1570 Edition | Book 3 | Page 195 
MarginaliaThe martyrdō of bishop Friderike.
Example of the woman more redy to reuenge then the man.that rather I thinke him to be commended in hys dying, then the woman for her killing.
And for asmuch as mentiō hath ben made of Ludouicus Pius, here is to be noted, that in Fraunce thē was vsed of priestes & churchmen, precious & shewing vesture, and golden, & rich staring gyrdles, with ringes & other ornamentes of golde. Wherfore, the sayd Lewes purchased of the B. of Rome, a correction for all such as vsed such disordinate apparell, causing thē to weare browne and sad colours, according to their sadnes. Fab.
[Back to Top]Of this Lewes the papists do fayne, that because he cōuerted certain of their church goods & patrimony to the wages of his souldiours, his body (they saye) was caried out of hys tomb by deuils, and was no more sene.
And thus a little hauing digressed out of our course, now let vs returne out of France into England again: king Ethelwulfus, who cōming now frō Rome by the countrey of France, was returned agayn into hys own dominion, where he continued not long after.MarginaliaSwithinus bish. of Winchester.
This Ethelwulfus had specially about him 2. bishops, whose counsell he was most ruled by: Swythinus Byshop of Winchester and Adelstanus Byshop of Shireborne. Of the which two, the one was more skilfull in temporall and ciuill affayres touching þe kings warres, and filling of his coffers, & other furniture for the king: The other (which was Swythinus) was of a contrarye sorte, wholye disposed and inclined to spirituall meditation, and to minister spirituall counsell to the king: who had been scholemaister to the king before. MarginaliaExample of a kynd scholer to his schole maister.Wherin appeared one good cōdition of this kings nature, among his other vertues, not onely in folowing þe precepts & aduertisemēts of his old scholemaister, But also in that he like a kind & thankful pupille did so reuerēce his bringer vp, & olde scholemaister (as he called him) that he ceased not, tyll he made him bishop of Winchester, by the consecratiō of Celnoch thē Archbishop of Cant. MarginaliaMonkish miracles fayned of Swithinus.But as cōcerning þe miracles which ar read in þe church of Winchester, of this Swithinus, thē I leaue to be redde together wt the Iliades of Homere, or tales of Robenhode.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaPope Leo, iii.
Stephan. 4.
Paschalis. 1.
Eugenius. 2.
Valentinus. 1.
Gregory. 4.This Gregory þe. iiij. here in this presēt chapter aboue mētioned: was þe thyrd pope which succeded after Paschalis þe first, being but. 4. yeres betwixt thē. which Paschalis succedes Stephē þe. 4. who folowed after Leo þe 3. next Pope vnto Hadriā aboue in our history mentioned wher as we entreated of Charles þe great. Frō the time of that Hadriā þe first, vnto Pope Hadriā the. 3: the Emperors had some stroke in þe electiō (at least in the confirmatiō) of the Romain Pope. Notwithstāding, diuers of these foresaid Popes in the meane time: began to worke their practises to bring þe purpose about. But yet, al their deuises could take no full effect, before the sayd Hadrian the. iij. as hereafter (Christ willing) shall be declared. So that the Emperours all thys while bare some rule in chusing the Popes, & in assembling generall councels. Wherfore by the cōmaundement of Ludouicus themperour, in the tyme of thys Gregorye MarginaliaA general synode at Aquisgraue.the. iiij. a generall synode was cōmensed at Aquisgrane, where it was decreed by the sayd Gregory, and his assistance: MarginaliaEuery churche to haue sufficient to fynd his owne priestes.fyrst that euery church shoulde haue sufficient of hys own proper landes and reuenewes, to fynde the priestes therof: that none should nede to lacke, or go about a begging. MarginaliaPretious garments of scarlet or other rich colour forbidden men of the clergy.Item that none of the clergie of what order or degree so euer he be, should vse any vesture of any precious or scharlet colour. Neither shoulde weare ringes on their fingers, vnlesse it be whē prelates be at masse, or geue their consecrations. MarginaliaGreat families not lawful for men of the clergy.Item that prelates should not kepe to great portes or families, nor kepe great horse, vse dyce, or harlots. And þt monkes should not exceede measure in glottonie or riot. MarginaliaRings & gold in their shoes forbidden.Itē that none of the clergy being either annointed or shauē: should vse either gold or siluer in their shoes, slippers, or gyrdles, like to Heliogabalus. By this it may be cōiectured, what pōpe and pride in those daies was crept into the clergy. MarginaliaThe feaste of al saints first ordayned.Moreouer, by þe said pope Gregory the. 4. at þe cōmaundemēt of Ludouicus emperor, the feast of al sainctes was first brought into the church.
