No More Learning

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.
Approaching the question, however, from the purely historic
side, we find that the Lollard movement had left behind it, in


## p. 26 (#48) ##############################################

26 Reformation Literature in England
some localities, much religious discontent, and some revolutionary
religious teaching. Such discontent and teaching would, doubt-
less, have come into being irrespective of Lollardy. When the
reformation came, however, it found these influences already at
work; no doubt it quickened them and drew them around itself.
That is the utmost we can say.
This popular reformation literature, the successor, although
hardly the descendant, of the Lollard literature, was, for the
most part, printed abroad, and was, sometimes, prohibited by
English bishops. But it would appear that probably Henry VIII,
and certainly the protector Somerset, connived at its circulation,
because they welcomed any help that made change seem desirable.
The story of The Supplication for the Beggars, as told by Foxe,
is an illustration of this.
Simon Fish, a gentleman of Gray's Inn, had to leave London,
about the year 1525, for acting in a play which touched cardinal
Wolsey; he, like Tindale, fled across the sea, and, while abroad,
wrote The Supplication for the Beggars. This effectively written
pamphlet urged the abolition of monasteries and the seizure of
their lands; its incidental, and often coarse, abuse of ecclesiastics,
and its many exaggerations, merely heightened the effect it pro-
duced. Either through Anne Boleyn or some royal servant the
pamphlet reached the hands of Henry VIII, who is said to have
studied it carefully and long kept it by him. Through the king's
connivance, Fish was allowed to return from his banishment. By
the time his pamphlet had appeared, the writings of Tindale, to
whom Sir Thomas More replied in his Dialogue, were also current.
Sir Thomas More, in his Supplication of Souls, replied to Fish,
and the Cambridge student, John Frith, retorted upon More.
The Lollard literature and controversies were thus swallowed up
in the reformation, and, although a lower class of writings, such
as that of Fish, still continued to be written and circulated, more
literary interest belongs to a theological class that followed them.
The new writings recalled, always in their exaggeration and
sometimes in their violence, the old, but they were composed
upon a larger scale; and the importance of single members of the
class, and the numbers in which they were published, made this
new movement more important than Lollardy had ever been.
This reformation movement was essentially academic in
origin. The revival of letters had already shown its power at
Oxford, where Colet, More and Erasmus had directed it inio
religious channels. The shares taken by these three in the


## p. 27 (#49) ##############################################

Erasmus and Cambridge
27
classical renascence in England has already been discussed ; and
reference need only be made here to the impulse which Erasmus
gave to religious thought and learning in Cambridge. Bishop
Fisher had brought to the service of the university an enthusiasm
for practical piety; he had revived the best side of medieval
religious discipline; but he had placed the claims of practical life
first, although that life was to be tempered with learning and
purified by the Scriptures. Fisher gladly welcomed Erasmus, ,
who was the fourth Lady Margaret Reader (1511); if Erasmus,
as his works show, sympathised with Fisher's practical aim, he
understood, as Fisher, who was not unreservedly a humanist,
hardly did, the breadth of learning needed for effective preaching.
Thomas Bilney, whose friendship altered the life of Hugh
Latimer, had for the first time (to use his own words, which should
not be taken too literally) 'heard speak of Jesus, even then
when the New Testament was first set forth by Erasmus. ' William
Tindale admired the great scholar and translated his Enchiri-
dion, which Coverdale also summarised. Cranmer counted Erasmus
among the authors he studied specially, and, when he gave himself
up more exclusively to Biblical learning, he was still following the
steps of his master. Erasmus was able, in a letter written later
(1516), to his pupil, Henry Bullock of Queens', to speak with pride
of the increased Biblical study at Cambridge as a result he had
hoped for from his labours.
Robert Barnes, an Augustinian friar of Norfolk descent, had
been educated at Louvain ; and, on coming to Cambridge as prior
of the Augustinian friars, he began to lecture, first on classics, and
then on theology. George Stafford, a Fellow of Pembroke, was
also a celebrated lecturer upon the Scriptures; the expositions
with which he 'beatified the letters of blessed Paul' deeply
affected Thomas Becon and others. This, like other great move-
ments, had its distortions and its extremes ; Skelton could ridicule
the theologians who with a 'lytell ragge of rhetoricke,' a 'lesse
lumpe of logicke,' a patch of philosophy, 'tumbled’ in theology
and were drowned in ‘dregges of divinite,' posing as 'doctours of
the chayre' at the taverns. Some of the young theologians
were of 'whirling' spirits; some, like Robert Barnes, flew high
and far into politics, and, by their indiscretion, brought danger
upon themselves and their cause; some of them not infrequently
dropped to the lower depths of controversy. But solid results
remained. Richard Croke, who, after a distinguished career abroad,
became Reader in Greek (1519), carried on the work already
6


## p. 28 (#50) ##############################################

28
Reformation Literature in England
begun; he recognised the pre-eminent claim of the Bible upon
theological students, and, when Wolsey (1527) formed his Cambridge
colony at Oxford, the new and active school of thought entered
upon a wider field. The English reformation began at Cambridge,
and the Cambridge movement began with Erasmus, although he
was not its sole author. For, both at Cambridge, and in the
country at large, the general movement towards reform and
the religious influence of the revival of learning formed a
sympathetic atmosphere in which his influence easily spread.
The new movement—a quickening of religion and theology,
upon the background of an awakened world—took many forms
and turned in many ways. It was not always revolutionary, and,
in one direction, it turned to older forms of devotion. Religion in
England had enriched the church with the Sarum use, akin to other
uses elsewhere and of wide importance, and with uses less popular
in England, like those of Hereford and York; it had, further,
formed the Primers, books of private devotion, translated in the
fourteenth century from Latin into English, and printed at early
dates and in many forms. Not only in England, but in other
countries, the reformation concerned itself largely with these
aids to devotion ; everywhere appeared much needed revisions of
liturgies and offices, everywhere attempts were made, more or less
successfully, at altering them to meet popular needs, or to avoid
abuses. In England, the great outcome was The Book of Common
Prayer, which was essentially conservative, although its history
showed much of revolution.
And, again, the reformation, owing both to the wishes of its
academic founders and to the popular tendencies underlying it,
concerned itself largely with popular preaching. It is a wide-
spread error to assume that there was little popular preaching in
the Middle Ages. It is true that there were many bishops and
parish priests who shirked their canonical duties in this respect,
but there was much popular instruction ; there was, especially
among the friars, much simple, at times even sensational, mission
preaching. But the deepening of religious life that preceded the
reformation led men to employ with greater diligence all means of
helping others, and popular preaching was thus more widely used.
Here again, both a conservative and a revolutionary tendency are
observable. On the one hand, we can trace the fuller but
continuous history of the older use of sermons. On the other
hand, we find the tendency, seen at its strongest in Zwinglianism,
to exalt the sermon above the sacraments, to put the pulpit in
>


## p. 29 (#51) ##############################################

Aspects of the Reformation
29
place of the altar. Both tendencies made the literature of
sermons more popular, and more significant. But, in the litera-
ture thus revived, the academic and popular elements were closely
mingled.
It would have been strange if, when interest in religion and
religious questions was thus rising, religious controversies had
not multiplied. The stir of newly felt needs and impulses to
fresh devotion stimulated differences of opinion no less than did
abuses calling loudly for reform. The English people had always
been religious, and there had always been religious controversies ;
but now these were both multiplied and intensified. Some were
of merely passing importance, although of much historic signifi-
cance; but others represented real and solid endeavours to form
public opinion. It is impossible to notice more than a few of
them; some were caused by political relations and by the breach
with Rome, and their existence has to be remembered, though
they must not be taken for the chief religious interests of the time.
But, from the literary point of view, the most striking feature
of the reformation is its connection with the English Bible, and
that Bible itself is its greatest monument. Here, again, we
might consider the production of the Bible as prepared by that
more conservative movement, associated with the revival of
learning and seen both in the Oxford reformers and in the
Cambridge scholars already mentioned. But it was also connected
with a more revolutionary school of thought, and was placed by
many as the sole rule of life in sharp opposition to the teaching
of the church. Thus, the history of the English Bible itself
becomes mingled, strangely and sadly, with the history of religious
strife. Beyond and above all that, however, its literary influence
shows itself as uniquely as its power in giving an inspiration
for life.
These general effects of the reformation upon the national
literature must be examined in detail, although, even then, there
will be many effects left unnoticed, and many results unaccounted
for.
The history of The Book of Common Prayer, like many other
parts of the English reformation, shows curious likenesses to
the course of affairs abroad, mingled with features peculiar to
itself. With the greater sharpness of national divisions and the
stronger coherence of national languages, the use of the vernacular
in the services of the church was more and more demanded. Not
only among Lutherans and among Calvinists in France or Germany,


