The English Reformation 1530 - 1570

W. J. Sheils

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317880905
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia del mundo

The changes brought about during the English Reformation clearly reflected the desire of the Crown, government and landed classes to reduce the political power and landed wealth of the late medieval Church. This book covers the background to the Reformation, the processes which brought about these major changes and the impact on the clergy and the general population.

Part One: Introduction

1 The State of the Church

Demands for reform

It has often been said that the Reformation changes of the 1530s amounted to an Act of State. No doubt the changes brought about by the Reformation Parliament reflected the determination of Crown, government and landed classes to reduce both the political power and landed wealth of the late medieval Church. This determination was given urgency by the King’s inability to secure Papal support for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, a marriage which had failed to produce the male heir thought necessary by Henry VIII to secure the Tudor dynasty. These motives were important springs to action, but even a government led by an administrator as able as Thomas Cromwell would not have been successful in carrying through its policy if an important sector of society did not share some of its ambitions. Contemporary evidence shows that in the early sixteenth century there was widespread dissatisfaction with the Church as it existed, and that this dissatisfaction was found among all sectors of society (42).

In addition to the obvious abuses of wealth which brought criticisms from both landowners envious of monastic and other ecclesiastical estates (114), and from peasants caught up in the intricacies of a cumbersome and sometimes expensive legal system, humanist learning had come into England from the Continent and brought with it a new scriptural view of the pastoral role of the Church which, however idealistic, exposed the deficiencies of the clergy to a literate and highly articulate group in society (80). Other less influential groups had also been critical of the Church, and throughout the fifteenth century small groups of Lollards, consisting largely of minor landholders and peasants, had continued a fitful and underground heretical tradition which could provide a ready reception for the Lutheran doctrines which began to filter into England during the 1520s (19, 41, 109).

Paradoxically, another trend which led to criticism of the Church from some quarters was the resurgence in conventional piety among all sectors of society, which can be traced from the early fifteenth century onwards (110). This conventional piety required that the clergy be better able to fulfil their pastoral responsibilities, and it is particularly important in reminding us that the clear call for reform of the Church in the early sixteenth century did not necessarily imply a break with Catholicism. Some people thought that the only way to reform the Church was to restructure it so radically that their policies amounted to wholesale reformation; others, while agreeing that reform was necessary, envisaged a piecemeal adaptation of existing institutions. Finally, it must be remembered that many of the fiercest critics of the Church were themselves clergymen, like William Tyndale (13, Tyndale, 84), and so the Reformation can by no means be explained solely in terms of a conflict between laity and clergy (37). Anti-clericalism certainly existed, but it was often motivated by a desire to renew the scriptural role of the clergy and it rarely articulated the demand to destroy the priestly caste per se. What it amounted to was a demand for better priests, or different sorts of priests, not for the destruction of the Church or ministry (126).

The anti-clerical attitudes among the laity were recognised by a few churchmen as having some justification in fact. The most famous example of this is perhaps the sermon preached by the humanist and biblical scholar John Colet before the assembled Convocation of the province of Canterbury in 1511. This body, the representative assembly of the clergy of the whole archbishopric, had been summoned by Archbishop Warham to consider the problem posed by heresy. Colet, who was Dean of St Paul’s, was chosen to preach the opening sermon and, in doing so, placed the blame for ignorance and heresy among the laity squarely on the shoulders of the clergy [doc. 1]. There were four fundamental evils which led men away from the Church and brought dishonour on the priesthood: ambition, which led to a scramble for ecclesiastical office and to pluralism; carnal and moral laxity among the clergy; covetousness, which made the clergy greedy and uncharitable in exacting their dues from the laity; and finally, and perhaps most importantly, too great a concern with the affairs of the secular world. To Colet the solution was clear: the Church should reform itself. ‘This reformation and restoring of the Church’s estate must needs begin of you, our fathers, and so follow in us your priests and in all your clergy … It is an old proverb: Physician heal thyself. You spiritual physicians, first taste you this medicine of purgation of manners, and then after offer us the same taste’ (17).

