Simon Fish facts for kids

Simon Fish (died 1531) was an English writer and rebel in the 1500s. He is famous for helping to share William Tyndale's New Testament. He also wrote a very strong pamphlet called Supplication for the Beggars. This pamphlet criticized the Roman Catholic Church a lot. The Church said his ideas were wrong on May 24, 1530.

Fish's pamphlet helped prepare the way for the English Reformation and the wider Protestant Reformation. Simon Fish was later arrested in London. He was accused of having beliefs against the Church. But he got sick with the bubonic plague and died before his trial. His wife later married another reformer, James Bainham. She became a widow again when Bainham was punished for his beliefs in April 1532.

Simon Fish's Supplication for the Beggars

Simon Fish wrote his powerful pamphlet, Supplication for the Beggars, while he was living away from England in Antwerp. This 16-page booklet accused the Roman Catholic Church of many bad things. These included greed, murder, and even disloyalty to the king.

The Supplication was secretly brought into England from Antwerp. It got past the country's rules against it. Fish had written it especially for King Henry VIII. According to a writer named John Foxe, Fish's pamphlet arrived in England on February 2, 1529.

Money Problems and the Church

Fish's pamphlet spoke to the king on behalf of the poor people. It said that the Roman Catholic Church and its leaders were making the poor even poorer.

Fish argued that the Church had too much of England's money and land. He claimed they held half of England's wealth. But they were only a tiny part of the population. He said that monasteries made things worse by charging high taxes on the poor. Instead, they should have been helping them.

Fish calculated that the English clergy owned one-third of the land. They also took one-tenth of all farm goods and animals. Plus, they received one-tenth of all servants' wages. These money arguments were a big part of his pamphlet. They became even stronger because Europe was facing a money crisis around 1529.

Church Beliefs Questioned

Fish's pamphlet also strongly disagreed with some of the Roman Catholic Church's teachings. His two main arguments were against the idea of purgatory and the selling of indulgences.

Against Purgatory

Fish did not spend much time on deep religious ideas. About purgatory, he simply said that "there is not one word spoken of it in all holy scripture." This idea was similar to the Reformation belief of Sola scriptura, which means "by scripture alone." He also said, "we have no command from God to pray for the dead." Fish did not add much more to explain his view.

Fish also spoke out against selling indulgences. He argued that this supposed act of forgiveness was just a trick to get money for the Church leaders.

He called all Catholic leaders "tyrants" who "lack charity." He said this because they would not pray for someone who could not pay for it.

Against Church Power

Fish claimed that the Church leaders were trying to take power from the government. He believed that the Church's power was greater than the king's. This created a separate, powerful group within the country. Even when the government tried to make laws to control the Church, these laws did not work.

Fish mentioned the ancient kings of Britain. He probably did this to connect with King Henry VIII's own Welsh background. These old kings, Fish explained, never let the Church control them. They also did not allow foreign Church leaders to tax their people. Instead, they kept strong control over such outside powers. Fish said that it was because of "so many clerical parasites among them as now infest the realm of England" that invaders like the Danes, Saxons, and Romans succeeded against England. The Supplication warned Henry that if he did not help the poor, they would rise up. This had happened before with King John.

The Richard Hunne Case

To make his point against the Church leaders, Fish used the story of Richard Hunne. This was a very shocking story at the time. It is not surprising that St. Thomas More, who later responded to Fish, wrote a lot about the Hunne scandal.

The problem started in 1514. Hunne, a rich man from London, refused to pay a burial fee for his child to his local priest. The priest sued Hunne in a Church court. Hunne then sued back. He said the case should be heard in a regular court, not a Church court. After he filed his lawsuit, Hunne was arrested. He was accused of having beliefs against the Church and taken to the Bishop of London's prison.

Two days later, Hunne was found dead in his cell. Evidence later suggested that the Bishop of London's assistant, Dr. Horsey, was responsible for the death. However, Dr. Horsey never went to trial. The Bishop of London got a special pardon from the king for him. Fish used this event to argue that the Church leaders used accusations of heresy to punish people.

Accusations of Disloyalty and Greed

Fish's pamphlet said that the Church leaders were disloyal and greedy. According to Fish, the Church leaders charged very high taxes. These taxes took money from people that they could have used to support the king and pay for defense. Also, the Church leaders themselves did not have to pay government taxes. The large amount of money the Church had gave them power to go against the king. Fish called this the Church leaders' "treason fund."

This accusation of disloyalty against the Church leaders, according to the pamphlet, was because they had "placed themselves above the law of the realm." The very existence of Church courts was another sign of this disloyalty. Fish believed Hunne was murdered because he correctly recognized that the king's power was above the Church's.

Supplycatyon of Soulys: St. Thomas More's Response

Within months of Fish's pamphlet being shared, St. Thomas More wrote a response. He defended the Catholic Church in a book called The Supplycatyon of Soulys. This response was printed by October 1529. It had two parts. The first part answered Fish's concerns about society and money. The second part defended the idea of purgatory. More's long and detailed response was ten times longer than Fish's sixteen-page pamphlet.

Legacy

Simon Fish's pamphlet continues to be important. It was printed many times, even though it was banned. This shows that people were very interested in it throughout the 1500s. After its first release, the Supplication was printed five more times in the 1800s and twice in the 1900s. It was also included many times in different versions of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments.

Fish's pamphlet was part of a bigger fight between politics and religion around the world. It joined a growing movement against the power of the Church leaders. Fish's pamphlet, even though it was very strong, showed some of the common complaints against the Roman Catholic Church in the years before the English Reformation.