The "British Constantine" was a flattering geopolitical remark ("conceit") about the historical comparison to the Roman Catholic Church of the Byzantine Empire applied to both Elizabeth I and James I of England, implying a comparison with the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. It had both secular and religious implications, Constantine having unified the Roman Empire of his time, and made Christianity a state religion.
Constantine was associated also, through the work Oratio ad sanctorum coetum ("Oration of Constantine" or "sermon of Constantine"), with the Christian reading of the fourth Eclogue of Virgil. Here a Sybilline oracle is invoked as a supposed source of Virgil. The Christian interpretation is Messianic, an idea grafted onto Virgil's original praise of a coming Golden Age of empire. [1] [2]
Constantine III of Britain (6th century) was one of the legendary kings of Britain, having a slender historical basis; Constantine I of Scotland (5th century) was a mythical figure from the king-list of George Buchanan. Constantine I of the Picts (9th century) was a real historical figure. The main historical reference of the "British Constantine", however, from the 12th century to the 18th century, was the Roman Emperor Constantine I. This was the period in which the legend that Constantine was a British native was taken seriously, and had significance for politics. It was bound up with completely unattested stories about the British origin of his mother, Helena of Constantinople, important in Christian tradition. While Constantine was at York in 306 with his father Constantius Chlorus, and was declared Augustus on his father's death in that year, there is no historical evidence to connect Helena with Britain. [3]
The chroniclers William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon mention the "British Constantine" myth as factual, the former being presumed to have priority by a few years (by 1125), the latter making King Coel of Colchester Constantine's maternal grandfather in his Historia Anglorum. [4] A few years later Geoffrey of Monmouth embroidered the tale, making Coel father of Helena rebel against King Asclepiodotus in his Historia regum Britanniae , and Constantine an ancestor of King Arthur. In this form Constantine was a supporting figure in the "British myth" (see list of legendary kings of Britain). Ralph de Diceto adhered to the classical history of Constantine's origins, to be found in Eutropius, but otherwise English historians accepted Geoffrey's account; and Helena's British origins were alluded to in the Golden Legend . [5]
Ralph Higden in his Polychronicon emphasized the Christian role of Constantine. [6] The 15th-century chronicle of Adam Usk asserted that the Greeks of his time considered that they descended from a "British Constantine". [7] John Capgrave and John Lydgate lauded Constantine. [8] In international relations, the British Constantine was deployed at the Council of Constance to argue assertively for separate English representation, as distinct from the "German nation" in which it had been traditionally included. [9]
The early Tudor concern with traditional history was Arthurian, as evidenced by the name chosen for Arthur, Prince of Wales. Henry VIII made a conscious political decision of 1533 to identify instead with the Constantine figure. The Constantine connection with the Tudors had been laid out by John Rous, in work taken up by Robert Fabyan and then John Rastell. As a consequence Polydore Vergil was allowed to publish his Historia Anglicana in 1534, a work dismissive of the Arthurian matter, but supporting the British origins of Helena. He also imported a tradition linking Claudius Gothicus with the Constantinian dynasty, significant for Tudor hereditary claims. [10]
The casting of Elizabeth I as a "British Constantine" (rather than English) depended on foreign policy towards Scotland, and therefore was problematic. [11] John Foxe in dedicating his Actes and Monuments to Elizabeth compared her to Constantine, and a woodcut from the 1563 edition portrayed her as a "second Constantine". [12] [13]
James I in a medal struck for his 1603 accession to the English throne claimed by means of the Latin inscription to be "emperor of the whole island of Britain". Because of English parliamentary resistance to such a title, James backed away from further assertions of imperium; but comparisons persisted to Roman emperors, Emperor Augustus as well as Constantine. [14] Ten years later, Joseph Hall preached for the anniversary to the king and elaborated the Constantine parallel. [15]
John Gordon preached on Constantine's British birth: it was still widely believed that his mother Helena was a Briton. William Symonds picked up on the legendary descent of the House of Stuart from Constantine. [16] James Maxwell projected a genealogical work that would demonstrate the descent of the heir apparent Prince Charles from 49 emperors, hinting at a role as Last World Emperor. [17] This implication contrasts with Foxe on Elizabeth, who did not imply a role for her as Last Emperor. [18] Maxwell and Sir William Alexander promoted ideas of a British restoration of Constantine's eastern empire. [19]
Constantine was associated with the holding of the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Since James was following a conciliarist strategy to reunite Christendom, the comparison was flattering to him. It also, however, could attract criticism from the Puritan flank. Richard Stock, for example, contrasted Biblical inerrancy with the possibility of doubting the outcomes of councils. [20]
Some Protestants took a less favourable view of Constantine, as the 17th century proceeded. By the time of John Milton's first publication Of Reformation of 1641, the orthodox Church of England attitude to Constantine, of John Jewell and Foxe, had parted company with radical Protestants, who took his reign to be the beginning of the "apostasy" of the Christian church. [21] In parallel, Thomas Brightman began a process of decoupling "imperial" and "apocalyptic" themes of the end times. [22]
Patrick Forbes considered that Constantine bore responsibility for bishops becoming ambitious. [23] In fact there was ambivalence about the historical figure of Constantine, because his appeal in religious terms was to Erastianism (for example to John Foxe); while Puritans preferred to keep the state out of the church, and also might distance themselves from Rome in any form. [24]
Inigo Jones planned at Temple Bar a structure based on the Arch of Constantine, with an equestrian statue of Charles I on top. It was, however, never built. [25]
Henry Stubbe as a courtier used the comparison of Charles II of England with Constantine. [26] Pierre Jurieu invoked the title for William III of England. [27] John Whittel in 1693 used the title Constantinus redivivus for his book on William's military successes. [28]
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems to be dubious.
William Tyndale was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known as a translator of the Bible into English, and was influenced by the works of prominent Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther.
Flavius Valerius Constantius "Chlorus", also called Constantius I, was Roman emperor from 305 to 306. He was one of the four original members of the Tetrarchy established by Diocletian, first serving as caesar from 293 to 305 and then ruling as augustus until his death. Constantius was also father of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome. The nickname Chlorus was first popularized by Byzantine-era historians and not used during the emperor's lifetime.
Flavia Julia Helena, also known as Helena of Constantinople and in Christianity as Saint Helena, was an Augusta of the Roman Empire and mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. She was born in the lower classes traditionally in the Greek city of Drepanon, Bithynia, in Asia Minor, which was renamed Helenopolis in her honor, although several locations have been proposed for her birthplace and origin.
Coel, also called Coel Hen and King Cole, is a figure prominent in Welsh literature and legend since the Middle Ages. Early Welsh tradition knew of a Coel Hen, a c. 4th-century leader in Roman or Sub-Roman Britain and the progenitor of several kingly lines in Yr Hen Ogledd, a region of the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now northern England and southern Scotland.
John Foxe was an English clergyman, theologian, and historian, notable for his martyrology Actes and Monuments, telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the 14th century and in the reign of Mary I. The book was widely owned and read by English Puritans and helped to mould British opinion on the Catholic Church for several centuries.
An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics.
In England and Wales, the Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603, and included the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England, which began with the reign of Henry VII. Historian John Guy (1988) argued that "England was economically healthier, more expansive, and more optimistic under the Tudors" than at any time since the Roman occupation.
John Day was an English Protestant printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets, and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of psalms. He found fame, however, as the publisher of John Foxe's Actes and Monuments, also known as the Book of Martyrs, the largest and most technologically accomplished book printed in sixteenth-century England.
Anne Askew, married name Anne Kyme, was an English writer, poet, and Protestant preacher who was condemned as a heretic during the reign of Henry VIII of England. She and Margaret Cheyne are the only women on record known to have been both tortured in the Tower of London and burnt at the stake.
The Eclogues, also called the Bucolics, is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil.
The Macedonian dynasty ruled the Byzantine Empire from 867 to 1056, following the Amorian dynasty. During this period, the Byzantine state reached its greatest extent since the Early Muslim conquests, and the Macedonian Renaissance in letters and arts began. The dynasty was named after its founder, Basil I the Macedonian who came from the theme of Macedonia.
The White Horse Tavern or White Horse Inn was allegedly the meeting place in Cambridge for English Protestant reformers to discuss Lutheran ideas, from 1521 onwards. According to the historian Geoffrey Elton the group of university dons who met there were nicknamed "Little Germany" in reference to their discussions of Luther. Whilst the pub undoubtedly existed, several scholars have questioned the existence of the White Horse meetings – they are described by John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs, but no other evidence for them exists. Gergely M Juhász writes that "Foxe’s romantic image of these students and scholars convening secretly on a regular basis in the White Horse Inn… is unsubstantiated", and Alec Ryrie refers to it as "the stubborn legend of the White Horse Inn".
The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity in Western and Central Europe.
The Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony near Naples, Italy. The word sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many sibyls throughout the ancient world. Because of the importance of the Cumaean Sibyl in the legends of early Rome as codified in Virgil's Aeneid VI, and because of her proximity to Rome, the Cumaean Sibyl became the most famous among the Romans. The Erythraean Sibyl from modern-day Turkey was famed among Greeks, as was the oldest Hellenic oracle, the Sibyl of Dodona, dating to the second millennium BC according to Herodotus, favored in the east.
The Actes and Monuments, popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day.
The English Protestant cleric John Foxe of the 16th century, known primarily if somewhat misleadingly as a martyrologist on the basis of his major work Actes and Monuments, wrote also on the interpretation of the Apocalypse, both at the beginning of his writing career in the 1550s, and right at the end of it, with his Eicasmi of 1587, the year of his death.
The Jacobean debate on the Union took place in the early years of the reign of James I of England, who came to the English throne in 1603 as James VI of Scotland, and was interested in uniting his Kingdoms of England and Scotland. With one monarch on the two thrones there was de facto a "regnal union", but since James was very widely accepted in England, the debate was not on that plane. A political union was more controversial and is often referred to as a "statutory union", underlining the fact that the legal systems and institutions involved were different, and had had distinct historical paths. That wider union did not in fact come about in the 17th century, but at the time of the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, arguments from the earlier period were again put into circulation.
Eclogue 4, also known as the Fourth Eclogue, is the name of a Latin poem by the Roman poet Virgil. Part of his first major work, the Eclogues, the piece was written around 40 BC, during a time of brief stability following the Treaty of Brundisium; it was later published in and around the years 39–38 BC. The work describes the birth of a boy, a supposed savior, who once of age will become divine and eventually rule over the world. During late antiquity and the Middle Ages, a desire emerged to view Virgil as a virtuous pagan, and as such early Christian theologian Lactantius, and St. Augustine—to varying degrees—reinterpreted the poem to be about the birth of Jesus Christ.