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The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.

Table of Principal Dates

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