TUNSTALL, CUTHBERT. – Theologian and bishop, born at Hackforth around 1474, died in London on 18 November 1559. After graduating from Oxford, he was appointed by Henry VIII bishop of London in 1522, and was then transferred to Durham (1530).
He did not favor the papacy and sided with Henry VIII in his religious struggles. Under Edward VI he was deprived of his bishopric (3 October 1552); restored to his see under Queen Mary in 1553, he published in Paris in 1553 the treatise De veritate corporis et sanguinis D. N. J. C. The work was written against the Tigurinists (the signatories of the anti-Eucharistic Consensus Tigurinus), especially against Ecolampadius (v.), and reflects the author’s extensive humanistic and theological culture: the Fathers are extensively cited from editions that T. possessed in his rich library, and the treatment is conducted with clarity and order; it consequently surpasses the analogous works of St. Giovanni Fisher (v.) Gardiner (v.). He also wrote Contra impios blasphematores Dei praedestinationis (Antwerp 1555). Deprived a second time under Queen Elizabeth in October 1559, he died a few weeks later.