He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English (on the subject of King John), and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being dispersed.

His contention that Joseph of Arimathea had brought a proto-Protestant faith to Britain that was purer than Catholicism was to have far-reaching ramifications; but his unhappy disposition and habit of quarrelling earned him the nickname "bilious Bale".

He obtained the living of Thorndon, Suffolk, but in 1534 was summoned before the Archbishop of York for a sermon against the invocation of saints preached at Doncaster, and afterwards before John Stokesley, Bishop of London, but he escaped through the powerful protection of Thomas Cromwell, whose notice he is said to have attracted by his miracle plays.

He refused to be consecrated by the Roman Catholic rites of the Irish church, and won his point, though the Dean of Dublin made a protest against the revised office during the ceremony.

John Bale attacked his enemies with vehemence and scurrility, much of which was directed strongly and forcibly against the Roman Catholic Church and its writers: but this cavil does not significantly diminish the value of his contributions to literature.

The direction for the dressing of the parts is instructive: "Let Idolatry be decked like an old witch, Sodomy like a monk of all sects, Ambition like a bishop, Covetousness like a Pharisee or spiritual lawyer, False Doctrine like a popish doctor, and Hypocrisy like a gray friar."

It does not appear to have directly influenced the creators of the chronicle histories (such as The Troublesome Reign of King John (1591)), but it is remarkable that such a developed attempt at historical drama should have been made twenty-three years before the production of Gorboduc in 1561.

Bale's most important work is Illustrium Maioris Britanniae scriptorum, hoc est, Angliae, Cambriae ac Scotiae summarium ("Summary of the Famous Writers of Great Britain, that is, of England, Wales and Scotland"), published at Ipswich by John Overton in 1548,[10] and at Wesel by Derick van der Straten in 1549.

Another edition, almost entirely rewritten and containing fourteen centuries, was printed at Basel by Johannes Oporinus with the title Scriptorum illustrium Maioris Brytanniae, quam nunc Angliam & Scotiam vocant, catalogus ("Catalogue of the Famous Writers of Great Britain, which now they call England and Scotland") in 1557,[11] completed by a latter part in 1559.

[14] While in Germany he published an attack on the monastic system entitled The Actes of Englysh Votaries,[15] three Lives as The Examinations of Lord Cobham, William Thorpe and Anne Askewe, &c,[16] and the Pageant of Popes.

Bale's innovation was to contend that the faith which Joseph brought, was also purer than that of Rome: "the Brytaynes toke the christen faythe at the verye sprynge or fyrst goynge forth of the Gospell, whan the churche was most perfyght, and had most strengthe of the holye ghost".

He omits the Wycliffite and Protestant divines mentioned by Bale, and the most valuable section is the lives of the Roman Catholic exiles resident in Douai and other French towns.

Bale's central thesis is that the Book of Revelation is a prophecy of how God's word and those who love it (the "saints") would fare at the hands of men and a false Church during the last age, meaning the time between the ascension of Jesus and the end of the world.