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The Curious Case of the Misplaced Eulogy: the Printing History of Matthew Parker's Sermon for Martin Bucer's Funeral
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2023
Abstract
The history of the sermon that Matthew Parker preached at the funeral of Martin Bucer is more complicated than has been thought. It is generally known that the first printing of 1551 was subsequently translated from English into Latin for a European audience in 1562 (printed in that year and again in 1577), and then published in English a second time, in a 1587 imprint that is thought to be a second edition. What is not generally known is that the second English printing was a translation of the 1562/1577 Latin version, and that in the process of translation and re-translation, Parker's original sermon was stripped of nearly 60 per cent of its content, as a eulogy that followed the sermon was misattributed to Walter Haddon at some point just prior to 1562. The present article seeks to explain how this came to pass, and argues that the 1551 imprint should replace the 1587 as the primary text for what Parker said of Bucer.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2023
Footnotes
I would like to express my gratitude to the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for access to the riches of the Parker Library; to several generations of Parker librarians, in particular Gill Cannell, former Parker sublibrarian; and to those who assisted me at different times for their help in deciphering the marginal jottings found in CCCC, SP 405 (1) which are crucial to the article that follows: Catherine Hall, former archivist of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Dr David Crankshaw, Lecturer in the History of Early Modern Christianity at King's College, London. Dr Crankshaw also graciously provided some very useful feedback on an earlier draft of this article.
References
1 Bucer had been the long-time leader of reform in Strasbourg. After his exile from there in early 1549, he accepted Thomas Cranmer's long-standing invitation to come to England, arriving in April. He served as Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge from December 1549 until his death on 28 February/1 March 1551.
2 1551 is the likely date assigned by the STC; the volume imprint has no date.
3 Hopf, Constantin, Martin Bucer and the English Reformation, Oxford 1946, 29 n. 5Google Scholar, mentions another printing by Purfoot which he suggests can be dated to 1570: A funeral sermon preached 1551 at the burial of the noble clerck D.M. Bucer. Hopf is followed in this by Sean Floury, ‘How to remember thee? Problems of memorialization in English writing, 1558–1625’, unpubl. PhD diss. Louisiana State 2008, 57, at <https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/226/>. There is no evidence of such in the STC, ESTC or USTC.
4 Floury is wrong in his assertion that Parker preached the sermon in Latin: ‘How to remember thee?’, 58 n. 45.
5 Historia vera: de vita, obitu, sepultura, accusatione, condemnatione, exhumatione, combustione, honorificaque tandem restitutione beatorum atque doctiss. theologorum D. Martini Buceri & Pauli Fagii, Strasbourg 1562 (USTC 663264). The sermon title here is Concio Matthaei Parkeri sacrae theologiae professoris … in funere D. Martini Buceri, sigs H5r–Kv.
6 Concio Matthaei Parkeri … in Martini Buceri Scripta Anglicana fere omnia, Basel 1577, 892–9.
7 Perhaps the absence of the eulogy is why the reference is to an ‘abridged Latin version’. I say this because in fact the 1551 sermon and prayer total about 4,500 words, while in the 1587 version they total about 5,800 words. In other words, the 1587 version of sermon and prayer is a longer text, not an abridgement.
8 The eulogy was now given the title Oratis funebris Gualteri Haddoni, LL. doctoris, Academia Cantabrigiensis oratoris in laudem D. Martini Buceri, found in Historia vera, sigs F2r–H5r. It later appeared in Scripta Anglicana, 882–92.
9 Carr's letter in De obitu doctissimi is found at sigs B3r–I1v; in Historia vera, it is found at sigs B6v–F2r. The letter is a report to Cheke about Bucer's funeral, for Cheke was not in attendance. Note that as Carr turns to his account of Haddon's oration at sig. D8r, he states that he has a copy of Haddon's own words from Haddon himself, which he proceeds to incorporate into the letter in the place of a summary like that which he goes on to give in the same letter of Parker's sermon. Haddon's oration begins in the middle of Carr's letter at sig. D8r under the heading, D. Gualteri Haddoni oratio, and ends at sig. E3r at ‘confugiunt’ on the first line.
