The names of John Fisher and Thomas More, celebrated with a joint feast in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, will be forever linked as those of the two most illustrious opponents and victims of Henry VIII's repudiation of papal authority. Yet while the equality of honour they enjoy in the liturgy reflects their historical importance in the English Reformation, it does not reflect an equality in the treatment they have received at the hands of historians. The massive scholarly attention today lavished on More dwarfs the efforts of the few who study the career of his fellow martyr. Even the theology of Thomas More has received more extensive treatment than Fisher's, an imbalance especially hard to justify in view of the fact that the works of Fisher, a professional theologian, were more solid, enduring, original and influential than those of More. The reputation, and in consequence the study, of Fisher have suffered from his ready assimilation to the image of the hidebound conservative die-hard that is so frequently and casually applied to the early opponents of the Reformation in both England and Europe. This misleading account of Fisher originated with the Protestant opponents he faced during his life and was taken up by the royalist detractors hired to blacken his name after his death.