No More Learning

It
is scarcely too much to say that his first visit to England
was the turning point in the career of Erasmus. Apart from it,
he might have written Adagia, Colloquia, Copia, Encomium
Moriae, but not Novum Instrumentum with the Paraphrases,
Enchiridion Militis Christiani, Institutio Principis Christiani,
nor his editions and commentaries on such early Fathers as
Jerome and Chrysostom. He met men who, so far as the humani-
ties were concerned, were riper scholars than himself and who, at
the same time, were animated by lofty Christian aspirations; from
them, Erasmus learnt to be a Christian humanist, with a real
desire to see a reformation in life and morals in the church
and in society, and a perception of the way in which the classical
renascence might be made serviceable to that end.
Erasmus had never cared much for theology, although he had
studied it in a somewhat perfunctory manner in order to qualify
himself for the much esteemed degree of doctor of divinity.
He had called himself vetus theologus, which meant one who
accepted the teaching of Aquinas and cared little for the novelties
introduced by John Duns Scotus. He had jeered at the Scotist
theologians of the Sorbonne 'biting their nails and making all
sorts of discoveries about instances and quiddities and formalities'
and falling asleep at their task. Now, John Colet showed him
that Aquinas was, perhaps, to be distrusted quite as much-a
man who had taken upon himself to define all things, a man who
had corrupted the teaching of Christ by mixing it with his profane
philosophy. Colet made it plain, too, how the classical renascence
could help in the work of reformation which all men then thought
to be necessary. A scholar could edit the New Testament in
Greek, and could translate the Scriptures into the vernaculars,
so that the ploughman might repeat portions of them to himself
as he followed the plough and the weaver might hum them to
the tune of his shuttle. He could produce paraphrases of the
more difficult portions. He could edit the writings of the earlier
Fathers and show men what Christianity was before the schoolmen
altered it. Such was the lesson which the English scholar im-
pressed on the Dutch humanist, and Erasmus never forgot it. His
intercourse with Colei gave a bent to his whole life.


## p. 5 (#27) ###############################################

Thomas Linacre
5
The scholars whom Erasmus met in England during his earlier
visits may be said to have been the pioneers of the classical rena-
scence in this country. Before them, Englishmen had gone to Italy
on business connected with the Holy See or to perfect themselves
in canon law at the famous university of Bologna, and had used
the opportunities given to study Latin and even Greek. We
hear of Robert Flemming, afterwards dean of Lincoln, who studied
Greek at Ferrara under Battista Guarino; of William Grey, who
was taught by the famous Guarino, who brought Greek MSS to
England and presented them to Balliol College; of John Gunthorpe;
of William Tilly of Selling or Celling, who had travelled in Italy, had
learned Greek and, most probably, taught it to his more promising
pupils in the school of the monastery of Christ Church, Canter-
bury. These earliest English humanists are little more than names
and the influence they exerted on their own land, however
real it may have been, is obscure and scarcely discernible.
The fact that they left their native land and studied under such
a famous teacher as Guarino shows that there had arisen in
England the beginnings of a desire to share in the classical
renascence.
Thomas Linacre had been a pupil of William Tilly of Selling in
the monastery school at Christ Church and, probably, had received
his earliest aspirations towards scholarship from his master. He
had gone to Oxford, where he had an oppoftunity of studying
Greek under Cornelio Vitelli, who had been invited by the
warden of New College, Thomas Chaundler, to act as praelector
in his college, and who was the first to teach Greek publicly
in England. His old teacher, William Tilly of Selling, was sent as
ambassador by Henry VII to Innocent VIII; Linacre went with
him and, spending some years in Italy, made the acquaintance
of scholars and devoted himself to the humanities. At Bologna,
he was introduced to Angelo Poliziano, and, at Florence, Lorenzo
de' Medici permitted him to share the instructions given by
that Italian humanist and by the learned Greek, Demetrius
Chalcondylas, to his children Piero and Giovanni (afterwards
pope Leo X).
From Florence he went to Rome, where he
became intimate with Hermolaus Barbarus, who, it is generally
assumed, inspired him with the interest he afterwards displayed
in the writings of Aristotle, Pliny, Galen and other medical writers
among the ancients. In Venice, he made the acquaintance of
Aldus Manutius Romanus, the great printer, and assisted him
in the Aldine edition of Aristotle. In Padua, on the occasion of


## p. 6 (#28) ###############################################

6 Englishmen and the Classical Renascence
1
his graduating as M. D. , he sustained a brilliant discussion against
the senior physicians of that city. In Vicenza, he became the
pupil of Nicolaus Leonides, equally famous as a humanist and
as a physician. On Linacre's return to England he almost at once
took the position which Leonides occupied in northern Italy.
He was recognised as a distinguished physician and as the fore-
most scholar in his native land. He taught at Oxford, and Thomas
More owed his knowledge of Greek to Linacre's instruction. He
was tutor to prince Arthur. Later, he was one of the king's
physicians to Henry VIII. He practised in London and was the
founder of the Royal College of Physicians. He was appointed
Latin tutor to princess Mary, then five years of age, and wrote
for her use a grammar which afterwards became famous. This
grammar was translated into Latin from the original English by
George Buchanan, and, in this form, continued to be the standard
Latin grammar in France for more than half a century. The
rest of his writings were mainly medical translations from
the works of Galen, the great Greek physician, whom he made
known to European students of medicine.
William Grocyn was early distinguished by his knowledge of
Greek and taught that language at Oxford before 1488. . It is
likely that he, as well as Linacre, owed his knowledge of Greek
to Cornelio Vitelli. He followed Linacre to Italy, studied, like
him, under Poliziano and Chalcondylas at Florence and, like him,
made the acquaintance of the great Venetian printer. On his
return to England, he taught Greek at Oxford, and his daily
lectures were attended by the chief scholars of the time. Unlike
most of the Italian humanists who were his contemporaries,
Grocyn thought little of Plato and much of Aristotle. Yet he
lectured on Pseudo-Dionysius at Oxford and for some time
believed him to have been the convert of St Paul, but soon
became convinced, either by independent study or by the criticism
of Laurentius Valla, that the Celestial Hierarchy belonged to a
much later age. He introduced Colet to the writings of Dionysius
and also proved to him that the author could not have been the
Areopagite. Grocyn resembled in many ways some of the older
German humanists, who were content to spend their time in
study and in directing and encouraging the work of younger
scholars, without contributing to the store of learning by books
of their own making.
With Grocyn and Linacre must be classed William Latimer,
who had a great reputation for learning among his contemporaries,
.


