SHEPEY, JOHN DE

English canonist, dean of Lincoln Cathedral; d. early 1412. The son of Jordan de Shepey of Coventry, England, Shepey was a doctor of civil law by 1367, when he was still an advocate of the court of Canterbury. In 1368 he was appointed the official of the court of Winchester. From 1363 to 1376 he was chancellor of Lichfield; then canon of York; and from 1378 to his death, dean of Lincoln cathedral. In this sensitive post he served under Bp. John Buckingham (1363–98); the young Bp. Henry beaufort (1398–1404), half brother of King Henry IV and later cardinal; and under Bp. Philip repington, Lollard-suspect become cardinal. A king's clerk, Shepey was an envoy to the Flemings concerning a treaty in 1372, an envoy to the court of avignon in 1373; to Bruges in 1375; and one of two envoys appointed to treat with the king of Scotland in 1397. richard ii summoned him to a council at Oxford (1399) to advise him about future English policy in the western schism. Shepey's notes for 12 Oxford lectures on the decretals are extant (London, British Museum, Royal MS.9.E.viii). He is buried in Lincoln Cathedral.

Bibliography: j. h. dahmus, ed., The Metropolitan Visitations of William Courteney: Archbishop of Canterbury, 1381–1396 (Urbana, Ill. 1950) 47, 161. k. edwards, The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages (Manchester, Eng. 1949). a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the Scholars of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 v. (Oxford 1957–59) 3:1683–84.

[m. j. hamilton]