Contents
1. The yearly exactions from the people taken by this greedy sort of sturdy idle holy thieves 3
What money pull they in by probates of testaments, privy tithes, men’s offerings to their pilgrimages and at their first masses; by masses and diriges, by mortuaries, hearing of confessions (yet keeping thereof no secrecy), hallowing of churches, by cursing of men and absolving them for money; by extortion &c.; and by the quarterage from every household to each of the Five Orders of begging Friars, which equals £43,333 6s. 8d. [ = over £500,000 in present value] a year
Yet they are not in number, one to every hundred men, or one in every four hundred men women and children 5
Neither could the Danes or Saxons haue conquered this land, if they had left such a sort [company] of idle gluttons behind them; nor noble King Arthur have resisted the Emperor Lucius, if such yearly exactions had been taken of his people; nor the Greeks so long continued the siege of Troy, if they had had to find for such an idle sort of cormorants at home; nor the Romans conquered the world, if their people had been thus yearly oppressed; nor the Turk haue now so gained on Christendom, if he had in his empire such locusts to devour his substance
Nothing but to translate all rule, power &c. from your Grace to themselves, and to incite to disobedience and rebellion 6
Truly nothing but to have to do with every man’s wife, every man’s daughter &c. 7
Yea, who is able to number the great and broad bottomless ocean sea full of evils, that this mischievous and sinful generation is able to bring upon us? unpunished!
What remedy? Make laws against them? I am in doubt whether ye are able. Are they not stronger in your own parliament house than yourself
So captive are your laws unto them, that no man that they list to excommunicate may be admitted to sue any action in any of your Courts
Neither have they any coulour [pretence] to gather these yearly exactions but they say they pray to GOD to deliver our souls from purgatory. If that were true we should give a hundred times as much. But many men of great literature say there is no purgatory: and that if there were and that the Pope may deliver one soul for money, he may deliver him as well without money; if one, a thousand; if a thousand, all; and so destroy purgatory.
But what remedy? To make many hospitals for the relief of the poor people? Nay, truly! The more the worse. For ever the fat of the whole foundation hangeth on the priests’ beards
Set these sturdy loobies abroad in the world to get themselves wives, to get their living with their labour in the sweat of their faces, according to the commandment of GOD
2. 1529. [Printed abroad.] 4to. Klagbrieff oder supplication der armen dürfftigen in Engenlandt | an den Kōnig daselb gestellet | widder die reychen geystlichen bettler. [A Letter of Complaint or Supplication of the necessitous poor in England shewn to the King thereof against the rich spiritual beggars] M.D.XXIX. [with a preface by Sebastian Franck.] Black letter.
3. 1530. [Printed abroad.] 8vo. Supplicatorius Libellus pauperum, et egentium nomine, Henricho VIII. Serenissimo Angliæ regi etc. oblatus, contra quotidianas religiosorum ibidem iniurias et impiam auariciam. Ex Anglico in latinum versus. M.D.XXX. In the same type and style as No. 1. and with an engraved framework on the title page that may eventually lead to a knowledge of the foreign printer of both the editions.
B. With other Works.
None known.
ISSUES SINCE HIS DEATH.
A. As a separate publication.
4. 1546. [London] Fol. A supplication of the poore Commons. Prov. 21 Chap. ¶ Whereunto is added the Supplication of Beggers, [In the same style and type as No. 3. below, and therefore printed by William Hyll.] In the heading the “Supplicacyon of Beggers” is assigned to 1524, which is wrong by five years.
5. 1845. London. 8vo. A Supplicacyon for the Beggers. [100 copies only printed.]
7. 15. Aug. 1878 Southgate, London, N. 8vo. The present impression.
B. With other Works.
8a. 1563. London. Fol. This tract is reprinted, with notes by John Fox in his Actes and Monumentes etc.
8b.
8c.
8d. 1570. London. Fol.
1576. London. Fol.
1583. London. Fol. }And so in all later editions of the Book of Martyrs.
1871. London. 8vo. Early English Text Society. Extra Series. No. 13, 1871. “Four Supplications. 1529-1553 A.D.” The first of these is “A Supplicacyon for the Beggers written about the year 1529, by Simon Fish. Now re-edited by Frederick J. Furnivall.”
1. [Winter of 1529-1530. Printed abroad.] 8vo. The only copy at present known is in the British Museum. C. 37. 2/2. The title page is torn off, apparently for the safety of the first possessors.
B. With other Works.
None known.
ISSUES SINCE HIS DEATH.
A. As a separate publication.
2. 1547. London, W. Herbert, Typ. Amt. i. 616, Ed. 1785, quotes an edition by John Day.
3. 11. Dec. 1548. [London.] 8vo. The summe of the holy Scripture, and ordinarye of the Chrystian teachyng, the true christian fayth, by the whiche we be all iustified. And of the vertu of Baptisme, after the teachynge of the Gospell and of the Apostles, With an information howe all estattes should lyue according to the Gospell very necessary for all Christian people to knowe. ¶ Anno. M.d.xlviii. [Colophon]: Imprynted at London, at the signe of the Hyll, at the west dore of Paules. By Wyllyam Hill. And there to be sold. Anno 1548. The 11 of Decembre. Cum Gratia et Privilegio ad Imprimendum solum. The press mark of the British Museum copy is 4401. b. 2.
B. With Other Works.
None known.