LONDON, July 20 (UPI) -- A sloppy transcriber who worked for British author Geoffrey Chaucer 600 years ago has finally been identified.
Officials at Cambridge University say the copyist who wrote out Chaucer's works, including "The Canterbury Tales," was Adam Pinkhurst, son of a small Surrey landowner in the 14th century, Britain's Guardian reported Tuesday.
The scribe previously known only as "Adam the scrivener" so infuriated Chaucer the author wrote a poem about his assistant in "Chaucer's Wordes Unto Adam His Own Scriveyne," in which he chided Pinkhurst for his many errors.
Linne Mooney, a professor from Maine who is a visiting fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, made the discovery by studying Pinkhurt's signature in the earliest records of the Scriveners' company in London and comparing it with Chaucer manuscripts.
