[22] B. Mus. Arundel MS. 68, f. 4. The Obit in Christchurch MS. D. 12, says: “Sacræ Theologiæ Doctor. Hic in divinis agendis multum devotus et lingua Græca et Latina valde eruditus.… O quam laudabiliter se habuit opera merito laudanda manifesto declarant.”
[23] In the Canterbury Registers (Reg. R.) there is a record which evidently relates to Selling’s previous stay in Rome as a student. On October 3, 1469, the date of Selling’s second departure for Rome, the Prior and convent of Christchurch granted a letter to Pietro dei Milleni, a citizen of Rome, making him a confrater of the monastery in return for the kindness shown to Dr. William Selling, when in the Eternal City. This letter, doubtless, Selling carried with him in 1469.
[24] The Old English Bible and other Essays, p. 306.
[25] B. Mus. Cotton MS. Julius F. vii., f. 118.
[26] One of Prior Selling’s first acts of administration was apparently to procure a master for the grammar school at Canterbury. He writes to the Archbishop: “Also please it your good faderhood to have in knowledge that according to your commandment, I have provided for a schoolmaster for your gramerscole in Canterbury, the which hath lately taught gramer at Wynchester and atte Seynt Antonyes in London. That, as I trust to God, shall so guide him that it shall be worship and pleasure to your Lordship and profit and encreas to them that he shall have in governance.”—Hist. MSS. Com. 9th Report, App. p. 105.
[27] I. Noble Johnson, Life of Linacre, p. 11. Among the great benefactors to Canterbury College, Oxford, was Doctor Thomas Chaundeler, Warden of New College. In 1473, the year after the election of Prior Selling, the Chapter of Christchurch, Canterbury, passed a resolution that, in memory of his great benefits to them, his name should be mentioned daily in the conventual mass at Canterbury, and that at dinner each day at Oxford he should be named as founder.
[28] Galeni, De Temperamentis libri tres, Thoma Linacro interpretante, is dedicated to Pope Leo X., with a letter from Linacre dated 1521. “The widow’s mite was approved by Him whose vicar on earth” Pope Leo is, so this book is only intended to recall common studies, though in itself of little interest to one having the care of the world.
[29] G. Lilii, Elogia, ed. P. Jovii, p. 91.
[30] Ibid., lxiii. p. 145.
[31] Sir Thomas More writing to Colet says: “I pass my time here (at Oxford) with Grocyn, Linacre, and our (George) Lilly: the first as you know the only master of my life, when you are absent; the second, the director of my studies; the third, my dearest companion in all the affairs of life” (J. Stapleton, Tres Thomæ, p. 165.) Another constant companion of More at Oxford was Cuthbert Tunstall, one of the most learned men of his day, afterwards in succession Bishop of London and Durham. Tunstall dedicated to More his tract De arte supputandi, which he printed at Paris in 1529.