John Fisher
John Fisher was an English Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Rochester from 1504 to 1535 and as chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He is honoured as a martyr and saint by the Catholic Church.
Fisher was executed by order of Henry VIII during the English Reformation for refusing to accept him as Supreme Head of the Church of England and for upholding the Catholic Church's doctrine of papal supremacy and the independence of the Church from control by the State. He was named a cardinal shortly before his death.
In answer to a popular petition of English Catholics, Pope Pius XI canonized John Fisher and Thomas More on 19 May 1935 as representatives of the many Catholic martyrs of England. The two martyrs share a common feast day on 22 June in the current General Roman Calendar of the Catholic Church. His name also appears in some Anglican calendars of saints.
Biography
Early life
John Fisher was born at Beverley, Yorkshire in 1469, the son of Robert Fisher, a prosperous mercer of Beverley, and Agnes, his wife, with whom he had four children. Robert Fisher died in 1477, and was buried in St. Mary's, the parish church; in his will, he made bequests to his children and various poorhouses, churches, and priests, as well as providing Mass stipends.John was then eight years old. His widowed mother subsequently married a man named White, to whom she bore four further children.
Fisher's early education was probably at the school attached to the collegiate church in his home town. He seems to have had close contacts with his extended family all his life.
University of Cambridge
Acknowledging Fisher's aptitude for learning, and being financially comfortable, his mother assented to his admission to the University of Cambridge, in 1482, at the age of twelve or thirteen.The University of Cambridge had regressed and stagnated academically. In an oration delivered before Henry VII in 1506, Fisher recalled:
Fisher studied at the University of Cambridge from 1484, where at Michaelhouse he came under the influence of William Melton, a pastorally-minded theologian open to the new current of reform in studies arising from the Renaissance. Fisher received the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1487. In 1491 he proceeded to a Master of Arts degree and was elected a fellow of his college.
Also in 1491 Fisher received a papal dispensation to be ordained to the priesthood despite being under the canonical age. On 17 December 1491 he was ordained into the priesthood, and appointed Vicar of Northallerton, Yorkshire.
In 1494 he resigned this benefice to become proctor of the University and three years later was appointed master debater and about the same time he was also appointed chaplain and confessor to Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother of King Henry VII.
On 5 July 1501, he received the degree of doctor of sacred theology and 10 days later was elected Vice-Chancellor of the university. Under Fisher's guidance, his patroness Lady Margaret founded St John's and Christ's Colleges at Cambridge, and a Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity at each of the two universities at Oxford and Cambridge. Fisher himself became the first occupant of the Cambridge chair. From 1505 to 1508 he was also the President of Queens' College. At the end of July 1516 he was at Cambridge for the opening of St John's College and consecrated the chapel.
Fisher's strategy was to assemble funds and attract to Cambridge leading scholars from Europe, promoting the study not only of Classical Latin and Greek authors, but of Hebrew. He placed great weight upon pastoral commitment, above all popular preaching, on the part of the endowed fellows. Fisher had a vision to which he dedicated all his personal resources and energies. Despite occasional opposition, he managed to administer the entire university, one of only two in England, conceiving and seeing through long-term projects.
Fisher's foundations were also dedicated to prayer for the dead, especially through chantry foundations. A stern and austere man, Fisher was known to place a human skull on the altar during Mass and on the table during meals.
Erasmus said of John Fisher: "He is the one man at this time who is incomparable for uprightness of life, for learning and for greatness of soul."
Bishop
By papal bull dated 14 October 1504, Fisher was appointed bishop of Rochester, at the personal insistence of Henry VII. Rochester was then the poorest diocese in England and usually seen as a first step on an episcopal career. Nonetheless, Fisher stayed there, presumably by his own choice, for the remaining 31 years of his life.At the same time, like any English bishop of his day, Fisher had certain state duties. These included in particular, his role regarding the University of Cambridge, in which he maintained a passionate interest. In 1504 he was elected the university's chancellor. Re-elected annually for 10 years, Fisher ultimately received a lifetime appointment. At this date he is also said to have acted as tutor to the future king, Henry VIII. As a preacher, his reputation was so great that he was appointed to preach the funeral oration for King Henry VII and the Lady Margaret, both of whom died in 1509, the texts being extant. Besides the part he played in the Lady Margaret's foundations, Fisher gave further proof of his zeal for learning by inducing Erasmus to visit Cambridge. The latter attributes it to Fisher's protection that the study of Greek was allowed to proceed at Cambridge without the active molestation that it encountered at Oxford.
