ABSTRACT
Whilst Fox was working on Here begynneth, Corpus Christi College was just beginning its intended work of producing Oxford scholars who would work as busy bees within a small community ruled by a president, and then leave the hive to work at sustaining and transforming society. From 1517, the college held public lectures in theology, Latin and Greek, the three crucial subjects for the kind of studia humanitatis Fox wished to promote. After the president and scholars had settled in, further building was completed and the college extended its activities. During the next decade and more the new college also attracted international scholars, such as Juan Luis Vives the Spaniard humanist who taught theology and Nicholas Krutzer the mathematician.1 This arm of Fox’s reforming activities eventually fulfilled his objectives, but his other objective, to reform the monastic life, did not similarly succeed, for monasteries had old ways to change and in any case monasteries take much longer than academic colleges to flower visibly. Also, twenty years after his book appeared the monasteries were dissolved.
