Living and preferment

Use in the book

Burton’s qualified scholar has already overcome the difficulties of learning. He has survived study’s supposed bodily dangers, made progress and taken degrees with applause. After twenty years and much expense he is fit for preferment, yet no closer to finding it. Academic proceeding and paid advancement are separate achievements. The immediate alternatives are precarious: teaching, lecturing or serving as a curate earns a small stipend only while patron or parish remains satisfied. A household chaplain may, after years of service, obtain a living to the halves, surrendering half its income, or a small rectory tied to a marriage selected through the patron’s household. The satirical example also allows expulsion if he offends his employers. Burton then imagines scholars as starving grasshoppers, driven into flattering dependence, while insisting that their work gives patrons lasting fame.

The complaint attributed to John Howson makes education the first of two costly purchases. Having spent time, health and family property on qualification, the clergyman must still pay the patron for a parsonage or vicarage. The sermon describes financial demands, simony, perjury and the possible forfeiture of spiritual preferments, both actual and possible. Its legal and spiritual accusations belong to that historical protest. Nor does successful appointment necessarily end the misery: Burton follows the acquisition of a small benefice with ruined housing, fees, arrears, a potentially defective title and litigation. He concedes that parishioners often are peaceable and honest, although he still deplores losing university society. The complaint is about the conditions of obtaining and holding a living, not a claim that its income is effortless wealth.

An appointment can also be offered and refused. In the account of bashfulness, Peter of Blois and Christopher Urswick illustrate people who decline honours, offices and preferments that fall into their laps. Their particular refusals remain untraced. Burton says this happens for the most part among the people described, while the surrounding passage allows contrary dispositions and differences of degree and duration. Fear and shyness inhibit self-presentation and undertaking office. Elsewhere an ambitious melancholic imagines future preferment, or thinks it already his, and acts a lord’s part. Refused, hoped-for and imagined advancement are different relations to the same object, not proof that an actual appointment exists.

The tale of the vacant fat prebend explores competition for a particular lucrative office. Money, the bishop’s household, noble connections, useful discoveries, diligent preaching, family need, promises, losses and other claims bring competitors forward. The excellent university scholar neither applies nor expects anything: he has no money, influence or friends to press his case and dislikes such methods. The bishop nevertheless sends him the prebend freely, knowing him only by reputation. The other scholars rejoice. Burton then explicitly withdraws the happy ending: it is mere fiction, never actual and never likely. His initial concession that deserving people sometimes prosper must survive alongside this satirical reversal. The ensuing consolation also changes direction: perhaps the disappointed applicant is unfit; or, granting superior merit, perhaps promotion would have made him proud and forgetful of God and friends. Failure to advance does not receive one unvarying explanation.

Burton’s own account similarly combines grievance and gratitude. Early in the book he says he never obtained greater preferment, but owes no debt for it and has enough from generous patrons. Later he recalls exhausting himself and his friends in pursuit of advancement, then expressly acknowledges noble benefactors and received kindness. He distinguishes what he desired, deserved and expected before declaring himself at rest. The Latin and English harbour verses express his withdrawal from hope and fortune; they do not erase the patronage he admits receiving.

Preferment is not confined to a parish or cathedral. Burton attributes kingship and other advancement to attractive appearance, although his examples do not establish his sweeping claims and the account of Adrian also names intellectual accomplishments. Marriage into powerful families becomes another means: in the hostile account of the bishop of Ely, nobles welcome his kinswomen in hope of promotion. Conversely, marriage is called a bar to preferments in the cautionary discussion, but the sentence immediately denies that marriage itself is evil and praises the wise, virtuous, harmonious couple. The preceding violent joke is expressly comic, and the adverse conclusion concerns imprudent sensual people. Neither passage makes every marriage a career transaction or obstacle.

Recommendation precedes appointment in the story of Athenais: preferred means that friends put her forward for service to Pulcheria. Her upbringing and beauty stand against the demand for a monetary dowry; Theodosius subsequently marries her on his sister’s recommendation. The immediate sources of the detailed tale remain uncollated, and baptism through Pulcheria’s agency does not mean she performed it. With a different object, prefer their suites means further their courtship. Burton accuses men of inventing wealth and promises, then neglecting their promises once desire is satisfied. Advancing a pursuit is distinct from either recommending a person or actually appointing one.

