and wine above your heads, giving the people to understand your mass to be available for the quick and the dead, ye deny the Lord that bought you; therefore let the mass go again to Rome, with all Austen’s trinkets, and cleave to the Lord’s Supper”… Again: – “Gentle reader: It is not unknown what an occasion of sclander divers have taken in t
1
Opera (ed. Frankfort), tom. x. p. 56, quoted by Janssen.
2
J. L. Andre, in Sussex Archæological Journal, xxxix. p. 31.
3
The use of the expression “New Learning” as meaning the revival of letters is now so common that any instance of it may seem superfluous. Green, for example, in his History of the English People, vol. ii. constantly speaks of it. Thus (p. 81), “Erasmus embodied for the Teutonic peoples the quickening influence of the New Learning during the long scholar-life which began at Paris and ended amidst sorrow at Basle.” Again (p. 84), “the group of scholars who represented the New Learning in England.” Again (p. 86), “On the universities the influence of the New Learning was like a passing from death to life.” Again (p. 125), “As yet the New Learning, though scared by Luther’s intemperate language, had steadily backed him in his struggle.”
4
Sermons. London: Robert Caly, 1557, p. 36.
5
The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman unto Christ, sig. Aij.
6
R. V. The olde Faith of Great Brittayne, &c.– The style of the book may be judged by the following passages: – “How say you (O ye popish bishops and priests which maintain Austen’s dampnable ceremonies) – For truly so long as ye say masse and lift the bread and wine above your heads, giving the people to understand your mass to be available for the quick and the dead, ye deny the Lord that bought you; therefore let the mass go again to Rome, with all Austen’s trinkets, and cleave to the Lord’s Supper”… Again: – “Gentle reader: It is not unknown what an occasion of sclander divers have taken in that the king’s majesty hath with his honourable council gone about to alter and take away the abuse of the communion used in the mass… The ignorant and unlearned esteem the same abuse, called the mass, to be the principal point of Christianity, to whom the altering thereof appears very strange… Our popish priests still do abuse the Lord’s Supper or Communion, calling it still a new name of Missa or Mass.” The author strongly objects to those like Bishop Gardiner and Dr. Smythe who have written in defence of the old doctrine of the English Church on the Blessed Sacrament: “Yea, even the mass, which is a derogation of Christ’s blood. For Christ left the sacrament of his body and blood in bread and wine to be eaten and drunk in remembrance of his death, and not to be looked upon as the Israelites did the brazen serpent… Paul saith not, as often as the priest lifts the bread and wine above his shaven crown, for the papists to gaze at.” All this, as “the New Learning” brought over to England by St. Augustine of Canterbury, the author would send back to Rome from whence it came.
7
Urbanus Regius, A comparison betwene the old learnynge and the newe, translated by William Turner. Southwark: Nicholson, 1537, sig. Aij to Cvij.
8
Opera (ed. Le Clerc), Ep. 583.
10
Remigio Sabbadini, La Scuola e gli studi di Guarino Guarini Veronese, pp. 217-18.
11
R. Sabbadini, Guarino Veronese et il suo epistolario, p. 57.
12
The Earl was a confrater and special friend of the monks of Christchurch, Canterbury. In 1468-69, Prior Goldstone wrote to the Earl, who had been abroad “on pilgrimage” for four years, to try and obtain for Canterbury the usual jubilee privileges of 1470. In his Obit in the Canterbury Necrology (MS. Arund. 68 f. 45d) he is described as “vir undecumque doctissimus, omnium liberalium artium divinarumque simul ac secularium litterarum scientia peritissimus.”
13
Leland (De Scriptoribus Britannicis, 482) calls him Tillœus, and this has been generally translated as Tilly. In the Canterbury Letter Books (Rolls Series, iii. 291) it appears that Prior Selling was greatly interested in a boy named Richard Tyll. In 1475, Thomas Goldstone, the warden of Canterbury Hall, writes to Prior Selling about new clothes and a tunic and other expenses “scolaris tui Ricardi Tyll.” In the same volume, p. 315, is a letter of fraternity given to “Agnes, widow of William Tyll,” and on February 7, 1491, she received permission to be buried where her husband, William Tyll, had been interred, “juxta tumbam sancti Thomæ martyris.”
14
Canterbury Letters (Camden Soc.), pp. 13, 15.
15
C. C. C. C. MS. 417 f. 54d: “Item hoc anno videlicet 6 Kal. Oct. D. Willms Selling celebravit primam suam missam et fuit sacerdos summæ missæ per totam illam ebdomadam.”
16
Literæ Cantuarr. (Rolls Series), iii. 239.
17
Leland, De Scriptoribus Britannicis, p. 482. Cf. also Canterbury Letters (Camden Soc.), p. xxvii.
19
Umberto Dallari, I rotuli dei Lettori, &c., dello studio Bolognese dal 1384 al 1799, p. 51.
20
Serafino Mazzetti, Memorie storiche sopra l’università di Bologna, p. 308.
22
B. Mus. Arundel MS. 68, f. 4. The Obit in Christchurch MS. D. 12, says: “Sacræ Theologiæ Doctor. Hic in divinis agendis multum devotus et lingua Græca et Latina valde eruditus… O quam laudabiliter se habuit opera merito laudanda manifesto declarant.”
23
In the Canterbury Registers (Reg. R.) there is a record which evidently relates to Selling’s previous stay in Rome as a student. On October 3, 1469, the date of Selling’s second departure for Rome, the Prior and convent of Christchurch granted a letter to Pietro dei Milleni, a citizen of Rome, making him a confrater of the monastery in return for the kindness shown to Dr. William Selling, when in the Eternal City. This letter, doubtless, Selling carried with him in 1469.
24
The Old English Bible and other Essays, p. 306.
25
B. Mus. Cotton MS. Julius F. vii., f. 118.
26
One of Prior Selling’s first acts of administration was apparently to procure a master for the grammar school at Canterbury. He writes to the Archbishop: “Also please it your good faderhood to have in knowledge that according to your commandment, I have provided for a schoolmaster for your gramerscole in Canterbury, the which hath lately taught gramer at Wynchester and atte Seynt Antonyes in London. That, as I trust to God, shall so guide him that it shall be worship and pleasure to your Lordship and profit and encreas to them that he shall have in governance.” —Hist. MSS. Com. 9th Report, App. p. 105.
27
I. Noble Johnson, Life of Linacre, p. 11. Among the great benefactors to Canterbury College, Oxford, was Doctor Thomas Chaundeler, Warden of New College. In 1473, the year after the election of Prior Selling, the Chapter of Christchurch, Canterbury, passed a resolution that, in memory of his great benefits to them, his name should be mentioned daily in the conventual mass at Canterbury, and that at dinner each day at Oxford he should be named as founder.
28
Galeni, De Temperamentis libri tres, Thoma Linacro interpretante, is dedicated to Pope Leo X., with a letter from Linacre dated 1521. “The widow’s mite was approved by Him whose vicar on earth” Pope Leo is, so this book is only intended to recall common studies, though in itself of little interest to one having the care of the world.
