Paget, Smith. the and Richard In His influence more perceptible especially among natives of his before own county of Norfolk. appointed master of St. Mary's Hostel. There was also a CHAP. VI. young man of good family, named William Paget, afterwards William lord high steward of the university and a watchful guardian of its interests. He is said to have delivered a course of lectures in the college on Melanchthon's Rhetoric, and to have actively circulated Luther's earlier writings'. One Richard Smith, a doctor of canon law, perhaps completes list of Bilney's followers among his fellow-collegians. another relation however his influence is to be far distinctly traced. Local associations, as we have noticed, retained their hold, in those days, even among university men, with remarkable tenacity; and Bilney, as a native of the county of Norfolk, found his chief sympathisers and supporters among Norfolk men. Among this number was Thomas Forman, a fellow of Queens' College, and sub- Thomas sequently for a short time president of the society. He was Queens'. somewhat Bilney's senior, and his position in the university enabled him to be of signal service in secreting and preserving many of Luther's works when these had been prohibited by the authorities. In the year 1521, the governing body of the same college received from queen Catherine a letter desiring them to elect to a vacant fellowship another Norfolk man, a native of Norwich, of the name of John John Lambert. He had already been admitted bachelor and his queens. attainments were considerable, but from some unassigned cause his master and tutors declined to give the usual certificate of learning and character. The election however was ultimately made, and Lambert was soon numbered among 1 In so doing, it would seem that he must have managed to evade detection at the time, for he was subsequently taken by Gardiner into his household, when the latter became bishop of Winchester. See Cooper, Athena, 1 221. 2 See supra, p. 239. 3 It is of course also to be remembered that Norfolk, from its traffic with the continent, was one of the counties that first became acquainted with Luther's doctrines, but this would apply to the eastern counties generally. Strype, speaking of Nix, 4 Cooper, Athena, 1 37; Fuller- Forman of Lambert of Nicholas Gonville for its sym- CHAP. VI. Bilney's converts, and subsequently played a conspicuous part in connexion with the new movement'. Another Norfolk man, of about Bilney's academic standing, was Nicholas Shaxton, fellow of Gonville Hall, and also president of the society; in after life, as bishop of Sarum, though his sympathies were certainly with the Reformers, he brought no little discredit on the cause by a vacillating policy and at one time by actual recantation; but during his residence at Cambridge he seems to have boldly advocated Lutheran doctrines, and under his influence the college probably received that bias which caused Nix, the malevolent and worthless bishop of Norwich, to declare at a later time, that he had heard of no clerk coming from the college 'but savoured of the frying-pan, spake he never so holily'.' From the county of Norfolk came also John Thixtill, fellow of Pembroke, a warm supporter of the Reformation and also known as an able disputant in the schools; but the most conspicuous of all those who, from their intercourse with Bilney as his countymen, were led to adopt his religious opinions, was undoubtedly Robert Barnes, a Norfolk man from the neighprior of the bourhood of King's Lyun, and at this time prior of the friars. community of Augustinian friars at Cambridge. John Thix- till of Robert Barnes, Augustinian the Augus tinians as a body. Character of The Augustinians would seem at this period to have generally deserved the credit, whatever that might be worth, of being the least degenerate, as they were the least wealthy", of the four Mendicant orders. They shewed evidence of being actuated by a more genuine religious sentiment and 1 Cooper, Athenæ, 1 67. 2 Ibid. 1 158. Nix was a member of Trinity Hall and founded three fellowships in that society. A vicious and dissolute man, as Godwin writes.' Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, pp. 40, 694-6. 3 It may be of service here to distinguish between the Augustinian canons (or canons regular), and the Augustinian friars, as existing at this period at Cambridge. The former were represented by the priory at Barnwell and the dissolved community of the Brethren of the Hospital of St. John; the latter, over whom Barnes presided, had their house on the site of the old Botanical Gardens, to the south of what was formerly known as the Peas Market. The former order was first established in 1105; the latter first came to England in 1252. See Dugdale, Monasticon, VI 38, 1591; Cole MSS. xxxi 213; Wright and Jones, Memorials, vol. II; Baker-Mayor, p. 48. They do not appear to have received, like the Franciscans and Dominicans at both universities, any grants from the crown. See Brewer, Letters and Papers, 11 365. Tonnys. were distinguished by a more unselfish activity. At Oxford CHAP. VI. they had almost engrossed the tuition of grammar', and at one time were noted for giving their instruction gratuitously. The houses of their order in Germany had listened to many a discussion on grave questions of Church reform, long before either Luther or Melanchthon made their appeal to the judgement and conscience of the nation. At Cambridge their church, as not included within the episcopal jurisdiction, gave audience on more than one occasion to the voice of the reformer, when all the other pulpits were closed against him; while tradition attributes to a former prior of the same house, one John Tonnys, the credit of having aspired to a know- John ledge of Greek, at a time when the study had found scarcely d. 1510. a single advocate in the university. In the year 1514 Barnes, then only a lad, had been admitted a member of this community; and, as he gave evidence of considerable promise, was soon after sent to study at Louvain, where he Barnes remained for some years. The theological reputation of that at Louvain. university at this period, led not a few Englishmen to give it the preference to Paris; and during Barnes' residence it acquired additional lustre by the foundation of the famous collegium trilingue. The founder of the college, Jerome Jerome Busleiden, a descendant of a noble family in the province of Luxembourg, was distinguished as a patron of letters and well known to most of the eminent scholars of his age. His reputation among them not a little resembles that of our Richard of Bury, and Erasmus describes him as omnium librorum emacissimus. It need scarcely be added that, with tastes like these, he was an ardent sympathiser with the Foundation Humanists in their contests at the universities. Dying in gium trilinthe year 1517, he left provision in his will for the foundation 1518. 