## p. 7 (#29) ###############################################

English Students at Paris
7
English and continental. He had spent many years in Italy in
acquiring a knowledge of the humanities, and his knowledge of
Greek was highly esteemed by Erasmus. He was selected to be
the tutor of young Reginald Pole, the future cardinal, whose
scholarship, doubtless, was due to his early preceptor. The reasons
he gave to Erasmus for refusing to act as teacher to John
Fisher, bishop of Rochester, show the scorn of a scholar for
the man who was content with a smattering of such a language
as Greek and the preference of the humanist for classical Greek
as compared with that of the New Testament.
Richard Pace and Cuthbert Tunstall are also to be classed
among the English contemporaries of Erasmus who went to Italy
to absorb the spirit of humanism in its peculiar home. The former
studied at Padua, Ferrara and Bologna; the latter at Padua,
where he made the acquaintance of Jerome Busleiden (Buslidianus),
a scholar from the Netherlands and afterwards a friend both of
More and of Erasmus. Both Pace and Tunstall were engaged in
the diplomatic service of Henry VIII and received ecclesiastical
preferment for their services. Tunstall was cardinal Wolsey's agent
at the famous diet of Worms, and wrote to his master that he
believed there were a hundred thousand Germans ready to lay
down their lives in Luther's defence. Pace was employed in the
vain endeavour to secure the imperial crown for Henry and
the papacy for Wolsey.
The desire for classical learning spread widely. Students
who could not go to Italy went to Paris, where teachers congre-
gated. It was noticed there that the young Englishmen who
came to the colleges in the French capital belonged, for the most
part, to the aristocracy or to the moneyed classes. They were able
to live in pensionats or boarding-houses, and did not share the
hard life of the great majority of Parisian students, whose fate
made them inmates of a college or drove them to highly-priced
miserable garrets in the streets about the Place Maubert.
In the pensionats, students lived under the care of a preceptor,
and the best teachers the city afforded were hired to teach them the
branches of learning they had come to acquire. Erasmus himself
made the acquaintance of Englishmen by teaching in one of
these boarding houses. There he taught William Blount, lord
-
Mountjoy, who brought him to England, Thomas Gray, Robert
Fisher, cousin of John, afterwards bishop of Rochester, and the
head of the boarding-house himself, who, most probably, was an
Englishman of gentle birth from the Border (Semi-Scotus).


## p. 8 (#30) ###############################################

8 English men and the Classical Renascence
Royalty, even in the person of Henry VII, recognised the ad-
vantages of the classical renascence. Linacre, as has been said, was
engaged to instruct the heir-apparent, Arthur, prince of Wales; the
studious habits of young lord Mountjoy occasioned his selection to
be elder companion to prince Henry. The part taken by Margaret,
countess of Richmond and Derby, in establishing homes of the
classical renascence in Cambridge has been discussed in a previous
chapter of this work.
Among English scholars who were contemporaries of Erasmus,
the first place must be given to John Colet, if precedence be deter-
mined not so much by the acquisition of exact scholarship as by
the gifts of a commanding personality and the power to influence
workers in a man's own and the succeeding generation. In another
age, he might not have been the leader of men that he actually was;
but, north of the Alps, during the close of the fifteenth and the
earlier part of the sixteenth century, the moving force was religion,
and Colet was the chief Christian humanist of England. Singularly
enough, he seems to have been awakened to his vocation while in
Italy. No evidence connects Colet with Florence, yet it is probable
that his inspiration came from Savonarola. The probability is
strengthened by his familiarity with the works of Marsilio Ficino,
who, for a time, was completely under the influence of the great
Florentine reformer, and of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who
was his lifelong and ardent disciple. Colet began his work on his
return to England. His was a typically English mind-conservative,
practical, careless about exact definitions in theology-and the
value of the classical learning for him was the use it could be
put to in effecting the task which lay nearest his heart.
His sermon, preached before convocation (6 February 1511/12),
was instinct with the sense of individuality, a new product of the
renascence, and with a wise ecclesiastical conservatism. Everyone
admitted the need of reformation: the question was how it could
be effected. Colet argued that all reformation must begin within
the individual soul, and that, if those in authority within the
church set about reforming themselves, the movement would spread
throughout the inferior clergy and the laity. No startling change
was needed either in ecclesiastical constitution or in the enactment
of new and drastic ecclesiastical laws. The existing laws could be
made sufficient by the example of the bishops and their honest
administration of their dioceses. The sermon was immediately
I See vol. II, chap. xv.


