Jewel, John

JETZER, yet'ser, JOHANNES: Journeyman-tailor and religious impostor; b. at Zurzach (16 m. n.n.e. of Aarau) in the canton of Aargau, c. 1483; d. after 1520. In 1506 he entered the Dominican monastery of Bern as lay brother. He is described as uneducated, morally depraved and deceitful, even suspected of theft. On Mar. 24, 1507, according to his story, St. Barbara appeared to him and a few days afterward the mother of God to announce that she had been indeed conceived in sin, as the Dominicans taught. To prove the truth of her divine revelations, she impressed upon him in repeated visits the stigmata of Christ, and now Jetzer began to act the story of Christ's sufferings in the church in lively manner. The monastery, whose picture of Mary shed bloody tears, attracted large crowds of people, and sold with great success handkerchiefs moistened with the blood. But doubts arose, and in July the bishop of Lausanne undertook an investigation which came to nothing. Subsequently the magistrate of the town investigated the case. Jetzer was imprisoned and tried; after various denials he confessed that the whole affair was an imposture in which the four head-masters of the monastery, Johannes Vatter, Dr. Stephen Boltzhurst, Franz Uelschi, and Heinrich Steinegger, were implicated. The matter was immediately reported to Rome and after a competent jury had been instituted, the culprits were tried under torture. In 1509 the four monks were condemned and burned alive as blasphemers, and Jetzer disappeared. The scandal caused great sensation and indignation, especially at Bern. A large literature of pamphlets in Latin, German, French, and Dutch told the scandalous story and confirmed the general verdict concerning the corruption of monastic life.

(E. BL�SCH�.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Rettig, Die Urkunden des Jetzerprozesses, in Archiv des historischen Vereins des Kanton Bern, vol. xi.. 1886; R. Paulus, Ein Justizmord an vier Dominikanern begangen, Frankfort, 1897.

JEWEL, JOHN: Bishop of Salisbury and a noted defender of the Reformation settlement in England; b. in the parish of Berimber, Devonshire, May 24 1522; d. at Monkton Farleigh (2 m. n.w. of Bradford), Wiltshire, Sept. 23, 1571. He went first to Merton College, Oxford, and then, winning a scholarship, to Corpus Christi College, taking his bachelor's degree in 1540. Two years later he was elected to a fellowship at Corpus Christi. During his university life he was strongly influenced in the direction of Biblical criticism by John Parkhurst, his tutor, and confirmed in a general Protestant attitude by Peter Martyr, who came to Oxford in 1547. Some time before 1551 he took orders, and about the end of that year became vicar of Sunningwell, near Oxford. On the accession of Mary in 1553 he lost his fellowship, and ultimately, after seeking peace even at the cost of signing articles which he did not believe, was forced to flee. He arrived at Frankfort in March, 1555, but soon joined Peter Martyr at Strasburg, and followed him to Zurich in the following year. On receiving the news of Queen Mary's death he started for England, arriving there in March, 1559, and was made bishop of Salisbury Jan. 21, 1560. He was active in preaching and in the visitation of his diocese, and soon took a prominent place in the controversy with Rome. His Apologia pro ecclesia Anglicana (London, 1562) has been called "the first methodical statement of the position of the Church of England against the Church of Rome." By it Jewel secured acknowledgment as the official champion of Anglicanism. He was engaged for several years in an exchange of controversial works with Thomas Herding, an old Oxford contemporary, who supported the papal cause. All his writings are noted for learning, clarity, and precision. Of his works, which are all deliberate, scholarly, and logical, a complete edition was published in 1609. Modern editions are those by R. W. Jelf (8 vols,, Oxford, 1848) and another in 4 vols., published by the Parker Society (Cambridge, 1845-50).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The original biography was by L. Humphrey, Joannis Juelli . . . vita et more, London, 1573, and was condensed by D. Featley in the Memoir prefixed to the Works, 1609; a second condensation was prefixed to an ed. of the Apology and the Epistle to Scipio, London, 1685, reproduced in C. Woodsworth, Ecclesiastical Biography, ib. 1853. These lives were the basis of that by C. W. Le Bas, ib. 1835. A Memoir is prefixed also to the Parker Society ed, of the Works. Consult further: DNB, xxix, 378-382 J. H. Overton, The Church in England, i. 459-461, ii. 36-37, London, 1897; W. S. Frere, The English Church (1558-1625), passim, ib. 1904; and in general the works on the history of Jewel's time.