Clerk

Use in the book

The learned sense is especially clear in the account of princely hospitality. Philosophers and men distinguished by knowledge arrive at courts as at a Lyceum or university and are admitted to rulers’ tables. These famous Clarkes are scholars: the comparison concerns intellectual company and honour, not their clerical employment. Burton idealizes earlier patronage to rebuke gentlemen who leave useful learning to their inferiors. The surrounding examples range from learned rulers to poets rewarded by princes; the continuation associates material independence with the power to defend learning. The edition qualifies the neighbouring Xenocrates story: Alexander offered fifty talents, but Cicero’s account gives a much smaller acceptance. Burton’s report of the offer must not become an unqualified report of the entire sum received.

The same learned sense reaches beyond ordinary scholarship. In the quoted Ariosto stanza, Zoroaster is a great clerk, a legendary master of astrology and magic. The poem makes even that learning powerless against jealousy. Burton immediately answers its apparent incurability with the possibility of cure or mitigation if the passion is resisted early. The lexical meaning scholar survives this literary setting without turning the stanza into his final medical judgment.

Civic clerks perform different work. Democritus is said by some to have been summoned to Abdera as lawgiver, recorder or town clerk; Burton preserves competing traditions rather than deciding that he certainly held each office. The proposed commonwealth takes market officers’ regulation of bakers and brewers as a model for wider price control. Town clerks’ study of rhetoric appears among useful occupational skills that idle gentlemen disdain. In the consolation of poverty, a mayor speaking through the town clerk or Recorder illustrates reliance on another person’s expression. The conditional qualification matters: he does so when unable to express himself. That public-speaking function also makes the lungs’ metaphor intelligible. They give voice to the heart, as an orator speaks for a king, within Burton’s historical physiology.

The clerical sense dominates the complaint about church appointments. A Clark may demonstrate learning, integrity and religious zeal, receive admiration, and still gain no living. The later matching patron and Clark have a different relationship: the dependent chaplain accepts the patron’s financial terms and preaches as required. The claim that the parish is therefore well supplied is sarcastic. The chaplain’s required conformity can follow either of the religious parties Burton names; the target is dependence, not an identification of clerk with one party. His later maxim about lay hostility to clergy uses Latin clericis, but the next turn expressly grants that parishioners may be peaceable and honest.

A separate clerical occurrence enters the procurement discussion. A gossip tells an enclosed woman stories of this Clerk and that Monk. The supplied edition identifies the passage Burton attributes to Augustine as Aelred of Rievaulx’s advice for a recluse, and distinguishes that setting from Burton’s generalized nunnery. The word identifies a religious role within an attributed warning; it does not independently establish the truth or generality of the surrounding accusations.

Related entries

Neoterics: Other names and classifications of learned writers.

Humane learning: The studies and social standing of learned people.

Church patronage: Clerical appointments and dependence on patrons.

Living and preferment: The office and income a cleric seeks.

Law and justice: Civic officers and the conduct of public business.

Heart and cordolium: The heart’s place in the bodily hierarchy.

Jealousy: The literary incurability claim and the ensuing cure discussion.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 8–10Democritus’s learning and the competing traditions about his civic role and residence.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 23–25market officers as the model for price regulation in the imagined commonwealth.
3. Subsection 4. Composite Parts · paragraphs 15–17the lungs as town clerk or crier and the heart’s orator; note 1637 gives the Melanchthon comparison.
4. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 34–42town clerks’ occupational rhetoric, learned rulers and honoured scholars; Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraph 40 contains the inherited court-table example, qualified by note 3550.
5. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 22–34the worthy clerical applicant, praise without reward, compliant chaplains and the sarcastic matching of patron and clerk.
6. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 38–39; Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraph 1the lay–clerical maxim, the concession about honest parishioners and the following turn to scholars’ own responsibility.
7. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 20–22the mayor’s spokesman in the contrast between poor self-sufficiency and wealthy dependence.
8. Subsection 5 Procurers and Love Potions as Causes · paragraphs 60–63the cleric in the gossip’s stories; note 9699 and note 9700 distinguish the marginal recluse from Burton’s nunnery and identify Aelred.
9. The Cure of Jealousy: Avoiding Occasions for It, Keeping Occupied; Good Counsel; Disregarding It, Not Watching Women or Locking Them Up; Concealing It, and So On · paragraphs 16–21Zoroaster as learned clerk in the jealousy stanza, immediately followed by Burton’s qualified reply about cure.

