Thomas Blundeville
Encyclopedia
Thomas Blundeville was an English humanist
writer and mathematician
. He is known for work on logic
, astronomy
, education
and horsemanship, as well as for translations from the Italian. His interests were both wide-ranging and directed towards practical ends, and he adapted freely a number of the works he translated. Henry S. Turner writes that
He was a pioneer writer in English in several areas, and inventor of a standard classroom geometrical instrument, the protractor
.
, in Norfolk
. He inherited from his father Edward Blundeville in 1568, having possibly studied at the University of Cambridge
.
He had connections with court circles, and London scientific intellectuals. He was an associate of Henry Briggs
, at Gresham College
, and enjoyed the patronage of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
, among other aristocrats.
Other indications on his life are more tenuous. It has been plausibly suggested that as "T. B." he added a prefatory poem to John Studley
's Agamemnon; he was certainly alluded to by Jasper Heywood
, in the preface to his Thyestes of 1560, as a translator of Plutarch. From this it is argued that he had connection to the Inns of Court
. He may have travelled to Italy, an inference from his familiarity with Italian literature. He was a mathematics tutor, to households including that of Nicholas Bacon and Francis Wyndham; and Cecil may have recommended Blundeville to Leicester. W. W. Rouse Ball
gives a date of death of 1595, and possible connections to mathematicians: "Thomas Blundeville was resident at Cambridge about the same time as Dee
and Digges
—possibly he was a non-collegiate student, and if so must have been one of the last of them."
He married twice, and his male heir Andrew was killed in the Flemish wars. His daughter Elizabeth married Rowland Meyrick, son of Sir Gelli Meyrick who was steward to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
and caught up in his fall.
, to which Roger Ascham
added verses. It appeared as Three Moral Treatises in 1561, his first work, to mark the accession of Elizabeth I, to whom one of the pieces was dedicated. Another was dedicated to the courtiers John Harington
and John Astley
.
His book on horsemanship, The arte of ryding and breakinge greate horses, was published about 1560 and is the first work on equitation
published in English. It is an abridged and adapted translation, made at the suggestion of John Astley, of Gli ordini di cavalcare by Federico Grisone
, and is directed towards the use of horses in war. He followed it with The fower chiefyst offices belonging to Horsemanshippe (1565–6), which included a revised translation of Grisone together with other treatises. It was praised as "Xenophontean" by Gabriel Harvey
.
in combining the medieval and humanist traditions. He commented that to be a good historiographer is a prerequisite for a counsellor, in his 1570 book on counsel
.
His True Order and Methode was dedicated to the Earl of Leicester and was a loose translation and summary of historiographical works by Jacopo Aconcio and Francesco Patrizzi. It endorsed the realist writing of history as process, and was one of the few English contributions of the period to the artes historicae. He translated also a manuscript of Aconcio on fortification
, for the Earl of Bedford
.
, it also shows the influence of Galen
, Melanchthon, the De Methodo of Aconcio of 1558, and Thomas Wilson
.
It contains a section on fallacies. Under petitio principii, it uses an even-handed example of Aristotelian
and Copernican
arguments on the motion of the Earth.
and travel, geography in Blundeville's view being a necessary support to history; their content is very mixed.
The Exercises (1594) collected six treatises on practical skills, with a serious effort to be up-to-date. One of the parts described the world map of Petrus Plancius
, published two years earlier. Other topical matters covered were Molyneux's globes
, the work of John Blagrave
and Gemma Frisius
, and the cross-staff of Thomas Hood
. According to Rouse Ball:
A later edition (1613) showed the circumnavigations of Francis Drake
and Thomas Cavendish
.
He collaborated on an astronomy book, The Theoriques of the Seuen Planets (1602), assisted by Lancelot Browne
as he notes in the preface. It contained also information about the recent research of William Gilbert on the Earth's magnetic field, which he included with help from Edward Wright
and Henry Briggs. Wright had earlier supplied some of the innovative material for his writing on navigation
in the Exercises. He had worked with William Barlow
and others on the required scientific instruments; according to Hill Blundeville invented the protractor. In fact he described a semicircular instrument for measuring angles in 1589, in his Briefe Description of Universal Mappes and Cardes.
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
writer and mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. He is known for work on logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
and horsemanship, as well as for translations from the Italian. His interests were both wide-ranging and directed towards practical ends, and he adapted freely a number of the works he translated. Henry S. Turner writes that
He was a pioneer writer in English in several areas, and inventor of a standard classroom geometrical instrument, the protractor
Protractor
In geometry, a protractor is a circular or semicircular tool for measuring an angle or a circle. The units of measurement utilized are usually degrees.Some protractors are simple half-discs; these have existed since ancient times...
.
Life
He lived as a country gentleman on his estate at Newton FlotmanNewton Flotman
Newton Flotman is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It lies north of Tasburgh and south of Swainsthorpe, and the River Tas flows through it.It covers an area of and had a population of 1,197 in 497 households as of the 2001 census....
, in Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
. He inherited from his father Edward Blundeville in 1568, having possibly studied at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
.
