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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
In a letter of 26 August 1523 Thomas More writes to Wolsey about a Franciscan friar, Thomas Murner, who while in Germany has written a book against Luther in defense of the king and recently has been I brought to England under false pretenses. More explains that the king has pitied this friar in his plight and would now have Wolsey reward Murner with £100 to enable him to return home where his presence is very necessary. More continues:
he is one of the chiefe stays agaynst the faction of Luther in that parties, agaynst whom he hath wrytten many bokis in the Almayng tong and now sith his cummyng hither he hath translated in to Latyn the boke that he byfore made in Almaigne in defence of the Kingis boke.
The following article was read at the annual meeting of the St. Thomas More Project, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., on 4 December 1965.
1 The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, ed. Elizabeth F. Rogers (Princeton, 1947), p. 277,11. 62-69. Hereafter cited as Rogers.
2 Adalbert Erler, Thomas Murner ah Jurist (Frankfurt am Main, 1956), pp. 8-13, 24, 58. For the most complete study of Murner's work see Theodor von Liebenau, Der Franziskaner Dr Thomas Murner (Frieburg im Br., 1913).
3 Thomas Murners Deutsche Schriften, Band 7, Kleine Schriften: Prosaschriften gegen die Reformation, ed. Wolfgang Pfeiffer-Bell (Berlin u. Leipzig, 1928), p. 113. Murner's anti- Lutheran writings are included in vols. 6-8 of this edition. Hereafter cited as DS.
4 Although More's letter is dated 26 August, he remarks that the Franciscan ‘hath now bene here a good while'. Cf. Rogers, p . 277,11. 56-57. According to Liebenau, Murner's absence in England can be documented from 26 August to 11 September. For the chronology of Murner's polemics and his English trip see Paul Scherrer, ‘Zwei neue Schriften Thomas Murners', Basler Zeitschrijt fiir Geschichte und Altertumskunde XXIX (1930), 145-167. It is in this article that Scherrer brought to light the hitherto undiscovered final anti-Lutheran polemic of Murner, Mendatia Lutheri in serenissimum anglorum et frantiae regem etc. The only copy of this fragmentary work is in the Munich Universitatsbibliothek to which I am indebted for a Xerox reproduction. While Scherrer was not concerned with any possible relation between Murner and More, his numerous articles on the German apologist have been most valuable to the present writer.
5 DS VIII, 49-50.
6 DS VIII, 58.
7 Scherrer, p. 157. The king's letter is entitled Epistola regia ad illustrissimos Saxoniae duces pie admonitoria and is bound in with Henry's Assertio and other relevant material which Pynson published under the title Libello huic regio haec insunt. Cf. Epistola regia, sig. a4v and the Mendatia, sig. aiiv.
8 Mendatia, sig. ciii: ‘Ad tertiam vero tue orationis partem, qua regium & omni seculo dignissimum atque verissimum librum mendatijs insimulas: respondebit tibi doctissimus, & etate & doctrina atque viteintegritate venerabilis praesul Iohannes episcopus RofFensis'. Scherrer (pp. 158-159) interpreted Murner's statement as referring to the Assertionis lutheranae confutatio and was curiously uncertain about the first appearance of this work. Because this book was published by Michael Hillen at Antwerp on 2 January 1523, Murner's use of the future tense becomes inexplicable and confutes Scherrer's own argument unless it is understood that Murner is here referring to the later Defensio which did not appear until 1525. Such a possibility would seem reasonable, first, if we recognize that the controversy is specifically a controversy between Luther and the king with De captivitate Babyhnka and not the Assertio omnium articulorum M. Lutheri as the basic text in question. Thus Fisher would reply to Luther through his later defense of the king's book and not through the confuting of Luther's Assertio. Secondly, in his letter to the Bishop of Ely which serves as the preface to his Defensio, Fisher states that he had begun the work two years before its publication in June 1525 but had set it aside on account of other business as well as the rumor that Luther would recant (cf. Defensio [6]). Thus Murner would have easily been able to be in England at the time that Fisher wrote the bulk of this work.
9 Scherrer, p. 155.
10 Responsio ad Lutherum is a convenient title for More's pseudonymous work of 1523 against Luther. There were two issues: Eruditissimi viri Ferdinadi Barauelli opus elegãs, London, 1523 (the only known copy being at the University of Durham), with a prefatory letter dated 11 February: Eruditissimi viri Guilielmi Rossei opus elegans, also 1523, with prefatory letters dated 3 August and 17 September. In the latter, sig. H has been expanded from four to thirty leaves. This is referred to hereafter as Rosseus.
