William Grocyn

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William Grocyn teaches Greek at Oxford ; Victorian picture window in Worcester Cathedral

William Grocyn (* around 1446 in Colerne , Wiltshire ; † 1519 ) was an English scholar, humanist and friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam .

Life

Grocyn was born in Colerne , Wiltshire . He was given a ministry by his parents and sent to Winchester College . In 1465 he received a scholarship to New College . In 1467 he became a fellow there . Among his students was William Warham , who later became Archbishop of Canterbury . In 1479 he received the post of rector of Newton Longville , Buckinghamshire , but continued to live in Oxford. As a lecturer in theology at Magdalen College , he held a disputation with John Taylor in the presence of Richard III in 1481 . The king rewarded his debating skills with a gift in the form of a deer and five marks. 1485 Grocyn was prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral . Around 1488 he left England for Italy and visited Florence , Rome , Padua and studied Greek and Latin under Demetrios Chalkokondyles and Angelo Poliziano . In 1491 he returned to Oxford and had a decisive influence on the new language learning. At Exeter College he mainly taught Greek.

Erasmus von Rotterdam writes in one of his letters that Grocyn was teaching Greek even before his trip to Italy. The head of the New College, Thomas Chaundler , had invited Cornelius Vitelli to act as praelector around 1475 . Grocyn may have learned Greek from him. It appears that Grocyn lived in Oxford until about 1499, but he was living in London as early as 1504 when his friend John Colet became Dean of St Paul's . Colet hired him to give lectures at St. Paul's. Initially, he contradicted those who said the then highly regarded book De Hierarchia ecclesiastica not born of Dionysius - the unknown author who as Areopagita outputs , is today Pseudo-Dionysius called - but was convinced by further investigations by the inauthenticity and publicly stated that he had made a mistake. His friends included Thomas Linacre , William Lilye , William Latimer, and Thomas More . Erasmus wrote in 1514 how he was supported by Grocyn in London and describes him as "a friend and teacher of us all".

He held several benefices , but his generosity to his friends kept him in financial trouble. Even when he became Maidstone , Kent , on the recommendation of Warham Warden des Colleges of All Saints, in 1506 , he had to borrow from his friends. He died in 1519 and was buried in All Saints Church .

Linacre acted as his estate manager, he spent the money he received on alms and books for poor scholars.

plant

Except for a few verses of Latin poetry in response to a lady who had invited him to do so, and a letter to Aldus Manutius at the beginning of Linacre's translation of Proclus ' Sphaera (Venice, 1499), Grocyn left no writings. His idea of translating Aristotle together with Linacre and Latimer was never realized. Anthony Wood still ascribes some Latin works to him, but without sufficient basis.

He was described by Erasmus 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 chaste man of the strictest the observation of ecclesiastical laws, almost to the point of superstition, taught down to the fingertips in scholastic theology and naturally endowed with the best judgment and instructed in all subjects with the greatest care ”.

A biography of Montagu Burrows appeared in the Collectanea of the Oxford Historical Society in 1890 .

Impact history

The main chair in Classical Languages ​​at the University of Oxford is named after Grocyn . The current title is Juliane Kerkhecker , Fellow and Tutor at Oriel College .

literature

  • Montagu Burrows: Memoir of William Grocyn . In: Oxford Historical Society's Collectanea , 16, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1890, pp. 332-380 ( digitized ).
  • Encyclopedia Britannica , 1911. Vol. 12, 9.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Correspondence of Erasmus. Letters 142-297 (= Collected Works of Erasmus. Vol. 5, 1). University of Toronto Press, Buffalo, Canada, ISBN 0-8020-1983-8 , p. 196 (Letter 241 to Roger Wentford).
  2. ↑ Declarationes ad censures facultatis theologiae Parisianae. 1522.
personal data
SURNAME Grocyn, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English humanist, classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH uncertain: around 1446
PLACE OF BIRTH Colerne, Wiltshire
DATE OF DEATH 1519