eye of Fitzjames, and that the college existed on lands it held in perpetual
lease from Merton can only be thought to have added insult to any
pedagogical injury.^18 Foxe, a friend of the new learning, also certainly
had no time for heresy, and while humanist enterprises such as Linacre’s
edition of Galen were dedicated to him, so too was Fisher’s De veritate
Corporis et Sanguis Christi in Eucharistia adversus Johannem
Oecolampadium.^19 Whatever Morwen’s reservations about Jewel’s
theology, the president’s affections seemed to have gotten the better of
him, for Jewel prospered in his new home, and by 1542 he was made a
probationary fellow. The continuance of his studies was underwritten by
Parkhurst, suggesting that his original patrons had not been well pleased
in his course of studies.
In 1544, though the precise date was not recorded, Jewel received his
MA and was made a fellow of the college. Humphrey lists as his favorite
authors Horace, Cicero (whose Latin style he sought to imitate),
Suetonius, Livy, Polybius and his own near contemporary, Sabellico.^20
Many of the classical authors Foxe had himself prescribed for the
members of the college, and even though he left two copies of Jewel’s
favorite author, Horace, to the library, Foxe had never commended him.
Jewel tutored students in Greek and Latin, Humphrey relating how one
student, who apparently was linked to the vicar of St Peter’s Oxford,
Robert Serlsus, was warned away from Jewel as the study of Greek was
identified by many with heresy.^21 Nonetheless, Jewel’s university days
during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI granted him more than
a modicum of otiosity (inspired by Demosthenes, Jewel would walk
through the woods, practicing his voice and facial mannerisms),^22 but it
was not till after Henry VIII’s death that Jewel would gain a greater
measure of notoriety and the advancement that an aspiring Oxford cleric
sought. Parkhurst for his part sought preferment, and would eventually
give up his post at Merton to assume the well-endowed living at Cleeve
Episcopi in Gloucestershire, or as Jewel would later term it, his
JEWEL TILL 1558 11
(^18) Corpus Christi retained the use of the Merton facilities, it seems in perpetuity, for £
a year. Martin, Merton, pp. 146–47.
(^19) Thomas Fowler, The History of Corpus Christi College with lists of its members
(Oxford, 1893), pp. 23, 25.
(^20) Jewel’s copy of Sabellico’s Enneades, is still at Magdalen College. Cf. Neil Ker, ‘The
Library of John Jewel’, The Bodleian Library Record, IX no. 5 (1977), pp. 256–65, p. 261,
shelf marks Q.18.4,5. He also had access to a copy at Merton College; see Ruth Chavasse,
‘The reception of humanist historiography in northern Europe: M.A. Sabellico and John
Jewel’,Renaissance Studies2.2 (1988), p. 332.
(^21) Humphrey, Vita Iuelli, p. 27.
(^22) Ibid., pp. 24–28.