In the last years of the 1520s several debated issues about language seem to come into notably sharp conflict in vernacular works of a representative group of humanists by and large sharing education and values. I take the particular cases of three notably important works by Pierre Fabri, Geofroy Tory and John Palsgrave. But I place them against the background of much wider and longer debate and the screen of some contemporaries: most especially Charles de Bovelles. Many others, broadening also the geographic spread, will of course receive attention in the rest of the book.

Of those just mentioned, Fabri was somewhat the older: he had probably helped found the Puy des Palinods at Rouen in 1486. He died just before the 1521 publication of the work examined here. Bovelles was born early in 1479 and lived until 1567. ' The other two were both born about 1480, Tory dying in 1533, Palsgrave in 1554. All four were thoroughly familiar with medieval debate in their field. All participated in the new learning. They looked no less to the one than the other as they tried to resolve problems. Rather, though, than solve them, they began to offer the terms through which they might one day be resolved.

Trivium and quadrivium were their sources. Indeed they were their contexts: as to form, their works fit quite well within the tradition - however unique in other ways Tory's and Palsgrave's were.