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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
The illicit influx of William Tyndale’s vernacular New Testament and other reforming works into England in the late 1520s was considered an affront to the ecclesiastical authorities and an encouragement to lay heretical thought. No one was more vitriolic in condemnation than Thomas More, the lawyer-turned-polemicist, who was to become Chancellor from 1529. He declared, ‘Nothynge more detesteth then these pestylent bokes that Tyndale and suche other sende in to the realme, to sette forth here theyr abomynable heresyes.’ As Chancellor, More was renowned for his zealous persecution of heretics and booksellers, which he justified as a moral and legal imperative in order to uphold the Catholic faith. He also wrote several works, initially at the request and licence of Bishop Tunstall in March 1528, and thereafter in reply to the treatises of Tyndale and other Antwerp exiles. These writings provide tantalizing insights into the activities of Tyndale and the Christian Brethren as seen through the eyes of their chief protagonist. It was not only the New Testament, emanating from Cologne and Worms, that worried More, but Tyndale’s polemical works from the printing press of Johannes Hoochstraten in Antwerp, especially The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, The Obedience of a Christen Man, and The Practice of Prelates. Fellow exiles, such as George Joye, John Frith, and Simon Fish, were also writing popular and doctrinal works, including A Disputation of Purgatorye, The Revelation of Antichrist, David’s Psalter, and A Supplication for the Beggars. Thomas More regarded William Tyndale, the Antwerp exiles, and their ‘Brethren’ in England as the most active producers and distributors of vernacular heretical books. However, his perceptions of the Brethren, their sympathizers, and their organization have been under-utilized by historians, who often rely more on the post-contemporary reflections of John Foxe. There perhaps remains the suspicion that More was conveniently coalescing all sedition under a single banner as a rhetorical device, or due to prejudice and unfounded conspiracy theories. Indeed, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer outlined a smuggling network as an attempt to demoralize Tyndale’s supporters, by describing how various individuals had renounced their doctrines and betrayed their fellows. These were his tools of polemics, but More’s testimonies should not be dismissed as the mere delusions of a staunch anti-heretical zealot. He had studied the reforming works and interrogated significant figures in the Brethren. His conspiracy theories, it can be argued, were based on fact.
DavisJames, ‘The Christian Brethren and the Dissemination of Heretical Books1’ (Cambridge University M.Phil, thesis, 1997) gives further detail about issues discussed below. I would like to thank Peter Spufford, Margaret Aston, Richard Rex, and Kaele Stokes for their advice.
2 The English episcopal authorities feared that an unauthorized translation of the New Testament would encourage unorthodox thinking. On 14 May 1530 Bishop Nix of Norwich remarked, ‘It passcth my power, or that of any spiritual man to hinder it now, and if this continue much longer it will undoe us all’: BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra E.v, fol. 360r. See also Bowker, M., The Henrician Reformation: the Diocese of Lincoln under John Longland, 1521–1547 (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar; Gwyn, P., The King’s Cardinal: the Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (1990), 347–51, 479–99.Google Scholar
3 The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, in Carroll, G.X. and Murray, L.B., eds, The Complete Works of St Thomas More, 15 vols (New Haven, CT, and London, 1963–97)Google Scholar [hereafter CW’TW], 8:27 U.32-5.
4 STC, nos 24454, 24446, 24465, 11386.5, 11394, 2370, 3036, 10883.
5 Several historians, such as Davis, J.F., Dickens, A.G., and Haigh, C., make little use of More’s writing when discussing the Christian BrethrenGoogle Scholar: Davis, J.F., Heresy and Reformation in the South-East of England, 1520–1550, (1983), 27–95 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Lollardy and the Reformation in England’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 73 (1982), 217–36 Google Scholar; Dickens, A.G., The English Reformation (rev. edn, 1967), 104–16 Google Scholar; idem, ‘The early experiences of English Protestantism’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 78 (1987), 187–222 Google Scholar; Haigh, C., English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993), 51–71 Google Scholar. By contrast, Susan Brigden’s excellent study includes many references to More’s work and his remarks about the Brethren: Brigden, S., London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989), 82–128 Google Scholar, esp. 111.
6 Confutation, 11–27.
7 Rupp, E.G., Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition (Cambridge, 1947), 6–7 Google Scholar. 13–14.
8 Brigden, London, 82–128.
9 Davis, Heresy and Reformation; idem, ‘Lollardy and the Reformation’, 217–36.
10 Hudson, A., The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History (Oxford, 1988), 482.Google Scholar
11 Dickens, English Reformation, esp. 60.
12 Rupp, Studies, 6–7, 14; R Rex, Henry VIII and the English Reformation (1993), 136–9.
13 Confutation, 20 I.37-22 I.37; Maidstone, Kent Record Office, DRb/Ar 1/13, fols 135V-136r; BL, MS Harley 421, fol. 12v.
14 Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archives Office, Ep. Reg. 26, fols 228r-v; Foxe, John, Actes and Monuments, ed. Townsend, G., 8 vols (1843–9)Google Scholar [hereafter A&M], 4:123-4, 219–46, 580–1.
15 Brewer, J.S., Gairdner, J., and Brodie, R.H., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols (1862–1932)Google Scholar [hereafter L&P], 4/ii, nos 4218, 4850; BL, MS Harley 421, fol. 35r.
