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John Sherwood (or Shirwood; died 1494) was an English churchman and diplomat.

Life

Sherwood was the son of the common clerk John Shirwod of York and his first wife, Agnes. He graduated M.A. at University College, Oxford in 1450. He learned Greek from the scribe Emmanuel of Constantinople, in 1455; for which he was later commended in a letter from Richard III of England to Pope Innocent VIII. He was a papal lawyer, and then a diplomat, when he became the first permanent English ambassador, resident from 1479 in Rome. He built up a noted classical library, and gained the support of George Neville, Archbishop of York.

Sherwood was Archdeacon of Richmond in 1465 and later became Bishop of Durham, in 1484. He was nominated on 29 March 1484, with Richard III on the throne, and probably was consecrated on 26 May 1484. Despite knowing of the Princes in the Tower, through their physician, he did nothing for them. He visited Rome twice more as ambassador: in 1487, with Thomas Linacre and William Tilly of Selling; and in 1492–3, when he died there.

Sherwood died on 14 January 1494.

Citations

1. Raines, Angelo, ed. (1864). Testamenta Eboracensia III. Durham: Andrews & Co. for the Surtees Society. p. 207.
2. ^ Concise Dictionary of National Biography
3. ^ Jonathan Hughes, Arthurian Myths and Alchemy: The Kingship of Edward IV (2002), p. 239.
4. Jonathan Hughes, The Religious Life of Richard III (1997), p. 73.
5. "The FCO: Policy, People and Places". Archived from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2009.
6. Hughes, Religious Life, p. 89.
7. Jones Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300-1541: volume 6: Northern province (York, Carlisle and Durham): Archdeacons: Richmond Archived 9 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
8. Hughes, Religious Life, p. 90.
9. P. S. Allen, The Age of Erasmus (1963), p. 125.
10. Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 242
11. Pollard, A. J. "Shirwood, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25447. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

References

• Allen, P.S., "Bishop Shirwood of Durham and his library", English Historical Review 25 (1910), 445–56.
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
• Harris, Jonathan, "Greek scribes in England: the evidence of episcopal registers", in Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium through British Eyes, ed. Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jeffreys (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 121–6. ISBN 978-0-86078-667-2
• Jones, B. Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1300-1541: volume 6: Northern province (York, Carlisle and Durham): Archdeacons: Richmond. Institute for Historical Research. Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 16 August 2010.

• Bishops of Durham
• 15th-century English Roman Catholic bishops
• Archdeacons of Richmond
• 1494 deaths
• 15th-century English diplomats
• Ambassadors of England to the Holy See