Editing Poet laureate (section)

===== England =====
[[File:Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer (4671380) (cropped) 02.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer of England]]
In England, the term "poet laureate" is restricted to the official office of Poet Laureate, attached to the royal household. However, no authoritative historical record exists of the office of Poet Laureate of [[England]].

The office developed from earlier practice when [[minstrel]]s and [[poetaster|versifier]]s were members of the king's retinue. [[Richard I of England|Richard Cœur-de-Lion]] had a ''[[versificator regis]]'' (English: ''king's poet''), [[Gulielmus Peregrinus]] (William the Pilgrim), and [[Henry III of England|Henry III]] had a ''versificator'' named Master Henry. In the fifteenth century, John Kay, a versifier, described himself as [[Edward IV of England|Edward IV]]'s "humble poet laureate". According to ''Notes and Queries'' (1876), King [[Henry I of England|Henry I]] paid 10 [[Shilling (British coin)|shillings]] a year to a ''versificator regis''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=25m-T3rtqOsC |title=Notes and Queries |date=1876 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en}}</ref>

[[Geoffrey Chaucer]] (1340–1400) was called Poet Laureate, being granted in 1389 an annual allowance of wine. W. Hamilton describes [[Chaucer]], Gower, Kay, Andrew Bernard, [[John Skelton (poet)|John Skelton]], Robert Whittington, Richard Edwards and [[Samuel Daniel]] as "volunteer Laureates".

[[John Skelton (poet)|John Skelton]] studied at the [[University of Oxford]] in the early 1480s and was advanced to the degree of "poet laureate" in 1488, when he joined the court of King [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]] to tutor the future [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]]. The title of ''laureate'' was also conferred on him by the [[Old University of Leuven|University of Louvain]] in 1492 and by the [[University of Cambridge]] in 1492–3.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} He soon became famous for his [[rhetoric]], [[satire]] and [[translation]]s and was held in high esteem by the [[Printer (publisher)|printer]] [[William Caxton]], who wrote, in the [[preface]] to {{lang|enm|The Boke of Eneydos compyled by Vargyle}} ([[Modern English]]: ''The Book of the [[Aeneid]], compiled by [[Virgil]]'') (1490):
<blockquote>But I pray mayster John Skelton, late created poete laureate in the unyversite of Oxenforde, to oversee and correct this sayd booke.</blockquote>

The academic use of the term laureate became associated again with royalty when King [[James I of England|James I]] created a pension for [[Ben Jonson]] in 1617, although there is no formal record extant. He was succeeded by [[William Davenant]].

The royal office Poet Laureate was officially conferred by [[letters patent]] on [[John Dryden]] in 1668, after Davenant's death, and the post became a regular institution. There are other, non-official, laureate titles, such as the commercially sponsored "[[Children's Laureate]]" for an "eminent writer or illustrator of children's books to celebrate outstanding achievement in their field",<ref>{{cite web |title=Children's Laureate |url=https://www.booktrust.org.uk/what-we-do/childrens-laureate/ |access-date=May 4, 2019 |website=[[Book Trust]]}}</ref> and the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate.<ref name="yppl" />