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Leonard Cox and the Erasmian Circles of Early Sixteenth-Century England

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Leonard Cox and the Erasmian Circles of Early Sixteenth-Century England LEONARD COX AND THE ERASMIAN CIRCLES OF EARLY SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND Ágnes Juhász-Ormsby The Welsh humanist scholar, poet, and educator Leonard Cox ( fl. c.1512–c.1547) is now mostly remembered for his influential involvement in the Erasmian circles in Poland and Hungary and his prolific publica- tions in Cracow, including educational writings, commendatory poems, editions of classics, and contemporary humanists.1 During his peregrina- tion on the Continent, which started in the early 1510s and lasted until his return to England around 1529, he established extensive connections with Continental humanists, among them Erasmus and Philipp Melanchthon. Having received his B.A. from the University of Tübingen in 1516, he arrived, most likely via Prague, in Cracow in 1518, where he became the chief promoter of Erasmianism at the university. He was deeply involved in the intellectual circles around the Polish court of Sigismund I and was patronized by prominent civil and ecclesiastical figures.2 On the invita- tion of his humanist friend, Johannes Henckel, Cox interrupted his stay at Cracow for four years to take up the position of headmastership first in the town school of Lőcse (Levoča) and later in Kassa (Košice) then lying within the kingdom of Hungary. After his lengthy and productive wanderings on the Continent, Cox left Poland and returned to England, presumably because he did not find stable employment at the university or among his private pupils. As opposed to Cox’s clearly defined humanist circles in Cracow, expertly detailed in Jacqueline Glomski’s recent book,3 his political and religious 1 Standard biographies of Cox include S. F. Ryle’s “Leonard Cox,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) and in Dictionary of Literary Biography. British Rhetoricians and Logicians 1500–1600, ed. Edward A. Malone (Detroit, 2003), 58–67. See also A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, A.D. 1501 to 1540 (Oxford, 1974), 145. 2 His patrons included the royal secretary Justus Ludovicus Decius (c. 1485–1545), the vice-chancellor, later bishop of Cracow, Piotr Tomicki (1464–1535), and his circle includ- ing the grand-chancellor Krzysztof Szydłowiecki (1467–1532), his nephew Andrzej Krzycki (1482–1537), as well as Tomicki’s political rivals, Jan Łaski Junior, the later reformer, and Jan Łaski Senior, primate of Poland. 3 Jacqueline Glomski, Patronage and Humanist Literature in the Age of the Jagiellons. Court and Career in the Writings of Rudolf Agricola Junior, Valentin Eck, and Leonard Cox 506 ágnes juhász-ormsby associations in England are far less documented and form a much more fragmentary picture. They can be pieced together only through the scant testimony of a few personal and prefatory letters, and dedicatory poems appended to his educational and rhetorical works, and translations of Erasmus printed in London between 1530 and 1549. As I will demon- strate, these records reveal that Cox did not hide behind the anonymity of the headmastership of Reading school, the long-awaited steady posi- tion which he obtained soon after his return to England and held most of his recorded life.4 Following patterns of self-promotion evident from his time spent in Cracow, he continued to seek patronage at the highest level, positioning himself in the intellectual circles associated with the English court. In fact, Cox’s activity parallels some high-profile English Erasmian schoolmasters who were instrumental in the educational and religious reforms of the 1530s and 1540s. Cox’s only documented contribution to English affairs during his Continental peregrination is his publication of Luther’s epistle to Henry VIII and the English king’s response to the reformer in 1527.5 As Glomski points out, the pamphlet (which appeared in print in Cracow just two months after its first English publication) served the double purpose of propagating the Polish court’s image as a defender of the Catholic faith, as well as advancing Cox’s own position in royal circles in Cracow.6 Moreover, the appearance of Cox’s pamphlet coincided with Sir John Wallop’s (b. before 1492, d. 1551) English mission in Central Europe which included an audience with Sigismund I in 1527 and was aimed at build- ing new alliances against the threat of Ottoman expansion in the region.7 Like Wallop’s embassy, Cox’s pamphlet also promulgated Henry VIII’s (Toronto, 2007). See also Andrew Breeze, “Leonard Cox, a Welsh Humanist in Poland and Hungary,” National Library of Wales Journal 25 (1987–1988): 399–410; Henry Zins, “A British Humanist and the University of Kraków at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century: A Chapter in Anglo-Polish Relations in the Age of the Renaissance,” Renaissance Studies 8 (1994): 13–39 and idem, “Leonard Coxe and the Erasmian Circles in Poland,” Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska 28 (1973): 153–179. 4 Cox’s headmastership was briefly disrupted at the time of dissolution of Reading Abbey in 1539. He was again confirmed in his office by the king in 1541. 5 Epistola Martini Lutheri ad Henricum VIII. Responsio dicti inuictissimi Angliae ac Franciae regis, defensoris fidei, ac domini Hyberniae etc. (Cracow, 1527). 6 Cox promoted, in particular, his patron and dedicatee, the grand-chancellor Krzysztof Szydlowiecki’s image. See more in Glomski, 190–196. 7 Cf. Alan Bryson, “Sir John Wallop” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)..
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