Thomas Elyot
Thomas Elyot | |
---|---|
Born | c. 1496 |
Died | 26 March 1546 (aged 49–50) |
Occupation(s) | Author Diplomat |
Spouse | Margaret à Barrow |
Parents |
|
Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 1496 – 26 March 1546) was an English diplomat and scholar. He is best known as one of the first proponents of the use of the English language for literary purposes.
Early life
Thomas was the child of Sir Richard Elyot's first marriage with Alice De la Mare, but neither the date nor place of his birth is accurately known. Alice's first husband Thomas Dabridgecourt had died 10 Oct 1495 so this next marriage has to follow that date.
Career
In 1511 he accompanied his father on the western circuit as clerk to the
In 1531 he received instructions to proceed to the court of
He was one of the commissioners in the inquiry instituted by Cromwell prior to the suppression of the
From 1539 to 1542 he represented the borough of Cambridge in parliament. He had purchased from Cromwell the manor of Carleton in Cambridgeshire, where he died.[2]
Private life
He married Margaret à Barrow, described as a student in the "school" of Sir Thomas More.[4] He had no children.
Scholarship
Elyot received little reward for his services to the state, but his scholarship and his books were held in high esteem by his contemporaries.[2]
Elyot was a supporter of the humanists' ideas concerning the education of women; writing in support of learned women, he published the Defence of Good Women. In this writing he supported Thomas More and other humanist authors' ideals of educated wives who would be able to provide intellectual companionship for their husbands and educated moral training for their children.[citation needed]
In 1531 he produced
As a prose writer, Elyot enriched the English language with many new words. In 1536 he published The Castel of Helth, a popular treatise on medicine, intended to place a scientific knowledge of the art within the reach of those unacquainted with Greek. This work, though scoffed at by the faculty, was appreciated by the general public, and speedily went through seventeen editions. His Latin Dictionary, the earliest comprehensive dictionary of the language, was completed in 1538. The copy of the first edition in the British Museum contains an autograph letter from Elyot to Cromwell, to whom it originally belonged. It was edited and enlarged in 1548 by Thomas Cooper, Bishop of Winchester, who called it Bibliotheca Eliotae, and it formed the basis in 1565 of Cooper's Thesaurus linguae Romanae et Britannicae.[2]
His Image of Governance, compiled of the Actes and Sentences notable of the most noble Emperor
He was violently attacked by Humphrey Hody and later by William Wotton for putting forward a pseudo-translation but Henry Herbert Stephen Croft (1842–1923) later discovered that there was a Neapolitan gentleman at that time bearing the name of Poderico, or, Latinized, Pudericus, with whom Elyot may well have been acquainted. Roger Ascham mentions his De rebus memorabilibus Angliae and William Webbe quotes a few lines of a lost translation of the Ars Poetica of Horace.[2]
Select list of Elyot's translations
- The Doctrinal of Princes (1533?), from Isocrates
- Cyprianus, A Swete and Devoute Sermon of Holy Saynt Ciprian of the Mortalitie of Man (1534)
- Rules of a Christian Life (1534), from Pico della Mirandola
- The Education or Bringing up of Children (c. 1535), from Plutarch
- Howe one may take Profite of his Enymes (1535), from the same author is generally attributed to him.
He also wrote:
- The Boke named the Governour (1531)
- The Knowledge which maketh a Wise Man and Pasquyll the Playne (1533)
- The Bankette of Sapience (1534), a collection of moral sayings
- The Castel of Helth (1536)
- The Dictionary of syr Thomas Eliot knyght (1538). Enlarged second edition, 1542; reprinted 1545
- The Defence of Good Women (1540), a eulogy of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra.[5]
- Preservative agaynste Deth (1545), which contains many quotations from the Church Fathers
Notes
- ^ Cooper is followed by "Elyot, Thomas (ELT507T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Raymond Wilson Chambers (1935), Thomas More, London: Cape.
- ^ Stapleton, Vita Thomae Mori, p. 59, ed. 1558
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8782. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Elyot, Sir Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 303. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Raymond Wilson Chambers (1935), Thomas More, London: Cape.
External links
- Carlton-cum-Willingham
- Tudorplace
- The Boke named The Governour at Renascence Editions
- Querelle – Thomas Elyot (Querelle.ca is a website devoted to the works of authors contributing to the pro-woman side of the querelle des femmes)