Leonard Coxe and the Erasmian Circles in Poland

Henryk Stanisław Zins Leonard Coxe and the Erasmian Circles in Poland Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska. Sectio F, Nauki Filozoficzne i Humanistyczne 28, 153-180 1973 An Na l ë S UNI VERSITATIS MARIAE CU R I E- SK ŁODOWS KA LUBLIN —POLONIA VOL. XXVIII, 8 SECTIO F 1973 I n s ty tu t F ilo lo g ii A n g ielsk ie j W y d ziału H u m a n isty c z n e g o UM CS Henryk ZINS Leonard Сохе and the Erasmian Circles in Poland Leonard Сохе i erazmiańskie kręgi w Polsce Леонард Кокс и эразмианские круги в Польше Peregrinations with the aim of acquiring knowledge of the world and science were characteristic of the Renaissance era. The slogan read: Peregrinato sit melioris otii magistra, civilium morum consüiatrix, vare sapientiae procreatrix [...].1 These humanistic journeys abroad were as K. Hartleb 12 described, „the true source of knowledge and the best way of acquiring comprehensive knowledge, the school of political and social life in other words — the sure and unfailing means of multiplying cultu ral resources”. Peregrinations were supposed to serve the development of three factors: prudentiae, scientiae, morum, and were the necessary ele ment of humanistic education. The peregrinations of Poles to Italy, the Netherlands, German and Swiss countries, France or Bohemia, during the Renaissance era, as well as their relations with Erasmus of Rotterdam and other outstanding re presentatives of humanistic learning are relatively well known. Nume rous studies on this subject rather comprehensively explained to which centres in the West Poles mainly travelled, where they studied and even 1 K. H a r t l e b : Polskie dzienniki podróży w XVI w. jako źródło do współ czesnej kultury (Polish Diaries of the XVIth Century as a Historical Source), Lwów 1920, p. 11; S. К о t: Polska złotego wieku wobec kultury zachodniej (Poland of the Golden Age and the Western Civilization) [in:] Kultura staropolska, Kraków 1932. 2 H a r 11 e b: op. cit., p. 13. 154 Henryk Żinś how many of them. We are much less informed about the influence of the Polish scholars and their scientific works on Western Europe.3 The less known aspects of the above mentioned problem are cultural relations between Poland and England, the knowledge of which does not exceed the information contained in the introductory works by S. K o t4, W. Borowy 5*, or U. Szumska e. The vicissitudes of Leonard Coxe, an English humanist, may serve as an interesting example of humanistic peregrinations and at the same time they are an important contribution to the cultural relations between Poland and England in the Renaissance era. The up to date state of the research on him, also proves the unsatisfactory knowledge of Polish-English relations in that time. The very few remarks about this hu manist, which are to be found in the works of English historians, are full of mistakes, contain obscure passages and besides, completely ignore his connections with Poland. So therefore, the biographer of Erasmus of Rotterdam would be partially right, when he wrote that Coxe became more eminent in foreign countries than at home 7, if not the fact that as well in the English historiography as in foreign studies concerning the Renaissance era Leonard Coxe is not mentioned as a rule. In Polish lite rature little attention was payed to this English Erasmian with the 3 For the general background of Polish history in the first half of the XVIth century see: A. G i e y s z t o r , S. K i e n i e w i c z , E. R o s t w o r o w s k i , J. T a z b i r , H. W e r e s z y c k i : History of Poland, Warszawa 1968; The Cambridge Histo ry of Poland to 1696, Cambridge 1950; Poland the Land of Copernicus, Wroclaw 1973; C. M i l o s z : The History of Polish Literature, London 1969; Polska w epoce Odrodzenia (Poland in the Age of Renaissance), ed. A. W у c z a ή s к i, Warszawa 1970; Z. W o j c i e c h o w s k i : Zygmunt Stary (King Sigismund the Old), Warsza wa 1946. 4 S. К o t: Anglo-polonica. Angielskie źródła rękopiśmienne do dziejów sto sunków kulturalnych Polski z Anglią (English Manuscript Sources for the Cultural Relations between Poland and England), „Nauka Polska”, vol. 20, Warszawa 1935. 5 W. B o r o w y : Anglo-polonica. Wiadomości o nieukończonej pracy i znisz czonych materiałach (Information about an Unfinished Work and Lost Materials), „Sprawozdania Towarzystwa Naukowego Warszawskiego”, Wydział II, 1946. See also W. B o r o w y : Studia i rozprawy (Studies and Articles), vol. 2, Wrocław 1952, pp. 360—371, where his numerous articles on Anglo-Polish relations are listed. • U. S z u m s к a: Anglia a Polska w epoce Humanizmu i Reformacji (England and Poland in the Age of Humanism and Reformation), Lwów 1938. See also J. J a sn o w s k i : England and Poland in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, Oxford 1948, and H. Z i n s : Anglia i Anglicy wobec Polski w XIV—XVI w. (England and the English towards Poland in the XIVth—XVIth Centuries), Warszawa 1974. For the impact of Copernicus upon England see H. Z i n s : Mikołaj Kopernik w angielskiej kulturze umysłowej epoki Szekspira (Copernicus in the English Intellectual Culture in Shakespeare’s Epoch), Wroclaw 1972. 7 C. W. K n i g h t: Life of Erasmus, p. 229. Leonard Сохе and the Èrasmian Circles in Poland 155 exception of the above mentioned book by U. Szumska and the works of H. Barycz and the paper in the Polish National Biography by S. K o t8. Though, a closer acquaintance with his life and activities shows the important role that Coxe played in English and Polish cultural life in the Renaissance era and his connections with Erasmus of Rotterdam, with Melanchton and a wide circle of the most outstanding Polish Erasmians and prominent persons at the court of King Sigismund I as well as with the people grouped around Thomas Cromwell. As early as in the middle of the XVIth century John Leland, a well known English collector of anti quités and chronicler, in his little known panegyric praised Leonard Coxe’s merits 9: Inclyta Sarmaticae Cracovia gloria gentis Virtutes novit, Сохе diserte, tuas. Novit et eloquii phoenix utriusque Melanchton, Quam te Phoebus amet, pleriusque chorus, Praga tuas cecinit, cecinitque Lutetia laudes, Urbs erga doctos officiosa viras. ' Talia quum constant, genetrix tua propria debet Anglia te simili concelebrare modo. Et faciet, nam me cantantem nuper adorta, Hoc ipsum jussit significare tibi. This paper attempts to reconstruct Leonard Coxe’s biography to 1527 and to evaluate his ties with Poland. It is also an announcement of a wider study on Polish-English relations in the Renaissance era, now in pre paration. Leonard Coxe’s surname is spelled, in historical sources, in different ways, as Cox, Coxe, Cockes, Cokkes. Usually this name was spelled Cox or Coxe. The latter form was used in Henry VIII charter of 10.11.1541 which appointed this English humanist a headmaster in Reading.10 In the first edition of his rhetorics he is called Cox, but in the second Cocke (...truncated)