Article: Supplication of Beggars

The Supplication of Beggars
Written to King Henry the 8th by Simon Fish (1531 A.D.)
Before his martyrdom of which precepts we can see hold true even today.
Taken from The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Vol. IV

To the king our sovereign lord:

Most lamentably complaineth their woeful misery. Unto your highness, your poor daily beadmen, the wretched hideous monsters, on whom scarcely for horror any dare look; the foul unhappy sort of lepers and other sore people, needy, impotent, blind, lame, and sick, that live only by alms; how that their number is daily so sore increased, that all the alms of all the well disposed people of this your realm are not half enough to sustain them, but that for every restraint they die for hunger. And this most pestilent mischief is come upon your said poor beadmen, by the reason that their, in the times of your noble predecessors passed, craftily crept into this your realm, another sort, not of impotent, but of strong, puissant, and counterfeit, holy and idle beggars and vagabonds, who, since the time of their first entry, by all the craft and wiliness of Satan, are now increased under your sight, not only into a great number, but also into a kingdom.

These are not the herds, but the ravenous wolves going in herd’s clothing, devouring the flock: bishops, abbots, deacons, archdeacons, suffragans, priests, monks, canons, friars, pardoners and summers. And who is able to number this ravenous sort that (setting all labour aside) have begged so importunately, that they have gotten into their hands more than the third part of all your realm? The goodliest lordships, manors, lands, and territories are theirs. Besides this they have the tenth part of all corn, meadow pasture, grass, wood, colts, calves, lambs, pigs, geese, and chickens. Over and besides, the tenth part of every servant’s wages, the tenth part of wool, milk, honey, wax, cheese and butter: yea, and they look so narrowly upon their profits, that the poor wives must be countable to them of every tenth egg, or else she getteth not her right’s at Easter, and shall be taken as an heretic. Hereto have they their four –offering days. What money pull they on by probates of testaments, privy-tithes, and by men’s offerings to their pilgrimages, and at their first masses! Every man and child that is buried must pay somewhat for masses and dirges to be sung for him, or else they will accuse their friend’s and executers of heresy. What money they get by mortuaries, by hearing of confessions(and yet they will keep therof no counsel), by the hallowing of churches, altars, super-altars, chapels and bells, by cursing of men, and absolving them again for money! What a multitude of money gather the pardoners in a year! How much money get the summers by extortion in a year, by asciting the people to the commissary’s court, and afterwards releasing the appearance for money! Finally the infinite number of begging friars, what they get in a year!

Here if it please your grace to mark, you shall see a thing far out of joint. There are within your realm of England 52,000 parish churches

(1). And this standing, that there be but ten households in every parish, yet are there 520,000 households.. And of every of these households, hath every of the five orders of friars a penny a quarter for every order;that is, for all the five orders, five pence a quarter for every house; that is, for all the five orders, twenty pence a-year of every house. Summa, five hundred and twenty thousand quarters of angels, that is, 260,000 half angels. Summa 130,000 angels. Summa totalis, L43,333. 6s. sd. Sterling

(2). Whereof, not four hundred years passed, they had not one penny. Oh grievous and painful exactions

(3), thus yearly to be paid; from which the people of your noble predecessors, the kings of the ancient Britons, ever stood free. And this will they have, or else they will procure him that will not give it to them to be taken as an heretic. What tyrant ever oppressed the people , like this cruel and vengeable generation? What subjects shall be able to help their prince, that be after this fashion yearly polled? What good christian people can be able to succour us poor lepers, blind, sore and lame, that be thus yearly oppressed? Is it any marvel that your people so complain of poverty? Is it any marvel that the taxes, fifteenths, and subsidies, that your grace most tenderly, of great compassion, hath taken among your people, to defend them from the threatened ruin of their commonwealth, have been so slothfully, yea painfully levied, seeing almost the uttermost penny, that might have been levied, hath been gathered before yearly by this ravenous, cruel, and insatiable generation? Neither the Danes or the Saxon, in the time of the ancient Britons, should ever have been able to have brought their armies from so far hither into your land to have conquered it, if they had had at that time such a sort of idle gluttons to find a home

(4). The noble King Arthur had never been able to have carried his army to the foot of the mountains, to resist the coming down of Lucius the emperor, if such early exactions had been taken of his people. The Greeks had never been able to have so long continued at the siege of Troy , if they had had at home such an idle sort of cormorants to find. The ancient Romans had never been able to have all the whole world under their obeisance, if their people had been thus yearly oppressed. The Turk now, in your time should never have been able to get so much ground of Christendom, if he had in his empire such a sort of locusts to devour his substance. Lay then these sums to the aforesaid third part of the possessions of the realm, that ye may see whether it draw nigh unto the half of the whole substance of the realm or not; so shall ye find that it draweth far above.

