Closing Remarks III: Life of the Mind

Abstract

This concluding chapter argues that scholars still debate the nature of Richard Fox’s evolving views concerning his college and the extent to which the humanist curriculum he implemented is indicative of a ‘secularist‘ agenda—as some contemporaries assumed. Erasmus, for one, believed the new foundation aimed ‘expressly for the humanities‘. Richard Fox’s statutes exhibited a more circumscribed position insofar as the humanities were concerned. He conceived virtue and knowledge to be two poles of a ladder, the steps of which would assist his bees—and those whom they nourished—to soar heavenward. In other words, learning was subservient to the true goal of the college: to bolster religion. Thus, when discussing the responsibilities of the theology lecturer, Fox made it explicit how it ‘behooves‘ other lecturers ‘to obey, wait on, and serve‘ him.