John Halle

John Halle, or John Hall of Maidstone (c. 1529/1530 – c. 1568)^[1] was an English surgeon, known as a medical writer and poet.

Life

Born in 1529 or 1530, Halle became a member of the Worshipful Company of Chirurgeons, and practised as a surgeon at Maidstone, Kent.^[2] He is thought to have been a supporter of Thomas Wyatt the younger, and involved in Wyatt's rebellion.^[1]

Works

As a poet, Halle was influenced by Thomas Wyatt the elder.^[1] His works were:^[2]

• Certayne Chapters taken out of the Proverbes of Solomon, with other Chapters of the Holy Scripture, and certayne Psalmes of David, translated into English Metre, London (Thomas Raynalde), 1549.
• A Poesie in Forme of a Vision, briefly inveying against the most hatefull and prodigious artes of Necromancie, Witchcraft, Sorcerie, Incantations, and divers other detestable and deuilishe practises, dayly used under colour of Judiciall Astrologie, London, 1563.
• The Court of Vertue, contayning many Holy or Spretuall Songes, Sonnettes, Psalmes, Balletts, and Shorte Sentences, as well of Holy Scripture, as others, with musical notes, London, 1565. This book seems by the prologue to have been written to contrast with The Court of Venus, a collection of love songs.^[2] Dedicated to Thomas Cole.^[1]
• A most excellent and learned woorke of chirurgerie, called Chirurgia parva Lanfranci, Lanfranke of Mylayne his briefe: reduced from dyvers translations to our vulgar-frase, and now first published in the Englyshe prynte, black letter, 4 pts., London, 1565. Translation from Lanfranc of Milan. It contains a woodcut portrait of the translator, "æt. 35, 1564". Appended were two other works: A very frutefull and necessary briefe worke of Anatomie; and An Historiall Expostulation: Against the beastlye Abusers, both of Chyrurgerie, and Physyke, in oure tyme: with a goodlye Doctrine and Instruction, necessarye to be marked and folowed, of all true Chirurgiens, reprinted in volume 11 of the publications of the Percy Society, London, 1844, edited by Thomas Joseph Pettigrew. Halle denounced in the latter the quacks of the day, and opposed the combination of magic, divination, and physic.
• A metrical version of The Prouerbes of Salamon, thre chapters of Ecclesiastes, the sixthe chapter of Sapientia, the ix chapter of Ecclesiasticus, and certayne psalmes of Dauid, London (Edward Whitchurch), n.d., dedicated to John Bricket, esq., of Eltham. Halle complained that chapters of the Book of Proverbs, translated by him into English metre, 1550, had been attributed to Thomas Sternhold.
• English translation of Benedict Victorius Faventinus's and Niccolò Massa's treatises De Morbo Gallico; Cure of the French Disease, a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, which also contains letters from Halle to William Cuningham.
• Commendatory verses, in English, prefixed to Thomas Gale's Enchiridion of Chirurgerie, 1563, and to the same author's Institution of a Chirurgian, 1563.

Notes

1. Zim, Rivkah. "Hall, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11967. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2.  Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1890). "Hall, John (1529?-1566?)". Dictionary of National Biography. 24. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1890). "Hall, John (1529?-1566?)". Dictionary of National Biography. 24. London: Smith, Elder & Co.