John Overall (bishop)

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John Overall
Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (1614–1618)
Orders
Ordination1591
Consecration1614
Personal details
Born1559
Hadleigh, Suffolk, England
Died1619 (aged 59–60)
Norwich, Norfolk, England
BuriedNorwich Cathedral, Norfolk
NationalityEnglish
DenominationAnglican
ParentsGeorge Overall
ProfessionTheologian
Alma materSt John's College, Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge

John Overall (1559–1619) was the

King James Version of the Bible
.

Overall was born in Hadleigh, Suffolk and studied at St John's College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is buried within Norwich Cathedral.

Early years

John Overall was born in 1559, in Hadleigh, Suffolk. In Overall's time, Hadleigh was a centre for radical Protestantism. He was baptised there on 2 March 1561, the younger son of George Overall, who died that July. The future bishop studied at Hadleigh Grammar School, where he was a fellow student with Bible translator John Bois. John Still, then Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, and a parish priest from 1571, took an interest in their education. Owing to his patronage and direction both applied to St John's College, Cambridge, when in 1575, Still became Master of the college. When Still moved to become Master of Trinity, Overall followed him and on 18 April 1578 was admitted as a scholar.[1][2]

He graduated

Lincoln.[1]

Church of England

He was briefly, in 1591–1592, vicar of

Calvinistic Lambeth Articles. Overall, with Lancelot Andrewes, Samuel Harsnett, and others, had rejected these articles in support of Peter Baro, the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, when on 12 January 1596 he attacked them from the pulpit. This opposition cost Baro his chair, as he failed to be re-elected in 1596. John Overall was also a friend to the erratic mystic William Alabaster (1568–1640), even throughout his years of imprisonment, and was the tutor to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
at Trinity College. Perhaps Overall brought these two acquaintances together. Essex became Alabaster’s patron. In Alabaster’s Conversion we read:

The only thinge that I desired most was to have some disputation abowt my religion, whereof I was well in hope when I sawe certaine learned men of the university to come and visite me, as namely the cheef divinitie reader, Doctor Overall, that was of Trinity College also, and had byn my tutor in former tymes and loved me well...[4]

In 1599, Overall clashed with the authorities when he maintained that the perseverance of a truly justified man was conditional upon repentance. There followed a year-long campaign against Overall which ultimately had little effect. Through it all, he retained his chair until he resigned it in 1607.[1]

As one of the

Master of St Catharine's College, with the support of Whitgift. Thereafter he was occasionally chosen to give Lenten sermons before the queen, but he was not happy in the pulpit. He apparently found it "troublesome to speak English as a continued oration" after years of lecturing in Latin.[5] John Manningham, a Magdalene graduate who would have heard Professor Overall in Cambridge, later complained that he "discoursed verry scholastically" when he preached a Whitehall sermon at the dead queen's court on 6 April 1603[6]

In 1602, Overall was made rector of

Anglo-Catholic.[1] Overall was also granted the Prebendary of Tottenhall.[3]

King James I of England

In 1603 Overall received the rectory of

King James.[8][9] Following the conference, Overall penned the new final portion of the Catechism within the 1604 Book of Common Prayer.[10]

Overall, as Dean of St. Paul's, was present on 3 May 1606 in

Convocation of 1610, John Overall's famous Convocation Book was sanctioned, although it was not published until much later. This treatise was "on the subject of Government, the divine institution of which was very positively asserted." In addition, the nature of the sacraments was described by Overall. The composition of the latter part of the Catechism, containing an explanation of the Sacraments, is generally attributed to John Overall. It was added in 1604 by royal authority, "by way of explanation," in compliance with a wish which the Puritans had expressed at the Conference at Hampton Court.[11]

Authorized Version of the Bible

Some time, perhaps on the final or third day of the Hampton Court Conference, a decision was made to make a new

Puritanism.[12][13]

During the translating of the Bible, John Overall's beautiful young wife, Anne Overall (née Orwell), ran off with a Yorkshire courtier, Sir John Selby. Although John had her brought back to London, the scandal was well known. A popular verse of the day went like this, according to the great gossip John Aubrey:

The Dean of St Paul's did search for his wife
And where d'ye think he found her?
Even upon Sir John Selby's bed,
As flat as any flounder.

