A Supplication for the Beggars

A Supplication for the Beggars is a short, incendiary 1529 pamphlet that reads like a legal indictment of the English clergy. Simon Fish, a lawyer and early Protestant sympathizer, addresses King Henry VIII with a damning portrait of the Catholic Church: these are no humble servants of God but "strong, puissant, and counterfeit holy" parasites who have grown fat on tithes, funerary fees, and spiritual coercion while contributing nothing to society. Fish calculates the clergy's annual take with devastating precision, arguing that their systematic looting of the common people not only impoverishes the realm but actively undermines the king's own authority. His solution is radical: let the clergy earn their bread through honest labor, as the early apostles did, rather than masquerading as beggars while accumulating obscene wealth. This brief, vitriolic text was burned by the Bishop of London and helped fan the flames of English Protestantism. It remains a striking artifact of the Reformation's intellectual battlefield, where religious critique became a weapon of political transformation.