He had connections with court circles, and London scientific intellectuals. He was an associate of Henry Briggs
Henry Briggs
Henry Briggs may refer to:*Henry Briggs *Henry Briggs , *Henry Shaw Briggs , Union general in the American Civil War...
, at Gresham College
Gresham College
Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
, and enjoyed the patronage of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, KG was an English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death...
, among other aristocrats.
Other indications on his life are more tenuous. It has been plausibly suggested that as "T. B." he added a prefatory poem to John Studley
John Studley
John Studley was an English academic, known as a translator of Seneca. He contributed to the Seneca his tenne tragedies translated into English , compiled by Thomas Newton and the sole printed translations of Seneca available in Elizabethan England; some echoes of his work have been detected in...
's Agamemnon; he was certainly alluded to by Jasper Heywood
Jasper Heywood
Jasper Heywood, SJ , son of John Heywood, translated into English three plays of Seneca, the Troas , the Thyestes and Hercules Furens ....
, in the preface to his Thyestes of 1560, as a translator of Plutarch. From this it is argued that he had connection to the Inns of Court
Inns of Court
The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. All such barristers must belong to one such association. They have supervisory and disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional...
. He may have travelled to Italy, an inference from his familiarity with Italian literature. He was a mathematics tutor, to households including that of Nicholas Bacon and Francis Wyndham; and Cecil may have recommended Blundeville to Leicester. W. W. Rouse Ball
W. W. Rouse Ball
-External links:*...
gives a date of death of 1595, and possible connections to mathematicians: "Thomas Blundeville was resident at Cambridge about the same time as Dee
John Dee
John Dee was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I.John Dee may also refer to:* John Dee , Basketball coach...
and Digges
Thomas Digges
Sir Thomas Digges was an English mathematician and astronomer. He was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many stars at varying distances; he was also first to postulate the "dark night sky...
—possibly he was a non-collegiate student, and if so must have been one of the last of them."
He married twice, and his male heir Andrew was killed in the Flemish wars. His daughter Elizabeth married Rowland Meyrick, son of Sir Gelli Meyrick who was steward to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG was an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599...
and caught up in his fall.
Early works
He made a partial verse translation of the Moralia of PlutarchPlutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, to which Roger Ascham
Roger Ascham
Roger Ascham was an English scholar and didactic writer, famous for his prose style, his promotion of the vernacular, and his theories of education...
added verses. It appeared as Three Moral Treatises in 1561, his first work, to mark the accession of Elizabeth I, to whom one of the pieces was dedicated. Another was dedicated to the courtiers John Harington
John Harington (treasurer)
John Harington was an English official working for Henry VIII, and husband to one of his reputed illegitimate children, Ethelreda Malte.-Life:...
and John Astley
John Astley (courtier)
John Astley was an English courtier, Marian exile, and Master of the Jewel House. He was a Member of Parliament on many occasions.-Life:...
.
His book on horsemanship, The arte of ryding and breakinge greate horses, was published about 1560 and is the first work on equitation
Equitation
Equitation is the art or practice of horse riding or horsemanship.More specifically, equitation may refer to a rider's position while mounted, and encompass a rider's ability to ride correctly and with effective aids. In horse show competition, the rider, rather than the horse is evaluated...
published in English. It is an abridged and adapted translation, made at the suggestion of John Astley, of Gli ordini di cavalcare by Federico Grisone
Federico Grisone
Federico Grisone was a Neapolitan nobleman and one of the first masters of dressage and courtly riding. Referred to in his time as the "father of the art of equitation", he wrote the first book on this subject to be published in early modern Europe....
, and is directed towards the use of horses in war. He followed it with The fower chiefyst offices belonging to Horsemanshippe (1565–6), which included a revised translation of Grisone together with other treatises. It was praised as "Xenophontean" by Gabriel Harvey
Gabriel Harvey
Gabriel Harvey was an English writer. Harvey was a notable scholar, though his reputation suffered from his quarrel with Thomas Nashe...
.
Historiography
His expressed views on history are considered standard for Elizabethan England. The approach is causal, invoking the "meanes and instrumentes" of history, and mechanism in politics. Influentially, he compromised between "linear" (traditional Christian medieval) and "cyclic" (classical) overall views of the working-out of history, for a "spiral" model. For him, the providential is not incompatible with the moral order as it asserts itself in the details of exemplary political history, and he has been compared to Edmund BoltonEdmund Bolton
Edmund Mary Bolton , English historian and poet, was born in 1575.-Life:Nothing is known of his family or origins, although he referred to himself as a distant relative of George Villiers. Brought up a Roman Catholic, he was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Bolton then lived in London at the...
in combining the medieval and humanist traditions. He commented that to be a good historiographer is a prerequisite for a counsellor, in his 1570 book on counsel
Counsel
A counsel or a counselor gives advice, more particularly in legal matters.-U.K. and Ireland:The legal system in England uses the term counsel as an approximate synonym for a barrister-at-law, and may apply it to mean either a single person who pleads a cause, or collectively, the body of barristers...
.