Anne Overall seems not to be mentioned after this incident. She was the subject of this suggestive rhyme, cited as evidence that she was too hot for intellectual John Overall to handle:

Face she had of filbert hue
And bosom’d like a swan.
Back she had of bended ewe
And waisted by a span.
Hair she had as black as crow
From her head unto her toe,
Down, down all over her,
Hey nonny, nonny no.[13]

Final years

John Overall also served on the

Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and was installed on 4 May.[3]

On 16 November 1616,

Archbishop George Abbot at the consecration of Nicholas Felton, and George Montaigne, elected, respectively, Bishops of Ely and of London, with the Bishop of Rochester, Bishop Overall, and Archbishop Spalato laying on hands. The participation of Spalato was a form of giving additional weight to the consecrations.[14]

Two years later, Overall was translated to the

See of Norwich
as bishop. In the diary of senior Herald of the College of Arms, William Camden (1551–1623), the relevant entry stated:

13 March 1618. John Jegon, Bishop of Norwich, dies after occupying the See for fifteen years. He is succeeded by Overhall [sic], Bishop of Lechfield [sic], whose place is taken by Fenton, Bishop of Bristol.

John Overall died in 1619. The event failed to generate much notice from the royal court. William Camden’s diary entry only stated:

7 May 1619. Overall, Bishop of Norwich, by far the most learned, died. George Carleton and the Bishop of Chichester and others vie for his vacant See. Chichester prevails, and Carleton is transferred to Chichester.

While the cause of death of Overall was not recorded, it is known he died in his cathedral. There is also no record of the burial site of Overall's wife, Anne.[citation needed]

Legacy

Overall is buried in the south choir aisle of Norwich Cathedral, and there is a monument to him in the presbytery of the cathedral in the second bay on the south side of the high altar. The memorial to Bishop Overall, with a coloured bust looking out from a niche above, bears the inscription "Vir undequaque doctissimus, et omni encomio major." The monument was placed there by his friend and former secretary, John Cosin, after his own elevation as bishop to the See of Durham.[11] Cosin's later teaching of the Church of England on the Eucharist used the language of John Overall: "Corpus Christi sumitur a nobis sacramentaliter, spiritualiter, et realiter, sed non corporaliter." Cosin remembered his mentor as his "dear Lord and Master."[15]

The monument in Norwich Cathedral ("with a little painted portrait and vulture-like dove of peace")was erected by Cosin many years after Overall's death. The portrait bust is copied directly from or comes from the same source as the portraits in the National Portrait Gallery that were done by Wenceslaus Hollar in 1657 from an unknown original. Several English cathedral libraries contain copies of various editions of Bishop John Overall's Convocation Book (1606 and 1610) and unpublished works by him are also housed in these collections, such as the undated Latin manuscript in the Cambridge library De statu questionum quinq' inter Remonstrantes et Contra-Remonstrantes Controversarum.

Works

John Rainolds pleaded at the Hampton Court Conference for an enlargement of the church catechism of 1549. This was carried out in the same year by the addition of the section dealing with the sacraments. This section was Overall's work; with a slight revision in 1662, it remained as he left it.[8]

Overall was elected prolocutor of the lower house in the

non-resistance as justifying the attitude of the nonjurors.[8]

Overall's Articles to be enquired of in the Diocese of Norwich in the Ordinarie Visitation, &c., Cambridge and London, 1619, exemplify his attempts to impose conformity in his diocese. The following further works by Overall were published posthumously:[8]

