1531 - Tyndale, William - Prologue to Prophet Jonas

William Tyndale / John Foxe's Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church, a.k.a. Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563) via Wikipedia.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-10-26. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2019-02-21.

Allusion

  And the lives, stories, and gests of men, which are contained in the bible, they [the 'papists'] read as things no more pertaining unto them than a tale of Robin Hood, and as things they wot not whereto they serve, save to feign false descant and juggling allegories, to stablish their kingdom withal. And one of the chiefest and fleshliest studies they have is to magnify the saints above measure and above the truth; and with their poetry to make them greater then ever God made them.

Source notes

IRHB's brackets.
P. 38, marginal note against "And the lives, stories, and gests of men": "How the papists wring and wrest the scriptures."
P. 86 n. 1 (note to word 'gests'): "That is, doings. So edition of 1549; but Hylls' bible and Day have gifts."
Published in 1531, cf. pp. xviii, 85.

IRHB comments

This is one of at least five allusions to Robin Hood in the writings of Tyndale.

Lists

• Not included in Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), pp. 293-11.
• Not included in Sussex, Lucy, compil. 'References to Robin Hood up to 1600', in: Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 262-88.

Editions

• Tyndale, William; Duffield, G.E., ed.; Bruce, F.F., introd. The Works of William Tyndale (Appleford, Berkshire, 1964), pp. 85-102; see p. 86.

Background

• Wikipedia: William Tyndale.

Notes

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