author
Simon Fish
d. 1531
A sharp, rebellious voice from the English Reformation, he is remembered for attacking clerical wealth and helping spread reformist ideas in Henry VIII's England. His most famous work, A Supplication for the Beggars, was bold enough to alarm church authorities and influential enough to reach the king.
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 an English lawyer and religious reformer who was active in the late 1520s and died in 1531. He is closely associated with the early Protestant movement in England and is often linked with the circulation of William Tyndale's New Testament.
Fish is best known for A Supplication for the Beggars, a fierce attack on the wealth and power of the clergy. Written in a lively, confrontational style, the pamphlet argued that church corruption harmed ordinary people and helped make anti-clerical reform ideas far more visible in England.
His career was brief and dangerous, shaped by exile, controversy, and the risks of challenging both church authority and the religious order of his day. Even so, his writing became part of the larger wave of argument and protest that helped define the English Reformation.