Colet, John (1467–1519). Colet, cleric and educator, was born in London as the eldest child of Sir Henry Colet, mercer and twice mayor of the city, and his wife Christian Knyvet. After schooling in London, he probably attended Cambridge University before travelling to Paris and Orléans, and to Italy. He was in Rome in 1493, and perhaps in Florence: certainly he read intensively the Florentine Platonists Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. About 1496 Colet began to teach in Oxford, gaining a reputation for his exposition of the meaning and application to life of the Pauline Epistles as well as studying the Neoplatonist Pseudo-Dionysius and the Genesis account of creation. Colet's piety and eloquence impressed Erasmus from their first meeting in 1499; he was later Erasmus' patron and helper. As dean of St Paul's from 1505 to his death of the sweating sickness in 1519, Colet refounded and endowed St Paul's School (1509). Erasmus advised him on its curriculum and in his On the Basis of Study (1511) characterized its Christian-humanist orientation; he also wrote for it pious, grammatical, and rhetorical handbooks. Colet's austerity and high-mindedness led him into conflict with his cathedral clergy. A forthright disputant, and powerful preacher to court and convocation, he was also from 1516—before Thomas More—a member of the king's council. His works remained in manuscript almost completely until they were edited in the 19th cent.

J. B. Trapp