The Christian Brethren and the Dissemination of Heretical Books

The illicit influx of William Tyndale’s vernacular New Testament and other reforming works into England in the late 1520s was considered an affront to the ecclesiastical authorities and an encouragement to lay heretical thought. No one was more vitriolic in condemnation than Thomas More, the lawyer-turned-polemicist, who was to become Chancellor from 1529. He declared, ‘Nothynge more detesteth then these pestylent bokes that Tyndale and suche other sende in to the realme, to sette forth here theyr abomynable heresyes.’ As Chancellor, More was renowned for his zealous persecution of heretics and booksellers, which he justified as a moral and legal imperative in order to uphold the Catholic faith. He also wrote several works, initially at the request and licence of Bishop Tunstall in March 1528, and thereafter in reply to the treatises of Tyndale and other Antwerp exiles. These writings provide tantalizing insights into the activities of Tyndale and the Christian Brethren as seen through the eyes of their chief protagonist. It was not only the New Testament, emanating from Cologne and Worms, that worried More, but Tyndale’s polemical works from the printing press of Johannes Hoochstraten in Antwerp, especiallyThe Parable of the Wicked Mammon, The Obedience of a Christen Man, andThe Practice of Prelates. Fellow exiles, such as George Joye, John Frith, and Simon Fish, were also writing popular and doctrinal works, includingA Disputation of Purgatorye, The Revelation of Antichrist, David’s Psalter, andA Supplication for the Beggars. Thomas More regarded William Tyndale, the Antwerp exiles, and their ‘Brethren’ in England as the most active producers and distributors of vernacular heretical books. However, his perceptions of the Brethren, their sympathizers, and their organization have been under-utilized by historians, who often rely more on the post-contemporary reflections of John Foxe. There perhaps remains the suspicion that More was conveniently coalescing all sedition under a single banner as a rhetorical device, or due to prejudice and unfounded conspiracy theories. Indeed,The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answeroutlined a smuggling network as an attempt to demoralize Tyndale’s supporters, by describing how various individuals had renounced their doctrines and betrayed their fellows. These were his tools of polemics, but More’s testimonies should not be dismissed as the mere delusions of a staunch anti-heretical zealot. He had studied the reforming works and interrogated significant figures in the Brethren. His conspiracy theories, it can be argued, were based on fact.