In this edition

“famous Clarkes” becomes “Famous scholars.” The modern sentence begins at that point, while the source phrase continues a longer sentence. Scholars makes the intellectual role explicit without asserting clerical employment. The same sense appears in “that great clerk Zoroaster” → “that great scholar Zoroaster.”

In the appointment passages, Clark becomes clergyman; in the enclosed-woman passage, Clerk becomes cleric. Town clerk is retained for the civic officer, while “Clerks of the market” becomes “market officers.” These choices are contextual rather than one fixed substitution. In the Latin maxim, clericis is dative plural, contributing to the clergy after hostile; the modern are supplies the understood copula. Burton’s broad maxim is followed by his own concession about honest parishioners.

The court anecdotes remain attributed and partly uncollated. The Zoroaster stanza is identified through Harington’s translation of Ariosto in the supplied apparatus; the exact printed witness used by Burton is not established. Its claim about incurability and Burton’s answering qualification remain separate.

Clerk of the market

Printed “Clerks of the market” (English; phrase).

Market officers who regulate trade, here the prices charged by bakers and brewers.

Here: Their familiar oversight supplies the model for regulating prices in every trade in Burton’s imagined commonwealth.

Context: Burton proposes general regulation by analogy with an existing office, then distinguishes duties on necessities and luxuries.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Clerks of the market

Modern rendering: market officers

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modern phrase identifies the public function rather than suggesting ordinary record-copying employment.

Clerk; clergyman

Printed “Clark” (English; phrase).

A clergyman or cleric, here seeking an ecclesiastical appointment.

Here: A qualified applicant receives admiration for his learning and preaching without the financial support or appointment he seeks.

Context: Burton’s satire distinguishes praise from actual patronage; the surrounding passage compares the unrewarded applicant to Psyche.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: A Clark may offer himself

Modern rendering: A clergyman may offer himself

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Clark becomes clergyman because the appointment and preaching context supplies the ecclesiastical role; may retains the proposed action.

Qualification: Burton adds lack of dowry to his Psyche analogy; the edition notes that Apuleius does not explain her lack of suitors by poverty.

Further local use

Printed “Clark” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clerk; clergyman.

A clergyman dependent on a patron.

Here: The matching patron and cleric accept low payment and compliant preaching; the parish’s supposed satisfaction is sarcastic.

Context: Burton’s satirical conclusion after the simoniacal bargain, with a lid-and-dish proverb attributed to Jerome.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: such a Patron, such a Clark

Modern rendering: such a patron, such a clergyman

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The two parallel phrases retain their roles; Clark means clergyman, not a judgment that he is learned or morally upright.

Uncertainty: The precise Jerome letter or intermediary for the proverb is unresolved.

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Further local use

Printed “Clark” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clerk; clergyman.

A clergyman bound to the employer’s religious stance.

Here: The chaplain must match the patron’s religious party or be dismissed; the butterfly-on-a-string image presents his dependence.

Context: Burton’s conditional accusation about these patrons, using historical religious labels rather than endorsing either party.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: his Clark must be so too

Modern rendering: his clergyman must also be one

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Clark contributes clergyman; so and one refer back to the patron’s described religious affiliation.

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Further local use

Printed “clericis” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: Clericus.

To clergy or clerics; dative plural of clericus.

Here: The maxim depicts hostility to clergy, but Burton immediately grants that parishioners may be peaceable and honest.

Context: A generalization attributed to an old maxim; the ensuing better-case concession limits its use as an account of actual parishes.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Laici clericis oppido infesti

Modern rendering: laypeople are exceedingly hostile to the clergy

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Clericis supplies to the clergy as the complement of infesti, hostile; Laici supplies laypeople, oppido exceedingly, and the modern supplies are.

Translator-supplied words: are, the copula understood in the Latin nominal statement

Uncertainty: The maxim’s precise intermediary remains unlocated.

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Further local use

Printed “Clerk” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clerk; cleric.

A cleric or clergyman.

Here: Stories about clerics and monks are offered to an enclosed woman by a gossip in the account of procurement.

Context: Burton attributes the report to Augustine; the edition identifies Aelred and distinguishes his enclosed recluse from Burton’s generalized nunnery scene.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: this Clerk, and that Monk

Modern rendering: this cleric or that monk

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Clerk contributes cleric and Monk monk; the modern uses or for the original coordinated examples.

Qualification: This is an attributed moral warning, not evidence that the named groups generally behaved as alleged.

