§ 71. HUMANISM IN ENGLAND. 657
which was harassed with laws restricting the wages of labor, with the enclosures of the commons by the rich, the conversion of arable lands into sheep farms and with the renewed warfare on the Continent into which England was drawn. ^
John Fisher, who suffered on the block a few months before More for refusing to take the oath of supremac}^ and set aside the succession of Catherine of Aragon's offspring, was 79 years old when he died. Dean Perry has pronounced him " the most learned, the most conscientious and the most devout of the bishops of his day." In 1511, he recommended Erasmus to Cambridge to teach Greek, .j^n the wayj^o the place of beheadal, this goodman carried with him the New Testament, repeating again and again the words, " This is life eternal to know Thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." "That was learning enough for him," he said.
To Grocyn, Colet, More and Fisher the Protestant world gives its reverent regard. ^ It is true, they did not fully apprehend the light which was spreading over Europe. Nevertheless, they went far as pioneers of a more rational system of education than the one built up by the scholastic method and they have a distinct place in the history of the progress of religious thought. ^
In Scotland, the Protestant Reformation took hold of the nation before the Renaissance had much chance to exercise an independent influence. John Major, who died about 1550, wrote a commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard and is called " the last of the Schoolmen. " He is, however, a connecting link with the new movement in literature through George Buchanan, his pupil at St. Andrews. Major remained true to the Roman communion. Buchanan, after being held for six months in prison as a heretic in Portugal, returned to Scotland and adopted the Reformation. According to Professor
1 See Lumby's Introd., p. xiv, and Guthrie, p. 96 sq.
2 There is, of course, no standing ground except that of generous toleration as between the view taken by the author and the view of Abbot Gasquet, who can find nothing praiseworthy in the Protestant Reformation and closes his chapter on the Revival of Letters in England, in 77ie Eve of the Reform., p. 40, with the words, " What put a stop to the Humanist movement in England, as it certainly did in Germany, wastheriseof the religious difficulties which were opposed by those most conspicuous for their championship of true learning, scholarship and education," meaning Colet, Erasmus, Fisher and More. For good remarks on the bearing of English Humanism on the Protestant movement, see Seebohm, pp. 494 sqq., 510.
2u
658 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 129^-1517.
Hume-Brown, his Latin paraphrase of the Psalms in metre " was, until recent years, read in Scotland in every school where Latin was taught." i Knox's History of the Reformation was the earliest model of prose literature in Scotland.
iSee chapter Reformation and Renascence in Scotl., by Hume-Brown in Cambr. Hist, of Eng. Lit.., III. 150-186. For the gifted Alesius, who spent the best part of his life as a professor in Germany, see A. F. Mitchell: The Scottish Reformation, Edinb., 1900.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PULPIT AND POPULAR PIETY.
§ 72. Literature.
For §§ 73, 74. — The works of Erasmus, Colet, Tyndale, Geiler of Strassburg and other sources quoted in the notes. — Lea : Hist, of Cler. Celibacy. Also Hist, of Span. Inq. — Histt. of the Engl. Ch. by Capes and Gairdner- Traill : Social Hist, of Engl., vol. II. — Seebohm : Oxf. Reformers. — Gas- QUET : The Old Engl. Bible and Other Essays, Lond., 2d ed., 1907. Also The Eve of the Reformation, pp. 245 sqq. — Cruel : Gesch. d. deutschen Predigt, im MA, pp. 431-663, Detmold, 1879, — Kolde : D. relig. Leben in Erfurt am Ausgange d. MA, 1898. — Landmann : D. Predigttnm in Westphalen in d. letzten Zeiten d. MA, pp. 256. — ScnuN : art. Predigt in Herzog, XV. 642-656. — Janssen-Pastor : Hist, of the Ger. People, vol. I. — Pastor : Gesch. d. PiqMe, I. 31 sqq., III. 133 sqq. — Hefele-Hergenrother : Conciliengesch., vol. VIIL
For § 75. — Ullmann : Reformers before the Reformation, 2 vols., Harab., 1841 sq., 2ded., Gotha, 1866, Engl, trsl., 2 vols., Edinb., 1855; Also J. Wessel, ein Vorgdnger Luthers, Hamb., 1834. — Gieseler, ii.. Part IV. 481-503, Copious excerpts from their writings. — Hergexrother-Kirsch, II., 1047- 1019. — Janssen-Pastor : I. 745-747. — Harnack : Dogmengesch., III. 518, etc. — Looks: Dogmengesch., 4th ed., 655-658. — For GocH: HisZ)e libertate Christ., etc., ed. by Corn. Graphaeus, Antw., 1520-1523. — O. Clemen: Joh. Piipper von Goch, Leip., 1896 and artt. in Herzog, VI. 740-743, and in Wetzer- Welte, VI. 1678-1684. — For Wesel : his Adv. indulgentias in VValch's 3fonumenta medii aevi Getting., 1757. — The proceedings of his trial, in ^neas Sylvius : Gommentarium de concilio Basileae and D'Argentre : Col. nov. judiciorum de erroribus novis, Paris, 1755, and Browne : Fasciculus, 2d ed., Lond., 1690. — Artt. in Herzog by Clemen, xxi, 127-131, and Wetzer- Welte, VI. 1786-1789. — For Wessel : 1st ed. of his works Farrago rerum theol., a collection of liis tracts, appeared in the Netherlands about 1521, 2d ed., Wittenb. , 1522, containing Luther's letter, 3d and 4th edd., Basel, 1522, 1523. Complete ed. of his works containing Life, by A. Hardenberg (preacher in Bremen, d. 1574), Groningen, 1614. — Muurling : Commentatio historico-theol. de Wesseli cum vita tnm meritis, Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1831 ; also de Wesseli principiis ac virtutibus, Amsterd., 1840. — J. Friedrich, Rom. Cath.: ,/. Wessel, Regensb., 1862. — Artt. Wessel in Herzog, by Van Veen, xxi. 131-147, and Wetzer-Welte, XII. 1339-1343. —P, Hofstede de Groot : J. Wessel Ganzevoort, Groningen, 1871.