Susanna Fein

Mary to Veronica: John Audelay's Sequence of Salutations to God-Bearing Women

Literary historians have been working productively in recent years to reclaim the texture of early-fifteenth-century English poetry in contexts of politics and religion. To the list of major authors we should add John Audelay, chaplain of Knockin (fl. 1417–26), setting him equally beside his contemporaries Thomas Hoccleve, John Lydgate, and Margery Kempe. As a vernacular poet with a name, a provenance, and a rich body of work, Audelay warrants serious regard. His oeuvre displays an artistry that is different from, but as innovative and revelatory of his times as, those of his celebrated contemporaries.