Now let us then compare the number of this unkind idle sort, unto the number of the lay- people, and we shall see whether it be indifferently shifted or not, that they should have half. Compare them to the number of men, so are they not the hundredth person. Compare them to men, women and children, then are they not the four hundredth person in number. One part therefore into four hundred parts divided, were too much for them, except they did labour. What an equal burden is it, that they have half with the multitude, and are not the four hundredth person of their number? What tongue is able to tell, that ever there was any commonwealth so sore oppressed since the world first began?

And what doth all this greedy sort of sturdy, idle, holy, thieves, with these yearly exactions that they take of the people? Truly nothing, but exempt themselves from the obedience of your grace! Nothing, but translate all rule, power, lordship, authority, obedience, and dignity, from your grace unto them! Nothing but that all your subjects should fall into disobedience and rebellion against your grace, and be under them; as thay did unto your noble predecessor king John; who, because he would have punished certain traitors that has conspired with the French king to have deposed him from his crown and dignity ( among whom a clerk called Stephen, whom afterwards, against the king’s will, the pope made bishop of Canterbury, was one), interdicted his land. For the which matter your most noble realm wrongfully (alas for shame!) hath stand tributary, not unto any kind temporal prince, but unto a cruel devilish blood-supper, drunken in the blood of the saints and martyrs of Christ, ever since.

Here were a holy sort of prelates, that thus cruelly could punish such a righteous king, all his realm and succession, for doing right. Here were a charitable sort of holy men, that could thus interdict a whole realm, and pluck away the obedience of the people from their natural liege lord and king, for no other cause, but for his righteousness. Here were a blessed sort, not of meek herds, but of blood-suppers, that could set the French king upon such a righteous prince, to cause him to lose his crown and dignity, to make effusion of the blood of his people, unless this good and blessed king, of great compassion, more fearing and lamenting the shedding of the blood of his people, than the loss of his crown and dignity, against all right and conscience, had submitted himself unto them.

Oh case most horrible, that ever so noble a king, realm, and succession, should thus be made to stoop to such a sort of blood-suppers! Where was his sword, power, crown, and dignity become, whereby he might have done justice in this matter? Where was their obedience become, that should have been subject under his high power in this matter? Yea, where was the obedience of all his subjects become, that for maintenance of the commonwealth should have holpen him manfully to have resisted these blood-suppers, to the shedding of their blood? Was it not altogether by their policy translated from this good king unto them?

Yea, and what do they more? Truly, nothing but apply themselves, by all the sleights they may, to have to do with every man’s wife, every man’s daughter, and every mans maid, that licentiousness should reign over all among your subjects, that no man should know his own child; that their bastards might inherit the possessions of every man, to put the right-begotten children clear beside their inheritance, in the subversion of all estates and godly order.

(5) These be they, that by their abstaining from marriage do let the increase of the people, whereby all the realm at length, if it should be continued, should be made desert and in-habitable.

These be they that have made an hundred thousand idle whores in your realm, which would have gotten their living honestly, in the sweat of their faces, had not their superfluous riches illected them to unclean lust and idleness. These be they that corrupt the whole generation of mankind in your realm; that catch a disease of one woman, and bear it unto another,&c.&c. Yea, some one of them shall boast among his fellows, that he hath meddled with a hundred women. These be they, that when they have once drawn men’s wives to such incontinency, spend away their husbands goods; make the women to run away from their husbands; yea, run away themselves both with wife and goods, bringing both man, wife, and children, to idleness, theft, and beggary. Yea, who is able to number the great and broad bottomless ocean sea, full of evils, that this mischievous and sinful generation may lawfully bring upon us unpunished?
Where is your sword, power, crown, and dignity become, that should punish by punishment of death, even as other men are punished, the felonies, rapes, murders, and treason, committed by this sinful generation? Where is their obedience become, that should be under your high power in this matter? Where is their obedience become, that should be under your high power in this matter? Is it not altogether translated and exempt from your grace unto them? Yes, truly; what an infinite number of people might have been increased to have peopled the realm, if this sort of folk had been married like other men?

