FRITH, or FRYTII, JoHN, 1503-33; b. in Kent; one of the pioneers of the reforma tion in England; educated at Eton and at Cambridge, where Gardiner, subsequently bishop of 'Winchester, was his tutor. Immediately after taking his degree, invited by Wolsey, he transferred his residence to. the newly-founded college of St. Frideswide, or Cardinal college (now Christ's church), Oxford. Suspected of sympathy with the refor mation, he was imprisoned for some months. At the instance of Wolsey he was released front confinement in 1520 or 1527, and fled to the continent, where he resided chiefly at the newly-founded Protestant university of Marburg, and was associated with Tyndal in literary labors. At Marburg he became acquainted with several scholars and reformers of note, and particularly with Patrick Hamilton. His first publication in fact was a translation of Hamilton's Places, made shortly after the martyrdom of their author; and soon afterwards appeared, with other works from his hand, A Pistle to the Christen Reader, by Richard Brightwall (supposed to be by him); An Antithesis wherein are com pared togeder Christes Actes and our lye Father the Pope, dated " at Malborow in the laude of Hesse;" and Disputacyon of Purgatorye, a treatise in three books, respectively against Rastell, sir T. More, and Fisher (bishop of Rochester). In 1532, in July or Aug., lie ventured back to England, apparently on some important business, to which lie and Tyndal attached importance in connection with the prior of Reading. Warrants for his arrest were almost immediately issued at the instance of sir T. More, then lord chan cellor. After evading pursuit for some weeks, he fell into the hands of the authorities, as he was on the point of making his escape to Flanders. The rigor of his imprison ment in the Tower was abated when sir T. Audley succeeded to the chancellorship,
and it was understood that both Cromwell and Cranmer were disposed to leniency. But the treacherous circulation of a manuscript, Lyttle Treatise on sacraments, which Frith had p ad written for the information of a friend, with no view to publication, further excited the hostility of his enemies; and in a Lenten sermon preached against the " saeramentaries " before the king, special reference.was made to some at that time hi the Tower, " so bold as to write in defense of that heresy," and who seemed to be put there "rather for safeguard than for punishment." On this instigation, F. was tried, and found guilty of denial that the doctrines of purgatory and transubstantiation were necessary articles of faith. June 23, 1533, lie was handed over to the secular arm, and was burnt at Smithfield, July 4. During his captivity he had been busy with his pen, writing a controversial work on the eucharist, and two tracts, entitled respectively A allirror or Glass to know thyself, and A Mirror or Looking-glass wherein you may behold the Sacrament of Baptism. Apart from his extraordinary ability, his acquirements, his piety, his early and tragic death, Frith is an interesting and important figure in English eccle siastical history, as the first to maintain that doctrine regarding the sadrament of Christ's body and blood which ultimately came to be incorporated in the English communion office. Twenty-three years after Frith's death as a martyr to the doctrine of that office, that " Christ's natural body and blood are in heaven, not here," Cranmer, who had been one of his judges, went to the stake for the same belief. Within three years more, it had become the publicly-professed faith of the English nation. [Encyc. Brit., 9th ed.]