The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in Eighteen Volumes (1907–21).
Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.

Table of Principal Dates.



877Death of Johannes Scotus Erigena.
1274Death of Thomas Aquinas.
1294Death of Roger Bacon.
1308 (?)Death of Johannes Scotus Duns.
1349 (?)Death of William of Ockham.
1413–1422King Henry V.
1418Peterhouse library catalogued.
1422–1471King Henry VI.
1461–1483King Edward IV.
c. 1470Fortescue’s De Laudibus Legum Angliae.
1478 (?)First book printed at Oxford.
1483King Edward V.
1483–1485King Richard III.
1485–1509King Henry VII.
1486Bartolommeo Diaz circumnavigates the Cape.
c. 1486The Book of St. Albans.
1488Library given by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester to Oxford opened.
1492Columbus sets sail from Spain and discovers the West Indies.
1494Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff printed at Basel.
1497John Cabot discovers the mainland of America.
1499Pinzon and Amerigo Vespucci rediscover America.
1504The Lady Margaret’s preachership founded at Cambridge.
1504Colet appointed dean of St. Paul’s.
1506Death of Columbus.
1508Chepman and Myllar print in Edinburgh.
1509–1547King Henry VIII.
1513Macchiavelli’s Prince (published, 1532).
1515Earliest known ed. of Eulenspiegel.
1516Ariosto’s Orlando Furiosa.
1519Cortes reaches the capital of Mexico.
1520Straits of Magellan crossed.
1521–1522John Siberch prints books at Cambridge.
1525Tindale’s New Testament, Worms.
c. 1526A C. Mery Talys.
1527Death of Macchiavelli.
1528Simon Fish’s Supplication for the Beggars.
1528Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano.
c. 1529Latimer’s Sermons on the Card.
1532–1564Rabelais’s Pantagruel.
1533Death of Ariosto.
1534Fitzherbert’s Husbandry.
1535Execution of Fisher.
1535First complete English Bible (Coverdale’s 1st ed.) printed.
1537First Bible (Coverdale’s 2nd ed.) printed in England.
1539“The Great Bible.”
1546Leland’s Laboriouse Journey and Serche.
1547–1553King Edward VI.
1549Hales’s Commonweal written (published, 1581).
1549Dedekind’s Grobianus.
1549The first prayer-book of Edward VI.
1550Lever: Three Sermons.
1551More’s Utopia.
1551Book of Common Prayer printed in Dublin.
1551–1552Turner’s New herball
1553Sir Hugh Willoughby sails for Cathay.
1553Death of Rabelais.
1553–1558Queen Mary I.
1554New laws of York stationers confirmed by the corporation.
1555Eden’s trans. of Peter Martyr’s Decades of the Newe Worlde.
1555Execution of Latimer.
1557Tusser’s Husbandrie.
1557Stationers’ company incorporated.
1557North’s The Diall of Princes (trans. from Guevara).
1557Death of Pietro Aretino.
1558Knox’s First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstruous Regiment of Women.
1558–1603Queen Elizabeth.
1559Jacques Amyot’s Plutarch.
1561Awdeley’s Fraternitye of Vacabones.
1561Hoby’s trans. of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano.
1562–1568Sir John Hawkins’s Voyages.
1562Jewel’s Apology for the Church of England.
1563 (or later)Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Queene Elizabethes Achademy.
1563Severe visitation of the Plague in London.
1564Birth of Galileo.
1565Cinthio’s Hecatommithi.
1565Golding’s Ovid.
1565Smith’s Commonwealth of England written (printed, 1583).
c. 1565–1566The Geystes of Skoggan.
1566–1567Painter’s Palace of Pleasure.
1567Fenton’s Tragicall Discourses.
1567Harman’s Caveat (2nd ed.).
1568The Bishops’ Bible.
1570Ascham’s Scholemaster.
1570First complete ed. of Aquinas.
