Religious Change in the Parishes

1. Religious Change in the Parishes Religion & Religious Change in England, c.1470-1558

2. The Reformation – before & after: Pre-Reformation: Post-Reformation: Story of loss: Monasteries Chantries Altars Christ’s Body & Blood Relics Images of saints Pilgrimages Guilds Whitewashed walls • A parish religion: • Communal (where faith met community) • Based on ritual, on DOING Shaped by actions – actions dependent upon liturgy – liturgy dependent upon material culture Removing that culture was traumatic • Prevent expression of belief • Prevent the community worshipping the divine as it had for generations

3. Contrasting experiences:

4. LOOKED, SMELT, & SOUNDED DIFFERENT • ACCESS TO THE SACRED CURTAILED – POINTS AT WHICH THE SACRED & THE PROFANE MET ERADICATED • IF LATE-MEDIEVAL CATHOLICISM DEFINED BY TANGIBLE EXPERIENCES OF THE DIVINE IN THIS WORLD, THE REFORMATION CLEARLY DRAMATIC & TRAUMATIC But……

5. The conundrum: • A decidedly ORDERLY Reformation….. • We expect to see a revolution – but what marks England’s Reformation out above all else is how quietly this was all achieved. • Problem: English laity not want a Reformation; but neither did they act to prevent it from happening.

6. Historiography: • Traditional school – kicking out the rot: • ‘Had to’ happen: Reformation a bad form of religion replaced by a good one • Revisionists – the ‘long Reformation’: • LMC buoyant – even in Elizabeth I reign, surprising legacy of traditional religion; ‘Protestant nation’ problematic • Mary I – could have restored Catholicism if lived longer • HVIII/EVI – broad acceptance: • Lukewarm in religion? • Moral dilemma – Crown or Conscience? • Negative – fear the consequences of resistance • Positive – duty-bound to obey • ‘Grumbling’, ‘hesitant’ – not convey moral agony that accompanied change • Mary I: • A change in belief; or ‘nothing happened’?

7. Evidence: • Illiteracy: • Problem – reading ideas from actions • When ‘ordinary’ people appear, usually in courts – typical? • Wills: • Quantification possible • Preambles – who entrust soul to? What want done about it? • Problem – homogenous; scribe or individual? • Material Culture: • Fabric of the Church/ trace its objects • Church accounts: • Expenditure of the community • Trace when they implement changes; and which ones they ignored. • Later reigns – Church attendance seen as an effective form of calculating resistance. • Authorities only really keen to assess after 1559

8. The Process of Change: • Who implemented change? • Local people • Churchwardens (appointed by the parish) • Clergy • Often continuity across reigns (often communal hostility) • INDIVIDUAL CONSERVATIVES/EVANGELICALS COULD HAVE A DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACT • The Tudor State? • Not autonomous • Relied upon will/compliance of the people • No roads/news networks/police • Importance of the gentry • HVIII an unlikely ‘Stalin’ • Makes obedience remarkable

9. Obedience? • Rex – dominant ethos of HVIII’s Church • Constantly tested authority at a parish level • Response was generally consistent • When royal will was clear, work carried out obediently • Hutton – English/Welsh ‘a limited capacity to sustain any beliefs attacked by both leading Churchmen and by the Crown’ • Remarkable capacity of the monarchy to compel obedience • Duty – outgrowth of Orders/hierarchy • Own desires/needs less significant to the body politic • ‘Grumbling Reformation’ – not a particularly dramatic narrative • Obedience not = agreement; compliance not necessarily passive.

10. Cities: • Interests of lay rulers better served by acquiescence than by challenging royal will • CONFORMITY CONCEALS A WIDE RANGE OF DETAILED RESPONSES • Variety & breadth: • York – conservative city • Charge of disobedience following the Pilgrimage of Grace • Subsequently an ostentatious display of obedience • But revelled in the return of the Mass under Mary • Bristol – made a virtue of neutrality • 1530s: disputes between corporation & clergy triggered by Latimer’s sermons • Authorities pulled back from pursuing further reform; explicit in following royal will as closely as possible • 1540 – ask Cromwell to send visitor to ensure things done correctly • Norwich • McClendon – ‘quiet Reformation’ • Kett’s rebellion suggested that true feelings may be elsewhere

11. Disobedience: • Considerable indication of a reluctance to change: • Anecdotal, not empirical • Speedy return to Catholicism under Mary • Reluctance to go beyond the law in reform • Anger: • Cromwell received plenty of information about hostility to attacks on imagery in 1530s • 1543, Chilham (Kent): vicar ordered to destroy the Rood; used the King’s Book to protect images; locked officials out of the church; JPs protected them. • Clergy under considerable pressure: • Lay anger at clerical conformity; 1549 Western Rebellion triggered by the new liturgy • Beverley, 1536 – curate read injunctions against Saints’ Days; parishioners responded that ‘they would have their holydays bid and kept as before’. • Were these issues of ‘evangelical’ or ‘conservative’ beliefs/principals; or the reactions of communities who had been organising their own religious lives for generations and resented outside encroachment?

