3 L A DERROTA HISPANO-PORTUGUESA EN EL TERRENO COMERCIAL

But did Foxe see such distinctions? If not these categories, are the qualities they signify found in the Reformation narrative of lollardy? Essentially, no. As Cosgrove rightly but all too briefly points out, ‘From the publication of John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs in 1563, the progressive unfolding of England’s Protestant destiny pushed the topic of anticlericalism into an intellectual box labelled Catholic only.’6 I aim to show that Foxe conflated ‘literary anticlericalism’, hyperclericalism, and antisac- erdotalism to create overwhelming proof that the members of the true church were united against an oppressive, ungodly clergy who represented the false Church and the ‘Synagogue of Satan’.

Though literary critic Wendy Scase has argued for ‘new anticlericalism’ reflected in Piers Plowman in the late fourteenth century, though not all scholars have ac- cepted this theory.7 _{Swanson, for instance, would like to see the term clarified, but}

beyond this critique, he argues (following the example of scholars of Italian literary anticlericalism) that literary anticlericalism might better be viewed as a ‘control mechanism’ that pointed out clerical excesses but was nevertheless had the ‘sta- bilizing factor’ of a social safety valve. While this may certainly be true, Foxe’s readers would not get that impression. Foxe made little explicit distinction be- tween the literary fiction of the day and the council decrees, political treatises, and heresy trials he incorporated into his text to condemn the clergy. In fact, Book Five of AM (which details the renewed persecutions against the true church, one of the consequences of Satan’s ‘loosing from hell’) begins with the text of The praier

5_{Nussbaum, ‘Laudian Foxe-Hunting?’} 6_{Cosgrove, ‘English Anticlericalism,’ 569.}

7_{Wendy Scase, Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University}

and complaynt of the plowman, an ‘old auncient writing’, ‘writen as seemeth about Wyclif’s time’.8 _{From here, Foxe moved into Johannes de Rupecissa’s prophecy}

that the papacy would decay, and Ralph FitzRalph’s rants against the mendicant orders. In the section that closes this era before Martin Luther in book seven, Foxe commended John Colet, John Gower, and above all, Geoffrey Chaucer, who Foxe said ‘semeth to bee a right VVicleuian’, noted earlier.9

So, the idea that literary anticlericalism might be separated from hyperclericalism or antisacerdotalism evaporated in Foxe’s appropriation of literary works and figures as proof of clerical critique that stretched back to Wyclif’s day. But what can we say about the distinction between hyperclericalism and antisacerdotalism? The hyperclericalism that Hornbeck gleans from Wycliffite works has been transformed in Foxe’s text to antisacerdotalism, nearly across the board. This, though, is hardly surprising given that Foxe’s goal in AM was to furnish the evangelical church with examples from the past to justify the present. As a sixteenth-century reformer, Foxe was happy to see the sacrament of orders desacralized, mass-offering priests turned into preaching ministers, and the eradication of an intermediary between man and God. Because of this, the few examples of hyperclericalism (and it should be reiterated that this was one end of a spectrum of beliefs concerning the clergy) that are in AM are quickly subsumed by antisacerdotal sentiments.

A few examples will suffice. One place where it is clear that the clerical estate had been corrupted and reformed is in Foxe’s narrative of Christopher Shomaker’s martyrdom. Arguing his church existed well before Luther, Foxe maintained that ‘this Religion and forme of doctrine first planted by the Apostles, and taught by true Bishops, afterward decayed, and now reformed agayne, althoughe it was not receaued nor admitted of the Popes clergie before Luthers tyme. . . ’10 _{This seems}

to suggest not only that there was a pure ideal to which England might return, but also preserves the notion of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Readers might note, however, other instances in which Foxe directly associates bishops with persecution.

8_{AM, 515.}

9_{AM, 1004. See above, p. 27.} 10_{AM, 984, my italics.}

For instance, in the case of Wyclif disciple Philip Repingdon, who abjured his beliefs and went on to become Bishop of Lincoln (overseeing William Thorpe’s case), Foxe wrote of his appointment that he was ‘made a bishop and a persecutor’.11

In another instance of hyperclericalism, Sir John Oldcastle detailed lengthily his belief in the three estates of the commonwealth, preserving perfectly the estate of the clergy—though also calling for its reform. In no other lollard testimony preserved by Foxe is the clerical estate laid out so clearly; Oldcastle declared that priests should be ‘More modest...more louyng, gentill, and lowly in spirit, should they be, then any other sortes of people’.12 _{Oldcastle’s testimony, though, only served to show how}

far the priesthood had strayed from this ideal, as copious marginal notes and later testimony reveal. It can also safely be argued that Foxe’s inclusion of this material served the purpose of exonerating Oldcastle of treason against the state rather than upholding a separate priestly class (see chapter four above).

The issue of clerical wealth will serve as another example of hyperclericalism in AM. Calls for the disendowment of the Church and a return to apostolic poverty in order to preserve model priesthood abound in lollard writings, and are present in Foxe. In the same way that the pope’s authority was rendered void due to his divergence from Peter’s scriptural example, for some lollards, priests’ abandonment of their true calling of preaching and teaching in lieu the rewards of this world limited their ability to understand the message of Christ and perform their duties fully. Walter Brute claimed that God will not hear the prayer of a sinful priest, and William Thorpe wrote that God takes away understanding from ‘great lettered men’ and those who ‘presume to vnderstand high things, & will be holden wise men, and desire maistership and high state and dignitie’.13 _{John Purvey asserted}

that priests held those who are truly learned and wise in contempt,14 _{and Richard}

Hun was accused of declaring, ‘that poore men and Jdiotes haue the truth of the holy Scripture, more then a thousand Prelates and religious men, and Clerkes of the

11_{AM, 654.} 12_{AM, 686.} 13_{AM, 665.} 14_{AM, 670.}

schole’.15

But in AM, Foxe did not use these examples as a warning or a corrective device. They are placed firmly within the past to show the extent of the Roman clergy’s cor- ruption and the resulting spiritual poverty of England. Instances of hyperclericalism, then, were easily overwhelmed by counter-examples closer to antisacerdotalism, and there was little urge for reform: just proof of how far the Roman prelates had strayed from the examples set for them in the New Testament, manifest in a catalogue of abuses.