JEWEL, JOHN

born May 24, 1522, Buden, Devon, Eng. died Sept. 23, 1571, Monkton Farleigh, Wiltshire Anglican bishop of Salisbury and controversialist who defended Queen Elizabeth I's religious policies opposing Roman Catholicism. During the reign of the Protestant king Edward VI (154753), Jewel was influenced by the work of the Italian scholar and Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli to become a leader of the Reformists in England. For self-protection Jewel signed a set of anti-Protestant statements on the accession of the Roman Catholic queen Mary I (1553), who repealed laws establishing Protestantism in England. Finding it prudent also to flee the country, he traveled throughout Europe, visiting Zrich, Padua, and Strassburg, where he met Vermigli. When Protestantism once again was protected by law under Elizabeth I, Jewel returned to England and in 1559 disputed with the Romanists at the Westminster Conference. In a sermon given that same year, he challenged Roman Catholics to produce scriptural and other traditional sources in support of their position on various issues dividing Anglicans and Romanists, including matters of clerical garb and worship ritual. At first preferring to deemphasize liturgical elaboration in accord with Puritan views, he soon came to accept Elizabeth's attitude of moderation. As bishop of Salisbury (from 1560), Jewel pursued the controversy in a series of polemics. In 1562 he published his Apologia pro Ecclesia Anglicana (Defense of the Anglican Church), described by Mandell Creighton as the first methodical statement of the position of the Church of England against the Church of Rome. When Thomas Harding, who had been deprived of the title of prebendary (honorary canon) of Salisbury, published his Answer to Jewel in 1564, Jewel wrote his Reply in 1565, which evoked a Confutation from Harding the next year. Jewel responded with his Defense of the Apology (1567). The works produced by Jewel during the 1560s defined and clarified points of difference between the churches of England and of Rome, thus strengthening the ability of Anglicanism to survive as a permanent institution.