## p. 9 (#31) ###############################################

John Colet, Dean of St Paul's
9
published, and has been frequently reprinted'. It was enlivened
by pictures of the luxury, sloth and simony of the bishops and
clergy of England, and, naturally, gave great offence. Colet's
bishop, FitzJames of London, hastened to prefer charges of heresy
against the dean of St Paul's, and extracts from his sermons,
showing that he had at other times denounced the worship of
images, large episcopal revenues and the practice of reading
sermons, were laid before archbishop Warham with a view of pro-
curing his condemnation. The charge was dismissed as frivolous.
Colet was more than careless of exact definitions in theology;
he disliked them thoroughly. Most of those theologians who were
at all tinged with the spirit of the renascence had turned from the
later Scotist theology with its endless quibbles, but Colet went much
further. He had a rooted dislike to Thomas Aquinas and had no
sympathy with the reviving study of St Augustine. An examina-
tion of his various writings and of the reports of the lectures
which he delivered in Oxford on his return from Italy suggests
that he did not care for that use of legal terms and forms of
thought which had been the characteristic of western theology
from Tertullian to Aquinas and Ockham, to say nothing of post-
reformation developments. The great men who built the western
church and gradually formulated its elaborate constitution and its
scheme of doctrine were almost all Roman lawyers, and their
training influenced their ways of thinking on all matters eccle-
siastical and theological. They inspired the medieval church with
the conception of an intellectual imperialism, where a system of
Christian thought, expressed in terms of legal precision, bound
into a comprehensive unity the active intelligence of mankind.
Dogmas thus expressed may become the instruments of a tyranny as
galling as, and more penetrating than, that of an institution. In his
revolt, Colet turned to the Christian thinkers who had lived before
Gregory the Great, whose writings form the bridge between the
earlier Latin Fathers and the schoolmen, to the Greek theologians
who never exhibited the lawyer-like instincts of their western
colleagues and, above all, to a thinker removed further than any
other from the legal precision of statement which was distasteful
to his practical English common sense. It is probable that his
-
intercourse with Christian humanists in Italy, and his introduc-
tion to the Christian Platonists and Neo-Platonists there, drew
him to the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, whom, at first, he
1 In 1661, 1701 and 1708 (in the Phoenix, vol. 1) in English, and in Knight's
Life of Colet (1724, 1823).


## p. 10 (#32) ##############################################

10 Englishmen and the Classical Renascence
a
believed to be the convert of St Paul and, therefore, able to tell
what a Christian thinker taught during the first age of the church.
After Grocyn had convinced him that these writings could not
be of earlier date than the sixth century, he still held that, through
them, he could recover a theology such as it had been before being
subjected to the domination of the schoolmen. They led him to
two things he was very willing to learn: that the human mind,
however it may feel after, and apprehend, God, can never imprison
His character and attributes in propositions-stereotyped aspects
of thought—which can be fitted into syllogisms and built up into a
compact and rigidly harmonious structure; and, also, that such
things as hierarchy and sacraments are not to be prized because
they are in themselves the active sources and centres of mysterious
powers, but because they faintly symbolise the spiritual forces
through which God works silently for the salvation of His people.
If the stress Colet laid on the worth of the individual soul, and
his dislike of the puerilities and intricate definitions of medieval
theology, were characteristic of the spirit of his age, striving to
escape from the thickets of medieval thought and reach the open
country, the lectures he delivered in Oxford after his return from
Italy showed that he was strikingly original and in advance of his
time in seeing how to apply classical learning to the requirements
of Christian thought. His method of exposition, familiar enough
after Calvin had introduced it in the reformed church, was then
absolutely new. He discarded completely the idea, as old as
Origen, indeed older, that the Scriptures may be understood in a
variety of senses, and that the simple historical sense is the least
valuable. He insisted on the unity of the meaning of Scripture, and
that the one meaning was the plain historical sense of the words.
An intimate acquaintance with the methods of exegesis common in
the medieval church is necessary to enable us to understand not
merely the originality but the daring involved in the thought and
practice. Colet, however, went further. He believed that the aim
of a true interpretation of Scripture was to discover the personal
message which the individual writer meant to give; and this led
him, in his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, to seek for every
trace which revealed the personality of St Paul. It was equally
imperative, he believed, to know what were the surroundings of
the men to whom the letter was addressed. This led him to study
in Suetonius and other historians the conditions of the Roman
populace during the first century. Colet was the first to introduce
the historical method of interpreting Scripture, and, as such, was far


## p. 11 (#33) ##############################################

John Colet, Dean of St Paul's
II
in advance not merely of his own time but of many a succeeding
generation. It is not surprising that his lectures were thronged by
Oxford scholars and that the audience included such personages
as Richard Charnock and Erasmus. They revealed a new world to
men who had been accustomed to believe that the only method of
interpreting Scripture was to string together quotations, appro-
priate and inappropriate, from the Fathers. Scholars like Cornelius
Agrippa studied theology under the lecturer, and Erasmus wished
to take part in his researches.
Colet continued his lectures at Oxford on the New Testament
during six successive years. When he became dean of St Paul's,
he was accustomed to preach courses of sermons which are said to
have resembled his Oxford lectures and drew crowds of listeners
to his church. An Exposition of St Paul's Epistle to the Romans
and An Exposition of St Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians',
enable us to understand somewhat of Colet's lectures. Their merits
must be judged by comparing them with contemporary attempts
at exegesis.
Colet is now best remembered by his educational work. He
resolved to set apart a large portion of his great private fortune to
endow a school where boys could enjoy the privilege of an education
in Latin and Greek. The buildings were erected on a site at the
eastern end of St Paul's churchyard, and consisted of a school-
house, a large school-room and houses for two masters. An estate
in Buckinghamshire was transferred to the Mercers' company to
provide for the salaries of the teachers. Other property was
afterwards given to provide the salary of a chaplain to teach the
boys divinity and for other school purposes. Colet's letters to
Erasmus show how absorbed he was with his project and what
pains he took to see that his ideals were carried out. He asked
Linacre to write a Latin grammar for use in his school; but, not
being satisfied with the book, he himself wrote a short accidence in
English, and William Lily furnished a brief Latin syntax with the
rules in the vernacular. This syntax was afterwards enlarged or re-
written at Colet's request and, in this form, was revised by Erasmus.
The book remained long in use and was revised and amended at
various dates during two centuries. It was so highly valued that, in
1571, the upper house of convocation actually passed a canon making
its use compulsory throughout England, and a bill was introduced
in the House of Lords to give legal effect to the decision, but was
1 Edited by J. H. Lupton from MSS in the Cambridge University Library (Latin
text and English translation).


