1 Humanism in England During the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1941, and 1957 with addenda). Schirmer's Der Englische Fruhumanismus (Leipzig, 1931, second ed., revised with biblio., 1963).

2 The will is briefed by H. R. Plomer, ‘Books Mentioned in Wills', Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, VII (1904), 108-109, “ 8 . It is indexed as 20 Milles, fs. 164^v-l65 in The Index Library X, Index of Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1383-1558 and Preserved in the Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House, London, compiled for the British Record Society by J. Challoner C. Smith (1895), II, 371.

3 Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. A. Hall (Oxford, 1709), pp. 482-483. Leland was bom about 1506, became library keeper to Henry vm before 1530, and King's Antiquary in 1533. Linacre was made one of the King's physicians in 1509, founded die College of Physicians in 1518, was Latin tutor to Princess Mary in 1523 and died in 1524.

4 George Lily's ‘Ad Pavlvm Iovium Episcopvm Nucer. Virorum aliquot in Britannia, qui nostro seculo eruditione, & doctrina clari, memorabilesque fuerunt, Elogia', in Paolo Giovio Descriptio Britamtiae (Venice, 1548), p. 49.

5 Scriptorum Illustrium Maioris Brytanniae … Catalogus (Basle, 1559), 650.

6 The Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary, ed. Thomas Hearne, 3d ed. (Oxford, 1769), VI, 7 (f. 5).

7 Historiae Cantebrigiensis Academiae ab urbe condita (London, 1574), II, 126. This work has a separate title page but is usually referred to as a part of De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae Libri duo (London, 1574). In mentioning the chair in medicine Caius says simply that it was founded by “Thomae Linacri Cantuariensis'; The Works of John Caius, M.D., ed. E. S. Roberts (Cambridge, 1912), p. 102.

8 William Dugdale, The History of St. Paul's Cathedral in London (London, 1658), p. 56. The inscription on the tomb is quoted in full.

9 Chronicles (London, 1587), III, 977. This identification is repeated by John Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments (London, 1631), p. 370; and Thomas Fuller, History of the Worthies of England, New Edition (London, 1811), 1, 257-258. Thomas Philipott, Villare Cantianum (London, 1659), pp. 66-67, 248-249, claims him for the Linacres of Linacre Manor in Beauville, although he also says that the owners of that manor had ceased to he Linacres temp. Edward m. He records that Linacre bought and left to All Souls College, Oxford, two Kentish manors, Trades and Frogenhall. Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (Canterbury, 1779-1799), II, 556, note á, says 'He was born in the city of Canterbury in 1460, and descended from the Linacres of Lynacre Hall in the co. of Derby'; but later (III, 202 and note r) he suggests that he might have got his name from the Hamlet of Linacre-street in Eastwell, Wye hundred, where a house was called Linacre Hall in his time. If so, Linacre may have begun his education at the College of Wye, which Morer remembers in his will. Anthony a Wood says, born in Canterbury but descended from the Lynacres of Lynacre Hall in the parish of Chesterfield, Derbyshire; Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Philip Bliss, new ed. (London, 1813), 1, col. 42. C. H. and Thompson Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigiensis (Cambridge, 1858), 1, 30, says he was ‘probably’ born in Canterbury, ‘though the town of Derby also claims the honour.'

10 Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to 1500 (Oxford, 1957-I959).Google Scholar E. F.Jacob, All Souls College List of Fellows 1438-1937: The dates given for the entries up to 1569 are taken from a Register of Admissions compiled by Hovenden in 1574 (Privately printed by the University of Oxford Press).

11 Rashdall, H., The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. Powicke, F. M. and Emden, A. B., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1936)Google Scholar, III, 226-227. Johnson, J. N., The Life of Thomas Linacre, ed. Graves, Robert (London, 1835), pp. 5 Google Scholar, 12, says that gentle blood and consanguinity with the founder were implied in the fellowship at All Souls, but the Stemmata Chicheleana (Oxford, 1765 and Supplement, 1775) which prints a ‘Complete Catalogue of the Fellows of All Souls College, who have been admitted to Fellowships on the Claim of Consanguinity to the Founder', lists only three before 1501 (p. 156), and Linacre is not among them, nor is Sellyng whom Johnson describes as also of All Souls, but these fellowships were not open to monks.