As a humanist Colet might be expected to represent the new view of the priesthood and to be out of step with more orthodox churchmen. In this case, however, he was reiterating the complaints which had been made by many conscientious clergy about the Church, and his proposed remedies reflected the views expressed by Thomas Bourgchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1455. Men such as these saw the Church as the instrument of its own reformation, but in the early sixteenth century there were others who grew impatient with the Church and demanded that reformation should come from outside the ranks of the clergy. Such men were looking to the godly prince. By the 1530s this sort of reform was associated with the Christian humanists (48, 80).

Paradoxically, the humanists often saw the secular arm as being the instrument which would bring about the reform of the Church, the body of Christ. One of their chief inspirations was, of course, Erasmus, whose editions of the New Testament in Greek and Latin were influential in the English universities, where he had spent some time between 1511 and 1514 (98). His astringent comments on the religious orders and the excesses of conventional piety dealt a serious blow to the reputation of the medieval Church but, as in the case of his friend Sir Thomas More who was executed for his opposition to the King’s divorce, they did not always lead the humanists into acceptance of the Reformation. This dilemma is illustrated by the career of Thomas Starkey, one of the most influential English humanists. After spending some time in Italy in the service of Reginald Pole, later a Cardinal and ultimately the close confidant of Queen Mary, he returned to England in December 1534 and, though he remained a Catholic, Starkey soon identified himself with the policies of Thomas Cromwell. His book in defence of a united Church and State under a constitutional monarch was published in 1536 as An Exhortation to the people instructing them to unity and obedience. In this and other writings he was critical of the Church and defended the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, recommending that their income be devoted to educational purposes (48). As the century progressed, this type of charitable work, which concerned itself with this world, was to replace the traditional form of medieval piety (71) with its concentration on the hereafter. For humanists like Starkey, the reform of the Church was the central feature of a more general plan for the reform of society as a whole. Indeed, he produced such a plan covering social and economic policy from the problem of poverty to the manufacture and sale of woollen cloth. The influence of Starkey and his associates is difficult to assess. Their influence on the formation of policy may have been indirect, but their works certainly provided a vigorous critique of the contemporary Church and society, and their arguments were crucial in creating a climate of opinion which made government policy in the 1530s acceptable to an important part of the political nation (47, 68).

These men, whether they sought reform of the Church by the Church like Colet, or reform by the Crown like Starkey, were the intellectuals of the day. Their criticism of the Church found a ready reception among the less high-minded of their contemporaries also and thus these intellectual movements lent support to popular anti-clerical attitudes which had always existed among various sectors of English society. The most striking and famous expression of these was A Supplication for the Beggars published by Simon Fish towards the end of the 1520s, a greatly exaggerated but powerful piece of invective against the clergy [doc. 3]. Significantly the document was presented as an appeal to the King by the poor and weak members of society to protect them from the evil exactions of greedy clerics. In this way not only did the Church heap sufferings on the poor, but it also rendered the clergy immune from the law and diminished the power of the Crown. Thus the King and the poor shared a common enemy in the Church. That such criticism, in which Henry was advised to ‘Tie these holy idle thieves [the priests] to the carts, to be whipped naked about every market town’, could find a ready audience and be taken seriously by opponents like John Fisher and Sir Thomas More [doc. 4], who wrote a reply to its charges, shows the strength of anti-clerical feeling in some quarters on the eve of the Reformation.

The forcefulness of Fish’s claims and his vigorous style have perhaps been too successful, and the early sixteenth-century Church has not had a good reputation among historians. Having shown that there were demands for reform both within and without the Church we should now look briefly at the institution to see how far such criticism was justified. In doing so we can take as our starting point the four crucial failings identified by Colet in his sermon of 1511.

