dye then circumspecte (ioyning with the Venetiās) was ouercome: and so taken was brought into the city. Hereby the Pope toke no small occasion to worke his feates.

The father, to helpe the captiuitye and miserye of his sonne: was compelled to submit himself to the pope and to intreat for peace. So the emperour commyng to Venice (at sainct Markes church, where the bishop was, there to take his absolution) was bid to kneele downe at the Popes feete.

Commentary on the Woodcuts     Close

This significant moment of papal humiliation, already valued as a precedent in the time of Henry VIII, featured in a woodcut in Robert Barnes, Bapsttrew Hadriani iiii und Alexanders iii gegen keyser Friderischen Barbarossa geübt, which Foxe's illustrator clearly borrowed from. This is among the images in the Acts and Monuments that show borrowings from German sources. As with the Canossa illustration, this image had to be pasted in and folded into the 1563 edition, since there was not enough room on the page to include a woodcut of this size. This illustration appears to have wielded some considerable influence, well into the seventeenth century, inspiring further visual representations of anti-papal sentiment. In the Pope-Burning procession in London in 1680, for example, one float carried figures depicting a seated pope holding the papal keys in one hand, with his foot on the neck of a monarch lying prostrate at his feet. This is unmistakably a conflation of two woodcut pictures from the Acts and Monuments: this,of Pope Alexander III treading on the neck of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and that depicting the Pope seated on the papal throne holding the keys aloft while the monarch humbly kisses his foot. (See below 'Proud primacy of popes', no. 4 (B), p. 928). CUL copy: The curtains in the background are in a particularly bright green. The cardinal is dressed in bright orange, with some detail in red. The archbishop behind him is in papal white with a yellow pallium, which is tinted (possibly as shading) in purple. His mitre is in yellow with purple details. Frederick wears purple, with pink sleeve / gown with brown fur edging. The pope is in a white simar, with a pallium, which is the same as that worn by the archbishop, although the pope's has green edging also. Note that his gauntlets are bright orange and red, with yellow details and his papal slippers are yellow with red crosses. His papal tiara is in yellow, with purple velvet. The ferula in his hand is in yellow, with a white napkin. WREN copy: Coloured similarly to the CUL copy but in this one the footwear worn by the pope is a reddish-orange with yellow crosses (essentially the reverse the CUL copy).

MarginaliaThe pope treading on the Emperours neck.The proud pope settyng his foote vpon the Emperours necke, said the verse of the Psalme: Super aspidem & basiliscum ambulabis & conculabis leonem & draconeum: That is: Thou shalt walke vpon the adder and the Basiliske: and shalt tread downe the Lion and the Dragon, &c. To whom the Emperour aunsweryng againe, said: Non tibi sed Petro, that is, not to thee but to Peter. The pope agayne, Et mihi, & Petro. Both to me & to Peter. The Emperour fearyng to geue any occasion of farther quareling, held his peace & so was absolued, & peace made betwene them: the conditions wherof were these. First that he should receaue Alexander, for þ^e true pope. Secondly that he should restore agayne to the church of Rome, all that he had taken awaye before. And thus the emperour obtayning agayne his sonne, departed.

Here, as I note in diuers writers, a great diuersitie and varietie touching the order of this matter (of whom some say, that the emperour campt in Palestina before he came to Venis, some say after) MarginaliaVolateran takē with a cōtradictiō.so I maruel to see in Volateran (so greate a fauourer of the pope) such a contradiction, who in his xxij. boke saith: that Otto (the Emperours sonne) was taken in this conflicte, which was the cause of the peace betwene his father and the pope: And in his. xxiij. boke agayne sayth, that the Emperour hym selfe was takē prisoner in the same battail: and so (afterward peace concluded) toke his iourney, to Asia and Palestina. MarginaliaConcilium Latronēse.
The clergy bound to the vow of chastitie. Papists erre not so muche in promising chastitie, as in defining chastetye.This pope in the tyme of his papacy (which continued xxi. yeares) kept sundry councels both at Turo, and at Lateran: where he confirmed þ^e wicked procedings of Hildebrād, and other his predecessors. As to binde all orders of the clergy to þ^e vow of chastitie, which were not greatly to be reprehēded if they would define chastitie a ryght. For who so lyueth not a chast lyfe (sayth he) is no fit persō to be a minister. But herein, lyeth an errour full of much blindnes, & also peril: to think, þ^t matrimony immaculate (as S. Paule calleth it) is not chastitie: but onely a single life, that they esteme to be a chast lyfe.

Now for as much, as our english pope holy martir called Thomas Becket, hapned also in the same tyme of thys pope Alexander: Let vs somewhat also story of him so far as the matter shall seme worthy of knowlege and to stand with truth.  

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Thomas Becket

The Foxe Project was not able to complete the commentary on this section of text by the date by which this online edition was compiled (23 September 2008) because it was awaiting the delivery of research materials from the British Library. This commentary will become available in due course from the 'Late Additions and Corrections' page of the edition.

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MarginaliaTho. Becket archb. of Cant.IF þ^e cause make a Martir (as is sayde) I see not why wee shoulde esteme Thomas Becket to die a martir, MarginaliaBecket no martyr.more then any other whom the princes swoord doth here temporally punish for their tēporal desertes. To dye for the church, I graunt is a glorio⁹ matter. But that church (as it is a spirituall & not a tēporal church) so it standeth vpon causes spiritual, and vpon an heauenly foundatiō: as vpon faith, religiō, true doctrin, sincere discipline, obediēce to gods cōmaūdemēts, &c. And not vpō things perteinīg to this world as possessions, liberties, exemptiōs pruileges, dignities, patrimonies & superiorities. If these be geuen to the church, I pray God, churchmen may vse them well: but if they be not geuen, the church cannot clayme them: or if they be taken away, that standeth in the princes power. To contende with princes for the same, it is no matter (in my mind) material, to make a martir, but rather a rebellion against them, to whom we owe subiectiō. Therfore, as I suppose Thomas Becket to be farre from the cause and title of a martir (neyther can be excused, from playne rebellion agaynst his prince) So yet would I haue wished againe, the law rather publikly to haue found out his fault: then þ^e swords of mē (not bidden nor sent) to haue smitten him, hauing no special commaundement, neither of the prince, nor of the law, so to do. For though the indignatiō of the prince (as the wyse prince sayth) is death: yet it is not for euery priuate person straight wayes to reuenge the secrete indignation of his prince, except he be publikely authorised therunto. And this had been (as I suppose) the better way, the lawes first to haue executed their iustice vpon him. Certes, it had ben the safest waye for the kyng, as it proued after: who had iust matter inough to hym, if he had prosecuted his cause agaynst him. And also therby, his death had been without all suspicion of martyrdome, neyther had there folowed this shrining & saincting of him, as there did. Albeit, the secret prouidence of God (which gouerneth althinges) did see this way percase to be most best, and most necessary for those dayes. And doubtles (to say here what I thinke, & yet to speake nothing agaynst charitie) if the Emperours had done the like to the Popes contending agaynste them what time they tooke them prisoners: that is, if they had vsed the law of the sword agaynst them, and chopped of the heades of one or two, according to their traiterous rebellion: they had brokē the necke of much disturbaunce, which long tyme after did trouble the church. But for lacke of that, because Emperours hauing the swoorde,