From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Frith (1503–July 4, 1533) was an English Protestant priest, writer, and martyr.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Residence in continental Europe 3 Return to England 4 Trial and death 5 Aftermath 6 Bibliography of Frith's writings 7 References

Frith was born to an innkeeper named Richard Frith in Sevenoaks Inn at Westerham, Kent, England. He went to Sevenoaks Grammar School and his tutor was Stephen Gardiner, who would later take part in condemning him to death. He was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. While Frith was at Cambridge, he met Thomas Bilney a graduate student of Trinity Hall, began to have meetings concerning the Protestant Reformation. It may have been at one of these meetings that Frith met with William Tyndale.^[1] After graduating in 1525 became a junior canon at Wolsey's College, Oxford. While in Oxford, Frith was imprisoned (along with nine others) in a cellar where fish was stored due to his possession of what the University's Officials considered "heretical" books. Frith was released and fled England and went to Tyndale who was residing in Antwerp.^[2]

In 1528 he went to Marburg, where he translated Places by Patrick Hamilton One year later, Frith translated A Pistle to the Christian Reader: The Revelation of the Anti-Christ; An Antithesis between Christ and the Pope. He also published Disputacion of Purgatorye devided into Thre Bokes in response to Thomas More, John Rastell, and Bishop John Fisher. Rastell was persuaded by this publication and adhered to the Protestant Reformation to his death. Frith also married during his residence in mainland Europe.

In 1532, he returned to England, and warrants for his arrest were issued by Thomas More (who at the time was Lord Chancellor). In October he was arrested by the local authorities before he could arrange passage to Flanders^[3] . While imprisoned for approximately eight months in the Tower of London, Frith penned his views on Communion, fully knowing that it would be used "to purchase me most cruel death."^[4]

Frith was tried before many examiners and Bishops, and produced his own writings as evidence for his views that were deemed as heresy. He was sentenced to death and offered a pardon if he answered positively to two questions: Do you believe in purgatory, and do you believe in transubstantiation? He replied that neither purgatory nor transubstantiation could be proven by Holy Scriptures, and thus was condemned as a heretic and was transferred to the secular arm for his punishment on June 23, 1533. He was burned at the stake on July 4, 1533 at Smithfield, London. (King Henry VIII was excommunicated one week later.)

Thomas Cranmer would later ascribe to Frith's views on purgatory, and published the 42 articles which explicitly denied purgatory. Frith's works were posthumously published in 1573 by John Foxe.

• Russell, Thomas (1831). The Works of the English Reformers: William Tyndale and John Frith. London, England: Integrity Publishers. 
• Disputacion of Purgatorye devided into Thre Bokes published in London, 1533.

1. ^ John Frith: Forging the English Reformation by Dr. Herbert Samworth accessed December 29, 2006
2. ^ Brian Raynor, The Rt Rev James Jones Bishop of Liverpool, (2000). John Frith: Scholar and Martyr. Read All Over. ISBN 1-871044-78-2. 
3. ^ John Frith: His Final Year accessed March 30, 2007
4. ^ John Frith and the Claims of Truth accessed December 29, 2006