10 Scripta Anglicana, 867–82; D. Gualteri Haddoni oratio begins on p. 876 and ends on p. 878 at line 19.
11 G. Haddoni … lucubrationes, 83–9.
12 Hence, I cannot agree with John McDiarmid's suggestion that the text Haddon gave Carr was later ‘reworked’ into a longer version, namely into what is actually Parker's eulogy: McDiarmid, John F., ‘Classical epitaphs for heroes of faith: mid-Tudor neo-Latin memorial volumes and their Protestant humanist context’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition iii/1(Summer 1996), 23–47Google Scholar at p. 30 n. 30.
13 True, the evidence of his eulogy exists in Latin, but as noted it is erroneously attributed to Haddon and only those familiar with Parker's 1551 original would realise the error.
15 The ESTC and the USTC list only five copies: three in Cambridge (one in the University Library, two in the Parker Library), one in the library of Lincoln Cathedral and one held by the National Trust: <https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/515422>. There is one other copy of which I know, a manuscript found in the British Library (BL, ms Lansdowne, 931), written by someone who had to hand a copy of the Jugge volume as the source. This manuscript copy presents its own interesting set of problems which I address in a parallel article to this one: ‘BL, Lansdowne MS 931, ff. 1r–27r. and the disappearance (and rediscovery) of items in the Parker Library’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, forthcoming.
16 For this article, I have consulted the two copies found in the Parker Library: CCCC, SP 36 and SP 453(1).
17 The biblical text is in Latin, as are all biblical quotations in the body of the sermon.
18 There is one note printed in the margin at sig. B4r which quotes Deuteronomy i.37 (in Latin).
19 Note that in what follows the sermon is not identified as a eulogy per se, which may explain some of the confusion regarding the efforts in 1562 to assemble the evidence of the funeral and properly identify the extant materials.
20 For a lengthier treatment of the sermon and eulogy in the context of the funeral see Amos, N. Scott, ‘In memoriam Martini Buceri: the contested afterlife of Martin Bucer in England’, in Earngey, Mark and Tong, Stephen (eds), Reformation Anglicanism: essays on Tudor evangelicalism, London 2023, 161–82Google Scholar.
21 Howe we ought to take the death of the godly, sig. E3v.
22 Ibid. sig. E4r.
23 See, especially, Pigman, G. W., Grief and English renaissance elegy, Cambridge 1985, 29–30Google Scholar. See also Houlbrooke, Ralph, Death, religion, and the family in England, 1480–1750, Oxford 1998, 223Google Scholar.
24 Regarding Haddon's delivery, Cheke said he was ‘a dying man … discoursing on death’ and was suffering a severe attack of illness at the time, indeed on this occasion: Gleanings of a few scattered ears, ed. G. C. Gorham [London 1857], 239; Historia vera, sig. B4r. This circumstance could account for an abbreviated address.
25 Stupperich, Robert, ‘Hubert, Konrad’, in Neue Deutsche Biografie, ix, Berlin 1972, 702–3Google Scholar.
26 This request likely included works by Bucer written elsewhere but which Hubert had reason to believe were in Bucer's possession at his death. This is suggested by the range of works that appear in the one volume that came out of this project, Scripta Anglicana, and which pre-date Bucer's English sojourn.
27 For a recent treatment of this macabre event see Amos, ‘In memoriam Martini Buceri’, 161–82.
28 See Collinson, Patrick, ‘The Reformer and the archbishop: Martin Bucer and an English Bucerian’, in Collinson, Patrick, Godly people: essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism, London 1983, 19–44Google Scholar.
29 Strype, John, The history of the life and acts of the Most Reverend Father in God, Edmund Grindal: to which is added an appendix of original MSS, Oxford 1821, 200Google Scholar.