## p. 12 (#34) ##############################################

12 I
English men and the Classical Renascence
withdrawn. In 1758, after further emendation, it became the
Eton Latin Grammar.
Colet wrote a short series of rules for the guidance of his
teachers and scholars, and an English version of the creed and
some prayers. They were printed at the beginning of the
accidence. Erasmus, likewise, furnished some Latin prayers for
the use of the scholars and wrote for the school his Copia
Verborum et Rerum-a Latin phrase-book. In the last year of
his life, Colet, after long thought, drew up a final set of statutes for
his school. He formally appointed the Mercers' company to be
the governing body and desired that the actual governors should
be 'married men,' not ecclesiastics. The combination of religious
education with the firm rejection of clerical control was very
characteristic of the man. It indicated a trend of mind corre-
sponding to that which was to be found in Germany at the
same time.
From all the accounts that have come down to us, it is evident
that Colet was a great personality, who impressed everyone with
whom he came in contact by his incalculable force of character.
He had not the scholarship of Grocyn, Linacre, Latimer, or even
of More, yet he was the central figure in the group of English
humanists who figure in the correspondence of Erasmus. He was,
perhaps, the only man who exercised a commanding and abiding
influence on the brilliant Dutch humanist. What his attitude
would have been in the crisis which overwhelmed his friends More
and Fisher, it is impossible to say. We may be sure that he could
never have accepted in any complete way the Lutheran reformation.
The revived Augustinianism of the German reformer would, cer-
tainly, have repelled him as it did Erasmus and many of the
German humanists; but he held opinions which neither Fisher
nor More ever shared.
He openly expressed his disbelief in the efficacy of relics, and
ridiculed the credulity of the pilgrims when he made the famous
journey to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury which is
recorded in Peregrinatio Religionis ergo. Viclevita quispiam
opinor,' was the remark made by the hearer when Colet's behaviour
was described. He omitted the usual reference to the Blessed
Virgin and the saints in his last will, and left no money to be
expended on masses for the benefit of his soul. He delighted
in the Novum Instrumentum of Erasmus, and would not have
transmitted to him the criticisms and cautions which More thought
proper to . send. He was among the earliest Englishmen of his
1
1


## p. 13 (#35) ##############################################

William Lily. John Fisher
13
generation to believe that the Bible in the vernacular ought
to be in the hands of the people, and he would not have in-
dulged in the disparagement and angry comment with which
More greeted the remarkably accurate translation of the New
Testament by William Tindale. His refusal to permit ecclesiastical
control over his school is very significant, and suggests that he
shared the opinion which Cranmer came to hold, that the trans-
ference of power from the clergy to the laity was the only
guarantee for a reformation of the evils he clearly saw infesting
the church and society. He was passionately convinced of the
degradation of the church of his day, and believed that, in order
to effect its cure, Christians must revert to the thoughts and usages
of primitive Christian society. It is scarcely too much to say
that the process of the English reformation down to the publica-
tion of the Ten Articles and the Bishop's Book to a very large
extent embodied the ideas of the dean of St Paul's.
His correspondence with Erasmus shows what time and thought
Colet spent on the selection of the first teachers in his school. He
finally made choice of William Lily, “the grammarian,' for head-
master, and John Ritwyse (Rightwise) for sur-master. Lily ranked
with Grocyn and Linacre as one of the most erudite students of
Greek that England possessed. After graduating in arts at Oxford,
he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, spent some time with the
Knights of St John at Rhodes, and returning home by Italy studied
there under Sulpitius and Pomponius Laetus. He became an
intimate friend of Thomas More, and, in conjunction with him,
published Progymnasmata, a series of translations from the Greek
anthology into Latin elegiacs. For many generations the masters
in St Paul's school maintained its reputation as the home of
classical learning. It became the Deventer or Schlettstadt of
England.
John Fisher, bishop of Rochester (1504), deserves a place among
those scholars who belonged to the close of the reign of Henry VII,
more from his sympathy with learning and his successful efforts to
revive the intellectual activity of Cambridge university than from
his actual attainments in scholarship. He was a Cambridge
student, who graduated in 1487, and, by a singularly rapid pro-
motion, became master of Michael house in 1497, and, in the end,
chancellor of the university (1504, and elected for life in 1514). He
early attracted the attention of Lady Margaret Tudor, countess of
Richmond and mother of Henry VII, and became her confessor.
He was the first holder of the Lady Margaret professorship of


## p. 14 (#36) ##############################################

14 English men and the Classical Renascence
divinity (1502) founded by that lady to provide gratuitous in-
struction in theology. He was also employed by her to establish
in the university her endowment for a preacher in the vernacular.
The Lady Margaret foundation attempted to do what was being
done all over Germany by endowments such as that of Peter Schott
of Strassburg, which found a place for the celebrated John Geiler
of Keisersberg.
Fisher was a patron, not a very highly appreciated one, of
Erasmus. He was mainly instrumental, it is said, in procuring for
him facilities for taking a divinity degree in Cambridge—facilities
of which no use was made. On the accession of Henry VIII,
lord Mountjoy, or Andreas Ammonius for him, wrote an extrava-
gant letter to his old preceptor, telling him of the accession of a
humanist prince and assuring him that Henry would make his
fortune. The heavens were laughing, the earth exulting, all things
full of milk, of honey and of nectar. Henry had assured the
writer that he would foster and encourage learned men, without
whom the rest of mankind would scarcely exist at all. “Make
up your mind that the last day of your wretchedness has dawned.
You will come to a prince, who will say, “Accept our wealth and
be our greatest sage. ” Poor Erasmus hurried from Italy to find
the king quite indifferent to his needs. It was then that Fisher,
eager to promote learning in his university, induced the great
humanist to lecture on Greek in Cambridge from August 1511
to January 1514. He used, first of all, the grammar of Chrysoloras
and, later, that of Theodorus Gaza. He does not seem to have
enjoyed his residence much and his letters are full of complaints
about the scanty remuneration he received. He saw before him
'the footprints of Christian poverty' and believed that he would
require to pay out a great deal more than he received. The uni-
versity authorities, on the other hand, asked lord Mountjoy to
assist them in paying the huge salary (immensum stipendium)
they had promised their lecturer. Fisher very properly refused to
make
any advances from the money given him for the foundation
of Christ's College, and sent him a private donation. The com-
plaints of Erasmus must not be taken too seriously. His keen
intelligence was enclosed in a sickly body whose frailty made
continuous demands on the soul it imprisoned. It needed warm
rooms free from draughts, stoves that sent forth no smell, an easy-
going horse and a deft servant; and, to procure all these comforts,
Erasmus wrote the daintiest of begging letters. We have but little


