A life of Reginald Pole (1500-1558), among the most important of sixteenth-century international notables.

This fresh exploration of the life, work and writing of Archbishop Pole, focuses particularly on Pole’s final years (1556-58) as Archbishop of Canterbury. Fully integrating Pole’s English and Continental European experiences, John Edwards places these in their historical context and signposts lessons for contemporary issues and concerns. Stressing the events and character of Pole's 'English' life, up to his exile in the 1530s, as well as in his final years in England (1554-58), this book explores his close relationship, both genealogical and emotional, with Henry VIII and Mary I. Portraying Pole as a crucial figure in the Catholic-Protestant division, which still affects Britain today, this book details the first, and so far last, attempt to restore Roman Catholicism as the 'national religion' of England and Wales by telling the life-story of the hinge figure in forging English religious and political identity for several centuries. The final section of this book draws together important and illuminating source material written by Pole during his years as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Eamon Duffy publishes a book on the broad sweep of English Reformation history, including a study of Late Medieval religion and society.

The first major biography of its subject in more than thirty years makes use of new British manuscript sources to draw a rich portrait of Henry VIII's archbishop of Canterbury who guided England through the Reformation. UP.

Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500-1558) was one of the most important international figures of mid-16th century Europe: principal antagonist of Henry VIII, papal diplomat, legate to the council of Trent, and nearly successful candidate for pope. But even more significant than his political actions is that Pole tried to mediate between increasingly rigid religious positions, preserving belief in justification by faith within a charismatically conceived papal church. His writing converted categories of feudal discourse, especially the language of honour, into newer humanist modes as a means of resisting tyranny, whether secular or religious. He also created his own saintly image, as well as much of the historiography of the English Reformation. These studies place him in his English, Italian and European contexts - political, intellectual and religious. They also evaluate his ties to such major intellectual and literary figues as Marco Mantova Benavides and Ludovico Ariosto.

Reginald Pole (1500-1558), cardinal and archbishop of Canterbury, was at the centre of reform controversies in the mid 16th century - antagonist of Henry VIII, a leader of the reform group in the Roman Church, and nearly elected pope (Julius III was elected in his stead). His voluminous correspondence - more than 2500 items, including letters to him - forms a major source for historians not only of England, but of Catholic Europe and the early Reformation as a whole. In addition to the insight they provide on political history, both secular and ecclesiastical, and on the spiritual motives of reform, they also constitute a great resource for our understanding of humanist learning and cultural patronage in the Renaissance. Hitherto there has been no comprehensive, let alone modern or accurate listing and analysis of this correspondence, in large part due to the complexity of the manuscript traditions and the difficulties of legibility. The present work makes this vast body of material accessible to the researcher, summarising each letter (and printing key texts usually in critical editions), together with necessary identification and comment. The first three volumes in this set will contain the correspondence; the fourth and fifth will provide a biographical companion to all persons mentioned, and will together constitute a major research tool in their own right. This first volume covers the crucial turning point in Pole’s career: his protracted break with Henry and the substitution of papal service for royal. One major dimension of this rupture was a profound religious conversion which took Pole to the brink of one of the defining moments of the Italian Reformation, the writing of the ’Beneficio di Christo’.