John Man

John Man (1512–1569) was an English churchman, college head, and diplomat.

Life

He was born at Lacock or Winterbourne Stoke, in Wiltshire. He was educated at Winchester College from 1523, and New College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1533, and M.A. in 1537, and became a Fellow. Under suspicion of heresy, he was expelled; but became the principal of White Hall, Oxford in 1547.

In 1562 he was appointed Warden of Merton College, Oxford, by the influence of Archbishop Matthew Parker. He became Dean of Gloucester in 1566. In 1567 he was sent by Elizabeth I as her ambassador to Madrid; the mission was unsuccessful and he was recalled in 1568. Dr. John Man was a Protestant cleric, who called the pope in public a canting little monk. Some sources maintain he was expelled by Philip II.

Works

He published Common places of Christian Religion (1563), based on Wolfgang Musculus.

Further reading

John Man (author)

John Anthony Garnet Man (born 15 May 1941) is a British historian and travel writer. His special interests are China, Mongolia and the history of written communication. He takes particular pleasure in combining historical narrative with personal experience.

He studied German and French at Keble College, Oxford, before doing two postgraduate courses, a diploma in the History and Philosophy of Science at Oxford and Mongolian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, completing the latter in 1968.

After working in journalism with Reuters and in publishing with Time-Life Books, he turned to writing, with occasional forays into film, TV and radio.

In the 1990s, he began a trilogy on the three major revolutions in writing: writing itself, the alphabet and printing with movable type. This has so far resulted in two books, Alpha Beta and The Gutenberg Revolution, both republished in 2009. The third, on the origin of writing, is on hold, because it depends on access to Iraq.

He returned to the subject of Mongolia with Gobi: Tracking the Desert, the first book on the region since the 1920s. Work in Mongolia led to Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection, which has so far appeared in 21 languages. Attila the Hun and Kublai Khan: The Mongol King Who Remade China completed a trilogy on Asian leaders.