John Shirwood and the reading of Plutarch's Lives in late fifteenth‐century England☆

Abstract

In the fifteenth century, Plutarch's Lives were popular among humanists for their moral and historical content. They circulated widely in humanist Latin translations in manuscript and later in print. This article examines the reading of printed copies of these translations in late fifteenth‐century England. It focuses on John Shirwood (d. 1493), Bishop of Durham, an avid English reader of humanist books. The article suggests that Shirwood's annotations to Plutarch should be interpreted as evidence of humanist reading in a recreational context. While modern studies on the history of reading classical texts have often emphasised Renaissance readers' structured, methodical approaches of annotation, Shirwood's copy of Plutarch's Lives reveals a clerk at leisure, enjoying humanist books outside of formal academic study. The article goes on to compare Shirwood's annotations of Plutarch's Lives with those of two other late fifteenth‐century English humanists: the similarly eclectic historical annotations of the bishop John Russell (d. 1494); and, as a counterpoint, the more structured moral and linguistic interests of the grammarian John Stanbridge (1463–1510). These three responses to the Latin translations of Plutarch's Lives thus indicate how educated individuals engaged with humanist texts at different levels of rigour, from methodical academic study to recreational enjoyment.