LELAND or LEYLOND, JOHN, the elder (d. 1428), grammarian, was perhaps a native of Lancashire, and studied at Oxford, where he afterwards taught as a grammarian, and acquired so great a reputation that it was said of him:—
Ut rosa flos florum, sic Leland grammaticorum.
He resided at Vine Hall, and dying 30 April 1428 was buried in the lady-chapel at St. Frideswide's. On 4 July 1435 the chancellor of the university ordered all cautions, &c., deposited with John Leland, lately deceased, to be sold. There are some laudatory epigrams on Leland by John Seguard in Merton College MS. 299. Leland was probably collaterally related to his namesake, the famous antiquary. The spelling Leylond is that of the manuscripts of his works.
He wrote:
- ‘Distinctiones Rhetoricæ,’ Bodley MS. 832, ff. 1–8.
- ‘Præterita et supina verborum secundum Magistrum Johannem Leylond, Oxoniæ, 1414,’ manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral Library.
- ‘Liber Accidentium,’ MS. Worcester Cathedral Library, 123 (Bernard, Cat. MSS. Angliæ, ii. 19).
- ‘Fundamentalis instructio puerorum,’ formerly in the monastery of Sion.
In Bodley MS. 832 there are various short treatises, such as ‘De modo punctandi,’ ‘Hymnarium compendiose compilatum,’ ‘De Accentu,’ which it has been suggested may be by Leland, but there is no proof of this except that the second article in the volume contains this odd colophon:—
Exit origo rei, memor esto Johannis,
Semper amicus ejus sis in amore Dei;
Nomen scriptoris J. L., de precibus rogo, noris.
The whole volume appears to be in one handwriting.
[Leland's Comment. de Scriptt. 445; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 475; Wood's City of Oxford, ii. 194 (Oxford Hist. Soc.); information kindly supplied by F. Madan, esq., of the Bodleian Library, and by John Leyland, esq.]
LELAND or LEYLAND, JOHN (1506?–1552), antiquary, born in London about 1506, probably belonged to a Lancashire family. He had a brother known as John Leland senior, and the distinguishing appellation of ‘junior’ sometimes applied to him is doubtless due to his bearing the same christian name as his brother. He was doubtless a collateral descendant of the older Latin writer called, like his brother, John Leland the elder [q. v.], and of Richard Leland or Leyland, treasurer of the Duke of Bedford's household, who witnessed his master's will in 1435 (Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, p. 243). When on his great tour about 1537 the antiquary visited Sir William Leyland, possibly a kinsman, at his house at Morley near Leigh in Lancashire (Itinerary, v. 89; Baines, Lancashire, iii. 601–2), and a John Leyland, who may have been the antiquary's brother, acted subsequently as Sir William's executor.
John was sent to St. Paul's School, London, under William Lily [q. v.] He found a patron in one Thomas Myles, whose generosity in paying all the expenses of his education he freely acknowledged in an ‘encomium’ inscribed ‘ad Thomam Milonem’ (Leland, Encomia, 1589). He removed in due course to Christ's College, Cambridge, and proceeded B.A. in 1522. Subsequently he studied at All Souls' College, Oxford, where he appears to have made the acquaintance of Thomas Caius. He ultimately completed his studies in Paris under Francis Sylvius, and became intimate with Budé (Budæus), Jacques le Febvre (Faber), Paolo Emilio (Paulus Emilius), and Jean Ruel (Ruellus) (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. v. 492). He returned home a finished scholar in both Latin and Greek, and with a good knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish. After taking holy orders, he acted in 1525 as tutor to a younger son of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, and wrote with much elegance Latin panegyrics on the king and his ministers of state, which appear to have recommended him to favour at court. At Christmas 1528 he was in receipt of a small annual income from the king (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, v. 305). Before 1530 Henry VIII made him his library keeper; and he frequently gave the king presents of books. He became a royal chaplain, and on 25 June 1530 was presented to the rectory of Pepeling in the marches of Calais (Lansd. MS. 980, f. 108). On 31 May 1533 he and Nicholas Uvedale or Udall [q. v.] wrote ‘verses and ditties’ recited and sung at Anne Boleyn's coronation (ib. vi. No. 564). On 19 July following Pope Clement VII granted him a dispensation to hold four benefices, of which the annual value was not to exceed one thousand ducats (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vi. App. No. 4). In 1537, on the birth of Edward VI, he composed an elaborate Latin poem.
In 1533 Leland was made ‘king's antiquary,’ an office in which he had neither predecessor nor successor, and in the same
