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John Ponet (1516–1556) was a central figure in the English Reformation—an intellectual, ecclesiastical leader, and political thinker. This monograph revisits Ponet’s contributions to theology, humanism, and political theory, revealing his vital role in the Edwardian Reformation as a leading member of the Cambridge “Athenians”. Using newly discovered archival material and his reconstructed personal library, this study offers a fresh perspective on Ponet's influence, from his promotion of evangelical reforms under Edward VI to his advocacy for limited monarchy and resistance against tyranny under Mary. By rightly remembering Ponet, this book challenges the prevailing narratives and reshapes our understanding of the early English Reformation and mid-Tudor England.
Price: $118.00
Pages: 328
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: St Andrews Studies in Reformation History
Publication Date:
10 April 2025
ISBN: 9789004421073
Format: Hardcover
"Mark Earngey has carried out a notable task of rediscovery on a Protestant bishop who was central to the mid-Tudor Reformation, but whose relatively early death in exile curtailed a career that would probably have made him one of the leading forces in the Elizabethan Church. Earngey retrieves the brilliance and originality of this multi-talented scholar, and has reconstructed much of his library now scattered right across Europe, providing extensive analysis of the lively and fascinating annotations in Ponet's books. This is a major achievement in English Reformation studies."
Diarmaid MacCulloch, University of Oxford
"Bishop John Ponet has been remembered, if at all, as the punch-line to a joke about scandalous clerical marriages. Mark Earngey’s book finally does justice to him – and more. Drawing on a hugely impressive range of archival discoveries, Earngey is able not only to reconstruct Ponet’s intellectual world, but to show how and why this theological street-fighter was made a bishop aged only 34, and became a central figure of Edward VI’s Reformation and of the English Protestant exile community in the 1550s. The book not only gives us a wealth of lost detail, but provides a compelling overview of a man who, had he not died at the age of forty, would have become a colossus of the Elizabethan Church of England."
Alec Ryrie FBA, Durham University
Diarmaid MacCulloch, University of Oxford
"Bishop John Ponet has been remembered, if at all, as the punch-line to a joke about scandalous clerical marriages. Mark Earngey’s book finally does justice to him – and more. Drawing on a hugely impressive range of archival discoveries, Earngey is able not only to reconstruct Ponet’s intellectual world, but to show how and why this theological street-fighter was made a bishop aged only 34, and became a central figure of Edward VI’s Reformation and of the English Protestant exile community in the 1550s. The book not only gives us a wealth of lost detail, but provides a compelling overview of a man who, had he not died at the age of forty, would have become a colossus of the Elizabethan Church of England."
Alec Ryrie FBA, Durham University
Mark Earngey, DPhil (2018, in Ecclesiastical History, University of Oxford), is Head of Church History and Lecturer in Christian Thought at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia. His research interests and publications have focused on English Reformation history, theology, liturgy, and marginalia.