Everard Digby (scholar)

Last updated

Everard Digby (born c. 1550) was an English academic theologian, expelled as a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge for reasons that were largely religious. He is known as the author of a 1587 book, written in Latin, that was the first work published in England on swimming; and also as a philosophical teacher, writer and controversialist. The swimming book, De Arte Natandi, was a practical treatise following a trend begun by the archery book Toxophilus of Roger Ascham, of Digby's own college. [1]

Contents

According to Eugene D. Hill, in Digby's Theoria Analytica of 1579,

his intuition of many 'mysteries' in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics leads him to develop a theory which conflates technical logic with a vast mass of Neoplatonic and Cabalistic lore taken (not always with acknowledgement) from Ficino's translation of Plotinus and from the Cabalistic dialogues of Johannes Reuchlin. [2]

Life

Illustration from De arte natandi De arte natandi libri duo Wellcome L0069798.jpg
Illustration from De arte natandi
Illustration from De arte natandi De arte natandi libri duo Wellcome L0069796.jpg
Illustration from De arte natandi

Born about 1550, he matriculated as a sizar of St John's College, Cambridge, 25 October 1567; was admitted a scholar 9 November 1570; proceeded B. A. 1570–1, M.A. 1574, and B.D. 1581; and became a Lady Margaret fellow on 12 March 1572–3, and senior fellow 10 July 1585. [3] He was principal lecturer in 1584. Digby took part in the college performance of Thomas Legge's Richardus Tertius in 1580. [4]

Before the end of 1587 he was deprived of his fellowship. In a letter to chancellor of the university Lord Burghley, William Whitaker, master of St John's College (4 April 1588), explained that this step had been rendered necessary by Digby's arrears with the college steward. He added that Digby had preached voluntary poverty, a 'popish position,' at St Mary's; had attacked Calvinists as schismatics; was in the habit of blowing a horn and hallooing in the college during the daytime, and repeatedly spoke of the master to the scholars with the greatest disrespect. Burghley and John Whitgift ordered Digby's restitution; but Whitaker stood firm, and with the support of the Earl of Leicester obtained confirmation of the expulsion. [4]

Writings and controversy

Digby's best known book is a treatise on swimming, the earliest published in England. [5] De Arte Natandi is illustrated with plates, [6] and was translated into English by Christopher Middleton in 1595 [4] as A Short Introduction for to Learne to Swimme. This biomechanics of swimming is considered the best swimming book for over 300 years. It deals with the specific weight of objects and humans. [7]

Digby also wrote a work against Ramism [8] and his own system, Theoria analytica, [9] dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton, 1579. William Temple of King's College, Cambridge, wrote, under the pseudonym of Franciscus Mildapettus, an attack on Digby's criticism of Petrus Ramus, to which Digby replied in 1580. Temple replied again in 1581. [4]

As the productions of a predecessor of Francis Bacon, Digby's two philosophical books are notable, although clumsy in expression and overlaid with scholastic subtleties. Digby tried in his Theoria Analytica to classify the sciences, and elsewhere ventures on a theory of perception based on the notion of the active correspondence of mind and matter. Otherwise Digby is a disciple of Aristotle. [4]

Digby was also author of Everard Digbie, his Dissuasive from taking away the Lyvings and Goods of the Church, with Celsus of Verona, his Dissuasive, translated into English, London, 1589, dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton. [4]

