No More Learning

Hooker begins by declaring to the puritans
I must plainly confess unto yon, that before I examined your sundry
declarations in that behalf, it could not settle in my head to think but that un-
doubtedly such numbers of otherwise right well affected and most religiously
inclined minds had some marvellous reasonable inducements, which led them
with so great earnestness that way.
>
But careful study, as he affirms, only convinced him that the
change which churchmen are required to accept “is only by error
and misconceit named the ordinance of Jesus Christ, no one proof
as yet brought forth whereby it may clearly appear to be so in
very deed. ' That he approached the discussion, not in the spirit
of a partisan, but with a strong desire to deal with fairness and
moderation and to think well of his opponents, is seen in the justice
he does alike to the greatness of Calvin and to the attractiveness
of his system.
After having spoken of Calvin in the most complimentary terms,
Hooker instantly puts his finger on the weak point of the Swiss
reformation, the extreme dogmatism with which each independent
church ordained its government 'in so commanding a form,' that it
was to be received 'as everlastingly required by the law of that
Lord of lords, against whose statutes there is no commandment to
be taken. ' This assertion of final infallibility on the part of the
'
newly constituted churches made all mutual accommodation im-
possible, and sapped the strength of the continental reformation at
the close of the sixteenth century. Hooker, thoroughly English
in temperament and, in some respects, far in advance of his age,
accepts no system of government, either in church or state, as
unalterable and is prepared to discuss all forms on their merits.
His contention is always for liberty. With much skill, and not
a little quiet satire, he traces the popularity of the Calvinian
discipline in England to a craving to exercise the right of
private judgment, to the democratic spirit of the age and to the
influence of women, as well as to reliance upon Scripture and
the high spiritual pretensions claimed by its advocates. He
discusses the inconsistency of the attempt to restore the exact
condition of the apostolic age, and insinuates the impossibility
of proving the existence of the so-called 'discipline' of those days.
Of this very thing ye fail even touching that which ye make most


## p. 408 (#430) ############################################

408 Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
6
account of, as being matter of substance in discipline, I mean the
power of your lay elders, and the difference of your doctors from
the pastors in all churches. ' As regards the existing law of England,
Hooker points out that it must be obeyed without disputation; for,
though a law may be changed, it is, he tells the puritans, “the deed
of the whole body politic, whereof if ye judge yourselves to be any
part, then is the law your deed also'; and, on this account, he
deems public discussion inadvisable under the circumstances of
their age. After stating the subject of each book of his proposed
work, he goes on to point out the dangers of the puritan movement.
In the first place, he sees that it must necessarily cause a serious
schism, and, indeed, though the puritans lamented the secession of
the Barrowists, these only followed out logically the teaching of the
disciplinarians' who, by their own admission, were continuing
members of a church which they were continually denouncing
as 'anti-christian. As for the 'discipline’ itself, Hooker believed
that it could not be established without civil disturbance, as the
nobility would never submit to the local tyranny of small parochial
courts of spiritual jurisdiction, none of which acknowledged any
superior judge on earth. Discipline at the universities would,
necessarily, be at an end if puritan equality of ministers were to be
established, and the secular courts would be completely superseded
by the powers claimed by the new discipline. ' Hooker, naturally,
alludes to the dangers disclosed by the spread of anabaptism and
concludes with an eloquent appeal to his opponents to consider
their position :
The best and safest way for you therefore, my dear brethren, is, to call your
deeds past to a new reckoning, to re-examine the case ye have taken in hand,
and to try it even point by point, argument by argument, with all the diligent
exactness ye can; to lay aside the gall of that bitterness wherein your minds
have hitherto over abounded, and with meekness to search the truth. Think
ye are men, deem it not impossible for you to err; sift unpartially your own
hearts, whether it be force of reason or vehemency of affection, which hath
bred and still doth feed these opinions in you. If truth do anywhere manifest
itself, seek not to smother it with glosing delusions, acknowledge the greatness
thereof, and think it your best victory when the same doth prevail over you.
6
This dignity of language, combined with singular moderation, is
characteristic of Hooker, whose guiding principle in controversy
may be summed up in his own words, “There will come a time
when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive
a far more blessed reward than three thousand volumes written
with disdainful sharpness of wit. '
The first book, in some ways, is the most important of the


## p. 409 (#431) ############################################

of Law
Varieties
409
whole work, because in it we see Hooker at his best in dealing
broadly with principles. Before proceeding to discuss any matters
of detail, he sets himself, with the aid of the philosophers of
Greece, the Fathers and the medieval schoolmen and canonists,
to consider the ground and origin of all law, the nature of that
order which presides over the universe, over the external cosmos
and human society, and to determine the principle which renders
certain laws of permanent, and others of temporary, obligation.
The first book, accordingly, is philosophical rather than theo-
logical: it presents a magnificent conception of the world as
existing under a reign of law-law not arbitrary but an expres-
sion of the divine reason.
The literary power of Hooker is admirably displayed in his
eloquent treatment of the subject of the angels, which played a far
more important part in theological speculation then than it does in
our time. It is related that, when on his death-bed, Hooker was
asked by his friend Saravia the subject of his meditations, and
replied: 'that he was meditating the number and nature of angels,
and their blessed obedience and order, without which peace could not
be in heaven; and oh that it might be so on earth. ' After speaking
of the natural laws, which, so to speak, work automatically, he says:
God which moveth mere natural agents as an efficient only, doth otherwise
move intellectual creatures, and especially his holy angels: for, beholding the
face of God, in aclmiration of so great excellency they all adore him; and
being wrapt with the love of his beauty, they cleave inseparably for ever unto
him. Desire to resemble him in goodness maketh them unweariable and even
unsatiable in their longing to do by all means all manner of good unto all the
creatures of God, but especially unto the children of men: in the countenance
of whose nature, looking downward, they behold themselves beneath them-
selves; even as upward, in God, beneath whom themselves are, they see that
character which is nowhere but in themselves and us resembled. Thus far
even the paynims have approached; thus far they have seen into the doings
of the angels of God: Orpheus confessing that the fiery throne of God is
attended on by those most industrious angels, careful how all things are
performed among men'; and the mirror of human wisdom plainly teaching
that God moveth angels, even as that thing doth stir man's heart, which is
thereunto presented amiable.
Here we have an excellent example of Hooker's literary style:
language suitable to the subject, the very construction of the some-
what involved sentences enhancing its dignity, evidences of wide,
even if somewhat uncritical, reading as shown by the quotation
from the Orphic hymn preserved in the Stromateis of Clement
of Alexandria, and poetic feeling perhaps echoing the words of
Spenser's almost contemporary Faerie Queene. The high place
assigned to reason in this book strikes almost the keynote of the