(6) What breach of matrimony is their brought in by them? Such truly was never since the world began, among the whole multitude of the heathen. Who is she that will set their hands to work, to get three pence a day, and may have least twenty pence a day for yielding to a friar, a monk, or a priest? What is he that would labour for a groat a day, and may have at least twelve-pence a day to be at the command of priest, a monk, or a friar? What a sort are their of them that marry priest’ sovereign ladies, but to cloke the priest’ incontinency, and that they may have a living of the priests themselves for their labour? How many thousand doth such lubricity bring to beggary, theft, and idleness, who should have kept their good name, and have set themselves to work, had their not been this excessive treasure of spirituality? What honest man dare take any man or woman into his service, that hath been at such a school with a spiritual man?

Oh the grievous shipwreck of the commonwealth, which in ancient time, before the coming in of these ravenous wolves, was so prosperous, that then there were but few thieves: yea, theft at that time was so rare, that Cæsar was not compelled to make penalty of death upon felony, as your grace may well perceive in his institutes. There were also at that time but few poor people, and yet they did not beg, but there was given enough unasked: for there were at that time none of these ravenous wolves to ask it from them, as it appeareth in the Acts of the Apostles. Is it any marvel though there be now laws against them? ? I am in doubt whether ye be able. Are they not stronger in your own parliament-house than yourself? What a number of bishops, abbots, and priors, are lord’s of your parliament! Are not all the learned men of your realm in fee with them, to speak in your parliament-house

(7) for them, against your crown, dignity commonwealth of your realm of few of your own learned realm excepted? What law can be made against them that may be available? Who is he(though he be grieved ever so sore) that for the murder of his ancestor, ravishment of his wife, of his daughter, robbery, trespass, maim, debt, or any other offence, dare lay it to their charge by any way of action? And if he do, then is he by and by, by their wiliness, accused of heresy, yea, they will so handle him or he pass, that except he will bear a faggot for their pleasure, he shall be excommunicated; and then be all his actions dashed.

So captive are your laws unto them, that no man whom they list to excommunicate, may be admitted to sue ant action in any of your courts. If any man in your sessions dare be so hardy to indict a priest of any such crime, he hath, or the year go out , such a yoke of heresy laid on his neck, that it maketh him wish that he had not done it. Your grace may see what a work there is in London; how the Bishop rageth for indicting of certain curates of extortion and incontinency, the last year in the wardmote quest. Had not Richard Hun commenced an action of praemunire against a priest , he had been yet alive, and no heretic at all, but an honest man. Did not divers of your noble progenitors, seeing their crown and dignity run into ruin, and be thus craftily translated into the hands of this mischievous generation, make divers statutes for the reformation thereof, among which the statute of mortmain was one, to the intent that after that time they should have no more given unto them? But what availed it? Have they not gotten into their hands more lands since, than any duke in England hath, the statute not withstanding? Yea, have they not, for all that translated into your hands, from your grace, half your kingdom thoroughly, only the name remaining to you for your ancestors sake? So you have the name, they have the profit. Yea, I fear, if I should weigh all things to the uttermost, they would also take the name unto them, and of one kingdom make twain; the spiritual kingdom, as they call it (for they will be named first). And your temporal kingdom. And which of these two kingdoms, suppose you, is like to overgrow the other, yea, to put the other clear out of memory? Truly the kingdom of the blood-suppers, for to them is givem daily out of your kingdom; and that is once given them, never cometh from them again. Such laws have they, that none of them may either give or sell anything. What law can be made so strong against them, which they, either with money, or else with other policy, will not break or set at nought? What kingdom can endure, that never giveth thus from it, and receiveth nothing again? Oh how all the substanceof your realm (your sword, power, crown, dignity, and obedience, and obedience of your people) runneth headlong into the insatiable whirlpool of these greedy gulfs, to be swallowed and devoured!

Neither have they any other colour to gather these early exactions into their hands, but that they say they pray for us to God, to deliver our souls out of the pains of purgatory; without whose prayer, they say, or at least without the pope’s pardon, we could never be delivered thence : which if it be true, then it is good reason that we give them all these things, although it were a hundred times as much. But there be many men of great literature and judgement, who, for the love they have unto the truth and unto the commonwealth, have not feared to put themselves into the greatest infamy that may be, in abjection of all the world, yea, in peril of death, to declare their opinion in this matter; which is, that there is no purgatory; but that it is a thing invented bt the covetous of the spiritualty, only to translate all the kingdoms from the princes unto them, and that there is not one word spoken of it an all holy Scripture. They say, also, that if there were a purgatory, and also if the pope with his pardons may for money deliver one soul thence, he may deliver as well without money: if he may deliver one, he may deliver a thousand: if he may deliver a thousand, he may deliver them all; and so destroy purgatory: and then he is a cruel tyrant, without all charity, if he keep them there in prison and in pain, til men give him money.

