THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS IN ENGLAND
The story of the English literary revival in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries is of no little interest and importance. The full
history of the movement would form the fitting theme of an entire
volume; but the real facts are so contrary to much that is commonly
believed about our English renaissance of letters, that some brief
account is necessary, if we would rightly understand the attitude of
men’s minds on the eve of the Reformation. At the outset, it is useful
to recall the limits of this English renaissance. Judged by what is
known of the movement in Italy, the land of its origin, the word
“renaissance” is usually understood to denote not only the adoption of
the learning and intellectual culture of ancient Greece and Rome by the
leaders of thought in the Western World during the period in question,
but an almost servile following of classical models, the absorption
of the pagan spirit and the adoption of pagan modes of expression so
fully, as certainly to obscure, if it did not frequently positively
obliterate, Christian sentiment and Christian ideals. In this sense, it
is pleasing to think, the renaissance was unknown in England. So far,
however, as the revival of learning is concerned, England bore its part
in, if indeed it may not be said to have been in the forefront of, the
movement.
This has, perhaps, hardly been realised as it should be. That the
sixteenth century witnessed a remarkable awakening of minds, a
broadening of intellectual interests, and a considerable advance in
general culture, has long been known and acknowledged. There is little
doubt, however, that the date usually assigned both for the dawning
of the light and for the time of its full development is altogether
too late; whilst the circumstances which fostered the growth of
the movement have apparently been commonly misunderstood, and the
chief agents in initiating it altogether ignored. The great period
of the reawakening would ordinarily be placed without hesitation in
post-Reformation times, and writers of all shades of opinion have
joined in attributing the revival of English letters to the freedom of
minds and hearts purchased by the overthrow of the old ecclesiastical
system, and their emancipation from the narrowing and withering effects
of mediævalism.
On the assumption that the only possible attitude of English
churchmen on the eve of the great religious changes would be one of
uncompromising hostility to learning and letters, many have come to
regard the one, not as inseparably connected with the other, but the
secular as the outcome of the religious movement. The undisguised
opposition of the clergy to the “New Learning” is spoken of as
sufficient proof of the Church’s dislike of learning in general, and
its determination to check the nation’s aspirations to profit by the
general classical revival. This assumption is based upon a complete
misapprehension as to what was then the meaning of the term “New
Learning.” It was in no sense connected with the revival of letters, or
with what is now understood by learning and culture; but it was in the
Reformation days a well-recognised expression used to denote the novel
religious teachings of Luther and his followers.[3] Uncompromising
hostility to such novelties, no doubt, marked the religious attitude
of many, who were at the same time the most strenuous advocates of the
renaissance of letters. This is so obvious in the works of the period,
that were it not for the common misuse of the expression at the present
day, and for the fact that opposition to the “New Learning” is assumed
on all hands to represent hostility to letters, rather than to novel
teachings in religious matters, there would be no need to furnish
examples of its real use in the period in question. As it is, some
instances taken from the works of that time become almost a necessity,
if we would understand the true position of many of the chief actors at
this period of our history.
Roger Edgworth, a preacher, for instance, after speaking of those who
“so arrogantly glory in their learning, had by study in the English
Bible, and in these seditious English books that have been sent over
from our English runagates now abiding with Luther in Saxony,” praises
the simple-hearted faith that was accepted unquestioned by all “before
this wicked ‘New Learning’ arose in Saxony and came over into England
amongst us.”[4]
From the preface of _The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman_, dated
February 1531, it is equally clear that the expression “New Learning”
was then understood only of religious teaching. Like the Scribes and
Pharisees in the time of Our Lord, the author says, the bishops and
priests are calling out: “What ‘New Learning’ is it? These fellows
teach new learning: these are they that trouble all the world with
their new learning?… Even now after the same manner, our holy bishops
with all their ragman’s roll are of the same sort.… They defame,
slander, and persecute the word and the preachers and followers of
it, with the selfsame names, calling it ‘New Learning’ and them ‘new
masters.’”[5]
The same meaning was popularly attached to the words even after the
close of the reign of Henry VIII. A book published in King Edward’s
reign, to instruct the people “concerning the king’s majesty’s
proceedings in the communion,” bears the title, _The olde Faith of
Great Brittayne and the new learning of England_. It is, of course,
true, that the author sets himself to show that the reformed doctrines
were the old teachings of the Christian Church, and that, when St.
Gregory sent St. Augustine over into England, “the new learning was
brought into this realm, of which we see much yet remaining in the
Church at the present day.”[6] But this fact rather emphasises than
in any way obscures the common understanding of the expression “New
Learning,” since the whole intent of the author is to show that the
upholders of the old ecclesiastical system were the real maintainers
of a “New Learning” brought from Rome by St. Augustine, and not the
Lutherans. The same appears equally clearly in a work by Urbanus
Regius, which was translated and published by William Turner in 1537,
and called _A comparison betwene the old learnynge and the newe_. As
the translator says at the beginning--
“Some ther be that do defye
All that is newe and ever do crye
The olde is better, away with the new
Because it is false, and the olde is true.
Let them this booke reade and beholde,
For it preferreth the learning most olde.”
