Writing to him in 1516—three years after he had left—Bullock says, "people here are devoting themselves eagerly to Greek literature." In a letter to Everard, the Stadtholder of Holland, in 1520, Erasmus says:—"Theology is flourishing at Paris and at Cambridge as nowhere else: and why? Because they are adapting themselves to the tendencies of the age; because the new studies, which are ready, if need be, to storm an entrance, are not repelled by them as foes, but received as welcome guests." In another letter he remarks that, while Greek studies have been instituted in both the English Universities, at Cambridge they are pursued peacefully (tranquille),—owing, he says, to Fisher's influence. He is alluding to those struggles at Oxford between the adherents of the schoolmen and the new learning which came to a head in the "Trojan" and "Grecian" riots of 1519, and led to Wolsey's founding the readership of Greek. Oxford had been, in England, the great theological University of the middle ages, and the scholastic system died hardest there.
Erasmus taught Greek without any formal appointment, so far as we know, from the University; though Fisher, the Chancellor, may have arranged that he should receive a stipend. The first man formally appointed Greek reader was Richard Croke in 1519; who speaks, indeed, of Erasmus as having been "professor of Greek," but probably means simply lecturer. The official status of Erasmus was that of Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. The
