A month with the Mores

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting held at Cambridge (UK) in 2005. I want to thank Professor Charles Fantazzi (East Carolina University, USA) for his suggestions and comments. Very especial thanks to my friend Richard T. Meyer for his help in the rewriting of this paper. I am also indebted to Clare M. Murphy (Université Catholique de L'Ouest, France) for her constant support and encouragement. Notes 1Unfortunately, no letter is preserved of the correspondence between the two. 2Nève, 132, quoted from Watson, Les relacions, 18 – 19, and 19, n. 1. This author states that there is little support for this assertion (19). 3Marc'hadour, 108. 4Riber, ed., writes: "Como prolegómenos de esa ida de Vives a Inglaterra, debemos situar la conoscencia personal y la mutua amistad de Vives con Tomás Moro, cuajada en Brujas el año 1515" (1:76). 5Noreña, 72. 6Allen and Allen, eds., 2:497. Fantazzi has suggested that when Erasmus changed Vives' name (in the 1519 edition of Farrago) to the fictional Pollio in a 1521 edition of his letters (Epistolae ad Diversos) he seemed to be regretting his earlier unflattering comment (Fantazzi, 165; see also 175, n. 4). 7Allen and Allen, 3:927, Introduction. 8See Watson, Les relacions, 17, n. 2; Vocht, 1, n. 1; Fantazzi, 165, n. 4; Beauchamp, Hageman, and Mikesell, eds., xx. 9Watson, Les relacions, 17, n. 2. For supporters of Vives' 1517 visit to England, see Vocht, 1, n. 1. 10Vocht, 1, n. 2. Vives probably did not meet Erasmus until the summer of 1516 at Bruges (Noreña, 79, n. 21). 11Allen and Allen, 4: no. 1106, 266 – 9. 12Noreña, 105; Beauchamp, Hageman, and Mikesell, xx. 13Chambers, 174 – 5. We know More met Erasmus both at Calais and Bruges. The next year both would meet for the last time at Bruges. 14Marc'hadour, 108, has claimed that Vives and Erasmus were with the Emperor. In a letter sent to the latter in March or April of 1520, More writes about the next meeting of the kings at Calais and invites Erasmus to go. He also sends his best wishes to Vives (Allen and Allen, 4: no. 1087). In the letter of 26 May 1520, More again reveals his wishes to meet Erasmus at Calais (Allen and Allen, 4: no. 1106). IJsewijn made the comment on Vives and More's possible roles as interpreters at a colloquium on editing the Cranevelt letters, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 24 September 1993. See also IJsewijn, 82 – 100. 15Jiménez Delgado, ed. and trans., 46. 16Noreña, 105, n. 15. 17Vocht, 2. 18Allen and Allen, 4: no. 1087. 19Ibid., 4:266 – 9, no. 1106. The English translation is from Watson, "A Friend of Sir Thomas More," 541. Watson wrongly dates the later on 11 June 1519. 20More's generous reference to In Pseudo-Dialecticos shows how he saw many similarities between his own work and the Spaniard's. Fantazzi claims that in fact, More "with his customary irony, intimates that the young rhetorician had emulated his own style too closely without acknowledging it". More writes that "not only did we assert the same thing but also in almost the same words" (Fantazzi, 170). 21Erasmus had written the introduction to this book, which consisted of five Ciceronian-like speeches about the Roman Sulla. 22These three works are mentioned explicitly in the letter. 23Watson, Les relacions, 9 – 10. More might also know another work by Vives, his Meditationes in septem salmos qui vocant poenitentiae (1918). He liked to recite them (73), as much as More did. 24Allen, and Allen, 4: no. 1129, see also no. 1130. 25Jiménez Delgado, no. 35, 225 – 6. Also in Allen and Allen, 2: no. 1222. The letter to More mentioned by Vives is not preserved. In his Preface to the Commentaries on the City of God, Vives recollects this meeting (Riber, 60). 26Beauchamp, Hageman, and Mikesell, xxi. 27Bonilla y San Martín, 107, shares this same opinion. 28Riber, 1:839. 29Vocht, 2. 30Watson, Les relacions, 11; Bonilla y San Martín, 106. 31Watson, Les relacions, 12. 32Bonilla y San Martín, 107; Riber, 1:57. 33In Vives' referred letter to Erasmus (10 July 1521) he says: "Tengo ya preparados seis libros, es decir, revisados" (Jiménez Delgado, 226). 34López de Estrada, 19. 35Watson, "A Friend of Sir Thomas More," 542 – 3. 36Book II, ch. VII. The first edition of Vives' text is 1522 (López de Estrada, 19). 