Thomas Allen (mathematician)

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Thomas Allen, 18th-century engraving by James Bretherton

Thomas Allen (or Alleyn) (21 December 1542 – 30 September 1632) was an English mathematician and

astrologer. Highly reputed in his lifetime, he published little, but was an active private teacher of mathematics. He was also well connected in the English intellectual networks of the period.[1]

Early life

He was born in

Gloucester Hall.[1] He became known for his knowledge of antiquity, philosophy, and mathematics.[2]

At Gloucester Hall

Gloucester Hall suited Allen, a sympathiser at least with

Catholicism, because there was no stringent religious observance required there; indeed there was no chapel in the Hall.[3] Allen's beliefs have been classified as "church papist", but also his posture as "crypto-Catholic": a Catholic faith combined with outward conformity to the Church of England.[4][5] He joined there his friends Edmund Reynolds, Miles Windsor, and George Napper, who had also left their colleges at a time of increasing religious tensions on Oxford; Napper was to be a Catholic martyr. Trinity shed six more of its Fellows within a few years.[6][7]

Allen encouraged other scholars to migrate there, such as John Budden[8] and William Burton.[9] He had a wide range of pupils and followers: Kenelm Digby[3] and Brian Twyne[10] in natural philosophy, with Theodore Haak coming later.[11] The mathematical school of Allen included Thomas Harriot and Walter Warner,[12] and Sir John Davies (to whom Allen taught Catholic doctrine).[13]

Mathematical geography was an important topical subject in which Allen was reputed, pursued by several groups in England, including another around

Camden Chair of Ancient History was being set up in the early 1620s, Allen successfully supported the candidacy of Degory Wheare with William Camden; and a few years later, in 1626, Wheare came to Gloucester Hall as Principal.[17]

Allen died at Gloucester Hall.

Other associations

Allen corresponded with

Sir Robert Cotton, William Camden, and their antiquarian associates.[2] He pointed out the historian Æthelweard (Fabius Quaestor) to Camden.[18]

Astrologer

Allen was noted as astrologer to

Sir Thomas Pope, the founder of Trinity College, Oxford.[20]

There is a surviving 62-page horoscope cast for the teenage Philip Sidney in the Ashmole manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, in the period 1570–2 when he was studying at Oxford, where Leicester was Chancellor, and it has been attributed to Allen; the case has also been made that it was by Dee. A link between the two is that Edward Kelley is said to have worked briefly for Allen.[21][22] Allen definitely cast a natal horoscope for Robert Pierrepont (1584), and cast also for William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, a later Chancellor of Oxford, in 1626.[23]

Reputation

Allen's skill in mathematics and astrology earned him the credit of being a

atheists, in a series of claims that Leicester found physicians and other lackeys for his evil-doing at Oxford and elsewhere.[25]

After his death, funeral orations praising Allen were given by William Burton and George Bathurst (1610–1644).[26][27] Burton's retailed the story of how Leicester had offered a bishopric to Allen, who declined the offer. Allen in fact was, by choice, not in holy orders.[28]

Works

He wrote a Latin commentary on the second and third books of

Claudius Ptolemy of Pelusium, Concerning the Judgment of the Stars, or, as it is commonly called, Of the Quadripartite Construction, with an Exposition. He also wrote notes on John Bale's De Scriptoribus M. Britanniae.[2]

Library and legacy

Allen collected manuscripts relating to history, antiquity, astronomy and astrology, philosophy, and mathematics. At least 250 items from his library can still be traced.[1] He also acquired manuscripts from dissolved monasteries, such as Reading Abbey, for which his sources may have been Gerbrand Harkes, the Protestant dealer, and Clement Burdett.[29] While in Allen's possession, most of his manuscripts were unbound or had simple covers.[30]

A considerable part of Allen's collection was presented to the

Giraldus Cambrensis via Johannes Rossus.[32]

Notes

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/387. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ a b c d e  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Allen, Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 692.
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7629. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ^ Foster, p. 99.
  5. ^ Library, Bodleian (1999). The Bodleian Library record. University Press. p. 381. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
  6. ^ Foster, p. 104.
  7. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ven. George Napper" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  8. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3882. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  9. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4142. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  10. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27924. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  11. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11827. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  12. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14045. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  13. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7242. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  14. ^
    ISBN 978-0-226-11606-8
    . Retrieved 17 April 2012.
  15. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12865. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  16. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10221. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  17. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29180. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  18. ^ philological.bham.ac.uk, Camden, English-Saxons.
  19. ^ A. L. Rowse, Simon Forman: Sex and Society in Shakespeare's Age (1974), p. 7.
  20. ^ Foster, p. 120.
  21. ^ Katherine Duncan-Jones, Sir Philip Sidney, Courtier Poet (1991), pp. 50–1.
  22. ^ Peter J. French, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus, p. 129 note 4, and p. 113 note 2.
  23. ^ Foster, p. 124.
  24. ^ Hugh Trevor-Roper, Archbishop Laud (2000), p. 62.
  25. ^ Frank J. Burgoyne, History of Queen Elizabeth, Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester being a reprint of "Leycesters commonwealth", 1641 (1904), pp. 99–100; archive.org.
  26. ^ "Allen, Thomas (1542–1632)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  27. ^ Society, Royal (1973). Notes and records of the Royal Society. Royal Society of London. p. 194. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  28. ^ Forster, p. 127.
  29. ISBN 978-0-19-820756-6
    . Retrieved 17 April 2012.
  30. ^ "Thomas ALLEN 1540?-1632". Book Owners Online. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
  31. ISBN 978-1-84384-151-7
    . Retrieved 17 April 2012.
  32. ^ Charles Richard Elrington The Whole Works of the Most. Rev. James Ussher D.D. vol. 15 (1864), pp. 5–18; archive.org.

References

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