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The Review of English Studies Advance Access originally published online on November 12, 2007
The Review of English Studies 2007 58(237):633-656; doi:10.1093/res/hgm111
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press 2007; all rights reserved

The Double Life of Anne: John Bale's Examinations and Diue Anne Vitam (sic)*

Oliver Wort

Clare College, Cambridge


  Abstract

Perhaps mistakenly, and governed by a critical project that requires the veracity of the female voice, the Examinations of Anne Askew has been read as part of the canon of history. Renewed engagement with this text as one forming part of the canon of saints allows us to comprehend its social construction and purpose: Askew is made a ‘saint’ for others and by others. Such a reading also sheds light on the question that has most concerned scholars of the Examinations: is Askew's word hers alone? Traces of John Bale's editorial interference in the Examinations are discernible, allowing us to explore the work as one in which there is a theoretical intersection between a social theory of the text and a concern for the ways in which a non-autonomous voice is represented. For the first time a possible analogue for Bale's re-packaging of Askew's narrative, his Diue Anne Vitam( sic), is suggested. Comparisons with this work help us to identify some techniques used by Bale in assembling fictional narratives. Rather than being an articulation of an ‘authentic, deeply personal’ voice, then, we might have to content ourselves with the sceptical assumption that Askew's Examinations are an artificial construction based on Bale's first-hand knowledge of residual hagiographic and martyriological traditions.

*For Tom. I am grateful to Dr Colin Burrow and Professor Eamon Duffy for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.


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