(8) Likewise say they of all the whole sort of the spiritualty, that if they will pray for no man but for them that give them money, they are tyrants, and lack charity, and suffer those souls to be punished and pained uncharitably, for lack of their prayers. This sort of folks they call heretics; these they burn; these they rage against, put to open shame, and make them bear faggots: but whether they be heretics or not, well I wot that this purgatory, and the pope’s pardons are all the cause of the translation of your kingdom so fast into their hands. Wherefore it is manifest it cannot be of Christ, for he gave more to the temporal kingdom; he himself paid tribute to Cæsar; he took nothing from him, but taught that the high powers should be always obeyed; yea he himself (although he were most free Lord of all, and innocent) was obedient unto the high powers unto death. This is the great scab why they will not let the New Testament go abroad in your mother tongue, lest men should espy that they, by their cloked hypocrisy, do translate thus fast your kingdom into their hands; that they are not obedient unto your high power; that they are cruel, unclean, unmerciful, and hypocrites; that they seek not the honour of Christ, but their own; that remission of sins is not given by the pope’s pardon, but by Christ, for the sure faith and trust that we have in him.

Here may your grace well perceive, that except you suffer their hypocrisy to be disclosed, all is like to run into their hands; and as long as it is covered, so long shall it seem to every man to be agreat impiety, not to give them. For this I am sure, your grace thinketh (as the truth is), ‘I am as good a man as my father; why may I not as well give them as much as my father did?’

(9) And of this mind, I am sure are all the lords, knights, squires, gentlemen, and yeomen in England; yea, and until it be disclosed, all your people willthink that your statute of mortmain was never made with any good conscience, seeing that it taketh away the liberty of your people, in that they may not as lawfully buy their souls out of purgatory, by giving to the spiritualty, as their predecessors did in times past.

Wherefore, if ye will eschew the ruin of your crown and dignity, let their hypocrisy be uttered, and that shall be more speedful in this matter, than all the laws that may be made, be they ever so strong; for to make a law to punish any offender, except it were more to give other men an example to beware how they commit such like offence, what should it avail? Did not Dr. Alen

(10) most presumptuously, now in your time, against all his allegiance, all that ever he could, to pull from you the knowledge of such pleas as belong unto your high courts, unto another court, in derogation of your crwon and dignity? Did not also Dr. Horsey

(11) and his complices, most heinously (as all the world knoweth) murder in prison that honest merchant Richard Hun, for that he sued your writ of præmunire against a priest that wrongfully held him in plea in a spiritual court, for a matter whereof the knowledge belongeth unto your high courts? And what punishment was there done, that any man may take example of, to beware of like offence? Truly none, but that the one paid five hundred pounds (as it is said) to the building of your star-chamber; and when that payment was once passed, the captains of his kingdom, because he fought so manfully against your crown and dignity, have heaped to him benefice upon benefice, so that he is rewarded ten times

(12) as much. The other (as it is said) paid six hundred pounds for him and his complices; which, for because that he had likewise fought so manfully against your crown and dignity, was immediately as he had obtained your most gracious pardon promoted by the captains of his kingdom, with benefice upon benefice, to the value of four times as much. Who can take example of this punishment to beware of such like offence? Who is he of their kingdom that will not rather take courage to commit like offence, seeing the promotions that fell to these men for their so offending? So weak and blunt is your sword to strike at one of the offenders of this crooked and perverse generation!

And this is by the reason that the chief instrument of your law, yea the chief of your council, and he which hath your sword in his hand, to whom also all the other instruments are obedient, is always a spiritual man, who hath ever such an inordinate love unto his own kingdom, that he will maintain that, though all the temporal kingdoms and commonwealths of the world should therefore utterly be undone. Here leave we out the greatest matter of all, lest that we, declaring such a horrible carrion of evil against the ministers of iniquity, should seem to declare the one only fault, or rather the ignorance of our best beloved minister of righteousness, which is to be hid till he may be learned, by these small enormities that we have spoken of, to know it plainly himself.