12 P. S. Allen, ‘Linacre and Latimer in Italy', English Historical Review, XVIII (1903), 516.

13 Parks, George B., The English Traveler in Italy, I (Stanford, 1954), 457.Google Scholar

14 Mrs. R. J. Mitchell, “Thomas Linacre in Italy', English Historical Review, L (1935), 696-698.

15 Emden found his name in the All Souls College Bursar's Book for 1593- He may have returned to Oxford briefly between the end of his Wardenship of the English Hospice in Rome and his stay at Padua. Mrs. Mitchell argues for continuous residence in Italy, 1492-1496, but offers no evidence beyond the need to study.

16 See above, note 11. Cooper's Athenae Cantab., 1,30, calls Sellyng ‘an eminent schoolmaster and afterwards prior of Christ Church', but it confuses the prior with a younger William Sellyng who died in 1524.

17 Gasquet, F. A., Cardinal Pole and his Early Friends (London, 1927), pp. ⁴, 51-52.Google Scholar Weiss, pp. 173-174, dates Vitelli's visit to Oxford 1490, not the traditional 1475; ‘Cornelio Vitelli in France and England', The Journal of the Warburg Institute, II (1938-1939), 219-226. There is no evidence that he taught Greek.

18 Cardinal Pole, pp. 4, 52; and see his The Old English Bible and Other Essays (London, 1897). PP. 269. 310-313.

19 Weiss, p. 159. Einstein, L., The Italian Renaissance in England (New York, 1902) p. 30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, says of Sellyng, ‘As master moreover of the Christ Church School, he first taught Thomas Linacre the classics.’ Most recently, W. F. Schirmer, Der Englische Friihumanismus, 2d ed. (Tubingen, 1963), p. 155, repeats the old mistake that Linacre ‘war unter Selling in der Klosterschule Christ Church in Canterbury erzogen worden', and says that he learned Greek under Emanuel or Vitelli at Oxford.

20 The Religious Orders in England, III (Cambridge, 1959), 89-90.

21 See Weiss, passim; Gray, H. L., ‘Greek Visitors to England in 1455-56', Anniversary Essays by Students of Charles Homer Haskins (Boston, 1929), pp. 81 Google Scholar

22 P. S. Allen, ‘Bishop Shirwood of Durham and his Library', English Historical Review, xxv (1910), 445-456; Weiss, Chap. x.

23 Leland, Comment, de Script. Brit., p. 484, a notice of Mylling ends, ‘Illud interim, si vera sunt quae referunt, cum paucis tunc habuit commune monachis; videlicet linguae Graecae cognitionem'.

24 Boase, C. W., Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1885), 1, 31Google Scholar; Emden; Weiss, p. 153 and notes; J. Stone, Chronicle, ed. W. G. Searle, Cambridge Antiquarian Society Proceedings, octavo series, no. 34 (Cambridge, 1902), p. 189.

25 Historical Manuscripts Commission Report IX, Pt. 1, p. 115, col. 2; Literae Cantauarienses, ed. J. B. Sheppard, 3 vols. Rolls Series no. 85 (London, 1887-1889), III, 239-240.

26 Mazzetti, S., Memorie Storiche sopra I'universita e Vistituto delle scienze di Bologna (1840), p. 308 Google Scholar; Weiss, p. 154, notes 3 and 4.

27 Christ Church Letters, ed. J. B. Sheppard, Camden Society (London, 1877), p. xxvii, says of Sellyng, olim in studio ed civilitate Pattavina ac eciam Rome familiarissime usus est.

28 Stone, pp. 108-109.

29 Litt. Cant., III, 244-245, 253-255.

30 He wrote to Archbishop Bourchier in 1472, apparently after he had been made Prior, ‘according to your commaundment I Haue provyded you a Scholemaster for your Gramerschole in Caunterbury. The which hath lately taught gramar att Wynchester and att Seynt Antonyes in London'; Historical Manuscript Commission Report IX, p. 105, from Reg. N, Libellus 2, Christ Church Canterbury MSS.

