Biography
Nicholas Udall (or Udal, Owdall, Uvedale, Owdale, Dowdall, Woodall, Woddell, or Yevedale) was born during the Christmas season, probably of 1505, in Southampton, Hampshire, England. Little is known of his family, but some scholars speculate that the future playwright was a member of the prominent Uvedale family in Hampshire. No record exists of Udall’s ever having been married.
In 1517, Udall can be placed in residence at St. Mary’s College, Winchester, a school noted for rigorous studies, long days, and few holidays. At Winchester, where Latin was the language both of studies and of daily life, Udall would have studied the works of Vergil, Cicero, Terence, and other Latin authors, but especially Terence, whose subjects and Latin style are accessible to students. Udall’s later devotion to the works of Terence can reasonably be traced to his early days at Winchester.
In 1520, Udall was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, the center for Humanistic studies. Under the tutelage of Thomas Lupset, lecturer and friend of the Humanists Sir Thomas More and Erasmus, the young Udall, in company with his friend John Leland, embraced Humanistic ideas and skills to such an extent that Udall and Leland are usually considered to be “second-generation Humanists.” It was at Corpus Christi College also that Udall met Edward Wotton, lecturer in Latin and Greek and a scholarly English physician. Udall’s later Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, an illustrated digest of anatomy, may be traced to his association with Wotton.
At Oxford, Udall most likely studied under the Spanish Humanist and Latin lecturer Juan Luis Vives. From Vives, Udall would have been introduced to such Humanistic concepts as the importance of education for women, the importance of the vernacular, and reasonable arguments for morality. Although Vives adopted Plato’s opinion of poetry, especially of drama, the Humanistic principles he espoused can be found in Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister. A clearly English play, written in the vernacular, it has a strong, well-educated heroine in Dame Christian Custance. Furthermore, it is free of the more earthy, obscene, and immoral thoughts, actions, and language of Latin comedies.
The exciting intellectual atmosphere at Oxford might well have led the young scholar-author close to his first scrape with the law. He had received his bachelor of arts degree in 1524 and immediately became a probationary fellow of the college. By 1526, he was a full fellow and lecturer in Greek. In 1527, the English authorities arrested several Oxford men for circulating Lutheran works and the outlawed Tyndale Bible. Apparently Udall was one of several men who were admonished to avoid even the appearance of heresy. Surely the curiosity of these young men, thriving in the center of Humanistic learning, had been drawn to the ideas of the Protestant Reformation.
Udall’s whereabouts from 1529, when he left Oxford, until 1533 are not known. Some evidence exists to suggest that he may have traveled in France and Germany, where school drama enjoyed great popularity. By 1533, he was in London, where he and John Leland, his friend from Oxford, wrote verses for the coronation of Anne Boleyn. Using the “Judgment of Paris” theme from Homer and Ovid, Udall and Leland praise the new queen as more beautiful than the three goddesses Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite. The verses are at once hyperbolic and rather dull.
In 1534, Udall turned his attention from polite flattery to scholarship with his Floures for Latine Spekynge , a work used for many years to teach Latin to English schoolboys. In June, 1534, soon after the publication of this pedagogical work, Udall was appointed headmaster of Eton. A stern...
(This entire section contains 1123 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
master, one who did not spare the rod, Udall was nevertheless praised for his devotion to the subjects he taught and for his effectiveness as a teacher.
Udall’s tenure as headmaster at Eton, however, was not without problems. Although his work as a scholar and teacher was without blemish, he did run afoul of the law in his personal life. In 1541, he was charged with complicity in the theft of “certain images of silver and other plate” (according to Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 1834-1837; Harris Nicolas, editor) and was sent to Marshalsea. The Proceedings also reports that while “Nic. Vuedall, Schoolmaster of Eton” was being questioned about “other felonious trespasses,” he confessed “that he did commit buggery with the said Cheney,” Thomas Cheyney, an Eton scholar.
Certainly conviction of such crimes, especially that of buggery, would have been more than serious enough to end the career of any scholar-teacher. Whether it was a case of an error in the records (“buggery” written for “burglary”) or of Udall’s having powerful friends (namely, Thomas Wriothesley, on the Privy Council) or of his having written a moving letter of apology addressed to “Right Worshipfull and My Singular Good Master,” Udall was soon released from custody.
Udall continued his scholarship, publishing in 1542 Apopthegmes, a translation of the oral sayings of the ancients collected by Erasmus. That he was, in 1543, appointed to direct a group of scholars in translating The Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the New Testament indicates that Udall had escaped the stigma of his conviction and suggests that it was not, after all, buggery for which he was convicted. After devoting several years to this translation and several more years working in a scholarly fashion for the Protestant government, Udall was, in 1549, appointed tutor to Edward Courtenay, then a royal prisoner in the Tower. By 1552, Udall’s career was fully recovered from his earlier troubles. He had, during the previous year, been appointed canon of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, and when Edward VI was in residence at Windsor during September of 1552, Udall very likely presented his play Ralph Roister Doister for the first time.
When Mary came to the throne in 1553, Udall’s work as a Protestant-Humanist scholar ended. By June of 1554, he was replaced as canonary at Windsor, and no more translations of the great Humanists appeared. Extant records show that his reputation as a dramatist was still good: Warrants from Queen Mary indicate that Udall received payment for dramatic entertainment performed in the royal presence.
In December of 1555, Udall was appointed headmaster of St. Peter’s Grammar School, Westminster. The year he spent in residence at Westminster seems to have been uneventful; in any case, there are no records of translations, plays, or lawsuits during this period. Udall was never able to resume his important scholarly activities, perhaps because of the Catholic reign of Queen Mary or perhaps because he was ill. What is known is that slightly more than a year after his appointment as headmaster at Westminster, Udall died. Under the name “Nicholas Yevedale,” he is listed as having been buried on December 23, 1556, at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster.