John Claymond (1468–1537) was the first

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese f ...

of Corpus Christi College,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

. Claymond was admitted to Magdalen College, Oxford, at the age of 16 in 1484, where he remained until his appointment as president in 1507. He remained in this post until 1516, during which time he befriended

Desiderius Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

. In 1517, Bishop

Richard Foxe Richard Foxe (sometimes Richard Fox) ( 1448 – 5 October 1528) was an English churchman, the founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was successively Bishop of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham, and Winchester, and became also ...

appointed Claymond as the first President of his new foundation, Corpus Christi College, designed as a beacon of humanist studies. He had been friends with Fox for the previous 30 years. While at Corpus, he also acted as the Public Reader in Humanity (Latin), in which role he wrote his most famous academic work, a commentary on

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...

in some 20 volumes, which was never published. He was the dedicatee of Erasmus's work of 1526, an edition of Chrysostom's ''De fato et providentia Dei''. He died in 1537, and is buried in the chapel of Corpus. The original stone arch

Bulstake Bridge Bulstake Bridge is a road bridge across the Bulstake Stream, a branch of the River Thames in Oxford, England. The original stone arch bridge was built by John Claymond (1468–1537), the first President of Corpus Christi College (one of th ...

over

Bulstake Stream Bulstake Stream, also spelt Bullstake Stream, is a backwater of the River Thames at Oxford, England. The stream leaves the main stream of the Thames at a river junction known as Four Rivers, at the south west corner of Fiddler's Island opposi ...

, a branch of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...

west of

, was built by Claymond in around 1530. The bridge was later rebuilt in 1721 and 1923–4.

References

1468 births 1537 deaths Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Presidents of Corpus Christi College, Oxford English Renaissance humanists 15th-century English people 16th-century English educators {{England-academic-administrator-stub