Fisher of Men: A Life of John Fisher, 1469–1535 (review)

Fisher of Men: A Life of John Fisher, 1469-1535. By Maria Dowling. (New York: St. Martin's Press. 1999. Pp. xii, 218. $65.00.)

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, cardinal, martyr, and saint has long been overshadowed in both the popular and the scholarly consciousness by his fellow-martyr Sir Thomas More. But recent scholarship has done much to establish a proper evaluation of Fisher's place in the ecclesiastical, intellectual, and political life of early Tudor England. The names of Edward Surtz and Richard Rex, the principal students of Fisher's theology, stand out in this regard.

Maria Dowling's Fisher of Men is the latest attempt to produce a comprehensive life of John Fisher. Dr. Dowling's abrupt and somewhat unfair dismissal of previous attempts as "hagiographies" (p. 1) might lead the reader to suppose that her own attitude to Fisher is hostile. Not so: the tone throughout is one of admiration rather than denigration. Indeed, Dowling states that she hopes that her work will "do right" to the bishop (p. 6). In this aim she is largely successful. Her biography is arranged thematically, with chapters on Fisher as a humanist, as a bishop, as a preacher, as a devotional writer, and as a political dissident. She eschews a chapter on Fisher's theology, unwilling to duplicate the work of Richard Rex (handsome tribute is paid in her book not only to the work of Rex but also to that of Stephen Thompson on Fisher's episcopate and Malcolm Underwood on Fisher as a benefactor of Cambridge University), although she does deal with Fisher's polemical works in her chapter on his approach to heresy.

Most of Dowling's arguments and judgments are convincing. She sees Fisher as a humanist, observing, quite correctly, that "humanism had little originally to do with dogma" (p. 30) and that for Fisher and other contemporaries "there was not an insuperable divide between scholasticism and humanism" (p. 40). She also argues cogently that (pace H. C. Porter) Erasmus and Fisher were not divided by controversy in their later years, and that the Dutch scholar's last letters to the bishop "are no cooler in tone than his earlier ones" (p. 46).

Dowling sees Fisher as a committed pastor with an ascetic lifestyle, but argues that in his diocese he was not an administrative reformer (pp. 67, 70). She notes the high value he placed on his preaching ministry and rates his sermons as "original and effective compositions" (pp. 72, 85). She notes Fisher's "pity for the souls of heretics" and points out that all the heretics detected in his diocese were persuaded to abjure (pp. 91, 93). She lays emphasis on Fisher's importance as a theologian and describes his 1521 sermon in St. Paul's Churchyard as "probably one of the most concise and comprehensive catalogues of Luther's teaching at so early a date" (p. 100). Dr. Dowling regards Fisher's devotional writings as "highly important" and believes that they "reveal the intensity and importance in his own eyes of Fisher's pastoral ministry" (pp. 114, 130). The book concludes with two chapters on Fisher's opposition to Henry VIII's religious changes and on the circumstances of his elevation to the cardinalate.

Dowling's book is largely free from factual error. However, this reviewer has some quibbles. It is questionable whether there was a definite "generation-gap" between older and younger humanists over Scholasticism, as Dowling (following Surtz) claims (p. 40). Some younger humanists such as the religious conservatives Stephen Gardiner and Richard Smyth made use of scholastic theologians. And the case for Henry VIII's authorship of the Assertio Septem Sacramentorum cannot rest solely on the king's failure to disclaim authorship after the break with Rome: Henry never disclaimed the title Fidei Defensor, which was the papal reward for publishing it. Nevertheless, Dowling's...