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Robert Greene and his Classmates at Cambridge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Johnstone Parr*
Affiliation:
Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

Extract

Robert greene himself tells us actually .very little about his university career except that he was a gadabout who finally proceeded to the M.A. degree.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 77 , Issue 5 , December 1962 , pp. 536 - 543
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1962

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References

Note 1 in page 536 The Repentance of Robert Greene (London, 1592), sigs. Cl-Clv; cf. G. B. Harrison edition (Bodley Head Quartos, 1923), pp. 19–20.

Note 2 in page 536 Charles Henry Cooper and Thompson Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses (Cambridge, 1858–61), ii, 127.

Note 3 in page 536 Part i, vol. ii, p. 257. The “Additional Notes and Corrections” to Cooper's Athenae Cantabrigienses (iii, 1913, p. 90) correctly states Greene's degree to have been awarded in “1579-80” (i.e., in early 1580); but no commentator on the subject seems to have noticed this.

Note 4 in page 536 Robert Greene et ses romans (Paris, 1938), p. 15. Pruvost relied on Venn rather than on Cooper. Cf. also Kenneth Mildenberger, “Robert Greene at Cambridge,” MLN, lxvi (1951), 546–549, who also presents the dates correctly.

Note 5 in page 536 All these oft-consulted accounts except the DNB give the date as simply 1578; the DNB and even so modern an account as that in the OHEL (iii, 401) give it as 1579.

Note 6 in page 537 Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part i, vol. i, p. xvi.

Note 7 in page 537 John Venn, ed., Grace Book Delta (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 133, 360.

Note 8 in page 537 Cited by Charles Henry Cooper, Annals of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1842–53), ii, 350.

Note 9 in page 537 Cited by John Bakeless, The Tragicall History of Christopher Marlowe (Cambridge, Mass., 1942), i, 50.

Note 10 in page 537 Based on the total number of B.A. and M.A. degrees awarded during 1575–83: Trinity and St. John's (395 each), Christ's (287), Clare Hall (243), Queen's (193), Corpus Christi (180), Peterhouse (150), Jesus (149), Pembroke (116), etc. Grace Book Delta, pp. 276–364.

Note 11 in page 537 Cf. James Bass Mullinger, St. John's College, University of Cambridge College Histories (London, 1901), and John Reynolds Wardale, History of Clare College, Cambridge College Histories (London, 1899).

Note 12 in page 537 That is, all students matriculating at St. John's during Lent, Easter, and Michelmas terms of the year designated. Incidentally, no students matriculated at St. John's during the Lent terms of 1572–76 and 1579, suggesting that St. John's either admitted no students in Lent terms or allowed students entering then to matriculate in the following Easter term. In 1579 a regulation was passed requiring all students in the University to matriculate within a month of their arrival (MS. Matriculation Book [University Registry], f. 319; cited by Bakeless, p. 67), perhaps indicating previous laxity in this regard. In any event, it may be surmised that occasionally the recorded terms of matriculation are not necessarily the terms of admittance.

Note 13 in page 537 The figure in parenthesis is the number of those ordained or receiving a benefice who also had attained the M.A. degree.

Note 14 in page 538 List gathered and categorized from Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses, Vols, i-iv, which lists alphabetically everyone attending Cambridge prior to 1751.

Note 15 in page 538 Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part i, vol. i, p. xiv.

Note 16 in page 538 This practice, prevailing at both Oxford and Cambridge, was simply one of giving a person in the University the same rank, status, or degree he had in another University. In many instances it was merely a compliment, as when the Oxford Comitia each year awarded a degree “honoris causa” to any Cambridge graduate present. Greene was incorporated M.A. at Oxford in June 1588. Cf. Andrew Clark, Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1887), ii, Part i, p. 356.

Note 17 in page 538 Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, the Inner Temple, or the Middle Temple.

Note 18 in page 538 Cf. Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part i, vol. i, p. xiv.

Note 19 in page 538 Actually these percentages are about the same whether for a term, a year, a six-year, or a ten-year period during 1575–85. Moreover, a similar chart for Clare Hall, to which Greene eventually migrated, shows that the statistical percentages at this smaller college do not differ markedly from those at St. John's. (186 students matriculated at Clare Hall during 1576–80, 111 of them receiving the B.A., 82 of them receiving the M.A., etc.)

Note 20 in page 538 Grace Book Delta, pp. 276–387.

Note 21 in page 538 Grace Book Delta, p. 326. This work lists the recipients of degrees annually rather than alphabetically; the information concerning each person's matriculation date, future career, etc., is derived from the alphabetically-arranged Alumni Cantabrigienses, vols, i-iv.)

Note 22 in page 538 Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part i, vol. i, p. vi.

Note 23 in page 538 The actor lists of these two plays are reprinted in Frederick S. Boas' University Drama in the Tudor Age (Oxford, 1914), pp. 393–397. Harris, Harrison, Fraunce, and (Thomas or Henry) Smith are among those who acted in Hymenaeus; Smith, Fraunce, Constable, and Kendall are among those who acted in Richardus Tertius. Greene is not on the list for either play.

Note 24 in page 539 Cf. Boas, pp. 140, 135, etc.

Note 25 in page 539 Cf. J. Churton Collins, The Plays and Poems of Robert Greene (Oxford, 1905), i, 19–20.

Note 26 in page 540 Although the time of year the M.A. degrees were awarded in 1583 is not recorded in Venn's Grace Book Delta (pp. 364, etc.), those of 1577–80 were awarded in March or April. But cf. Pruvost (p. 15, n. 4) who mistakenly contends that the M.A. was always awarded in July.

Note 27 in page 540 John Bakeless (Christopher Marlowe, pp. 71–75) discovered in the Buttery Book at Corpus Christi precisely which terms (and even which weeks) Christopher Marlowe was at Cambridge. Mr. F. P. White, Keeper of the Records, St. John's College, has informed me that unhappily no sixteenth-century Buttery Book for St. John's is extant. Mr. B. Cooper, Office of the Bursar, Clare College, reports the existence of a Clare Hall Buttery Book for 1580–84, but says Greene's name does not appear in it.

Note 28 in page 540 Grace Book Delta, p. 364, and Alumni Cantabrigienses, vols. i-iv.

Note 29 in page 540 Grace Book Delta, pp. 328–329.

Note 30 in page 540 Grace Book Delta, pp. 364–365. Incidentally, Venn doubts that the rank in the ordo always indicates academic merit or scholastic standing, pointing out that in several instances priority was granted to social position. Cf. Alumni Cantabrigienses, part i, vol. i, p. vii.

Note 31 in page 540 Alumni Cantabrigienses, vols. i-iv.

Note 32 in page 541 Venn does not record the length of time these students held their Fellowships (except in the cases of Coppinger, Digby, and Lange). Presumably those advancing to a higher degree retained the Fellowship until the degree was attained. Foxcroft, Hodgson, Robynson, and Sedgwicke acted in Richardus Tertius in March 1580 and presumably remained Fellows until at least that time. Robertes died in 1579; Dickenson and Fleming accepted rectorships in 1580; nothing more is known of Atkinson.

Note 33 in page 541 See chart on p. 539.

Note 34 in page 542 Cf. Mark Eccles, ch. v, p. 423, in Charles J. Sisson's Thomas Lodge and Other Elizabethans (Cambridge, Mass., 1933).

Note 35 in page 542 A Disputation betweene a Hee Conny-catcher and a Shee Conny-catcher (London, 1592), sigs. B2v, Clv. Cf. also John Clark Jordan, Robert Greene (New York, 1915), p. 93, n. 29.

Note 36 in page 542 “Robert Greene at Cambridge,” MLN, lxvi (1951), 546–549.