Richard Pace

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John Richard Pace [ ˈʀɪçaʁt peɪs ], also Ricardus Pacaeus , (* around 1482 probably in Winchester ( Hampshire ), † June 28, 1536 in New Forest (Hampshire)) was an English scholar, humanist , diplomat and confidante of the English Tudor king Henry VIII belonged to Pace, as well as John Colet , Thomas Linacre , William Grocyn , William Lilly , Cuthbert Tunstall and from 1517 Thomas More, to the circle of English humanists who gathered at the Tudorhof.

Live and act

Pace was the son of John Pace (* approx. 1455) from Hampshire, who may have belonged to the lower nobility; he had a provable brother named John Pace Jr. Pace studied at Winchester College under Thomas Langton . He later went to Padua , Bologna and Ferrara to continue his studies in Italy. He studied a wide variety of subjects: in addition to the Seven Liberal Arts ( Septem artes liberales ) also medicine, Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy. Such was Niccolò Leoncio Tomeo in Padua, among others, one of his teachers in the Greek language and philosophy. A fellow student from this time was Thomas Linacre, Cuthbert Tunstall, William Latimer . In Ferrara he made friends with Erasmus von Rotterdam . But he was also friends with Thomas More and John Colet. When he returned to England, he was probably still studying at Oxford University .

In 1509 he accompanied Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge , Archbishop of York , to Rome . He remained in the service of the archbishop until 1514, when the latter was poisoned. Pace and John Clerk were instrumental in bringing the (alleged) murderer to justice. He was Archdeacon of Dorset in 1514, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in 1519 and Dean of Exeter in 1522.

On his return to England in 1515 he also entered the service of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey , where he dealt with diplomacy and espionage. Pace became Wolsey's secretary in 1515 and then Secretary of State in 1516 , a role he continued until 1526.

In 1515, Wolsey sent Pace on a mission to Switzerland to urge the Swiss to attack France. According to Wolsey's instructions, he used the 100,000 guilders deposited under his name in Antwerp to pay Swiss soldiers. He negotiated for a long time with Emperor Maximilian I about supporting the emperor's activities against Francis I's troops in northern Italy. Pace was captured by French forces at the Battle of Marignano and imprisoned for some time, but released the following spring.

In 1519 Pace returned to the Holy Roman Empire in order to influence the upcoming election with the electors in the interests of his ruler Henry VIII . Because when Emperor Maximilian I died in 1519 , a new Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire had to be elected . Several candidates applied for the position, in addition to León y Aragón Carlos I de Castilla , Francis I of France, Henry VIII of England and initially, at times, Elector Friedrich III. of Saxony. Of the original seven cures whose electors elected the King of the Germans or directly the Roman-German Emperor or in some cases the Roman-German King (the designated heir of the emperor, den vivente imperatore ) , the ecclesiastical electoral principalities were: the Electorate Mainz , Electorate of Cologne , Electorate of Trier . Of the secular, the: Ludwig II (King of Bohemia), Ludwig V (Count Palatine of the Rhine), Johann the Steadfast (Elector of Saxony), Joachim I (Margrave of Brandenburg). In the run-up to the election, Franz I had secured the votes of the Elector and Archbishop of Trier and of the Elector of the Palatinate and also offered 300,000 guilders to vote. In order to politically secure his claims on the House of Habsburg (more than 170,000 guilders ), Jakob Fugger then supported the Spanish heir to the throne in his election as Roman-German king.

Henry VIII was asked by Pope Leo X to take part in the election of the emperor. Politically, the Pope saw both Francis I and Charles V as a threat to the interests of the church state . For this purpose, Pace was sent to the various prince-bishops and electors, so he met with Hermann V von Wied (Cologne), Albrecht von Brandenburg (Mainz), Joachim I (Brandenburg) and Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads (Trier). All of them indicated their approval or a certain willingness to elect Henry VIII as emperor. The community of the electoral princes and prince-bishops meeting in Frankfurt am Main then decided, not least through Jacob Fugger's intervention, for the Habsburg candidate.