## p. 30 (#52) ##############################################

30 Reformation Literature in England
but, also, among Catholics, the wish for it was felt. At the council
of Trent, this concession was urged both by the emperor and by
the king of France. Hymns, litanies and purely personal devo-
tions such as The Primer provided, were insufficient; a wide-
spread feeling existed that both the mass and the daily offices
would be more serviceable and better appreciated in the vulgar
tongue. This feeling gradually strengthened, and led to the
evolution of the prayer-book. A Venetian ambassador, visiting
England in 1500, was struck with the simple piety of the English
people, and by their frequent attendance at church : not only at
mass, but at the daily offices, they were very regular, and their
deep-rooted love of the parish church with its services had
marked effects upon the coming changes. In England, moreover,
the course of revolution left the parish churches standing, although
the monastic churches suffered ; and this peculiarity of the English
reformation made reform more conservative.
The changes were, at first, gradual. The wish for uniformity of
service throughout the realm-felt elsewhere, but a necessity of
he position of Henry VIII-was marked (1541) by a re-issue of
the Sarum breviary, ordered by convocation (1542) to be used by
the clergy throughout the province of Canterbury. There had
been many struggles as to liturgical use in medieval days, and these
were thus ended before the great struggle began. A chapter of
the Bible was ordered to be read in English upon Sundays and
holy days and (11 June 1544) the Litany was put forth in
English. When, under Edward VI, the administration of the
chalice to the people was adopted, again in sympathy with a
demand widely made abroad, further change followed; the old
Latin was retained but an English communion service for the
people was added (Easter, 1548).
Under Henry, and under Edward, revision had begun with
the Primers. Upon the side of purely popular and personal
devotion, Primers had appeared with fresh matter, some of it
revolutionary, some of it hortatory. Marshall's Primer, 1534
and 1535, was one of them; bishop Hilsey's (of Rochester) Primer
(1539) was another, and was authorised by Cromwell for the king
and by Cranmer as archbishop. King Henry's Primer (1545) was
the last of a long series, and was intended to check the diversity
which the printing press had intensified. The king had ordered
Cranmer to turn certain prayers into English and to see that
they were used in his province. This King's Primer embodied the
English Litany, which, alike in its changes and in its incomparable


