1576 Edition | Book 3 | Page 184 
MarginaliaA controuersie betweene Priestes and Monkes.
Priestes marriage noted for an olde custome in England.
The obiection of Priestes against the Monkes.
Guiliel. in Regib. lib. 1.land. The priestes complainyng to the kyng and Dunstane layd for thēselues, that it was vncomely, vncharitable, yea and vnnaturall, to put out an old knowen dweller for a new vnknowen: and that God was not pleased, that to be taken from the auncient possessor which by God was geuen him: neither that it could be to any good man accepted to suffer such iniury to be done: lest peraduenture the same thyng wherin he was preiudiciall to an other, might after reuert and redound vpon himselfe at length.MarginaliaThe aunswere of Monkes against the Priestes.The monkes on the other side, layd for their part, that Christ alowed neither the old dweller nor the new comer, nor yet looked vpon the person: but who so would take the crosse of penaunce vpō him, and folow Christ in vertuous liuyng, should be his disciple.
These & such other were the allegations of the monkes. But whether a mōkes coule or a wiueles life make a sufficient title to enter into other mens possessions or no, I referre it to the iudgement of the godly. MarginaliaMaryed mens lyues compared with the lyfe of Monkes.The troublous cares in mariage: the necessary prouision for house keepyng: the vertuous bringyng vp of children: the dayly helpying of pouertie and bearyng of publicke charges: with other manifold perturbations and combraunces dayly incident to the state of matrimony, might rather appeare to godly wise mē, to come nearer to the right crosse of penaunce, then the easie and loytring idlenes of monkery. In the end, vpon this controuersie was holden a Councell of Byshops and other of the Clergy: First at Redyng or at Winchester as Guliel. saith: where theMarginaliaAn. 977.greater part both of the nobles & cōmons, iudged the priestes to haue great wrong, and sought by all meanes possible, to bring them agayne to their old possessiōs and dignities. Iornalensis here maketh rehearsall of an Image of the Crucifixe or a roode standyng vpon the frater wall, where the Councell was holden. To this roode Dūstane requireth them all to pray, beyng belike not ignoraunt of some spirituall prouision before hand. MarginaliaA vayne miracle of Dūstanes roode that spake.In the middes of their prayer the roode, or els some blind monke behynd hym in a trunke through the wall, is reported to speake these wordes: Absit hoc vt fiat, absit hoc vt fiat: iudicatis bene, mutaretis non bene. In remembraūce wherof these verses were written vnder the roodes feete.
[Back to Top]Humano more crux præsens ædidit ore.
Cœlitus affata, quæ perspicis hic subarata.
Absit vt hoc fiat, & cætera tunc memorata.
CloseHumano more crux ... tunc memorata.
J. Barrie Hall
The present cross, addressing you from heaven, in human fashion has uttered from its mouth what you see here written below. God forbid that this and the other things then mentioned should befall.
MarginaliaHere lacked a Thomas Cromwell to try out false iugling.Of this Dunstanicall, or rather Satanicall oracle, Hēricus maketh no mention, nor Ranulphus: nor yet Houedenus, nor Fabiā in their histories. Gulielmus in his booke De Regibus, reporteth it, but by hearesay, in these wordes saying: Aliæ literæ docent. &c. Wherfore the lesse it seemeth to be of credite. Albeit if it were of credible truth, yet it proueth in this matter nothyng els, but Dūstane to be a Sorcerer, as Polydorus Virgilius also hymselfe seemeth to smell somethyng in this matter.
[Back to Top]Notwithstanding for all this, yet the strife ceased not. MarginaliaAn other assemble called at Calue.In somuch that a new assemble of the Clergy and other, was appointed after: at a place called the strete of Calue, where the Councell was kept in an vpper loft. In this Coūcell many greuous complaintes were obiected (as Malmesberiensis sayth) agaynst Dunstane. MarginaliaDunstane an enemy to priests wiues.But yet he kept his opinion, and would not remoue from that which he begon to mayntayne. And while they were there in great contention and argument which way should be admitted and alowed, (if it be true, that in the stories is written) sodenly the ioyses of the loft fayled, MarginaliaA sodaine fall of the people at the councel of Calue.& the people with the nobles fell down, so that certaine were slayne, and many hurt. But Dūstane (they say onely, standyng vpon a poast of the solare, which remained vnbroken, escaped without daūger. Which thing, whether it so happened to portend before, the ruine of the Realme and of the nobles (as Henry Huntington doth expound it) which after ensued by the Danes: or whether it was so wrought by Dunstanes sorcery (as was not vnpossible:) or whether it were a thyng but fayned of the mōkish writers, and not true: MarginaliaHenricus. lib. 5.
Guliel.
Ranulph.
Iornalensis.
Fabian.all this I leaue to the Readers, to thincke therein what them liketh. The stories say further, that vpon this the matter ceased, and Dunstan had all his wyll.
