To take one example, Thomas Millyng, who as Bishop of Hereford died in 1492, had studied at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, as a monk of Westminster. During the old age of Abbot Fleet, of Westminster, he governed the monastery, and became its abbot in 1465. He was noted for his love of studies, and especially for his knowledge of Greek. This, says the writer of his brief life in the National Biographical Dictionary, was “a rare accomplishment for monks in those days.” He might have added, and for any one else!
55
Dennistoun, Memorials of the Dukes of Urbino, iii., pp. 415 seqq.
56
Erasmus to Abbot Bere. Opera, Ep. 700.
57
MS. Bodl. 80. It is the autograph copy of Free, cf. J. W. Williams, Somerset Mediæval Libraries, p. 87. It was Abbot Bere who, in 1506, presented John Claymond, the learned Greek scholar, to his first benefice of Westmonkton, in the county of Somerset. In 1516 Claymond became first President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, often after signing himself, Eucharistiæ servus. Dr. Claymond procured for his college several Greek manuscripts which had belonged to Grocyn and Linacre, which are still possessed by it. At the end of MS. XXIII., which is a volume containing ninety homilies of St. John Chrysostom in Greek, is an inscription stating that this, and MS. XXIV., were copied in the years 1499 and 1500 by a Greek from Constantinople, named John Serbopylas, then living and working at Reading.
58
Ludovico Vives had been invited over to England by Cardinal Wolsey to lecture on rhetoric at Oxford. He lived at Corpus Christi College, then ruled by Dr. John Claymond, whom in his tract De conscribendis Epistolis he calls his “father.” The fame of this Spanish master of eloquence drew crowds to his lectures at the university, and amongst the audience Henry and Queen Katherine might sometimes be seen. For a time he acted also as tutor to the Princess Mary, and dedicated several works to the queen, to whose generosity he says he owed much. He took her side in the “divorce” question, and was thrown into prison for some weeks for expressing his views on the matter. Fisher, More, and Tunstall were his constant friends in England, and of Margaret Roper he writes, “from the time I first made her acquaintance I have loved her as a sister.” Among his pupils at Louvain, besides the above-named Canterbury monk, John Digon, he mentions with great affection Nicholas Wotton, whom the antiquary Twyne speaks of as returning to England with Digon and Jerome Ruffaldus, who calls Vives his “Jonathan,” and who subsequently became abbot of St. Vaast, Arras.
59
J. Venn, Gonville and Caius College (1349-1897), Vol. I.
60
Ibid., p. xvi.
61
Ibid., p. 18.
62
Ibid., p. 23.
63
Ibid., p. 21.
64
Ibid., p. xviii.
65
Sermons (1557), f. 54.
66
A. Chalmers, History of the Colleges, &c. of Oxford, ii. p. 351.
67
Hearne, John of Glastonbury, ii. p. 490; from MS. Cott. Vitellius c. vii.
68
Saint-German was born 1460. He was employed by Thomas Cromwell on some business of the State, and died in 1540. The Dyalogue was printed apparently first in Latin, but subsequently in English. It consisted of three parts (1) published by Robert Wyer, (2) by Peter Treveris, 1531, and (3) by Thomas Berthalet, also in 1531.
69
Dyalogue, ut sup., 3rd part, f. 2.
70
One of the first Acts of King Henry VII. on his accession, was to obtain from the Pope a Bull agreeing to some changes in the Sanctuary customs. Prior Selling of Canterbury was despatched as King’s Orator to Rome with others to Pope Innocent VIII. in 1487, and brought back the Pope’s approval of three points in which the king proposed to change these laws. First, that if any person in Sanctuary went out at night and committed mischief and trespass, and then got back again, he should forfeit his privilege of Sanctuary. Secondly, that though the person of a debtor might be protected in Sanctuary, yet his goods out of the precincts were not so protected from his creditors. Thirdly, that where a person took Sanctuary for treason, the king might appoint him keepers within the Sanctuary.
71
Robert Keilway, Relationes quorundam casuum, f. 188, seqq.
72
Dyalogue, ut sup., f. 12.
73
Dyalogue, f. 23.
74
Ibid.
75
Ibid., f. 23.
76
Ibid., f. 21.
77
Ibid., f. 21.
78
A treatyse concerning the power of the clergie and the laws of the realme. London, J. Godfray.
79
A treatyse, &c., ut supra, cap. 4.
80
A treatyse, &c., ut supra, cap. xii.
81
A treatyse, &c., ut supra, cap. xii.
82
Ibid., cap. xiii.
83
Ibid., cap. vi.
84
English Works (ed. 1557), p. 1017.
85
A treatyse, &c., ut sup., cap. vi., sig. E. i.
86
Salem and Bizance, a dialogue betwixte two Englishmen, whereof one was called Salem and the other Bizance (Berthelet, 1533), f. 76.
87
Ibid., f. 84.
88
English Works, p. 892.
89
Ibid.
90
A Dialogue, &c., ut sup., f. 8.
91
Ibid., f. 11.
92
Ibid., f. 14.
93
A Dialogue, &c., ut sup., p. 17.
94
History of English Law, i., p. 93-4. Mr. James Gairdner, in a letter to The Guardian, March 1, 1899, says: “There were, in the Middle Ages, in every kingdom of Europe that owned the Pope’s jurisdiction, two authorities, the one temporal and the other spiritual, and the head of the spiritual jurisdiction was at Rome. The bishops had the rule over their clergy, even in criminal matters, and over the laity as well in matters of faith. Even a bishop’s decision, it is true, might be disputed, and there was an appeal to the Pope; nay, the Pope’s decision might be disputed, and there was an appeal to a general council. Thus there was, in every kingdom, an imperium in imperio, but nobody objected to such a state of matters, not even kings, seeing that they could, as a rule, get anything they wanted out of the Popes – even some things, occasionally, that the Popes ought not to have conceded.”
95
William Bond, The Pilgrymage of perfeccyon, 1531, f. 223.
96
Roger Edgworth, Sermons, 1557, fol. 102
97
Edward Powell, Propugnaculum summi sacerdotii, &c., adversus M. Lutherum, 1523, fol. 22 and fol. 35.