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Further local use

Printed “Clarks” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clerk; clergyman.

Clergymen.

Here: The compliant clergy are employed and nominated while university scholars wait unused.

Context: Burton’s satirical contrast between patron-selected dependants and university scholars.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: These are those Clarks which serve the turne

Modern rendering: These are the clergymen who serve their purpose

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Clarks contributes clergymen; which serve the turne becomes who serve their purpose, with their identifying the patrons from context.

Translator-supplied words: their, referring to the patrons whose purpose is served

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Clerk; learned person

Printed “Clarkes” (English; phrase).

Learned people or scholars.

Here: The guests distinguished by learning come to princes’ courts as to a Lyceum or university and are admitted to royal tables.

Context: Burton idealizes earlier patrons in rebuking his own age; the guests are not identified here as church employees or administrative clerks.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: famous Clarkes

Modern rendering: Famous scholars

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Clarkes contributes scholars and famous Famous; sentence division changes capitalization.

Qualification: The edition qualifies the adjacent Xenocrates anecdote: Cicero reports an offer of fifty talents, but acceptance of only thirty minas. Burton gives the offer without that limit; the Philostratus and Lampridius references remain uncollated.

Further local use

Printed “great clerk” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Clerk; learned person.

A greatly learned person.

Here: Zoroaster is the legendary master whose learning and magic cannot cure jealousy in the quoted stanza.

Context: An English stanza from Ariosto through Harington, followed by Burton’s explicit reply that jealousy may be cured or mitigated if resisted early.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: that great clerk Zoroaster

Modern rendering: that great scholar Zoroaster

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Clerk contributes scholar; great marks the degree of learning, and Zoroaster supplies the person named.

Uncertainty: The supplied edition identifies a matching Harington 1607 transcription; the printed witness and Burton’s precise edition remain uncollated. The stanza’s incurability is not Burton’s final treatment verdict.

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Town clerk

Printed “town-clerk” (English; phrase).

A civic officer concerned with a town’s records or public business.

Here: Burton lists town clerk alongside lawgiver and recorder among reported roles at Abdera.

Context: Some say Democritus was summoned for public office; others give a different account of his settlement. Burton does not settle the traditions.

Source: original body

Source wording: Recorder or town-clerk as some will

Original wording: was sent for thither to be their Law-maker, Recorder or town-clerk as some will

Modern rendering: Some say he was summoned there to be its lawgiver, recorder, or town clerk

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: Town-clerk contributes town clerk; some say carries the original attribution as some will, moved to the beginning of the clause.

Further local use

Printed “Town-Clarks” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Town clerk.

Civic officers for whom rhetorical skill serves their public work.

Here: Town clerks’ rhetoric is one occupational study that idle gentlemen leave to people they regard as beneath them.

Context: The dismissal of learning belongs to the reported reasoning of those gentlemen; Burton rebukes it.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Town-Clarks Rhetorick

Modern rendering: town clerks rhetoric

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The modern retains the two nouns in the list, with learn understood from the preceding items.

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Further local use

Printed “Town-clark” (English; phrase).

Citation key: Town clerk.

A civic officer acting as a public spokesman.

Here: A mayor speaks through the town clerk or Recorder when unable to express himself, illustrating the rich man’s reliance on intermediaries.

Context: Burton’s consolation of poverty, contrasting self-sufficiency with dependence; he does not claim every mayor is inarticulate.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: speaks by the Town-clark, or by Mʳ Recorder

Modern rendering: speaks through the town clerk or the Recorder

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: By contributes through; Town-clark and Recorder supply the officers. The modern drops the courtesy title Mr.

Sense relation: A further local attestation of the parent sense; its form, agency and construction are separately specified.

Town clerk as bodily spokesman

Printed “Town-Clark” (English; phrase).

A town clerk or public crier, used figuratively for an organ that gives voice.

Here: The lungs are pictured as the heart’s spokesman, like an orator attached to a king.

Context: Burton reports the town-clerk/crier designation from an unnamed writer; the related orator comparison is attributed to Melanchthon in the margin.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the Town-Clark, or Cryer

Modern rendering: the town clerk or crier

Alignment scope: Equal-scope phrase or construction in the supplied parallel text.

Word and construction: The two civic descriptions are retained as a metaphor; neither describes a literal office held by the lungs.

Qualification: The account of voice, air and cooling belongs to historical physiology, not modern anatomical instruction.