His True Order and Methode was dedicated to the Earl of Leicester and was a loose translation and summary of historiographical works by Jacopo Aconcio and Francesco Patrizzi. It endorsed the realist writing of history as process, and was one of the few English contributions of the period to the artes historicae. He translated also a manuscript of Aconcio on fortification
Fortification
Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...
, for the Earl of Bedford
Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford
Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, KG was an English nobleman, soldier and politician and godfather to Sir. Francis Drake.-Early life:...
.
Logic
His Arte of Logike (written 1575, published 1599) is somewhat Ramist in approach, but strongly so in discussing method. Besides AristotleAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, it also shows the influence of Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
, Melanchthon, the De Methodo of Aconcio of 1558, and Thomas Wilson
Thomas Wilson (rhetorician)
Thomas Wilson was an English diplomat, judge, and privy councillor in the government of Elizabeth I. He is now remembered for his Logique and The Arte of Rhetorique , an influential text...
.
It contains a section on fallacies. Under petitio principii, it uses an even-handed example of Aristotelian
Aristotelianism
Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings...
and Copernican
Copernican
Copernican means of or pertaining to the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus* For the Copernican system of astronomy, see heliocentrism* For the philosophical principle, see Copernican principle* For the lunar geological period, see Copernician...
arguments on the motion of the Earth.
Scientific, mathematical and geographical
These later works are directed towards geography, navigationNavigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
and travel, geography in Blundeville's view being a necessary support to history; their content is very mixed.
The Exercises (1594) collected six treatises on practical skills, with a serious effort to be up-to-date. One of the parts described the world map of Petrus Plancius
Petrus Plancius
Petrus Plancius was a Dutch astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now in Heuvelland, West Flanders. He studied theology in Germany and England...
, published two years earlier. Other topical matters covered were Molyneux's globes
Emery Molyneux
Emery Molyneux was an English Elizabethan maker of globes, mathematical instruments and ordnance. His terrestrial and celestial globes, first published in 1592, were the first to be made in England and the first to be made by an Englishman....
, the work of John Blagrave
John Blagrave
John Blagrave was an English mathematician.He was probably born in the vicinity of Reading in 1561, to John Blagrave of Bulmershe Court at Earley and his wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Hungerford of Down Ampney in Gloucestershire...
and Gemma Frisius
Gemma Frisius
Gemma Frisius , was a physician, mathematician, cartographer, philosopher, and instrument maker...
, and the cross-staff of Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood (mathematician)
Thomas Hood was an English mathematician and physician, the first lecturer in mathematics appointed in England, a few years before the founding of Gresham College. He publicized the Copernican theory, and discussed the nova SN 1572....
. According to Rouse Ball:
A later edition (1613) showed the circumnavigations of Francis Drake
Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the...
and Thomas Cavendish
Thomas Cavendish
Sir Thomas Cavendish was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavigating the globe...
.
He collaborated on an astronomy book, The Theoriques of the Seuen Planets (1602), assisted by Lancelot Browne
Lancelot Browne
Lancelot Browne was an English physician.-Life:He was a native of York. He matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge, in May 1559, where he was a few months behind William Gilbert, with whom he associated in later life. He graduated B.A. in 1562–3, and M.A. in 1566...
as he notes in the preface. It contained also information about the recent research of William Gilbert on the Earth's magnetic field, which he included with help from Edward Wright
Edward Wright (mathematician)
Edward Wright was an English mathematician and cartographer noted for his book Certaine Errors in Navigation , which for the first time explained the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection, and set out a reference table giving the linear scale multiplication factor as a function of...
and Henry Briggs. Wright had earlier supplied some of the innovative material for his writing on navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
in the Exercises. He had worked with William Barlow
William Barlow (archdeacon)
-Life:Son of William Barlow and Agatha Wellesbourne, he was born at St David's when his father was bishop of that diocese, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He graduated B. A. in 1564...
and others on the required scientific instruments; according to Hill Blundeville invented the protractor. In fact he described a semicircular instrument for measuring angles in 1589, in his Briefe Description of Universal Mappes and Cardes.
Works
- A Very Brief and Profitable Treatise declaring how many Counsels and what name of Counsellors a Prince that will govern well ought to have (1570) translation from Federigo Furio, reprinted 1963 as Of councils and counselors (1570) by Thomas Blundeville; an English reworking of El consejo i consejeros del principe (1559) by Frederico Furio Ceriól
- The True Order and Methode of Wryting and Reading of Hystories (1574) edition by Hans Peter Heinrich. Frankfurt: Lang, 1986.
- M. Blundevile His Exercises (1594)
- Arte of Logike (1599)
- The Theoriques of the Seuen Planets (1602)
Further reading
- Hugh G. Dick, Thomas Blundeville's The True order and Methode of wryting and reading Hystories, Huntingdon Library Quarterly, 3 (1940)
- Jean Jacquot, Humanisme et science dans l'Angleterre élisabéthaine: l'oeuvre de Thomas Blundeville, Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications / Centre international de synthèse. — Vol. 6 (1953), pp. 189–202.