Chronicler, theologian and provincial of the Augustine Friars in England, was born and died at Lynn, studied probably at Cambridge, and was ordained priest about 1418, having already entered his order at Lynn. His works include, in Latin, Bible commentaries; sermons; “Nova legenda Angliæ,” printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1516; “De illustribus Henricis,” giving the lives of twenty-four emperors of Germany, kings of England, &c., all of the name of Henry; and “Vita Humfredi Ducis Glocestriæ.” Among his English works are a life of St. Katherine in verse (ed. by Horstmann, Early English Text Society 1893), and “A Chronicle of England from the Creation to 1417.” The last and the “De illustribus Henricis” were edited by F. C. Hingeston for the “Rolls Series” in 1858.

  Capgrave’s biographers eulogise his character in the highest terms. The most learned of English Augustinians whom the soil of Britain ever produced, he was distinguished as a philosopher and theologian, practically rejecting in his writings the dreams of sophists, which lead only to strife and useless discussions.

  Brother John—as he generally calls himself—was a doctor of divinity, a learned gentleman, a good monk, a good prior, a very orthodox and zealous Catholic; also a warm patriot and a good man, bitter and unjust only when the subject touched Wyclif or Sir John Oldcastle. Capgrave possessed no such critical a brain as Reginald Pecock, and as little had he felt any breath of the awakening spirit of humanism, although it occurred to him at one time to change his honest English name into the wondrous Latin form of De monumento pileato. The world in which he lived and worked was thoroughly mediæval. He drew his chief mental nourishment from the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, and the Schoolmen, from Martyrologies, Lives of the Saints, and Chronicles. He occupied himself diligently not only with the moral application of words and matters, but also with their allegorical significance, and with the mystic value of numbers. Where he quotes a verse from Vergil, or even merely from Geoffroy de Viterbo, he frequently makes bad blunders; his own Latin is not altogether exemplary, although in its way tolerable enough. If the Life of Duke Humphrey—which he is said to have written—had been preserved, our praise would probably have referred more to his good intentions than to his intellectual ability. Otherwise, Capgrave was a very shrewd man in his own sphere, of sound understanding, and a skillful compiler, who sometimes, it is true, makes arrant confusion of historical matter beyond his grasp, and also allows himself to be carried away by loyal zealousness; upon the whole, however, he leaves the impression of a clear-headed, sober-minded man, honest and, in many respects, a trustworthy and well-informed authority. With such advantages and such limitations in his character, he was the very man to make use of the variety of materials at his command for reproducing an exact picture of the vanishing era, and for collecting its characteristic features for future generations.

  In point of style Capgrave is as inferior to his predecessors as he is to his successors. Incomparably inferior in point of vigour, grace, rhythm, and copiousness and choice of words to the composition of the chief contemporaries of Chaucer, his style as compared with that of Pecock seems almost a relapse into barbarism. Without vigour or colour, without grace or ornament, his style is singularly jejune and feeble. Here and there, indeed, a neatly turned sentence and a rhythmic paragraph indicate that the example of his more accomplished predecessors had not been without effect. Considering how much our language had been enriched by Chaucer and Lydgate in verse, and by Pecock and others in prose, it is surprising that Capgrave’s vocabulary should be so limited; and limited it is in a remarkable degree. But the explanation of his literary deficiencies is no doubt partly to be found in the temper of the man himself, and partly in the fact that his life was passed, not at any of the centres of culture, but in a remote and obscure corner of the provinces. His temper is the temper of the pedant and the monk, neither curious nor intelligent when important matters are in question, but scrupulous about trifles, and delighting uncritically to record them; inordinately superstitious, narrow alike in sympathy and understanding, without grasp and without vigour.

  The fillip that Wyclif had given to the development of English prose is completely lost as far as John Capgrave is concerned. Living and dying at King’s Lynn, remote from the centres of culture, he was untouched by the movements of his day, and his “Chronicle of England” is as devoid of literary interest as its author is of personal interest.