Martin Marprelate was the name used by the anonymous author or authors of the Marprelate tracts. These circulated illegally in the years 1588 and 1589. Their principal focus was an attack on the episcopacy of the Anglican Church. In 1583, the appointment of John Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury had signalled the beginning of a drive against the Presbyterian movement in the church, and an era of censorship began. In 1586, by an edict of the Star Chamber, the archbishop was empowered to licence and control all of the printing apparatus in the country. An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ... The Marprelate Controversy was a war of pamphlets waged in England and Wales in 1588 and 1589, between a puritan writer who employed the pseudonym Martin Marprelate, and defenders of the Established Church. ... 1588 was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. ... Events Rebellion of the Catholic League against King Henry III of France, in revenge for his murder of Duke Henry of Guise. ... Episcopacy is the regime of church government by bishops (Lat. ... The term Anglican (from Anglia, the Latin name for England) describes the people, institutions, and churches that adhere the religious traditions developed by the established Church of England. ... 1583 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. ... John Whitgift (c. ... Arms of the see of Canterbury The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior clergyman of the established Church of England and symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. ... Presbyterianism is part of the Reformed churches family of denominations of Christian Protestantism based on the teachings of John Calvin which traces its institutional roots to the Scottish Reformation, especially as led by John Knox. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... 1586 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. ... The Star Chamber was an English court of law at the royal Palace of Westminster that began sessions in 1487 and ended them in 1641 when the court itself was abolished. ... An apparatus is: A machine; or Reference tools added to a book, apart from the text, such as variant readings or translations, textual notes, a concordance, a bibliography, or an index, designed for the use of scholars studying the book. ...

The true identity of "Martin" has long been speculated upon. For many years, the main candidate was seen as John Penry, a Welsh preacher and author of several impassioned polemics against the state of the church. In fact the likely main author is now recognised to be a Warwickshire squire and MP, Job Throckmorton (who earned the appropriate nickname "jibing Job"). As the tracts had to be printed in secrecy, some sort of organisation was clearly involved to handle their production and distribution, and as their intent found widespread support among the Puritan element, some sort of communal authorship is likely. John Penry (1559 - May 29, 1593), is Waless most famous Protestant martyr. ... For an explanation of often confusing terms such as Great Britain, Britain, United Kingdom, England and Wales and England, see British Isles (terminology). ... Preacher is a colloquial term for a clergyman, in particular a local priest, pastor or Minister; one who preaches. ... Look up Polemic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Polemic is the art or practice of inciting disputation or causing controversy, for example in religious, philosophical, or political matters. ... Warwickshire (pronounced either /ˈwɔːɹɪkˌʃə/ or /ˈwɔːɹɪkˌʃɪə/) is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in central England. ... In medieval times a squire was a man-at-arms in the service of a knight, often as his apprentice. ... The Puritans were originally members of a group of English Protestants seeking purity — further reforms or even separation from the established church — during the Protestant Reformation. ...

Penry was definitely involved in the printing, and the press was frequently relocated to different parts of the country in order to avoid the authorities. Penry himself denied any involvement in the actual authorship.

The government was concerned enough at the virulence of the attacks on the ecclesiastical hierarchy to respond in kind, hiring professional writers such as Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene and John Lyly to write counter-tracts. Like most polemics, the tracts are full of hatred of their opponents, describing the bishops as representing the Antichrist, and equally convinced of the righteousness of their own cause. Thomas Nashe (November 1567–1600?) was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, poet and satirist. ... Robert Greene, MA , BA (1558 – September 3, 1592) was an English playwright, poet, pamphleteer, and prose writer. ... John Lyly (Lilly or Lylie) (c. ... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

Some of the pamphlets were reprinted in the seventeenth century. A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). ...

The Marprelate tracts are important documents in the history of English satire: critics from C. S. Lewis to John Carey have recognised their originality. In particular, the pamphlets show concern with the status of the text, wittily guying conventions such as the colophon and marginalia. C.S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898–22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis, and by his friends as Jack, was an Irish author and scholar of mixed Irish, English, and Welsh ancestry. ... John Carey is Merton Professor of English at Oxford University, a distinguished critic, reviewer and broadcaster, and the author of several books, including studies of Donne, Dickens and Thackeray, Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the Twentieth Centurys Most Enjoyable Books, was described, by James Wood in the London Review... A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom. ... Colophon (Greek Κολοφών; see also list of traditional Greek place names) was a titular see of Asia Minor. ... Marginalia is the general term for notes, scribbles, doodles and editorial comments made in the margin of a book. ...

See also

• Elizabethan Religious Settlement
• Religion in the United Kingdom

The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was Elizabeth I’s response to the religious divisions created over the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I.This response was set out in two acts of parliament. ... St Pauls Cathedral The United Kingdom is a traditionally Christian state, with two of the four home nations having official faiths: Anglicanism, in the form of the Church of England, is the established church in England. ...

External links

• For the full texts of the tracts, see http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/marprelate/
• For a long, if dated, discussion in the Cambridge history of English Literature, see http://www.bartleby.com/213/1701.html