Notes

  1. Lawrence V. Ryan, Roger Ascham (1963), p. 59.
  2. A. C. Hamilton (editor), The Spenser Encyclopedia (1997), p. 219.
  3. "Digby, Everard (DGBY567E)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Digby, Everard (fl.1590)"  . Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  5. The title runs: De Arte Natandi libri duo, quorum prior regulas ipsius artis, posterior vero praxin demonstrationemque continet, Lond. 1587, dedicated to Richard Nourtley.
  6. "Everard Digby, de arte natandi libri duo (London: Thomas Dawson, 1587). | StJohns".
  7. Arnd Krüger: Swimming and the Emergence of Modern Spirit, in: John McClelland & Brian Merrilees (eds.): Sport and Culture in Early Modern Europe. Toronto: Center of Reformation and Renaissance Studies 2007, pp. 407–430
  8. De Duplici methodo libri duo, unicam P. Rami methodum refutantes: in quibus via plana, expedita & exacta., secundum optimos autores, ad scientiarum cognitionem elucidatur, London, Henry Bynneman, 1580.
  9. Theoria analytica viam ad monarchiam scientiarum demonstrans . . . totius Philosophiae & reliquarum scientiarum

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Neile</span> Archbishop of York

Richard Neile was an English churchman, bishop successively of six English dioceses, more than any other man, including the Archdiocese of York from 1631 until his death. He was involved in the last burning at the stake for heresy in England, that of the Arian Edward Wightman in 1612.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Wade (English politician)</span> 16th/17th-century English statesman

Sir William Wade was an English statesman and diplomat, and Lieutenant of the Tower of London.

Events from the 1580s in England.

Peter Baro (1534–1599) was a French Huguenot minister, ordained by John Calvin, but later in England a critic of some Calvinist theological positions. His views in relation to the Lambeth Articles cost him his position as Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. He was a forerunner of views, to be called Arminian or Laudian, more common a generation later in England.

Anthony Wotton was an English clergyman and controversialist, of Puritan views. He was the first Gresham Professor of Divinity. Christopher Hill describes him as a Modernist and Ramist.

Sir William Temple (1555–1627) was an English Ramist logician and fourth Provost of Trinity College Dublin.

Christopher Middleton was an English poet and translator.

Thomas Newton was an English clergyman, poet, author and translator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset</span> English politician

Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset (1561–1609) was an English aristocrat and politician, with humanist and commercial interests.

Richard Clayton was an English churchman and academic, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and St John's College, Cambridge and Dean of Peterborough.

Edward Grant was an English classical scholar, Latin poet, and headmaster of Westminster School. He was also the first biographer of Roger Ascham.

Arthur Hall (1539–1605) was an English Member of Parliament, courtier and translator. According to J. E. Neale a "reprobate", who gained notoriety by his excesses, he was several times in serious trouble with Parliament itself, and among the accusations in a privilege case was his attitude to Magna Carta. What were his incidental attacks on the antiquity of the institution were taken seriously, a generation later, by Sir Edward Coke, as undermining Parliament by "derogation". He produced the first substantial translation of The Iliad into English.

Bartholomew Clerke (1537?–1590) was an English jurist, politician and diplomat. He became Dean of the Arches and a contemporary of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Sir Edward Stafford was an English Member of Parliament, courtier, and diplomat to France during the time of Queen Elizabeth I.

Sir Hercules Underhill (1581–1658) was the son of William Underhill of Warwickshire, owner of New Place in Stratford-Upon-Avon. William Underhill sold New Place to William Shakespeare in 1597, and Hercules Underhill confirmed the sale in 1602.

Timothie Bright, M.D. (1551?–1615) was an English physician and clergyman, the inventor of modern shorthand.

Thomas Hyde (1524–1597), was an English Roman Catholic academic, teacher, priest and exile.

Fernão de Oliveira, sometimes named Fernando de Oliveira or Fernando Oliveira, was a Portuguese grammarian, Dominican friar, historian, cartographer, naval pilot and theorist on naval warfare and shipbuilding. An adventurous humanist and renaissance man, he studied and published the first grammar of the Portuguese language, the Grammatica da lingoagem portuguesa, in 1536. He was an early critic of slavery and the slave trade.

Thomas Braddock or Bradock was an Anglican clergyman of the 16th century, Headmaster of Reading School from 1588 to 1589 and a translator into Latin.

John Phillips was an English writer and poet.

References