The agent of advancement also varies. The demonological survey reports writers who assign promotions and disappointments to attending spirits, after Burton has questioned the authority for particular angelic jurisdictions. Christian consolation instead attributes both promotion and adversity to providence: some are raised, others tested, without promising office to everyone. In polemic, disappointed ambition supposedly produces religious faction, while hope of church advancement supposedly encourages some people’s conformity. These are Burton’s judgments of motives, qualified by his own as they suppose and some, not independently verified explanations of other people’s faith.

Against defective distribution stands the imagined commonwealth. Some dignities remain hereditary, but elected or granted offices, compared with bishoprics and prebends, reward merit and service; qualified commoners should not be excluded. Church livings are placed under collective patronage, with examined university candidates. Burton immediately admits that ideal professional virtue is impossible to obtain. Finally, living has a broader economic sense when a lord has only a knight’s living: income falls short of inherited station. His following claim that lowborn people feel poverty less is class prejudice. The word identifies the means of support; it does not validate that hierarchy of suffering.

Related entries

Church patronage: Rights of nomination, trading in offices and the institutions distributing church livelihoods.

Exhibition: Financial support and teaching or preaching positions.

Humane learning: The studies whose value exceeds their immediate remuneration.

Honour and nobility: Rank, merit and the value or danger of titles.

Ambition: Pursuit of advancement and disappointed expectations.

Shame: Bashfulness and inhibited self-presentation.

Estate: Rank, condition and property distinguished from the income of a living.

Dowry and jointure: Marriage payments and the material interests surrounding alliances.

Utopia: The imagined distribution of offices and rewards.

Temporize: Conformity and accommodation as alleged ways of rising.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 3–6limited preferment, sufficient support, gratitude and the detached spectator’s self-presentation.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 12–16promotionem in the ironic account of worldly advancement, followed by reversal of the worldly judgment.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 19–21; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 26–28merit-based offices, prebends as analogy, church livings and examined candidates, followed by the impossibility of ideal virtue.
4. Subsection 2 A Digression on the Nature of Spirits Evil Angels or Devils and How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 4–9reported spirit-governed promotions and disappointments, with the challenge to authority and the Saturnine claim.
5. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 8–22the qualified scholar at Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraph 11, poorly paid alternatives, the half-income living, dependence and scholars’ value to patrons.
6. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 1–6Howson’s complaint, spiritual preferments at Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraph 3, financial and spiritual hazards, and actual versus possible appointments.
7. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 35–39gaining a benefice begins new trouble; repairs, fees, title and litigation, with the concession that parishioners often are honest.
8. Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 15–18living as income measured against station; class prejudice and the disputed Terence example remain attributed.
9. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraphs 37–41refused honours, offices and preferments at Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraph 39, within the qualified historical description of bashfulness.
10. Subsection 4 Symptoms Arising From Education, Custom, Duration, Our Circumstances, Mingled With Other Diseases, Occurring in Fits, From Inclination, and So On · paragraphs 1–4imagined preferment shaped by ambition, education and occupation.
11. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraphs 23–27providential preferment and adversity as different parts of Christian consolation.
12. Member 6 Against Envy, Spite, Rivalry, Hatred, Ambition, Self-Love and All Other Passions · paragraphs 51–57Burton’s unsuccessful pursuit, acknowledgment of generous patrons and separate Latin and English harbour verses.
13. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 17–29the lucrative prebend, all competitors, the unapplying scholar, the explicit fictional retraction, and the alternatives of unfitness or providential withholding.
14. Member 2. Subsection 2. Other Causes of Love Melancholy: Sight; Beauty of the Face, Eyes and Other Parts; and How It Pierces Us · paragraphs 21–27advancement for appearance, the source qualifications and the additional merits in Adrian’s example.
15. Artificial Attractions of Love and Incitements to Lust Gestures Clothes Dowry and So On · paragraphs 9–12marriage connections and promotionis; Burton’s separate English adds money to the Latin hope of advancement.
16. Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraphs 13–26; Persistence and Opportunity of Time and Place; Meetings, Conversation, Singing, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales and Sights, Kissing, Familiarity, Tokens, Gifts, Bribes, Promises, Declarations, Tears, and So On · paragraph 19prefer their suites as furthering courtship through false claims; the continuation exposes broken promises and the alternative use of gifts.
17. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraphs 43–47marriage as a supposed bar to advancement, the comic disclaimer, positive conditional praise and adverse contrast.
18. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 34–37; Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraph 36preferred as recommended for service; upbringing and beauty, Pulcheria’s subsequent recommendation, and the distinction between her agency and administering baptism.
19. Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 39–44; General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 1–4disappointed and expected advancement as attributed motives in religious polemic.