## p. 15 (#37) ##############################################

Sir Thomas More
15
certain information about the results of his work at Cambridge,
but it must have been effective. He was a notable teacher, and
Colet wished often that he could secure him for his school. He was
at the university at the very time when it was in the act of
changing from a medieval to a modern seat of learning; and
Fisher congratulated himself on having induced the great scholar
to remain a long time among its students.
Fisher's own writings were almost all controversial. He was
the determined enemy of the Lutheran reformation, and the nature
of his books is recognisable from their titles : Confutatio Asser-
tionis Lutheranae ; De Eucharistia contra Johannem Oecolam-
padium libri quinque ; Sacri Sacerdotii Defensio contra
Lutherum ; a defence of Henry VIII's Assertio septem Sacra-
mentorum; and so forth'. Fisher maintained his opinions loyally
to the end. He resisted to the utmost of his ability Henry's claim
to be considered the head of the church of England, and he
refused to declare his belief in the invalidity of the marriage of
Catharine of Aragon with the king.
This resistance cost him his
life. He was beheaded 22 June 1535.
Sir Thomas More, the associate with Fisher in his tragic death,
the pupil of Linacre and Grocyn, the disciple of Colet and the
beloved friend of Erasmus, was the one member of the band of
English humanists who had a distinct gift of literary genius. The
son of a well-known London lawyer, he was placed by his father in
the household of archbishop Morton, who, recognising his pre-
cocious genius, sent him to Oxford. There he became a good
Latinist and a fair scholar in Greek. His devotion to the study
of law at Lincoln's Inn did not quench his ardour for classical
learning. After he was called to the bar he delivered lectures in
the church of St Lawrence, on St Augustine’s De Civitate Dei,
which were attended by all the chief learned citizens of London,'
dwelling on the philosophy and history rather than on the
theology of the book. He became reader at Furnival's Inn,
was a member of parliament (1503—4) and there successfully with-
stood the exactions of the king. His subsequent withdrawal from
public life, usually attributed to fear of the king, gave him
opportunity to cultivate his acquaintance with Greek and Latin.
Together with Lily, he translated epigrams from the Greek anthology
into Latin elegiac verse, and, in company with Erasmus, he translated
into Latin prose portions from Lucian. The former, largely added
1 of the place of Fisher's work in the history of English oratorical prose, see the
later section on the work of divines in vol. iv of the present work,


## p. 16 (#38) ##############################################

16 English men and the Classical Renascence
1
to, were published in Progymnasmata' and the latter, in 1506,
under the title Luciani. . . compluria opuscula. . . ab Erasmo Rotero-
damo et Thoma Moro. . . traducta.
More had gradually built up for himself an extensive and
lucrative private practice, when he was drawn into the king's
service. He was employed in the negociation of a commercial
treaty with the Netherlands and, from the year 1516, he took office
at court. He was made a privy councillor and was knighted in
1521. He became Master of Requests, under-treasurer, chancellor
of the duchy of Lancaster (1525) and, finally, lord chancellor
(25 October 1529). He held the office for two years and a half.
The last years of his life were full of tragical suffering. Convoca-
tion and parliament had pronounced the marriage of Henry VIII
with Catharine of Aragon invalid. The first act of succession
(25 Henry VIII, c. 22), passed in the spring of 1534, had settled
the succession in the children of Anne Boleyn, and all Englishmen
were required to swear to maintain the act. More declared
repeatedly that he accepted the act, but the oath which was after-
wards prescribed went beyond the contents of the act and required
a declaration about papal authority within the realm. This, More
steadfastly refused to make. He was confined in the Tower in
circumstances of great hardship, and, in the end, was condemned to
suffer death under act 26 Henry VIII, cc. 1 and 13. The barbarous
punishment devised for traitors was commuted by the king to
beheading. More suffered on 6 July 1535. His execution, a
judicial murder, and that of the bishop of Rochester, filled the
world with horror. An interesting proof of the wide-spread
character of this indignation has been furnished by the recently
published (December 1906) process against George Buchanan before
the Lisbon inquisition. The humanist confessed to the inquisitors
that he had written his celebrated tragedy, Baptistes—a work
translated into English, French, Dutch and German—with his
eye fixed on the tyranny of Henry displayed in the trial and
execution of Thomas More.
More was a voluminous writer both in Latin and in English.
His fame rests chiefly on his Latin epigrams and Utopia; but his
other work requires to be mentioned.
His verses, English and Latin, are, for the most part, mediocre,
but contain some pieces of great merit. They are interesting
because they reveal the character of the man, at once grave and gay,
equally inclined to worldly pleasure and ascetic austerity; and they
1 First edition 1518, second edition 1518, third, greatly enlarged, 1520.
V