16 Ibid., fols 11r-35r.
17 Confutation, 12 I.23.
18 The Debellation of Salem and Bizance, in CWM, 10:28 ll.12-17.
19 Frith, John, A Disputation of Purgatory (Antwerp, 1531)Google Scholar; The Apology, in CWM, 9:91 1.i 1.
20 Ibid., 116 l.34; Debellation, 29 1.2.
21 Hall, Edward (ed. Ellis, H.), Chronicle (1809), 763.Google Scholar
22 BL, MS Harley 425, fols 8r-12v; A&M, 4:617-19, 5:121-6; Youngs, F.J., ‘The Tudor government and dissident religious books’, in Cole, C.R. and Moody, M.E., eds, The Dissenting Tradition (Athens, GA, 1975), 170 Google Scholar; L&P, 4/ii, no. 4260, 6, nos 402–3.
23 Douthit-Weir, J.L., ‘Tyndale’s The obedyence of a Chrysten man’, The Library, 5th ser., 30 (1975), 95–107 Google Scholar; Danieli, D., William Tyndale: a Biography (New Haven, CT, and London, 1994). 155 Google Scholar.
24 Plomer, H.R., Wynkyn de Worde and his Contemporaries from the Death of Caxton to 1535 (1925), 202.Google Scholar
25 PRO, C1 /564/27; Walter, H., ed., Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures by William Tyndale, PS (Cambridge, 1848), 126.Google Scholar
26 L&P, 4/i, nos 1802–3.
27 Rogers, E.F., ed., The Letters of Sir John Hackett, 1526–1534 (Morgantown, WV, 1971), no. 37 Google Scholar, L&P, 4/ii, no. 3132.
28 Ibid., no. 3968.
29 Ibid., nos 3962–3, 4004, 4017, 4074; Mitchell, W.T., ed., Epistolae Academicae, 1508–1596, Oxford Historical Society, ns 26 (1980), 217–19, 223–4 Google Scholar; A&M, 5:5, 421–7.
30 A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, in CWM, 6:269-70; Confutation, 379 ll.11-17; London, Guildhall Library, MS 9531/10, fols 126v-37r.
31 Frith, Disputation, sigs Aviir-Aviiir; London, Guildhall Library, MS 9171/11, fols 132v-3r.
32 Youngs, ‘Books’, 170; Brown, R. and Hinds, Au., eds, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts – Venice, 38 vols (1869–1947), 4, no. 642 Google Scholar; Bergenroth, G.A., de Gayangos, P., and Hume, M.A.S., eds, Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers, relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain, 13 vols (1862–1954), 4/i, nos 509, 539Google Scholar; BL, MS Harley 425, fol. 15r; L&P, 6, nos 39, 99, 100.
33 A&M, 5:29, 34–6.
34 Brigden, S., ‘Thomas Cromwell and the Brethren’, in Cross, C., Loades, D., and Scarisbriek, J.J., eds, Law and Government under the Tudors (Cambridge, 1988), 36–7 Google Scholar; L&P, 6, no. 751. See also n.28 above.
35 Apology, 90 II.12-18; Gü. Corric, ed., Sermons and Retnairts of Hugh Latimer, PS (Cambridge, 1845), 306. Preachers like Latimer and Thomas Bilney provided a sympathetic and evangelical force to the activities of the booksellers.
36 Sebastian Newdygate was a Carthusian monk, executed in 1535 as an intransigent Catholic: Rupp, Studies, 8. For Thomas Keyle see L&P, 4/i, nos 787(18), 3008(9), 4594(20). London, Metropolitan Archives (formerly Greater London Record Office), DL/C/330, fols 83V, 123r.
37 Davis, J.F., ‘Joan of Kent, Lollardy and the English Reformation’, JEH, 33 (1982), 228.Google Scholar
38 PRO, SP1/237, fol. 9sr; A&M, 5:34-6, app. xiii; L&P, Addenda, 2 parts (1929), 1, no. 752.
39 The Answer to a Poisoned Book, in CWM, 11:6 II.21-9.
40 Confutation, 813 11.16-20.
41 A&M, 4:659, 666; L&P, 4/iii, no. 5416.
42 Fines, J., ‘An unnoticed tract of the Tyndale-More dispute?’, BIHR, 42 (1969), 220–30.Google Scholar
43 Rogers, Letters of Hackett, nos 67–9, 72, 75, 78–80, 82, 95, 98, 115.
44 Confutation, 11–17; A&M, 4:619, 8:712-15.
45 Rogers, Letters of Hackett, no. 78.
46 Confutation, 20 11.21-2.
47 Ibid., 17–20; Apology, 118–19; L&P, 4/i, nos 1802–3.
48 Lichfield Record Office, B/A/1/14i, fols 51r-2r; Fines, J., ‘An incident of the Reformation in Shropshire’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society, 57 (1961–4), 166–8.Google Scholar
49 Confutation, 813–16.
50 L&P, 4/ii, nos 4029, 4030; A&M, 4:680-2; Strype, John, ed., Ecclesiastical Memorials, 6 vols (Oxford, 1822), i/ii:63-4.Google Scholar
51 Ibid., i/ii:54-5, 63–5.
52 A&M, 4:656-66, 698–9.
53 Joye, George (ed. Arber, E.), An Apology (1535) (Birmingham, 1883), 20–1 Google Scholar; Rogers, Letters of Hackett, nos 27, 29, 30; A&M, 5:27, 37.
54 A&M, 4:680-8; London, Corporation of London Record Office, Journal 13, fol. 289V.
55 A&M, 5:5–6; Apology, 91 l.i 1.
56 Brigden, London, 184–5; A&M, 4:586.