12. Iconoclasm (or, how it happened): Sale: Concealment: Objects buried/pasted over (whitewashing needed repeating): Wakefield – 25 alabaster images in the loft Flawford (Nottingham) – 3 images hidden under the floor of the chancel Commissioners wise to them: Morebath– vicar had to appear 4 times before they were satisfied he had not hidden the Church vestments ‘Cooking’ the books – rich parishes making meagre returns Wycombe (Bucks) – wardens concealed 3 sets of vestments/Catholic liturgical books/3 crosses/altar cloths/ 2 censors/ 9 candelsticks Could have carried out the Mass if they had wanted to. • Parishes involved – sell objects • Not happen TO them – shaped it. • Objects associated with saints/ the Mass • Range of motivations: • Evangelism/Protestantism • Compliance with official policy • Paying for new objects they were required to purchase • Prevent that State getting its hands on their wealth • BUT – emotion? • Keep their goods in the community • People taking ownership of objects donated by their kin • Often given back to the Church under Mary • Much of this material no longer in the Church; but certainly in the parish

13. Theft & Despoiling: • ‘Why not’? • Someone is going to profit from this • A pre-Reformation problem – Reformation a market for opportunists: • Essex returns – some churches robbed repeatedly in EVI’s reign • Hertfordshire – commissioners issued a special report on theft • Dissolution an example to follow? • Legitimised looting • Combined with persistent evangelical propaganda against sacred objects • Easy to move into the mental space to loot it

14. Division & Conflict: • Opportunism: • A lot of ‘stuff’ now on the market • Kerrrrching! • Buy at knock-down prices • Corruption? • Great Bromley, principal purchaser William Cardinal (Lord Mayor & the royal commissioner for Church goods) • ‘Community’ ruptured: • Divisions between those who supported reform; and those who did not • Those who profited from the dismantling of late medieval Catholicism; and those who did not • Marian legacy: • Recriminations – scarred the community • Marian churchwarden on Stanford-in-the-Vale: Edwardian ‘wicked time of schism’ in reference to previous wardens’ accounts • Marian legacy: • Corpus Christianorum • Mass – a rite of peace • Charity of Christ unified the community • Kiss of peace in the pax ensured the ending of feuds • Ending it caused dissention

15. Inculcating the new: • Removing the old much more successful than implementing the new. • Churchwardens’ accounts show much, much slower to purchase new aspects of liturgy: • Prayer books • Bibles • Erasmus’s Paraphrases Considerable foot-dragging…….. Church Court records reveal a disinclination to reform beneath the surface of compliance.

16. Marian Joy: • True colours? • Theology not religion – for those on the ground, tradition spoke volumes • Society feared change: why? • Truth = universal; universal = unchanging – what always true must be true. • The Mass: • Miles Hogarde– return to a time when England lived in ‘marvellous love and amity, in true dealing and honest simplicity’ • Mass heart of this system • Unity in Church • Assimilation of God within the community • Galvanize support for Mary: • Summer 1553, spontaneous celebration • Even though still technically illegal • Ireland – John Bale horrified to see clergy/laity arrive with old trappings – ‘they mustered forth in general procession most gorgeously all the town over’. • Restored with vigour under Mary: • Centre of Catholicism • Works righteousness (not Faith Alone) • Power of priests as mediators – need the Church to channel grace. • Purchase of Mass paraphernalia/ altars • Structural work – rebuild altars/purchase correct texts

17. ‘Nothing happened’; or a ‘broken Catholicism’? • Big question: was pre-Reformation traditional Catholicism changed by experience of conflict/persecution • Unsubtle to conclude ‘no impact’: • Pre-Henrician Catholicism not simply ‘restored’ • Institutional changes • Economic considerations (made it impossible) • Two considerations: • 1) Time was short – Mary d.1558 • 2) Monasteries/Chantries a dramatic blow • Revolution in landholding/MPs reluctant to restore • Significant impact for concepts of death

18. ‘Nothing happened’; or a ‘broken Catholicism’? • Will-making shows a decline of belief in purgatory and the saints: • Prayers for the dead/to saints changing • Obits/bede rolls/provisions for intercessory prayers not regain pre-Reformation levels • Decline of chantries – porous nature of natural/supernatural changed • Within the Church – the Rood took precedent over saints’ images • Christocentrism • Wills suggest moves towards a more Christocentric form of devotion • A response to the challenge of reform? • Joan Holder (1556) – bequeathed soul to ‘God my creator and redeemer unto whose mercy I commit myself unto, trusting by the merits of his passion to inherit the kingdom of heaven to pray for me’. • ‘Broken Catholicism’? • Not ‘restored’ but ‘re-vitalised’ • New fervours of piety defined Mary’s Church • Not conservatism, but a Reformation in its own light • Anticipating Trent? • Many reforms undertaken at Trent present in Marian England • Mary an agent of reform; not a bulwark of conservatism • Christian Humanism vital