Norman Blake was born in Ceará, Brazil, where his English father worked as a banker at the Bank of London and South America.
Two years after the end of the war his older brother, who attended the same boarding school, died in an accident.
During the academic year 1956–1957 he studied Old Icelandic manuscripts at the newly established Arnamagnæan Institute, part of the University of Copenhagen.
[2] In May 2004 Norman Blake suffered a massive stroke severely restricting his movement and speaking capabilities.
The criticism led him to publish a number of books and articles over the following 15 years enhancing and augmenting his argument.
[1] Blake contributed several articles to the German encyclopaedia Lexikon des Mittelalters and the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, and was also editor and contributor to the second volume of The Cambridge History of the English Language published in 1992.
Its aim was to make electronically available all the manuscripts and early printed versions of The Canterbury Tales, a total of approximately 80 manuscripts and books elucidating the textual tradition of the work and providing understanding of the reshaping of the English language during an important phase in its history.
By the end of the project eight manuscripts were transcribed as well as the best part of seven others as well as all witnesses of The Franklin's Tale, consisting of about 330,000 words.