author
Simon Fish
d. 1531
Best known for the fiery pamphlet A Supplication for the Beggars, this early English reformer turned sharp social criticism into one of the most talked-about attacks on church wealth in Henry VIII's England. His brief career left a mark far bigger than the few facts that survive about his life.
1 Audiobook
A Supplication for the Beggars
by Simon Fish
About the author
Little is known for certain about his early life, but Simon Fish was associated with Gray's Inn and became part of the circle of early English reformers in the late 1520s. He is remembered as a lawyer and Protestant pamphleteer at a time when religious argument and political danger were tightly bound together.
His fame rests mainly on A Supplication for the Beggars, a fierce attack on the wealth and power of the clergy. The work argued that ordinary people were being impoverished while church institutions amassed riches, and it became influential enough to provoke a response from Sir Thomas More. Fish was also linked with the spread of William Tyndale's English New Testament.
During these controversies he spent time in exile on the Continent, then returned to England under royal protection. Sources differ on the exact year of his death, but several standard reference works describe him as dying in 1531, reportedly during an outbreak of plague in London.