  • Articuli Lambethani ... annexa est ... Sententia ... de Prædestinatione, &c., 1631; 1651; the Sententia ... de Prædestinatione was reprinted 1694; 1696; 1700; 1720; translated in A Defence of the Thirty-nine Articles, 1700, originally by John Ellis.[8] A manuscript from the time of the Synod of Dort, and dealing with the issue of predestination, was attributed to John Davenant by Thomas Bedford (1650); which was denied by George Kendall on the authority of James Ussher. It was published, attributed to Overall, in the 1651 edition of this work (editor F.G.).[16]
  • Another Latin manuscript by Overall, on the "five points" at dispute at the Synod of Dort, appeared in translation by John Plaifere (1651 in his Appello Evangelium) and in 1850 (in William Goode, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the effects of Baptism in the case of Infants). It was cited in Joseph Hall's Via Media and Davenant's Animadversions upon a Treatise lately published by S. Hoard, and entitled "God's Love to mankind, manifested in disproving his absolute decree for their damnation" (1641).[17]
  • Quæstio utrum animæ Patrum ante Christum defunctorum fuerant in Cœlo, &c., in the Apparatus ad Origines Ecclesiasticas, &c., Oxford, 1635, by Richard Montagu; reprinted, with another treatise, as Prælectiones ... de Patrum, & Christi, Anima, et de Antichristo, &c., in The Doctrines of a Middle State, &c., 1721, by Archibald Campbell.[8]

Overall was a correspondent of

Gerard Voss and Hugo Grotius; some of his letters are in Præstantium ... Virorum Epistolæ, &c. According to Montagu, Voss derived from Overall materials for his Historiæ de Controversiis quas Pelagius ejusque reliquiæ moverunt libri septem, &c., Leyden, 1618.[8]

See also
  • List of the Bishops of the Diocese of Norwich, England and its precursor offices

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20964. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ "Overall, John (OVRL575J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ a b c "Overall,John (1592–1692) (CCEd Person ID 28440)". The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  4. ^ "Alabaster's Conversion". 1599.
  5. ^ Fuller, Worthies, 61
  6. ^ BL, Harley MS 5353, fol. 120v.
  7. ^ BL, Harley MS 5353, fol. 25v
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Gordon, Alexander (1895). "Overall, John" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 42. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  9. ^ Hetherington, William Maxwell (1843). History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.
  10. ^ Rice, Hugh A.L. (1959). Prayer Book Heritage. London: Linden Press. p. 26.
  11. ^ a b King, Richard John (1862). Handbook to the Cathedrals of England. London: John Murray. p. 166.
  12. ^ McClure, Alexander (1858). The Translators Revived: A Biographical Memoir of the Authors of the English Version of the Holy Bible. Mobile, Alabama: R. E. Publications (republished by the Maranatha Bible Society, 1984 ASIN B0006YJPI8)
  13. ^
    ISBN 0-06-095975-4
    .
  14. ^ The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, John Cosin, Lord Bishop of Durham. Now First Collected. Volume the Fourth: Miscellaneous Works, Oxford: John Henry Parker. 1851, pp. 469-471.
  15. ^ Aquilina, Ivan D. (2002). 'The Eucharistic Understanding of John Cosin and His Contribution to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (PDF) (Thesis). University of Leeds.
  16. ISBN 9781843831570
    .
  17. ^ Milton, p. 64 note 52.

Further reading

  • Aubrey's Brief lives, ed. O. L. Dick (1949)
  • PRO, C 66/2190; SP 14/90/101
  • K. Fincham, Prelate as pastor: the episcopate of James I (1990)
  • Norwich dean and chapter act book, Norfolk RO, DCN 24/2, fol. 20v
  • LPL, Register Abbot I, fols. 126–31
  • N. R. N. Tyacke, Arminianism and English culture, Britain and the Netherlands, ed. A. C. Duke and C. A. Tamse (The Hague, 1981), 98
  • D. Oldridge, Religion and society in early Stuart England (1998)
  • Fuller, T. The history of the worthies of England, 4 pts (1662); new edn, 2 vols., ed. J. Nichols (1811); new edn, 3 vols., ed. P. A. Nuttall (1840), repr. (1965).
  • Nicholas W. S. Cranfield, Overall, John (bap. 1561, d. 1619), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 30 May 2006
  • McClure, Alexander. (1858) The Translators Revived: A Biographical Memoir of the Authors of the English Version of the Holy Bible. Mobile, Alabama: R. E. Publications (republished by the Maranatha Bible Society, 1984 ASIN B0006YJPI8 )
  • Nicolson, Adam. (2003) God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. New York: HarperCollins
    ISBN 0-06-095975-4

External links

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Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Overall, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

Academic offices
Preceded by
Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge

1596–1606 		Succeeded by
Church of England titles
Preceded by Bishop of Lichfield
1614–1618 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Bishop of Norwich
1618–1619 		Succeeded by
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