Perhaps the most widely recognized aspect of the reign of Henry VIII – other than the girth and six wives which in large part constitute his ‘popular’ image – is his involvement in the English Reformation. There is little doubt that this event was one of the most important in the history of the British Isles, yet there is no real consensus among scholars of Henry’s own involvement in the matter. A few scholars have questioned the success of the Reform itself in accomplishing the ideological and practical goals which were established. Namely, there is little agreement whether the church was in fact guilty of wasting its resources through greed, sloth, and neglect of duty to which it had been charged by Protestant radicals. There is further disagreement about popular and clerical resistance to the Reformation. Ultimately, one must examine whether the English Church, in both its structure and practical operation, was indeed radically different after the Reformation. In looking at the Church under Henry’s rule I have chosen to focus largely on the events of the 1530's, although this is not an exclusive rule. For practical reasons I have taken
G. R. Elton’s study Reform & Reformation: England 1509-1558 as a baseline for comparison with other texts, largely because several other scholars refer to his work in their own studies. The individual biases of each author are made fairly evident in their texts, and one can easily understand Robert Blake’s statement, “all history is in one sense contemporary history” within this context. Analysing the English Church in the sixteenth century, it would be exceedingly difficult to conclude differently from the majority of scholars and argue that there was relatively little change. On a structural level, the break with Rome that occurred in the 1530's vastly altered the religious landscape.
The question of where reform originated and how it ultimately succeeded is of great debate among scholars. For Elton, Henry was not himself immediately responsible, but merely asked his ministers for a solution to the political troubles involving his first marriage. Certainly Henry had some agency of his own in finding a solution: he had initially pushed for a solution through Levitical law, and then in the early 1530's had decided upon a course of action involving his supremacy within the realm. Elton argues that the King could find no means to act upon his claims, however, as “if Henry was clearly so sure of his autonomous rights, and so clearly moving from this early date [1530] towards the total breach, his prolonged wait and the ups and downs of his endless stream of instructions become inexplicable”. Henry had not found a way in which he could legally enforce his autonomy. Elton argues that it was his chief minister Thomas Cromwell who found such legal means to secure the Royal Supremacy. Indeed, as one progresses through the text, Elton’s emphasis becomes quite clear. It was through the genius and exertions of Cromwell that the English Church was forever altered. That the radicals, led in Convocation by Cromwell, were not successful in 1531 as they were five years later in Parliament is explained as to their “not being in control of the King’s mind and policy”. The obvious subtext behind such terms is that Elton downplays Henry’s own agency in favour of his strong minister. Henry merely wished to secure legal grounds upon which he could divorce; it was Cromwell’s desire to bring the English dioceses under the rule of the monarchy, or in other words to nationalize the Church. Elton argues that Cromwell’s zeal for reform originated in his veneration of the Bible as the source of supreme authority for religious practise. He was the truest of Protestants who wished to “reform the earthly existence of men” and to “remake and renew the body politic of England”. There is clearly no question in Elton’s mind that Cromwell was the impetus and motivational agent for the Henrician Reformation.
Such a belief is far from universal however. While he does recognize Cromwell’s administrative genius, Tjernagel in his 1965 study – stressing the connection between the English reformers and the Lutherans, from which much of their religious ideology originated – emphasizes Henry’s wisdom in using Parliament to ensure the success of the Royal Supremacy. The legal machinations were indeed Cromwell’s, but the execution of the entire design must be attributed to Henry’s genius as “King in Parliament”. Henry did not perform this task without moral regard, and consequently the delays and hesitation of the early 1530's can be attributed to his religious convictions: “the proposals for the final breach with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries must have been repugnant. But little by little Henry saw the inevitability and utility of both”. Cross, writing ten years later, agrees stating that “the Henrician Reformation must still be seen as a naked act of State, the imposition of the will of one man, the Monarch, upon an entire nation”. The Supremacy did indeed begin with Henry and his advisors, although they were aided by a Commons sympathetic with the reform, as it sought to improve its position against the privileged clergy. C. S. L. Davies counters that there is a possibility that some of the measures passed by Commons, namely the Supplication against the Ordinaries, could have had Cromwell’s influence in their engineering. Tjernagel is alone however in stating that the Reformation as precipitated by the King’s will reflected the “will of the people ....[to] nationalize the church in England .... Virtually the whole nation identified itself in that action”. Other scholars are not so easily convinced of the ‘public’ unity of Henry’s actions however, especially Pallister who advances that many acquiesced because they feared the Crown’s wrath.
