Robert and Thomas Wakefield and the Study of Hebrew in England in the Sixteenth Century
A Symposium
Supported by the Thor E and Nicole Eaton Family Charitable Foundation with the assistance of the J. P. Bickell Foundation
The brothers Robert and Thomas Wakefield were perhaps the earliest pioneers in Hebrew studies in sixteenth-century England. Appointed reader in Hebrew at Oxford in 1529, Robert was influential in the campaign for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon based on the Levitical prohibitions; he argued that the Hebrew Bible could be used effectively to buttress Henry's case. Thomas, who inherited Robert’s books after the latter’s death in 1533, became the first regius professor of Hebrew at Cambridge in 1540 and held the position until his death in 1575. A conservative in religion, however, he was barred from teaching for most of his career. The surviving books of the brothers, many heavily annotated, provide a powerful insight into the study of Hebrew in England and the controversies to which it was yoked, in particular the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into English. The brothers deserve the close contextualizing analysis that they have not heretofore received.
Registration is free, but please reserve a space in advance
by contacting Barbara North <barbara.north@utoronto.ca>
before 23 April 2018For further information, please contact
Ann M. Hutchison <ahutchis@chass.utoronto.ca>
10:00 Welcome: Richard Alway, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies & Anna Shternshis, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Toronto
Speakers:
10:20 James P. Carley – Introduction to the Wakefield brothers and their role in Hebrew Studies in England
10:40 Theodor Dunkelgrün, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge – ‘Between Erasmus and Robert Wakefield: Matthias Adriani and the birth pangs of humanist Hebrew pedagogy’
Chair: Judith Newman, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto
11:30 Joanna Weinberg, Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford – ‘Hebraism in the circle of the Wakefield brothers’
Chair: Suzanne Akbari, Director, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
12:20 Lunch
1:15 Judith Schlanger – ‘Hebrew manuscripts of Robert Wakefield: the state of the art’
Chair: Adam Cohen, Department of History of Art, University of Toronto
2:10 Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History, Princeton University – ‘The Wakefield brothers and the text of the Hebrew Bible’
Chair: Brian Stock, University of Toronto and Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies