Elyot, Sir Thomas

Elyot, Sir Thomas

▪ British author
born c. 1490
died March 26, 1546, Carleton, Cambridgeshire, Eng.

      English author and administrator, memorable for his championship and use of English prose for subjects then customarily treated in Latin. Both as a philosopher and as a lexicographer, he endeavoured to “augment our Englysshe tongue” as a medium for ideas.

      He was clerk to the Privy Council (1523–30) and was knighted in 1530. A member of Sir Thomas More (More, Sir Thomas)'s circle, Elyot was suspected of being out of sympathy with Henry VIII's plan to divorce Catherine of Aragon and probably owed his lack of advancement to his friendship with More. In 1531 he published The Boke Named the Governour, dedicated to the king, and that autumn went as the king's envoy to the court of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V.

      Elyot's very popular Governour, a plan for the upbringing of gentlemen's sons who were to bear authority in the realm, was the first important treatise on education in English and did much to form the later English ideal of the gentleman. His Castel of Helth was a popular regimen of health that, written in the vernacular and by a layman (although he had received some instruction in medicine), incurred censure but was widely read. His Dictionary, the first English dictionary of Classical Latin, was published in 1538. The aim of all Elyot's works was usefulness: he brought classics and Italian authors to the general public through his translations, he provided practical instruction in his own writings, and he added many new words to the English language.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • ELYOT, Sir Thomas — (c. 1490 1546) Ambassador, scholar, and humanist, Thomas Elyot advocated humanist edu­cation and through his writings and translations brought classical works to the literate English. The only son of Richard Elyot, Thomas Elyot learned English… …   Renaissance and Reformation 1500-1620: A Biographical Dictionary

  • ELYOT, SIR THOMAS —    author and ambassador, born in Wiltshire; ambassador to the court of Charles V.; celebrated as the author of The Governour, the first English work on moral philosophy, and also of the first Latin English dictionary (1490 1546) …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Elyot, Sir Thomas — (1490 1546)    Diplomatist, physician, and writer, held many diplomatic appointments. He wrote The Governor (1531), a treatise on education, in which he advocated gentler treatment of schoolboys, The Castle of Health (1534), a medical work, and A …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • Thomas Elyot — Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 1490 ndash; March 26, 1546), was an English diplomat and scholar.Thomas was the child of Sir Richard Elyot s first marriage with Alice De la Mare, but neither the date nor place of his birth is accurately known. Anthony Wood… …   Wikipedia

  • Elyot — Sir Thomas Elyot in einer Zeichnung von Hans Holbein d.J. Sir Thomas Elyot (* um 1490 in Wiltshire; † 20. März 1546 in Carleton (Cambridgeshire)) war ein humanistischer englischer Schriftsteller. .1531 erschien sein wichtigstes Werk The book… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Thomas Elyot — Sir Thomas Elyot in einer Zeichnung von Hans Holbein d.J. Sir Thomas Elyot (* um 1490 in Wiltshire; † 20. März 1546 in Carleton (Cambridgeshire)) war ein humanistischer englischer Schriftsteller. .1531 erschien sein wichtigstes Werk The book… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Thomas Cooper (bishop) — Thomas Cooper (or Couper) (c. 1517 April 29, 1594), English bishop, lexicographer, and writer, was born in Oxford, where he was educated at Magdalen College.He became master of Magdalen College school, and afterwards practised as a physician in… …   Wikipedia

  • Elyot — /el ee euht, el yeuht/, n. Sir Thomas, c1490 1546, English scholar and diplomat. * * * elyot obs. form of Helot …   Useful english dictionary

  • Elyot — biographical name Sir Thomas 1490? 1546 English scholar & diplomat …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • Elyot — /el ee euht, el yeuht/, n. Sir Thomas, c1490 1546, English scholar and diplomat. * * * …   Universalium

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