Reformation, marriage, Flower of Friendship, Edmund Tilney, Homily of the State of Matrimony, Encomium Matrimonii, Erasmus, humanism

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books, was intended to be read in church services throughout the country. Finally, Edmund Tilney’s A Brief and Pleasant Discourse of Duties in Marriage Called the Flower of Friendshippe first appeared in 1568 and went through a further two editions within the year. ²⁷⁸ To these can be added several translations of Erasmus’s colloquies upon the subject. ²⁷⁹ With the exception of the Encomium Matrimonii and ‘An Homily of the State of Matrimony’ all the above were dialogues proposing arguments for and against marriage in which the case for marriage takes precedence. ²⁸⁰ The topic of marriage was highly biased towards dialogue. Not only did many pre-Reformation texts on the theme appear in dialogue format under the dialectical influence of Humanism. Since the Reformation itself emerged out of opposition to Catholic doctrine, Protestant ideas about marriage were concerned frequently with confuting the Catholic veneration of celibacy, and other notions about marriage associated with Catholicism.

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²⁷⁸ The Flower of Friendship: A Renaissance Discourse Contesting Marriage, ed. Valerie Wayne (London and Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1992); ‘An Homily of the State of Matrimony’ from The Second Book of Homilies (1563), in Daughters, Wives, and Widows: Writings by Men About Women and Marriage in England, 1500-1640, ed. Joan Larsen Klein (Urbana and Chicago: Illinois UP, 1992), pp.11-25 (subsequent references for this text are given in parentheses following quotations). On the publication history of The Flower of Friendship see Wayne ed. (1992), p.5.

²⁷⁹ Among these were his ‘Coniugium’ which was published as A Mery Dialogue, Declaringe the Propertyes of Shrowde Shrewes, and Honest Wyues (printed for Antony Kytson, 1557), STC 10455 and his ‘Proci et puellae’ (‘Courtship’, 1523) and ‘Adolescentis et scorti’ (‘The Young Man and the Harlot’, 1523) which appear together as A Modest Meane to Mariage, trans. N[icholas] L[eigh] (Henry Denham, 1568), STC 10499.

²⁸⁰ In addition to those works already mentioned can be included his Vidua christiana (1526), and other dialogues from his Colloquies such as ‘Virgo μισóγαμος’ (‘The Girl with no Interest in Marriage’, 1523), ‘Virgo poenitens’ (‘The Repentant Girl’, 1523) and ‘Αγαμος γáμος, sive Coniugium impar’ (‘Marriage in Name Only, or the Unequal Match’, 1529). See Collected Works of Erasmus, [86 vols] (London and Toronto: Toronto UP, 1974- ), LXVI-LXX (LXVI): Spiritualia, trans. Jennifer Tolbert Roberts (1988), pp.177-257 and XXXIX-XL: Colloquies, trans. Craig R. Thompson (1997), pp.279-301, pp.302-5 and pp.842-59.

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