As the author of the previous volume quoted, so Urbanus Regius compares
the exclamation of the Jews against our Lord: “What new learning is
this?” with the objection, “What is this new doctrine?” made by the
Catholics against the novel religious teaching of Luther and his
followers. “This,” they say, “is the new doctrine lately devised and
furnished in the shops and workhouses of heretics. Let us abide still
in our old faith.… Wherefore,” continues the author, “I, doing the
office of Christian brother, have made a comparison between the ‘New
Learning’ and the olden, whereby, dear brother, you may easily know
whether we are called worthily or unworthily the preachers of the
‘New Learning.’ For so did they call us of late.” He then proceeds
to compare under various headings what he again and again calls “the
New Learning” and “the Old Learning.” For example, according to the
former, people are taught that the Sacraments bring grace to the soul;
according to the latter, faith alone is needful. According to the
former, Christ is present wholly under each kind of bread and wine,
the mass is a sacrifice for the living and the dead, and “oblation is
made in the person of the whole church”; according to the latter, the
Supper is a memorial only of Christ’s death, “and not a sacrifice, but
a remembrance of the sacrifice that was once offered up on the cross,”
and that “all oblations except that of our Lord are vain and void.”[7]
In view of passages such as the above, and in the absence of any
contemporary evidence of the use of the expression to denote the
revival of letters, it is obvious that any judgment as to a general
hostility of the clergy to learning based upon their admitted
opposition to what was then called the “New Learning” cannot seriously
be maintained. It would seem, moreover, that the religious position of
many ecclesiastics and laymen has been completely misunderstood by the
meaning now so commonly assigned to the expression. Men like Erasmus,
Colet, and to a great extent, More himself, have been regarded, to
say the least, as at heart very lukewarm adherents of the Church,
precisely because of their strong advocacy of the movement known as the
literary revival, which, identified by modern writers with the “New
Learning,” was, it is wrongly assumed, condemned by orthodox churchmen.
The Reformers are thus made the champions of learning; Catholics, the
upholders of ignorance, and the hereditary and bitter foes of all
intellectual improvement. No one, however, saw more clearly than did
Erasmus that the rise of Lutheran opinions was destined to be the
destruction of true learning, and that the atmosphere of controversy
was not the most fitting to assure its growth. To Richard Pace he
expressed his ardent wish that some kindly _Deus ex machinâ_ would
put an end to the whole Lutheran agitation, for it had most certainly
brought upon the humanist movement unmerited hatred.[8] In subsequent
letters he rejects the idea that the two, the Lutheran and the humanist
movements, had anything whatever in common; asserting that even Luther
himself had never claimed to found his revolt against the Church on
the principles of scholarship and learning. To him, the storm of the
Reformation appeared--so far as concerned the revival of learning--as a
catastrophe. Had the tempest not risen, he had the best expectations of
a general literary renaissance and of witnessing a revival of interest
in Biblical and patristic studies among churchmen. It was the breath of
bitter and endless controversy initiated in the Lutheran revolt and the
consequent misunderstandings and enmities which withered his hopes.[9]
There remains, however, the broader question as to the real position
of the ecclesiastical authorities generally, in regard to the revival
of learning. So far as England is concerned, their attitude is hardly
open to doubt in view of the positive testimony of Erasmus, which is
further borne out by an examination of the material available for
forming a judgment. This proves beyond all question, not only that the
Church in England on the eve of the change did not refuse the light,
but that, both in its origin and later development, the movement owed
much to the initiative and encouragement of English churchmen.
It is not necessary here to enter very fully into the subject of
the general revival of learning in Europe during the course of the
fifteenth century. At the very beginning of that period what Gibbon
calls “a new and perpetual flame” was enkindled in Italy. As in the
thirteenth century, so then it was the study of the literature and
culture of ancient Greece that re-enkindled the lamp of learning in
the Western World. Few things, indeed, are more remarkable than the
influence of Greek forms and models on the Western World. The very
language seems as if destined by Providence to do for the Christian
nations of Europe what in earlier ages it had done for pagan Rome. As
Dr. Döllinger has pointed out, this is “a fact of immense importance,
which even in these days it is worth while to weigh and place in its
proper light,” since “the whole of modern civilisation and culture is
derived from Greek sources. Intellectually we are the offspring of the
union of the ancient Greek classics with Hellenised Judaism.” One thing
is clear on the page of history: that the era of great intellectual
activity synchronised with re-awakened interests in the Greek
classics and Greek language in such a way that the study of Greek may
conveniently be taken as representing a general revival of letters.
By the close of the fourteenth century, the ever-increasing impotence
of the Imperial sway on the Bosphorus, and the ever-growing influence
of the Turk, compelled the Greek emperors to look to Western
Christians for help to arrest the power of the infidels, which, like
a flood, threatened to overwhelm the Eastern empire. Three emperors
in succession journeyed into the Western world to implore assistance
in their dire necessity, and though their efforts failed to save
Constantinople, the historian detects in these pilgrimages of Greeks
to the Courts of Europe the providential influence which brought about
the renaissance of letters. “The travels of the three emperors,” writes
Gibbon, “were unavailing for their temporal, or perhaps their spiritual
salvation, but they were productive of a beneficial consequence, the
revival of the Greek learning in Italy, from whence it was propagated
to the last nations of the West and North.”
What is true of Italy may well be true of other countries and places.