## p. 410 (#432) ############################################

410 Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
>
6
ance.
entire work, since the consensus of human opinion is, to Hooker, an
evidence of revelation. The general and perpetual voice of men
is as the sentence of God himself. Yet, true to his principles, he
declines to bind himself to any single theory of government by
drawing a sharp distinction between the law of nature common
to all men and 'laws positive' which do not bind mankind
universally. Reason depends on freedom of the will, and nature,
whilst prescribing government as necessary to all societies, ‘leaveth
the choice as a thing arbitrary. ' It is this broad generalisation,
this determination to lay down the principles on which he proposes
to treat the subject, which renders the first book of great import-
We are tempted to forget that the author is engaged in one
of the fiercest controversies of a controversial age when we peruse
a book in which the philosophy is detached from the immediate
present. Like other great Elizabethans, Hooker had the power
of writing for all time. He enters the lists of controversy resolved
to contend not with the weapons of dexterous argument but
with those of a more solid character, drawn from the arsenal of
philosophy. 'Is there,' he asks at the conclusion of the book,
'anything which can either be thoroughly understood or soundly
judged of, till the very first causes and principles from whence
it springeth be made manifest ? '
In the second book, Hooker is still preparing the way for
his argument with his opponents and, though dealing with one
of their main axioms, he does not so much join issue with them as
deal with general principles. The puritans maintained that Holy
Scripture must be the sole guide of every action of a Christian's life.
Hooker has little difficulty in showing that the passages of Scripture
quoted are irrelevant, and that the opinions of the Fathers cited in
support of the thesis are not really applicable to it. The chief
interest of this short book, however, lies in the way in which it
reverts to those divisions of law made in the first, and shows that,
though revealed Scripture is an infallible guide, it is not the only
one by which our actions must be determined. There is the same
underlying appeal to commonsense that we find in the first book, the
same dislike of mere hard logical theory as opposed to practice and
experience, which makes Hooker a pre-eminently English theo-
logian. It is worth observing how he sums up the results of
accepting the puritan position:
But admit this, and mark, I beseech you, what would follow. God in
delivering Scripture to his Church should clean have abrogated amongst them
the law of nature; which is an infallible kpowledge imprinted in the minds of


## p. 411 (#433) ############################################

Hooker on the Side of Progress
411
all the children of men, whereby both general principles for directing of human
actions are comprehended, and conclusions derived from them; upon which
conclusions groweth in particularity the choice of good and evil in the daily
affairs of this life. Admit this, and what shall the Scripture be but a snare
and a torment to weak consciences, filling them with infinite perplexities,
scrupulosities, doubts insoluble, and extreme despairs. . . . For in every action
of common life to find out some sentence clearly and infallibly setting before
our eyes what we ought to do (seem we in Scripture never so expert) would
trouble us more than we are aware. In weak and tender minds we little
know what misery this strict opinion would breed, besides the stops it would
make in the whole course of all men's lives and actions.
a
It is this large view of matters, this broad and tolerant
sympathy, which gives Hooker a unique place among theological
writers.
When we reach the third book, dealing with the question
whether a definite form of church polity is prescribed in Scripture,
it may be well to bear in mind that the title of Hooker's work
is not The Laws of but Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,
it being no design of his to lay down definite laws of church
government but, rather, to discuss the principles whereon they are
based. Strong churchman as he was, Hooker's aim was not to set
up the laws of the church to which he belonged as a third code
claiming the same infallibility as that which the advocates of the
Roman and puritan ecclesiastical systems claimed. He was, as his
whole argument shows, fighting the battle of toleration and progress,
to which the assertion of infallibility must oppose an unsurmount-
able barrier. Circumstances tended, in after days, to cause posterity,
rightly or wrongly, to identify puritanism with civil and religious
liberty; but the demand for the establishment of a discipline, rigidly
defined and sanctioned by the unerring voice of Scripture, must, if
granted, have meant ecclesiastical tyranny and stagnation.
The error of the puritans was, as Hooker points out, the same
as that of the African church in the time of St Cyprian and the con-
troversy on rebaptism, and was due to the failure to distinguish the
visible from the mystical church. Even heretics are acknowledged to
be 'though a maimed part, yet a part of the visible church. For,
if an infidel should pursue to death an heretic professing Christianity, only
for Christian profession's sake, could we deny unto him the honour of
martyrdom? Yet this honour all men know to be proper unto the Church.
Heretics therefore are not utterly cut off from the visible Church of Christ.
This generous sentiment was completely at variance with the tenets
of Calvinism, which held that Romanism was a worse sin than
idolatry, and Hooker considers Calvin's answer to Farel, regarding
the baptism of the children of papists, 'crazed, because, in it, he


## p. 412 (#434) ############################################

412
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
says, “It is an absurd thing for us to baptise them which cannot be
reckoned members of our body. ” This large conception of the
church as opposed to the narrower view of the puritans pervades
the whole argument.
The principal contention in this third book is, naturally, that
Scripture only lays down what is absolutely necessary for doctrine
and practice, and that this does not include the externals of church
worship or government. An ecclesiastical polity is as necessary to
all societies of Christian men as a language, but it no more follows
that all should adopt the same form of government in church
matters than that they should use the same tongue. Episcopal
government seems, however, to be more in consonance with
Scripture than any other, though Hooker does not consider that a
church ceases to be truly one because it lacks this advantage.
'In which respect for mine own part,' he remarks, although I see that
certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially and French, have not
that which best agreeth with the sacred Scripture, I mean the government
that is by Bishops, inasmuch as both those churches are fallen under a
different kind of regiment; which to remedy it is for the one altogether too
late, and too soon for the other during their present affliction and trouble:
this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such case than
exagitate, considering that men oftentimes without any fault of their own
may be driven to want that kind of polity or regiment which is best, and to
content themselves with that, which either the irremediable error of former
times, or the necessity of the present, hath cast upon them. '
In his fourth book, Hooker undertakes to defend the church
of England against the charge of Romanism because certain
ceremonies were retained which the other reformed churches had
rejected. And here it may not be irrelevant to remark that the
question of toleration never entered into the dispute. The object
of the Elizabethan settlement was to establish a church on the
broad basis of comprehension; that of the puritans to set up
a procrustean institution and to force every Englishman to conform
to it in all particulars. The point at issue between Anglican and
puritan in the days of Elizabeth was which of two ideals of a
national church should prevail. This was recognised generally in
the country, and puritanism, discredited by the violent language of
the Marprelate libels, was, when Hooker, in 1594, issued his fourth
book, manifestly on the wane, while Anglicanism, after an un-
promising beginning, was daily gaining strength, so that he was
able to say:
That which especially concerneth ourselves, in the present matter we treat
of, is the state of reformed religion, a thing at her [Elizabeth's] coming to
the crown even raised as it were by a miracle from the dead; a thing which


## p. 413 (#435) ############################################

The Fourth and Fifth Books
413
we so little hoped to see, that even they which beheld it done, scarcely believed
their own senses at the first beholding. Yet being then brought to pass, thus
many years it hath continued, standing by no other worldly mean but that
one only hand which erected it; that hand which as no kind of imminent
danger could cause at the first to withhold itself, so neither have the practice
of so many so bloody following since been ever able to make weary. . . .
Which grace and favour of divine assistance having not in one thing or two
shewed itself, nor for some few days or years appeared. . . what can we less
thereupon conclude, than that God would at leastwise by tract of time teach
the world, that the thing which he blesseth, defendeth, keepeth so strangely,
cannot choose but be of him. Wherefore, if any refuse to believe us disputing
for the verity of religion established, let them believe God himself thus
miraculously working for it, and wish life even for ever and ever unto that
glorious and sacred instrument whereby he worketh.
When we reach the fifth book, which, in itself, is almost as
extensive as the rest of the work, we find ourselves at the very
heart of the controversy and discover that the same master hand
has the same capacity for dealing with detail as it exhibited in
regard to general principles. It would be impossible to show here at
length how Hooker defends the prayer book against the criticisms of
Cartwright and Travers; and we must be content with a cursory
examination of the chapters wherein Hooker rises to the highest
point of excellence as a theologian, namely those dealing with the
sacraments. With questions purely ritual in character, Hooker is
not a little impatient; the controversies of his own day about ‘rites
and ceremonies of church action' appear, as he remarks in the
dedication of this book to Whitgift, 'such silly things, that very
easiness doth make them hard to be disputed of in serious manner. '
But, in treating of sacramental grace, he feels himself to be engaged
in a congenial occupation, and he lavishes on it all the treasures
of his wide reading and erudition combined with skill and judgment.
He takes us back to the great controversies of antiquity and, with
masterly skill, unfolds the doctrine of the Divinity of the Word
and the relation of the Divine and human natures in Christ. From
the Person he goes on to speak of the Presence of Christ, and
from Presence to the participation we have of Him. Thoroughly
acquainted as he is with all the theories of sacramental grace
prevalent in his day, especially in regard to the Eucharist, he
recognises that here, if anywhere, all parties are fundamentally
agreed, now that the theories of Zwingli and Oecolampadius were
rejected 'concerning that alone is material, namely the real
participation of Christ and of life in his body and blood by means
of this sacrament. 'I wish,' he adds, later, that men would more
give themselves to meditate what we have by the sacrament and
less to dispute of the manner how. '
6
6
6


## p. 414 (#436) ############################################

414 Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
Hooker went further on the path of conciliation than any other
divine in seeing that a recognition of the fact of the presence of the
Saviour, however defined, was the essential point to which all others
were really subsidiary. A passage of remarkable beauty in the
67th chapter he brings to the following conclusion:
What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not, it is enough that to
me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ, his promise in
witness hereof sufficeth, his word he knoweth which way to accomplish; why
should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this,
O my God thou art true, O my soul thou art happy!
The fifth book was, as we have seen, the last to be published in
Hooker's lifetime; and the remaining three can only be mentioned
in brief. The sixth deals with the question of church discipline
and contains a valuable survey of the system of penance, not only
of that in the early church, but, also, of that in vogue among the
Jews. Hooker also discusses the Roman view of the subject as put
forward by cardinal Bellarmine. The seventh book answers the
puritan objections to episcopal government, and is remarkable for
the temperate way in which each is stated and discussed as well as
for the erudition displayed. While he professes his belief in the
.
apostolical origin of episcopacy, Hooker does not consider the
institution absolutely indispensable, though, when he speaks of
cathedral establishments, his knowledge of history enables him to
see in them the outlines of the primitive churches, and he gives
way to a moment of enthusiasm foreign to his usual habit:
For most certain truth it is that cathedral churches and the bishops of
them are as glasses wherein the face and very countenance of apostolical
antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen. . . . For defence and maintenance
of them we are most earnestly bound to strive, even as the Jews were for
their temple . . . the overthrow and ruin of the one if ever the sacrilegious
avarice of Atheists should prevail so far, which God of his infinite mercy
forbid, ought no otherwise to more us than the people of God were moved . . .
when they uttered from the bottom of their grieved spirits those voices of
doleful supplication Exsurge Domine et miserearis Sion, Servi tui diligunt
lapides ejus, pulveris ejus miseret eos.
Hooker, it may be remarked, insists on the necessity of episcopal
ordination except when the exigence of necessity doth constrain
to leave the usual ways of the church, which otherwise we would
willingly keep. '
The eighth book treats of the power of supreme juris-
diction and the relation of the civil magistrate to the church.
To Hooker, a Christian church and state are identical; but an
English monarch's power is strictly limited by law. The axioms
>


