English Reformation

I

Introduction

English Reformation, term used to describe the series of different ecclesiastical and cultural changes that affected religion in England in the course of the 16th century. It is common now to use the term in the plural, in order to emphasize that it was not a single uniform movement, and did not progress smoothly from stage to stage. It began in the 1520s with the arrival of what were later to be termed Protestant ideas from Germany, and it ended with the failure of the Presbyterian movement in the 1580s. The conflicts of the 17th century took place largely within the reformed English Church (see Church of England), and although they arose out of the Reformation proper, they are separate and will not be considered here.

II

The Principal Influences

Three main streams fed into the English Reformation. First, there was an indigenous tradition of religious dissent, normally called Lollardy (see Lollards). This was derived, sometimes indirectly, from the teaching of the late 14^th-century Oxford divine, John Wycliffe. Secondly, there were the theological ideas stemming first from Martin Luther, and later from Huldreich Zwingli and John Calvin. These ideas were to some extent Anglicized for popular consumption. And, thirdly, there were the political actions that stemmed from the search of Henry VIII for an annulment of his first marriage—the king’s “great matter”. In addition, there were currents of thought that provide a background and help to explain how the second and third of these streams were received. The most important of these was the intellectual movement known as humanism. This had originally developed in Italy as an interest in the pagan writers of Greek and Roman antiquity, but it also had a Christian dimension, which focused upon the original Biblical languages, and led to an increased emphasis upon the example of the early Church. There was also a pattern of secular thought that emphasized royal power at the expense of both the Church and the nobility, a pattern sometimes known as absolutism. Finally, and critically, there was the reaction of the orthodox Church to the attacks made upon it. This took both a positive form—a search for an enhanced spirituality—and a negative form of denial and persecution.

III

The Background to Reformation

The medieval English Church was first and foremost an institution, as it was everywhere in Europe, fully integrated with contemporary society. Its archbishops, bishops, and abbots were great lords, with large estates and extensive manred, who owed allegiance to the king in respect of their temporalities. Its priests were officers of their parish communities, charged with duties of mediation and leadership, and supported by taxes in the form of glebe and tithe. This had come about because the agents of the original conversion had succeeded in convincing the rulers of that period that they had a monopoly in administering the grace of God. The Church thus controlled the ultimate destiny of mankind, determined what was acceptable in the sight of God, and mediated salvation to lay society. Men were divided into three sorts: those who fought (and also ruled—the nobility), those who worked (the peasantry, but also artisans and craftsmen), and those who prayed (clergy and monks). Of these, it was the latter that set the moral standard, and validated the functions of the others in the name of God.

At its most exalted, the medieval papacy had claimed to validate all temporal authority, to depose unsatisfactory rulers, and to prescribe agendas to emperors, kings, and princes. The key to this power, which was known as the potestas ordinis, was the sacramental authority of the priest, who pardoned sinners, validated marriages, and affected the miracle of the Mass whereby the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine were transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. It was this feat that gave him his unique intercessory function, enabled him to wield the sanction of excommunication, and gave him the power of life and death over his neighbours. His ability to do that depended solely upon the validity of his orders, conferred by the Church. This power in turn explains the lavish endowments that the Church had received over the years, from those convinced that such benefactions would earn them a place in paradise. The clergy was thus a privileged caste, and its function was epitomized in the opus dei, the constant fount of prayer and praise that the regular religious offered to God on behalf of their unprivileged compatriots. This value system was deeply embedded in lay society, and the great majority of laymen and laywomen was content to seek salvation by obeying the rules prescribed, and by offering their humble pieties in the hope of earning grace. Everyone, from the prince to the pauper, must tread the same road, and be measured by the same standard. The Church maintained itself by sophisticated theological and philosophical structures, and by a monopolistic control over education that precluded any effective ideological challenge.

It was, however, vulnerable in certain respects. Because the Church held a large amount of property, it had an extensive interface with the property-holding laity, and this meant constant disputes over rights, and endless litigation. In England all property rights were adjudicated in the king’s courts, and the clergy was constantly tempted to use its spiritual muscle to gain advantages. This was bitterly resented. Popes were also tempted to use their positions to provide their own servants and kinsmen to benefices in the various kingdoms of Western Europe, and this was resisted at the highest level—in England by the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire of the late 14th century, which allowed the king to licence ecclesiastical jurisdiction—and by implication to withhold that licence.

