Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 1.djvu/85

 accordance with directions given in his will, being at the time of his decease a prebendary of Southwell, prebendary and precentor of York, and rector of Bingham, in the county of Notts. His will was proved on 31st October, 1522.  On 10th October, 1519, (or Linacre) Doctor of Medicine, was admitted to the church of Wigan, vacant by the resignation of Mr. Richard Wyott, Sacræ Theologiæ Professoris, on the presentation of Thomas Langton, Esq.

Linacre was a man of great learning and refinement. Erasmus, the great European scholar, entertained the highest opinion of him, and asks, when writing about his English friends, "What can be more acute, more profound, or more refined than the judgment of Linacre?" Dr. J. N. Johnson, his biographer, goes the length of saying that to Linacre's labours "England stands indebted for the knowledge of the finest language of antiquity and medicine owes its elevation to that rank amongst liberal arts from which it had long been estranged by the ignorance or cupidity of its professors." Linacre was born about the year 1460, at Derby, according to Holinshed, who is followed by Weever and Fuller, but Dr. J. N. Johnson prefers to look upon Canterbury as his birthplace, on the authority of Dr. Caius, the president and early annalist of the College of Physicians founded by Linacre, who describes him as Cantuariensis. If not born at Derby, however, as is most probable, there is but little doubt that he was of Derbyshire extraction, being descended from an ancient family who were owners of Linacre, a hamlet or subordinate manor to that of Chesterfield, and the fact of his leaving a benefaction to the town of Derby seems to imply some connection with that locality.

The first instructions he received in Grammar were obtained at the public school in the monastery of Christ Church, at Canterbury. The master at that time was an Augustine monk, named 