British Puritan clergyman (1545?1588)
John Field
(1545?1588), also called
John Fielde
or
Feilde
, was a
British
Puritan
clergyman and controversialist.
Life
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Born in London in 1545, when he was ordained by
Edmund Grindal
in 1566 at the age of 21, he was called a bachelor of arts of
Christ Church, Oxford
.
Field's ordination was irregular, as the
canonical age
for ordination in the British church was 24 (or 23, if the person shows an unusual gift). In 1568, he became a lecturer, curate, and schoolmaster in
London
, which was his native city.
There he quickly became a leader of the most extreme branch of the Puritan movement. He was so strident in his criticisms of the
Church of England
that he was debarred from preaching for eight years, from 1571 to 1579. He was insistent on changing the
Act of Uniformity
to purge what he regarded as
Roman Catholic
tendencies in British practice.
When he was unable to effect any changes, he wrote
A View of Popish Abuses yet remaining in the English Church
in 1572. The tract is bitter and harsh in its satire and complaint, and it was published abroad with
Thomas Wilcox
's
Admonition to Parliament
.
In mid-June 1572, both Wilcox and Field were arrested, and in October sentenced to a year's imprisonment for the publication and breaking the Act of Uniformity.
During
Archbishop of Canterbury
John Whitgift
's increasing push for conformity, Field proposed to organise the Puritans in England into a hierarchy of
Presbyterian
synods, a decrease in formalism and gesture in public prayer, and a greater emphasis on preaching. He was unable to get the other Puritan communities to cooperate, however. In 1585, he again drew legal sanction and was barred from preaching, but this punishment was less than that which had been sought, as Field had friends on the Queen's Council surrounding
Elizabeth
. He is probably the author of some of the
Marprelate Tracts
.
He died sometime in 1588, and was buried at
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
church on 26 March 1588.
Family
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One of his sons was the dramatist and actor
Nathan Field
(not to be confused with his brother Nathaniel, a printer); another,
Theophilus Field
, became the
Bishop of Llandaff
.
References
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Bibliography
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