Although Richard Hooker (1554-1600) is now known principally as the author of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity in his lifetime the Tractates and Sermons brought him greater notoriety. Hooker's views on justification, the perseverance of faith, and the relationship of the Church of Rome to the reformed Church of England were widely reported, and texts of the tracts were extensively circulated in manuscript. Thanks to the meticulous editing of Laetitia Yeandle, Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library, the contemporary impact of these debates can now be appreciated for the first time. These tracts provide a unique perspective on the turbulent world of late Elizabethan theology. In addition, they lay the doctrinal foundations of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity itself and--with the excellent commentary of Egil Grislis, Professor of Theology at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg enable us to trace the intellectual formation of sixteenth-century England's most innovative and provocative theologian. The volume includes a newly discovered letter; three newly attributed sermon fragments; and analysis by P. F. Forte of Hooker's distinctive preaching style.

Revisionist study of the wall-paintings of Salisbury Cathedral, setting them in the context of thirteenth-century religious reform.

Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500-1558) left an abundance of manuscripts that have lacked an inventory & description. This monograph is intended to remedy that lack & perhaps contribute to a critical edition of some of his major works, especially "Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione (De unitate)," "Apologia ad Carolum Quintum" "De summo pontifice," "De sacramento," a more complete version of "Discorso di pace," &, the most difficult text, "De reformatione ecclesia." In order to grasp the importance of such a project, this volume provides a sketch of Pole's career & the significance of these works.

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’.

First published in 1999, This book is a wide-ranging and authoritative review of the reception in England and other countries of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs from the time of its original publication between 1563 and 1583, up to the nineteenth century. Essays by leading scholars deal with the development of the text, the illustrations and the uses to which the work was put by protagonists in subsequent religious controversies. This volume is derived from the second John Foxe Colloquium held at Jesus College, Oxford in 1997. It is one of a number of research publications designed to support the British Academy Project for the publication of a new edition of Foxe’s hugely influential text.