## p. 31 (#53) ##############################################

Evolution of the Prayer-Book
31
prose, may be certainly ascribed to Cranmer. The same literary
genius was now to work upon a larger field and with greater
results. But it is necessary to note the popular tendencies that had
helped to form the Primers. These books lay to Cranmer's hand,
and, if much of the English prayer-book is to be ascribed to his
fine workmanship, something was also due to the general literary
excellence of the day. We have already seen how, in the case of
Rolle and other devotional writers, the literary instinct arose from
the union of popular feeling and intense personal devotion. The
same process was seen at the reformation. Turns of expression in
the Primers, due, sometimes, to unknown writers, rhythms in
Tindale's Bible due to him alone, the vigour and pathos to be found
in Frith and Latimer and other writers or sufferers-all these lead
us to ascribe much to the age itself rather than to individuals. The
reformation, like the Middle Ages, shows a fitting expression of
devotion and religious thought, reached, as we might expect, more
through schools and tendencies than through individual minds.
The English Litany, and the stately Bidding prayer in its many
forms, are good examples of this process of growth. And the same
was the case with the English Bible itself. Nevertheless, much
was also due to individual writers like Cranmer.
Together with this popular movement, shown in the Primers,
a revision, by authority, of service-books had begun and slowly
moved on. Under Henry, Cranmer had drafted the changes he
proposed and a commission (1540) had drawn up a rationale
which was more conservative than Cranmer's own scheme. Under
Edward VI, both these were brought forward, and discussion of
them went on. At Rome itself, cardinal Quignon had published
(1535) a new breviary which gained great popularity and reached
many editions. In its insertion of lessons and its omission of
versicles, it aimed, in the spirit of the time, at edification
rather than, as did the ancient offices, at devotion. But, as
the conservative party gained power in Rome, a new ideal was
formed, and the Roman breviary (1568), reformed in accordance
with the wish of the council of Trent, more closely resembled the
medieval form. On the other hand, in Germany, the Consultation
(1543) of Hermann of Wied, archbishop of Cologne, was an attempt
to combine the ancient type with the service-books of the Lutherans.
Cranmer, who was himself a capable liturgical scholar, had studied
both these liturgical schemes and was influenced by them.
This is not the place to deal with the difficult problems in the
preparation of the Edwardine prayer-books of 1549 and 1552, the


## p. 32 (#54) ##############################################

32 Reformation Literature in England
part played by convocation and the exact share of individual
minds in their composition; nor do the complicated questions of
theology or worship or rubrics belong to a literary history. It is
enough to say that, while the earlier book may be regarded as the
outcome of the influences already described, as a product of the
ancient offices, of the wish for conservative reform and more
popular instruction, of the need for unity in the realm and for
the use of the national tongue, the second book went further in
the way 'of change, doctrinal and ritual. Before its composition,
foreign influence had grown stronger, and many minds in England
had gone through phases which Cranmer illustrates in himself.
Born in Aslackton, Nottinghamshire (2 July 1489), he went
as a boy to Jesus College, Cambridge, passed through the ordinary
course of study and, when about twenty-two, turned to the study of
Erasmus. Like other scholars, he came under the influence of
the revived theological learning, and his library shows how deeply
he received it. He gained a fellowship at Jesus College, which was
soon lost by his marriage; a lectureship at Buckingham College
(now Magdalene) was held during his short married life, but, on
his wife's death, he was re-elected a Fellow of his old college. The
temptation of a canonry at Cardinal College, Oxford, was not strong
enough to remove him, as it did other Cambridge men, to the new
field of work. As a priest and as a theological lecturer, with some
fame as an examiner, he worked on in his old sphere, until the
advice he gave to Henry VIII in the matter of his divorce brought
him into royal favour and a larger world. He wrote a book
embodying his views; a sojourn with the earl of Wiltshire, Anne
Boleyn's father, was followed by a visit to Rome at the beginning
of 1530, as one of his suite; he became archdeacon of Taunton
(probably 1531); early in 1532 he was in Germany as ambassador
to Charles V; and he was recalled from Germany to succeed
Warham as archbishop of Canterbury (30 March 1533). In
Germany, he had married a niece of Osiander; a connection which
made his intercourse with German theologians easier, but which was
awkward in view of his promotion. The step he had then taken
marked a distinct breach with the ecclesiastical system of the day,
although, in England, under Henry VIII, this was not, of necessity,
a disqualification for office.
It is difficult to estimate fairly the character of Cranmer.
Called from a quiet position to great scenes, forced to act a part
beyond his strength, he showed weakness where it is rarely
forgiven. He was pitifully compliant with Henry's wishes in the


