Dramatic texts in the Tudor curriculum: John Palsgrave and the Henrician educational reforms

In 1540, the English humanist scholar, schoolmaster, and royal chaplain John Palsgrave (d. 1554) published a bilingual Latin-English annotated edition of the Dutch humanist and reformer Wilhelm Gnapheus’ (1493–1568) widely popular play Acolastus (1529). Palsgrave's Acolastus reflects a growing trend in England and on the continent to Christianize Terence for classroom use, to expurgate or simply move away from the morally ambiguous classical playwrights. More importantly, the English edition of Acolastus was meant to form part, as a proposed standardized text, of the educational reforms of the late 1530s initiated by the government in accordance with the Protestant policy to reorganize grammar schools and unify their curriculum. As part of these reforms, Palsgrave elevated the educational function of dramatic texts by selecting a contemporary neo-Latin play as a model for textual exegesis in class and by making it the main source of Latin language practice. Palsgrave's extensive annotations reveal how dramatic texts were taught, analysed, and applied not only to practical rhetorical training performed on stage, but also to the grammatical and ethical reading of literary texts in the lower forms of English grammar schools. Furthermore, Palsgrave's annotations attest to a much broader pedagogical application of English translations, highlighting a conscious vernacularization within the humanist curriculum that took place considerably earlier in the sixteenth century than has been hitherto assumed.