Royal College of Physicians

The Royal College of Physicians enters the book as a biographical detail about Thomas Linacre: the account identifies him as its founder. The institution is not described in its own right; its significance here lies in the career of the physician who taught Thomas More Greek and later took religious orders.

Identity and Mention

The book names the Royal College of Physicians in passing while recounting Linacre’s life. It identifies him as a physician and founder of the institution, but gives no account of the College’s organization, work, or later history. Its place in the narrative is therefore documentary rather than dramatic: it marks one of Linacre’s accomplishments in a concise biographical sketch.

Thomas Linacre and the Foundation

Linacre is presented as one of the leading teachers who brought Greek studies from Italy to England. The account also notes that he was a physician, later took orders, and founded the Royal College of Physicians. These details place learning, medicine, and religious vocation together in the outline of his career, while the statement of his founding role is the book’s sole specific information about the institution.

Connection to Thomas More

At about nineteen, Thomas More was sent by his patron to Canterbury College, Oxford, where he learned Greek from Linacre and William Grocyn. More left Oxford in 1499 to study law in London. The College’s mention thus appears within the account of a teacher who helped shape More’s education: Linacre is connected to the institution as its founder and to More as one of his Greek teachers.

Place in the Book’s Account

The reference gives the Royal College of Physicians a brief historical foothold in the book without making it a setting or an actor in the narrative. The account’s emphasis remains on Linacre’s role as physician, religious, and scholar, and on his place in More’s intellectual background. No further institutional details are supplied.