The study of John Fisher's episcopate is of unusual interest. Its length alone was remarkable enough by medieval standards, being exceeded at Rochester by only one bishop, Hamo de Hethe (1319-52). More important still, Fisher was one of the few of any generation to be hailed in his own lifetime as a model bishop. The great humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus commented in a letter to his friend Reuchlin in 1520, ‘Episcopus ille anglus, quo non alius in ea gente vel eruditor vir, vel praesul sanction’ Erasmus was not alone in his opinion. In 1537 Reginald Pole, admittedly partisan, wrote to Henry VIII in his De Unitate Ecclesiae,

Seventy years later Cardinal Borromeo was to keep a portrait of Fisher in his study and venerate it equally with that of St Ambrose, founder of his diocese of Milan. In addition to this praise, we are fortunate enough to have detailed descriptions of him and appraisals of his life written by contemporaries and by one who had access to people who knew him.