## p. 33 (#55) ##############################################

Thomas Cranmer
33
matter of his divorce; at the death of Edward, he let himself be
hurried into a policy he did not wholly approve; his martyr's
death lost something of its dignity, even if it gained in pathos, by
his recantations. His instincts were conservative enough, his mind
receptive enough, for the guidance of a great movement, but he
failed in decision and power. And yet, no one who reads his letters
and writings, or who traces his work upon the prayer-book, can
doubt that he represents faithfully much of the mind of the English
reformation. His feet stood upon the past, but his outlook was
towards the future. He was skilled in all the older ecclesiastical
learning, even in the canon law which many of his friends
despised ; and if, in some points, he would have changed beyond
the limits reached, in others he would gladly have kept even more
of the past. He had not only liturgical knowledge but also a litur-
a
gical interest which belonged rather to bygone times; he added to
it an exquisite ear for a language that was just learning its strength.
There is all the difference in the world between the crude bareness
of the Litany as he found it, and its majestic rhythm when it left
his pen. In other works, where he had no help from the past,
as, for instance, in his theological writings, his style falls somewhat
lower, but, even then, it is always nervous, simple and continuous.
His chief writings deal with the Holy Eucharist, and their historical,
as well as theological, interest is, therefore, great. His Defence of
,
the true and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and
Blood of Christ (1550), to which he added while in prison and
which was afterwards reprinted, shows his ample learning, and yet,
even when dealing with intricate points, it is always simple in
phrase and striking in its expressions. Learning was now coming
down from its seclusion and addressing itself to a public anxious
for enlightenment. Quickly as Cranmer could compose in Latin-
his Reply to the Three Articles brought against him at his trial is
an instance of his readiness-English came more naturally to him,
and, in the continued debates of his trial, the disputants often
forsook Latin for English.
The publication of the Defence brought upon him much
controversy. Gardiner's Explication and Assertion of the true
Catholic Faith (published in France, 1550) was an able criticism
to which Cranmer replied in his Answer (October 1551). Richard
Smyth, formerly professor at Oxford but deprived in favour of
Vermigli (Peter Martyr), also attacked him in A Confutation of
the true and Catholic Doctrine (1550), and Cranmer included him,
too, in his reply to Gardiner:
3
B. L. 111.
CH. II.


## p. 34 (#56) ##############################################

34
Reformation Literature in England
Cranmer had the receptive mind which often goes with
practical weakness; and thus he illustrated in himself the religious
changes of his day, although he moved slowly to his final views.
At Cambridge, books from Germany had been eagerly read by a
little company that gathered at The White Horse,' and it was
through him that German theologians, some of them fugitives
because of the Augsburg Interim, were called to the English
universities. Peter Martyr came to Oxford (May, 1549) and the
more conservative Bucer (1549) with Fagius to Cambridge.
Foreign criticism had been exercised upon the prayer-book of
1549, and Cranmer's own mental changes worked along with the
politics of the time to make its alteration seem desirable. The second
prayer-book, therefore, while expressly sanctioning its predecessor
as containing nothing but what was agreeable to the word of God
and the primitive church, yet made many changes; some slight,
others more important, the latter class mainly involving Eucharistic
doctrine, upon which point, as upon that of vestments, controversy
was most intense. Under Elizabeth, the vestiarian controversy
reappeared, until it was swallowed up by the larger and more vital
discussion upon church government. But, before that came, the
Elizabethan prayer-book had been constructed (1559). The change
from the medieval to the modern type had been really completed
with the book of 1552, although under James I, as a result of the
Millenary petition (24 March 1603) and the Hampton Court con-
ference (14–18 January 1604), a few slight changes were made, but
not in the direction of puritan complaints. After the Restoration,
there was an attempt at closer agreement, but the Savoy conference
(15 April 1661) did little towards attaining it. Parties were too
clearly marked: between the puritan who claimed entire freedom
for the minister and the bishop who wished to retain ancient use
there could be little agreement. Nor, again, was it easy to satisfy
at the same time those who believed in episcopacy, and those
who maintained an exclusive presbyterianism. The formation of
the English prayer-book in itself was now complete formally, as,
practically, it had been complete long before. Its liturgical influence
has been nearly as widespread as its literary example; it has
become the parent of the Scots prayer-book, of the American and
of the Irish, all with features of their own, but forming one great
school after the English model.