In this edition

“fit for preferment” → “ready for advancement”; “honours, offices and preferments” → “honours, offices and promotions”; “a fat Prebend” → “a lucrative prebend”; “spiritual preferments” → “church appointments”. Advancement, promotions and appointments name the opportunities at issue. Lucrative makes fat’s economic force explicit, while prebend retains the specific office. Spiritual locates the appointments in the Church rather than defining an inward state.

Proceeded with all applause becomes taken his degrees to general applause: proceeded has its academic sense, and his identifies the scholar. A Living to the halves becomes a living with only half its income; the added explanation identifies the revenue surrendered. Benefice can become living in the account of finally obtaining a small appointment. A knight’s living, however, becomes a knight’s income without implying ecclesiastical office. The Latin in esse and posse is rendered actual and possible; Burton’s following present and to come is his own separate explanation.

In sub spe magnæ promotionis → in the hope of great advancement, promotionis is the genitive of advancement, with magnæ agreeing with it; spe supplies hope. Burton’s next English mentions money and preferment, but money is not part of that Latin phrase. Promotionem is instead an accusative object: the alleged worldly practices bring advancement and security. The Latin social critique remains ironic. Preferred means advanced; its unreal conditional concerns the promotion that did not happen. Was preferred by some friends becomes she was recommended by friends: she makes the subject explicit from the surrounding construction, while some has no separate equivalent. Prefer their suites becomes further their courtship: prefer is further, their retains possession, and suites supplies courtship.

Benefice

Printed “benefices” (English; lemma).

Endowed ecclesiastical offices with associated income.

Here: The proposed rectors of benefices must be university-trained, examined and approved.

Context: Burton’s commonwealth proposal under collective patronage, followed by an admission that ideal officeholders cannot in fact be obtained.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Rectors of benefices

Modern rendering: Rectors appointed to benefices

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

Word and construction: Benefices retains the endowed offices; Rectors names their holders. Appointed to makes the relation explicit where original of expresses it compactly.

Translator-supplied words: appointed to, explicating the relation in of

Further local use

Printed “Benefice” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Benefice.

An endowed church office and its income.

Here: Obtaining even a small living begins new financial, legal and social troubles.

Context: Burton speaks as an aggrieved university man. He enumerates repairs, fees and uncertain title, but concedes that villagers often are peaceable and honest even while deploring loss of scholarly company.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a smal Benefice

Modern rendering: a small living

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

Word and construction: Benefice becomes living; a and smal are retained as a and small.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

In esse and posse

Printed “in esse and posse” (Latin; phrase).

In actuality and in possibility.

Here: The phrase distinguishes appointments presently held from possible future appointments affected by the threatened forfeiture.

Context: The terms occur inside the Howson complaint; Burton’s following English both present and to come explains them separately.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: in esse and posse

Modern rendering: actual and possible

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

Word and construction: In esse supplies actual and posse possible in the modern adjectival rendering; the Latin construction presents being and being possible, not two names for church offices. The following English restatement is not part of this selected Latin unit.

Living

Printed “Living” (English; lemma).

An endowed church office together with its income.

Here: A dependent household chaplain may obtain a living while surrendering half its income.

Context: Burton’s satirical example, associated with Barclay’s Euphormio, says may perchance after some seven years. A small rectory may be tied to a marriage; offending the patrons instead brings expulsion.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a Living to the halves

Modern rendering: a living with only half its income

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

Word and construction: Living retains the endowed office; to the halves is expanded into with only half its income. Only and its express the disadvantage and the living’s income implicit in the idiom.

Further local use

Printed “livings” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Living.

Ecclesiastical offices with their incomes.

Here: Collective bodies are to control nomination to these offices in Burton’s proposed commonwealth.

Context: Burton’s imagined arrangements, not an account of existing law; candidates come from universities and are examined. The next paragraph admits that ideal professional virtue is impossible to secure.

Source: original body

Source and modern wording: church livings

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

Word and construction: The phrase is retained; church determines the institutional sense of livings.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Living · living

Printed “living” (English; lemma).

Income or means of support.

Here: A lord’s having only a knight’s income illustrates deprivation relative to social station.

