Douglas Parker presents an old-spelling, critical edition of William Roye's English translation of Erasmus' "An exhortation to the diligent studye of scripture (or Paraclesis)," and Martin Luther's "An exposition in to the seventh chaptre of the pistle to the Corinthians" (his commentary on St. Paul's 1 Corinthians 7), first published together in 1529.

Roye's translation of Erasmus' Paraclesis was momentous because it underscored the reformers' call for a vernacular Bible, thereby providing them with a voice of authority that conservative forces could not ignore. Roye's translation...

Robert Barnes (1495-1540) was perhaps the most important sixteenth-century English Protestant reformer after William Tyndale. The shifting religious and political views of Henry VIII positioned Barnes at the opposite end of the popular ideology of the day, culminating in his execution in 1540 soon after that of Thomas Cromwell.A Supplication Vnto the Most Gracyous Prince Kynge Henry The. VIIJ., the first edition of which appeared in 1531 during Barnes's German exile, was a controversial lament for the religious climate in England and an earnest argument in favour of reform.
In...

Sixteenth-century English Protestant reformers were hard-pressed to establish a historical pedigree that would provide their ideas with weight and legitimacy. Many of those reformers turned back to early fifteenth-century Lollard texts, recycling and reprinting them to serve the needs, both political and spiritual, of the burgeoning English Protestant reform movement. The anti-clerical and reformist Lollard text, The praier and complaynte of the ploweman vnto Christe, was one of the works used by sixteenth century English Protestants in their struggle for religious reform.