John Walton (translator)

John Walton, also John Capellanus^[1] (fl. 1410) was an English Augustinian canon, known as a poet and translator.

Works

Walton appears to have been a canon of Osney Abbey in 1410, when he completed his verse-translation of the De Consolatione Philosophiæ of Boethius. This work was undertaken at the request of Elizabeth Berkeley; she, possibly, was the daughter of Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley, patron of John de Trevisa, who married Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick. Boethius's work had already been translated into English prose as Geoffrey Chaucer's Boece, and Walton makes use of Chaucer's version. He refers to Chaucer as "the floure of rethoryk", and also mentions John Gower.^[2]

Ten manuscripts of Walton's translation are extant.^[3] Walton's book was printed in 1525.^[4] Extracts from Walton's poem were printed in Wülker's Altenglisches Lesebuch (ii. 56), in Skeat's edition of Chaucer (vol. ii. pp. xvi–xvii), and in the Athenæum (1892, i. 565).^[2]

Identification

Walton has been confused by Thomas Tanner with John Walton, archbishop of Dublin, with John de Waltham, prior of Drax and subdean of York,^[5] and with others of similar names.^[2]

Notes

1. Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Capellanus, John" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 9. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
2. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Walton, John (fl.1410)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
3. Including British Library Royal Manuscripts 18 A xiii, which in David Casley's Catalogue was erroneously ascribed to John Lydgate. Other manuscripts in the British Library are Harley MS 44 (which contains numerous marginalia by Thomas Chaundler), Harley MS 43, and Sloane MS 554. There are three copies at Oxford: Balliol College MS. B. 5, Trinity College MS. 75, and Rawlinson MS. 151 in the Bodleian; an eighth copy is in Cambridge University Library (MS. Gg. iv. 18), and a ninth in Lincoln Cathedral MS. i. 53. A tenth, which was in the Phillipps collection (No. 1099), is said by Todd to ascribe the translation to "John Tebaud, alias Watyrbeche".
4. With the title, The boke of Comfort called in Latyn Boethius de Consolatione etc., transl. into Englesse tonge by John Waltionem or Walton, Canon of Osney. Enprented in the exempt monastery of Tauestock in Denshyre by me, Dan. Thomas Rychard, monk of the sayd monastery, 1525.
5. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Waltham, John de" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Attribution

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Walton, John (fl.1410)". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.