Page:English Law and the Renaissance.djvu/25

 Luther; but then stayed behind with Erasmus. He had once compared the work that he was doing for the Corpus Juris with the work that Luther was doing for the Bible. The great Frenchmen answered the religious question in different ways. One said 'That has nothing to do with the praetor's edict.' His rivals charged him with a triple apostasy. Three or four of them were stout huguenots, and we must not forget that Calvin and Beza had both been at Bourges and had both studied the civil law. Melanchthon also was a warm admirer of Roman jurisprudence. It is reported that Elizabeth invited Francis Hotman to Oxford. He was protestant enough, and fierce enough to exchange letters with a tiger. He is best known to English law-students as the man who spoke light words of Littleton and thus attracted Coke's thunderbolt; but if he thought badly of Littleton, he thought badly of Tribonian also, and would have been the last man to preach a Reception. Professor Alberigo Gentili