## p. 17 (#39) ##############################################

Sir Thomas
More
17
are not free from that trait of wbimsical pedantry which belonged
to More all through his life, and which displayed itself when, being
in love with the younger sister, he resolved to marry the elder
because it was meet that she should be the first settled in life.
He wrote of Venus and Cupid, of a soldier who wished to play
the monk, of eternity, of fortune, its favours and its reverses, and
a Rueful Lamentation on the death of Elizabeth, the queen of
Henry VII. Many of his epigrams are full of sadness, of an
uncertain fear of the future. They describe life as a path leading
to death. They reveal a man who had seen and felt much suffer-
ing and who brooded over the uncertainties of life. They seem to
anticipate the fate of one who fell almost at once from the throne
of the lord chancellor into a cell in the Tower. His translation
into English of the Life of John Picus, Erle of Myrandula, a
greate Lorde of Italy, is an autobiography of ideals if not of facts.
The young gifted Italian humanist, who was transformed by
contact with Savonarola, with his refined culture, his longing for
a monastic career, his deliberate choice of a lay life and his secret
austerities, was repeated in his English admirer, who wore, almost
continuously, a “sharp shirt of hair,' who watched and fasted often,
who slept frequently, “either on the bare ground, or on some
bench, or laid some log under his head. '
More's other prose writings), with the exception of Utopia, are
controversial and devotional. The controversial include, besides
those in Latin, The Dialogue, The Supplication of Souls', A Con-
futation of Tindale's Answer, A Letter against Frith, The Apology,
The Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance and an Answer to the
'Supper of the Lord. They form about three-fourths of the whole
and deserve more consideration than they usually receive. They are
by no means free from the scurrility which was characteristic of
that age of controversy. His opponents are 'swine,' “hell-hounds
that the devil hath in his kennel,' “apes that dance for the
pleasure of Lucifer,' and so on. These writings are unusually prolix,
but they show that the author was well read in theology and they
manifest a great acquaintance with Scripture. More was no
curialist or ultramontane, to use the modern word; but he was a
1
man who felt the need of an external spiritual authority and
clung to it. While Colet lived, he was More's director; during
occasional absences, Grocyn supplied his place; after Colet's death,
he felt increasingly the need for something external to rest on, and
1 For the History of King Richard III attributed to him, see post, chap. xv.
» See post, chap. Iv.
E. L. III.
2
>
CH. I.


## p. 18 (#40) ##############################################

18 Englishmen and the Classical Renascence
the thought of a historical church, which he defined to be 'all
Christian people,' was necessary to sustain his faith. The style in
all these English writings, their carefully constructed balanced
sentences with modulated cadences, exhibit the scholar and the
imitator of the Latin classics.
Utopia, the one work by More which still lives in all the
freshness of youth, was written in Latin. The author was diffident
about it. He showed the manuscript to friends, especially to
Erasmus, and they were enthusiastic. The great French humanist
Budé wrote the preface; Erasmus and Peter Giles (Aegidius)
superintended the printing ; the book took the learned world of
Europe by storm in somewhat the same way as did Moriae
Encomium; and the author was at once hailed as a member of the
wide republic of letters. It was translated into most European
languages; new editions appear continually; and it has become one
of the world's classics. It may have been suggested by Plato's
Republic--the names it contains are Greek-but the books have
little in common. It borrows something from Augustine's De
Civitate Dei, a favourite of the author. Yet the book is
thoroughly original. The ground-plan had been suggested by the
account of the voyages of Americo Vespucci ; the sight of the wide,
clean, well-paved streets of the towns in the Netherlands, refresh-
ing after the crowded, narrow, filthy thoroughfares of London, the
extent of garden ground within the walls of Bruges and Antwerp,
suggested the commodious and handsome' streets and the
gardens 'with all manner of fruit, herbs and flowers' of the city
of Amaurote. The economic distress through which England was
passing, the increase of sheep and the decay of agriculture, the
destruction of farm steadings and of country towns, are all
apparent in the book, and have produced many of its suggestions.
The detestation of war shared by Colet, Erasmus and most of
the humanists found utterance in the toleration of all religions
and in conscription for agriculture but not for war. It is possible
that Colet's well known opinions about priesthood appear in
exaggerated form in Utopia. The book is full of allusions to
the circumstances of the time during which the author lived ;
but critics are scarcely warranted in concluding, as many of
them do, that they can find his practical remedies for the dis-
orders of the age in the laws and usages of the imaginary state.
More lived long enough to see the maxims of Utopia applied
in a way which must have horrified him, and which probably gave
their sharp edge to his denunciations of the Peasants' war. He did
6
I
1
1


## p. 19 (#41) ##############################################

The Spread of the Classical Renascence
19
not dream that, ten years after the publication of the book, and ten
years before his own death, his Utopia would furnish texts for
excited agitators on village greens or in the public-houses of
German towns. But so it was. The Moriae Encomium of
Erasmus and More's Utopia were made full use of in the future
'tumult’ which they both dreaded.
It is not easy to say what influence this group of English
humanists had in making the study of classical learning take root in
their native land. Fisher's position as chancellor of the university
secured the continuous study of Greek at Cambridge, and More is
our authority for saying that its popularity there was so great
that scholars who did not share the teaching were ready to con-
tribute to the support of the teacher. At Oxford, the struggle,
evidently, was harder. Greek was denounced by obscurantist
churchmen, and it was Sir Thomas More's task, while he was a
power at court, to protect and encourage both lecturers and
scholars. It may safely be said, however, that the example and
writings of Erasmus were the most powerful stimulus to the
desire to know something about, and to share in the revival of,
classical learning.
Among the MSS preserved in the library of Corpus Christi
college, Oxford, there is the ledger or day-book of an Oxford
bookseller which records the books he sold during the year 1520.
It gives us some indication of the reading of the period in a univer-
sity city and enables us to see how far the classical renascence had
become popular. John Dorne sold 2383 books during that year-
some English, most of them Latin, one or two Greek. The English
books were, for the most part, almanacs, ballads, Christmas carols,
popular Lives of Saints and medieval romances, three copies of a
book on cooking, three of one on carving, one on table etiquette,
one on husbandry and three on the care of horses. One is a
translation of Vergil into English-probably Caxton's Aeneid
(Westminster, 1490).
Among the Latin books are breviaries, missals, portiforiums, a
very large number of grammars and a few lexicons. A large part
of the more important books represent the learning of the past,
the scholastic theology and philosophy not yet displaced, and, as
was to be expected, the Scotist greatly outnumber the Thomist
theologians-John Duns Scotus himself being represented by
twenty, and Thomas Aquinas and Augustine by four each. But
the humanities, in the shape of Latin authors and Latin
translations of Greek writers, are not much behind. Dorne sold
a
2_2


## p. 20 (#42) ##############################################

20 English men and the Classical Renascence
that year thirty-seven copies of various works of Cicero, the same
number of Terence, thirty of Aristotle, twenty-nine of Vergil,
twenty-three of Ovid, fourteen of Lucan, twelve of Aristophanes
(one being in Greek), nine of Lucian (one in Greek), eight of
Horace, six of Sallust, eight of Pliny, three of Aulus Gellius and
one of Tacitus and of Persius.
The names of the English humanists are only represented by
one copy of Linacre's translation of Galen, and three of More's
Latin letters to Edward Lee. The name of Lupset occurs, but
only to record that that scholar took away a book without paying
for it. The Italian teachers of these Englishmen appear on the
list of sales—twenty-nine copies of various works of Sulpitius,
twenty-two of Laurentius Valla and three of Angelo Poliziano.
Budé, the greatest French humanist, is not represented, but Dorne
sold thirty-three copies of works written or edited by his comrade,
Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples.
The outstanding feature of this list of sales of books, however,
is the place occupied by the writings of Erasmus. One-ninth of
the whole sales were of books written or edited by him. If the
small primers, almanacs, ballads and so on and the grammars
written by two popular Oxford grammar-school teachers be
excluded, one customer out of every seven came to buy a book
written by the great humanist. It is instructive, also, to notice
what books of his command the largest sale. These are Col-
loquia, De Constructione, Copia, Enchiridion Militis Christiani
and Adagia. The popularity of three of these writings occasions
no surprise and conveys no information. The book entitled
Adagia was a compendium of the wit and wisdom of antiquity,
a collection of Greek and Latin proverbs which were made the
text of short essays sparkling with the author's inimitable humour.
Almost every one in that age wished to know something of ancient
learning, and it was in this book served up to them in a way
which made them feel able to comprehend it. Colloquia had
grown gradually from being a collection of conversations on
familiar subjects fitted for beginners in Latin until it had become
a series of charming pictures of all sorts and conditions of men.
It was the most popular book of the century and went through
ninety-nine editions before 1546. It circulated everywhere.
Enchiridion taught a simple piety of the heart and contained a
calm and consistent appeal to the central standard of all Christian
behaviour—the teaching and example of Jesus Christ. It was
translated into English in 1518, into Czech in 1519, into German


## p. 21 (#43) ##############################################

Sir Thomas Elyot
21
in 1524 and into Spanish in 1527. Seventy-five editions had been
published before 1545. But De Constructione and Copia were
books of an entirely different kind and appealed to a more
limited class of readers. They were really text-books for advanced
Latin students who wished to acquire a good style. In them the
great literary artist disclosed the secrets of his art. The sale of
many copies means the existence of circles of students, for, in
those days, one book served many readers, who were trying
to perfect themselves in the humanities, who were looking to
Erasmus as their great teacher and who were taking pains
to fashion themselves after his example. It shows the spread of
the classical renascence among the students of England.
We do not find in England the extravagant adulation of the
great Dutchman which meets us everywhere in Germany. There,
he was the idol of every young scholar. They said that he was
more than mortal, that his judgment was infallible and that his
work was perfect. They made pilgrimages to visit him as to the
shrine of a saint. An interview was an event to be talked about
for years, and a letter from him was a precious treasure to be
preserved as a heirloom. In England, they seized on one side of
his work which specially appealed to their practical instincts, and
tried to imitate it in their own way.
Among those who, following Erasmus, strove to make use of the
writings of antiquity for the instruction and edification of their
contemporaries were Sir Thomas Elyot and Thomas Wilson. The
former is best known by his treatise, The Boke named the Gover-
nour, and the latter by his Arte of Rhetorique.
Elyot had no university training. He was educated at home
and, at a comparatively early age, had acquired a good knowledge
of Latin, Greek and Italian. He says that, before he was twenty,
he had read Galen and other medical writings with a 'worshipful
physician,' conjectured to have been Linacre.
His earliest work, The Boke of the Governour, the best known
of his writings, made him famous and probably proved his intro-
duction to the career as a diplomatic agent in which he spent the
greater part of his life. It is a lengthy and exhaustive treatise on
the education which those who are destined to govern ought to
receive. It begins . with a discussion of the various kinds of
commonwealths, and sets worth the advantages of monarchy,
aristocracy and democracy. The author decides that monarchy
is the best form of government; but it demands the appointment


## p. 22 (#44) ##############################################

22 Englishmen and the Classical Renascence
of subordinate rulers over the various parts of the kingdom who
are to be the eyes, ears, hands and legs of the supreme ruler.
They ought to be taken from the 'estate called worshipful,'
provided they have sufficient virtue and knowledge, but they
must be carefully educated. It is the more necessary to insist
upon this as education is not valued as it ought to be. Pride
looks upon learning as a 'notable reproach to a great gentleman,'
and lords are apt to ask the price of tutors as they demand the
qualification of cooks.
The author then proceeds to map out what goes to make the
thorough education of a gentleman fit to rule. He begins with
his birth. Up to the age of seven, the child is to be under the
charge of a nurse or governess. He is then to be handed
over to a tutor or carefully selected master, and taught music
and its uses, painting and carving, and is to be instructed in
letters from such books as Aesop's Fables, 'quick and merrie
dialogues' like those of Lucian, or the heroic poems of Homer.
When he attains the age of fourteen he is to be taught logic,
cosmography and ‘histories,' and, although this age be not
equal to antiquity' (the classics), he is, nevertheless, to make
a beginning therein. His bodily frame is to be exercised in
wrestling, hunting, swimming and, above all, in dancing, which
profits much for the acquirement of moral virtues. Shooting
with the crossbow is also to be practised and tennis, if not in-
dulged in too frequently and if limited to brief periods of exercise,
but football is to be put in perpetual silence' because 'therein
is nothing but beastly furie and external violence, whereof pro-
cedeth hurte, and consequently rancour and malice do remaine with
them that be wounded. ' In his second and third books the author
sets forth the lofty ideals which ought to inspire the governor and
describes the way in which he can be trained to a virtuous life.
The whole book is full of classical reminiscences taken either
directly from the authors of antiquity or borrowed from the
humanists of Italy. It discourses on the methods of hunting
practised among the Greeks and Romans, and the dances of the
youths of Sparta are not forgotten. It is also interesting to
notice that the education portrayed in the first book is almost
exactly what had been given to the young Italian patrician for
more than a generation; while the second and third books add
those moral ideals which the more seriously minded northern
nations demanded. It is the unfolding of a plan of education
which Wilibald Pirkheimer, the friend of Erasmus, describes as
6