## p. 415 (#437) ############################################

Hooker's Place in the Reformation 415
of our regal government,' he says, 'are these, les facit regem . . .
and rex nihil potest nisi quod jure potest. ' In all the king's
.
proceedings 'law is itself the rule. '
Such, then, is the main outline of a great work which had
an abiding influence on English history. It showed the strength
of the argument in favour of the Elizabethan settlement of religion,
and the real weakness, despite the moral fervour which it evoked,
of the puritan position. But, though Hooker's work had no small
influence on the subsequent development of the Anglican ideal, his
position was not that of the Laudian, much less of the tractarian,
school of clergy. He had the advantage of living at the time when
the first bitterness of the conflict between puritanism and Anglican-
ism had spent itself and before the struggle had entered upon its
second phase. He lived too early to witness the final breach
between Anglicanism and continental protestantism, and too late
to experience the predominance of the latter in the time of the
Zurich letters. The result is that his views are broad, sympathetic
and tolerant. His singularly calm and dispassionate intellect
enables him to rise superior to the prejudices of his age and, like
St Paul, he makes the problems of the hour turn on everlasting
principles. The remark of Clement VIII on hearing the first book
translated at sight into Latin by Stapleton, related by Walton,
is as creditable to the judgment of the pontiff as to the poor
obscure English priest who had writ. . . such books. '
6
There is no learning that this man hath not searched into; nothing too
hard for his understanding. This man indeed deserves the name of an author;
his books will get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of eternity,
that if the rest be like this, they shall last till the last fire shall consume
all learning.
Of Hooker's style, perhaps the most remarkable feature is the
singular calmness and dignity with which he deals with the burning
questions of his time. It was an age of literary scurrility, employed
on both sides without either scruple or blame and thoroughly
appreciated even by the learned public. This is conspicuously
absent from Hooker's published work, and rarely indeed does he
allow, his real humour and power of retort to display itself.
Fortunately, however, his notes to the Christian Letter, pre-
served in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, reveal the
man in his private study, and show how extraordinary a self-
restraint he must have exercised in curbing his natural powers of
sarcasm. On a remark upon the 'moral virtues' by the puritans
in the letter, Hooker's note is:


## p. 416 (#438) ############################################

416
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
>
'A doctrine which would well have pleased Caligula, Nero, and other such
monsters to heare. Had thapostles taught this it might have advanced them
happily to honour. ' Again he asks ‘Have you been tampering so long with
Pastors, Doctors, Elders, Deacons; that the first principles of your religion
are new to learn? '
Hooker speaks of his age as a learned one, but his knowledge
of books must have been pre-eminent at any time. Of the thousand
and ninety-two pounds which he left at his death, we are not
surprised to hear that 'a great part of it was in books. ' It was
not merely that Hooker was well read in the Scriptures and the
Fathers: it is the range of his learning that is remarkable. In
the first book, which is not primarily theological, but deals, as we
have seen, with the general principles of law, we have quotations
from Mercurius Trismegistus, Stobaeus, Aquinas, Theophrastus,
Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, Ramus, Sallust, Vergil, Plato,
Nicholas of Cusa, Telesius, Augustine, Cicero, Tertullian, Josephus,
Lactantius, Duns Scotus, Gratian, the Carmina of Orpheus,
Eusebius of Emesa and several other authors. His knowledge
of Hebrew is shown in the fourth book, where he rebuts the
charge that the ceremonies of the church were Judaic, whilst his
extensive acquaintance with patristic literature is most evident
in the fifth and sixth books. How keenly he was alive to the
importance, not of the popular controversies of the day but of
those which, if they attracted less attention, revealed dangerous
tendencies, is seen in his dealing with the ubiquitarian doctrine of
some Lutherans, who taught that the human body of Christ
by reason of its union with his Godhead, was everywhere present,
and that, as the body of the Son of God, it had the property
of ubiquity: an error which would have deprived it of the true
and essential character of a human body. This opinion is discussed
in the great section of the fifth book L-LVII which speaks of the
sacraments.
His Ecclesiastical Polity is remarkable as being one of the few
theological or philosophical works which have taken a high place
in the literature of the language in which they were written, and
also for its far-reaching importance. Like Plato, St Augustine,
Pascal and Berkeley, Hooker combines the often discordant
elements of a deep thinker and a consummate literary artist. But,
in one respect, he rose above them all: by his power of elevating a
dispute of a purely temporary interest into a discussion of the great
principles on which all human society must be based Hooker
has been compared to 'a Knight of Romance among catiff
brawlers,' and, if this description be unjust to his contemporary
:


## p. 417 (#439) ############################################

Its Place in Literature
417
6
opponents and supporters, it indicates the immensity of the
gap which parted him from them. As surely as Bacon pointed
out the right method of investigation in natural philosophy, did
Hooker prepare the way for the future by indicating the true
lines on which theology ought to develop. He not only called
into being the language of Anglican theology; he laid down
the lines on which it should proceed. His style has won the
commendation of so great a master of English prose as Swift, and
of a historian like Hallam. He can be fluent, easy and straight-
forward at times, but is equally capable of rising to a majesty
of eloquence or a severity of diction according to the requirements
of his subject. His singular sensitiveness to the rhythm and
musical expression of his sentences has been remarked ; and,
even where he appears to be most obscure or involved, close
attention will reveal a purpose alike in his choice of words and
in the arrangement of the clauses of his sentences. It is certainly
true that 'such who would patiently attend and give him credit
all the reading and hearing of his sentences, had their expectation
ever paid at the close thereof. '
But he was far more than a great prose writer, a ripe scholar,
a pioneer in bringing Greek philosophy into English literature.
Hooker's greatest merit was that he showed Anglican theologians
that their object must be, not to contend about trifles, but to hold
up the highest ideal of a church rooted in antiquity, ever studious
in Scriptural and primitive Christianity, and, at the same time, large
minded, open and tolerant. In an age of partisanship, he was
not in the least a party theologian, and he appealed to the under-
standing of those who had no sympathy with either Anglican or
puritan. Hooker, it is true, struck the decisive blow in favour of
the Anglican position in the sixteenth century: but he did a more
lasting work. He indicated that Anglicanism meant freedom
combined with reverence, the exercise of the reason with a simple
faith, and that liberality towards all churches was compatible with
loyalty to that of the nation. He was greater both than his con-
temporaries and than his followers, and whenever the church of
England has failed it has been when she has not been true to
the liberal principles of her greatest apologist.
a
E. L. III.
CH. XVIIT.
27


## p. 418 (#440) ############################################

CHAPTER XIX
ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARSHIP
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
THE history of the English universities to the end, approxi-
mately, of the Middle Ages has been dealt with in a previous
volume of this work. The period treated in the present chapter
falls into two unequal sections. The dividing line may be best
fixed at the visitation of 1559, when twelve years of perilous unrest
give place to an era of constructive growth, uncertain at first, but
keeping step uniformly with the increasing national stability.
It is not unreasonable to regard the foundation of Trinity
College, Cambridge, and of the new regius professorships, as
setting the seal to the transition from medieval to modern ideals
in the universities and in learning. Just as the 'college' hence-
forth dominates the university, so humanism, nationalism and the
reformation supersede the Catholic idea in theology, politics and
law. When Henry VIII died, the noteworthy group of Cambridge
humanists, headed by Smith and Cheke, gave promise of high dis-
tinction for English scholarship. The abortive Chantries Act of
1546, which included the universities, was of evil omen in days
of financial urgency, but it expired with the king, and Somerset
astutely omitted universities and colleges, including Eton and Win-
chester, from the purview of his new bill of 1547, to be dealt with
separately. The governing power, whether Somerset, Gardiner or
Elizabeth, realised that English universities, like Paris and
Wittenberg, were not merely seats of learning, but that from them
passed religious and political influences which profoundly affected
the national life. From them, as seminaries of the ministry and
nurseries of the civil service, the country drew increasingly its
leaders and administrators in church and state, and moulded
opinion through the parson, the schoolmaster and the justice of the
peace. Hence, Oxford and Cambridge became objects of high
policy in exact proportion as they intertwined themselves with the
several strands of English life and thought. It was not by way


## p. 419 (#441) ############################################

Universities under Edward VI and Mary 419
of compliment that Somerset, Gardiner and Cecil were elected
university chancellors.
The standing difficulty of the historian of the time confronts
the enquirer in this field also. The bitter temper of the age makes
it well nigh impossible to determine facts. To Ascham, the arch-
enemy of English learning was the Catholic restoration. At Oxford,
Anthony à Wood has no hesitation in ascribing the miserable
decay of letters to the Edwardian visitors. Yet, if Cheke, Ridley
and Smith formulated the eminently reasonable statutes and
injunctions of 1549, militant reformers like Latimer and Lever
agree in deploring the evil case of education—the devilish drowning
of youth in ignorance'-since protestant courtiers had the ear
of the crown. A whole library, we know, was to be had at Oxford
for forty shillings when visitors were about, so heavy was the
hand that was laid upon 'superstition. ' 'Purgings' of this college
and that were followed by the forced intrusion of new zealots.
To Oxford was sent, to teach divinity, Peter Martyr, the fighting
Zwinglian, a far less attractive spirit than the wide-minded Bucer,
disciple and friend of Melanchthon, who filled the corresponding
chair at Cambridge.
Thus, controversial theology overshadowed all else and both
universities were drawn into the whirlpool of politics. But
political divinity has rarely stimulated learning. If, at Cambridge,
for a year or two, undergraduates kept their numbers, in serious-
ness of temper they showed marked decline. At Oxford, in 1550,
there were “a bare thousand on the books, and most of these were
not in residence. The stream of benefactions dried up. Pluralism
.
and sinecures abounded.
Far-seeing men abandoned university
life for service in church and state. Ascham, though public orator
at Cambridge, spent years at court or abroad. Sir Thomas Smith,
while professor of civil law, left the university for political life.
At best, it was the function of the university to supply the pro-
fessions; learning, as such, was ignored. The ‘university'declined,
the 'college' was not as yet systematised or disciplined. Disputa-
tions—the one test of proficiency-were neglected, the schools
deserted; few graduated even as bachelors; the higher degrees
were rarely sought. It is much that the old comity of learning
did not entirely die. As Thomas Smith taught at Padua, and
Caius at Montpellier, so German theologians, Dutch Hebraists, or
Italian lawyers could hold English posts. It is of more weight still,
that the Edwardian statutes mark a genuine advance in adminis-
tration and in the concept of learning. They breathe the renascence
27-2


## p. 420 (#442) ############################################

420
Universities, Schools and Scholarship
-
spirit, they evince sound judgment and first-hand knowledge of
the needs of the universities. Elizabeth's advisers found little to
alter in them, and they stood till the Laudian era. Philosophy-
in humanist fashion-was held specifically to include politics, ethics
and physica: Plato and Pliny were prescribed alongside of Aristotle.
Dialectic covered not merely the text of Aristotle, but, also, that
of Hermogenes and of Quintilian-implying that interrelation of
logic and rhetoric which was the very core of humanist doctrine.
Mathematics included cosmography; Euclid, Strabo, Pomponius
Mela and Cardan were the authorities. The Greek professor had
to interpret Homer, Euripides, Demosthenes and 'Socrates. ' To
civil law, to be read, like medicine, in the original texts, was
added a study of 'the Ecclesiastic Laws of this Kingdom. ' For
undergraduates, the first year course was mainly in mathe-
matics (Elizabethan statutes substituted rhetoric); the second
year in logic; the third in rhetoric and philosophy. The master's
degree required three years' residence, with reading in Greek,
philosophy, geometry and astronomy. To a doctor alone was
.
complete freedom allowed. But, gradually, the colleges imposed
their own courses. Thus, the first year man at Trinity began logic,
read Cicero and Demosthenes, wrote prose and verse. He was
probably, we remember, a boy of 12 to 15 years of age. Plato was
added in his second year; after graduation, he took up Hebrew.
Much, perhaps most, of all this was on paper only. Circumstances,
whether fiscal, political or religious, were equally adverse. Greed,
polemics, dynastic insecurity kept learning stagnant in schools
and universities alike.
Not that Mary herself was indifferent to learning, any more
than Northumberland had been. But it was inevitable that
Gardiner should revoke the new statutes, and turn adrift heads
and fellows 'to eat mice at Zurich. ' Peter Martyr promptly
crossed the seas. In Oxford, Magdalen was 'thoroughly purged,' but
Thomas Pope founded Trinity (1556), and White, St John's (1555).
Gardiner was hard on Trinity and St John's at Cambridge, but Caius
re-founded Gonville (1558). Reginald Pole was no obscurantist;
with Sadoleto, his ideal was a humanism suffused with the spirit of
a finely tempered Catholicism. The statutes of the two Marian
foundations at Oxford are such as the scholarly bishop of Carpen-
tras himself might have settled. “I remember,' says Sir Thomas
Pope, 'when I was a young scholar at Eton, the Greek tongue was
growing apace, the study of which is now much decayed. St John's
was built to serve 'sacred theology, philosophy, and good Arts,


