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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
During the Tudor period, Protestant Reformers tended to rely heavily on the Scriptures as a weapon against their Catholic opponents, since they believed that the Scriptures were the ultimate authority for Christian doctrine and conduct. The work of the most important of these, William Tyndale, has already been treated, and it is therefore the intention of this paper to examine the contribution made by one of Tyndale's contemporaries, George Joye.
Joye fled to the continent toward the end of 1527 and between 1529 and 1549 produced a large number of polemical works, among them biblical translations and commentary. It is on this latter aspect of Joye's achievement that the present study intends to focus, specifically on his The exposicion of Daniel the Prophete (1545).
Research for this article was made possible by a grant (No. 1184E) from the Research Foundation of the City University of New York. All references to Joye's Exposicion of Daniel are to the 1550 (STC 14824) edition; modern typographical conventions are followed and contractions are expanded.
1 See Pineas, Rainer, Thomas More and Tudor Polemics (Bloomington, Ind., 1968), pp. 43–53.Google Scholar
2 Details of Joye's life and career are to be found in Butterworth, Charles C. and Chester, Allan G., George Joye (Philadelphia, 1962).Google Scholar
3 See my ‘Some Aspects of John Bale's Controversial Technique,’ Bibliothèque D'Humanisme & Renaissance, 24 (1962), 583-588.
4 See Gardiner's comments on p. 342 of this article.
5 In The practyse of Prelates (1530), Tyndale warned that those who oppose God's truth—no matter how high their station—will be punished (The Whole workes of W. Tyndall, John Frith, and Doct. Barnes [London, 1573], p. 341), but more typical is the position he expressed in The parable of the wicked mammon (1528), where he maintains that the king is to be obeyed whether good or evil. The classic Protestant stance is the cautious ambiguity of Robert Barnes in his 1534 A supplication unto … H. the. viii., where Barnes writes that ‘Christen men are bounde to obey in suffering the kinges tyranny, but not in consenting to his unlawfull commaundement’ (Whole workes, p. 295). Turner, in The Huntyng & Fyndyng out of the Romishe Fox (1543), maintains that what are called the king's injunctions concerning religion are really instigated by the clergy, that these, therefore, are not to be obeyed, and that Henry, in fact, agrees with the Reformers (sigs. B4-B8).
6 In The Refutation of the By shop of Winchesters Derke Declaration (1546), Joye writes: ‘But ah lasse for pitie anon after that yours so gracious a calling of god to his truth in Cambridge the cardinal [i.e., Wolsey] called you to promocions… ’ (fol. 82). A similar accusation by Joye is made against More in his The Subversion of Moris false foundation (1534), sig. A2.
7 Gardiner's work seems not to have survived, but it is quoted at length in Turner's answer to it, The Rescuynge of the Romishe Fox (1545). The statement to which Joye refers is in Rescuynge, sigs. G4V-G5.
8 See the chapters on Tyndale and Barnes in Thomas More and Tudor Polemics.
9 Ibid., pp. 65-67.
10 See Clebsch, William A., England's Earliest Protestants (New Haven, 1964), pp. 51–53.Google Scholar
11 See Bale, John, Yet a course at the Romyshe fixe (1543)Google Scholar; Turner, William, The Huntyng … of the Romishe Fox (1543)Google Scholar, The Rescuynge of the Romishe Fox (1545), and The Huntyng of the Romyshe Wolfe (1554).
12 In The Huntyng … of the Romishe Fox, Turner addresses the English bishops, referring to the Pope: ‘… ye have Decyved the Kyng whych commanded yow to drive / hym out of the realm… .’ Later, he concludes, ‘But ye hold still the popes doctrine / ergo ye hold still the pope …’ (pp. 8 and 30).
13 Gardiner recognized the Reformers’ tactic for what it was. In his A Declaration of suche true articles as George Joye hath gone about to confute as false (1546), he responds to Joye's accusation that he was responsible for the realm's ecclesiastical policy: ‘And if ye thinke therin otherwise then ye saye, (as for the mutual intelligence, in the fratemitie, ye can not in your absence, but knowe, howe publique thinges go) is this the charitable divile in the brotherhed, to chose out me for a raylynge stocke, and in jestinge at your pleasure of me, brynge to the kynges majesties knowledge, that ye wold he shuld here spoken of you? Suppose ye, the kinges majeste, can not understand, what ye meane by Winchester? when ye attribute all the fashion of the state of the realm, to Winchester? call the actes that myslyke you Wynchesters? all statutes Wynchesters? all just punishmentes (howe so ever ye cal them) Winchesters? and charge al upon Wynchester, that in so doynge ye name Winchester, not for Wynchester, but use the name of Wyn. in stede of that ye dare not name and speake oute’ (sigs. z1v-Z2).
14 Quoted in Turner, Rescuynge of the Romishe Foxe, sigs. A7V-A8.
