William of Shoreham (fourteenth century) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. Little is known of his life, but he probably lived in

Shoreham, Kent Shoreham is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 5.2 miles north of Sevenoaks. The probable derivation of the name is ''estate at the foot of a steep slope''. Steep slo ...

and was vicar of

Chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

(near

Leeds, Kent Leeds is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Maidstone (borough), Maidstone district of Kent, England. Location The village is located to the east of Maidstone, the county town of Kent. Etymology It appeared in the Dom ...

). Seven poems in English are attributed to him, all contained in a single manuscript now in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

( Add MS 17376). Four of the poems are didactic and address points of

Christian doctrine Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, ...

, the other three are in praise of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...

(one of them a translation from

Robert Grosseteste Robert Grosseteste, ', ', or ') or the gallicised Robert Grosstête ( ; la, Robertus Grossetesta or '). Also known as Robert of Lincoln ( la, Robertus Lincolniensis, ', &c.) or Rupert of Lincoln ( la, Rubertus Lincolniensis, &c.). ( ; la, Rob ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

). He was once thought to be the author of an English

psalter A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters we ...

, but this is now considered spurious.

Further reading