Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker 1504-75, English prelate, archbishop of Canterbury. At Cambridge he was influenced by the writings of Martin Luther and other reformers. In 1535 he was appointed chaplain to Anne Boleyn and in 1537 to Henry VIII. In 1544, Parker became master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to which he later left his fine collection of ancient manuscripts, and in 1545 he was made vice chancellor of Cambridge. Under Edward VI he was presented with the deanery of Lincoln, but after the accession of Mary I, who deprived him of his preferments, he lived in obscurity until he was called (1559) by Elizabeth I to the see of Canterbury. He courageously undertook the primate's responsibilities in a time of change and peculiar difficulty, sustaining a distinctly Anglican position between extreme Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In 1562 he revised the Thirty-nine Articles. He supervised (1563-68) the preparation of the Bishops' Bible, published anonymously De antiquitate Britannicae ecclesiae (1572), and is also noted for his editions of the works of Matthew of Paris and other chroniclers.

Bibliography: See biographies by J. Strype (new ed., 3 vol., 1821, repr. 1973), E. C. Pearce (1925), E. W. Perry (1940), and V. J. K. Brook (1962).

Parker, Matthew (1504–75). Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559. His main objective as archbishop was to preserve the Elizabethan religious settlement which sought to safeguard Protestantism while retaining some of the moderation placed on it by the experience of the past. He sought to find the proper doctrinal and historical basis for the Church of England, and to this end he accumulated a library with many Anglo-Saxon and medieval manuscripts (which can be seen in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge).

Parker, Matthew (1504–75). Archbishop of Canterbury. Born in Norwich and educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Parker was successively chaplain to Anne Boleyn, master of Corpus Christi (1544), vice‐chancellor (1545 and 1549), dean of Lincoln (1552), and archbishop. Close to Bucer and a supporter of Lady Jane Grey, he was deprived under Mary and lived in obscurity. As a diffident, scholarly man, he reluctantly agreed to the primacy at Elizabeth's request. The major architect of the Elizabethan settlement, Parker courageously promoted theological comprehension within liturgical conformity, a middle road between Rome and Calvinism.