Current Literature
HUGH OLDHAM 1452-1519 By A. A. Mumford :ugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter 1504-1519, was a figure of some consequence in the English Renaissance. Not by any gifts of mind- or learning which he himself possessed, but through the direction to which he turned his endowments. He , was part-founder with Fox of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, the first RenaiSsance college in England, and founder of ,,Manchster diaminar School. He was a Manchester man, havipg been born of good yeoman stock, either there or Oldhain, 'and rose into notice and preferment through the twat! ,of the Lady, Margaret, mother of Henry VII. He was Deputy-Receiver „of her estates in Devon, Dorset and Wilts, and this brought him into touch with west-country e Vit.< with which for tlid rest of his life he was connected Ar!adeacon, and later Bishop, of Exeter. A pure admin- istrator by temperament, he made an exemplary Bishop. The Exeterdiocese'llad been a good deal neglected under his predecessors, Oliver Xing and 'Fox, the latter of whom con- fessed to never haiiing set foot inside it. Oldham set to work to bring things into order, making a complete visitation of his diocese, reorganising the establishment of the Vicars Choral at Exeter, residing there for the next fourteen years ; and before he died, building the ornate chantry-chapel of St. Saviour in the-cath Aral, where visitors may see his painted • elligy, beneath which (it is to be hoped) his body still lies. A chill, good, generous man ; a better diocesan than most of his time. But he deserved well of posterity to have fouhded Manchester Grammar School, and helped. in founding Corpus. Dr. Mumford's book (Faber, 6s.) is a work of piety and of loving and useful scholarship. No doubt it could have been better done ; but it is something that it has been done at all.
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