31 William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, new ed., ed. L. Caley, Sir Henry Ellis, and Rev. B. Bandinel (London, 1846), 1,112. Pp. 100-113 list fifty-one manors belonging to the Chapter. C. E. Woodruff and Danks, W., Memorials of the Cathedral and Priory of Christ Church in Canterbury (London, 1912), pp. 207 ff.Google Scholar lists Prior Sellyng's building activities at Canterbury, and see 223 ff. on his duties as Prior, and 225-226 on his retinue. Dom D. Knowles’ account of Prior More of Worcester a generation later gives a picture of the activities of a Prior of a much smaller establishment, pp. 108-126.

32 On 1 July 1478 Abbot William (also named William Sellyng) complained to the Pope that he had been suspended for seven years and interdicted from entering the premises of his Abbey; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. J. A. Twemlow, XIII (London, 1955), 616-617. This Abbey was directly under Papal authority, and 13 August 1479 the Pope commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Lincoln to secure the resignation of Abbot William, who had alienated and dilapidated the goods in his charge: Ibid., pp. 5-6. But the proceedings were slow. On 6 July 1482 license was given to the Prior and Convent of St Augustine's to elect an abbot in the place of William Sellyng, resigned; Calendar of the Patent Rolls. Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III (1476-1483), (London, 1901), p. 318.

33 Knowles, p. 6; Historical Manuscripts Commission Report, v, 430.

34 Stone, pp. 61-62, 105; Emden, p. 1666.

35 Weiss, p. 156; Christ Church Letters, pp. xxiv-xxix; Lift. Cant., III, the index lists twenty-six documents referring to the matter. The original grant was made by Saint Louis in 1179.

36 Pantin, W. A., Canterbury College, Oxford, 3 vols., Oxford Historical Society, n.s. 6-8 (1947-1950), III, 158-183.Google Scholar The foundation provided a master, three fellows, and eight scholars, of whom part were to be Canterbury monks and part seculars. The Christ Church Letterbooks, nos. 19-29, 56, show something of the extent of the Prior's concern with the college; also Lift. Cant., III, 257-274, 285-315.

37 Neville was Chancellor, June 1453 to July 1457,15 May 1461 to 1472. Chaundler was Warden of Winchester 1450-145314, when he was elected Provost of New College, Oxford. In 1454 he became Warden of New, and held the post until 1475. Meanwhile he was Chancellor of Oxford 1457-1461, and served as Vice-Chancellor under Neville, 1463-1467. He was Chancellor again from June 1472 to 1479; J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, continued by T. Duffus Hardy, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1854), III, 467-468; Weiss, PP. 133-134. 141-148.

38 Pantin, III, no, 112,114-115,123,125, for Canterbury College's acknowledgments. See also Litt. Cant., III, 260-261, 267-272. Both Chaundler and William Latimer rented rooms at Canterbury College; see Christ Church Letters, pp. xvii-xviii, for an account of Chaundler's benefaction.

39 Weiss does not mention Latimer, but see Emden.

40 See above, note 12.

41 Lift. Cant., III, 291. Sellyng bought a book in Greek, now Bodl. MS. Auct. F. 25, containing three plays each of Sophocles and Euripides, and some Hesiod, Pindar, and Theocritus, which had formerly belonged to John Free. There is no mark to show that Sellyng read it; K. B. McFarlane, ‘William Worcester; a Preliminary Survey', Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, ed. J. Conway Davis (Oxford, 1957), p. 220.

42 Weiss, pp. 157-158, evaluates this translation, which is all the evidence we have of Sellyng's proficiency in Greek.

43 James, M. R., The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 1-li.Google Scholar James says that most of the MSS which Archbishop Parker supposes to have been Archbishop Theodore's were Sellyng's. On the fire in the library, see Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. J. Gairdner, IX (London, 1886), p. 226; Leland, Comment., p. 483. James cites Leland, s.v. Hucarius, for the statement that Sellyng furnished and adorned Chichele's library at Canterbury, but that his books were still in the Prior's lodgings when the fire occurred.

44 Gasquet's account in ‘The Note Books of William of Worcester', The Old English Bible and Other Essays, pp. 286-318, has been superseded by McFarlane's article, see note 41, and by this study.