Elton’s view of the actual changes that took place in the Church are best reflected by his statement to the effect that the Church lost its status as “spiritual estate” of England to being a specialized profession ministering to the spiritual needs of the country. He argues that such occurred in part due to Cromwell’s poor opinion of canon law; instead of reforming it he endeavoured to limit its powers. The means by which the Church enforced such law did not change after the Reformation however, as largely through Henry’s own interests the ecclesiastical courts remained to a great extent unaltered. In most regards the Church retained the appearance of the pre-reform generation, with one crucial difference brought about by lay pressure, again greatly due to Cromwell’s influence. For the Reformation to succeed the monasteries had to be dissolved, as “the secularization of their possessions was the least that lay demand – royal and private – would rest satisfied with, but also because the government stood under the guidance of men who disapproved of them in principle”. The Dissolution can be seen to have devastated the lives of many men and women in the Church, mostly friars, nuns, and monks from poorer houses, and there were a few protests. Stronger resistence, however, was saved for Parliament’s issuance of the Ten Articles and the Injunction, both works of Cromwell from 1536. Elton argues that the Pilgrimage of Grace was precipitated in part because of the defence of traditional religion which were attacked by acts such as those stated above. Cross is in agreement, stating that the Pilgrimage demonstrated to both Henry and Cromwell that there were political consequences for accelerated religious change; Cromwell was thereafter more vigilant in his policing of the realm. Pallister doubts the significance of religious ideological conflict, and instead stresses the regional nature of the uprisings. Elton finds other scholars agreeing with him in his belief that Cromwell himself, along with other radicals such as Latimer and Cranmer, wanted the Ten Articles to be much more Lutheran than was ultimately accepted, yet compromise was required. Certainly such seems to be Elton’s premise for the whole of the Reformation: it was guided by radicals, yet to be accomplished legally it had to proceed more slowly and with concessions to the more conservative members of Parliament, and indeed to the more conservative side of Henry himself.
Elton does not detail much of the pre-Reformation Church. Heal’s study examines the extent to which the clergy were mired in an economic crisis which in part precipitated the Reformation. Many clerics could not support their ecclesiastical responsibilities with their relatively meagre incomes, and those who were appointed to several benefices were lambasted by reformers for their absenteeism. Her wholly economic approach to the subject prompts the conclusion that inflation was responsible for many of the clergy’s problems. As to the Reformation itself, there was no real change in clerical financing to aid poorer benefices; quite in opposition, smaller parish clergy were hurt the most by reform as it was they who had to pay a greater proportion of the tax demanded by the Crown. Davies argues that these disparities produced wildly differing situations in terms of the ‘spiritual authenticity’ of each parish. Some lived up to Protestant expectations, while in others there was a great amount of corruption and a decline in religious standards; some clergymen could not even recite the Lord’s prayer. Consequently there was much dissatisfaction and anti-clericalism already present in England even before Henry’s reign. The Dissolution of the Monasteries is another matter. Elton’s argument that the commissioners responsible for reporting to Cromwell were somewhat justified in their derisive accounts on the state of the monasteries has opponents however. He states that such men had the “intellectual capacity and administrative competence” to carry out their task. More importantly, their derogatory reports were expected to be so by Cromwell, as he needed such ammunition to dissolve the lower orders. Tjernagel contends that the vices of the monks and clergy were likely to have been exaggerated, and furthermore that Cromwell and his agents enriched their own finances through the dissolution, thus placing imparting their motives with somewhat of a darker aspect. Agreeing with Elton, he adds that there was relatively little resistence from the clergy as “the secular clergy had little love for the religious”, and furthermore that there was little outcry when Wolsey had dissolved monasteries on papal authority. Cross agrees, but with a slightly different interpretation: some clergy were indeed disappointed that the funds which emerged from the dissolution of the smaller monasteries were not used to aid new spiritual or social purposes, but were instead assumed by the Crown for other purposes, namely
the expansion of the King’s coffers. She also provides a telling example of a Protestant reformer who had supported the royal supremacy but turned against the suppression of the monasteries, believing that the Church should be just free from State oppression as the schism had liberated it form “a corrupt papacy”. One does get a sense in Elton’s study that he personally regrets the dissolution in terms of the loss of great English architectural works and historical monuments. Such ‘mourning’ is present in Pallister’s text as well, as he provides contemporary evidence that much of the populace was against Henry’s actions, although they would not dare vocalize their beliefs.
For the most part the scholars selected here do agree with Elton in his findings. Certainly there is some argument in the particulars of the English Church in the early sixteenth century, yet there is consensus among most of the scholars concerning the reaction to the royal supremacy. A more prominent ideological divide is present when looking at the source of the Reformation however. Elton’s view that it was through the machinations of Cromwell that England nationalized its Church has to some measure polarized scholars, although the belief in the importance of Henry’s minister is nearly universal. Comparing a few works by these scholars allows one to begin observing the different ideological constructs used by academics of diverse religious beliefs and time periods.
Bibliography
Cross, Claire. Church and People 1450-1660: The Triumph of the Laity in the English Church.
Trowbridge, Great Britain: The Harvester Press Limited, 1976.
Davies, C. S. L. Peace, Print & Protestantism. London: Fontana Press, 1995.
Elton, G. R. Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558. Cambridge, USA: Harvard
University Press, 1977.
Heal, Felicity. “Economic Problems of the Clergy”, Church and Society in England: Henry VIII
to James I. Ed. Felicity Heal and Rosemary O’Day. Hamden, USA: Archon Books, 1977.
Pallister, D. M. “Popular Reactions to the Reformation during the Years of Uncertainty
1530-70", Church and Society in England: Henry VIII to James I. Ed. Felicity Heal and Rosemary O’Day. Hamden, USA: Archon Books, 1977.
Tjernagel, Neelak Serawlook. Henry VIII and the Lutherans: A Study in Anglo-Lutheran
Relations from 1521 to 1547. St. Louis, USA: Concordia Publishing, 1965.
No comments:
Post a Comment