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 of Luther was the first full-scale English rendering of a work by the great arch-heretic, and its subject matter (the iniquities of the unmarried clergy) suggested a unity of vision between European and English reformers. Most importantly, these two tracts were published together, ironically enough, thereby suggesting a unity of vision that neither Erasmus nor Luther would have been prepared to countenance.

Parker's thorough volume includes: a literary/historical introduction situating the text and explaining its importance for the English reform movement; an essay on the fidelity of Roye's English renderings of the original Latin and German texts; commentary that glosses difficult readings, identifies all biblical and secular references, provides analogues from early English reformation tracts and from some of Erasmus' and Luther's other writings. This is a critical work for scholars of the English reformation movement.

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.

This is an old-spelling, critical edition of the version of The praier and complaynte of the ploweman vnto Christe that resurfaced in the 1530s. Demonstrating the continuity of ideas between the Lollards and the Reformists, Douglas Parker situates The praier and complaynte firmly in the tradition of English Reformist borrowing of texts, and argues for William Tyndale as editor of the sixteenth-century version of The praier and complaynte. Parker examines the two extant copies of the manuscript, and comments on the work's structure and reformist content. He presents full historical, literary, and biographical information in his introduction, and a full line-by-line commentary on the text.

This careful, meticulous work is a revealing look at the ideology of Protestant religious struggles in England from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century.

This is a new, critical edition of William Roye's A Brefe Dialoge bitwene a Christen Father and his stobborne Sonne, which was, in 1527, the first Protestant catechism to be published in English, and which represented the first to provide an extended and detailed statement of the new reformed doctrine in the vernacular. It was thus enormously influential on English Reformist thought, outlining a combination of doctrines that were to appeal to English reformers for decades to come. The Brefe Dialoge electrified the spiritual imagination of English-speaking reform-minded believers as intensely as Tyndale's 1526 English New Testament.

The introduction carefully establishes the historical, religious, social, and cultural contexts out of which the work was born. It also provides details about Roye's life, other works, and commitment to the Reformist cause. The text of the catechism is accompanied by an extensive and detailed commentary that provides readers with clear readings for difficult passages, establishes a theological context for ideas expressed in the text, provides analogous readings from other early Reformation tracts, and glosses all the biblical citations and allusions.

The Brefe Dialoge will be of value to students and scholars interested in the history, theology, and literature of the early English Reformation period.