Context: Burton’s hierarchy measures distress by birth and former prosperity; the next paragraph’s claim that lowborn people feel poverty less is his class prejudice, not a factual assessment. The following account of Terence’s destitution is disputed by its biographical source.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a Knights living

Modern rendering: a knight’s income

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

Word and construction: Living means income without implying a church office; Knights supplies knight’s, while a is retained.

Prebend

Printed “Prebend” (English; lemma).

An endowed cathedral position or the income attached to it.

Here: The vacancy is lucrative and attracts competing claims based on wealth, service, birth, merit, need and promises.

Context: Burton initially allows that deserving people sometimes prosper, then explicitly tells an imaginary tale. He withdraws its happy ending at 096-24 as pure fiction, never actual and never likely.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a fat Prebend

Modern rendering: a lucrative prebend

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

Word and construction: Fat supplies lucrative, the substantial income; Prebend retains the specific ecclesiastical office. A is retained.

Further local use

Printed “Prebend” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Prebend.

An endowed cathedral appointment.

Here: The bishop freely gives the post to an unapplying scholar known only by reputation.

Context: The apparent triumph of merit belongs to the expressly retracted fiction.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: the Academical Scholar had the Prebend sent him for a present

Modern rendering: the academic had the prebend sent to him as a gift

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

Word and construction: Prebend is retained; for a present becomes as a gift. The complete clause retains the scholar as recipient, not donor.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Further local use

Printed “Prebends” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Prebend.

Endowed ecclesiastical positions.

Here: Existing church offices provide an analogy for merit-based rewards in the imagined commonwealth.

Context: Burton distinguishes hereditary dignities from elected or granted rewards; he then rejects exclusion of qualified commoners.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: our Bishopricks, Prebends

Modern rendering: our bishoprics and prebends

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

Word and construction: Prebends is retained as prebends; Bishopricks is the separate bishoprics. Modern and articulates the original list.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Prefer; advance · prefer

Printed “prefer” (English; family).

To advance or raise to office or rank.

Here: God is said to advance some people and bless them with worldly honours and appointments.

Context: Burton’s Christian consolation distinguishes some who receive prosperity from others exposed to adversity; he interprets both providentially, without promising advancement to every deserving person.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: exalt, prefer, blesse with worldly riches, honours, offices and preferments

Modern rendering: raises up, advances and blesses with worldly riches, honours, offices and promotions

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

Word and construction: Prefer supplies advances and preferments promotions; exalt and blesse retain their distinct contributions. The surrounding original Some he doth supplies the subject and auxiliary outside the selected list.

Further local use

Printed “preferments” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Preferment.

Advancements in rank or appointment.

Here: Promotions belong to the events assigned to attending spirits in the reported account.

Context: Burton attributes the theory to cited writers, after questioning Trithemius’s authority for angelic jurisdictions. The continuation reports a Saturnine disadvantage and favoured parasites; these are historical supernatural explanations.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: preferments, losses, weddings, deaths, rewards & punishments

Modern rendering: promotions, losses, weddings, deaths, rewards and punishments

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

Word and construction: Preferments supplies promotions; the remaining events are retained individually.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Prefer; advance · preferred

Printed “preferred” (English; family).

Advanced or promoted to rank or office.

Here: Physical appearance is said to procure kingship and other advancement.

Context: Burton claims many men were advanced for looks alone; the apparatus does not verify his broad national claims, and his following Adrian example also credits intellect, learning and eloquence.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: preferred for their person alone

Modern rendering: advanced for their looks alone

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

Word and construction: Preferred supplies advanced; person is interpreted as looks in the physical-beauty argument, and alone retains the asserted exclusiveness.

Prefer; further a pursuit

Printed “prefer” (English; family).

Further, advance or promote a cause or pursuit.

Here: Men lie about their wealth to further their courtship.

Context: Burton’s satirical charge follows accounts of deception on both sides; the ensuing promises of luxury are false and are neglected after desire is satisfied. Failing promises, gifts are tried. No successful promotion in rank is reported by this phrase.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: prefer their suites

Modern rendering: further their courtship

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

Word and construction: Prefer supplies further, their retains the possessive, and suites is rendered collectively as courtship. The object is an amorous pursuit, not a person recommended or raised in rank.

Prefer; recommend

Printed “preferred” (English; family).

Recommended or put forward for service.

Here: Friends recommend Athenais to serve Pulcheria; the later imperial marriage is a subsequent event.

