William Grocyn ( 14461519) was an English scholar, a friend of
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'' wa ...
.
Life
Grocyn was born at
Colerne
Colerne is a village and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England. The village is about west of the town of Corsham and northeast of the city of Bath. It has an elevated and exposed position, above sea level, and overlooks the Box valley to ...
, Wiltshire. Intended by his parents for the church, he was sent to
Winchester College
Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...
, and in 1465 was elected to a scholarship at
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...
. In 1467 he became a fellow, and among his pupils was
William Warham
William Warham ( – 22 August 1532) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1503 to his death.
Early life and education
Warham was the son of Robert Warham of Malshanger in Hampshire. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford ...
, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
. In 1479, Grocyn accepted the rectory of
Newton Longville
Newton Longville is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority area of Buckinghamshire, England. The village is about south-west of Bletchley.
History
The toponym "Newton" is derived from the Old English for "new farm". It is record ...
, in Buckinghamshire, but continued to live at Oxford. As reader in divinity at
Magdalen College
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the st ...
in 1481, he held a disputation with
John Taylor, professor of divinity, in the presence of
King Richard III
Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...
; the king acknowledged his skill as a debater by the present of a deer and five marks. In 1485, Grocyn became prebendary of
Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...
. In about 1488, he left England for Italy, and before his return in 1491 he had visited
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
,
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
and
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
, and studied
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
under
Demetrius Chalcondyles
Demetrios Chalkokondyles ( el, Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης ), Latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles (14239 January 1511) was one of the most eminent Gree ...
and
Politian
Agnolo (Angelo) Ambrogini (14 July 1454 – 24 September 1494), commonly known by his nickname Poliziano (; anglicized as Politian; Latin: '' Politianus''), was an Italian classical scholar and poet of the Florentine Renaissance. His scho ...
. As lecturer at
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth-oldest college of the un ...
he helped indoctrinate his countrymen in the new Greek learning.
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'' wa ...
says in one of his letters that Grocyn taught Greek at Oxford before his visit to Italy. The Warden of New College,
Thomas Chaundler
Thomas Chaundler (1418–1490) was an English playwright and illustrator.
A manuscript at Trinity College, Cambridge, depicts Chaundler presenting one of his plays to the Bishop of Bath, Thomas Beckynton, in 1460.
Life
He was born about 1418 ...
, invited
Cornelius Vitelli
Cornelius may refer to:
People
* Cornelius (name), Roman family name and a masculine given name
* Pope Cornelius, pope from AD 251 to 253
* St. Cornelius (disambiguation), multiple saints
* Cornelius (musician), stage name of Keigo Oyamada
* Metr ...
, then on a visit to Oxford, to act as ''praelector''. This was about 1475, and as Vitelli was certainly familiar with Greek literature, Grocyn may have learned Greek from him. He seems to have lived in Oxford until 1499, but by the time his friend
John Colet
John Colet (January 1467 – 16 September 1519) was an English Catholic priest and educational pioneer.
John Colet was an English scholar, Renaissance humanist, theologian, member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers, and Dean of St Paul's Cat ...
became dean of
St Paul's in 1504 he was living in London. Grocyn was chosen by Colet to deliver lectures in St Paul's. Having at first denounced those who impugned the authenticity of the ''Hierarchia ecclesiastica'' ascribed to
Dionysius the Areopagite
Dionysius the Areopagite (; grc-gre, Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης ''Dionysios ho Areopagitēs'') was an Athenian judge at the Areopagus Court in Athens, who lived in the first century. A convert to Christianity, he is venerate ...
, he was led to modify his views by further investigation, and openly declared that he had been mistaken. He also counted
Thomas Linacre
Thomas Linacre or Lynaker ( ; 20 October 1524) was an English humanist scholar and physician, after whom Linacre College, Oxford, and Linacre House, a boys' boarding house at The King's School, Canterbury, are named.
Linacre was more of a schola ...
,
William Lilye
William Lily (or William Lilly or Lilye; c. 146825 February 1522) was an English classical grammarian and scholar. He was an author of the most widely used Latin grammar textbook in England and was the first high master of St Paul's School, ...
,
William Latimer and
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...
among his friends, and Erasmus – writing in 1514 – says that he was supported by Grocyn in London, and calls him "the friend and preceptor of us all".
Grocyn held several preferments, but his generosity to his friends involved him in continual difficulties, and though in 1506 he was appointed on Archbishop Warham's recommendation master or warden of the
College of All Saints, Maidstone
The College of All Saints was an ecclesiastical college in Maidstone, Kent, England, founded in 1395 by Archbishop Courtenay. It was part of the establishment of the nearby Archbishop's Palace, but was closed in 1546. The College church was ...
in Kent, he was still obliged to borrow from his friends, and even to pledge his plate as a security.
He died in 1519, and was buried in his
collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons: a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, which may be presided over by a ...
at Maidstone. Linacre acted as Grocyn's executor, and spent the money he received on alms for the poor and the purchase of books for poor scholars.
Assessment
With the exception of a few lines of Latin verse on a lady who snubbed him, and a letter to
Aldus Manutius
Aldus Pius Manutius (; it, Aldo Pio Manuzio; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preserv ...
at the head of Linacre's translation of
Proclus
Proclus Lycius (; 8 February 412 – 17 April 485), called Proclus the Successor ( grc-gre, Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος, ''Próklos ho Diádokhos''), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophers ...
's ''Sphaera'' (Venice, 1499), Grocyn left no literary proof of his scholarship. His proposal to translate
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
in company with Linacre and Latimer was never carried out.
Anthony Wood assigns some Latin works to Grocyn, but on insufficient authority.
By Erasmus he has been described as "''vir severissimae castissimae vitae, ecclesiasticarum constitutionum observantissimus pene usque ad superstitionem, scholasticae theologiae ad unguem doctus ac natura etiam acerrimi judicii, demum in omni disciplinarum genere exacte versatus''", "A man of a most stern and moral life; most observant of the decrees of the Church almost to the point of superstition; learned to his very fingertips in scholastic theology; and also by nature of the keenest judgment; finally, exactly versed in every kind of learning" (''Declarationes ad censures facultatis theoiogiae Parisianae'', 1522).
An account of Grocyn by
M. Burrows appeared in the
Oxford Historical Society
The Oxford Historical Society (OHS) is a text publication society concerned with the history of the city of Oxford and the surrounding area in the historic county of Oxfordshire in southern England.
History
The Oxford Historical Society was ...
's ''Collectanea'' (1890).
Legacy
Grocyn gives his name to the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
's chief lecturer on Classical languages.
See also
*
List of Erasmus's correspondents
One of the best sources for the world of European Renaissance Humanism in the early sixteenth century is the correspondence of Erasmus. Among those with whom he exchanged letters are:
{,
, valign="top",
*Pope Adrian VI
*Nicolaus Olahus
* Henric ...
Notes
References
*
* Montague Burrows (1890) "Memoir of William Grocyn", ''Collectanea'', 2nd series, 16:332–80,
Oxford Historical Society
The Oxford Historical Society (OHS) is a text publication society concerned with the history of the city of Oxford and the surrounding area in the historic county of Oxfordshire in southern England.
History
The Oxford Historical Society was ...
, now available
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grocyn, William
1440s births
1519 deaths
People from Wiltshire
People educated at Winchester College
Alumni of New College, Oxford
Fellows of New College, Oxford
English Renaissance humanists
15th-century English clergy
16th-century English clergy