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XXIV: Continuity in XV Century English Humanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Elizabeth Cox Wright
Elizabeth Cox Wright*
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College
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Extract

Several years ago Professor Gray of Bryn Mawr discovered, on the Exchequer Rolls for 1455–56, record of payments to four Greek visitors to England. Having noticed that discussions of English humanism were inclined to run thin for the third quarter of the century, he presented his findings concerning these Greeks as a contribution toward a new and more detailed telling of the story. He established that one of the beneficiaries, Emanuel of Constantinople, was the scribe of the famous Leicester Codex of the New Testament, and discussed the learned character of the King's Council in these years. Nevertheless, he concluded on so modest a note that one was not yet confident of the continuity of English humanism after the death of Humphrey in 1447. Previous writers give us a full and glowing account of the stir of men's minds under the influence of Humphrey, and a hasty sketch of travellers to and from Italy after Humphrey's death, not swinging into another full and vivid narrative until they reach the later years of Henry VII.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1936 , pp. 370 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

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References

1 Gray, Howard, “Greek Visitors to England in 1455–1456,” Anniversary Essays in Medieval History by Students of Charles Homer Haskins (1929).

2 Ibid., 105 f.

3 Burrows, Montague, ed., Collectanea (Ox. Hist. Soc., 1890), ii, 334.

4 Leipsig, 1931. Stephens, George R., The Knowledge of Greek in England in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1933), is not concerned directly with this aspect of the problem.

5 Vickers, Kenneth H., Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (London, 1907).

6 Ibid., p. 351. See Humphrey's letters, E.H.R., x and xix, for correspondence with Continental humanists.

7 Ibid., passim, Schirmer, etc. If facts of this sort are discussed by Vickers and Schirmer, and are generally accepted, no references will be given.

8 Vickers, p. 369.

9 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1436–1441, p. 521.

10 Schirmer, p. 63 f. The volumes of the Rolls Series concerned with Oxford matters, l and lvi, and Oxford Hist. Soc. (1898), Epistolae Academicae, may be consulted for the correspondence of these men.

11 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1446–1452, p. 572.

12 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1452–1461, p. 195.

13 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1461–1667, p. 32.

14 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1452–1461, pp. 195, 644.

15 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1436–1441, pp. 271, 388.

16 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1446–1452, p. 204.

17 Schirmer, p. 100. Schirmer has added to the older accounts many details of lesser men like Caunton.

18 Wer war Andrew Hols? ESt, xlvi, 197. See likewise Vespasiano da Bisticci, Memoirs, tr. W. G. and E. Waters (London, 1926).

19 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1436–1441, p. 167.

20 Col. Pat. Rolls, passim.

21 Cal. Pal. Rolls, 1441–1446, p. 390; 1446–1452, p. 404.

22 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1452–1461, p. 204.

23 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1452–1461, pp. 227, 336.

24 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1452–1461, p. 362.

25 Allen, P. S., “Bishop Shirwood of Durham and his Library,” E.H.R., xxv, 445.

26 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1470–1485, p. 348.

27 Schirmer, p. 107 f.

28 Der Briefwechsel des Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini ed. Wolkan (Vienna 1909), p. 227.

29 Schirmer, pp. 63–64.

30 Bekynton's Correspondence, Rolls Ser. lvi, i, 223.

31 E.H.R., xix, 519.

32 Munimenta Academica, R.S., l, i, 326 f.

38 Letters and records already quoted; Schirmer gives all the facts.