Alexander Essebiensis was a celebrated English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 theologian and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, who flourished about the year 1220. Scarcely anything is known of his history, except that he appears to have been prior

Prior

Prior is an ecclesiastical title, derived from the Latin adjective for 'earlier, first', with several notable uses.-Monastic superiors:A Prior is a monastic superior, usually lower in rank than an Abbot. In the Rule of St...

 of Canons Ashby

Canons Ashby Priory

Canons Ashby Priory was an Augustinian monastic establishment in Northamptonshire, England.The Priory was founded by Stephen La Leye on a site to the south of the present church between 1147 and 1151, during the reign of Henry II....

, in Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

. Some writers make him a native of Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

shire; others of Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

; and some have confounded him with Alexander Necham

Alexander Neckam

Alexander Neckam was an English scholar and teacher.-Biography:Born at St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, Neckam's mother, Hodierna, nursed the prince with her own son, who thus became Richard's foster-brother...

.

He wrote various theological and historical works in prose, particularly a chronicle of England, which are still found scattered in manuscripts. His poetry, in which he sought to imitate Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 and Ausonius

Ausonius

Decimius Magnus Ausonius was a Latin poet and rhetorician, born at Burdigala .-Biography:Decimius Magnus Ausonius was born in Bordeaux in ca. 310. His father was a noted physician of Greek ancestry and his mother was descended on both sides from long-established aristocratic Gallo-Roman families...

, is much praised by Bale

Bale

- Places :* Bale , a small town in Croatia* Bale, California, in Napa County* Bale, Norfolk in England* Bale, Poland* Balé Province, Burkina Faso* Basel, the Swiss city, for which the French name is Bâle-Ethiopia:* Bale Mountains...

. Amongst other poems, we may enumerate one in elegiacs, giving a description of all the saints' days throughout the year, with lives of the saints who were celebrated on each and a metrical compendium of Bible History.

A further account of Alexander's works will be found in Thomas Tanner

Thomas Tanner (bishop)

Thomas Tanner was an English antiquary and prelate.-Life:He was born at Market Lavington in Wiltshire, and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, taking holy orders in 1694...

's Bibliotheca, and in Polycarp Leyser's Hist. Poet. Med. Ævi.

Sources

• Alexandri Essebiensis Opera Theologica, cura et studio Franco Morenzoni et Thomas H. Bestul,Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis CLXXXVIII, Turnhout Brepols, 2004
• Alexandri Essebiensis Opera Poetica, cura et studio Greti Dinkova-Bruun, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis CLXXXVIII A, Turnhout Brepols 2004
• G. Dinkova-Bruun:Alexander of Ashby: New Biographical Evidence, Medieval Studies 63 (2001)