Context: The tale follows Burton’s conditional advice to value beauty and upbringing as an adequate dowry. Athenais’s immediate narrative sources remain uncollated; friends recommend her for service, while Pulcheria’s later recommendation leads Theodosius to marry her. Baptism through Pulcheria’s agency does not mean she administered it.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: was preferred by some friends

Modern rendering: she was recommended by friends

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

Word and construction: Preferred supplies recommended and by friends retains the agents; she is an explicit modern subject supplied from the larger construction. Original some has no separate equivalent in this modern phrase.

Preferment · preferment · local use 1

Printed “preferment” (English; lemma).

Advancement in rank or appointment to a remunerated position.

Here: The qualified scholar is ready for advancement but remains unable to obtain it after costly university study.

Context: Burton’s hypothetical scholar survives the obstacles to learning and completes degrees; the following alternatives offer poorly paid teaching, preaching or household service, not a guarantee that qualifications bring employment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: fit for preferment

Modern rendering: ready for advancement

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

Word and construction: Fit for supplies ready for; preferment supplies advancement. The phrase names readiness, not an appointment already secured.

Further local use

Printed “preferment” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Preferment.

Advancement or remunerative opportunity.

Here: Poets and other scholars are likened to starving grasshoppers.

Context: Burton’s complaint and adapted Socratic fable; its continuation blames want for flattering dependence and then asserts that scholars give patrons lasting fame.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: there is no preferment for them

Modern rendering: there is no advancement for them

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

Word and construction: The negative construction is retained; preferment is advancement.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Further local use

Printed “preferment” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Preferment.

Advancement in appointment or livelihood.

Here: The speaker asks why education should be pursued without hope of reward.

Context: Burton’s frustrated response after quoting Howson’s complaint; this is rhetorical discouragement rather than a universal statistical finding.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: to be as far to seek of preferment after twenty years study, as we were as first

Modern rendering: if after twenty years’ study we are as far from advancement as at the beginning

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

Word and construction: The whole infinitive comparison is recast conditionally by the modern; preferment supplies advancement.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Further local use

Printed “preferments” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Preferment.

Advancements in career, office or rank.

Here: Marriage is initially described as an obstacle to advancement.

Context: The preceding shocking anecdote is expressly comic. This serious sentence immediately denies that marriage itself is evil and praises wise, virtuous, harmonious spouses; the final adverse judgment concerns imprudent sensual people.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a stop to all preferments

Modern rendering: a bar to every advancement

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

Word and construction: Stop supplies bar; all becomes every; preferments advancement.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Preferment · preferments

Printed “preferments” (English; lemma).

Promotions or appointments.

Here: Shy people may refuse opportunities that are offered without their seeking them.

Context: Burton says most part within a historical symptom description that also allows opposite dispositions and differences in severity and duration. Peter of Blois and Christopher Urswick are named examples, but their particular refusals remain untraced.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: honours, offices and preferments

Modern rendering: honours, offices and promotions

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

Word and construction: Preferments supplies promotions; the separate honours and offices remain separate members of the list.

Preferment · preferment · local use 2

Printed “preferment” (English; lemma).

Advancement in office or status.

Here: Burton says he has not obtained greater advancement but has a sufficient income from generous patrons.

Context: The first-person self-presentation balances failed advancement with gratitude and freedom from indebtedness; it does not say that Burton received no patronage.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Greater preferment as I could never get

Modern rendering: I have never obtained greater advancement

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

Word and construction: Preferment supplies advancement; the fronted object is reordered around the explicit first-person subject in modern English.

Further local use

Printed “preferment” (English; lemma).

Citation key: Preferment.

Advancement in rank or appointment.

Here: Burton recalls exhausting himself and his friends in an unsuccessful search.

Context: His complaint leads immediately to an explicit grateful acknowledgment of generous patrons and kindness, alongside dissatisfaction with other expectations; the harbour verses express withdrawal.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: seek about for preferment

Modern rendering: seek advancement everywhere

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

Word and construction: Preferment supplies advancement; about becomes everywhere in the search context.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Further local use

Printed “preferred” (English; family).

Citation key: Prefer; advance.

Been advanced to office or rank.

Here: Promotion is imagined counterfactually as a possible cause of pride or neglect of God and friends.

