1563 Edition | Book 3 | Page 490 
Marginalia1.¶ First that faith only iustifieth.
Marginalia2.¶ Secondly that works are the frutes of faith
Marginalia3.¶ That the masse is no sacrifice or oblation.
¶ Item for confession, satisfaction, the vowe of chastity, purgatory, difference of daies, for affirming onlye ii. sacramentes and inuocatyon of Saintes.
He also maintained iii. kindes of confession.
The first to be of faith, which is alwaies necessary.
The second of charity, which serueth when anye manne hath offended his neighboure, he ought to reconcile him self again, as a manne may see by that which is wrytten in Math. 18.
The third whiche is not to be despised, is to aske councell of the auncient ministers of the church, and forsomuch as all this was contrary to the bull of Pope Leo, and the Emperors decree made at Wormes, sentence was geuen against him, that he shoulde be disgraded and put into the handes of the seculer power. By the whiche sentence he was rounded and shauen, and clothed in a short gowne, and a black cap set vpon his head all cut and iagged, and so was deliuered to the seculare iustice. As he was led out of the towne, to the place wheras he should suffer, he boldlye and hardelye spake in the Almaine tongue, turning his head, first on the one side, and then on the other, and saying: O Lorde Iesu remaine with me, sustaine and helpe me, and geue me force and power.
[Back to Top]Then the wood was made ready to be sette on fire, and he began to cry with a loud voyce, O Iesus, I am thine, haue mercy vpō me, and saue me, and therwithall he felt the fire begyn sharply vnder his fete: his handes, and aboute his head, and because the fire was not great inough, the hangman plucked the bodye halfe burnt, with a longe hooke, from vnderneathe the woode. Then he made a greate hole in the body, through the which he thrust a stake, and caste him againe into the fire, and so made an end of burning. This was the blessed ende of that good man, whiche suffred for the testimonye of the truth, the 16. daye of August, in the yere of our Lord 1527.
[Back to Top]Marginalia Ex Sleidano lib. 6. Rellgion reformed in Barne.
CloseFoxe begins his account of the Swiss Reformation with a brief history of the Swiss Confederation, emphasising how 'first they recouered their libertie, and after were ioyned in league together'. His principal source here was Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia universalis, book 3 (in the 1552 Basel edition, pp. 360 et seq). The cantons or 'pagi' ('pagus' in Latin = village) are enumerated. Foxe mentions the first confederation (Urani=Uri; Vntervaldij=Unterwalden; Suicenses=Schwyz), its subsequent enlargement ( including Lucernates=Lucerne; Tigurini=Zurich; Bernatus=Berne; Glareanti=Glarus; Apencellenses=Appenzell; Basilienses=Basel; Solodurij=Solothurn) and then those who joined later (Sangalli=St-Gall; Mullusiani=Mulhouse, etc). From this same source also came Foxe's passage on William Tell (p. 361), a myth which had already acquired iconic status through the verse drama, the Urner Tellspiel (c.1512; published 1530s) and Aegidius Tschudi's Chronicon Helveticum, which Foxe mentions in the margin. He may have become acquainted with its existence, or even have read it, whilst he was in Basel (for it was not published in the sixteenth century). For the myth, see R. C. Head, 'William Tell and his Comrades: Association and Fraternity in the Propaganda of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Switzerland' The Journal of Modern History 67, no. 3 (1995), 527-77. It was equally from the Cosmographia that Foxe recounts the history of the war between Frederick, duke of Austria and Ludovic, duke of Bavaria and the counsel of the fool, Kune de Stocken (p. 363).
