Editing Robert Burton (section)

===Family and grammar school===
[[File:Burton family house, Lindley, from William Burton's Description of Leicestershire.jpg|thumb|Lindley Hall, the Burton family manor, as depicted in a stylised frontispiece to William Burton's ''Description of Leicestershire'' (1622). The manor was a medieval foundation, inherited affinially by the Burton family, and torn down in the 17th century.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=4–5}}]]
Robert Burton was born on 8 February 1577, to Ralph Burton (1547–1619) and his wife, Dorothy ({{nee|Faunt}}; 1560–1629), in [[Lindley, Leicestershire|Lindley]], [[Leicestershire]].{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=87}} Burton believed himself to have been conceived on 9 PM on 25 May 1576, a fact he often used in his astrological calculations.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=2}} He was the second of four sons and fourth of ten children; his elder brother, [[William Burton (antiquary, died 1645)|William]], is the only other member of the family for whom we know more than minor biographical details, as he later became a noted antiquarian and topographer.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=87}}{{efn|Ralph, and later his son William Burton, recorded the names and birthdates of ten Burton children: Elizabeth (b. 7 July 1573), Anne (b. 5 July 1574), William (b. 24 August 1575), Robert (b. 8 February 1577), Mary (b. 13 July 1578), George (b. 28 August 1579), Jane (b. 17 October 1580), Ralph (b. 3 July 1582), Catherine (b. 22 October 1584), and Dorothy (who died in infancy).{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|pp=3–4}}}} Both his parents' families were members of the [[landed gentry]], with the Burtons from an old, if undistinguished, pedigree.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=87}} Robert may have inherited his medical interest; in the ''Anatomy'', he writes of his mother's "excellent skill in [[wikt:chirurgery|chirurgery]]".{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=5}}{{efn|According to Michael O'Connell: "'Chirurgery' here does not have quite our modern sense of surgery [...] [it] had still its etymological sense of medicine practised by the hands and would include such things as bone-setting and the treatment of sprains and lacerations."{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=5}}}} William states a member of their mother's family, Anthony Faunt, was said to have died from "the passion of melancholy",{{sfn|Gowland|2006|p=5}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=87}} and speaks fondly the family's maternal relation to [[Arthur Faunt]], a Jesuit controversialist and uncle to William and Robert.{{sfn|Gowland|2006|p=5}}

Burton probably attended two grammar schools, the [[King Edward VI College, Nuneaton|King Edward VI Grammar School]], [[Nuneaton]] and [[Bishop Vesey's Grammar School]], [[Sutton Coldfield]].{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=88}}{{efn|In the ''Anatomy'', Burton indicated he studied at Sutton Coldfield, while his will states he was a "Grammar Scholar" at Nuneaton. The biographer [[Jean Robert Simon]] first identified the schools as those above, but admits that neither has Burton's name in their archives.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=88}}}} Burton wrote in the ''Anatomy'' that students "think no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a Grammar Scholar", which some writers have taken as suggestion that he was an unhappy schoolboy. More modern biographers, such as R. L. Nochimson and Michael O'Connell, have regarded it as Burton merely presenting what was a popular sentiment, rather than hinting at any personal dislike or source of childhood melancholy.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|pp=88–89}}{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|pp=6–7}}