1572Parker founds Society of Antiquaries.
1572Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
1574Scot’s Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe-Garden.
1576Fall of Antwerp.
1576Wilson’s treatise on Usury.
1576Rowland’s trans. of Lazarillo de Tormes.
1576Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Discourse … for a new passage to Cataia.
1576–1577Martin Frobisher’s voyages.
1577Drake’s circumnavigation.
1578Harrison’s Description of England.
1578Birth of William Harvey.
1579Buchanan’s De Jure Regni apud Scotos.
1579Digby’s Theoria analytica, viam ad monarchiam scientiarum demonstrans.
1579North’s Plutarch.
1579First Bible printed in Scotland, by Bassandyne and Arbuthnet.
1580Montaigne’s Essays (1st ed.).
1582Stanyhurst’s Vergil.
1582Thomas Thomas university printer, Cambridge.
1583Stubbes’s Anatomy of Abuses.
1583Gilbert’s last expedition.
1584Association for the preservation of the queen.
1584Lodge’s An Alarum against Usurers.
1584Temple’s ed. of Ramus’s Dialectica.
1584Ralegh’s charter of colonisation.
1584Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft.
1586Warner’s Albion’s England.
1587Mascall’s The government of Cattell.
1587“Silver-tongued” Smith begins to lecture at St. Clement Danes.
1587Execution of Mary queen of Scots.
1588The Spanish Armada.
1589Nashe’s The Anatomie of Absurditie.
1589, 1598–1600Hakluyt’s Principall Navigations.
1590Lodge’s Rosalynde.
1590–1592Sylvester’s Du Bartas.
1590The Faerie Queene, Books I–III.
1591Harington’s Ariosto.
1591Greene’s Notable Discovery of Coosnage.
1592Samuel Daniel’s Delia and The Complaynt of Rosamond.
1592Greene’s A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, and Groatsworth of Wit (licensed).
1592Nashe’s Pierce Pennilesse.
1592Death of Montaigne.
1592Plague revives in London.
1593Sir Richard Hawkins voyages into the South Sea.
1593The Phoenix Nest.
1593Drayton’s Idea.
1593Nashe’s Christs Teares over Jerusalem.
1594Drayton’s Ideas Mirrour.
1594Nashe’s Terrors of the Night.
1595 (?)Drayton’s Endimion and Phoebe.
1595Daniel’s The Civil Wars.
1595Execution of Robert Southwell.
1595Southwell’s St. Peters Complaint.
1595Lodge’s A Fig for Momus.
1595Maunsell’s Catalogue of English Printed Books.
1595Davys’s Worlde’s Hydrographical Description.
1595Ralegh’s first expedition to Guiana.
1595–1596The Faerie Queene, Books IV–VI.
1596Danett’s Commines.
1596Ralegh’s Fight about the Iles of the Açores.
1596Drayton’s Mortimeriados.
1596Nashe’s Have With You to Saffron Walden.
1597Bacon’s Essays (1st ed.).
1597Drayton’s Heroicall Epistles.
1597Hall’s Virgidemiarum.
1597Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste.
1597Gerard’s Herball.
1597National scheme for relief of the poor formulated.
1598Meres’s Palladis Tamia.
1598Florio’s A Worlde of Wordes.
1598Chapman’s Iliad.
1598Death of Burghley.
1598Bedingfield’s trans. of Macchiavelli’s Florentine Historie.
1598Restoration of the University library, Oxford, by Sir Thomas Bodley.
1599Nashe’s Lenten Stuffe.
1599Daniel’s Musophilus.
1599The Passionate Pilgrim.
1599Death of Spenser.
1599Sir John Davies’s Nosce Teipsum.
1599Marston’s Scourge of Villanie.
1600Gilbert’s De Magnete.
1600England’s Helicon.
1600Execution of Giordano Bruno.
1600–1601Cornwallis’s Essays.
1600Rowlands’s The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head Vaine.
