To Dominus Christopher Goodman, outstanding in piety and learning, most dear friend. At Geneva.

I send greetings. Your letter, most dear brother in Christ, was most pleasing to me, though I do not judge that it was necessary that you make excuses to me at such length for your long-continued silence. For I am not so disposed that if friends should ever cease to write, I would cease to love them. Nothing of my fatherly love toward you and my Christian charity has been lessened because of this; therefore it will be incumbent on you in turn, though there is no time to write or it should be burdensome, to preserve nonetheless the same disposition toward me – which I do not doubt that you do, in keeping with your goodness and straightforwardness.

I rejoice from my heart at the sight and taste of the church of Geneva; nowhere today do I have more close friends whom I love more than there. I know full well concerning the holiness, true doctrine, and pure worship which flourish there. Accordingly I exhort that when you are there, you take care that you not have been there in vain – which I do not at all doubt that you will do of your own accord. I also congratulate both you and the other English who are in your company that you have now found a calm and quiet abode. This remains – that, when a peaceful and quiet place has been granted by God, you also conduct yourselves with each other with a peaceful disposition.

About the book that has been published by you, I am not able to judge. For, as you are aware, I know very little English.¹Minime novi could also be taken – very naturally – to mean ‘I do not at all know’ (as I translated minime dubito four lines above as ‘I do not at all doubt’). But he has spent six years in England. Even if the conversation at Christ Church high table was always in Latin (was it?), he must occasionally have needed some English to buy a loaf of bread or yell at the servants. Perhaps minime even in the sense of ‘very little’ is somewhat less than candid. Others have read it, to be sure, and of those who are in Argentina [Strasbourg] I have not heard any who speak ill of it.

As to what your people who are in Frankfort have in mind, [p. 56] I have absolutely no information, since they have written nothing to me concerning this matter. Nonetheless I should wish that here at last there were an end to quarrels and disputes.

From the recent²De novo matrimonio: u/v and n are sometimes hard to distinguish in this hand, but I think we’re safe in assuming that it’s a new (novo) marriage, and not the Count’s ninth (nono) that Martyr is purring about. marriage between our Italian Count³Comes can mean simply ‘companion’, but this is a reference to Maximilian Celsus Count Martinengo, pastor of the Italian congregation at Geneva from 1552 till his death in August 1557 (according to Henri Heyer, L’Église de Genève (Genève, 1909), p. 487). His marriage to Jane Stafford on 24 February 1556 is recorded in the register of the English congregation in Frankfort (‘Livre des Anglois’, in Charles Martin, Les Protestants Anglais réfugiés à Genève, au temps de Calvin 1555-1560, Leur Église – Leur Écrits (Genève: Libraire A. Jullien, 1915), p. 337. and a noble English woman I received no small pleasure. May God grant each of them through Jesus Christ our Saviour that whatever they have done serve as a help to each of them for eternal salvation. I love the Count sincerely in Christ, and I have always embraced him with charity all the more because, though he was born in the highest position and is of great nobility, he has even from boyhood followed Christ with so burning a heart.

Concerning that lady and most excellent wife I have also heard many uncommon tokens of piety. Therefore I again pray that Christ deem it fitting to be present to each of them with his Spirit.

Bid Whittingham, most dear in the Lord, greetings on my behalf – and all the English as well to whom you reckon that I am known. Julius⁴Terentianus. with his wife and our whole household greet you. Farewell, and love me as you do. 1 April 1556 in Argentina [Strasbourg].

Yours in the Lord
Peter Martyr.

In Oxford there is great discord in our College – namely, the scholastics⁵I assume that by scholastici he means the Students (in the technical sense) of Christ Church. act with great force against the canons. The case is being dealt with before the Cardinal, who promises that he will provide a remedy. Certain Spanish friars dwell in Canterbury College.⁶Just behind Tom Quad of Christ Church – on the site of the present Canterbury Quad. I am afraid that the scholastics are to have monks for choristers.⁷This is a guess, but it gives good sense. I can’t, however, produce a parallel for the form coericus. The Hebrew lecture has been taken away from Bruerne⁸Richard Bruerne, Professor of Hebrew. There may be an element of schadenfreude in Peter Martyr’s concern, since in 1553 Bruerne had been given the canonry at Christ Church of which Martyr was dispossessed. and transferred or turned into a theology lecture. Soto,⁹Pedro de Soto. a Dominican monk, got possession of it; he publicly expounds the Master of the Sentences. Another Spanish friar has taken on your lecture as well, and he also teaches in Magdalene College. Doctor Warner was forced to leave his College of Souls [All Souls]. Some other Papist [?] succeeded him.

