FRITH (or FRYTH), JOHN (c. 1503-1533), English Re former and Protestant martyr, was born at Westerham, Kent. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where Gardiner, afterwards bishop of Winchester, was his tutor. At the invitation of Cardinal Wolsey, after taking his degree he migrated (Dec. 1525) to the newly founded college of St. Frideswide or Cardinal College (now Christ Church), Oxford. The sympathetic interest which he showed in the Reformation movement in Ger many caused him to be suspected as a heretic, and led to his im prisonment for some months. Subsequently he appears to have resided chiefly at the newly founded Protestant university of Mar burg, where he became acquainted with several scholars and re formers of note, especially Patrick Hamilton (q.v.). Frith's first publications were printed at Marburg. His Disputacyon of Pur gatorye, a treatise in three books, against Rastell, More and Fisher (bishop of Rochester) respectively, was published at the same place in 1531. While at Marburg, Frith also assisted Tyndale, whose acquaintance he had made in England, in his literary labours. In 1532 he ventured back to England. Warrants for his arrest were almost immediately issued at the instance of More, then lord chancellor, and he ultimately fell into the hands of the authorities as he was on the point of escaping to Flanders. Frith was examined by the king's order; he was afterwards tried and found guilty of having denied that the doctrines of purgatory and transubtantiation were necessary articles of faith. On June 23, 1J33 he was handed over to the secular arm, and was burnt at the stake at Smithfield on July 4. During his captivity he wrote a reply to More's letter against his own "lytle treatise"; also two tracts en titled A Mirror or Glass to know thyself, and A Mirror or Look ing-glass wherein you may behold the Sacrament of Baptism.
See A. a Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (ed. P. Bliss, 1813), i. P. 74; John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (ed. G. Townshend, v. pp. 1-16 (also Index) ; G. Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation of the Church of England (ed. N. Pocock, 1865) , i. p. 273 ; L. Richmond, The Fathers of the English Church, i. (1807) ; Life and Martyrdom of John Frith (Church of England Tract Society, 1824) ; Deborah Alcock, Six Heroic Men (1906).