James or Jacobus Yonge (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1406–1438) was an Anglo-Irish translator, author, and civil servant.

Life

Yonge lived in Dublin and belonged to an English family settled in the

Irish pale The Pale (Irish: ''An Pháil'') or the English Pale (' or ') was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages. It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast st ...

. William Yonge,

Archdeacon of Meath The archdeacon of Meath is a senior ecclesiastical officer within the united Diocese of Meath and Kildare. The archdeaconry can trace its history from Helias, the first known incumbent, who held the office in the twelfth century to the last dis ...

from 1407 to 1437, was possibly his brother. Both James and John Yonge (possibly an uncle) occur in the Irish patent and close rolls early in the fifteenth century. James Yonge was in prison in Trim Castle from January to October 1423, being removed in the latter month to

Dublin Castle Dublin Castle ( ga, Caisleán Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a former Motte-and-bailey castle and current Irish government complex and conference centre. It was chosen for its position at the highest point of central Dublin. Until 1922 it was the se ...

, and being pardoned on 10 May 1425. A John Yonge was serjeant of the county of Limerick in the reign of

Richard II Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died ...

, held a lease of various lands, and was convicted of unspecified felonies. James Yonge worked as a legal scribe for the City of Dublin, the religious Guild of St. Anne, St. John's Parish, and many private clients in Dublin. In 1412, he wrote a Latin text known as the 'Memoriale' chronicling the visions of a Hungarian knight, Laurence Rathold of Pászthó, in Saint Patrick's Purgatory. He was hired by James Butler, 4th earl of Ormonde, to translate into English the ‘ Secreta Secretorum’ attributed to

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

. He finished this work in 1422. The 'Secreta secretorum' was a popular work in the Middle Ages, and translations were made in the early fifteenth century by Thomas Hoccleve, John Shirley (1366?–1456), John Lydgate, and Burgh, and John Gower used it in his

Confessio Amantis ''Confessio Amantis'' ("The Lover's Confession") is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. Accord ...

. Yonge's translation appears to have been made from a French version by one Gofroi of Waterford; it was dedicated to Ormonde and was once considered ‘perhaps the only lengthy work known written in the English of the Pale early in the fifteenth century’. It is divided into seventy-two chapters and is interspersed with passages from Irish history, including some of Ormonde's exploits in 1422. Several manuscripts of it are extant.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:James Yonge (Translator) 15th-century English writers 15th-century Irish writers 15th-century English translators Irish translators English male non-fiction writers