Mystery and legend continue to cloud the events surrounding the trial and death of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican who advocated religious reform, prophesied doom for corrupt political and ecclesiastical leaders and, in spite of the considerable power he had gained in Florence; was hanged and burned at the stake in 1498 together with his faithful companions Fra Domenico Buonvicini of Pescia and Fra Silvestro Maruffi of Florence.

One of the most attractive genres of educational literature consists of the sets of Latin and English prose passages written by English schoolmasters during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to exercise their pupils in Latin. Some of the exercises were in Latin alone, intended as examples or models of Latin grammar and syntax. Others, which contemporaries called "vulgars" (Latin vulgaria), comprised passages in English for the pupils to translate into Latin, with model Latin versions for comparison.

One of the great religio-literary controversies has, for nearly four centuries, involved the question of authorship of the Martin Marprelate Tracts. The tracts themselves deliberately seek to obscure answers, and diverse asseverations on the matter extend from 1588 (the year of the first tracts) to the present.

The printing and publishing of such inflammatory writings as the Marprelate Tracts was, from the beginning, likewise a matter of controversy, although less extensive and less disputed than the authorship.