1570 Edition | Book 7 | Page 1034 
to be lawfull, for priestes professyng chastitie, to leaue their single life, and to mary: MarginaliaTouching þe Greeke Church, how vntruely this Cardinall speaketh, turne to þe pag. 242. col. 1. li. 30.no not the Grekes them selues, which in rites be differyng frō vs, do geue this libertie to their own priestes to mary: wherfore he prayed them, to geue their aide to the Byshop in this behalfe.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe ambassadours replye.Wherunto the Ambassadours replyed agayne, saying, that if he would first punish the whoremasters, then might the Senate assiste him the better in correctyng the other. But the Cardinall was still instant vppon them, that first they should assiste their Byshop, and then if the Byshop would not punishe whoredome, he would come thether hym selfe, and see them punished accordingly.
[Back to Top]This Cardinal Campeius, how he was sent by Pope Clement the vi. to the second assemble or diet of Norenberge, an. 1524. and what was there done by þe sayd Cardinall, is before signified,
CloseThe second diet of Nuremberg is not discussed in Foxe, he is merely carelessly repeating Sleidan's reference to his previous discussion of the diet.
CloseThis is the Colloquy of Regensburg (Ratisbon) in 1524. Foxe uses John Daus's translation of Sleidan's Commentaries. (See Johannes Sleidan, A famouse cronicle of our time, called Sleidanes Commentaries, trans. John Daus [London, 1560], STC 19848, fos. 49v-50r).
These thinges thus hetherto discoursed, whiche fully may be sene in the cōmentaries of Iohn Sledan, it remaineth next after the story of M. Luther, some what to ad-ioyne lykewise touchyng the history of Zuinglius and of the Heluetians. But before I come to the explication of this story, it shall not be vnconuenient, first to geue some litle touche of the townes called pages, of these Heluetians, and of their league and confederation first begon amongest them.
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CloseFoxe begins his account of the Swiss Reformation with a brief history of the Swiss Confederation, emphasising how 'first they recouered their libertie, and after were ioyned in league together'. His principal source here was Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia universalis, book 3 (in the 1552 Basel edition, pp. 360 et seq). The cantons or 'pagi' ('pagus' in Latin = village) are enumerated. Foxe mentions the first confederation (Urani=Uri; Vntervaldij=Unterwalden; Suicenses=Schwyz), its subsequent enlargement ( including Lucernates=Lucerne; Tigurini=Zurich; Bernatus=Berne; Glareanti=Glarus; Apencellenses=Appenzell; Basilienses=Basel; Solodurij=Solothurn) and then those who joined later (Sangalli=St-Gall; Mullusiani=Mulhouse, etc). From this same source also came Foxe's passage on William Tell (p. 361), a myth which had already acquired iconic status through the verse drama, the Urner Tellspiel (c.1512; published 1530s) and Aegidius Tschudi's Chronicon Helveticum, which Foxe mentions in the margin. He may have become acquainted with its existence, or even have read it, whilst he was in Basel (for it was not published in the sixteenth century). For the myth, see R. C. Head, 'William Tell and his Comrades: Association and Fraternity in the Propaganda of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Switzerland' The Journal of Modern History 67, no. 3 (1995), 527-77. It was equally from the Cosmographia that Foxe recounts the history of the war between Frederick, duke of Austria and Ludovic, duke of Bavaria and the counsel of the fool, Kune de Stocken (p. 363).
[Back to Top]This was scene-setting, however, for the important section to follow on 'The actes and life of Zwinglius'. Foxe accords almost ten pages to the Zwinglian reformation - a clear sign of how much significance he attached to it. The details of his early life were abstracted mainly from the biography, compiled by Oswald Myconius in 'De D. Hvldrichi Zwinglii […] vita et obitv', and composed the year after Zwingli's death in 1532. It had been published as a preface to the edition of Johann Oecolampadius' letters, Epistolarum libri quatuor (Basel [Basileae]: Thomas Platter and Balthasar Lasius, 1536), which provided Foxe with a considerable insight into the networks of scholarly communication that linked the Rhineland Biblicists in the upper Rhineland quadrant (Basel, Constance, Berne, Zurich, etc). For the evolution of the reformation in these cities, however, Foxe turned to the Commentaries of Johann Sleidan, the protestant historian whose work Foxe helped to promote in England through the martyrology (De Statv religionis et reipvblicae carolo qvinto Caesare Commentarii. Photographic reproduction of the edition of 1785-6, edited by J. Gottlieb ed 3 vols (Osnabrück: Otto Zeller, 1968). The material on the first Zurich Disputations of January 1523, the Constitutions of the Council of Lucerne in 1524, and the energetic defence of the progress of the reformation in Zurich by its magistrates in 1524 and early 1525 all came from Sleidan, books 3 and 4. Equally, for the early events surrounding the reformation in Berne, including the Disputations of December 1527 and January 1528, Foxe also drew on Sleidan, book 6. The same source served for his history of the reformations in Strasbourg and Basel. Towards the end of the account, Foxe indicated how he had supplemented his use of Sleidan with Oecolampadius' letters. For the background to the Second Kappel War, and Zwingli's reasons for personal engagement in it, Foxe felt he had to go beyond the impersonal history of Sleidan, returning to Zwingli's letter to the ministers at Ulm, Martinus Freschius and Cunhardus Somius, which he had found in the preface to J. Oecolampadius, Epistolarum libri quatuor (Basel [Basileae]: Thomas Platter and Balthasar Lasius, 1536), fol 211v-212, dated 8 November 1530, in which Zwingli vigorously defended himself against his critics, both inside the canton of Zurich and from without. On the fate of Zwingli's body after his death, Foxe cited a further letter from Oecolampadius, this time to Wolfgang Capiton of 22 October 1531 (fols 172v-173). We should note Foxe's lavish praise for Oecolampadius' Commentaries on the Prophets (J. Oecolampadius, In Iesaiam Prophetam hypomnematôn, hoc est commentariorum, Iannis Oecolampadii libri sex [...] ([Geneva]: Jean Crespin, 1568 [1567?]) which, 'with other worth workes, which he left behinde him, liue still, and shall never die'. They carried a laudatory preface from Heinrich Bullinger, and were remarkable as setting a new standard in the methodology and organization of Biblical commentaries. Towards the end of the section, Foxe translated a letter from Zwingli in which the reformer represented views on Christ's descent into Hell which he had already expounded in the mid 1520s in response to the interpretation of the 'catabaptists' concerning Christ's resurrection in the light of their arguments about the sleep of the soul and the final resurrection - see Huldrych Zwinglis Brief edited Oskar Farner. 2 vols (Zurich, 1918-20), 2, pp. 000-000.