## p. 23 (#45) ##############################################

Sir Thomas Elyot. Thomas Wilson
23
having been his own, and it is the attempt to introduce into
English life an ideal of the many-sided culture which the
classical renascence had disclosed.
Elyot's reputation among his contemporaries rested on more
than his Boke of the Governour. He wrote The Castel of Helth,
full of prescriptions and remedies largely selected from Galen and
other medical authorities of antiquity. His two tracts : A swete
and devoute sermon of Holy Sant Ciprian, of Mortalitie of
Man and The Rules of a Christian lyfe made by Picus, erle
of Mirandula, both translated into Englyshe, provided food for
the soul. His translations from Latin and Greek into English,
made at a time when all were anxious to share in classical learning,
and only a few possessed a knowledge of the classical languages
sufficient to enable them to share its benefits, were very popular
and were reprinted over and over again. To this class belong :
The Doctrine of Princes, made by the noble oratour Isocrates,
and translated out of Greke in to Englishe; The Bankette of
Science (a collection of sayings translated from the Fathers);
The Education or Bringinge up of Children, translated out of
Plutarche ; The Image of Governance, compiled of the actes and
sentences notable of the moste noble Emperour Alexander Severus,
late translated out of Greke into Englyshe and others of a like
kind. Henry VIII himself encouraged Elyot in the compilation
of his Latin-English lexicon : The Dictionary of Syr T. Eliot,
knyght, with its fater title, Bibliotheca Eliotae. This dictionary
and his translations continued to be appreciated in a wonderful
manner for two generations at least. If Erasmus popularised the
classical renascence for scholars, Elyot rendered it accessible to the
mass of the people who had no acquaintance with the languages
of antiquity.
Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique is almost exclusively drawn from
such old masters as Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian. The author
discusses various kinds of composition, sets forth the rules
which guided authors in the golden age of classical literature and
applies them with considerable success to the art of writing in
English. There is little or no originality in the volume, save,
perhaps, the author's condemnation of the use of French and
Italian phrases and idioms which he complains are counter-
ieiting the kinges Englishe. ' The warnings of Wilson will not seem
untimely if it be remembered that the earlier English poets of
the period—Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, and the earl of Surrey-
drew their inspiration from Petrarch and Ariosto, that their earliest


## p. 24 (#46) ##############################################

24 Englishmen and the Classical Renascence
attempts at poetry were translations from Italian sonnets and
that their maturer efforts were imitations of the sweet and stately
measures and style of Italian poesie. The polish which men
like Wyatt and Surrey were praised for giving to our 'rude
and homely manner of vulgar poesie’ might have led to some
degeneration. Shakespeare himself is said to have studied Wilson
and to have profited by his book.
Elyot made translation instruct his countrymen in the
ethical and political wisdom of the ancients; Wilson used the
same means to fire their patriotism. In a preface he drew a
comparison between Athens and England and the danger which
threatened the one from Philip of Macedon and the other from
Philip II of Spain. Then followed The Three Orations of Demos-
thenes, chiefe orator among the Grecians, in favour of the
Olynthians, with those his four Orations against King Philip
of Macedonie; most nedeful to be redde in these daungerous
dayes of all them that love their countries libertie and desire to
take warning for their better avayle (1570).
It remains to note briefly another proof of the silent spread of
the classical renascence. In all medieval universities and high
schools, scholars delighted to act plays, especially during carnival
time. As the classical renascence made progress, Scriptural subjects
gave place to the comedies of Terence and Plautus and to school
dramas' which, for the most part, were constructed for the purpose
of incorporating in the text as many phrases as possible from
Terence, Cicero and Vergil. The result of all this was that
the great men of antiquity became known to the commonalty.
Coriolanus and Julius Caesar were familiar names in England,
and a Welsh soldier had at least heard of Alexander and of
Macedon.
Thus, classical learning, at first the possession of a favoured
few, then, by means of translations, the property of all people
fairly educated, gradually permeated England so thoroughly that,
though Shakespeare was not far distant from Chaucer by the
measurement of time, when we pass from the one to the other it
is as if we entered a new and entirely different world.
2 See the chapter on the Academic drama in voluine of the present work.


## p. 25 (#47) ##############################################

CHAPTER II
REFORMATION LITERATURE IN ENGLAND
THE reformation left its mark upon the national literature,
as upon the national life, but, beyond this abiding influence,
there was, in this period, much literary activity of a mere passing
interest. Yet even this was so significant of current thought, and
helped so greatly to form public opinion, that it must not be
forgotten. The appearance of the English Bible and the Book
of Common Prayer must not hide from us the vigour of religious
tracts and controversies, the number of sermons, of books of de-
votion and instruction, which seemed, to the age itself, of hardly less
importance. Much of the religious literature which had appeared
before had issued from definite local centres and, for the most part,
reached merely local audiences. This was now ceasing to be the
case, for the country was drawn more closely together, and the
printing press, answering to the instincts of the day, gave writers
a ready means of wider influence.
Lollard tracts and Lollard adaptations of orthodox works had
long been current, especially in certain districts. Some of these,
after a long life, were now printed, as, for instance, Wyclif's sup-
posed work, The Wicket, which Coverdale edited. The question,
therefore, arises how far the English reformation was either the
outcome, or an indirect result, of the Lollard movement, and an
answer may be given either from the literary, or from the purely
historic, side. On the former, we gather that Lollard works were
reprinted, partly, it may be, for their supposed value, but, also, to
show that the opinions held by their editors had been taught in
England long before. These reprints appeared, moreover, not
in the early stages of the reformation, but when it was well
under way. There is no need, therefore, to reckon these reprints
among the causes of the reformation : their nature and the date
of their appearance tend strongly against such an assumption.