John Edgar Stevens, CBE, FBA (8 October 1921 – 14 February 2002) was an English musicologist, literary scholar and historian, whose research focused on the words of medieval and Renaissance music.
He was there for a year (1940–41) before his studies were interrupted by service in the Second World War: he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and reached the temporary rank of lieutenant.
[1] Despite the fact that he held teaching posts in English, Stevens's main academic interests and greatest contributions to scholarship were in the fields of musicology and music history.
In his later life, Stevens began work on a project exploring medieval England's tri-lingual songs by editing every one known from before 1300.
It proved too great a task, but he turned his attention to editing the Cambridge University Library manuscript Ff.