37Vocht, 3 – 4, has convincingly refuted the opinion held by some that Vives visited England in September 1522. This theory sprang from a letter sent by Vives to Erasmus (15 August 1522) in which he talks about his plans of going to England. 38Vocht, 1 – 60. 39Ibid., 6. 40Watson, Les relacions, 39. 41"Letter to Cristóbal Miranda" (Jiménez Delgado, no. 63, 317 – 18). The editor places the letter in Oxford, but Noreña assumes it was written in London (106 – 7). The letter is also in Riber, 1:1721 – 2. According to Watson (Les relacions, 209), Vives' dingy room was either in Tower Street or in Tower Hill. Vocht points to the neighbourhood of Tower Wharf (13, n. 4). 42Too often it is stated that Vives frequented the Mores' Chelsea household during his first visit; see Watson, Les relacions, 233; Bonilla y San Martín, 179; Vocht, 6 – 7, n. 5; Riber, 1:83; López de Estrada, 20 – 1. More did not buy the Chelsea estate until 1524. 43Vocht, 7; Noreña, 107. 44Vocht, 28. 45Noreña, 119 – 20. 46Vocht, 13, n. 4. 47Ibid., 13; Beauchamp, Hageman, and Mikesell, xxvii. 48Paul, 66. 49Vocht, 19. 50Ibid. 51Beauchamp, Hageman, and Mikesell, xxx. 52Ibid., xxxiii. 53Paul, 65. 54Noreña, 122. 55"Letter to Cranevelt" (Jiménez Delgado, n. 96, 401 – 2). 56"Letter to Erasmus" (Jiménez Delgado, n. 107, 424 – 5); "Letter to Cranevelt" (Jiménez Delgado, n. 108, 426 – 8). 57Vocht, 21. 58Jiménez Delgado, 431. 59Noreña seems to suggest so (127). 60The possibility of still another visit to England is analysed by Vocht, 43 – 58. 61Letter 142 (Jiménez Delgado, 516). 62We may infer this from Erasmus' account of More's children in his letter to Budé (September 1521). 63For the letters, see Allen and Allen, 5: no. 1404; 8: no. 2212, no. 2233. For the relationship between Margaret and Erasmus, see Castelli; Reynolds, 53 – 6. 64Watson, Les relacions, 25, 236. 65Riber, 1:839 – 53. 66Ibid., 1:839. Watson's translation ("A Friend of Sir Thomas More," 543). 67Margaret Giggs is also mentioned. John is not. 68Riber, 1:1000. English translation by Watson ("A Friend of Sir Thomas More," 546 – 7). 69Riber, 1:126. 70McCutcheon, 452. It is said that Margaret and one of her sisters discussed philosophy before King Henry VIII (McCutcheon, 453). 71Gee, 263; Reynolds, 14. 72Reynolds, 13. 73Rogers, ed., The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, 255. "Though I earnestly hope that you will devote the rest of your life to medical science and sacred literature" (Rogers, Selected Letters, 149). More's own interest in medicine might be explained in the light of Erasmus' Declamatio in laudem artis medicae (1518), a text in which he drew explicit links between this discipline and Christian life; the good Samaritan and Christ, as the Healer of souls, are relevant in this sense (Erasmus, 1989). 74Travill. 75Thomas Linacre (ca. 1460 – 1524) founded and was the first President of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 76Jiménez Delgado, 286. 77Travill, 59. 78Riber, 1:1135. 79Cresacre More, 59; Stapleton, 67. 80Watson, Les relacions, 551. 81Vives, 95, 5 – 9. 82This is an interesting coincidence: three women (Margaret Giggs included) of the same age and with the same name. 83Noreña, 17. 86Quoted from Bayne, 14. The preface (1529), in the form of dedicatory letter to Queen Catherine, was included only in the first three editions of Hyrde's translation (Bayne, 8). 84Watson, Les relacions, 239. 85The translation was first published by Thomas Berthelet, who issued four more editions up until 1541. Another five were published by other printers (1547, 1557, 1567?, 1585 and 1592) (Bayne, 8). 89Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, 302. "Content then with the approbation of your conscience, in your modesty you do not seek for the praise of the public, nor value it over much even if you do receive it, but because of the great love you bear us, that is your husband and myself, as a sufficiently large circle of readers for all that you write" (Rogers, Selected Letters, 155). 87Fantazzi, ed. and trans., in Vives, De Institutione Feminae Christianae, 1:xvii. 88McCutcheon, "Margaret More Roper," 460; "Margaret More Roper's Translation," 659. 90Tournoy. 91Watson, "A Friend of Sir Thomas More," 548. 92Ibid. 93Ibid., 543. Cresacre More's words in The Life of Sir Thomas More, 154, 158. 94Stapleton, 107. 95Reynolds, 36. 96Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, letter no. 108. 97Riber, 1:459 – 84

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