John Massey (poet)

Internal evidence from the text of the poems and marginalia of the manuscript suggests the name "John Massey" or similar; contemporary records of people of the name who might have been poets include one from the village of Cotton in Cheshire.

[2]In the Latin alphabet as in use in English at that time, the 12th letter was M, and the 18th T, as I and J were seen as one, as well as U and V. This lends credence to the idea that the poet was a Thomas Massey, as in the margins of St. Erkenwald.

Clifford Peterson has argued that Massey may have been a member of the household of John of Lancaster, son of King Henry IV.

in his epistle within the lines "For rethorik hath his fro me the keye Of his tresor, nat deyneth hir nobleye Dele with noon so ignorant as me."

While connected to Massey, the poem never outright mentions a name, only saying that the person being written about has extreme talent in poetry and its devices.