Early Life
Richard de Bury was born near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, the son of Sir Richard Aungervyle, who was descended from one of William the Conqueror's men. Aungervyle settled in Leicestershire, and the family came into possession of the manor of Willoughby. The year of Richard de Bury's birth is debated, there are conflicting sources; the earliest date from the Catholic Encyclopedia is 1281, other historians determined his birth year to be either 1286 or 1287. Recent research has shown that 1287 is the most widely accepted birth date.
Sir Richard Aungervyle died when de Bury was a young boy. He was educated by his maternal uncle John de Willoughby, and after leaving the grammar school was sent to the University of Oxford, where he studied philosophy and theology. He became a Benedictine monk at Durham Cathedral. He was made tutor to the future King Edward III whilst Prince of Wales (whom he would later serve as high chancellor and treasurer of England) and, according to Thomas Frognall Dibdin, inspired the prince with his own love of books.
Read more about this topic: Richard De Bury
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“They circumcised women, little girls, in Jesus’s time. Did he know? Did the subject anger or embarrass him? Did the early church erase the record? Jesus himself was circumcised; perhaps he thought only the cutting done to him was done to women, and therefore, since he survived, it was all right.”
—Alice Walker (b. 1944)
“One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)