Towards the Courtier: The University Formation of Public Servants in the Age of Richard Fox

Abstract

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Corpus Christi College in Oxford, founded in 1517 by Bishop Richard Fox, which occupies a particular place in the history of English universities. Corpus Christi College was a new kind of foundation, with a humanist curriculum and a distinctive emphasis on pedagogy. Endowed with lecturers in ‘Humanity‘ (Latin literature), Greek, and Theology—the last appointed to teach Scripture and the church fathers rather than the medieval authorities—it seemed to harness the learning of the Renaissance to the contemporaneous project of spiritual reform and reformation. Moreover, Corpus Christi College’s trilingual library—containing texts in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew—was famously judged by Erasmus as a wonder of the world. So it is that Corpus has been identified as one of a ‘group of Renaissance colleges‘, introducing ‘a new era in the university‘.