These thynges thus done at Calue, it happened not lōg after the same: that kyng Edward, whom the writers describe to be a vertuous and a meeke prince, much pitifull and beneficiall to the poore: about the. iiij. yeare of hys raigne, came vpon a season from huntyng in the forest alone, without the company of his seruauntes, to the place in the West countrey, where Alfrith his mother, with her sonne Egelred dyd lye. MarginaliaThe horrible wickednes of the Queene the mother.When the Queene the mother was warned of his commyng by her men, anone she calleth a seruaunt of hers, which was of her speciall trust, opening to him all her conceiued counsell, and shewing him in all poyntes how and what to do for the accomplishyng of her wicked purpose. Which thiyng so done, she made towardes the kyng, and receaued him with all courtesie, desiryng him to tarye that night. But he in like courtesie excused himselfe, & for speede desired to see his brother, and to drinke, vpon his horse sittyng, the which was shortly brought.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaK. Edward traiterously murthered by his step mother and her seruant.And while the cup was at his mouth, the seruaunt of the Queene (before informed) strake him in the body with a long two edged dagger. After the which stroke the kyng tooke the horse with the spurres, and ran toward the way, where he supposed to meete with his company. But he bled so sore, that with faintnes he fell from his horse, hys one foote beyng in the styrrup. By reason wherof he was drawen of hys horse ouer fieldes and landes, tyll he came to a place named Coryfgate, MarginaliaK. Edward found dead, & buryed, not knowen to be kyng.
Coref castle.where he was founde dead. And for that neither þe maner of his death, nor yet he himselfe for the kyng was knowen: was buryed vnhonorably at the towne of Warrham, where the body remayned the space of. iij. yeares, and then after was taken vp by Duke Alfere aboue mentioned: MarginaliaThe body of king Edward after three yeares honorably taken vp & translated to Shaftesbury.and with pompe and honor accordingly, was remoued to the Minster of Shaftesbury, and there bestowed in the place called Edwardstow. Many tales run (mo perchaunce then be true) concerning þe finding and taking vp of his body: which our most commō histories ascribe to myracles and great wonders wrought about the place where the kyng was buryed. At first how a poore woman borne blynde, receaued her sight by the meanes of S. Edward, there where he did lye. Also how a piller of fyre from heauen, descended ouer the place of hys buryall. Then how the foresayd Queene Alfryth takyng her horse to goe to the place, was stopped by the way: that neither her horse coulde be driuen by any meanes, nor since her selfe on foote was able to approche neare to the place where the corps of S. Edward was. MarginaliaTwo Nunries founded vpō murther.Furthermore, how the sayd Queene in repentance of her facte, afterwarde builded two Nunries, one at Amesbury by Salesbury: the other at Werewelle, where she kept her selfe in continuall repentaunce all the dayes of her lyfe. And thus as ye haue heard, was this vertuous yoūg kyng Edward murthered, when he had raigned almost. iiij. yeares, leauing no issue behynde hym: Marginalia979.wherby the rule of the land fell to Egelredus hys brother
MarginaliaThree Edwards kings before the conquest.¶ But here by the way is to be noted (vpon the name of this Edward) that there were three Edwardes before the conquest. The first was kyng Edward the Senior. The second kyng Edward the Martyr, which was thys kyng. The thyrd was kyng Edward called the Confessor, wherof hereafter shall follow (Christ willing) to be declared.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaCōtinuation of the romishe bishops or Popes.
Pope Iohn. xiii. A wicked Pope.In the order and course of the Romayne Byshops, mention was made last of Agapetus the second. pag. 147.
CloseFoxe's source for this increasingly and cumulatively negative account of 'the rages & tumults of the Romish church' is taken from Bale's Catalogus, pp. 131-139, with some signs of additional confirmation filleted in from other sources, possibly from Matthew Parker's library.
CloseFoxe had scarcely done more in the 1563 edition of his martyrology than point to the significance of this period as one in which 'shepheardes and watchmen became wicked Wolues, Christes frendes chaunged into ennemies. To be shorte here came in the time,that the reuelation speaketh of, whan Sathanas, the old serpent, beyng tied vp for a thousand yere, was losed for a certaine space' (1563, pp. 10-11). Foxe thus linked this, the 'third age' of the church, with the accomplishment of the first millennium of Christian history and the prediction contained in Revelation, 20: 6-8. By the 1570 edition, the turn of the first Christian millennium was treated in a more historicised and implicit fashion. Beneath Foxe's narrative there still lay the implication that there was a deeper significance to be attached to the 'greate miseries vpon this English nation' around the year 1000AD, exemplified by the successful Danish invasions, weak and ill-advised kings, and the divisions among the Anglo-Saxon nobility. Foxe was prepared, albeit with caution, to include in his narrative the ominous prophecy of Dunstan at the coronation of King Ethelred ('They should not be without bloudsheding & sword, til there came a people of an vnknown tongue, and should bring them into thraldome: Neither should that trespass be clensed without long vengeance, &c') and the sinister dream of Edward the Confessor ('God would geue this realme to the hande of others'). The reign of Edward the Confessor was treated as God's granting of brief respite to the kingdom before 'God of his vnknowen iudgementes suffred the Normandes thus to preuail' in the Norman Conquest'. Foxe no doubt wanted the reader to appreciate some of the implied parallels between the pious rule of Edward the Confessor, and the godly laws which he enacted, and that of Edward VI.
[Back to Top]Foxe's treatment of his sources at this point continued his practice, already well-established for Book Three in the 1570 edition of a scholarly bricolage from a relatively limited range of sources. It is often difficult to determine from which of the latter he chose to take his material although, where it is possible to do so, it is evident that he preferred the chronicles from lay, rather than from clerical, sources (Roger Howden; Fabian). Where expedient, he used his clerical sources (Henry Huntingdon; Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum). More occasionally, but critically and with circumspection, he drew on Polydore Vergil's Historia Anglica. Foxe seems, however, to have struggled somewhat with the complexity of the narrative at this point, with his sources giving conflicting accounts in matters of detail which he found difficult to resolve with the resources at this disposal.
[Back to Top]Matthew Phillpott and Mark Greengrass
University of Sheffield
MarginaliaPope Benedictus v.After him, the Romanes elected pope Benedictus the fift, without the consent of the emperour. Whereupon the