Outline, Notes, and Works Cited for Theological Martyrs Presentation.



Introduction:

Anne Askew.

The presentation will have three parts.

a) A quick sketch biography, noting important dates, and a generalized context about when and where she lived.

Two sections about her relevance to history.
a) A theological history marking her position in the beginning of the Tudor period.
b) A gendered histography, noting the creation of self and construction of a personalized identity.


Quick Sketch Biography :
Born 1521
Hanged, 1526

Some Milestones:

a) Tudor period is a time of increased social mobility, and so Askew was not born of noble lineage, around the time of her birth, her father was knighted he would later work as an MP to Grimsby and a high sheriff in Lincolnshire. )
b) She had a good education which resulted in her being literate in English, Greek and Latin. She also wrote some which became vital to her definitions of self.
This ability to read was unusual but tied into a rising protestant sentiment. To put it in its most crude terms, the rise of literacy, results in the rising numbers of people with the ability to read bible which not only prioritized the importance of the lay, but deprioritzed the role of the priest as mysterious deliverer of sacraments.) She was reading other protestant reformers in her imprisonment, including John Firth's autobiography and response to Moore: “The only personal history written form prison during the reign of Henry VIII that bears resemblance to the Examinations is The Articles Wherefore John Frith died which is annexed to Frith’s answer to Thomas More concerning the sacrament (1533). This is quite possibly the treatise that Askew was reading when Archdeacon John Wymsely warned her that ‘soche books as thys is, hath brought yow to the trouble ye are in’. The articles give some account of the examinations that Frirth underwent, but they are mostly a point-by-point answer to the charges that condemned him. The publication of his system of belief, he himself observes, is sure to purchase him a ‘moste cruell deth’. It is precisely this kind of exposure that Askew’s narrative refuses.” (Coles, Religion, Reform, and Women’s Writing, 20)
c) She was married to Thomas Kyme in 1505 and had at least one child—William Askew (there is thought to perhaps be one more). This marriage was arranged, and because of her father’s social standing, and his social climbing tendencies, it could be assumed that the pairing was mostly about property/dowry/. This abandoning her children and husband for God has precedent in English mystical circles, and is especially prominent in the work of Magarey Kempe.
d) Her husband a devout catholic. Askew converts to the protestant cause, leaves Lincolnshire for London, to go “gospelling” or evangelizing
e) Remained close to the circle of Catherine Parr
f) She was imprisoned in the Tower of London, twice, tortured by the rack once, may have recanted once, eventually executed as part of Henry VIII’s radical wave, in 1546. The charges, revolved around her violations of the Six Articles Act of 1533. (The act was subtitled “Abolishing diversity of Opinions” and maintained points about transubstantiation, and the supremacy of the pope.
g) Her testimony was published as early as late 1546, and definitely by 1547-1548 in Wordal, Germany a Lutheran Stronghold. The examinations were heavily annotated and edited by John Boate, a protestant sympathizer.

There are at least five items around Askew, that suggest that she is important, regardless of her gender.

a) She symbolizes, or at least marks, the rise of literacy among (at least) the nobility
b) Her work becomes about the importance of constructing personal discourses around scripture. (The “gospelling” in London functioned as a way of both translating and disseminating scriptures with a loosely affiliated group. The group might have contained the radical Anabaptist Joan of Kent , executed later under Edward VI, but this is controversial) (If Kent was in the group, and Catherine Parr was thought to have Lutheran sympathies—Askew works as a middle ground between protestant tendencies as well—the interpretive act becomes a set of dialogues about what it means to be this new kind of Christian.) The interpretation of scripture, does not necessarily only mean dissemination, but can also lead to personal prayer: A court functionary named Wadloe from Winchester, moved into the house next to Anne in order to spy on her. He is quoted in her examinations: "at ‘at mydnyght she begynneth to pray, and cessyth not in many howers after, when I and others applye owr sleape or do worse’ (Nichols, Narratives, 40)"
c) Her moving to London, to seek a divorce, and also her general, disobedience. She didn’t take her husband’s last name. She preferred the company of her religious cohorts, and in her second examination, sent back to Lincolnshire, waits 12 days, told to return with Kyme, does, and says Kyme is not her husband)
d) Her connections, however tenuous to the court of Catherine Parr, and less tenuous to Henry's court (brother was cupbearer, half brother gentleman to the privy chamber) in the midst of Henry’s confusion about his own Catholicism seem relevant .
d) The creation of a martyrdom that is not about veneration, that moves away from a roman understanding of that word

There is some gendered context that marks her vitality as well.

a) We must be careful about being anachronistic, and we should recognize that the construction of a martyrs identity is not the same as fashioning an autobiography—but Askew writing her own text (though one mediated by a man) should be noted. Knott: …Yet whatever sense of individuality emerges from Askew’s presentation, she was also consciously playing a role shaped by the representations of martyrdom that I have been describing. The record she created is less a deliberate self-portrait or anything that it makes sense to describe as autobiography in the modern sense of the word, than a recreation of her effort to witness to God’s truth for the instruction and support of the faithful. …Self Justification is less important than contributing to the continuing story of resistance to persecution, given new and painful relevance by the campaign against heresy or Henry VIII’s conservative bishops.”
b) This discussion of the sublimation of Anne’s voice into the general discussion of the general discourse of martyrdom under reports Askew’s style. Often it is plain, stark and unadorned. Her words lack flourish, and sometimes, in the midst of the bluntness, a mocking tone emerges. In this sense, and in the translation between the written, and the read, the oral and the published, we can see Askew as a master ironist. This would suggest that the creation of a female self, perhaps outside of just the martyr’s genre set for her.
b) The idea that her body was taken over by God, and that a masculine force was overtaking her frailty. This is seen in Bale’s introductory notes and marginal comments, and was the general understood opinion of the time. At her execution, a friar who went towards Protestantism and then quickly recanted was made feminine, while Askew in the same context was viewed as masculine. (A witness, Crowley was quoted as saying: “she stood manfully” at her execution. There are suggestions, that there were masculine forces writing her life, she constructed her own identity. In Elaine Belin’s discussion of women writers in the early Renaissance, she makes this point clearly: “…Her assertations in the Examinations are always positive, filled with a sense of her own rectitude, assured of her own virtue. At one point she is careful to record her wish, “that all men knew my conversaycon and lyvviyng in all poyntes, for I am so sure of my selfe thys houre, that there are non able ot prove anye dyshonestie by me. (I, 34v) Writing may have offered Askew a way to create herself as she desired, rather than to be known either a disobedient wife and heretic by one side, or a distant figurehood by the other. By controlling the persona of Anne Askew, and selecting and shaping the events of her own imprisonment, Askew fulfills the role she recognized she was to have for the reformers, but also becomes an autobiographer, who composes the woman. Anne Askew.

Three Conculsions
1) The rise of literacy leads to the rise of a creation of self. This creation of self connects to a new understanding of religious roles.
2) There was a tension between the needs for martyrdom to be reclaimed from the Catholic instincts towards mysticism, and towards a protestant sense of it as an obligation towards the abjection of self. The controversy about Askew’s self fashioning attempts to work through that tension, but it has yet to be solved.
3) This fashioning of self often has a strong gendered component—and Askew’s womanness affects how she wrote the texts, and how we read them.