418. WILLIAM WARHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. TO THOMAS WOLSEY, CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Letters and Papers of Henry VIII,, iii. no. 1193. English.
Knoll, March 8, 1521.
I have received letters from Oxford, stating that the uni- versity is infected with Lutheranism, and that many books forbidden by you have circulation there. I regret that this should have happened in a place where I was brought up and of which I am now chancellor. The university desires me to be a mean to your Reverence, that such order be taken for the examination of the suspected, as that it incur no infamy. I think it a pity that a small number of incircumspect fools should endanger the whole university with the charge of Lu- theranism ; a thing pleasant to the Lutherans beyond sea, and a great encouragement, if the two universities, one of which has been void of all heresies [Oxford],^ and the other boasts it has never been defiled [Cambridge], should embrace these heretical tenets. It would create great slander if all now suspected were brought up to London; I desire, therefore, some commission may sit at Oxford, to examine, not the Heads, but the novices. The university will be glad if you will request the Bishops of Rochester* and London* to draw up a table* of Lutheran writers who are to be avoided, and send it down to Oxford.
419. LUTHER TO JOHN FREDERIC. DUKE OF SAXONY.
Enders, iii. 109. De Wette, i. 571. German. Dedication to the Mag- nificat, Weimar, vii. 538. Wittenberg, March 10, 1521.
Serene, high-born Prince, gracious Lord! My humble prayer and service to your Grace. I have received your
^Oxford had» in fact, been a hotbed of heresy, following both William of Occam and Wicliffe.
•Fisher.
- Cathbert Tunstall.
- Such a general decree was drawn up by Wolsey on May 14, 1521, reprinted
Wilkina: Concilia Magnae Br^anniae, iii. 690. At Cambridge a commission con- sisting of Drs. Bullock, Humfry, Watson and Ridley had been sent to London to examine Luther's works in 1520. Later (isai?) his works were bamt at Cambridge. Cf. Registers of Cambridge , t. 499.
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