Thereafter he was sent to Rome twice in 1521 and 1523 to live after the deaths of Popes Leo X and Hadrian VI. to promote Thomas Wolsey as a candidate for future Pope. Both times he failed in this almost impossible task. After that, Pace stayed in Italy again for a longer period of time. So he was appointed the English ambassador in Venice . He was popular with the Doges of Venice , so that he had been awarded Venetian honors for his diplomatic efforts. He stayed in Italy until the end of 1525/1526. Then he was called back to England after he had been appointed Dean of Exeter (1522-1527) and Dean of Salisbury (1523-1536) in his absence .

In February 1536, it was reported that Pace likely developed dementia which interfered with proper management. He died in 1536.

The main work of the author, “De Fructu Qui ex Doctrina Precipitur” (1517), which could be translated as “the fruits of knowledge” or “the fruits of a liberal education”, is a work on the art of reflection, on knowledge and moral education. It stands for a humanistic and liberal upbringing among the Tudors, with the author telling in a fairly free conversational tone about the reading of the classics, the knowledge and awareness of morality with an educational intention. His work thus remains a valuable and remarkable testimony to his humanistic education. It is a work that comes very close to Thomas More's “De optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia” (1516) and that was published a year earlier. Richard Pace praised its work and calls it a work of genius. Martin Luther became aware of More's work through reading Pace's book .

Works

  • De Fructu Qui ex Doctrina Precipitur. Basiliae, 1517 (The benefit of a liberal education)

literature

  • Jervis Wegg: Richard Pace. Barnes & Nobel, New York 1973, ISBN 0-389-04150-5 .
  • Cathy Curtis: Richard Pace's De fructu and Early Tudor Pedagogy. In: J. Woolfson (Ed.): Reassessing Tudor Humanism. Palgrave Macmillan, London 2002, ISBN 0-333-97144-2 .
  • M. Bibiana Pahlsmeier: The Diplomatic Career of Richard Pace, Secretary to Henry VIII. Catholic University of America, 1941, OCLC 53934762 .
  • Pace, Richard . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 20 : Ode - Payment of Members . London 1911, p. 432 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Joseph Hirst Lupton:  Pace, Richard . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 43:  Owens - Passelewe. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1895, pp. 22 - 24 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ he was in St Dunstan and All Saints Churchyard in Stepney in London buried findagrave.com
  2. ^ Ingrun Wenge: The philosopher as statesman ?: Vita activa and vita contemplativa in the first book by Thomas More Utopia. Master thesis. Grin Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8366-0222-8 , p. 16.
  3. ↑ Conal Condren, Stephen Gaukroger, Ian Hunter: The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe: The Nature of a Contested Identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 1-139-45910-4 , pp. 90 f.
  4. ↑ also Nicolás Leoncio (1456-1531).
  5. ^ Herbert Jaumann: Handbook of scholarly culture in the early modern period. Volume 1, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-11-016069-2 , p. 666.
  6. ↑ Jonathan Woolfson: Padua and the Tudors: English Students in Italy, 1485-1603. James Clarke & Co., Cambridge 1998, ISBN 0-227-67942-3 , pp. 103 f.
  7. ^ Luminarium: Encyclopedia Project: Richard Pace
  8. ↑ Greg Steinmetz: The richest man in world history. Life and work of Jakob Fugger. 2nd Edition. Finanzbuch Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-89879-961-4 , pp. 187–188.
  9. ↑ The Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed Frankfurt as the permanent electoral city of the Roman kings from 1356 onwards , after most royal elections had taken place here since 1147.
personal data
SURNAME Pace, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ricardus Pacaeus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English diplomat; Confidante of Henry VIII, scholar; Humanist, cleric
DATE OF BIRTH around 1482
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1536
Place of death New Forest