John Greenwood (Puritan)

Henry Barrowe (left) and John Greenwood (Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge)

John Greenwood (* 1556  ? † April 5, 1593 ) was an English separatist and a follower of Puritanism .

Life

Greenwood was the son of James Greenwood (1532–1591) and his wife Elizabeth (nee Mawde 1532–1584). He had a younger brother Samuel Greenwood (1563-1621). From March 18, 1577 to 1578 he was a scholar and student of theology at the Corpus Christi College in Cambridge , where he received his BA in 1580 or 1581. He studied at the same college for several years with Christopher Marlowe .

He entered the Church and was ordained a deacon of the Church of England by John Aylmer , the Bishop of London, and a priest by the Bishop of Lincoln Thomas Cooper . He previously served until 1582 on behalf of Robert Wrights in Rochford, Essex, in the house of Lord Robert Rich, a leader of the Puritans. He developed strict puritanical views that let him fall into a "rigid" separatism . He began holding secret services at Lord Rich's house. He later linked up with fellow student Henry Barrowe . Soon after, Lord Rich and Robert Wright were arrested and imprisoned. Greenwood came to London and formed a secret congregation.

Arrest and prosecution

In the fall of 1586 he was arrested at Henry Martin's house in St. Andrews, where he was holding a service. He was locked up in the Clink in Southwark. Henry Barrowe, who was interested in Greenwood's religious teachings and who had learned of his imprisonment, visited Greenwood on November 19, 1586 or 1587. Barrowe was imprisoned without explanation and transferred to Fleet Prison a few days later .

Greenwood was subjected to a lengthy trial in 1586 by Archbishop Whitgift, Aylmer, and others, in the course of which he questioned the authority of the English Church and episcopal government. However, he and Barrowe credibly demonstrated that their teaching was consistent with the beliefs of the Church of England. So we were set free. But they were soon heard again because they were preaching even more radically than before. In March 1589, Greenwood held conferences with Archdeacon Hutchinson in Fleet Prison. The archdeacon asked him questions that were recorded by a witness. The archdeacon requested that all records be left with the witness Mr. Calthop. Greenwood stated:

"No sooner was I gone and locked up than the wardens were sent to the gentleman for the papers, who, declining to deliver them without our consent, the archbishop's servant came and took them away."

"Not until I had gone and locked up, the guards were sent to fetch the papers from the gentleman who refused to hand them over without our permission, when the archbishop's servant came and carried them away."

In an interrogation in April 1589 between Greenwood, Barrowe and a clergyman of the English Church, the prisoners noted the prisoner's status:

"Things were disorderly handled and there were manifold cavils and shifts, shameless denials of manifest truths, and most unchristian contumelies, scoffs and reproaches against our persons."

"Things were handled in a disorderly manner and there were various caverns and postponements, shameless denial of obvious truths and highly unchristian controversies, ridicule and accusations against our person"

The interrogation ended with Greenwood and Barrowes being required to briefly explain the reasons why they maintained their refusal to return to the Church of England. During the long, occasionally briefly interrupted prison term, Greenwood and Barrowe wrote various writings and books. Her work, An Answer to George Gifford's pretended Defense of Read Prayers, dates from 1590 .

In the fall of 1592, Greenwood was temporarily released and lived in Southwalk with Roger Rippon. Several hundred of the separatists and members of the Secret Church of London who were released fled to Holland and settled in Amsterdam . Greenwood met again with members of this group, which alarmed the bishops amid rumors of the spread of separatism. In December 1592 he was arrested again and taken back to Fleet Prison.

From March 1593 the trial began in the Old Bailey against Greenwood and Barrowe, which they finally sentenced to death on charges of “ devising and circulating seditious books ” (German: “Publication and edition of seditious books”). Their "seduction" consisted in denying the queen's ecclesiastical supremacy and attacking the ecclesiastical order and having had the book A Brief Description of the False Church printed.

literature

• Henry Barrow, John Greenwood, John Penry: The examinations of Henry Barrowe John Grenewood and John Penrie, before the high commissioners, and Lordes of the Counsel. Penned by the prisoners themselues before their deathes . 1596, OCLC 1049089513 .
• Benjamin Brook: John Greenwood . In: The lives of the Puritans: containing a biographical account of those divines who distinguished themselves in the cause of religious liberty, from the reformation under Queen Elizabeth, to the Act of uniformity in 1662 . tape 2 . James Black, London 1813, p. 23–44 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• HM Dexter: Congregationalism during the last three hundred years; The England and Holland of the Pilgrims. Catholic Encyclopedia 1880.
• Charles Lethbridge Kingsford:  Greenwood, John (d.1593) . In: Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee (Eds.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 23:  Gray - Haighton. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1890, pp. 84 - 85 (English).
• FJ Powicke: Henry Barrow, Separatist (1550? -1593) and the Exiled Church of Amsterdam, (1593-1622). James Clarke and Co, London 1900.
• Greenwood, John . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 555 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• LH Carlson: The Writings of John Greenwood and Henry Barrow, 1591–1593. Volume 6, George Allen and Unwin, London 1970.

Web links

• Literature by and about Greenwood, John –1593 in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Greenwood, John . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 555 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
2. ^ Charles Lethbridge Kingsford:  Greenwood, John (d.1593) . In: Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee (Eds.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 23:  Gray - Haighton. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1890, pp. 84 - 85 (English).