[Back to Top]Mark Greengrass
University of Sheffield
MarginaliaHow the Heluetians came free, & ioyned together in league.THe Heluetians, whom otherwise we call Suitzers, are diuided principally into xiij. pages. The names of whom are, Tigurini, Bernates, Lucernates, Vrani, Suicenses, Vnterualdij, Tugiani, Glareani, Basilienses, Solodurij, Friburgij, Scafusiani, Apecellenses. Furthermore to these be added vij. other Pages, albeit not with such a full bond, as the other, be together cōioyned: which be these, Rhœti, Lepontij. Sedunj, Veragrj, Sangallj, Mullusiani, Rotuilenses. MarginaliaEx Chronic. Heluetie.
Ex Sebasti. Munster. Cosmog. Lib. 3.
Ex Cōment. Ioan. Sled. Lib. 3.Of these xiij. confederate Pages aboue recited, these iij. were the first, to witte, Vrania, Suicenses, and Siluanij (or as some call them Vnterualdij) whiche ioyned them selues together.
If credite should be geuen to old narrations, these iij. pages or Marginalia* Note þt the Pages in Suitzerland are for the most parte, situate in valleyes.* valleyes first suffered great seruitude & thraldome vnder cruell rulers or gouernours: In so much that þe gouernour of Siluania Marginalia* Extortion in rulers.* required of one of the inhabitanes, a yoke of his Oxen: which when the townes man denyed to geue him, the ruler sent his seruaunt by force to take his Oxen from hym. Thys when the seruaunt was about to do, commeth the poore mans sonne, and cutteth of one of his fingers, and vpon the same auoided. The gouernour hearyng this, taketh the poore man, and putteth out his eyes.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaExample of true chastitie in a matrone.An other tyme in the sayd Syluania, as the good man of the house was absent abroad, the gouernour whiche had then the rule of þe towne, entring into the house, cōmaundeth the wife to prepare for him a bath, and to let hym haue his pleasure of her. Whereunto she beyng vnwilling, differred the bathe as longe as she might, till the returne of her husband. MarginaliaAdulterye iustlye punished.To whom then she makyng her complaynt, so moued his minde, that he with his axe or hatched whiche he had in his hand, flew vpon the adulterous ruler and slue hym.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaExample of singular tyrannie.And other example of lyke violence is reported of the ruler of Suicia, and Syuania, who surprised with lyke pride and disdaine agaynst the poore vnderlynges, caused hys cappe to be hanged vp vppon a pole, chargyng and commaundyng by his seruaunt, all that passed by, to do obeysance to the cappe. MarginaliaW. Tell.Whiche when one, named William Tell, refused to do, the tyraunt caused his sonne to be tyed, wt an apple set vpon his head, & the father with a crosse bow or a like instrumēt, to shoote at the apple. After long refusing, whē the wofull father could not otherwise chuse, by force cōstrained, but must leauyl at the apple, as God would, he miste þe child & stroke þe marke. This Tell beyng thus compelled by the tyraūt to shote at his sonne, had brought with hym ij. shaftes, thynkyng that if he had stroke the childe with the one, the other he woulde haue let dryue at the tyraūt. Which beyng vnderstand, he was apprehended and led to the rulers house: MarginaliaPride and tirannye well rewarded.but by the way escapyng out of the boate, betwene Vrania and Brun, & passyng through the mountaines with as much spede as he might, he lay in þe way secretlye as þe ruler should passe where he discharged his arow at the tyraunt, & slue hym.
[Back to Top]And thus were these cruell gouernours vtterly expelled out of these iij. valleyes or pages aforesayd, and after that such order was taken by the Emperour Henricus vij. and also by the Emperours Ludouicus Duke of Bauaria, that henceforth no iudge should be set ouer them, but onely of their owne company, and towne dwellers. MarginaliaEx Sebast. Munster. Cosmogr. Lib. 3.Ex Seb. Munst. Cosmog. lib. 3.
[Back to Top]It folowed after this, in þe yere of our Lord. 1315. that great contention & warre fell betwene Fridericke Duke of Austria, and Ludouicke Duke of Bauaria, stryuyng and fightyng the space of viij. yeares, together about the Empire. With Ludouicus held the iij. pages aforesayd: