:English Works of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (1469-1535): Sermons and Other Writings, 1520-1535

Abstract

Bishop John Fisher was a scholar and theologian of European reputation, famous as a preacher and author of the first sermon-sequence to be printed in English. He was beheaded for his opposition to Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and pursued after his death by the enmity of the king, who surpressed his books and sought to blacken his name. The figure of John Fisher links the age of late medieval piety with the growth of Christian humanism and the new learning, which, as a friend of Erasmus, he introduced as chancellor of Cambridge University. His English writings are distinctive for their structured elegance and clarity. This new edition contains sermons written during the last fifteen years of Fisher's life, including a previously unpublished eyewitness account of the Field of Cloth of Gold celebrations, and devotional works composed while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London.