Roger Ascham is often classified as ‘a great mid-Tudor humanist’ and he is perhaps best known for his role as tutor to Elizabeth I. His most famous works, The Scholemaster and Toxophilus, have been extensively quarried and anthologised in studies on prose style and English humanism. By contrast, his Neo-Latin works that engaged with theology and key Reformation concerns have languished in the shadows of modern scholarship. Ascham’s Themata Theologica (‘Theological Topics’) is one of these, and its content has the potential to open up many an investigative avenue into the...

Roger Ascham is often classified as ‘a great mid-Tudor humanist’ and he is perhaps best recognised for his role as tutor to Elizabeth I. His most famous works, The Scholemaster and Toxophilus, have been extensively excerpted in studies on prose style and English humanism. By contrast, his Latin works that centred on theology and key Reformation concerns have languished in the shadows of modern scholarship. Ascham’s Themata Theologica (Theological Propositions), composed in the late 1530s and early 1540s, is one of these. This little-known text of eleven ‘themes’ offers a rare...