45 James Gairdner, in his ‘Introduction’ to The Paston Letters (London, 1904), 1, 197-199. gives the details; and see pp. 151-153 on William of Worcester, and pp. 338-339 for an excerpt of the will.

46 Weiss, p. 106, n. 1, discusses Free's origin. Though of a Bristol family, Free was probably born in London. On his Greek MSS see ibid., p. 111, nn. 2 and 4; and see McFarlane, p. 220 and notes; Emden also discusses Free's books, including those acquired by William of Worcester.

47 McFarlane, p. 220, n. 6.

48 Various entries are dated, and the dates run from 1463 to 1477. Since, in its present binding, every leaf of this MS is mounted, we cannot be sure that the leaves are in dieir original order. See McFarlane, p. 218, n. 2, for a description of Worcester's notebooks, of which there are several.

49 Perhaps a dozen different hands appear in this book. More than one of them may be Worcester's. Certainly the bad Latin in crabbed characters with many abbreviations is his. Small wonder that, as Weiss remarks, the notes have been frequently cited but not very frequently read.

50 This may have been Philip Usk, alias Ros, of Llandaff diocese, who was principal of St. Edward's Hall, Oxford, 1444-1445, and principal of the Great Civil Law School, 1450-1452. He was B.C.L. in 1443 and D.C.L. in 1448, and vicar of Wye, Kent, in 1447. In 1449 he had a papal dispensation to hold also the rectory of Beckley, Sussex, and in 1449 he became Canon of York and Prebend of Warthill in York. He was dead by May 1477; see Emden, III, 1938.

51 See the letter of John Free, an English student in Italy a generation earlier; R. J. Mitchell, John Free (London, 1955), pp. 71, 176-178. His letter to his benefactor is in Bodl. MS. 587, fs. 156-157, printed in J. E. Spingarn, ‘Unpublished Letters of an English Humanist', Journal of Comparative Literature, I (1903), 47-65. Free's letters are translated by G. B. Parks, The English Traveler in Italy (Stanford, Calif. [1954]), pp. 554-566.

52 H. Omont, Georges Hermonyme de Sparte in Mimoires de la Sociitd de VHistoire de Paris et de L'lle-de-France XII (1885), 65-98.

53 This was the Ad Herennium, no longer attributed to Cicero but an important source of Renaissance rhetoric; Bolgar, R. R., The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries (Cambridge, 1954). P. 210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Kirby, T. F., Winchester Scholars (London, 1888), p. 61 Google Scholar; and Emden, p. 1309.

55 Boase, C. W., Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1885), 1, 11.Google Scholar

56 Boase, 1, 26.

57 Le Neve, III, 483.

58 Boase, 1, 11.

59 Morer is described as Proctor and Neville as Chancellor on February 15, 1 Edward iv, i.e. 1461 /2; Epistolas Academicae Oxoniensae, ed. H. Anstey, Oxford Historical Society XXXVI (1898), Pt. II, p. 368.

60 R. Newcourt, Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense (London, 1708), I, 247, 248, 249.

61 Ibid. Chaundler was installed 18 December 1467. Hennessy, G., Novum Repertorium ... (London, 1898), p. 83.Google Scholar J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglitanae, 1300-1541, ed. B. Jones, VIII, Bath and Wells Diocese (University of London, 1964), p. 9 lists as chancellor ‘M. John Morer, D.M. 1467-?’ by exchange with Chaundler. Tho. Overary, B.C.L. is called Chancellor in the Calendar of Papal Letters, XII, 636, on 11 February 1469, but this seems to be a mistake since he is named Precentor in 1472 when Robert Wilson was collated to the Chancellery of Bath and Wells on 11 August.

62 Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and of Salisbury, was killed on 14 April. His younger Brother, George Neville, Archbishop of York and Chancellor of the Realm, was left in London in charge of Henry vi. After the defeat he surrendered Henry vi to Edward VI, and Henry was murdered in May.

63 Assuming that this is the same man listed in the Calendar of the Patent Rolls … Edward IV, Henry VI, 1467-1477 (London, 1900), p. 208: 9 October 1471. General pardon to John Morer late of London, clerk, alias Master John Morer, parson of the parish church of Aysshbury, Co. Berks. Aysshbury is within a few miles of Eton.

