Volume 1

Athenae Oxonienses : An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford. To which are added the fasti, or annals of the said University / By Anthony A. Wood.

  • Anthony Wood
Date:
1813-20
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Athenae Oxonienses : An exact history of all the writers and bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford. To which are added the fasti, or annals of the said University / By Anthony A. Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Alas now I crye, but no man doth me moone, For I sue to them that pytye of me haue noone. Many with great honours I dyd whylom auaunce, That nowe with dyshonoure doon me stynge imd Jaunce; And such, as some tyme dyd me greatly feere, Me dyspyse, and let not with sclaunder me to deere. O mercyfuU God, what loue they dyd me shewe ! Now with detraccion they do me hacke and hevve. Alas, moste synfull wretche, why shulde I thus complayne. If God be pleasyd that I shulde this susteyne, For the great offence before by me doone ? Wherefore to the, good Lorde, I wyll retourne efte soone. And hooly corny tte me thy great mercy vntyll. And take in pacyence all that may be thy wyll.] RICHARD CROKE, or Crokus as he writes himself, was a Londoner born'*, admitted scholar of King's coll. in Cambridge 4 April 1506% went thence, during the time of his scholarship, to Oxon, was a scholar or student in the Gr. tongue under the famous Will, Grocyn, and other Oxford men; in which language excelling, he went beyond the seas, and became public reader thereof at Lipsick in Germany, being the first of all, as 'tis said, that taught the Greek tongue there''. Af- terwards, having first spent some time in other places, he was invited home, and by recom- mendations made to the king of his great suffi- ciencies in the Greek and Latin tongue, and in oratory, he became great in favour with him and most of the nobility that were learned. After- wards upon the intreaties of Jo. Fisher B. of Ro- chester he retuined to Cambridge, where he was made orator about 1522', and Greek professor next after Erasmus. So that in time, by his dili- gent teaching and instructing, the knowledge of the Greek tongue, or the true and genuine Greek, was there, with much ado, planted*. In 1524, * [The father of Rich. Croke seems to have been the person meant in the following extract. Rex omnibus, &c. Concessimus dilecto subdito nostro ThoniEe Treheron oficium pursevanti, vulgariter Notyngham apellati—per mortem Ricardi Croke. Teste rege apud VVestmon. xxx. Apr. an. reg. xxii. (1530) Ken net.] 5 [Ric. Crocus S.T. B. 1523, et S.T. P. an, 1524. R^gist. Acad. Cantab. Baker,] * [He remained abroad twelve years, before the year 1520, at the expence of archbishop Warham. Before he proceeded to Leipsic, he spent some time at Paris, and after- wards read Greek publicly at Lovain, as well as at Dresden.] ' [There is a MS. at Cambridge called the Orator's Book, containing innumerable letters drawn up by tlie orators of that university. It begins about the year 1506, and is con- tinued down to the present time : but there are not many letters till about Croke's time, who was chosen first orator 1522. Most of those letters are to the kings and queens and chancellors in successsion, or to other great men at court. Baker.] * [Crokus, qui et Lipsias Grsecas literas primus docuit, et ipsi regi Henrico elementa Graeca tradidit. Stapleton De trihus J'homis, cap. v. Baker.] he commenced D. of D. at Cambridge, being then, or about that time, tutor to the king's natural son the duke of Richmond then with him at King's college, and beneficed, if not dignified in the church. Afterwards he was employed by the king to go to several places in Italy, especially to the university of Padoua, to agitate about the matter of the unlawfulness of the king's marriage with his brother's widow. And spent much time at Venice to search some Greek MS, in the library of St. Mark to be resolved in certain matters relating to that divorce'. After his return, the university of Oxford (as a certain ^ writer tells you) by great means and favourable friends' and fair promises of large allowance, invited him thither to be their reader. The time when he came to Oxon was in the beginning of 1532, in which year K.Hen. 8, bj'his charter dated 18 July, did convert cardinal Wolsey's college into that of King's coll. or that founded by king Hen. 8. In which year he was not only incorporated D. of D. as he had stood at Cambridge, but was made the third canon of the twelve of the said foundation, but whether he was a reader I cannot in all my searches find. In the latter end of the same year the new dean Dr. Jo. Hygden died, and thereupon the canons wrote to Tho. Cromwell secretary of state, that he would intercede with the king that Dr. Croke might succeed him, but for what reason it was that he was put aside, I cannot justly say. Sure I am, that Dr. Croke continued canon of the said college, till it was about to be converted into a cathedral, an. 1545, and then having an yearly pension of six and twenty pounds thirteen shillings and four pence, allowed to him in recompence of his ca- nonry, he retired to Exeter coll. where he lived in the condition of a sojourner many years, and Avas not at all made a canon of the cathedral founded by K.H. 8. He hath written, Oratio de Gracarum disciplinarum laudibns. Dedicated to Nicholas bishop of Ely by an epist. before it, dated cal. Jul. 1519- 'Tis printed in qu. but where, or when, I cannot tell, [Paris, by Simon Colinajus, 1520.] Oratio qua Cantabrigienses est hortatus, 7ieGrtr- carum literarum desertores essent. Printed with the former oration. Before, and at the end of the said two orations, Gilb. Ducher hath an epistle in praise of Croke and his learning. Introductiones ad linguam Gracam. Elementa Gram. Graca. De verborum constructione; besides translations [106] made from Greek into Latin from Theod. Gaza 5 Burnet's Hist, of Reformation, vol. 1, p. 85, anno 15S0. ' [A great number of letters on this subject are preserved in the Cotton collection, Vitellius B. xiii. 26,42,47, 49,54, 55, &c. and one in the Harleian, No. 416, fol, 21.] ^ Tho, Hatcher in Cat. praposit. soc. Sf schol. Coll. Regal, Cant. MS. sub an. 1506. 3 [Read—honourable friends. Baker.]