JOHN OF WALDBY

Preacher, writer; d. shortly after 1372. John must be distinguished from his younger relative, archbishop rob ert waldby of york. He was ordained acolyte Dec. 16, 1334, and had received his D.Th. from Oxford by 1354, probably the year he became provincial of the augustinians in England. Five of his works are extant while at least nine others are lost. All were originally sermons but were changed into devotional reading texts. His collection of seven homilies on the Our Father treat the seven capital sins. In his collection of five sermons on the Ave Maria covering the principal feasts of Our Lady, he defends the Immaculate Conception. His name and ideas received wide circulation through the Mirour of Life of William of Nassington, who claimed to have based his work on John's Our Father, but there is little similarity to John's extant text. The collection of 12 sermons on the Apostles Creed was dedicated to Thomas de la Mare, future abbot of st. alban's, and prior of tynemouth prio ry where the Austins taught Latin. John's Novum opus dominicale is extant; the Misercordiae Domini long assigned to Richard rolle de hampole is now credited to him. His main sources were St. Bernard and especially Augustine, almost all of whose works were available to John in the Austin library in York. John must be counted among the mystical writers of England.

Bibliography: a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 v. (Oxford 1957–59) 3:1957–58. b. hackett, Sanctus Augustinus, vitae spiritualis magister, 2 v. (Rome 1959) v. 2. a. o. gwynn, The English Austin Friars (London 1940) 114–123. g. r. owst, Literature and Pulpit … (New York 1961).

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