John Leland biography
John Leland, Leland additionally spelled Leyland, (born c. 1506, London—died April 18, 1552, London), chaplain and librarian to King Henry VIII. He was the earliest of a notable group of English antiquarians.
Leland was educated at St. Paul’s School and Christ’s College, Cambridge (B.A., 1522), later finding out at All Souls’ College, Oxford, and in Paris. He took holy orders and by 1530 was chaplain and librarian to Henry VIII; the particular place of king’s antiquary was created for him in 1533, and he was licensed to go looking cathedral and monastic libraries for manuscripts of historic curiosity. Probably from 1534 and positively from 1536 to 1542 he was engaged on an antiquarian tour of England and Wales. He supported Henry VIII’s church coverage (although the havoc that resulted among the many monastic manuscripts on the dissolution of the monasteries prompted him nice misery), and his loyalty was rewarded along with his presentation to the rectory of Haseley in Oxfordshire, a canonry at King’s College (afterward Christ Church), Oxford, and a prebend at Salisbury. But he resided primarily in London, the place he was licensed insane in March 1550. He didn't regain his cause earlier than he died.
At the conclusion of his tour of England and Wales, Leland introduced to the king a plan of his proposed works, a quantity later edited as The Laboryouse Journey and Serche of J. Leylande for Englandes Antiquities, Given of Hym as a Newe Yeares Gyfte to Kinge Henry the VIII (1549). He supposed to jot down a ebook (“History and Antiquities of the Nation”) that would offer a topographical account of the British Isles and the adjoining islands, and so as to add an outline of the the Aristocracy and of the royal palaces. Illness and loss of life intervened, nonetheless, earlier than these works have been ready. After passing by numerous arms, the majority of Leland’s manuscripts—together with his vital five-volume Collectanea, with notes on antiquities, catalogs of manuscripts in monastic libraries, and Leland’s account of British writers—was deposited (1632) within the Bodleian Library at Oxford. They had within the meantime been freely drawn upon by many different antiquarians, notably by John Bale (who edited the Newe Yeares Gyfte).