Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

works by Erasmus and Vives (who was at Oxford in 1523) into Welsh. Many Welshmen were inspired to compose grammars, dictionaries, handbooks on Rhetoric and collections of proverbs among them William Salesbury, Gruffydd Robert, Sion Dafydd Rhys, Henry Salesbury, Henri Perri, John Davies and Thomas Wiliems. It must have been Oxford that opened their eyes to the possibilities in their own language. Words and expression became an important part of learning at Oxford and Welshmen realised that they could serve their vernacular as their fellow-students were serving their own languages English, French and Italian, for example. The emphasis which university studies were now putting on Latin and Greek encouraged the Welsh humanists to recognise the particular quality of the old Welsh classics. And the New Learning offered training for the men of new vocations for example Richard Gwent (who had gained doctorates in Civil and Canon Law by 1525 and who had been elected chief moderator of the Canon Law school at Oxford) who served Wolsey as so many other promising graduates of the period did. And ideas of the new gentleman became important. One of the textbooks of the schools and the university, Cicero's De Officiis, greatly influenced the idea of courtesy and many of the dedications prefacing the works of contemporary Welshmen show acquaintance with it. But the sixteenth century witnessed another revolution that of the Protestant Reformation and although neither Oxford nor Cambridge at the start was at the front in the encouragement of Protestantism once the break with Rome came in 1533-1534, both universities (Cambridge more briskly than Oxford) made a substantial contribution to the Reformation. From 1581 on, members of the university were required to subscribe to the teachings of the Church of England. Certainly Oxford nurtured many Welshmen to spread the new teaching and among them a number who were convinced that it was necessary to communicate the 'word' to their fellow-countrymen in their own language William Salesbury, Richard Davies, Thomas Huet, Huw Lewys, Edward James, Richard Parry and John Davies among them. Many Welshmen must have left their lectures on classical literature, the Law and Philisophy to see Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester burned at the stake 'in the Towne Ditch, over against Balliol College'. They may have heard the words: