Life of Matthew Parker (Strype, 1821)/Book III/Chapter XXIII
This is the enhanced reading edition of Book III, Chapter XXIII of John Strype's The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1821), Vol. I. It has been proofread against the original printed pages, and is presented with descriptive section headings, Strype's Latin passages translated, editorial notes, and Strype's footnotes preserved as references. Strype's own words, chronology, claims, and spelling are retained; editorial additions are clearly distinguished.
An edition of Matthew Paris preparing by the Archbishop. Censured about it; and vindicated. His labour to prevent incestuous marriages. His table of marriage.
Preparing the Matthew Paris Edition
HE was now very busy in preparing to publish the excellent history of Matthew Paris, our countryman, to the world.[ed 1] He compared as many copies as he could get for that purpose. The Secretary having a choice collection of manuscripts, and among them one of this author; our Archbishop desired now to borrow it of him for a week or two; telling him, after a second letter for it, that he would be loath to be importune, but he would turn it to the commodity of our own country: and as in other works every man was doing, these were but in few men's hands, and were testimonies, he said, not to be lost, and time would be taken, [for the publishing such things, while one might.][ed 2] This book came not forth till the year 1571. And since that, thrice reprinted; that is, in the year 1606, at Zurich, in the years 1640, and 1684, at London. Great was the pains our Prelate took in the finishing this work, and the exactness he used about it. Which consisted in considering what books Paris put forth, of which he was the true and undoubted author: where he began his history, and how far he continued it: and what faithful and ancient historians he followed; and when he left off writing. For this purpose he consulted divers manuscript pieces of this author. One whereof he had of his own, which was procured him, as it seems, by Stow, as himself in his history tells us: another was that of Secretary Cecyl's, before mentioned, which began at the year 1066, and proceeded as far as 1208, viz. to the 10th year of King John. He also made use of an ancient copy of Edward Aglionby's, Esq. as to the former part of the entire great history: which was continued from the beginning of the world, to the year 1189.
Another excellent copy, which he had before him, was that of Sir Henry Sidney's, that went on from the year 1189. to 1254. This manuscript was writ by Matthew Paris's own hand, as our Archbishop said in his Preface to the book; but that it was foully maimed in some leaves, and erased in many places by some Friar; but restored by some other copies. He used also a copy belonging unto Henry, Earl of Arundel. By this copy he was helped as to the latter part, viz. from the year 1254, to the last year of Henry III.
Where all these manuscripts now are, I cannot tell: but that of Sir William Cecyl and that of Aglionby are both in the private library of Bene't college.[ed 3] That called the Lesser History, which is an abridgment of the larger, is in the Arundelian library.
And in the Cotton library is a transcript of it also, by William Lambard, that ingenious, learned, and painful antiquarian, and great acquaintance of our Archbishop. In which transcript he wrote these words with his own hand: Hujus libri duo tantummodo vidi vetusta exemplaria, quorum alterum penes Henricum Arundeliæ comitem est; alterum verò penes Matthæum Cantuariæ Archiepiscopum. W. L.[ed 4] This was dated by him in the year 1565.
Rome Censures the Publication
Those of the Church of Rome set very hard upon the first publisher of this book; not knowing, I suppose, that our Archbishop was the man; but if they had, his authority would not have much more swayed with them. Particularly Baronius; whom Casaubon, in his Prolegomena to his learned Exercitations, brings in uttering his uncharitable censure in these words: Nisi probra illa fuerint additamenta, potius ejus, qui edidit, novatoris, hæretici hominis: quum peculiare sit illis libros quos potuerint, depravare.[ed 5][ed 6] "Unless these reproaches" [he means those charges which Matthew Paris lays upon the Church of Rome, in regard of their greedy rapines] "be rather the additions of that innovator and heretic that put forth the book; since it is peculiar to them to deprave what books they can." I leave Casaubon there to answer this charge laid upon Protestants, of depraving authors, and to throw back that imputation upon themselves.
Vindication of the Archbishop
But that the Archbishop should be guilty of it in publishing Matthew Paris, none can easily believe, who knew the man and his communication. Such a lover of antiquity, such a restorer of it, such a person of honour and integrity, could never be guilty of so much violence to truth, learning, and antiquity.
He may be vindicated also from those divers manuscript copies of this author that are still extant: which have those very passages in them, of the rapacities of the Popes, for which the sincerity of the publisher was called in question. And Casaubon says, that he himself had, in his own study, one of these manuscripts in parchment, well writ, that came out of the King's library, of that antiquity, that he supposed it to be that very book that had been dedicated by the author to the library of the abbey of St. Alban's: and that he had examined, and found no diversity in those things, that spake of the covetousness and spoil of the Popes. And lastly, that there were other pieces of this author in many English libraries, not then published, as the Lesser History, and the Lives of the Abbots of St. Alban's, wherein the like, or greater matters, are related of the rapaciousness of the Popes.
Brian Twine's Cavil
And here I cannot but take notice also of the disingenuity of one of the members of our own Church; I mean Brian Twine, in his book called, Academiæ Oxoniensis Apologia;[ed 7] who, out of a too childish fondness of the University wherein he was bred, presumed to question the sincerity of our grave Archbishop, as though he were not sufficiently faithful or honest in publishing this historian and some others; because he did not like somewhat that is related in them.
Thus, when in one of them there happened this passage, "That once many deserted Oxon, and retired to Cambridge," Twine, thinking belike that this might be some reflection upon his University, writes, Si illis standum sit historiis, quas Matt. Parkerus Cantuar. Archiep. edidit.[ed 8] And in another place of his book, speaking of his setting forth Matt. Paris, adds invidiously, Si vera sit, Matt. Cantuar. editio.[ed 9] But I leave the reader to see what reply Dr. Fuller gives him in his History of Cambridge.[1][ed 10]
Incestuous Marriages
But there was another matter, of greater moment than the publishing of Matthew Paris, and more properly pertaining to his function, that exercised our Archbishop's thoughts, and took up much of his care at this time. It was concerning incestuous and unnatural contracts and marriages, which were now very rife, to the great scandal of the nation, and its reformed religion. Cambridge itself, a place where more knowledge and more grace ought to have been, was too guilty of it. That unnatural filthiness was too much known and blazed there abroad, in that great liberty of marriage, which was then used: a thing that made good men lament, and the adversaries laugh. And Dr. Fulk himself, of St. John's college, had laid under a great blot for it.[ed 11] But such favour notwithstanding many had for him, that he was now near being elected Master of that college, by a great party he had there. Which much offended our Archbishop, that "Fulk's head should be thus stroken," as he after his plain way expressed it. But to vindicate the dead, though we go a little out of our way to do it; it seems this was some calumniation cast upon him, his name being unjustly stained. And he recovered soon his reputation; being publicly judged clear by the Bishop of Ely, that college's Visitor. And as he had under his trouble, occasioned by this slander, resigned his fellowship, so he was now reelected by the college again. And this year the Earl of Leicester, to countenance him the more, received him into his family for his domestic or ordinary Chaplain. But it must not be denied, but that, by some frailty, Fulk had given occasion to these surmises.
And at London there was one Gerard Danet, of a good family, and his german sister, both having the same mother, who had contracted for man and wife, and had two children betwixt them, and she then big with the third.
And this course they had continued ten or twelve years, the mother also allowing it. And they were so far from the thoughts of separating from one another, that they could not be persuaded it was a sin they lived in. The Archbishop had cited Danet before him, but secretly, for the sake of his family, and had examined them, but it flew abroad. All with little success, though he laboured, as he expressed himself, with all the wits he had to persuade them both that it was a sin to be repented of. He took them also apart; and spent a whole afternoon with the sister, but all in vain. Six years before, he had the man before him, and thought he had won him in secret communication from his lewdness; and so he promised the Archbishop then. But it fell out otherwise. "Thus," said he, "the devil locketh up men's hearts in outrage. Thus this watchman, the devil, watcheth and wandereth, to shame God's word, and to shame their house." This he wrote to the Secretary, protesting before God, he knew not what to do with them, nor how to deal, wishing he had his counsel.
A Table of Marriage
This was a sin that this kingdom had been very much addicted to, even from the beginning of the Queen's reign, and, no question, before too. Insomuch, that our good Archbishop had, in the year 1563, set forth a table of marriage, shewing in what degrees of affinity and consanguinity marriage was unlawful; that none might be left in such an ignorance, as to commit the sin, and not know thereof.[2] Therein he gave this threefold admonition. First, That none contract with such persons as were expressed in that table, nor with any of like degrees against the laws of God. Secondly, That they make no secret contracts without consent or counsel of their parents or elders, under whose authority they be. Thirdly, That they contract not anew with any other upon divorce and separation made by the Judge for a time, the laws yet standing to the contrary.
Notes
Editorial Notes
- ↑ Matthew Paris (c. 1200–1259), Benedictine monk of St Albans; his Chronica Majora appeared under Parker's editorship in 1571.
- ↑ "The Secretary" is William Cecil, the Queen's Principal Secretary.
- ↑ Bene't College is Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Parker's own college, where he deposited his collection of manuscripts.
- ↑ "I have seen only two ancient copies of this book, one of which is in the possession of Henry, Earl of Arundel; the other, indeed, in the possession of Matthew, Archbishop of Canterbury. W. L."
- ↑ "Unless those reproaches were rather the additions of him who published it, an innovator, a heretical man; since it is peculiar to them to deprave whatever books they can."
- ↑ Cardinal Cesare Baronio (1538–1607), the Roman ecclesiastical historian; Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614), the classical scholar who answered him in his Exercitationes (1614).
- ↑ Brian Twyne (1581–1644), author of Antiquitatis Academiae Oxoniensis Apologia (1608), a defence of Oxford's antiquity.
- ↑ "If those histories are to be depended upon, which Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, published."
- ↑ "If the Matthew of Canterbury edition be true" — that is, if Parker's edition is authentic.
- ↑ Thomas Fuller (1608–1661), author of The History of the University of Cambridge (1655).
- ↑ William Fulke (1538–1589), Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge; the Bishop of Ely, Richard Cox, was Visitor of the college; the Earl of Leicester is Robert Dudley.
Source: John Strype, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, the First Archbishop of Canterbury in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1821), Vol. I, Book III. Proofread against the original printed pages; enhanced reading edition prepared per the AnglicanWiki Editorial Guidelines for Historical Texts.
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