MarginaliaPope Sergius. 2.
When the popes names began fyrst to be altered.
Agnus thrise song at the mas.
The hoste deuided in 3. partes
After thys Pope, came Sergius the. ij. which fyrst brought in the altering of the popes names, because he was named before, os porci, þt is swynes sknowt: which also ordayned the Agnus thrise to be songe at the masse, and the hoste to be deuided into three partes.
MarginaliaPope Leo. 4.
No bishop by the Popes law to be condemned vnder 72. witnesses.After hym, was pope Leo the. iiij. to whom this king Ethelwulfus (as in this present chap. is aboue signified) dyd committe the tuition of his sonne Alured. By thys pope Leo, it came in, and was first enacted in a councel of hys, that no bishop shoulde be condemned vnder. 72. witnesses, according as ye see in the witnesses, at the condemnation of Steuen Gardiner, orderly practised.
MarginaliaThe goldē crosse fyrst borne before the pope.Item contrarye to the lawe of Gregorye the. iiij. hys predecessor: thys pope ordayned the crosse (all set wt gold and precious stone) to be caryed before hym, like a pope.
And here next now followeth and commeth in, the whore of Babilon (rightly in her true colours by þe permission of God and manifestly without all tergiuersation) to appeare to the whole worlde: and that not onely after the spirituall sense, but after the very letter, and the right forme of an whore in dede. MarginaliaA woman pope called Ioā. 8.
The church of Kome after their masse of the holye ghost may erre.For after this Leo aboue mentioned, the cardinalls proceding to their ordinarie election (after a solemne masse of the holy ghost, to the perpetual shame of them and of that sea) in stede of a man pope, elected a whore in deede: to minister sacramentes, to saye masses, to geue orders to constitute deacons, priestes, and bishoppes, to promote prelates, to make abbates, to consecrate churches and altares, to haue the raigne and rule of Emperoures and kings: And so she dyd in dede, called by name Ioan the. viij. Thys womans proper name was Gilberta (a douche woman of Magunce) who went with an english monke out of the abbey of Fulda in a mans apparell, vnto Athens. And after through her dexteritie of witte & learning, was promoted to the popedome: where she sat two yeres &. 6. monthes. At last opēly in the face of a general processiō, fel in labour & trauail of child, & so died. By reasō wherof þe cardinals yet to this day do auoid to come nere by þt streete, where this shame was takē. MarginaliaPope Benedictus. 3. Dirge for the dead.By Benedictus þe. iij. who succeded next in the whoryshe sea, was fyrst ordayned (as most wryters recorde) the dirige to be sayd for the dead. Albeit before hym, Gregorye the. iij. had done in that matter, worthely for his part alredy
CloseThis letter is reprinted from Matthias Flacius, Catalogus testium veritatis (Basel, 1562), pp. 101-9. During the eleventh century, letters were composed under the name of the revered and relatively recently deceased St. Ulric, a tenth-century bishop of Augsburg. The purpose of these was to provide a historical (or pseudo-historical) justification for the marriage of priests. These letters were widely disseminated throughout Europe and accepted as genuine writings of St. Ulric. (See 'Pseudo-Udalrici epistola de continentia clericorum', ed. L von Heineman in Libelli de lite Imperatorum et Pontificum Saeculis 11-12, I, pp. 255-60 (Monumenta Germaniae Historia) and E. Frauenknecht, Die Verteidigung der Priesterehe in der Reformzeit (Hanover, 1997), pp. 70, 176-80 and 303-15). In the fifteenth century, the humanist scholar Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) came across one of these letters and described it as denunciation of clerical celibacy written by St. Ulric. Piccolomini's description of the letter brought it back into prominence and it was seized upon by Protestants. The letter was printed both by Luther and Robert Barnes. (See Catherine Hall, 'The One-Way Trail: Some Observations on CCC MS 101 and G&CC MS 427', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographic Society 11 [1998], p. 276). In 1556, Matthias Flacius printed the letter and identified Ulric as the author and Pope Nicholas I as the recipient (Catalogus testium veritatis [Basel, 1556], pp. 101-9).