30 The Zurich letters, comprising the correspondence of several English bishops and others with some of the Helvetian reformers, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, ed. Hastings Robinson, Cambridge 1842, i. 18. The items to which he refers are found in the Scripta Anglicana on, respectively, pp. 184–90 and pp. 712–862. These works serve as evidence of Bucer's writing, but also of his activities while in Cambridge. John Young (1514–81/2), of Trinity College, was a strong Catholic opponent of Bucer in Cambridge disputations in 1550.
31 Zurich letters, i. 18–19.
32 Ibid. i. 24. In fact, it was only in a letter of 13 October 1560 that Grindal could declare that he had finally sent the account (i. 51–2). In the same letter, Grindal indicates that he is sending a few more of Bucer's writings composed while in England that had ‘lain unnoticed among the papers of the most reverend Archbishop of Canterbury [Parker], and which he has given me for this purpose’ (i. 52). In the end, as a perusal of the contents of Scripta Anglicana shows, a fair number of works survived.
33 Historia vera, sigs Q1r–V6r.
34 Strype, Grindal, 201. However, Strype is not quite correct in what he says, as we shall see shortly.
35 Historia vera, sig. a4r–v. The Historia accusatione is the eleventh item in the Catalogus.
36 The following items were not in De obitu doctissimi: the letter of Peter Martyr Vermigli to Hubert, which was almost certainly supplied by Hubert himself (being the addressee); the ‘judgement of a certain theologian’, lines taken from Calvin's letter to Simon Grynaeus, which prefaced Calvin's commentary on Romans (Jean Calvin, Ioannes Calvini commentarii in epistolam Pauli ad Romanos [Strasbourg, 1540], sigs a4v–a5r); and, of course, Parker's sermon, and the eulogy that came to be attributed to Haddon.
37 Regarding the extent to which Parker was involved in this, it is not possible to say with any certainty, though it seems unlikely he had a direct part to play in the work of translation.
38 If Jugge's volume had been sent for translation in Strasbourg, then Hubert and his co-labourers would have seen that Parker's English eulogy was not Haddon's Latin oration (and, as noted earlier, Haddon was reported to have spoken his part at the funeral in Latin, not English); this makes it more likely the translation work was done in England and sent in manuscript.
39 It is worth noting that the title for this Latin oration (Oratio funebris Gualteri Haddoni LL. doctoris, Academiae Cantabrigiensis oratoris in laudem D. Martini Buceri) first appears with the Historia vera.
40 This is similar to what John McDiarmid suggested: ‘Classical epitaphs for heroes of faith’, 30 n. 30. Alas, it is untenable.
41 ‘Hoc est posterior pars concionis D. Parker post preces non oro. D. Haddoni [con h…?], fo. 24’: Historia vera, sig. F2v. Parts of these jottings defy decipherment.
42 ‘Hec concio translate Latine sz [i.e. scilicet] induis/indius [?]’: ibid.
43 That Parker is referred to in the third person in these marginal notes does not necessarily require that someone else wrote them.
44 This is a bit ironic since the larger part of Parker's contribution to Bucer's funeral was the eulogy that came to be attributed to Haddon.
45 In 1577 Parker's eulogy was still called Oratio fvnebris Gvalteri Haddoni, LL. doctoris Academiae Cantabrigiensis oratis praestantissim, in laudem D. Martini Buceri, found in Scripta Anglicana, 882–92. It is mildly amusing to observe that whoever set the type gave the running title at the head of the verso pages, in succession, as Oratio Gvalt. Had. on pp. 882 and 884, then Epistola Nicol. Carri on pp. 886 and 888, then Epistola Ioan. Checi on 890, and back to Epistola Nic. Carri on p. 892.
46 Newton was both a Church of England priest and a translator of a wide range of texts, both Classical and contemporary.
47 A Funerall sermon, both Godlye, learned and comfortable, sig. A2r.
48 If, as Sean Floury argues, this translation was an effort on the part of Newton to employ Parker and Bucer to mount an attack on John Whitgift's ecclesiastical policy, especially after Whitgift's suppression of Presbyterianism in the 1580s, it is not evident in the dedicatory epistle: Floury, ‘How to remember thee?’, 56, 60.