" Now, under Colet, and Erasmus (1497), Oxford was
put, like Gargantua, under new masters, and learned that the old
scholarship "had been but brutishness, and the old wisdom but blunt,
foppish toys serving only to bastardise noble spirits, and to corrupt
all the flower of youth."
The prospects of classical learning at Oxford (and, whatever may be
the case to-day, on classical learning depended, in the fifteenth
century, the fortunes of European literature) now seemed fair enough.
People from the very source of knowledge were lecturing in Oxford.
Wolsey was Bursar of Magdalen. The colleges, to which B. N. C. was
added in 1509, and C. C. C. in 1516, were competing with each other
for success in the New Learning. Fox, the founder of C. C. C.,
established in his college two chairs of Greek and Latin, "to
extirpate barbarism." Meanwhile, Cambridge had to hire an Italian to
write public speeches at twenty pence each! Henry VIII. in his youth
was, like Francis I., the patron of literature, as literature was
understood in Italy. He saw in learning a new splendour to adorn his
court, a new source of intellectual luxury, though even Henry had an
eye on the theological aspect of letters. Between 1500 and 1530
Oxford was noisy with the clink of masons' hammers and chisels.
Brasenose, Corpus, and the magnificent kitchen of Christ Church, were
being erected. (The beautiful staircase, which M.
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