11 In the Spongia which Erasmus wrote in July 1523 (cf. Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi, ed. P. S. Allen, v, 309) the humanist alludes to the Baravellus version of the Responsio; cf. Opera omnia, ed. J. Clericus (Leyden, 1703-1706), x, 1652c.
12 Ambrosius Catharinus Politus, O.P., Apologia pro veritate catholicae et apostolicae fidei … appeared at Florence in December 1520. The edition used here is that edited by Josef Schweizer in the Corpus Catholicorum, vol. 27 (Münster i. W., 1956), hereafter cited as CC. For a biography of Catharinus see Friedrich Lauchert, Die italienischen literarischen Gegner Luthers (Freiburg im Br., 1912), pp. 30-133.
13 Ad librum eximii magistri nostri … responsio, which appeared in June 1521, is in the Weimar edition oiLuthers Werke, VII, 705-778. All references to Luther's works will be to the Weimar edition (WA).
14 Rosseus, sig. [A3 V].
15 Adolph Wrede, ed., Deutsche Reichstagakten, Jiingere Reihe II (Gotha, 1896), p. 784. Hereafter cited as DRA.
16 Mendatia, sig. aiiv.
17 Rosseus, sigs. GGIv-GG2. Cf. Y4v.
18 Mendatia, sigs. aiiv-aiii.
19 Rosseus, sigs. H6v-H7. The correct collation for the expanded H gathering can be found in R. W. Gibson, St. Thomas More: a Preliminary Bibliography (New Haven and London, 1961), p. 85. Nevertheless for purposes of convenient reference the signatures of the H gathering will here be treated as though they ran consecutively.
20 DS VII, 61, 63.
21 Rosseus, sigs. PP2v-PP3.
22 DS VI, 74.
23 WA VII, 683.
24 WA VII, 699.
25 William A. Clebsch, England's Earliest Protestants (New Haven and London, 1964), pp.85-87.
26 Rosseus, sig. H17. The translation is not my own but that of Sister Scholastica Mandeville, Ad.P.P.S. It will be published along with the forthcoming edition of the Responsio by the St. Thomas More Project at Yale University.
27 Rosseus, sig. H21.
28 DS VI, 110.
29 DS VII, 71.
30 DS VII, 44-46.
31 DS VI, 42; VII, 23; VIII, 7-9, 15-16.
32 DS VII, 5-6, 13-15.
33 DS VII, 44.
34 DS VI, 99-100.
35 DS VI, 33,121.
36 DS VI, 104.
37 DS VII, 29.
38 DS VI, 120. Cf. J. P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus: series Latina (Paris, 1841), XIII, 176: Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me Catholicae Ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas.
39 DS VIII, 79.
40 DS VI, 45.
41 DS VIII, 115.
42 DS VII, 86.
43 DS VI, 73.
44 Cf. SisterDonnelly, Gertrude Joseph, A Translation of St. Thomas More's Responsio ad Lutherum (Washington, D.C., 1962), pp. 13–15.Google Scholar Murner was certainly aware of Luther's reply to Catharinus. See Mendatia, sig. fiv.
45 See the Baravellus version of the Responsio, sigs. DIv-D2.
46 Rosseus, sigs. VIv, Y2-Y2V. This reference and the following three are given to the more accessible Rosseus version which in these places does not differ from the earlier Baravellus.
47 Rosseus, sig. QQ3V.
48 Rosseus, sig. T3.
49 Rosseus, sigs. AA2V-AA3; cf. sig. X3.
50 Rosseus, sig. F4V. Cf. also sigs. H30v, V3, X3-X3 v, X4 V.
51 Rosseus, sigs. OIv-O2.
52 André Prévost, Saint Thomas More, contribution á l'histoire de la pensée religieuse (Lille, 1945), p. 76. This is a dissertation, one mimeographed copy of which was given to the St. Thomas More Project at Yale University by Miss Elizabeth F. Rogers.
