1997), 116–146
- Daniel Wakelin, "When Scribes Won't Write: Gaps in Middle English Books," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 36 (2014)
- Frost, Ruth H. (2021-10-01). "A Common Clerk as Courtholder: Geoffrey Spirleng in Late Medieval Norwich". Florilegium. 34: 7–26. doi:10.3138/flor-34.003. ISSN 0709-5201.
References
edit- ^ Frost, Ruth. 2016. A brief note on geoffrey spirleng, co-scribe of MS hunter 197 (U.1.1), and his compilation of the old free book of norwich, NRO, NCR case 17c. Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 19, : 241-248
- ^ "Chaucer and his works". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
- ^ "English Language: literary manuscripts". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-08-13.