-ried out of his tombe by deuils, and was no more seene.

And thus a litle hauyng disgressed out of our course, now let vs returne out of Fraunce into England agayn: kyng Ethelwulfus, who commyng from Rome by the coūtrey of Fraunce, was now returned agayne into his owne dominion, where he continued not long after.MarginaliaSwithinus Byshop of Winchester.

This Ethelwulfus had specially about him two Byshops, whose counsaile he was most ruled by: Swythinus Byshop of Winchester and Adelstanus Byshop of Shyreborne. Of the which two, the one was more skilfull in temporall and ciuill affaires touchyng the kynges warres, and filling of his coffers, and other furniture for the kyng. The other (whiche was Swythinus) was of a contrary sorte, wholy disposed and inclined to spirituall meditation, and to minister spirituall coūsell to the kyng: who had bene scholemaister to the kyng before. MarginaliaExample of a kynde scholer to his scholemaister.Wherein appeared one good condition of this kynges nature, among his other vertues, not onely in folowyng the preceptes and aduertisementes of his old scholemaister: But also in that he like a kinde & thankefull pupille did so reuerence his bringer vp, and old scholemaister (as he called him) that he ceased not, till he made him Byshop of Winchester, by the consecration of Celnoch then Archbishop of Cant. MarginaliaMonkish miracles fayned of Swithinus.But as concernyng the miracles which are read in the Church of Winchester, of this Swithinus, them I leaue to be read together with the Iliades of Homere, or tales of Robenhode.

MarginaliaPope Leo, iij.
Stephan. iiij.
Paschalis. i.
Eugenius. ij.
Valentinus. i.
Gregory. iiij.This Gregory the iiij. here in this present Chapter aboue mentioned: was the third Pope which succeded after Paschalis the first, being but. 4. yeares betwixt them, which Paschalis succeded Stephen the. 4. who folowed after Leo the 3. next Pope vnto Hadrian aboue in our history mentioned where as we entreated of Charles the great. From the tyme of that Hadrian the first, vnto Pope Hadrian the. 3: the Emperours had some stroke in the election (at lest in the confirmation) of the Romaine Pope. Notwithstādyng, diuers of these foresayd Popes in the meane tyme: began to worke their practises to bring that purpose about. But yet, all 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 this while bare some rule in chusing the Popes, and in assemblyng generall Councels. Wherfore by the commaundemēt of Ludouicus the Emperour, in the time of this Gregory MarginaliaA general synode at Aquisgraue.the. iiij. a generall Synode was commēsed at Aquisgraue, where it was decreed by the sayd Gregory, and his assistaunce: MarginaliaEuery Churche to haue sufficient to find his own priestes.first that euery Churche should haue sufficient of his owne proper landes and reuenewes, to finde þ^e Priestes therof: that none should neede to lacke, or go about a beggyng. MarginaliaPretious garmentes of scarlet or other rich colour forbidden men of the Clergy.Itē, that none of þ^e Clergy of what order or degree so euer he be, should vse any vesture of any precious or scharlet colour. Neither should weare rings on their fingers, vnlesse it be whē Prelates be at Masse, or geue their consecratiōs. MarginaliaGreat families not lawfull for men of the Clergy.Itē that prelates should not keepe to great portes or families, nor keepe great horse, vse dyce, or harlots. And the monkes should not exceede measure in glottony or riot. MarginaliaRinges and gold in their shoes forbidden.Item that none of the Clergy being either annoynted or shauē: should vse either gold or siluer in their shoes, slippers, or gyrdles, like to Heliogabalus. By this it may be cōiectured, what pompe & pride in those dayes was crept into the Clergy. MarginaliaThe feast of all Saintes first ordained.Moreouer, by the sayd pope Gregory the. 4. at the commaundement of Ludouicus Emperour the feast of all Saintes was first brought into the Church.

MarginaliaPope Sergius. ij.
When the popes names bega first to be altered.
Agnus thrise sōg at the Masse.
The hoste deuided in iij. partes

After this Pope, came Sergius the second whiche first brought in the alteryng of the Popes names, because he was named before, os porci,, that is swynes sknowt: which also ordained the Agnus thrise to be song at the Masse, and the hoste to be deuided into three partes.

MarginaliaPope Leo. iiij.
No Byshop by the Popes law to be condemned vnder 72. witnesses.After him, was Pope Leo the. iiij. to whom this kyng Ethelwulfus (as in this present chapter is aboue specified) did commit the tuition of his sonne Alured. By this Pope Leo, it came in, and was first enacted in a Councell of hys, that no Byshop should be condemned vnder. 72. witnesses, accordyng as ye see in the witnesses, at the condemnation of Stephen Gardiner, orderly practised.

MarginaliaThe goldē crosse first borne before the pope.Item contrary to the law of Gregory the. iiij. his predecessor: this Pope ordained the crosse (all set with gold and precious stone) to be caryed before him, like a Pope.

And here next now followeth & commeth in, the whore of Babylon (rightly in her true colours by the permission of God and manifestly without all tergiuersation) to appeare to the whole world: and that not onely after the spirituall sense, but after the very letter, and the right forme of an whore in deede.MarginaliaA woman Pope called Ioan. viij.For after this Leo aboue mentioned, the Cardinals proceedyng to their ordinary election (after a solemne Masse of the holy Ghost, to the perpetuall shame of them & of that sea) instede of a man Pope, elected an whore in deede to minister Sacramentes, to say Masses, to geue MarginaliaThe Church of Kome after their Masse of the holy Ghost may erre.orders, to constitute Deacons, Priestes, and Byshops, to promote Prelates, to make Abbots, to consecrate Churches and altares, to haue the raigne & rule of Emperours & Kynges: And so she did in deede, called by name Ioan the. 8. This womans proper name was Gilberta (a Dutch woman of Magūce) who went with an English Monke out of the Abbey of Fulda in a mans apparell, vnto Athens. And after through her dexterity of witte and learning, was promoted to the Popedome: where she sat two yeares &. 6. monethes. At last openly in the face of a generall procession, fell in labour & trauaile of child, & so dyed. By reason wherof the Cardinals yet to this day do auoyde to come neare by that streete, where this shame was taken. MarginaliaPope Benedictus. iij. Dirge for the dead.By Benedictus the. iij. who succeded next in the whorysh sea, was first ordained (as most writers recorde) the Dirige to be sayd for the dead. Albeit before him, Gregory the. iij. had done in that matter, worthely for his part already

MarginaliaPope Nicolas the first.After him sat Pope Nicolas the first, who enlarged the Popes decrees with many constitutions, equalling the authoritie of them, with the writynges of the Apostles. He ordayned that no secular Prince, nor the Emperour himselfe, should be present at their Councels, vnlesse in matters concernyng the fayth: to the end that such as they iudged to be heretickes, they should execute and murther. Also, that no lay men should sit in iudgement vpon the Clergy men, or reason vpon the Popes power. Item that no Christian Magistrate should haue any power vpon any prelate, alledgyng that a Prelate is called God. Itē that all Church seruice should be in Latin: yet notwithstandyng, dispensing with the Sclauonians, & Polonians, to retaine still their vulgar language. Sequences in the Masse were by him first alowed. MarginaliaThe Mariage of priestes begon to be forbidden.By this Pope, Priestes began to be restrained and debarred from maryeng: wherof Huldericke Byshop of Austebrugh (a learned, and an holy man) sendyng a letter vnto the pope: grauely and learnedly refuteth & reclaymeth agaynst his vndeserete proceedinges, touching that matter. The copy of which letter, as I thought it vnworthy to be suppressed, so I iudged it here worthy & meete for the better instruction of the Reader, to be inserted. The wordes whereof here follow out of Latin into English translated.

¶ A learned Epistle of Hulderike Bishop of Ausbrough, sent to Pope Nicholas the first, prouyng by probations substauntiall, that Priestes ought not to be restrayned from Mariage.  

Commentary     Close

Ulrich of Augsberg letter

This 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 cōcernyng Priestes not to refrayne from Mariage.NIcolao Domino & patri, peruigili sanctæ Romanæ Ecclessiæ prouisori, Huldericus solo nomine Episcopus, amorem vt filius, timorē vt seruus. Cum tua (O pater & Domine) decreta super clericorū continentiam. &c.

Huldericke Byshop onely by name, vnto the reuerend father Nicholas the vigilant prouisor of the holy Churche of Rome: with due commendation sendeth loue as a sonne, and feare as a seruaunt. Vnderstandyng reuerend father your decrees which you sent to me concernyng the single lyfe of the Clergy, to be farre discrepant from all discretion, I was troubled partly with feare, partly with heauynesse. With feare, (for that, as it is sayd) the sentence of the pastor, whether it be iust or vniust, is to be feared.

For I was afrayd for the weake hearers of the Scripture (which scarsely obey the iust sentēce of their Pastor) much more despising this vniust decreement, through the onerous and importable transgression of their Pastor, should shewe themselues disobedient. With heauynes I was troubled, and with cōpassion: for that I doubted how the members of the body should do (their head beyng so greatly out of frame). For what can be more greuous or more to be lamēted, touchyng the state of the Church: then for you, beyng the Byshop of the principall seate, to whom appertaineth the regiment of the whole Church: to swarue neuer so litle, out of the right way: Certes in this you haue not a litle erred, in that you haue gone about to constrayne your Clergy to singlenes of life, through your imperious tyrāny: whom rather ye ought to stirre vp to the continency of mariage. For is not this to be counted a violence and tyranny to the iudgement of all wise men: when a man is compelled by your decrees to do that whiche is agaynst the institution of the Gospell, and the proceedyng of the holy Ghost? Seyng then there be so many holy examples, both of the old and new Testamēt, MarginaliaPriestes Mariage in the old law permitted, in the new law not forbiddē.teaching vs (as you know) due information: I desire your pacience not to thinck it greuous, for me to bryng a fewe here out of many.

First in the old law, the Lord permitteth mariage vnto the Priestes, whiche afterward in the new law, we do not