Richard Sotheworth, Chancery Clerks, and a Discourse of Books

Abstract:The Chancery clerk Richard Sotheworth (d. 1419) listed a copy of the Canterbury Tales and three other books in his will, making him the earliest named owner of Chaucer's poem. I identify here a manuscript owned and copied by Sotheworth, and also a number of Chancery documents in his hand. Considering the wills and manuscripts owned by individuals connected to Sotheworth, this essay recovers a network of the books and belongings of Chancery clerks. From this network, I demonstrate that a distinct discourse emerges from how Chancery clerks described the books that were their daily business and also occupied them as they imagined their own deaths. The recurring attention in these wills to who bought, copied, and owned books of every type reveals the ways in which Sotheworth and his colleagues conceived of books as things that themselves required narration—as objects that Chancery clerks conceptualized, described, and valued not only for their texts, but in terms of the social relationships they embodied and the personal memories they evoked.