Authorship
MS. Douce 302, now held at the Bodleian Library, is a manuscript of work by John Audelay, a chantry priest at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire, who is known to have been alive in 1426, when the manuscript may have been compiled. By this point he stated that he was old, deaf, and blind, although this complicates the question of how he could have authored the poetry in the manuscript. Some scholars have argued that Audelay's other poetry lacks the great technical skill shown in The Three Dead Kings, and that he is therefore unlikely to have written it, especially as it shows signs of a more northerly dialect. Others, however, have defended his authorship, noting that he favours both alliteration and thirteen-line stanza forms elsewhere in the manuscript.
Read more about this topic: The Three Dead Kings
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