The ills of the Church

The career of Thomas Wolsey, a lowly-born cleric who became Archbishop of York, Cardinal and Papal Legate in addition to occupying several other wealthy church livings which he held along with the chief office of State, the Lord Chancellorship, provided contemporaries with the greatest example of the excesses of ambition. His power, and the manner in which he flaunted it, made many enemies and was a source of scandal (97). Wolsey’s case was exceptional in scale, but it highlighted the fact that pluralism was an accepted feature of church life. In the localities this led to fundamental flaws in the provision of clergy, the more so because, as in Lancashire, it was usually the richer livings that were held in plurality and a prominent local cleric like Richard Dudley could serve two parishes, Walton and Warton, with a joint income of £144 6s. 11d. (£144 35p) a year, as well as several cathedral posts. Men like Dudley, who left their parishes to be served by poorly-paid curates while they enjoyed the profits, could be found in every diocese (55). In Lincoln diocese between 1514 and 1520 over one-fifth of the parishes were served by such pluralists and, although only eight were deprived of priests entirely, most were served by poorly-paid local men (24).

Such men comprised a large proportion of the parish clergy, almost half in the diocese of Canterbury in 1521, and 85 per cent in Hampshire in 1541. Conscientious they may have been, like John Greenwood at Heptonstall, learned they were not, but poor they certainly were. Only 8 of the 295 chaplains in Yorkshire in 1525 had an income greater than £5 a year, and in Staffordshire in 1541 the figure was 9 out of 166. Pluralism represented an unfair division of labour between a minority of very wealthy clergy and a majority of poor men who did most of the parochial work. From this structural flaw, critics maintained, negligence and immorality derived (62, 60, Zell).

Immorality, however, only concerned a tiny fraction of priests, but, as with pluralism, the excesses of a few damaged the reputation of all. Scandals like the brothel for clergy in the London parish of St John Zachary were indefensible, but the clergy in general were not promiscuous (62). More usual was the case of Alexander Thornton, a Lancashire chantry priest who lived with the same partner, by whom he had a son who also became a priest, from 1489 until 1514 (55). Such relationships with ‘hearth companions’ were defended by the clergy of Bangor diocese in the 1530s as necessary for the provision of that hospitality towards parishioners required of the clergy (62). In many areas there was, therefore, a gap between strict law and local custom over the matter of clerical celibacy, but this gap was not due to immorality, nor did it lead to neglect of pastoral work. In his visitations of 266 churches, Archbishop Warham found only eleven cases of such neglect, and a recent study of the huge diocese of Lincoln has concluded ‘if chastity was a heavy burden for some, the duties of saying mass and the offices, of hearing confessions and visiting the sick were not, and very few clergy in the diocese failed in their liturgical or pastoral obligations’ (25, 60, Zell).

Colet’s third criticism was of covetousness, referring to the exactions of the Church on the laity. These exactions came about in two ways: as property rights through tithe, the tax levied upon produce for the maintenance of the ministry; and as fees both for spiritual services and, more contentiously, for legal expenses in the church courts. The amounts paid in tithe were individually small, but in total large, their collection and assessment difficult, and the money often went to support a distant pluralist or a wealthy ecclesiastical corporation, such as a monastery, rather than to the local priest (64). Tithe had been attacked by Wyclif and the Lollards, and a Statute of 1536 referred to increasing attempts at evasion. Not only did the Church exact tithe, but it also enforced payment through its own courts. In London this was challenged and, in 1546, city tithe business was transferred from the church courts to the mayor’s court (120). Tithe was a constant source of friction between layman and cleric, but it was the refusal to pay a different fee, a burial or mortuary fee, which began the case most damaging to the reputation of the church courts at this time. In 1511 a London merchant, Richard Hunne, refused to pay the fee for his son’s burial, was eventually charged with heresy and committed to prison where, on 4 December 1514, he was found hanged in his cell. A murder verdict was declared, but the officers of the church courts were able to plead ‘benefit of clergy’ and thus escape the penalty of the common law (42). This situation created great outrage against the courts as benefit of clergy was being extended to all sorts of people only loosely conne...