« HUTCHINSON ENCYCLOPEDIAst published by Hutchinson Ltd 1959 ee edition, revised and enlarged 1988 Reprinted by Helicon Publishing Ltd 1993, 1994, 1997 Copyright © George Rainbird Ltd 1959, 1971, 1977, 1988 All rights reserved Helicon Publishing Ltd 42 Hythe Bridge Street Oxford OX1 2EP Printed and bound in Finland by Werner Séderstrém Oy ISBN 1-85986-218-7 A catalogue record for this book is available fro: tl British Library m the. 4 Humanism and Reformation ¥ 1500 Oxford, like England in general, was recovering from the turmoil ol tenet OS ee ae of es We Ce ; with the settled and politic sovernment of Henry vit. There had been an odd episode at Oxford when, after the decision at Bosworth, a handsome youth in the town, one Lambert Simnel, was taken up by an ambitious priest to impersonate first one of the princes whom Richard 111 had disposed of in the Tower, and afterwards the son of Clarence, whom his kind brother Edward tv had previously disposed of in the Tower. Henry vit was able to produce Clarence’s son and show hint pub- licly — though people's foolery in the matter was not ended (particularly in Ireland, bent on taking whatever opposite line came to hand) until lives were lost on the battlefield of Stoke in 1487. The humane Henry did not execute the priest but had him imprisoned, pardoned the youth and gave him a good job in the royal household. The king bore no grudges and, on his visit to Oxford the year after Stoke, made a gift of forty oaks from the forest of Shotover for the roof of the university church — it is pleasant to think that it comes from those familiar and endearing slopes. Immeasurably more important was the new impulse coming from Italy, which we recognize under various names, the new learning, the revival of letters, humanism, the Renaissance, to give renewed inspiration to the university, a fresh direction to the intellectual life of the country. (An unlearned Duke of Norfolk thought, however, that England was never merry since the new learning came up.) We may distinguish two phases in this fertilizing movement. The first flowered in Oxford with the fascinating group of scholars and reformers, who wanted reform in church and state without breaking the integuments of society and without altogether departing from tradition. This group formed a circle around two men of genius, ‘Erasmus and More, and included such gifted men as Linacre and Colet, with others who made signal contributions to the life and scholarship of the time. In the next generation this vital impulse was carried to Cambridge where, with younger men, it became Protestant. There was such a thing as Protestant humanism, and again Erasmus was a link; he spent more time at Cambridge, 3s Left: Sit Thomas More: the famous portrait by Holbein. The conflict in More’s mind between serving God and serving the State was ‘much at the heart of humanism’.oxford — ggamnam Tyaate, whe had such ad ‘ a pene 7 eis en Benius nave _drhis opinions. The exacerbatrnnt® fod to the crisis of the eee bie element Nyy statutes WOR 1 and the medieval sentences; less lo curriculy rag te Oe OT aries more useful, at least more a "cand more hibeal gets, grammar a t Latinist, Walter Haddon, was brought ie Ing, for alethorpe as president of Magdalen, “take , An eminen speaking: + public sPer insignificant OSTe* Pep oft SAS eaves Were SOE 2 Oxford, and with May.» Iris evident ‘hey had their brief day. Out went Peter Martyr, in lary’s oan Came cession the} i unexpected acces * Villa Garcia, to make Cranmer’s last days j Soto ani s lays in the Spanish friars, hancellor - and of Cambridge too — to pocatdo TWard ecame ch pee Ca Pol wd been a Catholic reformer, like those others vt the rae el Colet and More, and like theit friend Erasmus. As s0 often to etal ~ a5 in France in 1789 OF ih Rossa in 1917 ~ reform came 106 late pin 2 more uncompromising shape when it did. If only the hopes of Catholi. feform could have come about, of Erasmus, instead of a brutal Luther on o; < ee brat Carafés pope on the other, who even turned on Pole in the end! Bur not all Mary and Pole’s burnings could hold up the movement of the time. 7 During these sickening years, with the insecurity and persecution, numbers fell off, fewer people took degrees. Nothing that Pole did with his Injunctions all hi abouts to root out heresy, could do any good. He encouraged the inclusion of students in the colleges, the increasing authority of their heads ~ but that 7 happening anyway. Two new colleges were founded. Sir Thomas Pope ala devout Catholic who had made a large fortune out of the dissolution of the monasteries. In 1555 he bought the site of the dissolved Durham College for his new foundation of Trinity: it began with a president, twelve Fellows and seven scholars, with a preference for those counties where the founder had estates, ee ee (Among ete Wroxton, near Banbury, where the In 1557 Sir Thomas White, 2 leading M ; ra iodide the li ofenetin nossa i ling Merc: ant Taylor in London, purchased ollege, St Bernard’s, to found St John’s, the patron saint of tailors. The Blessed Edmund Campion, no more credulous than other 68Humanism and Reformatio, n — at least, not ve of ehe time + Rot much more ~ sai perein to the SHE ae of a row of elm crocs ee te founder had be oe Oe ed theology Perko et ha To mengtne ee one , ‘ fait ae eight in all, who left for Dousi, Mera Eft nthe the orthodox ce of Fellows, cqher endowments and support from the Mersieekes me number tly Py roftable connection, This enabled further rchant Taylors Come a \ remaining three sides of whi Guadrangle to be bern 15968 ons pleted by rchbishop Laud wie, eae “Caney ‘Cant 8 1odox enough in al ssion of Elizabeth meant a retum to a Tad recognized and released — in its chichcral Ton, gene age Which her her BA gna less doctrinal than it would