1600Foundation of the East India Company.
1601Campion’s Booke of Ayres (also 1612 and 1617).
1602Davison’s Poetical Rapsody.
1602Bodleian library opened.
1602Rowlands’s Tis Merrie when Gossips meete.
1602Campion’s Observations in the Art of English Poesy.
1602 (?)Daniel’s Defence of Ryme.
1603Florio’s Montaigne.
1603Dekker’s The Wonderfull Yeare.
1603Holland’s trans. of Plutarch’s Morals.
1603Knolles’s Generall Historie of the Turkes.
1603Barclay’s Euphormionis Satyricon, 1st part.
1603–1625King James I of England.
1603King James’s The true Law of Free Monarchies.
1603Plague in London.
1605Bacon’s Advancement of Learning.
1605Gunpowder Plot.
1605–1615Don Quixote.
1606Drayton’s Odes.
1606Owen’s 1st vol. of Epigrammata.
1606Dekker’s The Seven Deadly Sinnes of London.
1606Dekker’s Newes from Hell.
1607Gervase Markham’s Cavelarice, or the English Horseman.
1607Topsell’s Fourefooted Beastes.
1607First permanent English colony in Virginia.
1608Hall’s Characters.
1608Dekker’s The Belman of London.
1609Dekker’s The Guls Hornebooke.
1609Pimlyco, or Runne Red Cap.
1610John Davies of Hereford’s The Scourge of Folly.
1610Donne’s Pseudo-Martyr.
1610Giles Fletcher’s Christs Victorie.
1610Phineas Fletcher’s The Purple Island.
1610Markham’s Maister-peece.
1610–1613Chrysostom printed at Sir Henry Savile’s press, Eton.
1611Coryats Crudities.
1611Ralegh’s History of the World entered on Stationers’ register; published 1614 or 1615.
1611The “Authorised Version.”
1612Death of prince Henry.
1614Thomas Lodge’s Seneca.
1614Barclay’s Icon Animorum.
1611–1612Donne’s The Anatomy of the World.
1612Campion’s Two Bookes of Ayres.
1612Shelton’s Don Quixote, I.
1612Marriage of princess Elizabeth.
1613Drummond of Hawthornden’s Tears on the Death of Moeliades.
1613Wither’s Abuses stript and whipt.
1613–1616Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals.
1613–1622Drayton’s Poly-Olbion.
1614The Overbury Characters published.
1615Wither’s The Shepherd’s Hunting.
1615Stephens’s Satyricall Essayes.
1615Sandys’s Relation of a Journey.
1616Death of Shakespeare.
1616Death of Cervantes.
1618Ralegh executed.
1618Beginning of the Thirty Years’ War.
1620The Pilgrim Fathers land in New England.
1620Bacon’s Novum Organum.
1621Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.
1621Barclay’s Argenis.
1623First folio of Shakespeare.
1623Drummond of Hawthornden’s Flowers of Sion.
1624Bacon’s New Atlantis written.
1624Herbert’s De Veritate.
1624Donne’s BIA\??\ANATO\??\.
1624Smith’s General History of Virginia.
1625Purchas His Pilgrimes.
1625–1649King Charles I.
1626Death of Lancelot Andrewes.
1627Drayton’s Nimphidia.
1627Phineas Fletcher’s The Locusts or Apollyonists.
1628Owen Feltham’s Resolves (first complete edition).
1628Earle’s Microcosmographie.
1629Parkinson’s Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris.
1630Drayton’s The Muses Elizium.
1631Phineas Fletcher’s Sicelides.
1633–1635Collections of Donne’s poems.
1639Death of Sir Henry Wotton.
1640Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum.
1640 1649, 1669Donne’s Sermons published.
1641Ben Jonson’s Timber.
1651Reliquiae Wottonianae.
1652Fulke Greville’s Life of Sir Philip Sidney.


[The table of dates in Volume III should, also, be consulted.]