Andrew Borde
| Andrew Boorde | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
c. 1490 Boords Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex |
| Died | April 1549 (aged c. 60) |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | traveller, physician, writer |
Andrew Boorde (or Borde) (c. 1490 – April 1549) was an English traveller, physician and writer.
Born at Boords Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex, he was educated at Oxford University, and was admitted a member of the Carthusian order while under age. In 1521 he was dispensed from religion in order that he might act as suffragan bishop of Chichester, though he never actually filled the office, and in 1529 he was freed from his monastic vows, not being able to endure, as he said, "the rugorosite off your relygyon".
He then went abroad to study medicine, and on his return was summoned to attend the Duke of Norfolk. He subsequently visited the universities of Orléans, Poitiers, Toulouse, Montpellier and Wittenberg, saw the practice of surgery at Rome, and went on pilgrimage with others of his nation to Compostela in Galicia. In 1534 Boorde was again in London at the Charterhouse, and in 1536 wrote to Thomas Cromwell, complaining that he was in thraldom there.
Cromwell set him at liberty, and after entertaining him at his house at Bishops Waltham in Hampshire, seems to have entrusted him with a mission to find out the state of public feeling abroad with regard to the English king. He writes to Cromwell from various places, and from Catalonia he sends him the seeds of rhubarb, two hundred years before that plant was generally cultivated in England. Two letters in 1535 and 1536 to the prior of the Charterhouse anxiously argue for his complete release from monastic vows. In 1536 he was studying medicine at Glasgow and gathering his observations about the Scots and the "devellyshe dysposicion of a Scottysh man, not to love nor favor an Englishe man". About 1538 Boorde set out on his most extensive journey, visiting nearly all the countries of Europe except Russia and Turkey, and making his way to Jerusalem. Of these travels he wrote a full itinerary, lost by Cromwell, to whom it was sent.
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