Sir Henry Savile

Map of England | Second Oxford Company

(1549–1622)

Sir Henry Savile was an accomplished scholar whose achievements included lectures on geometry and astronomy (including the new ideas of Copernicus) and translations of the Roman historian Tacitus. He was also well-traveled. In his late twenties, he embarked on a four-year European tour that extended as far as Bohemia and Poland. Upon his return, he became Queen Elizabeth’s Greek tutor.

For all his talents, Savile’s career was founded squarely on his connections with the queen and other powerful court figures, who strongly encouraged his appointment as warden of Oxford’s Merton College. Later, the queen permitted him to become provost of Eton, although the position required ordination as a priest. That rule was waived for Savile, who was the only non-cleric among the Bible translators. Savile seemed equally deserving to King James, who knighted him in 1604.

While working on the Bible, Savile collected and edited the writings of St. John Chrysostom, a fourth-century archbishop of Constantinople. For Savile, this project was far more central to his life’s work than the Bible translation. Savile also established professorships in astronomy and geometry and contributed books and support to Sir Thomas Bodley’s newly re-organized university library, reestablished in 1602 as Bodley’s Library, or the Bodleian.

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