1 Anstey, Introd. to Munimenta Academica, p. lxiii. 2 Et quia magistri scholarum apud fratres Augustinenses, in disputationibus ibidem habitis, sine mercede graves sustinent labores, magistri autem grammaticæ sine laboribus ad onus universitatis salaria percipiunt, ideo statuimus et ordinamus, quod ipsa summa data magis tris grammaticæ convertatur ad usum 3 Cooper, Athenæ, 1 14. 5 Nève, Mémoire Historique et Lit- p. 40. sent to study Busleiden. of the colle gue, A.D. the conser vatives. turns to CHAP. VI. of a well-endowed college, which, while similar in its design to the foundation of bishop Fox at Oxford, represented a yet bolder effort in favour of the new learning, being exclusively dedicated to the study of the three learned languages,Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The measure was singularly opportune; for the party whom it was designed to aid, Jealousy of though now inspirited by the presence of Erasmus in their midst, was still but a small minority; and Barnes, during his sojourn at Louvain, must have witnessed not only the rise of the new college, but also many demonstrations, on the part of the theologians, of jealousy and alarm, almost as senseless and undignified as those of which Oxford was at the same time the scene'. He remained long enough however to see Barnes re- the star of the Humanists manifestly on the ascendant; and Cambridge returned to Cambridge an avowed champion of the cause and with largely augmented stores of learning. With him came also one William Paynell, who had been his pupil at Louvain, and who now cooperated with him as a teacher at Cambridge. Under their united efforts the house of the His lectures Augustinian friars acquired a considerable reputation; and many a young student now listened within its walls, for the first time and with wondering delight, to the pure Latinity and graceful sentiment of Terence, Plautus, and Cicero. It is evident however that a follower of Erasmus could scarcely rest content within these limits of innovation; the lectures on the classics were soon followed by lectures on the ScripBarnes lectures; and Barnes, in the language of Foxe, 'putting aside Duns and Dorbel','-this is to say the schoolmen and the with Paynell. on the Latin classics. tures on the Epistles of 1 'Quand le nouveau collége venait d'être ouvert près du marché aux Poissons, des étudiants de la faculté des arts, excités peut-être par l'un ou l'autre de leur maîtres ou bien par leur mépris naturel pour les belles-lettres, prenaient plaisir à crier partout:Nos non loquimur Latinum de foro Piscium sed loquimur Latinum matris nostræ facultatis.' Ibid. p. 62. Andrea, Fasti Academici studii generalis Lovaniensis, p. 277. 2 Cooper, Athenæ, 1 78. 3 Nicholas de Orbellis or Dorbellus (d. 1455), was one of the best of the multitudinous commentators on Petrus Hispanus. Prantl (Gesch. d. Logik, Iv 175) speaks of him as 'ein viel gelesener und häufig benutzter Autor, welcher (abgesehen von seiner Erläuterung des Sententiarius und der aristotelischen Physik) zu Petrus Hispanus einen umschreibenden und zugleich im Einzeln reichlich belehrenden Commentar verfasste.' Dorbellus says in his preface, ‘Juxta doctoris subtilis Scoti mentem aliqua logicalia pro juvenibus super summulas Petri Hispani breviter enodabo.' In one of his prefaces we Byzantine logic,-next began to comment on the Pauline CHAP. VI. Epistles. Stafford, d. 1529. It is evident from the testimony of contemporaries, that Barnes' lectures were eagerly listened to and commanded respect by their real merit'; but whatever might have been the views of the academic authorities, the lecturer was beyond their control. There is however good reason for believing that his efforts formed a precedent for a similar and yet more successful innovation, shortly afterwards commenced by George Stafford within the university itself. This emi- George nent Cambridge Reformer was a fellow of Pembroke and dis- M.A. 1523 tinguished by his attainments in the three learned languages2; and on becoming bachelor of divinity was appointed an 'ordinary' lecturer in theology. In this capacity, as a recognised instructor of the university, he had the boldness alto- He lectures gether to discard the Sentences for the Scriptures,—a measure tures instead that could scarcely have failed to evoke considerable criti- tences. cism; but the unrivalled reputation and popularity of the lecturer seem to have shielded him from interference, and for four years, from about 1524 to 1529, he continued to expound to enthusiastic audiences the Gospels and Epistles. Among his hearers was a Norfolk lad, the celebrated Thomas Becon, who in after years, and perhaps with something of the Becon's exaggeration that often accompanies the reminiscences of the value of youth, recorded his impressions of his instructor's eloquence. His sense of the services rendered by his teacher to the cause of Scriptural truth, was such that he even ventures to hazard meet, for the first time, with the oftquoted memorial verses on the subjects embraced in the trivium and quadrivium, 'Gram' loquitur, 'Dia' vera docet, Rhet' verba colorat, 'Mus' canit, 'Ar' numerat, 'Ge' ponderat, Ast' colit astra. 1 'Surely he [Barnes] is alone in handling a piece of Scripture, and in setting forth of Christ he hath no fellow.' Latimer to Cromwell, Latimer-Corrie, 11 389. 2 A man of very perfect life, and approvedly learned in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues.' Becon, Jewel of Joy (ed. Ayre), 426. 3 That is to say, exactly like Luther at Wittenberg, Stafford chose to be a doctor biblicus rather than a doctor sententiarius. This step, which D'Aubigné and others have spoken of as a previously unheard-of innovation, was of course strictly within the discretion permitted by the statutes, though the Scriptures had been for a long period almost totally neglected by the lecturers appointed in the universities. See supra, p. 363, n. 2; Walch, XVI 2061; Mathesius, Lutheri Vita, p. 7. on the Scrip of the Sen estimate of his services. |