Description
Book SynopsisThis book highlights the famous ‘Athenian tribe’: a group of humanist scholars in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, who resolved many difficult problems concerning the Tudor succession, diplomacy, and the English Church. They included Sir John Cheke as their early leader, and with him, Roger Ascham, Thomas Smith, and John Ponet. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s invaluable chief minister, was the most influential of them all. The Cambridge Connection explores the interdependency of scholarship, politics, and religion in the sixteenth century. The ‘Athenian tribe’ was essential to the shaping of mid-Tudor cultural life. They left a lasting imprint on early modern England.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Susan Wabuda Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Introduction The Cambridge Connection in Tudor Politics, Religion and Learning Susan Wabuda and John F. McDiarmid Part 1 The Starting Point for the Athenians: Classical Rhetoric and Its Tudor Applications 1 Perfecting Eloquence, Perfecting England The Pattern of Cambridge Humanist Thought John F. McDiarmid 2 Disputed Sounds Thomas Smith on the Pronunciation of Ancient Greek – Representing the Evanescent in Sound and Image Richard Simpson 3 John Cheke’s Greek Scholarship in Translation Andrew W. Taylor Part 2 Cambridge Humanists and the English Reformation 4 `We Walk as Pilgrims’ Agnes Cheke and Cambridge, c. 1500–1549 Susan Wabuda 5 New Perspectives on Cambridge’s Role in the Religious Reformation Roger Ascham and the Early Edwardian Religious Debates at the University Lucy Rachel Nicholas 6 The Cambridge Connection and the ‘Strangeness’ of Italian Reformers, 1547–1556 M. Anne Overell Part 3 Cambridge Humanists and the Polity 7 ‘Commonweal Men’ and the Government of Mid–Tudor England Alan Bryson 8 Civil Instruction Ordering the Godly Commonweal in John Cheke’s Marital Correspondence Cathy Shrank 9 The Cambridge Connection and the Shaping of the Elizabethan State Norman Jones 10 The Cambridge Connection and the Early Elizabethan Diplomatic Corps Tracey A. Sowerby 11 A Continuing Connection The Cambridge group and the University of Cambridge, c. 1547–1598 Ceri Law 12 The End of the Cambridge Connection Glyn Parry Index
