Finally, in the third quarter of this century, Lydgate received fair and informed critical appraisal in book-length studies by Walter F. Schirmer, Alain Renoir, and Derek Pearsall. There have been new editions, numerous articles, and even another book (Lois A. Ebin's) in the past twenty years or so. It is true that Lydgate was no Chaucer, but he deserves to be read. Readers with an open mind might actually find that they like him.
John Lydgate was born in or around the year 1370 in the village of Lidgate, in Suffolk, eight miles west of the Benedictine abbey of Bury Saint Edmunds. When he was about fifteen he became a novice at this great monastery with which he would be associated for the rest of his long life. He received his education first at the monastery--which had at that time an impressive library of some seven hundred volumes--and later probably at Oxford. In 1389 he became a subdeacon, in 1393 a deacon, and in 1397 he was ordained a priest. He is believed to have founded a school of rhetoric at Bury Saint Edmunds, where he taught the sons of noble families.
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