[Back to Top]This was scene-setting, however, for the important section to follow on 'The actes and life of Zwinglius'. Foxe accords almost ten pages to the Zwinglian reformation - a clear sign of how much significance he attached to it. The details of his early life were abstracted mainly from the biography, compiled by Oswald Myconius in 'De D. Hvldrichi Zwinglii […] vita et obitv', and composed the year after Zwingli's death in 1532. It had been published as a preface to the edition of Johann Oecolampadius' letters, Epistolarum libri quatuor (Basel [Basileae]: Thomas Platter and Balthasar Lasius, 1536), which provided Foxe with a considerable insight into the networks of scholarly communication that linked the Rhineland Biblicists in the upper Rhineland quadrant (Basel, Constance, Berne, Zurich, etc). For the evolution of the reformation in these cities, however, Foxe turned to the Commentaries of Johann Sleidan, the protestant historian whose work Foxe helped to promote in England through the martyrology (De Statv religionis et reipvblicae carolo qvinto Caesare Commentarii. Photographic reproduction of the edition of 1785-6, edited by J. Gottlieb ed 3 vols (Osnabrück: Otto Zeller, 1968). The material on the first Zurich Disputations of January 1523, the Constitutions of the Council of Lucerne in 1524, and the energetic defence of the progress of the reformation in Zurich by its magistrates in 1524 and early 1525 all came from Sleidan, books 3 and 4. Equally, for the early events surrounding the reformation in Berne, including the Disputations of December 1527 and January 1528, Foxe also drew on Sleidan, book 6. The same source served for his history of the reformations in Strasbourg and Basel. Towards the end of the account, Foxe indicated how he had supplemented his use of Sleidan with Oecolampadius' letters. For the background to the Second Kappel War, and Zwingli's reasons for personal engagement in it, Foxe felt he had to go beyond the impersonal history of Sleidan, returning to Zwingli's letter to the ministers at Ulm, Martinus Freschius and Cunhardus Somius, which he had found in the preface to J. Oecolampadius, Epistolarum libri quatuor (Basel [Basileae]: Thomas Platter and Balthasar Lasius, 1536), fol 211v-212, dated 8 November 1530, in which Zwingli vigorously defended himself against his critics, both inside the canton of Zurich and from without. On the fate of Zwingli's body after his death, Foxe cited a further letter from Oecolampadius, this time to Wolfgang Capiton of 22 October 1531 (fols 172v-173). We should note Foxe's lavish praise for Oecolampadius' Commentaries on the Prophets (J. Oecolampadius, In Iesaiam Prophetam hypomnematôn, hoc est commentariorum, Iannis Oecolampadii libri sex [...] ([Geneva]: Jean Crespin, 1568 [1567?]) which, 'with other worth workes, which he left behinde him, liue still, and shall never die'. They carried a laudatory preface from Heinrich Bullinger, and were remarkable as setting a new standard in the methodology and organization of Biblical commentaries. Towards the end of the section, Foxe translated a letter from Zwingli in which the reformer represented views on Christ's descent into Hell which he had already expounded in the mid 1520s in response to the interpretation of the 'catabaptists' concerning Christ's resurrection in the light of their arguments about the sleep of the soul and the final resurrection - see Huldrych Zwinglis Brief edited Oskar Farner. 2 vols (Zurich, 1918-20), 2, pp. 000-000.
[Back to Top]Mark Greengrass
University of Sheffield
Marginalia1. The propositions propounded at Berne.That the true church, wherof Christe is the only head, proceadeth of Goddes woorde, perseuereth in the same, and heareth no other mannes voyce.
Marginalia2. The lawes of the true church.That the self same church, maketh no laws without Gods word, and therfore we are not otherwise bounde to mennes traditions, bearing the name of the church, but in as muche, as they be consonant to Gods word.
Marginalia3. Christe the onlye satisfactiō of our synnes.That Christ only hath made satisfaction for the sinnes of the whole worlde. Therfore, if any man saie, that there is an other way to saluation, or meane to put away sinne, the same doth deny Christ.
Marginalia4. The presence of Christ in the sacrament.How it cannot be proued by the testimonye of scripture, that the body and bloud of Christe is really and corporally receiued.
Marginalia5. The abuse of the masseThat the vse of Masse, wherin Christ is presented and offred to his heauenlye father, for the quick and the dead is against the scripture, and a contumely to the sacrifice whych Christ offred vp for vs.
Marginalia6. The inuocatyon of saintes.That only Christe is to be called vppon, as the mediatoure and aduocate of mankinde to God the father.
Marginalia7. Prayers for the dead are superfluous.That it cannot be founde in the scryptures, there should be any place, after this life, wherin soules should be purged. Wherfore al those prayers and ceremonies, yearely Diriges and Obites, which are bestowed vpon the dead, also Lampes, Tapers, and suche other thynges, profit nothing at all.
[Back to Top]Marginalia8. Worshippynge of saintes forbidden.That any Image or likenesse shoulde be set vp to be worshipped. It is againste the holye scriptures, therfore if they be erected in Churches, for þt intent they are to be taken downe.
Marginalia9. Matrimony lawfull.That matrimony is prohibited to no kynde of menne, but for to auoide fornication, is permitted and commaunded vnto all menne by the holye scripture. Where as euerye whoremonger, is euen by the Testimonye of the Scrypture, sequestred from the Communyon of the Church.