64 He left to Eton Epistolas Augustini, the Homilies of Origen on Matthew, Augustine's de urbis domini et apostoli, and Rabaimm de Lodowicum. Eton still has the Epistolae, number 105 in James, M. R. Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Eton College (Cambridge, 1895), p. 42.Google Scholar It is a twelfth-thirteenth-century MS inscribed, ‘Liver mag. Job. Mocer vicarii de tenterden emptus cantuarie ab executoribus mag. Thome Maris et a Mag. Simone hogges officiali pro 33 s 4 di.’ There is an earlier inscription, ‘Liber mag. Thome Mareys Rectoris de Stormouth in comitatu Kantie emptus de executoribus Thome Chycheley archidiaconi Cantuariensis anno dm 1468 ° ultimo die mensis Aprilis'. Eton MS. 106 is a copy of St. Augustine's Sermones, etc. inscribed, ‘donum M. Johannis Moyer’ probably the same as the donor of 105. This volume was written in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but with an index added in the fifteenth. Eton has also Augustine's De Civitate Dei (no. 107). There is no mark of a donor, but this, like 105 is in a good thirteenth-century hand, a little taller, but like it in two columns and with a chain mark like 105. This also may be Morer's gift. Eton also has a copy oiRabanus de Lodowicum (no. 16) which could have been Morer's. It is a twelfth-century volume of 200 fs. in double column of commentary on several books of die Old Testament and on Maccabees. It was bound in die fifteenth century and the fly leaves are from a law MS; James, p. 7.

65 The Paston Letters, v, 137. Registrum Regale (Eton, 1847), puts the fellowship of John Moeer between 1459 and 1464, but also reports, p. 21, that there is no register of the elections to Eton in those years. The sister foundation, King's College, Cambridge ‘was in a manner dissolved; all die scholars, and die greater part of die fellows, were dismissed'. Thomas Harwood, Alumni Etonenses (Birmingham, 1797), p. 53, puts Moweer's fellowship between 1459 and 1464, but reports that the record is blank between 1464 and 1477. Sir Wasey Sterry, The Eton College Register, 1441-1698 (Eton, 1943), p. xxix, lists John Moweer among die fellows 1470-C.1473.

66 Weiss, p. 145.

67 Emden, p. 1309.

68 A. H. Taylor, “The Rectors and Vicars of St. Mildred's, Tenterdon', Archaeologia Cantiana, XXXI (1915), p. 215, quoting the register of Archbishop Bourghier, f. 122a. There is also a summary of the will. There is no record of John Morer at St. Mildred's now; L. L. Duncan, Kentish Monumental Inscriptions at Tenterdon, Kent Archaeological Society. Records Branch (1919).

69 See above, p. 32.

70 The College of Wye was founded by Archbishop Kemp in the reign of Henry VI. It provided for the maintenance of secular priests to attend divine services, and to instruct the youth of the parish in grammar and other learning; Hasted's Kent, IV, 231, dates the foundation 1447, and III, 573, reports the provision for a grammar master. See also Weever, Ancient Funeral Monuments, pp. 174-175; Ashford was established by Sir James Fogge temp. Edw. rv, for a master or prebend who should be a vicar of the church, two chaplains, and two secular clerks. The foundation, made in the King's name, was incomplete and had disappeared before the dissolution; Hasted, III, 164-165. The first vicar was Thomas Wilmote, 1467-1493. His will is in the P.C.C.

71 Newcourt, 1,303-304. St. Bennet's Bucklersbury was part of the church of St. Osyth at the end of Bucklersbury Street. It was called St. Bennet Schorne, or Shrog, or Shorehog, from a benefactor, temp. Edward n. It was a rectory in the patronage of St. Mary Overies, Southwark. Bp. Kemp's Register, f. 189, records the admission and replacement. The John Morer of the will probably died some little time before the will was probated. For the church see Kingford's Stow, I, 260. Hennessy, pp. 384, 387, also records the appointment.

72 Papal Letters, XIII, 800.

73 Weiss, p. 147, and note 6.

74 The copy of this work now at Magdalen (Coxe 139) was made in the thirteenth century and has many annotations in various hands but no indication of ownership or donation.

75 No books are mentioned in any of these wills.