Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/457

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John
451
John

for his prudence and piety, and even in his lifetime is said to have performed many miracles, to have walked on the water, raised the dead, and filled his granaries by prayer. He died on 10 Oct. 1379, and was buried at Bridlington; Hugh gives his age as fifty-five, but the life in Capgrave as fifty-nine. It was soon reported that miracles were worked at his tomb (Wals. Hist. Angl. ii. 189), and in July 1386, on an application made by the prior of Bridlington, the vicar of the Archbishop of York gave orders for evidence to be taken as to their truth (Raine, Letters from Northern Registers, pp. 420-1). In October 1400 John Gisburn, a canon of Bridlington, went to Rome to procure the canonisation of the late prior (Fœdera, viii. 161, orig. ed.) This shows that 1395, the alleged date of his canonisation, is incorrect, and, in truth, it is questionable whether John has been formally canonised. There is, however, no doubt that he was honoured and worshipped as a saint within a few years of his death. His body was formally translated to his shrine by order of the pope, and at the hands of the archbishop and bishops of the northern province, on 11 March 1404 (Wals. Hist. Angl. ii. 262). His tomb was also resorted to by many pilgrims, among whom we find Thomas Holland, duke of Exeter, in 1417, and Henry V in 1421.

Bale and later writers have identified St. John of Bridlington with the author of the alleged prophetic verses relating to English history which were current under the name of a John of Bridlington. Mr. Wright thinks the prophet a mere invention, and the true authorship of the prophecy and the accompanying commentary unknown. In any case, it is improbable that the prophecy, which, since it is dedicated to Humphrey de Bohun, seventh earl of Hereford, must have been written between 1361 and 1372, should have been ascribed to a living and dignified ecclesiastic. The prophecies were, however, well known, and accepted at Bridlington Priory within a few years of John's death, and are largely used in the Chronicle of the Monk of Bridlington printed in 'Chronicles of Edward I and II' (Rolls Ser.) The prophecies themselves are printed in Wright's ' Political Songs' (Rolls Ser.) These prophecies are frequently referred to by Walsingham and other writers of his time under the name of Bridlington, and were interpreted by them to foretell events of their own day, such as the death of Archbishop Scrope. Other works doubtfully ascribed to John are 'Homilies' and 'Commentarii super psalterium cum canticis, symbolo Athanasii, et oratione Dominica.' The latter were once in the library of the monastery of Sion.

[There is a life of St. John of Bridlington in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglio, which is given in a shorter form by Surius in his Vitse Sanctorum ; another life by a writer called Hugh is printed by the Bollandists; Walsingham's Hist. Angl.; Wright's Pol. Songs, i. 123; Stubbs's Chronicles, Edw. I and II, ii. p. xxi (these last works are in the Rolls Ser.); Tanner'sBibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 125; Bolland. A.SS. 10 Oct. v. 135-44, and Oct. Supplementum, p. 42 ; authorities quoted.]

C. L. K.

JOHN (fl. 1380), called of Peterborough, is alleged to be the author of 'Chronicon Petroburgense, ab anno 654, quo tempore monasterium Sancti Petri a Peada Rege Merciorum fundatum erat, ad a.c. 1368.' This chronicle is contained in MS. Cotton Claud. A. v., where it is ascribed in a late hand to 'Johannes Abbas,' but there was no abbot of that name at Peterborough between 1263 and 1408. Abbot John de Caleto [q. v.] died in the former year, and John Deeping became abbot in the latter (Dugdale, Monasticon, i. 356-361). John of Peterborough must therefore be regarded as an imaginary person. Simon Patrick, in his appendix to Gunton's 'History of the Church of Peterborough' (p. 312), ascribed the chronicle to John de Caleto, and the later portion of it, from 1259, has been assigned to Robert of Boston. Sparke is inclined to give the authorship to John Deeping. The authority for supposing that the author was a 'John the Abbot' is, however, very slight, and all the ascriptions are mere conjecture. The 'Chronicon Petroburgense' was printed in 1723 in Sparke's 'Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores varii,' pp. 1-114, and was again edited by Dr. J. A. Giles in 1845. Although, considering the period which it covers, the chronicle is brief, it has some value.

[Pits, p. 448; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hil). p. 431; Oudin, Script. Eccl. iii. 1088; Hardy's Cat. Brit. Hist. iii. 149, 216, in Rolls Ser.]

C. L. K.

JOHN (fl. 1322), called of Paris. [See Paris.]

JOHN (fl. 1342), called of Malvern, medical writer. [See Malvern.]

JOHN (fl. 1346), called of Tinmouth, chronicler. [See Tinmouth.]

JOHN (fl. 1400), called of Glastonbury, historian, a Benedictine monk of Glastonbury, wrote a history of his abbey. In his preface he states that he had added many things which William of Malmesbury had omitted, and had rearranged the early history in better order. John abbreviated Adam de Domerham's history of the abbey for the years 1126 to 1291 [see Adam of Domerham],