The second of these pilgrim emperors, Manuel, the son and successor of
Palæologus, crossed the Alps, and after a stay in Paris, came over the
sea into England. In December 1400 he landed at Dover, and was, with a
large retinue of Greeks, entertained at the monastery of Christchurch,
Canterbury. It requires little stretch of imagination to suppose that
the memory of such a visit would have lingered long in the cloister of
Canterbury, and it is hardly perhaps by chance that it is here that
half a century later are to be found the first serious indications
of a revival of Greek studies. Moreover, it is evident that other
Greek envoys followed in subsequent times, and even the great master
and prodigy of learning, Manuel Chrysoloras himself, found his way to
our shores, and it is hardly an assumption, in view of the position
of Canterbury--on the high-road from Dover to London--to suppose to
Christchurch also.[10] It was from his arrival in Italy, in 1396,
that may be dated the first commencement of systematic study of the
Greek classics in the West. The year 1408 is given for his visit to
England.[11]
There are indications early in the fifteenth century of a stirring of
the waters in this country. Guarini, a pupil of Chrysoloras, became
a teacher of fame at Ferrara, where he gathered round him a school
of disciples which included several Englishmen. Such were Tiptoft,
Earl of Worcester;[12] Robert Fleming, a learned ecclesiastic; John
Free, John Gundthorpe, and William Gray, Bishop of Ely; whilst another
Italian, Aretino, attracted by his fame another celebrated Englishman,
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, to his classes. These, however, were
individual cases, and their studies, and even the books they brought
back, led to little in the way of systematic work in England at the old
classical models. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 gave the required
stimulus here, as in Italy. Among the fugitives were many Greek
scholars of eminence, such as Chalcocondylas, Andronicus, Constantine
and John Lascaris, who quickly made the schools of Italy famous by
their teaching. Very soon the fame of the new masters spread to other
countries, and students from all parts of the Western World found their
way to their lecture-halls in Rome and the other teaching centres
established in the chief cities of Northern Italy.
First among the scholars who repaired thither from England to drink
in the learning of ancient Greece and bring back to their country
the new spirit, we must place two Canterbury monks named Selling and
Hadley. Born somewhere about 1430, William Selling became a monk at
Christchurch, Canterbury, somewhere about 1448. There seems some
evidence to show that his family name was Tyll, and that, as was
frequently, if not generally, the case, on his entering into religion,
he adopted the name of Selling from his birthplace, some five miles
from Faversham in Kent.[13] It is probable that Selling, after having
passed through the claustral school at Canterbury, on entering the
Benedictine Order was sent to finish his studies at Canterbury College,
Oxford. Here he certainly was in 1450, for in that year he writes
a long and what is described as an elegant letter as a student at
Canterbury College to his Prior, Thomas Goldstone, at Christchurch
Canterbury.[14] He was ordained priest, and celebrated his first mass
at Canterbury in September 1456.[15]
In 1464 William Selling obtained leave of his Prior and convent to go
with a companion, William Hadley, to study in the foreign universities
for three years,[16] during which time they visited and sat under
the most celebrated teachers at Padua, Bologna, and Rome.[17] At
Bologna, according to Leland, Selling was the pupil of the celebrated
Politian, “with whom, on account of his aptitude in acquiring the
classical elegance of ancient tongues, he formed a familiar and lasting
friendship.”[18] In 1466 and 1467 we find the monks, Selling and his
companion Hadley, at Bologna, where apparently the readers in Greek
then were Lionorus and Andronicus,[19] and where, on the 22nd March
1466, Selling took his degree in theology, his companion taking his in
the March of the following year.[20]
Of this period of work, Leland says:--“His studies progressed. He
indeed imbued himself with Greek; everywhere he industriously and at
great expense collected many Greek books. Nor was his care less in
procuring old Latin MSS., which shortly after he took with him, as the
most estimable treasures, on his return to Canterbury.”[21]
His obituary notice in the Christchurch Necrology recites not only his
excellence in learning, classical and theological, but what he had
done to make his monastery at Canterbury a real house of studies. He
decorated the library over the Priests’ Chapel, adding to the books,
and assigned it “for the use of those specially given to study, which
he encouraged and cherished with wonderful watchfulness and affection.”
The eastern cloister also he fitted with glass and new desks, “called
carrels,” for the use of the studious brethren.[22]
After the sojourn of the two Canterbury monks in Italy, they returned
to their home at Christchurch. Selling, however, did not remain
there long, for on October 3, 1469, we find him setting out again
for Rome[23] in company with another monk, Reginald Goldstone, also
an Oxford student. This visit was on business connected with his
monastery, and did not apparently keep him long away from England,
for there is evidence that sometime before the election of Selling
to the Priorship at Canterbury, which was in 1472, he was again at
his monastery. Characteristically, his letter introducing William
Worcester, the antiquary, to a merchant of Lucca who had a copy of
Livy’s _Decades_ for sale, manifests his great and continued interest
in classical literature.[24]
At Canterbury, Selling must have established the teaching of Greek on
systematic lines, and it is certainly from this monastic school as
a centre, that the study spread to other parts of England. William
Worcester, keenly alive to the classical revival, as his note-books
show, tells us of “certain Greek terminations as taught by Doctor
Selling of Christchurch, Canterbury,” and likewise sets down the
pronunciation of the Greek vowels with examples evidently on the same
authority.[25]
Selling’s long priorship, extending from 1472 to 1495, would have
enabled him to consolidate the work of this literary renaissance which
he had so much at heart.[26] The most celebrated of all his pupils
was, of course, Linacre. Born, according to Caius, at Canterbury, he
received his first instruction in the monastic school there, and his
first lessons in the classics and Greek from Selling himself. Probably
through the personal interest taken in this youth of great promise
by Prior Selling, he was sent to Oxford about 1480. Those who have
seriously examined the matter believe that the first years of his
Oxford life were spent by Linacre at the Canterbury College, which was
connected with Christchurch monastery, and which, though primarily
intended for monks, also afforded a place of quiet study to others who
were able to obtain admission.[27] Thus, in later years, Sir Thomas
More, no doubt through his father’s connection with the monastery of
Christchurch, Canterbury, of which house he was a “confrater,” became
a student at the monks’ college at Oxford. In later years Sir Thomas
himself, when Chancellor of England, perpetuated the memory of his
life-long connection with the monks of Canterbury by enrolling his name
also on the fraternity lists of that house.
