Stephen Birchington (died 1407) was a British

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

and writer in the 14th century.

Life

His name probably derives from a village in the

Isle of Thanet The Isle of Thanet () is a peninsula forming the easternmost part of Kent, England. While in the past it was separated from the mainland by the Wantsum Channel, it is no longer an island. Archaeological remains testify to its settlement in anc ...

. He became a monk of

Christ Church, Canterbury Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby, leader of the Ch ...

in 1382, though it is said that he had a previous connection to that house. For some time he held the offices of

treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury o ...

and

warden A warden is a custodian, defender, or guardian. Warden is often used in the sense of a watchman or guardian, as in a prison warden. It can also refer to a chief or head official, as in the Warden of the Mint. ''Warden'' is etymologically identic ...

of the manors of the monastery. He died on 21 August 1407.

Works

Birchington wrote ''Vitae Archiepiscoporum Cantuariensium'' ("Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury"), which was later edited and published by

Henry Wharton Henry Wharton (9 November 1664 – 5 March 1695) was an English writer and librarian. Life Wharton was descended from Thomas, 2nd Baron Wharton (1520–1572), being a son of the Rev. Edmund Wharton, vicar of Worstead, Norfolk. Born at Worstead ...

in his ''Anglia Sacra'' (1691). Wharton hypothesised that Birchington wrote another and longer version of the ''Lives of the Archbishops'', which was not preserved. There were three other manuscripts found in the same

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

as the ''Vitae'', which Wharton believed might have been written by Birchington: ''De Regibus Anglorum'' (a chronicle of England), ''De Pontificibus Romanis'', and ''De Imperatoribus Romanis''. However, the last two are now known to have been the work of the French Dominican,

Bernard Gui Bernard Gui (), also known as Bernardo Gui or Bernardus Guidonis (c. 1261/62 – 30 December 1331), was a Dominican friar, Bishop of Lodève, and a papal inquisitor during the later stages of the Medieval Inquisition. Due to his fictionalis ...

. Nigel Ramsay has further argued that ''De Regibus'', and another set of archiepiscopal lives held in

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is situated in north Lambeth, London, on the south bank of the River Thames, south-east of the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, on the opposite ...

, are more likely to be the work of a predecessor, working in about the 1360s, and that Birchington's original contribution, which would have continued the story into the later fourteenth century, is lost.

Notes

References

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External links

* English Christian monks 14th-century English writers 14th-century births 1407 deaths Year of birth unknown 14th-century Latin writers {{England-reli-bio-stub