Thomas Cooper (bishop)
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Thomas Cooper (or Couper) (c. 1517 - April 29, 1594), English bishop 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 Oxford. His literary career began in 1548, when he compiled, or rather edited, a Latin dictionary Bibliotheca Eliotae, and in 1549 he published a continuation of Thomas Lanquet's Chronicle of the World. This work, known as Cooper's Chronicle, covers the period from AD 17 to the time of its writing. Following Robert Crowley's 1559 altered and updated version of the Chronicle which Cooper denounced, he issued an expanded and updated version in 1560 and 1565 that removed or altered most but not all of Crowley's changes and additions. In 1565 appeared the first edition of his greatest work, Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae, and this was followed by three other editions.
Simon Winchester in his book "The Meaning of Everything", gave the following glimpse into the creation of this important thesaurus:
- The tiresome making of this book once exasperated the 'utterly profligate' Mrs. Cooper so much that she tossed the entire manuscript into the fire -- prompting her imperturbable husband simply to sigh wearily and begin compiling his book all over again.
William Shakespeare is believed to have used Cooper's Thesaurus in the creation of his many poems and plays. (Evidence of this comes from a close statistical inspection of Shakespeare's word usage.) Elizabeth I was greatly pleased with the Thesaurus, generally known as Cooper's Dictionary; and its author, who had been ordained about 1559, was made dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1567. Two years later he became dean of Gloucester, in 1571 bishop of Lincoln and in 1584 bishop of Winchester.
Cooper was a stout controversialist; he defended the practice and precept of the Church of England against the Roman Catholics on the one hand and against the Martin Marprelate writings and the Puritans on the other. He took some part, the exact extent of which is disputed, in the persecution of religious recusants in his diocese, and died at Winchester on the 29th of April 1594.
Cooper's Admonition against Martin Marprelate was reprinted in 1847, and his Answer in Defence of the Truth against the Apology of Private Mass in 1850.
Reference
- This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.