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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
The late medieval prophetic tradition played a significant role in how John Bale (1495–1563), England’s first Protestant church historian, formulated his ideas about the nature of revelation, which would become a contentious issue in the course of the Reformation. It is the goal of this essay to examine this first-generation evangelical’s views, which will bring us closer to understanding prophecy and its legitimacy in Reformation-era Europe. In an influential essay, Richard Southern illustrates the important role of the prophetical tradition in premodern historical writing: ‘Prophecy filled the world-picture, past, present, and future; and it was the chief inspiration of all historical thinking.’ But while its significance is easy to pinpoint, the varied nature of prophetic revelation does not make for easy delineations or definitions. Southern names four types of prophecy in the Middle Ages: biblical (Daniel, Revelation); pagan (sibylline); Christian (such as that of Hildegard of Bingen); and astrological (stars and celestial events). Of course, even these are not clearly distinct categories; Southern notes that Merlin is ‘half-Christian, half-pagan’. Lesley Coote points out that the ‘subject of political prophecy is king, people and nation’, separating this from theological, apocalyptic prophecy, though she also asserts that the two are closely related. Bernard McGinn remarks that in the later Middle Ages, prophecy is ‘seen as a divinatory or occasionally reformative activity – the prophet as the man who foretells the future, or the one who seeks to correct a present situation in the light of an ideal past or glorious future’.
I wish to thank those who offered comments on this communication at the EHS Summer Meeting, and the society itself for a bursary that allowed me to attend. Innumerable thanks also go to Alec Ryrie for his insightful comments and suggestions on several drafts of this essay.
1 Southern, R. W., ‘History as Prophecy’, TRHS ser. 5, 22 (1972), 159–80 Google Scholar, at 160.
2 Ibid. 168.
3 Coote, Lesley A., Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England (York, 2000), 14.Google Scholar
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14 Engammare, Max, ‘Calvin: A Prophet without a Prophecy’, ChH 67 (1998), 643–61, at 648.Google Scholar
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17 Ibid.; Lotz-Heumann, Ute, ‘“The Spirit of Prophecy Has Not Wholly Left the World”: The Stylisation of Archbishop James Ussher as a Prophet’, in Parish, and Naphy, , eds, Religion and Superstition, 124.Google Scholar The relationship between preaching and prophesying in the early Reformation is underscored by the establishment of the Prophezei in Zürich, where Scripture was interpreted and sermons were prepared: see Locher, Gottfried W., Zwingli’s Thought: New Perspectives (Leiden, 1981), 27–30.Google Scholar
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19 Lotz-Heumann, ‘Archbishop Ussher’, 119–32.
20 Sermons by Hugh Latimer, ed. George Elwes Corrie (Cambridge, 1844), 320–1. I am grateful to Alec Ryrie for this reference.
21 See Jotischky, Andrew, The Carmelites and Antiquity (Oxford, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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26 For instance, Foxe incorporated Bale’s martyrology of Oldcastle nearly verbatim in the first edition of his Acts and Monuments: see Foxe, John, The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1563 edn) (HRI Online Publications, Sheffield, 2011), 313–33, <http//www.johnfoxe.org>, accessed 1 July 2011.,+accessed+1+July+2011.>Google Scholar Foxe’s characterization of Oldcastle, based on Bale’s Brefe chronycle, caused polemical controversy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: see Monta, Susannah and Freeman, Thomas S., ‘Holinshed and Foxe’, in Kewes, Paulina, Archer, Ian and Heal, Felicity, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed’s Chronicles (Oxford, 2012), ch. 13.Google Scholar I am grateful to the authors for allowing me to see the manuscript prior to publication.
27 Bauckham, Richard, Tudor Apocalypse (Abingdon, 1978), 38–90 Google Scholar; Firth, Katharine R., The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain, 1530–1645 (Oxford, 1979), 32–68 Google Scholar; Fairfield, John Bale.
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29 Bale, John, A brefe chronycle concerninge the examinacyon and death of the blessed martyr of Christ syr Johan Oldecastell (Antwerp, 1544), Aviiir-Bir.Google Scholar
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31 Parish, Helen L., Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church (Abingdon, 2005), 45–70.Google Scholar
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33 Bale, The actes of Englysh votaryes, Gviv.
34 Ibid., Eivr; cf. 2 Thess. 2: 1–12.
35 Ibid., Cvir.
36 Ibid., Bir.
37 For a reference to this passage, see ibid., Fir.
38 Ibid., Diiir.
39 Ibid., Eivr.
40 See Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, ed. Reeve, Michael D., transl. Wright, Neil (Woodbridge, 2007), 148 (Book VII).Google Scholar
41 Bale, John, The first examinacyon of Anne Askewe (Wesel, 1546), Aiir.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., Aiijr; see Bede, , The Reckoning of Time 68, ed. Wallis, Faith, TTH 29 (Liverpool, 1999), 240–1.Google Scholar
43 Bale also sought to mend John Wyclif’s reputation: see Aston, Margaret, ‘John Wycliffe’s Reformation Reputation’, in eadem, ed., Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval England (London, 1984), 243–72, at 244–6.Google Scholar
44 Bale, Brefe chronycle, Dviv.
45 Ibid., Eir (my italics).
46 Ibid., Giir.
47 The same type of paratextual component is also evident in an example from the Wittenberg press of Nickel Schirlenz, in which a work from the medieval prophetical tradition is appended to an evangelical text: a German translation of the Magdeburg prophecy serves as an appendix to pseudo-Pflaum’s Practica (1532): see Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, 57; Lerner, Robert E., The Powers of Prophecy: The Cedar of Lebanon Vision from the Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of the Enlightenment (Ithaca, NY, 2009), 166.Google Scholar
48 Bale, Brefe chronycle, Gviiir.