## p. 421 (#443) ############################################

The Universities and the Church
421
Hem
including civil and canon law. At Cambridge, Caius, a devout
Catholic, was, none the less, a friend of Melanchthon; a student and
a teacher in many continental universities; a Grecian of distinction,
yet a pupil of Vesalius. Like Smith and Savile, he represents
the versatility and enthusiasm which marked the larger minds of
the revival in England. Yet, to judge from Ascham's lament-
and Caius confirms it—we must assume that Cambridge, already
predominantly protestant, reached its lowest depths under the
Catholic régime; that teachers and students alike forsook the
university; that degrees were seldom conferred, and, too often,
gained by dispensation: between 1555 and 1559, only 175 pro-
ceeded to the bachelor's standing at Cambridge, and 216 at
Oxford, less hostile to the dominant powers. Of all the causes
which reacted unfavourably upon the universities, none made so
deep an impression on the country as the Oxford and Smithfield
martyrdoms.
As in the field of religion and of affairs, so in that of
education, with the accession of Elizabeth the national unrest
began to abate. Recovery, however, was slow. In the last year
of Mary, only 28 degrees in arts had been conferred at Oxford.
In 1561, no senior proceeded to the degree of doctor in any of
the faculties. But Cecil, chancellor of Cambridge (1558—98)
guided the new queen's university policy. Leicester, a chancellor
(1564–88) of a different type, was, none the less, keen to secure
Oxford for protestantism, and to raise the standard of efficiency in
teaching and learning. Elizabeth herself was a lover of learning
and, perhaps, the best-read woman of her time, with a bias to
national continuity, and an aversion to the foreigner whether pope
or Calvin. The visitations of 1559 once more eliminated hostile
influences. Such heads of houses and fellows as clung to the old
faith either withdrew or were expelled. Dr Bill and Lawrence
Humfrey, with many others, were restored. Disaffected societies,
like St John's, Trinity, or New College at Oxford, were effectually
'purged. ' But, this done, and Edward's statutes reimposed, the
visitors held their hands. When the queen visited Cambridge in
1564, a new temper, hopeful and earnest, prevailed. The number
of residents at Oxford rose steadily from one thousand to two.
Benefactions were again freely offered. Two results of importance
gradually emerge: the restoration of the universities to their
function as safe seminaries of the clergy, and the final subordina-
tion of the university to the colleges and their heads. By the
Act of Incorporation of both the universities (1571), parliament,
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## p. 422 (#444) ############################################

422
Universities, Schools and Scholarship
for the first time, recognised and confirmed the franchises, privi-
leges and jurisdictions hitherto enjoyed by Oxford and Cambridge
under royal charters and by usage, and each attained the status
of a corporation under the style of 'The Chancellor, Masters and
Scholars. ' Although tests were not by statute reimposed, convo-
cation at Oxford, at Leicester's instance, passed decrees, requiring,
from all undergraduates over 12 years of age, subscription to the
articles of 1562, with special stress on the royal supremacy. Freedom
of teaching and even of study was jealously watched from court;
and, as Whitgift made plain, protestant orthodoxy and loyalty
rather than learning were approved marks of university efficiency.
By degrees, the concept of the church approved by Elizabeth and
expounded by Hooker became dominantin Oxford, whilst Cambridge
cultivated an enlightened puritanism. But, in both the universities
alike, the keenest interests were those of controversy. Cambridge,
however, sent out from St John's and Trinity not a few school-
masters of merit.
After 1590, Catholic influences were ruthlessly ousted from
English universities. Douay (1569), with its English college ruled
by Allen, had, by 1576, not less than two hundred students of
British origin, amongst them not a few notable ex-fellows and
lecturers from Oxford and Cambridge. And other English scholars
found refuge at St Omer, Valladolid, Seville and in the English
college at Rome. In 1581, Leicester still complained that Oxford
suffered 'secret lurking Papists,' and, though less freely, Catholic
houses continued to send their sons to Caius, Pembroke or
Trinity Hall, at Cambridge, in spite of the harder temper of the
university, or to Oriel, Trinity or St John's at Oxford. Puritan
families mainly affected Cambridge, especially St John's and the
new foundations of Emmanuel (1584), the avowed centre of militant
protestantism, and Sidney Sussex (1599). Robert Brown, John
Smith, the baptist John Cotton and Cartwright were all at
Cambridge. Lawrence Humfrey, president of Magdalen, Oxford,
'did so stock his college with such a generation of nonconformists
as could not be rooted out in many years after his decease. ' The
strongest minds (Whitaker, master of St John's, Cambridge, may be
taken as a conspicuous example) drifted to theology. The best
careers open to unaided talent lay in the church. Hebrew bad
more students than Greek. Tremellius, who taught it at Cam-
bridge, was a foreigner; so were most of his successors. Oxford
learnt Calvinian divinity from Huguenots and other refugees,
Spanish and Italian. It is not the least title to their place in the