[Back to Top]Bale, following Flacius, referred to the letter as the work of St. Ulric in his Scriptorum Illustrium maioris Brytanniae…Catalogus (Basel, 1557), p. 118. Yet in a letter to Matthew Parker of 30 July 1560, Bale stated that he, Barnes and other scholars had been 'foully deceyved' by Picclomini's attribution of the letter to Ulric. Now Bale postulated that the letter had been written by a Bishop Gulderic of Utrecht. (CUL MS Add 7489, fo. 4r - NB the Latin for Ulric is Uldericus or Huldericus). What had changed Bale's mind? Almost certainly it was the Catholic polemicist Frederic Staphylus, who pointed out in 1559, that Nicholas I and St. Ulric were not contemporaries. (Ulric was bishop of Augsburg from 924-73 while Nicholas I was pope from 858-67). On this basis, Staphylus denounced the letter as a forgery (Fredericus Staphylus, Defensio pro trimembri theologica M. Lutheri contra aedificationes Babylonicae turris [Augsburg, 1559], sigs. b4r-C1r). Apparently Staphylus's uncomfortably accurate observation inspired Bale to come up with his identification of Bishop Guldericus of Utrecht as the real author of the letter. Unfortunately there was no bishop named Guldericus in Utrecht in the relevant time period. However, sometime between his letter to Parker and his death, Bale discovered a manuscript which had belonged to the monastery of St. Augustine's, Canterbury and is now Gonville and Caius MS 427 (Hall, 'One-way trail', p. 274). This manuscript contained copies of two letters, both supporting clerical marriage and both attributed to the fictitious Bishop Volusianus of Carthage. The first of these letters was the one that Picclomini had discovered and Flacius had printed, and which both scholars had attributed to Ulric. Bale triumphantly concluded that the letters that he had found were both authentic and both written by Volusianus. Bale also, as Foxe declared, gave the manuscript to Matthew Parker (1570, p. 1320). Parker, however, did not do anything with Bale's discovrery for a number of years and Foxe apparently did not know of it. Instead, Foxe reprinted Flacius's version of the letter, with a translation, in the 1563 edition, attributing it to Ulric (1563, pp. 385-88). Unfortunately, in subsequent editions of the A&M, the Flacius version of the letter continued to be reprinted and atrtributed to Ulric (C 42/1), creating considerable confusion. In 1566, Nicholas Harpsfield repeated Staphylus's criticisms (Nicholas Harpsfield, Dialogi sex [Antwerp, 1566], pp. 146-52). Apparently in response to this, Parker had the pseudo-Volusianus letters printed from the manuscript Bale had given him (Epistolae duae D. Volusiani…[London, 1569], STC 24872). At first Foxe seems to have been unaware of the letters attributed to Volusianus when he began the 1570 edition, since he reprinted the letter attributed to Ulric from Flacius. But Parker eventually loaned Foxe Bale's manuscript of the two letters (C 233/132) and Foxe included them in the A&M. He also referred the reader back to his earlier translation of the first letter and supplied his own translation of the second letter. And, where Bale and Parker maintained that the letters were sent to Nicolas I, Foxe argued that they were sent to Nicholas II.
[Back to Top]Marginalia867.
A letter written to Pope Nicolas concerning priests not to refrain from mariage.NIcolao domino et patri peruigili sanctæ Romanæ ecclessiæ prouisori, Huldericus solo nomine Episcopus,