author
John Lydgate
A Benedictine monk with an astonishingly large body of verse, this medieval writer helped carry English poetry forward after Chaucer. His work ranges from moral and devotional writing to ambitious retellings of classical and historical stories.
2 Audiobooks
The Temple of Glass
by John Lydgate
The Disguising at Hertford
by John Lydgate
About the author
Born around 1370 in Lidgate, Suffolk, John Lydgate entered the Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds while still young and was ordained a priest in 1397. He spent most of his life connected to the abbey, though sources also note time in places such as London and Paris.
Lydgate became one of the most prolific English poets of the 15th century. He was deeply influenced by Geoffrey Chaucer, yet his own output was vast in scale, including long moral, devotional, and historical works that made him a major literary figure in his own time.
Among the works most often associated with him are Troy Book and The Fall of Princes. Though modern readers may meet him less often than Chaucer, Lydgate was widely admired for centuries and remains an important bridge between late medieval literary culture and the English poetic tradition that followed.