The Oxford Reformers: John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More — Background and Themes

n Michaelmas Term of 1496[6] that the announcement was made to doctors and students of the University of Oxford that John Colet, a late student, recently returned from Italy, was about to deliver a course of public and gratuitous lectures in exposition of St. Paul’s Epistles.

[Sidenote: Only graduates in Theology might lecture on the Bible.]

This was an event of no small significance and perhaps of novelty in the closing years of that last of the Middle Ages; not only because the Scriptures for some generations had been practically ignored at the Universities, but still more so because the would-be lecturer had not as yet entered deacon’s orders,[7] nor had obtained, or even tried to obtain, any theological degree.[8] It is true that he had passed through the regular academical course at Oxford, and was entitled, as a Master of Arts, to lecture upon any other subject.[9] But a degree in Arts did not, it would seem, entitle the graduate to lecture upon the Bible.[10]

It does not perhaps follow from this, that Colet was guilty of any flagrant breach of university statutes, which, as a graduate in Arts, he must have sworn to obey. The very extent to which real study of the Scriptures had become obsolete at Oxford, may possibly suggest that even the statutory restrictions on Scripture lectures may have become obsolete also.[11]

Before the days of Wiclif, the Bible had been free, and Bishop Grosseteste could urge Oxford students to devote their _best morning hours_ to Scripture lectures.[12] But an unsuccessful revolution ends in tightening the chains which it ought to have broken. During the fifteenth century the Bible was _not_ free. And Scripture lectures, though still retaining a nominal place in the academical course of theological study, were thrown into the background by the much greater relative importance of the lectures on ‘the Sentences.’ What Biblical lectures were given were probably of a very formal character.[13]

[Sidenote: Commencement of a new movement at Oxford.]

The announcement by Colet of this course of lectures on St. Paul’s Epistles was in truth, so far as can be traced, the first overt act in a movement commenced at Oxford in the direction of practical Christian reform--a movement, some of the results of which, had they been gifted with prescience, might well have filled the minds of the Oxford doctors with dismay.

They could not indeed foresee that those very books of ‘the Sentences,’ over which they had pored so intently for so many years, in order to obtain the degree of Master in Theology, and at which students were still patiently toiling with the same object in view--they could not foresee that, within forty years, these very books would ‘be utterly banished from Oxford,’ ignominiously ‘nailed up upon posts’ as waste paper, their loose leaves strewn about the quadrangles until some sportsman should gather them up and thread them on a line to keep the deer within the neighbouring woods.[14] They could not, indeed, foresee the end of the movement then only beginning, but still, the announcement of Colet’s lectures was likely to cause them some uneasiness. They may well have asked, whether, if the exposition of the Scriptures were to be really revived at Oxford, so dangerous a duty should not be restricted to those duly authorised to discharge it? Was every stripling who might travel as far as Italy and return infected with the ‘new learning’ to be allowed to set up himself as a theological teacher, without graduating in divinity, and without waiting for decency’s sake for the bishop’s ordination?

On the other hand, any Oxford graduate choosing to adopt so irregular a course, must have been perfectly aware that it would be one likely to stir up opposition, and even ill-will,[15] amongst the older divines; and it maybe presumed that he hardly would have ventured upon such a step without knowing that there were at the university others ready to support him.

II. THE RISE OF THE NEW LEARNING (1453-92).

[Sidenote: The old and new school of thought.]

In all ages, more or less, there is a new school of thought rising up under the eyes of an older school of thought. And probably in all ages the men of the old school regard with some little anxiety the ways of the men of the new school. Never is it more likely to be so than at an epoch of sharp transition, like that on which the lot of these Oxford doctors had been cast.

[Sidenote: An age of progress and transition.]

[Sidenote: Advance of Infidel arms in Europe.]