Linacre, in 1484, became a Fellow of All Souls’ College, but evidently
he did not lose touch with his old friends at Canterbury, for, in 1486,
Prior Selling being appointed one of the ambassadors of Henry VII. to
the Pope, he invited his former pupil to accompany him to Italy, in
order to profit by the teaching of the great humanist masters at the
universities there. Prior Selling took him probably as far as Florence,
and introduced him to his own old master and friend, Angelo Politian,
who was then engaged in instructing the children of Lorenzo de Medici.
Through Selling’s interest, Linacre was permitted to share in their
lessons, and there are letters showing that the younger son, when in
after years he became Pope, as Leo X., was not unmindful of his early
companionship with the English scholar.[28] From Politian, Linacre
acquired a purity of style in Latin which makes him celebrated even
among the celebrated men of his time. Greek he learnt from Demetrius
Chalcocondylas, who was then, like Politian, engaged in teaching the
children of Lorenzo de Medici.[29]
From Florence, Linacre passed on to Rome, where he gained many friends
among the great humanists of the day. One day, when examining the
manuscripts of the Vatican Library for classics, and engaged in reading
the _Phædo_ of Plato, Hermolaus Barbarus came up and politely expressed
his belief that the youth had no claim, as he had himself, to the title
Barbarus, if it were lawful to judge from his choice of a book. Linacre
at once, from the happy compliment, recognised the speaker, and this
chance interview led to a life-long friendship between the Englishman
and one of the great masters of classical literature.[30]
After Linacre had been in Italy for a year or more, a youth whom he had
known at Oxford, William Grocyn, was induced to come and share with him
the benefit of the training in literature then to be obtained only in
Italy. On his return in 1492, Grocyn became lecturer at Exeter College,
Oxford, and among his pupils in Greek were Sir Thomas More[31] and
Erasmus. He was a graduate in theology, and was chosen by Dean Colet to
give lectures at St. Paul’s and subsequently appointed by Archbishop
Warham, Master or Guardian of the collegiate church of Maidstone.[32]
Erasmus describes him as “a man of most rigidly upright life, almost
superstitiously observant of ecclesiastical custom, versed in every
nicety of scholastic theology, by nature of the most acute judgment,
and, in a word, fully instructed in every kind of learning.”[33]
Linacre, after a distinguished course in the medical schools of Padua,
returned to Oxford, and in 1501 became tutor to Prince Arthur. On the
accession of Henry VIII. he was appointed physician to the court, and
could count all the distinguished men of the day, Wolsey, Warham, Fox,
and the rest, among his patients; and Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, and
Queen Mary among his pupils in letters. In his early life, entering
the clerical state, he had held ecclesiastical preferment; in advanced
years he received priest’s orders, and devoted the evening of his life
to a pious preparation for his end.[34]
Grocyn and Linacre are usually regarded as the pioneers of the revival
of letters. But, as already pointed out, the first to cross the Alps
from England in search for the new light, to convey it back to England,
and to hand it on to Grocyn and Linacre, were William Selling, and
his companion, William Hadley. Thus, the real pioneers in the English
renaissance were the two monks of Christchurch, and, some years after,
the two ecclesiastics, Grocyn and Linacre.
Selling, even after his election to the priorship of Canterbury,
continued to occupy a distinguished place both in the political world
and in the world of letters. He was chosen, though only the fifth
member of the embassy sent by Henry VII. on his accession to the Pope,
to act as orator, and in that capacity delivered a Latin oration before
the Pope and Cardinals.[35]
He was also and subsequently sent with others by Henry on an embassy to
the French king, in which he also fulfilled the function of spokesman,
making what is described as “a most elegant oration.”
That as Prior, Selling kept up his interest in the literary revival is
clear from the terms of his obituary notice. There exists, moreover,
a translation made by him after his return from his embassy to Rome,
when he took his youthful protégé, Linacre, and placed him under
Chalcocondylas and Politian in Florence, which seems to prove that
the renewal of his intimacy with the great humanist masters of Italy
had inspired him with a desire to continue his literary work. Even in
the midst of constant calls upon him, which the high office of Prior
of Canterbury necessitated, he found time to translate a sermon of
St. John Chrysostom from the Greek, two copies of which still remain
in the British Museum.[36] This is dated 1488; and it is probably the
first example of any Greek work put into Latin in England in the early
days of the English renaissance of letters. The very volume (Add. MS.