53 Rosseus, sig. CCI.
54 Rosseus, sigs. SIv-S3.
55 Rosseus, sig. S3.
56 Rosseus, sigs. N4, PP2-PP2V, PP4v-QQi.
57 Rosseus, sigs. P2, PP2-PP2 V. 5S Rosseus, sig. H2 V. 59 Rosseus, sig. H3.
60 Rosseus, sigs. H6V, H7-H7 V.
61 Rosseus, sig. H8V.
62 Rosseus, sigs. H8v-H10.
63 Rosseus, sig. H11v .
64 Rosseus, sig. H14-H14v.
65 Rosseus, sig. H17-H17v.
66 Rosseus, sig. H15.
67 Rosseus, sigs. H17, H22V-H23, H24.
68 Rosseus, sig. H19.
69 Rosseus, sigs. H19v, H21v-H26.
70 Rosseus, sigs. H24v-H25.
71 Rosseus, sig. H25v.
72 Rosseus, sig. H26.
73 Rosseus, sig. H27.
74 Rosseus, sig. H27.
75 Rosseus, sig. H27v. The translation is Sister Scholastica Mandeville's.
76 Rosseus, sig. H21v.
77 Prévost, p. 77.
78 Rosseus, sig. H28.
79 Rosseus, sig. H9V: ‘Certe quod ad papain pertinet quid mali fuerit caruisse nouit deus: qui eum suae praefecit ecclesia;: nee optandum puto ut res Christiana periculo perdiscat.'
80 Rosseus, sig. H26.
81 Cf. Rosseus, sig. H9.
82 Cf. The Dialogue concerning Tyndale, 1, chap. 27, in The English Works of Sir Thomas More, ed. W. E. Campbell and A. W. Reed (London, 1931), II, 111; cf. also Rogers, pp. 499-500.
83 Rosseus, sig. T4.
84 Rosseus, sig. QQ4.
85 Rosseus, sigs. TT4v-VVI .
86 Rosseus, sig. H6. ‘sed Christum tamen illo apud Mattheum loco, non de sua prsecellentia loquutum: sed le preficiendo suo gregi uicario … tamen in illo loco non de sua praesidentia loquutum Christum: sed de substituendo in ecclesia sua primatu.’ While praeses and praesidens are common enough terms, praesidentia appears in the standard dictionaries rarely and then without any substantial information. Despite its root in the verb praesideo, praesidentia does not seem to be germane to Roman or to canon law. Latham's Revised Medieval Latin Word-List suggests that it is a late medieval term for rule, either ecclesiastical or secular. The ecclesiastical use of the term is confirmed by Du Cange: among monks praesidens, the president, has extraordinary power. The term, however, and its root do appear in the literature of church councils. One hears of the papal legates as praesidentes, and John of Torquemada will refer to their praesidenciam. Cf. Johannes de Torquemada, Oratio Synodalis de Primatu, ed. Emmanuel Candal, S.I. (Roma, 1954),p. 81,11. 5-8. More's own use of the word can perhaps be suggested by the following examples. On the one hand Torquemada, high papalist, refers to the pope as 'eum, qui universali ecclesie praesidet’ (ibid., p. 85,1.11). On the other hand St. Augustine applies the verb praesideo to God: ‘Domine, tu qui praesides gubernaculis omnium quae creasti’ (Conf., VI, 7,12). Likewise St. Thomas Aquinas: ‘videlicet dicamus Christum esse simpliciter maximum et dominum et praesidentem’ (S.T. III, Q. 20, a. 2c). In article 25 of his Assertio omnium articulorum Luther himself had specifically objected to the idea that John xxi. i5rF., ‘pasce oves meas', supported the papal claim to jurisdiction. Here he maintained that pascere meant servire and not praesidere or superiorem esse (WA 7:130, 11-14). In his Confutatio Fisher reasserted both regere and praesidere (f. 147v). Although aware of Fisher's interpretation, More follows Erasmus and claims that pascere connotes simply regere (Rosseus, sig. H26v).
87 CC XXVII, 97.
88 CC XXVII, 131.
89 Cf. CC XXVII, 149.
90 But cf. sig. H26v. When at the end of the H gathering More has to argue for the necessity of jurisdktio in the church, he obliquely refers to the authority of presiding in connection with the pope: ‘Sed tamen multa potest et debet praesidentis authoritas: que sibi, nee potest nee debit arrogare, cuiusque priuati hommis charitas.'
91 On the misinterpretation of More's words to Cromwell, ‘these x yere synnys and more’ (Rogers, p. 498,1. 216), see E. E. Reynolds, Saint Thomas More (London, 1953), pp. 161-63.
92 Rogers, pp. 499-500.
93 Rogers, p. 499, 11. 255-264.
94 Prevost, pp. 157-160.
95 Cf. Rosseus, sigs. H8V, H10.
96 Rosseus, sigs. H22, H23.
97 Prévost, p. 161.
98 DS VII, 14-15.
99 Cf. Joseph Lortz, Die Reformation in Deutschland (vierte Auflage) (Freiburg, Basel, Wien, 1962), 11, 162.
100 Cf. King Henry VIII, Assertio septem sacramentorum [London, 1521], sig. S4V et passim; Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. J. S. Brewer (London, 1867), 111, 2, nos. 1914, 3390; DRA 11, 783-785.
101 Scherrer, p. 159.
102 Allen, v, 330.
