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Introduction
Thomas Moffet (1553-1604) has been the subject of many studies. In particular, Virgil Heltzel and Hoyt Hudson, C E Raven, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Margaret Pelling, Charles Webster, Allen Debus, and Victor Houliston have contributed importantly to our understanding of the life, career, and works of one of England's earliest, and most significant, Paracelsians.1 Through their work, we have come to know Moffet as etymologist, Paracelsian physician, author, member of the London College of Physicians, and physician and biographer of Sir Philip Sidney. This paper examines certain important aspects of his career in closer detail, and considers Moffet's intricate and interrelated "triple roles" as a member of the College of Physicians, a client of Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, and as a patronage broker to those who sought preferment within his circle; in so doing, it draws upon the indispensable work already done.
Importantly, new light on Thomas Moffet may be said to radiate largely from the multi-faceted nature of patronage, and patronage relationships, in a highly transitional time in the history of English medicine. Through the agency of patronage, the heterodox cures of some physicians were legitimized, boundaries between Galenic physician and surgeon/empiric began to be eroded, and the social advancement of marginalized medical providers was fostered and encouraged. As a practising physician and an active and controversial natural philosopher, Thomas Moffet was not only an important player within the intricate patronage networks of his day, he was also intimately involved with the processes of change that characterized the attempts by the College of Physicians to establish itself as a "professional body" in early modern London.2
The paper takes as its starting point the problems associated with Moffet's election to the College of Physicians. Houliston observes that Moffet "had some initial difficulty in being recognized by the Royal College of Physicians",3 and Charles Webster notes that "his relations with the College of Physicians were never more than cool".4 As we shall see, these assessments differ from other views; they also invite a closer examination of Moffet's relations with the College.
In 1634, thirty years after the death of the author, Theodore Mayerne published his edition of Thomas Moffet's Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum. In dedicating the work to Dr William Paddy, fellow member of...