William Horman

William Horman (c. 1440 – April 1535) was a headmaster at Eton and Winchester College in the early Tudor period of English history. He is best known for his Latin grammar textbook the Vulgaria, which created controversy at the time due to its unconventional approach in first giving examples of translations of English writings on different topics, and later discussing the rules of grammar. He asserted, probably following Quintilian, that grammar cannot be perfect without music.

Horman was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England around 1440. He was admitted as a pupil at Wykeham's college at Winchester in 1468. According to some accounts, he studied at the University of Cambridge. However, in 1477 he was elected a fellow of New College, Oxford, in the same year that William Caxton printed his first book in England. He took a Masters of Arts degree, and in 1485 became the headmaster of Eton. He left Eton in 1494, and became headmaster of Winchester from 1495 to 1501. At that time, the Winchester post was more prestigious and paid better. Later, Horman returned to Eton as a fellow and vice-provost, where there is evidence that both Greek and Latin were taught. He continued there until his death.

When he was almost eighty years old, in 1519 Horman published the Vulgaria, a Latin textbook. He says in the introduction that he composed the book when a schoolmaster, "many years before". In a contract dated 28 June 1519, he ordered Richard Pynson to produce 800 whole and perfect copies of these Latin texts, in 35 chapters. The contract is notable as one of the earliest surviving agreements of this nature.

Horman became an antagonist in the Grammarians' War, which erupted when Robert Whittington attacked the new approach of teaching by example. Whittington at the time was England's leading author of textbooks, and preferred the traditional system of learning the precepts of grammar by rote before progressing to examples. In some ways Horman was more traditional than Whittington, since he rejected the common vocabulary of Medieval Latin and idealised the "pure" Ciceronian form of Latin while Whittington was more pragmatic in his views.

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