Pietate ac eruditione praestanti D. Christophoro Goodmanno / amico charissimo / Genevae.

S[alutem] D[ico] Fuerunt mihi charissime in Christo frater tuae litterae periucundae, quamvis non / oportuisse iudico te mihi tam multis purgare diuturnum silentium. ego enim si quando / amici scribere desinant non ita sum comparatus ut illos amare desinam. de meo in te / paterno amore atque Christiana charitate nihil ob id est imminutum, quare tuum erit / vicissim licet scribere aut non vacat aut molestum sit, eandem tamen erga me volun-/tatem conservare quod abs te pro tua bonitate atque candore fieri non dubito. Gene-/vensis ecclesiae fructum aspectum atque gustum ex animo[?] gratulor, nullibi hodie plu-/res habeo coniunctos quos magis amem quam ibi [punctuation is middle point, but I don’t want to use a colon to represent it since a colon is sometimes used] De sanctitate, vera doctrina, ac pu-/ro ro cultu quae illhic vigeant probe novi. Proinde te hortor ut cum ibi sis, provideas / ne frustra fueris: quod te per te ipsum facturum minime dubito. Gratulor quoque cùm[?] / tibi tum caeteris Anglis qui vobiscum agunt sedes tranquillas et quietas iam contigisse. / hoc restat ut cum placidus et quietus locus a deo concessus sit, vos quoque pacatis / animis inter vos agatis. De libro a vobis edito non queo iudicare: ut enim te non / latet, Anglice minime novi. Legerunt sane alii, neque de iis qui Argentinae sunt ullos / audivi qui mala de eo loquerentur. Quid vestrates qui francfordiae sunt in animo ha-/beant, mihi / [p. 56] beant, mihi prorsus incompertum est, quum ad me nihil ea de re scripserunt.Velim nihilomi-/nus hic tandem rixarum et contentionum esse finem. De novo matrimonio inter comitem / nostrum Italum et generosam mulierem Anglam coepi non mediocrem voluptatem; / det utrique deus per Christum Jesum servatorem nostrum ut quicquid egerunt sit utrique / adiumento ad salutem aeternam. Comitem sinceriter in Christo amo, semperque illum / magis charitate sum complexus, quod cum de summo loco sit natus et apprime no-/bilis, Christum tam ardenti pectore vel a puero sit sequutus. De illa domina lectissima-/que matrona multa quoque audivi non vulgaria specimina pietatis. quam ob rem rursus pre-/cor, ut eorum utrique dignetur adesse Christus cum suo spiritu. Vittingamum in domino / charissimum verbis meis iubeto salvere, atque omnes Anglos praeterea quibus me notum / putaveris. Julius cum uxore totaque nostra familia te salutant. Vale ac me ut facis / ama. 1° Aprilis 1556 Argentinae. / Tuus in domino / Petrus Martyr. / /

Oxonii magnum est dissidium in nostro Collegio nempe Scholastici agunt summa vi / contra canonicos. causa coram cardinali agitur, qui pollicetur se remedium adhibi-/turum. Fratres quidam Hispani habitant in Collegio Cantuariensi. Timeo ne Scho-/lastici pro coericis[?] habituri sint Monachos. Lectio hebraica ablata est a Bruerno, ac translata vel conversa in Theologicam lectionem. Sotus Dominicanus Monachus / illam obtinuit: profitetur publice Magistrum sententiarum. Alter quoque frater Hispa-/nus tuam lectionem obit, et docet etiam in Collegio Magdalenae. Doctor Warnerus / coactus est abire a suo Collegio Animarum. successit ei alter quidam Poppus. /