(13) But what remedy to relieve us, your poor, sick, lame, and sore beadmen? 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. Divers of your noble predecessors, kings of this realm, have given lands to monasteries, to give a certain sum of money yearly to the poor people, whereof, for the ancienty of the time, they give never one penny. They have likewise given to them, to have a certain of masses said daily for them, whereof they say never a one. If the abbot of Westminster should sing every day as many masses for his founders, as he is bound to do by his foundation, a thousand monks were too few. Wherefore if your grace will build a sure hospital that never shall fail, to relieve us all your poor beadmen, so take from them all these things. Set these sturdy loobies abroad in the world, to get them wives of their own, to get their living with their labour in the sweat of their faces, according to the commandment of God in the 3d of Genesis; to give other idle people, by their example, occasion to go to labour.
Tie these holy idle thieves to the carts, to be whipped naked about every market-town, till they fall to labour, that they, by their importunate begging, take not away the alms that the good Christian people would give unto us, sore, impotent, miserable people, your beadmen. Then shall as well the number of our aforesaid monstrous sort, as of the profligate men and women, thieves, and idle people, decrease: then shall these great yearly exactions cease: then shall not your sword, power, crown, dignity, and obedience of your people, be translated from you: then shall you have full obedience of your people: then shall the idle people be set to work: then shall matrimony be much better kept: then shall the generation of your people be increased: then shall your commons increase in riches: then shall the gospel be preached: then shall none beg our alms from us: then shall we have enough, and more than shall suffice us: which shall be the best hospital that ever was founded for us: then shall we daily pray to God for your most noble estate long to endure.

Footnotes:

(1) Peradventure the common count of the parishes of England, among men, and in maps of the old time so went. And albeit the said parishes do not amount now, to the same rate of 52,000, yet nevertheless the number, no doubt, is great, and therefore the quarterage of the friars cannot be little, but riseth to a great penny through the realm: whereupon the scope of this man’s reason soundeth to good purpose; for although he hit not perfectly on the just sums, yet it cannot be denied, but that the friars had very much, and much more than they deserve. Again, neither can it be denied, but the more they had, the less redounded to the impotent needy beggars indeed. And what reason is it, that such valiant beggars, who may work, and yet will needs be idle, should reap any piece of the crop, who bear no burden of the harvest, but willfully do sit idle, and serve to no use necessary in the commonwealth.

(2) Admit the summa totalis came not to so much, yet it came to more that the friars deserved, who could well work, and would not; and would needs beg, and needed not; whereof read before the story of Armachanus.

(3) ‘Oh grievous,’ &c. These words, saith Master More, the souls themselves did hear even into purgatory. Belike Master More himself stood behind purgatory-door at the same time; or else how could he tell that the souls did hear him?

(4) He meaneth all this only of idle friars.

(5) If this be not true in the whole, I would the greatest part were not such.

(6) The realm of England is diminished and decayed by the number of two hundred thousand persons at feast, or else replenished with so many wanton men and women, by restraining of marriage from priests, monks, friars, nuns, colleges, hospitals, beadmen, and such like orders, within the realm of England. The increase of which number might be recovered, and the realm more peopled, and also God’s commandments better kept, if these vows of bondage were broken, and matrimony permitted free to all men.

(7) The pope’s clergy stronger in parliament that princes, as hath appeared by their cruel laws against the poor gospellers.

(8) If the pope may deliver souls out of purgatory for money, he may then as well deliver them without money, if it pleased him. Agains, if he deliver one, he can deliver a thousand; if he can deliver a thousand, he can deliver all; and so make a gaol-delivery, and clean dispatch of all purgatory, if he would: and if he will not when he may, then is there no charity in him.

(9) Master More here played the caviler, noting the author of this supplication to desire leave to rail on the whole clergy; as though the hypocrisy of the Friars could not otherwise be disclosed without railing on the whole clergy.

(10) Of Dr. Alen, the cardinal’s chancellor, read before.

(11) Of this Dr. Horsey, the bishop of London’s chancellor, read before.

(12) ‘Ten times,’ that is, ten times as much as he had in benefices before, and not as he paid to the king. And although these murderers of Hun were not recompensed with ten times, or with four times as much (which More denieth), yet can he never be able to deny the substance of the story, that is, that Hun, by these, was brought to his death; and that they, being put to their fines, were afterwards sufficiently recompensed with benefices upon benefices.

(13) More expoundeth this to mean the abuse of the sacrament of the altar.