Dr Tim Wade

I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at Warwick. Prior to joining Warwick, I was a lecturer and junior research fellow at the University of Oxford. My primary research interests lie in the history of the book; early modern readers and marginalia; Renaissance humanism and reformation scholarship; Erasmus; Christian Hebraism; and the Republic of Letters. These themes are reflected in my first monograph on the reception of Erasmus in early modern England, as seen through the eyes of his readers. This will be published by Brill in November 2026Link opens in a new window.

My current project, England’s Roads to Renaissance, traces the activities of English scholars across mainland Europe between 1490 and 1550. It asks where, why and how English humanists made and sustained contact with their European peers, and why some encounters failed while others succeeded. I am particularly interested in how different forums for encounters such as printing shops, universities and diplomatic missions affected the transmission of ideas, and how the reformation reshaped learned culture. In the course of this project I will be drawing on overlooked letters, travel accounts, marginalia and printed books to reveal the full extent of English involvement in European scholarly life.