have been if Ta ather more con- Sizabeth ‘was the best Erasmian of them all, moderate, a had lived. For Bizaber ds out from the fist isthe unquestioned ascendancy ofthe en What Sgnan age was esentally secular. No more cardinals (the ont ty the was an exile); the chancellors were all laymen. It is true that, within thee Allen, was a jey was dominantly clerical, but the Church was now suber se State, though oe ee Proper to itself mate Roe e Elizabethan roceet to dock the rest ith He we ilege chapels, unfortunately destroying, cd cage tions usage in the jeated queen had been against the destruction of roods, but could mae cpins che revarned exiles, infected by Calvinism.) At All Souls he archtishe had to order the college to sell the vestments, missals and other ‘trumpery’ aha been reluctant to part with and to invest the proceeds in land. This provela 00d, investment. A small number of heads of colleges and figures identified wie th Marian regime withdrew or left for abroad; one or two who had been ececas ersecutors, like Nicholas Harpsfield, were imprisoned. There continued a stead dribble abroad, particularly after the critical years 1569-72, when it became ned that there was no further hope for Catholicism in England. These people were only a small minority. At Cambridge Puritans were far more numerous and far more troublesome. Leicester was the (political) patron. of left-wing Protestants; he used his position as chancellor to support them, and occasionally to intrude them, at Oxford. But they were very much in the minority here, and had no such strength as in such Cambridge colleges as St John’s, Christ’s and Emmanuel. (This was reflected in the large proportion of Emmanuel men who created Harvard in Puritan New England.) The Elizabethan settlement meant consolidation and recovery. By 1566 the number of men taking, degrees almost doubled from Mary’s time: it jumped from 60 or 70 to 112. The 69rch had! 208 persons within its way 1365 Chris CONT liol 0. Merton, largest of eq i SF seret 118 jun some 50. Elizabethan consol? the queen's visit to Oxford in fee many n marked, more practienh’, *Ony universities, giving searyye PY the Here was the secular recor nition christ Chut he list a on ic low o . sex. NOW vyebrated by ee een Te EG have Sorporating (he Hleges and libert in another * tg learn what Hakluyt hat vaius went ont ent as chaplain on Fenton’s voyage, i follow up Dra he Far East. His diary reveals Mia Saari? geographical interest at Oxford which inspired Anthony Shirley of ing of the Bron nary career in the Caribbean, the Levant Cee onc bi ext other Walter Ralegh of Oriel took up his cle of Gilbert's deat ie aand colonization. He employed the most brilliant Cae : Or Igebraist of the age ~ for many oxP gion, Thomas Hariot - with Vite the greatest al years as his adviser in cosmology and navigatio i n. Hariot’s po: sthumous w. ork on Ygebra was prepared for publication b y another Oxf i Teeporley, a clergyman who did not approve of the Pagan eae joxy of the man of genius. We need go no further; ; these are merely ill ener ees h y illustrations, as wi the more igual n side of the intellectual life of the universit a Ge preted ig than the theological concerns of more Se nee persons. How- he Newfoundland voyage, upon which thi they Hungary Oxford man, Parme! both perished Richard Madox of All Souls w e’s soundings in 4 7 Right: A detail from the shrine of St Fridesw' ist Church Cathedral ine of St Frideswide in Chri 7Humanism and Reformation ever, we do not neglect the sound and widespread influence of a truly catholic mind like Richard Hooker, with its comprehensiveness, its essential moderation and tolerance, in creating a via media for the English Church, which could recruit to it, after long w generalized influ training mor dering, such an intellect as John Donne of Hart Hall. The influence of the university in the couintry at large may be seen in the nd broadcasting of thought in society, the inculcating of a consensus of Wand intellectual standards, a common background of discourse necessary to hold society together in spite of disagreements and disputed points. The new conception of the role of the university in the state was emphasized by the state visits of the queen, attended by privy councillors, court and ambas~ sadors, when she took part in the disputations and academic exercises, heard the sermons, saw the plays, attended the services and enjoined learning and keeping to their studies upon the scholars. As she mounted Shotover Hill, along the old road to London, on a September afternoon in 1566, she turned to look back on the city, beautiful then with the country up to its walls: ‘Farewell, Oxford; fare- well, my good subjects! Farewell, my dear scholars: pray God prosper your studies! Farewell, farewell?” On her last visit in 1592 she was attended, among others, by young South- ampton from Cambridge, who proceeded m.a. at Oxford: ‘quo non formosior alter’ (than whom none more beautiful). We read in his poet's play of next year, Love’s Labour's Lost ~ a skit on the young man’s bachelor circle by its poet: Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding! And in A Midsummer Night’s Dream of the year following, to celebrate the second marriage of the patron’s mother, we find just such an academic scene on a royal visit described: ‘Where I have come, great clerks have purposéd To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practised accent in their fears, And on conclusion dumbly have broke off. We need not doubt that William Shakespeare was present on that occasion, on the familiar route between Stratford and London through Oxford. Left: The stained glass window of Jonah beholding the city of Nineveh, in Christ Church, the only van Linge window in the Cathedral to survive the nineteenth century. 78