of common knowledge that in 1547 Doctor Boord, a physician and a holy man, who still kept the Carthusian rules of fasting and wearing a hair shirt, was convicted in Winchester of keeping in his house three loose women. For this offence, apparently, he was imprisoned in the Fleet, where he made his will on 9 April 1549. It was proved on the 25th of the same month. Thomas Hearne (Benedictus Abbas, i. p. 52) says that he went round like a quack doctor to country fairs, and therefore rashly supposed him to have been the original Merry Andrew. Works Boorde left works on domestic hygiene and medicine, and The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge. In it the Englishman describes himself and his foibles, his fickleness, his fondness for new fashions, and his obstinacy, in verse. Then follows a geographical description of the country, followed by a model dialogue in the Cornish language. Each country in turn is dealt with on similar lines. His authentic works are: Here foloweth a Compenyous Regiment or Dyetary of health, made in Mountpyller (Thomas Colwell, 1542), of which there are undated and doubtless earlier editions; The Brevyary of health (1547?); The Princyples of Astronamy (1547?); The Peregrination of Doctor Board, printed by Thomas Hearne in Benedictus Abbas Petroburgensis, vol. ii. (1735); A Pronostycacyon or an Almanacke for the yere of our lorde MCCCCCXLV. made by Andrew Boorde. His Itinerary of Europe and Treatyse upon Berdes are lost. Several jest-books are attributed to him without authority: The Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam (earliest extant edition, 1630), Scogins Jests (1626), A mery jest of the Mylner of Abyngton, with his wyfe, and his daughter, and of two poore scholers of Cambridge (printed by Wynkyn de Worde), and a Latin poem, Nos Vagabunduli. References Attribution: Further reading F. J. Furnivall's reprint of the Introduction and some other selections for the Early English Text Society (new series, 1870). External links The fyrst boke of the introduction of knowledge 1490 births 1549 deaths People from Mid Sussex District Carthusians English non-fiction writers Medical doctors from Hampshire 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 16th-century English medical doctors English explorers 16th-century explorers English male non-fiction writers People from Winchester