Context: Burton first proposes that the disappointed applicant may be unfit, then expressly grants the alternative that he is more deserving than his peers. Providence may have withheld office for his good; the argument does not declare all unsuccessful applicants unworthy.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: hadst thou been preferred

Modern rendering: Had you been promoted

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

Word and construction: Preferred supplies promoted; hadst thou been becomes Had you been, retaining the unreal condition.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Preferment · preferment · local use 3

Printed “preferment” (English; lemma).

Advancement in rank or office.

Here: The ambitious melancholic imagines advancement as future or already possessed and performs a lord’s role.

Context: Burton’s historical account of symptoms shaped by habits and occupations; the quoted cases are reported beliefs, not verified appointments or modern diagnoses.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: some future preferment, or present as he supposeth

Modern rendering: future advancement—or advancement already achieved, as he supposes

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

Word and construction: Preferment supplies advancement in both alternatives; the modern repeats the noun and expands present as already achieved. The qualification as he supposes applies to claimed possession.

Preferment · preferment · local use 4

Printed “preferment” (English; lemma).

Advancement to office or rank.

Here: Disappointed claims to deserved advancement are alleged to provoke religious faction.

Context: Burton says as they suppose and foolish self-valuation; this is his polemical explanation of ambition, within an account of demonic manipulation. The Donatus and Arius examples are partisan and incompletely sourced, not verified motives.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: have not (as they suppose) preferment to their worth

Modern rendering: have not—as they suppose—received advancement equal to their worth

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

Word and construction: Preferment supplies advancement and to their worth equal to their worth; received makes the original have not construction idiomatic in modern English; the parenthetical as they suppose remains within the equal-scope unit.

Preferment; ecclesiastical appointment

Printed “preferments” (English; family).

Appointments or advancements; here specifically church offices.

Here: The quoted complaint warns that simony and perjury can forfeit church appointments now held or potentially obtainable.

Context: Burton quotes John Howson’s sermon on the cost of education followed by a further purchase from the patron; the financial, legal and spiritual claims belong to this historical protest.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: spiritual preferments

Modern rendering: church appointments

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

Word and construction: Spiritual specifies church rather than an inward mental quality; preferments supplies appointments.

Further local use

Printed “preferment” (English; family).

Citation key: Preferment; ecclesiastical advancement.

Advancement within the Church.

Here: Expected appointment is one alleged material motive for defending religious doctrine.

Context: Burton’s anti-Catholic polemic attributes this motive to some of the middle sort; it is not established evidence about all believers. The following Harpsfield example contrasts historical uncertainty with religious conviction.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: hope of Ecclesiastical preferment

Modern rendering: the hope of advancement in the Church

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

Word and construction: Ecclesiastical becomes in the Church; preferment advancement; hope is retained.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.

Proceed

Printed “proceeded” (English; lemma).

Advanced through university degrees; completed the relevant academic progression.

Here: The scholar has taken degrees to applause before seeking paid advancement.

Context: Burton distinguishes successful university progression from the ensuing lack of preferment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: proceeded with all applause

Modern rendering: taken his degrees to general applause

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

Word and construction: Proceeded supplies taken his degrees in this academic context; with all applause becomes to general applause. His makes the contextual possessor explicit.

Translator-supplied words: his, identifying the scholar as possessor of the degrees

Promotio

Printed “promotionis” (Latin; lemma).

Of advancement or promotion; genitive singular of promotio.

Here: Nobles are said to welcome marriage into the bishop of Ely’s family in hope of advancement.

Context: Burton’s hostile account follows William of Newburgh. The adjacent English adds money explicitly; it is a separate restatement, not a literal definition of the Latin noun.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: sub spe magnæ promotionis

Modern rendering: in the hope of great advancement

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

Word and construction: Sub spe is in the hope, magnæ great and promotionis of advancement; magnæ agrees with promotionis, not spe. The genitive phrase depends on spe.

Further local use

Printed “promotionem” (Latin; lemma).

Citation key: Promotio.

Advancement; accusative singular, object of ferunt together with securitatem.

Here: Advancement is the worldly reward supposedly earned by accommodating flattery and uncritical assent.

Context: Burton’s ironic catalogue attacks the worldly judgment that calls conscientious people foolish; the next paragraph reverses that verdict through Christian judgment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: quæ promotionem ferunt & securitatem

Modern rendering: that bring advancement and security

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

Word and construction: Quæ supplies that, ferunt bring, promotionem advancement and securitatem security; the whole relative clause is aligned.

Sense relation: Related advancement or livelihood application, retaining its own grammar, institution, agency and argumentative qualification.