Thomas Bentley

John Flood (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

Born c. 1543
Died 1585
Activity 1580-1584

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Antiquarian/ Collector
Man/ Woman of Letters

Resources

Bentley's Works

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Thomas Bentley is known for his only surviving work,

The Monument of Matrones

(1582), a multi-volume prayer-book for women. Few details of his life were known until 2000 when he was identified as Thomas Bentley (1543(?)-1585): a prosperous Londoner,

quondam

student of Gray's Inn and churchwarden of St Andrew Holborn (Atkinson and Atkinson 2000).

Thomas was the son of Richard and Alice Bentley. His father had a connection with Gray's Inn before his son attended the then fashionable legal society, as he was the owner of ‘Bentley's Rents', which served as lodgings for some of the Inn's students. Thomas's wife, Susan (d. 1581), was one of two orphan daughters of a prominent member of the Mercer's guild and former Sheriff of London, John Maynard. The combination of Thomas's inheritance and

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825 words

Citation: Flood, John. "Thomas Bentley". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 January 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11965, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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