The Curious Case of the Misplaced Eulogy: the Printing History of Matthew Parker's Sermon for Martin Bucer's Funeral

Abstract

The history of the sermon that Matthew Parker preached at the funeral of Martin Bucer is more complicated than has been thought. It is generally known that the first printing of 1551 was subsequently translated from English into Latin for a European audience in 1562 (printed in that year and again in 1577), and then published in English a second time, in a 1587 imprint that is thought to be a second edition. What is not generally known is that the second English printing was a translation of the 1562/1577 Latin version, and that in the process of translation and re-translation, Parker's original sermon was stripped of nearly 60 per cent of its content, as a eulogy that followed the sermon was misattributed to Walter Haddon at some point just prior to 1562. The present article seeks to explain how this came to pass, and argues that the 1551 imprint should replace the 1587 as the primary text for what Parker said of Bucer.