A new critical edition of Henry VIII’s 1526 public letter to Martin Luther, enabling readers to examine how Henry VIII wanted his subjects to regard the German heresiarch.
A modern critical edition of Henry VIII’s second published work against Martin Luther. This open letter to Luther, printed at the king’s command in December 1526, was in reply to a private letter addressed to him by Luther the previous year. Its particular interest lies in the fact that, unlike his better known Assertion of the Seven Sacraments, published five years before, Henry’s open letter was released not only in Latin but also in an official Englishtranslation, with a special English preface added by the king for the edification of his subjects. This edition thus enables modern readers to hear what Henry had to say about Luther in his own words, and how he wanted his subjects to regard the German heresiarch.
This critical edition is based on a previously unrecognised presentation manuscript which furnishes the earliest surviving text of both letters. In addition, it offers editions and newtranslations of a range of related texts, including Luther’s reply to Henry and further contributions to the burgeoning controversy from several of the most prominent Catholic opponents of Luther in Europe. For Henry’s letter, like his earlier book, became for a while a European sensation, reprinted in towns and cities from Cologne to Cracow. This fully annotated edition includes a substantial introduction which for the first time tells the full history of Henry’s second controversy with Luther, and which sets that story in the broader context of the lengthy and fractious relationship between the two men from the time of Luther’s emergence in 1517 until his death in 1546.
RICHARD REX is Professor of Reformation History at the University of Cambridge.
Table of Content
Introduction
List of early editions
Martin Luther’s letter to Henry VIII and Henry VIII’s response to Martin Luther
Marginalia from the early Latin editions
Prologue and epigraph to Pynson’s edition
Henry VIII’s preface to the English translation
The Archbishop of Mainz’s letter to Henry VIII
Hieronymus Emser’s preface to his German translation
Martin Luther’s response to Emser’s edition
Hieronymus Emser’s Confession
Peter Quentell’s preface to his first Cologne edition
Leonard Cox’s preface and Stanislaus Hosius’s epigraph to the Cracow edition
Johannes Eck’s preface to the Ingolstadt edition
Duke George of Saxony’s letter to Henry VIII
Ortwin Gratius’s preface to the second Cologne edition
Johannes Cochlaeus’s Admonition to the Reader
Johannes Cochlaeus’s Brief Discussion of Luther’s Response
Ortwin Gratius’s preface to the variant Cologne edition
Johannes Cochlaeus’s preface to the variant Cologne edition
Clement VII’s preface to the Roman edition, with the commendatory verses
Johannes Fabri’s preface to his Answer to Luther’s Response
Juan Luis Vives’s letter to Henry VIII
Select Bibliography
About the author
RICHARD REX is Professor of Reformation History at the University of Cambridge.
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