1. Colet made Doctor and Dean of St. Paul's (1500–5) . 3. Thomas More in Seclusion from Public Life (1504-5) 4. More studies Pico's Life and Works-His Marriage (1505) 151 1. Second Visit of Erasmus to England (1505-6). 2. Erasmus leaves England for Italy (1506). 1. Erasmus leaves Cambridge, and meditates leaving England 1. Erasmus goes to Basle to print his New Testament (1514) 2. Erasmus returns to England-His Satire upon Kings (1515) 3. Returns to Basle to finish his Works-Fears of the Orthodox 3. Martin Luther reads the 'Novum Intrumentum' (1516). 402 4. The Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum' (1516-17) 1. Erasmus arrives at Basle-His Labours there (1518) 2. More at the Court of Henry VIII. (1518) 3. The Evening of Colet's Life (1518-19). 4. More's Conversion attempted by the Monks (1519). 5. Erasmus and the Reformers of Wittemberg (1519). 6. Election of Charles V. to the Empire (1519) . 7. The Hussites of Bohemia (1519) APPENDICES. A. Extracts from MS. Gg. 4, 26, in the Cambridge University E. Catalogue of early Editions of the Works of Erasmus in my F. Catalogue of early Editions of the Works of Sir Thomas THE OXFORD REFORMERS: COLET, ERASMUS, AND MORE. CHAPTER I. I. JOHN COLET RETURNS FROM ITALY TO OXFORD (1496). A.D. 1496. It was probably in Michaelmas Term of 14961 that CHAP. I. the announcement was made to doctors and students of the University of Oxford that John Colet, a late student, recently returned from Italy, was about deliver a course of public and gratuitous lectures in exposition of St. Paul's Epistles. to This was an event of no small significance and perhaps of novelty in the closing years of that last of the 1 In a letter written in the winter of 1499-1500, Colet is spoken of as * Jam triennium enarranti,' &c. See Erasmus to Colet, prefixed to Disputatio de Tædio et Pavore Christi, Eras. Op. v. p. 1264, A. Colet was in Paris, apparently on his way home from his continental tour, soon after the publication of the work of the French historian Gaguinus, De Orig. et Gest. Francorum. (See Eras. Epist. xi.) The first edition, B according to Panzer and Brunet, of relictis parentum ædibus, Oxoniæ announces John Colet CHAP. I. Middle Ages; not only because the Scriptures for some A.D. 1496. generations had been practically ignored at the Universities, but still more so because the would-be lecturer had not as yet entered deacon's orders,1 nor had obtained, or even tried to obtain, any theological degree.2 It is true that he had passed through the regular academical course at Oxford, and was entitled, as a Master graduates of Arts, to lecture upon any other subject. But a dein Arts did not, it would seem, entitle the graduate gree the Bible. to lecture upon the Bible.* Only in Theo logy might lecture on It does not perhaps follow from this, that Colet was guilty of any flagrant breach of university statutes, which, as a graduate in Arts, he must have sworn to obey. The very extent to which real study of the Scriptures had become obsolete at Oxford, may possibly suggest that even the statutory restrictions on Scripture lectures may have become obsolete also.5 Before the days of Wiclif, the Bible had been free, 1 He was ordained deacon De-Bachilaris Theologiæ, legere bibcember 17, 1497. Knight's Life of 'liam biblice.'-Ibid. p. 394. That Colet, p. 22 (Lond. 1724), on the the word 'legere,' in these statutes, authority, doubtless, of Kennett, means practically to 'lecture,' see who refers to Reg. Savage, Lond. Mr. Anstey's Introduction, p. lxxxix. 2 Erasmus Jodoco Jona: Eras. Op. iii. p. 456, C. In theologica 'professione nullum omnino gradum nec assequutus erat, nec ambierat.' 3 The degree of Master in Arts 'conferred also, and this was prac'tically its chief value, the right of 'lecturing, and therefore of receiving 'money for lectures, at Oxford.'Monumenta Academica: Rev. H. Anstey's Introduction, p. lxxxix. 4. One of the statutes decreed as follows:-'Item statutum est, 'quod non liceat alicui præterquam 5 It is possible also that Colet's mode of lecturing did not come within the meaning of the technical phrase, legere bibliam biblice,' which is said to have meant 'read'ing chapter by chapter, with the ac'customed glosses, and such expla'nations as the reader could add.' -Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge: by George Peacock, D.D., Dean of Ely. Lond. 1841, p. xlvi. n. See also Mr. Anstey's Introduction, p. lxxi. on the doubtful meaning of legere cursorie.' |