The Correspondence of Edward Pococke

Primary Contributors:

Cultures of Knowledge


Edward Pococke, by François Morellon de La Cave, after W. Greene. Mid 18th century, line engraving. (© National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D40289)

 

Edward Pococke (1604–1691)

Edward Pococke was born in Oxford on 8 November 1604, the eldest son of the clergyman Edward Pococke (d. 1636) and his wife Hester Shepard. Matriculating at Magdalen Hall in 1619, he was admitted scholar of Corpus Christi College in December the following year. He graduated BA in November 1622 and proceeded MA in March 1626. Although he attended lectures on Arabic by Matthias Pasor, much of his language instruction was private, first under Gamaliel Chase, and later in Tottenham with William Bedwell. He is known to have met G. J. Vossius during the Dutch scholar’s visit to Oxford in 1629.

Following ordination, Pococke was appointed chaplain to the Levant Company in March 1630, arriving in Aleppo in October. During his stay he continued his scholarly work, built up a network of friends and contacts, and procured or copied innumerable oriental manuscripts, some of these for archbishop Laud. In 1636, he returned to Oxford, proceeded BD, and was appointed Laudian professor of Arabic. The following year, he travelled to Constantinople with John Greaves to procure further manuscripts, only returning—via Paris—in 1641.

Pococke was presented to the rectory of Childrey, Berkshire, in 1642, and four years later he married Mary Burdet. In 1648 he was appointed professor of Hebrew at Oxford and although he was deprived of the associated canonry of Christ Church under the republican regime, this was reinstated at the Restoration, at which time he was also advanced DD by royal command. Pococke died on 31 August 1691, and he was buried in Christ Church cathedral.


Partners and Additional Contributors

The metadata in this ‘work-in-progress’ catalogue at present have been drawn together from letter records listed within the Bodleian card catalogue (digitized and published in EMLO with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries); the Elias Ashmole catalogue (compiled and contributed by Helen Watt with funding from the Cultures of Knowledge project); the Robert Boyle catalogue (compiled from Michael Hunter, Antonio Clericuzio, and Lawrence M. Principe’s edition of Boyle’s correspondence, based on metadata supplied to EMLO by the Electronic Enlightenment Project, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford and prepared for upload to the union catalogue with funding from the Cultures of Knowledge project); the Early Letters of the Royal Society catalogue (with metadata supplied by The Royal Society, London, and prepared for upload with funding from the John Fell Fund); the Henry Oldenburg catalogue (compiled by Cultures of Knowledge from the A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall edition); the John Selden catalogue (contributed by Gerald J. Toomer); the Gerardus Joannes Vossius catalogue (compiled and contributed by Cultures of Knowledge and based on the inventory published by Anton van der Lem and Cor Rademaker); and the John Wallis catalogue (compiled and contributed by Philip Beeley with funding from the Cultures of Knowledge project).

EMLO would like to extend thanks to Philip Beeley for his help with the biographical section of this introductory text.


Contents

At present, this listing describes forty-eight letters either written by or to Edward Pococke that date between 1630 and 1689, and forty-three letters in which the oriental scholar has been tagged to date as a person mentioned in the text of a letter. Amongst Pococke’s correspondents may be found: Elias Ashmole, Edward Bernard, Robert Boyle, Arthur Charlett, Gerard Langbaine, Henry Oldenburg, Humphrey Prideaux, John Selden, G. J. Vossius, and John Wallis.


Scope of Catalogue

EMLO contains records for just forty-eight letters from or to Edward Bernard. The intention is to check and enhance this existing metadata by identifying and tagging the people, publications, and events mentioned in the letters, and by recording (where it is available) details of the recipients’ destination, as well as seeking out and recording the metadata of additional letters that have not been included in the union catalogue to date.

Should you be interested in the life, the work, and the letters of Edward Pococke, and should you wish to be involved in forthcoming efforts to enhance this listing of his correspondence, please contact EMLO’s editor, Miranda Lewis (miranda.lewis@history.ox.ac.uk).


Further resources

Bibliography

P. M. Holt, ‘Arabic studies in seventeenth-century England with special reference to the life and work of Edward Pococke’, BLitt diss., University of Oxford, 1952.

G. J. Toomer, Eastern wisedome and learning: the study of Arabic in seventeenth-century England (Oxford: OUP, 1996).

G. J. Toomer, ‘Pococke, Edward (1604–1691)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press (2004; online edn, January 2008) [accessed 11 March 2020].

Leonard Twells, ed., The theological works of the learned Dr Pocock, 2 vols (London, 1740).

 

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