15,673) in which one copy of this translation is found shows by the
style of the writing, and other indications, the Italian influences at
work in Canterbury in the time of Selling’s succession at the close
of the fifteenth century; and also the intercourse which the monastery
there kept up with the foreign humanists.[37]
It is hardly necessary to say more about the precious volumes of the
classics and the other manuscripts which Selling collected on his
travels. Many of them perished, with that most rare work, Cicero’s
_De Republica_, in the fire caused by the carelessness of some of
Henry VIII.’s visitors on the eve of the dissolution of Selling’s old
monastery at Canterbury. Some, like the great Greek commentaries of
St. Cyril on the Prophets, were rescued half burnt from the flames;
“others, by some good chance,” says Leland, “had been removed; amongst
these were the commentaries of St. Basil the Great on Isaias, the
works of Synesius and other Greek codices.”[38] Quite recently it has
been recognised that the complete Homer and the plays of Euripides
in Corpus Christi College library at Cambridge, which tradition had
associated with the name of Archbishop Theodore in the seventh century,
are in reality both fifteenth-century manuscripts; and as they formed,
undoubtedly, part of the library at Christchurch, Canterbury, it is
hardly too much to suppose that they were some of the treasures brought
back by Prior Selling from Italy. The same may probably be said of a
Livy, a fifteenth-century Greek Psalter, and a copy of the Psalms in
Hebrew and Latin, in Trinity College Library.[39]
Prior Selling’s influence, moreover, extended beyond the walls of his
own house, and can be traced to others besides his old pupil, and, as
some think, relative, Linacre. Among the friendships he had formed
whilst at Padua was that of a young ecclesiastical student, Thomas
Langton, with whom he was subsequently at Rome. Langton was employed
in diplomatic business by King Edward IV., and whilst in France,
through his friendship for Prior Selling, obtained some favour from
the French king for the monastery of Canterbury. In return for this
the monks offered him a living in London.[40] Prior Selling, on one
occasion at least, drafted the sermon which Dr. Langton was to deliver
as prolocutor in the Convocation of the Canterbury Province.[41] In
1483 Langton became Bishop of Winchester, and “such was his love of
letters” that he established in his own house a _schola domestica_ for
boys, and himself used to preside in the evening at the lessons. One
youth especially attracted his attention by his music. This was Richard
Pace, afterwards renowned as a classical scholar and diplomatist.
Bishop Langton recognised his abilities, and forthwith despatched him
to Italy, paying all his expenses at the universities of Padua and
Rome.[42] At the former place, he says: “When as a youth I began
to work at my humanities, I was assisted by Cuthbert Tunstall and
William Latimer, men most illustrious and excelling in every branch of
learning, whose prudence, probity, and integrity were such that it were
hard to say whether their learning excelled their high moral character,
or their uprightness their learning.”[43]
At this university he was taught by Leonicus and by Leonicenus, the
friend and correspondent of Politian: “Men,” he says, as being unable
to give higher praise, “like Tunstall and Latimer.”[44] Passing on to
Bologna he sat at the feet of Paul Bombasius, “who was then explaining
every best author to large audiences.” Subsequently, at Rome, he formed
a lasting friendship with William Stokesley, whom he describes as “his
best friend on earth; a man of the keenest judgment, excellent, and
indeed marvellous, in theology and philosophy, and not only skilled
in Greek and Latin, but possessed of some knowledge of Hebrew,” whose
great regret was that he had not earlier in life realised the power of
the Greek language.[45] At Ferrara, too, Pace first met Erasmus, and
he warmly acknowledges his indebtedness to the influence of this great
humanist.
In 1509, Richard Pace accompanied Cardinal Bainbridge to Rome, and
was with him when the cardinal died, or was murdered, there in 1514.
Whilst in the Eternal City, “urged to the study by that most upright
and learned man, William Latimer,” he searched the Pope’s library for
books of music, and found a great number of works on the subject.
The cardinal’s death put a stop to his investigations; but he had
seen sufficient to be able to say that to study the matter properly a
man must know Greek and get to the library of the Pope, where there
were many and the best books on music. “But,” he adds, “I venture to
say this, our English music, if any one will critically examine into
the matter, will be found to display the greatest subtlety of mind,
especially in what is called the introduction of harmonies, and in this
matter to excel ancient music.”[46]
It is unnecessary to follow in any detail the story of the general
literary revival in England. Beginning with Selling, the movement
continued to progress down to the very eve of the religious disputes.
That there was opposition on the part of some who regarded the
stirring of the waters with suspicion was inevitable. More especially
was this the case because during the course of the literary revival
there rose the storm of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth
century, and because the practical paganism which had resulted from
the movement in Italy was perhaps not unnaturally supposed by the
timorous to be a necessary consequence of a return to the study of
the classics of Greece and Rome. The opposition sprung generally from
a misunderstanding, and “not so much from any hostility to Greek
itself as from an indifference to any learning.” This Sir Thomas More
expressly declares when writing to urge the Oxford authorities to
repress a band of giddy people who, calling themselves Trojans, made
it their duty to fight against the _Grecians_. It is true also that
the pulpit was at times brought into requisition to decry “not only
Greek and Latin studies,” but liberal education of any kind.[47] But,
so far as England is concerned, this opposition to the revival of
letters, even on the score of the danger likely to come either to faith
or morals, was, when all is said, slight, and through the influence of
More, Fisher, and the king himself, easily subdued.[48] The main fact,
moreover, cannot be gainsaid, namely, that the chief ecclesiastics of
the day, Wolsey, Warham, Fisher, Tunstall, Langton, Stokesley, Fox,
Selling, Grocyn, Whitford, Linacre, Colet, Pace, William Latimer, and
Thomas Lupset,[49] to name only the most distinguished, were not
only ardent humanists, but thorough and practical churchmen. Of the
laymen, whether foreigners or Englishmen, whose names are associated
with the renaissance of letters in this country, such as, for example,
the distinguished scholar Ludovico Vives, the two Lillys, Sir Thomas
More, John Clement,[50] and other members of More’s family, there can
be no shadow of doubt about their dispositions towards the ancient
ecclesiastical régime. A Venetian traveller, in 1500, thus records what
he had noticed as to the attitude of ecclesiastics generally towards
learning:--“Few, excepting the clergy, are addicted to the study of
letters, and this is the reason why any one who has any learning,
though he may be a layman, is called a _clerk_. And yet they have great
advantages for study, there being two general universities in the
kingdom, Oxford and Cambridge, in which there are many colleges founded
for the maintenance of poor scholars. And your magnificence (the Doge
of Venice) lodged at one named Magdalen, in the University of Oxford,
of which, as the founders having been prelates, so the scholars also
are ecclesiastics.”