## p. 423 (#445) ############################################

Civil Law at the
Universities
423
history of literature, that Oxford and Cambridge bred the men
to whom we owe the Bishops' Bible, the prayer-book and the
Authorised Version!
The place of civil law in the English universities needs brief
mention. Sir Thomas Smith claimed it as a branch of humanism.
In Elyot's vein, he will have it broadly based upon philosophy,
ethics and history. This, the doctrine of Cujas and Alciati, he had
imbibed at Padua and Bologna. For a short time, he succeeded
in winning minds of distinction to study in this spirit a juris-
prudence from which, in respect of precision and authority,
English lawyers might learn much. But the uncertain professional
demand for civilians, the academic temper of the Cambridge
school, the suspicion attaching to the subject as Italian and,
therefore, inevitably, papal, the growing sense of nationality
and the unassailable place of English law which accompanied it,
rendered Smith's hopes ultimately fruitless. Yet there was felt
in high places some need for civil lawyers to advise upon
international usages, to draft treaties and conduct diplomatic corre-
spondence. In 1549, visitors were instructed to set apart, at both
universities, colleges for the exclusive study of civil law, but the
proposal had no countenance. Fellowships, specifically allotted to
this subject, as at All Souls, were, in very many cases, held by
theologians.
Oxford possessed, in Albericus Gentilis (1552—1608) a civilian
of Perugia, elected regius professor of civil law in 1587, the most
learned lawyer of the Elizabethan time. In his hands grew up
a system of international law to serve the needs of a world in
which church and empire alike had ceased to be the dominant
powers. His chief works were De Legationibus (1584), in which
he defined the basis and limits of diplomatic privilege, and De
Jure Belli (1588–98). This standing monument of Oxford
civil studies exhibits a masterly examination of international
historical precedents of the sixteenth century, utilised to reconcile
the Bible, the protestant doctrine of natural law and the essential
principles of the imperial code. Grotius, a century later, was
deeply indebted to Gentilis, from whom, indeed, international law,
as a systematic body of doctrine, is, ultimately, derived. Gentilis, a
man of wide interests and of great learning, exercised profound
influence in the university and was highly regarded at court. His
method of teaching differed from that of Smith and his successor
Haddon, in that he concentrated attention upon the development
1 See ante, chap. u.


## p. 424 (#446) ############################################

424 Universities, Schools and Scholarship
of civil law in its direct application to modern use, with entire
indifference to it as a branch of humanist study; for so to regard law
could, in the England of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
only end in its relegation to 'polite learning. ' The supremacy
of English law was, indeed, already secured. The activity of the
Inns of Court and the genius of Coke did but serve to enforce
the inevitable trend of things. Trinity Hall, however (especially
under its master, Cowell, 1598), All Souls and Broadgates were, more
or less, frequented by civilians. But, to Stewart parliamentarians,
Roman law was identified with absolutism and high prelacy.
The lines of classical study were, nominally, determined by
requirements for degrees. But the colleges were already dominant
in teaching and in administration. The more strenuous exacted
entrance tests. Rhetoric, in the wider humanist sense, philosophy,
ethical and natural,' and logic were the accepted subjects for the
degree. Oxford logic was strictly Aristotelian. Elsewhere, as
at Cambridge and St Andrews, it began to be taught on lines
which Ramus elaborated from Agricola, and this, in turn, developed
into the logic of Port Royal Greek, as a university study,
steadily declined from the standard set up by Cheke. None of
his successors could arouse the old enthusiasm. Whitgift, the
strongest force in the university, knew no Greek. Under Mary, it
was reputed to have disappeared from Oxford. Sir Thomas Pope's
lament concerns this. Leicester, as chancellor, complained, in 1582,
that the Oxford professor read seldom or never. Indeed, it may
be affirmed that no work in classical scholarship was produced at
Oxford or Cambridge during the period under review which is
remotely worthy of comparison with that turned out by Scaliger,
Estienne, Nizolius, Casaubon, Turnebus, or a hundred industrious,
but now half forgotten, scholars in French and German lands. Nor
can English learning show a scholar, unless it were Henry Savile,
to rank with George Buchanan. In Greek, not one of the trans-
lators, Savile excepted, but works through a French version, like
North. There was, on the other hand, a large output of Latin
plays? -evidence, no doubt, of careful study in school and uni-
versity of classical or neo-Latin models. Trinity (Cambridge)
statutes (1560) contain clauses concerning the performance of
college plays. Acting was the accepted mode of training youth
in speaking Latin and in grace of gesture, wherever humanists
controlled education. Shrewsbury, in this matter, held the pre-
eminence amongst English schools ; but at none of any pretension
1 See vol. v of the present work.
6
i


## p. 425 (#447) ############################################

English Learning in the XVIth Century
Century 425
was the practice neglected, though in Westminster alone has the
tradition retained its vitality to our own day.
As the humanism of the sixteenth century became more
strictly literary in its range, so surely did mathematics and
natural philosophy sink to a lower place in English learning.
Their affinity was with navigation, architecture or military science,
not with the learned professions; a typical and very popular
hand-book was Blundeville His exercises . . . in Cosmographie. . . .
Methods of observation and experiment, working to practical
ends, superseded authoritative appeal to Aristotle or Ptolemy.
Recorde's The Castel of Knowledge (1553) had a vogue for half
a century as a manual of the new mathematic, harmonised to the
Copernican astronomy. The English Euclid (1570) would seem to
have had but a poor sale. Original work, like Gilbert's De Magnete
(1600) kept its Latin dress, and, apart from this, nothing of first
rate importance in the field of pure science was produced from
an English press during the period under discussion.
It is an interesting, though difficult, task to realise the actual
range and level of the work of a studious undergraduate coming
up from Westminster or Shrewsbury to Christ Church at Oxford or
St John's at Cambridge. Statutes, in effect, lend little or no help.
Colleges ordered and gave the instruction and, apparently, were
powerful enough to secure dispensation from the formal university
exercises. A large, though varying, number in every college never
graduated at all. Though the age at matriculation tended to rise,
Bacon (who, himself, entered at twelve years and three months)
complained, in the closing years of the century, that a prime cause
of the futility of university education lay in the immaturity of the
undergraduate. We may remember that Bentham, two centuries
later, went up at twelve. Magdalen (Oxford) wisely put raw first
year 'men' to the learning of rudiments in its own admirable
grammar school. Yet, there is ample evidence that ambitious and
well-prepared boys-precocious, perhaps, to our seeming-not only
found helpful teaching in classical letters, but developed broad and
abiding interests. Bodley, Wotton, Savile, Sidney and Hooker at
Oxford, Spenser, Downes, Fraunce and Harington at Cambridge,
are typical of different groups of men who owed much to the univer-
sities for the shaping of their bent. But that single-eyed devotion
to scholarship which marked the circle of Cheke, Smith and Ascham
at the outset of this period is far to seek as it draws to a close.
Theology attracted the strongest intelligence as it has done at
certain epochs since. The way to secular advance lay at court or


## p. 426 (#448) ############################################

426 Universities, Schools and Scholarship
>
in adventure. Wotton, indeed, wrote his Latin play like many
another.
But he found his enjoyment at Oxford in reading law
with Gentilis, in learning Italian and in working at optics. Donne
had read enough for graduation by the time he was thirteen : and
he then left to spend four desultory years at Cambridge. Henry
Savile, warden of Merton and, later, like Wotton, provost of Eton,
whose rightful repute for scholarship even Scaliger allowed, trans-
lated the Annals of Tacitus (1692) wrote on Roman warfare, edited
Xenophon (the Cyropaedia) and produced the first substantial
work of English patristic learning since the revival. He stands
for the courtier' as developed on English soil, a man of the
world, versatile and travelled, 'the scholar gentleman. ' Before
the queen died, the English universities Bad already begun to
realise their national function as the breeders of men of talent
for affairs, of divines and schoolmasters, with here and there, as
a ‘sport,' a' man of letters and, yet more rarely, a leader in
scholarship
Three other foundations call for mention : Edinburgh (1582)
Trinity College, Dublin (1591) and Gresham College (1596). The
reformation struggle had all but extinguished university teaching in
Scotland, which sent students to Padua or Douay, or to the Collège
de Guyenne, at Bordeaux, where we meet with many Scottish
names, that of George Buchanan, as a teacher, among them. It is
characteristic of the time that young Scotsmen very rarely found
their way to Oxford or Cambridge. Andrew Melville, though as
fanatic as Knox, was, however, a humanist and did something to
restore learning at Glasgow and St Andrews. Edinburgh was
too young to take effective part in building up the fabric of
Scottish protestant humanism. Trinity College, Dublin, an
outstanding product of the English reformation, was, as Fuller
describes it, a plantation settled from Cambridge. The first
suggestion for a foundation in Dublin had come from archbishop
Browne, some forty years before, and was repeated after Elizabeth's
accession. The temper of the founder was revealed in the two
men who filled the office of provost, the first, archbishop Loftus,
a fellow of Trinity, Cambridge--and admirer of Cartwright-and
the second, Travers, of Disciplina fame, puritan and arch-separatist.
The college was, of course, part and parcel of the English occu-
pation. Sir Thomas Gresham designed his college (1596), in
London, to be 'an epitome of a University. Oxford chose the
original seven professors, who included Henry Briggs, Napier's
collaborator. The professor of law was expressly directed to


## p. 427 (#449) ############################################

English Schools under Elizabeth
427
treat of contracts, monopolies, shipping and the like. "Medicine'
covered not only the study of Galen and Hippocrates, but, also,
modern theories of physiology, pathology and therapeutics. Geo-
metry was to be both theoretical and practical. In divinity,
she professor was charged specially to defend the Church of
England. It was a notable attempt to adapt the widening know-
ledge of the day to the needs of the spacious time.
It is significant that, in both universities, the art of printing
ceased at some date between 1520—30, to be restored at
Cambridge, in 1582, when Thomas was recognised as printer to the
university, and at Oxford, in 1585, when Barnes set up a press.
But the centre of English printing and publishing was London,
where fifty presses were at work under strict surveillance of court
and bishop. From 1586, licence to publish was granted by the
archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, and the only
two presses authorised without the London area were those of
Oxford and Cambridge. Little of the first order was produced,
however, by the university printers. The mass of texts for school
and college were not of English origin, but bear the imprint of
Plantin, Aldus, or Gryphius and of the busy workshops of Basel
and Paris.
The influence of Edwardian legislation on English schools is
a subject for the general historian. It is, however, to be noted
how large was the supply of small schools, elementary, ‘song,'
or grammar schools in England, as revealed by the chantry com-
mission of 1548, particularly in the eastern half of the kingdom.
Some half dozen school foundations, such as Sedbergh and Bir-
mingham, are in debt to Northumberland. Mary could do as little
for schools as for universities. Elizabeth's counsellors took up
the task where Edward's death had left it. The queen's trained
intelligence was on the side of knowledge. In church and in
state, the men she trusted owed more to acquired gifts than to
birth. Classical education was in favour at court; money from
religious houses was though sparingly, as always--accorded to
school endowments on request. To restore the local grammar
school became a fashion. Merchants, servants of the crown,
country gentry, superior clergy, borough corporations, founded
free grammar schools. Westminster was reconstructed; Eton
and Winchester, which had the immunities of a college of the
universities, widened studies and enlarged their numbers. The
leaving age was advanced. A new type of scholar, sometimes, like


## p. 428 (#450) ############################################

428
Universities, Schools and Scholarship
a
Ashton of Shrewsbury, a man of versatile gifts and standing at
court, or a travelled historian like Camden, became headmaster.
Savile and Wotton dignified the office of provost of Eton. Purely
local schools, such as Peterborough or Colchester, made stringent
requirements of attainment in their headmasters. Fellows of the
best colleges took service in schools, and, though often incompetent
as teachers, were but rarely ill-educated men. The best houses
began to send boys to school. The tutor remained for the younger
brothers, or piloted the promising graduate through the perils of
the foreign tour. The burgher class adopted the new education.
Colet's reformed school of St Paul's was copied in fifty towns.
Borough councils were importunate to secure charters and grants.
In order to keep a high level of efficiency, here and there a founder
linked his school to one of the colleges of the university, after the
fashion of Eton or Winchester. The lay spirit became dominant.
Shrewsbury, indeed, was a civic school, but ecclesiastical founda-
tions also, like Westminster and Winchester, now and again had
lay heads.