Despite his fame and eloquence, it was not long before Fisher came into conflict with the new King, his former pupil. The dispute arose over funds left by the Lady Margaret, the King's grandmother, for financing foundations at Cambridge.
In 1512 Fisher was nominated as one of the English representatives at the Fifth Council of the Lateran, then sitting, but his journey to Rome was postponed, and finally abandoned.
Opposition to Lutheranism
John Fisher was "the first theologian to diagnose justification through faith alone as the founding dogma of the Protestant Reformation."Fisher has also been named, though without any convincing proof, as the true author of the royal treatise against Martin Luther entitled "Assertio septem sacramentorum", published in 1521, which won for King Henry VIII the title "Fidei Defensor". Prior to this date Fisher had denounced various abuses in the Church, urging the need for disciplinary reforms.
In 1523, Fisher published a 200,000 word response to Martin Luther's : . Luther omitted some of the more provocative material from his German version, allowing the view that Fisher had misunderstood Luther. Luther did not respond to Fisher.
On about 11 February 1526, at the King's command, he preached a famous sermon against Luther at St Paul's Cross, the open-air pulpit outside St Paul's Cathedral in London, as part of a spectacle where some Lutherans would publicly abjure and confiscated Lutheran books would be burnt. In the preface to the printed English version of the sermon, Fisher offered to meet secretly with any Lutheran to "to hear the bottom of his mind, and he shall hear mine again, if it so please him: and I trust
in our lord, that finally we shall so agree, that either he shall make me a Lutheran, or else I shall induce him to be a Catholic, and to follow the doctrine of Christ's
church." The battle against heterodox teachings increasingly occupied Fisher's later years.
In 1529 Fisher was called to confirm with Thomas Hitton, a follower of William Tyndale arrested for suspected heresy, that the records of his interviews and forthright admissions to Archbishop William Warham were correct and to convince Hitton to abjure. Failing this, Hitton was handed to the secular authorities and executed at the stake for heresy. William Tyndale, then living overseas, claimed that Hitton had been tortured by the archbishops, however Protestant historian John Foxe who was diligent in passing on this kind of claim, does not claim this.
Defence of Catherine of Aragon
When Henry tried to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Fisher became the Queen's chief supporter. As such, he appeared on the Queen's behalf in the legates' court, where he startled the audience by the directness of his language and by declaring that, like St John the Baptist, he was ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. Henry VIII, upon hearing this, grew so enraged by it that he composed a long Latin address to the legates in answer to the bishop's speech. Fisher's copy of this still exists, with his manuscript annotations in the margin which show how little he feared the royal anger. The removal of the cause to Rome brought Fisher's personal involvement to an end, but the King never forgave him for what he had done.Henry's attack on church prerogatives
In November 1529, the "Long Parliament" of Henry's reign began encroaching on the Catholic Church's prerogatives. Fisher, as a member of the upper house, the House of Lords, at once warned Parliament that such acts could only end in the utter destruction of the Catholic Church in England. The Commons, through their speaker, complained to the King that Fisher had disparaged Parliament, presumably with Henry prompting them behind the scenes. Henry summoned Fisher before him, demanding an explanation. This being given, Henry declared himself satisfied, leaving it to the Commons to declare that the explanation was inadequate, so that he appeared as a magnanimous sovereign, instead of Fisher's enemy.A year later, in 1530, the continued encroachments on the Church moved Fisher, as bishop of Rochester, along with the bishops of Bath and Ely, to appeal to the Holy See. This gave the King his opportunity and an edict forbidding such appeals was immediately issued, and the three bishops were arrested. Their imprisonment, however, must have lasted only a few months for in February 1531, Convocation met, and Fisher was present. This was the occasion when the clergy were forced, at a cost of 100,000 pounds, to purchase the King's pardon for having recognized Cardinal Wolsey's authority as legate of the pope; and at the same time to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church in England, to which phrase the addition of the clause "so far as God's law permits" was made through Fisher's efforts.