By the 15th century there was also a great gulf between the wealth and pretensions of the Church, and the humble world of Jesus Christ and his Apostles. This had been noticed before, but the English Lollards were persistently subversive on the issue, and since they also denied transubstantiation, their attack was truly radical. The Lollards had been fiercely repressed, and had little intellectual leadership or cohesion—indeed, Lollardy has been described as a state of mind rather than a creed—so they did not in themselves constitute a threat, but their existence was to be important.

The third challenge was less radical, but more insidious. For a variety of reasons lay education was developing in the 15th century, and the clerical monopoly was being eroded. Questions began to be asked, not at first hostile, and many clergy welcomed the intellectual debate. The Church as an institution did not. Changes in patterns of worship, and improvements in clerical discipline were canvassed, usually in a positive spirit of desiring improvement, but the papacy saw these increasingly as a threat. In England, reformers like John Colet were threatened with charges of heresy. The works of the great (and orthodox) humanist reformer Desiderius Erasmus ended up on that list of forbidden books promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, and known as the Index of Forbidden Books.

In spite of the Lollards, in 1500 England was regarded as a model of orthodox practice. The king was a good churchman, and the Church supported him. Clerical discipline was relatively good, and most laymen did not expect too much from their (usually) worthy but poorly educated priests. Regular religious vocations had never really recovered from the Black Death, but that was not a problem high on anyone’s agenda. Church building and lay piety were flourishing as never before. The only worm in the bud, as it transpired later, was that much of this devotional activity was fuelled not by satisfaction but by anxiety. A religious angst was developing, as happens from time to time for obscure reasons, and the first reaction was to multiply religious practices because that was the only way that people knew to address such concerns. The first person to ask the question, “Has the Church really got it right?”, was going to find an audience.

IV

Theological Doubt

That first person was Martin Luther. Luther was first stirred to action by the selling of indulgences. As even the orthodox soon agreed, this was an abuse, but Luther did not treat it simply in that way. To him indulgences symbolized a shallow, mechanistic view of the faith, based on commercial metaphors, and giving the impression that salvation was for sale. This, he soon concluded, was based upon the false teaching that good works (which could be very broadly defined) contributed positively to the performers’ eternal destiny. Faith, he concluded, following St Augustine, was a gratuitous divine gift, and all that was necessary for salvation. The Church therefore ministered divine grace, but did not control it. Sacraments were helpful, but not essential. All that the believer needed was true teaching, and that was to be found in the Bible. Sola fide, sola scriputra—by faith alone, and by the Bible alone could grace come to the elect. The implications of this for the established Church were totally subversive.

Luther wrote in Latin and in German, and his original impact in England was confined to educated clergy. A few embraced his ideas, the majority did not, and Henry VIII earned a papal title by defending the traditional seven sacraments. However, his ideas touched responsive chords in two ways. Humanist scholars had for some time been advocating vernacular translations of the scripture, and responded positively to his Biblical teaching. And when a few clergy began to use him in their sermons, the similarity of some of his ideas to Lollard opinions quickly became apparent. Two of these connections proved to be particularly potent. In the first place, William Tyndale was inspired to translate the New Testament into English, and, secondly, a number of gentlemen and citizens of London scented an opportunity to diminish the pretensions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which they were finding irksome and which were epitomized by the vainglorious Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

Luther’s sacramental theology never became influential in England, where the more radical ideas expressed by Huldreich Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger were later adopted, but his emphasis upon the Bible and his attack upon the potestas ordinis were fundamental. Luther was condemned (inevitably) as a heretic, and his books were publicly burned by both Wolsey and Cuthbert Tunstall, the Bishop of London. But Tyndale’s New Testament (begun 1525) was a best-seller. It was also condemned, but it was welcomed by many who had no desire to be thought heretics, and it had an incalculable influence upon the development of the language. The positive reception of this work is something of a puzzle, but it may well be that the increasing number of people with theological questions to ask believed that they might find there the answers which the Church was so reluctant to provide. The negative response of most clergy is much less surprising. Insofar as they were trained at all, it was to do a limited job in a limited way; the last thing they wanted was a Bible-learned laity firing questions at them. This was not only embarrassing it also undermined their status.