Our imperfect knowledge: John Dygon and Joanna Greenwood versus Andrew Holes

This article considers the contrasts and the similarities between two manuscript collectors in fifteenth-century England. Though they were both Oxford graduates, each of whom was based in Salisbury for a time, John Dygon and Andrew Holes had rather different careers, the former spending his last years as a recluse at Sheen, while Holes had a long stint at the papal curia in Florence. It has been assumed that there was an overlap on the book-collecting habits but this is shown not to have been the case; it is unlikely that they knew each other well -- Dygon had left Salisbury before Holes arrived there. Despite that, a comparison between them is instructive, suggesting different routes to a cosmopolitan outlook that could be taken in fifteenth-century England.