| Administrative History | Robert Parkyn [or, Perkin] (d. 1569), Church of England clergyman and writer, was probably born in the early 1520s to a landed Yorkshire family, probably at Owston. There is no evidence that he attended a university. By 1541 he was in orders and not long after this became curate at Adwick-le-Street in the West Riding where he remained until his death. Parkyn's writings suggest that he retained Catholic sympathies throughout his career. His major work was a metrical Life of Christ extant in MSS Eng. poet. b.1 and Eng. poet. e.59 in the Bodleian Library, both in his hand. Bodleian Library, MS Lat. theol. d.15, another holograph, includes several of his poems of varying lengths, including a chronicle and short religious works, as well as a prose narrative of the Reformation. It also contains copies by Parkyn of prose works by Richard Rolle, poems by John Lydgate, and prayers in verse and prose by Thomas More. Parkyn also composed some brief prose devotional works and made a Bible concordance which all survive in Aberdeen University, MS 185. He died on 23 March 1569. His will includes bequests of a number of books, chiefly theological.
Cited from the online 'Oxford Dictionary of National Bioghraphy'. Further details regarding Parkyn's life and works will be found in A. G. Dickens, ed., Tudor treatises, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 125 (1959) · A. G. Dickens, ‘Robert Parkyn's life of Christ’, Bodleian Library Record, 4 (1952–3), 67–76 · A. G. Dickens, ed., ‘Robert Parkyn's narrative of the Reformation’, EngHR, 62 (1947), 58–83 · A. G. Dickens, ‘The last medieval Englishman’, Christian spirituality: essays in honour of Gordon Rupp, ed. P. Brooks (1975), 141–82 · A. S. G. Edwards, ‘Robert Parkyn's transcript of More's “Prayer of Picus Mirandula unto God … ”’, Moreana, 27 (1990), 133–8 · will, Borth. Inst., prob. reg. 19.66, 54v–55. |
| Custodial History | This volume belonged to King's College, Aberdeen. |