the end of 1554.^123 Such circumstances may have provided the
environment in which Jewel would have, exercising all candor and
seriousness, delivered such an address. His last known oration given at
Corpus Christi, upon the occasion of his dismissal, the Ultima Iuelli
Ejecti e Collegio Oratio, implies that his lectures had been somewhat
lacking in the substance his students had been accustomed to hear, or he
to deliver: ‘For when once I resolved to put an end to my lectures, and
perceived that this venue of speaking would be taken away ... I did not
blush, in spite of custom, to lay before you many unpleasant and crude
things. For I saw that I had incurred the offense and gaze of others.’^124
Yet some chronology, difficult in this period as our only source of
information is Humphrey, is a bit confused if this tack is taken.
But the resolution to whether Jewel delivered the Oratio contra
Rhetoricamas ironically or sincerely comes from two factors. The first
is Jewel’s patent use of Erasmus, whose Moriae encomiummust have
been common in Oxford, and the bald borrowing from it would
certainly not have sat well with any traditionalists whom Jewel either
feared or was trying to please. Further, his words quoted from his last
oration lend themselves more to an unprepared state, which the Oratio
Contra Rhetoricamdoes not match. The second element supports the
idea that Jewel delivered this oration as irony is that he gave his last
oration at Corpus Christi upon the occasion of his ejection from the
college in 1553. The manuscripts of the Oratio contra Rhetoricamhave
no date, though the title stated that he was the praelector of the college.
If he did deliver this after Edward’s death then the titles would be wrong
and the circumstances surrounding his giving it would be hard to
establish, for when did he have wards after being expelled from Corpus
Christi? It is the Ultima Juelli ejecti e collegio oratiothat gives us Jewel’s
last oration at Corpus, and, only if the titles are correct on both pieces,
which for the latter seems likely, as it is corroborated by Humphrey,^125
can we then with reasonable certainty affirm that the Oratio contra
Rhetoricamwas delivered at Jewel’s leisure. As it gives every indication
of being so prepared, it would then be what Lewis and Hudson assert,
an oratorical exercise in irony, the subject of the barb being
scholasticism.
The delivery of the Ultima Iuelli Ejecti e Collegio Oratio, a speech
with little value in determining anything substantial in Jewel’s opinions,
JEWEL TILL 1558 35
(^123) Southgate,Problem of Authority, pp. 12–13.
(^124) ‘Cum enim hunc mihi legendi finem statuerem, et has dicendi mensas jamjam tolli
intelligerem, non dubitavi praeter consuetudinem nostram vobis et mutla, et insuavia, et
semicruda proponere. Video enim me in aliquorum offensionem et oculos incurrere.’ Jewel,
Works, IV, p. 1292.
(^125) Humphrey, Vita Iuelli, pp. 74–75, and Jewel, Works, p. 1292.