JOHN LYDGATE (c. 1370 - c. 1451), English poet, was born at the village of Lydgate, some 6 or 7 m.
/ ait and John Lydgates Bearbeitungen von Boccaccios De Casibus, Munich, 1885) has thrown much doubt on this statement as regards Italy, but Lydgate knew France and visited Paris in an official capacity in 1426.
that Lydgate, on completing his own education, kept school for the sons of noblemen and gentlemen.
If it be true, as Bishop Alcock of Ely affirms, that Lydgate wrote a poem on the loss of France and Gascony, it seems necessary to suppose that he lived two years longer, and thus indications point to the year 1451, or thereabouts, as the date of his death.
Lydgate had a consuming passion for literature, and it was probably that he might indulge this taste more fully that in 1 434 he retired from the priorate of Hatfield Broadoak (or Hatfield Regis), to which he had been appointed in June 1423.