1. John Joscelyn, John Jocelyn or John Joscelin, was an English clergyman and antiquarian as well as secretary to Matthew Parker, an Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
14 Facts About John Joscelyn
1. 2.
John Joscelyn was born in 1529, and was the son of Sir Thomas Joscelin and Dorothy, of Hyde Hall, Sawbridgeworth.
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John Joscelyn was their third son to survive childhood, and was probably born on his father's estate at High Roding, Essex.
4.
John Joscelyn matriculated as a pensioner at Queens' College at Cambridge in 1545, attaining a Bachelor of Arts in 1549.
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From Parker's interest in the history of early Christianity, and to discover more information about the growth of papal power in the Middle Ages, John Joscelyn began to study Old English, and helped the archbishop in his studies of the English pre-Norman Conquest church.
6.
John Joscelyn helped discover lost manuscripts, obtained them for Parker, and prepared them for publication.
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John Joscelyn's glosses are still extant on several dozen manuscripts, usually in Latin, but occasionally in English.
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John Joscelyn was concerned that their collections be properly cared for.
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John Joscelyn had a good understanding of the law codes of the English Anglo-Saxon kings, which he used in the preparation of an Old English-Latin dictionary he worked on, but which was never completed.
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Further, Parker's son, after the archbishop's death, noted beside the bequest notation for Joscelyn's brother Thomas that John Joscelyn was the author of the work.
11.
John Joscelyn published an edition of Gildas' work De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae in 1568, for which he wrote the preface.
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John Joscelyn wrote a history of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Historiola Collegii Corporis Christi that remained unpublished until 1880.
13.
John Joscelyn contributed extensively to Parker's A Testimonie of Antiquitie Shewing the Auncient Fayth in the Church of England, the earliest printed book containing portions in Old English.
14.
John Joscelyn contributed a large part of Parker's De Antiquitate Britannicae, published in 1572.