It was in England, and almost entirely among the ecclesiastics of
England, that Erasmus found his chief support. “This England of yours,”
he writes to Colet in 1498, “this England, dear to me on many accounts,
is above all most beloved because it abounds in what to me is the best
of all, men deeply learned in letters.”[51] Nor did he change his
opinion on a closer acquaintance. In 1517, to Richard Pace he wrote
from Louvain in regret at leaving a country which he had come to regard
as the best hope of the literary revival:--“Oh, how truly happy is your
land of England, the seat and stronghold of the best studies and the
highest virtue! I congratulate you, my friend Pace, on having such a
king, and I congratulate the king whose country is rendered illustrious
by so many brilliant men of ability. On both scores I congratulate this
England of yours, for though fortunate for many other reasons, on this
score no other land can compete with it.”[52]
When William Latimer said in 1518 that Bishop Fisher wished to study
Greek for Biblical purposes, and that he thought of trying to get a
master from Italy, Erasmus, whilst applauding the bishop’s intention
as likely to encourage younger men to take up the study, told Latimer
that such men were not easy to find in Italy. “If I may openly say my
mind,” he adds, “if I had Linacre, or Tunstall, for a master (for of
yourself I say nothing), I would not wish for any Italian.”[53]
Not to go into more lengthy details, there is, it must be admitted,
abundant evidence to show that there was in the religious houses of
England, no less than in the universities, a stirring of the waters,
and a readiness to profit by the real advance made in education and
scholarship. The name of Prior Charnock, the friend of Colet and
Erasmus at Oxford, is known to all. But there are others with even
greater claim than he to be considered leaders in the movement.
There is distinct evidence of scholarship at Reading, at Ramsey, at
Glastonbury, and elsewhere.[54] The last-named house, Glastonbury,
was ruled by Abbot Bere, to whose criticism Erasmus desired to submit
his translation of the New Testament from the Greek. Bere himself had
passed some time, with distinction, in Italy, had been sent on more
than one embassy by the king, and had been chosen by Henry VII. to
invest the Duke of Urbino with the Order of the Garter, and to make
the required oration on that occasion.[55] He had given other evidence
also of the way the new spirit that had been enkindled in Italy had
entered into his soul. It was through Abbot Bere’s generosity that
Richard Pace, whom Erasmus calls “the half of his soul,” was enabled
to pursue his studies in Italy.[56] Glastonbury was apparently a soil
well prepared for the seed-time, for even in the days of Abbot Bere’s
predecessor, Abbot John Selwood, there is evidence to show that the
religious were not altogether out of touch with the movement. The
abbot himself presented one of the monks with a copy of John Free’s
translation from the Greek of _Synesius de laude Calvitii_. The volume
is written by an Italian scribe, and contains in the introductory
matter a letter to the translator from Omnibonus Leonicensis, dated
at Vicenza in 1461, as well as a preface or letter by Free to John
Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.[57]
At St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, also, we find, even amid the ruins
of its desolation, traces of the same spirit which pervaded the
neighbouring cloister of Christchurch. The antiquary Twyne declares
that he had been intimately acquainted with the last abbot, whom he
knew to have been deeply interested in the literary movement. He
describes his friend as often manifesting in conversation his interest
in and knowledge of the ancient classical authors. He says that this
monk was the personal friend of Ludovico Vives, and that he sent over
the sea one of his subjects at St. Augustine’s, John Digon, whom he
subsequently made prior of his monastery, to the schools of Louvain, in
order that he might profit by the teaching of that celebrated Spanish
humanist.[58]
Beyond the foregoing particular instances of the real mind of English
ecclesiastics towards the revival of studies, the official registers
of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge furnish us with evidence
of the general attitude of approval adopted by the Church authorities
in England. Unfortunately, gaps in the Register of Graduates at Oxford
for the second half of the fifteenth century do not enable us to gauge
the full extent of the revival, but there is sufficient evidence that
the renaissance had taken place. In the eleven years, from A.D. 1449
to A.D. 1459, for which the entries exist, the average number of
degrees taken by all students was 91.5. From 1506, when the registers
begin again, to 1535, when the commencement of operations against the
monastic houses seemed to indicate the advent of grave religious
changes, the average number of yearly degrees granted was 127. In 1506
the number had risen to 216, and only in very few of the subsequent
years had the average fallen below 100. From 108 in 1535, the number of
graduates fell in 1536 to only 44; and the average for the subsequent
years of the reign of Henry VIII. was less than 57. From 1548 to 1553,
that is, during the reign of Edward VI., the average of graduates was
barely 33, but it rose again, whilst Mary was on the throne, to 70.
If the same test be applied to the religious Orders, it will be found
that they likewise equally profited by the new spirit. During the
period from 1449 to 1459 the Benedictine Order had a yearly average
of 4 graduates at Oxford, the other religious bodies taken together
having 5. In the second period of 1506-1539 the Benedictine graduates
number 200, and (allowing for gaps in the register) the Order had thus
a yearly average of 6.75, the average of the other Orders during the
same period being 5.2. If, moreover, the number of the religious who
took degrees be compared with that of the secular students, it will be
found that the former seem to have more than held their own. During
the time from 1449 to 1459 the members of the regular Orders were to
the rest in the proportion of 1 to 9.5. In the period of the thirty
years immediately preceding the general dissolution it was as 1 to 9.
Interest in learning, too, was apparently kept up among the religious
Orders to the last. Even with their cloisters falling on all sides
round about them, in the last hour of their corporate existence, that
is in the year 1538-39, some 14 Benedictines took their degrees at
Oxford.
In regard to Cambridge, a few notes taken from the interesting preface
to a recent “History of Gonville and Caius College” will suffice to
show that the monks did not neglect the advantages offered to them
in the sister university.[59] Gonville Hall, as the college was then
called, was by the statutes of Bishop Bateman closely connected with
the Benedictine Cathedral Priory of Norwich. Between 1500 and 1523 the
early bursars’ accounts give a list of “pensioners,” and these “largely
consisted of monks sent hither from their respective monasteries for
the purpose of study.” These “pensioners paid for their rooms and their
commons, and shared their meals with the fellows. All the greater
monasteries in East Anglia, such as the Benedictine Priory at Norwich,
the magnificent foundation of Bury, and (as a large landowner in
Norfolk) the Cluniac House at Lewes, seem generally to have had several
of their younger members in training at our college. To these must be
added the Augustinian Priory of Westacre, which was mainly frequented
(as Dr. Jessopp tells us) by the sons of the Norfolk gentry.”[60]
The Visitations of the Norwich Diocese (1492-1532), edited by Dr.
Jessopp for the Camden Society, contain many references to the monastic
students at the university. In one house, for example, in 1520, the
numbers are short, because “there were three in the university.” In
another case, when a religious house was too poor to provide the
necessary money to support a student during his college career, it
was found by friends of the monastery, until a few years later, when,
on the funds improving, the house was able to meet the expenses. This
same house, the Priory of Butley, “had a special arrangement with the
authorities of Gonville Hall for the reservation of a suitable room
for their young monks.” One object of sending members of a monastery
to undergo the training of a university course “was to qualify
for teaching the novices at their own house”; for after they have
graduated and returned to their monastery, we not infrequently find
them described as “_idoneus preceptor pro confratribus_”; “_idoneus
pro noviciis et junioribus_,” &c. Moreover, the possession of a degree
on the part of a religious, as an examination of the lists will show,
often in after life meant some position of trust or high office in the
monastery of the graduate.
Nor was the training then received any light matter of form; it meant
long years of study, and the possession of a degree was, too, a public
testimony to a certain proficiency in the science of teaching. Thus,
for example, George Mace, a canon of Westacre, who became a pensioner
at Gonville Hall in 1508, studied arts for five years and canon law for
four years at the university, and continued the latter study for eight
years in his monastery.[61] William Hadley, a religious of the same
house, had spent eleven years in the study of arts and theology;[62]
and Richard Brygott, who took his B.D. in 1520, and who subsequently
became Prior of Westacre, had studied two years and a half in his
monastery, two years in Paris, and seven in Cambridge.[63]
“With the Reformation, of course, all this came to an end,” writes
Mr. Venn, and we can well understand that this sudden stoppage of
what, in the aggregate, was a considerable source of supply to the
university, was seriously felt. On the old system, as we have seen, the
promising students were selected by their monasteries, and supported in
college at the expense of the house. As the author of the interesting
account of Durham Priory says: “If the master did see that any of
them (the novices) were apt to learning, and did apply his book and
had a pregnant wit withal, then the master did let the prior have
intelligence. Then, straightway after he was sent to Oxford to school,
and there did learn to study divinity.”[64]
Moreover, it should be remembered that it was by means of the
assistance received from the monastic and conventual houses that a very
large number of students were enabled to receive their education at the
universities at all. The episcopal registers testify to this useful
function of the old religious corporations. The serious diminution in
the number of candidates for ordination, and the no less lamentable
depletion of the national universities, consequent upon the dissolution
of these bodies, attest what had previously been done by them for the
education of the pastoral clergy. This may be admitted without any
implied approval of the monastic system as it existed. The fact will
be patent to all who will examine into the available evidence; and the
serious diminution in the number of clergy must be taken as part of the
price paid by the nation for securing the triumph of the Reformation
principles. The state of Oxford during, say, the reign of Edward VI.,
is attested by the degree lists. In the year 1547 and in the year 1550
no student at all graduated, and the historian of the university has
described the lamentable state to which the schools were reduced. If
additional testimony be needed, it may be found in a sermon of Roger
Edgworth, preached in Queen Mary’s reign. Speaking of works of piety
and pity, much needed in those days, the speaker advocates charity to
the poor students at the two national universities. “Very pity,” he
says, “moves me to exhort you to mercy and pity on the poor students
in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. They were never so few in
number, and yet those that are left are ready to run abroad into the
world and give up their study for very need. Iniquity is so abundant
that charity is all cold. A man would have pity did he but hear the
lamentable complaints that I heard lately when amongst them. Would to
God I were able to relieve them. This much I am sure of: in my opinion
you cannot bestow your charity better.” He then goes on to instance
his own case as an example of what used to be done in Catholic times
to help the student in his education. “My parents sent me to school in
my youth, and my good lord William Smith, sometime Bishop of Lincoln,
(was) my bringer up and ‘exhibitour,’ first at Banbury in the Grammar
School with Master John Stanbridge, and then at Oxford till I was a
Master of Arts and able to help myself.”
