worked in France, the Netherlands, and England in the
early 16th century, wrote treatises on education, including
the education of women and the poorer classes. In Ger-
many the Reformation led to the foundation of many new
primary and secondary schools. MELANCHTHONand BU-
GENHAGENwere responsible for a complete reorganization
of the system. Religious instruction and the teaching of
reading and writing were done for the first time in the
German language. The work was divided into stages, and
the pupils had to master the work of each before passing
to the next.
The Counter-Reformation movement in the Roman
Church also produced many new schools and teaching or-
ders such as the PIARISTS. The JESUITS, following the peda-
gogic precepts of their founder, IGNATIUS LOYOLA,
maintained a very rigid educational system, primarily in-
tended for the training of the clergy, but very influential
too in the education of laymen. Whatever utilitarian pur-
poses may have been served incidentally by their systems
of education, the preceptors of the Renaissance period
never lost sight of their highest ideals, the pursuit of
knowledge and the attainment of virtue.
See also: UNIVERSITIES
Further reading: Craig W. Kallendorf (ed.), Humanist
Educational Treatises (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 2002); Nicholas Orme, Education and Society in
Medieval and Renaissance England (London: Hambledon,
1989); Joan Simon, Education and Society in Tudor England
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1966).
Edward VI (1537–1553) King of England and Ireland
(1547–53)
The son of HENRY VIIIand his third wife, Jane Seymour,
Edward was intelligent and well educated. He succeeded
to the throne under the regency of his uncle, Edward Sey-
mour, Duke of Somerset, but by the end of 1549 John
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, had supplanted Somer-
set. Edward was brought up to support the Protestant
cause, and during his reign Cranmer’s BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYER (1549) and the Forty-two Articles of Religion
(1553) were published. Shortly before his death Edward
was persuaded by Northumberland to exclude his half-
sisters Mary and Elizabeth from the succession in favor of
his cousin, Lady Jane GREY, Northumberland’s daughter-
in-law.
Further reading: Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Boy
King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 2001).
Egas, Enrique de (c. 1445–c. 1534) Spanish architect
He was probably born at Toledo, where his father Egas
(died 1495) and uncle Hanequin (died c. 1475) were as-
sociated with work on the cathedral. Although Enrique
and his brother Anton adopted the name of their father as
their family name, it seems likely that the family was an
offshoot of a well-known Brussels family of masons called
Coeman. Enrique became cathedral architect at Toledo
(c. 1498) before moving to Granada, where he designed
the chapel royal (1506) and the cathedral (1521), al-
though the latter was remodeled and completed by Diego
de SILOE. Although he worked mainly in the PLATERESQUE
style, Enrique was not unaware of Italian Renaissance de-
velopments. He also designed buildings in Valladolid and
Santiago de Compostela, his cruciform hospital plan for
the latter town (1501) being subsequently copied for the
Sta. Cruz hospital in Toledo (1504) and at Granada
(1511).Egmont, Lamoraal (1522–1568) Dutch nobleman
Born in Hainaut (now in Belgium), Egmont served
CHARLES Vin Algiers, Germany, and France. He led the
Spanish cavalry to victory against France at St.-Quentin
(1557) and Gravelines (1558), and served PHILIP IIof
Spain as councillor and governor of Flanders and Artois,
where he was idolized by his countrymen. Although a
loyal subject, a Catholic, and a courtier, Egmont coura-
geously opposed Philip’s harsh policies in the Nether-
lands. He was treacherously seized by the duke of ALBA
and executed with the Count of Horn after a summary
trial. His execution marked the start of the Revolt of the
NETHERLANDS.Egyptian studies The Renaissance made contact with
ancient Egypt almost exclusively through the medium of
classical Greek and Latin literature. The second book of
Herodotus’s Histories and references scattered through
Pliny’s Natural History provided the basis for Renaissance
ideas about the material life of ancient Egypt. PLUTARCH’s
On Isis and Osiris provided information about the mystical
aspects of Egyptian religion. The major interest of Renais-
sance students was in the contribution of Egypt to her-
metic, gnostic, and other pagan systems which were
supposed to have affected Christianity in various ways
(see HERMETICISM). Hieroglyphs, the ancient Egyptian sys-
tem of writing, were the main focus for this interest. Early
Christian writers, such as Cassiodorus and Rufinus, had
taught that hieroglyphs were purely ideographic writing
used by Egyptian priests to foreshadow divine ideas. Re-
naissance interest was stimulated by Cristoforo de’ Buon-
delmonti’s purchase, on the island of Andros in 1419, of a
manuscript of the Hieroglyphica, attributed to Horapollo.
Another early traveler to take notice of hieroglyphs was
CYRIAC OF ANCONA, who visited Egypt in 1435 and copied
a hieroglyphic inscription for Niccolò NICCOLI. Marsilio
FICINOhailed Horapollo as a major source of informa-
tion about Egyptian mysticism and its relation to Neo-
platonism, and his work was mined as a source of esoteric
wisdom and IMPRESE. It also influenced both the text and
illustrations of the HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIFILI(1499).
The editio princeps of Horapollo was printed by AldusEEggyyppttiiaann ssttuuddiieess 1 15577