He pleads earnestly that some of his hearers may be inspired to help
the students in the distress to which they are now reduced, and so help
to restore learning to the position from which it had fallen in late
years.[65]
Of the lamentable decay of scholarship as such, the inevitable, and
perhaps necessary, consequence of the religious controversies which
occupied men’s minds and thoughts to the exclusion of all else, it is,
of course, not the place here to dwell upon. All that it is necessary
to do is to point out that the admitted decay and decline argues a
previous period of greater life and vigour. Even as early as 1545 the
Cambridge scholars petitioned the king for an extension of privileges,
as they feared the total destruction of learning. To endeavour to save
Oxford, it was ordered that every clergyman, having a benefice to the
amount of £100, should out of his living find at least one scholar at
the university. Bishop Latimer, in Edward VI.’s reign, looked back
with regret to past times “when they helped the scholars,” for since
then “almost no man helpeth to maintain them.” “Truly,” he said, “it
is a pitiful thing to see the schools so neglected. Schools are not
maintained, scholars have not exhibitions.… Very few there be that help
poor scholars.… It would pity a man’s heart to hear what I hear of the
state of Cambridge; what it is in Oxford I cannot tell.… I think there
be at this day (A.D. 1550) ten thousand students less than there were
within these twenty years.” In the year 1550, it will be remembered,
there was apparently no degree of any kind taken at the university of
Oxford.
This fact appears patent on this page of history; that from the time
when minds began to exercise themselves on the thorny subjects which
grew up round about the “great divorce” question, the bright promises
of the revival of learning, which Erasmus had seen in England, faded
away. Greek, it has been said, may conveniently stand for learning
generally; and Greek studies apparently disappeared in the religious
turmoils which distracted England. With Mary’s accession, some attempt
was made to recover lost ground, or at least re-enkindle the lamp of
learning. When Sir Thomas Pope refounded Durham College at Oxford
under the name of Trinity, he was urged by Cardinal Pole, to whom he
submitted the draft of his statutes, “to order Greek to be more taught
there than I have provided. This purpose,” he says, “I like well, but
I fear the times will not bear it now. I remember when I was a young
scholar at Eton, the Greek tongue was growing apace, the study of which
is now of late much decayed.”[66]
The wholesale destruction of the great libraries in England is an
indirect indication of the new spirit which rose at this time, and
which helped for a time to put an end to the renaissance of letters.
When Mary came to the throne, and quieter times made the scheme
possible, it was seriously proposed to do something to preserve the
remnant of ancient and learned works that might be left in England
after the wholesale destruction of the preceding years. The celebrated
Dr. Dee drew up a supplication to the queen, stating that “among the
many most lamentable displeasures that have of late happened in this
realm, through the subverting of religious houses and the dissolution
of other assemblies of godly and learned men, it has been, and among
all learned students shall for ever be, judged not the least calamity,
the spoil and destruction of so many and so notable libraries wherein
lay the treasure of all antiquity, and the everlasting seeds of
continual excellency in learning within this realm. But although in
those days many a precious jewel and ancient monument did utterly
perish (as at Canterbury that wonderful work of the sage and eloquent
Cicero, _De Republica_, and in many other places the like), yet if
in time great and speedy diligence be showed, the remnants of such
incredible a store, as well of writers theological as in all the other
liberal sciences, might yet be saved and recovered, which now in your
Grace’s realm being dispersed and scattered, yea, and many of them in
unlearned men’s hands, still even yet (in this time of reconciliation)
daily perish; and perchance are purposely by some envious person
enclosed in walls or buried in the ground.”
The scheme which accompanied this letter in 1556 was for the formation
of a national library, into which were to be gathered the original
manuscripts still left in England, which could be purchased or
otherwise obtained, or at least a copy of such as were in private
hands, and which the owners would not part with. Beyond this, John
Dee proposes that copies of the best manuscripts in Europe should be
secured. He mentions specially the libraries of the Vatican, and of St.
Mark’s, Venice, those at Florence, Bologna, and Vienna, and offers to
go himself, if his expenses are paid, to secure the transcripts.[67]
The plan, however, came to nothing, and with Mary’s death, the nation
was once more occupied in the religious controversies, which again
interfered with any real advance in scholarship.
One other point must not be overlooked. Before the rise of the
religious dissensions caused England to isolate herself from the rest
of the Catholic world, English students were to be found studying in
considerable numbers at the great centres of learning in Europe. An
immediate result of the change was to put a stop to this, which had
served to keep the country in touch with the best work being done
on the Continent, and the result of which had been seen in the able
English scholars produced by that means on the eve of the Reformation.
Taking a broad survey of the whole movement for the revival of letters
in England, it would appear then certain that whether we regard its
origin, or the forces which contributed to support it, or the men
chiefly concerned in it, it must be confessed that to the Church and
churchmen the country was indebted for the successes achieved. What put
a stop to the humanist movement here, as it certainly did in Germany,
was the rise of the religious difficulties, which, under the name of
the “New Learning,” was opposed by those most conspicuous for their
championship of true learning, scholarship, and education.