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Andrew Muchnick
HIST298
Professor Sellers
11 March, 2015
Literature of the English Reformation
Just as compelling and complex was the English Reformation of the 16th Century,
so too is the literature produced about the events. While historians and theologians have
been debating, arguing, and writing about Henry VIII’s religious reforms since they
occurred, the most influential body of scholarship in the recent period began about fifty
years ago. The literature surrounding the Reformation has evolved significantly since
A.G. Dickens’ 1964 seminal volume The English Reformation. Since Dickens, many
scholars have inquired deeper into the reactions of various groups of people to the Royal
Supremacy and the subsequent power of the monarchy over the church, as well as
reexamining evidence that earlier scholars brushed off as unimportant; tending toward a
more personal look at, as well as, an evolving view of the religious, political, and social
nature of the Reformation.
A.G. Dickens’ The English Reformation was the first of the modern (mid-20th
century) accounts of Henry VIII’s Reformation. As Christopher Haigh (a leading
Reformation scholar himself) put it, Dickens’ book presented the Reformation as,
“authentically Protestant […] and that it was popular – people wanted it, and responded
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to it enthusiastically”.1 In regards to the Royal Supremacy, Dickens only dedicates eight
pages to its “Resistances”. He cites, of course, Queen Catherine, the English Nobility,
and Thomas More, with the bulk of the section dedicated to the Pilgrimage of Grace,
1536, the uprising in the North of England regarding the dissolution of the monasteries.2
Even then, he views the Pilgrimage as more of an economic event rather than a religious
one. 3
Around the same time, Margaret Bowker published her article, “The Supremacy
and the Episcopate: The Struggle for Control, 1534-140”. In this piece, Bowker delves
deeper into the issues the clergy faced in the wake of the new royal supremacy and their
resulting resistance. She cites the clergy finding loopholes in legislation4, outward protest
and acknowledgement and discredit of Henry VIII’s religious advisers5, among others.
Bowker builds on her predecessors and contemporaries by looking at a relatively large
group (a powerful group, at that) of discontent people.
Next chronologically, we have G.R. Elton’s Reform and Reformation: England,
1509-1558. While Elton delves a bit deeper into the contentions against the Reformations
(this time in about 20 pages), he still focuses mainly on the Pilgrimage of Grace.
Different than Dickens however, Elton puts more emphasis on the religious aspects of the
Christopher Haigh, “A.G. Dickens and his Reformation”, History Today, 51 , no.11
(2001) : 8.
2 A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (New York: Schocken Books, 1964) , 122128.
3 Ibid 125-126.
4 Margaret Bowker, “The Supremacy and the Episcopate: The Struggle for Control,
1534-1540” The Historical Journal. 18, no.2 (1975) : 233.
5 Ibid 232.
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Pilgrimage6. On these matters, Elton does not build much on his predecessor Dickens.
Elton also follows suit with Dickens in his overview of the Henrican Reformation, not
adding much to the discussion.
At the turn of the 21st Century, Reformation studies take a relatively drastic turn
toward a more detailed discussion of the opposition of the Royal Supremacy. Insomuch
as proving that while the Reformation was not totally despised by the entirety of the
English population, there were plenty of individuals and vocal minorities who did not
approve of Henry VIII as head of this new Church of England and repudiating the pope in
Rome. These 21st century scholars certainly build on their mid-20th Century predecessors.
In terms of scholarship that builds on this “new” idea that Royal Supremacy was
more than just a political matter kept aloof from the laity, Sean Field’s 2002 article
“Devotion, Discontent, and the Henrican reformation: The Evidence of the Robin Hood
Stories” provides an interesting discussion of how the Robin Hood legends evolved since
their first mention in the 14th Century up until the 16th Century when they were starting to
be influenced by the religious conflicts of the time. Importantly, Field refutes scholars
such as Dickens and Elton that the Reformation came as a result of “long term decay of
medieval religion”, but rather it was “Henry VIII and his advisors [who] pushed through
a personally advantageous but widely disliked and resisted Reformation” 7.
Similarly, Tracy A. Sowerby in her article “Richard Pate, the Royal Supremacy,
and Reformation Diplomacy” discusses Henry VIII’s ambassador to the King of Spain,
Charles V’s court. This is a perfect case study to refute the scholars of old that the Royal
G.R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1977) , 264-265.
7Sean Field, “Devotion, Discontent, and the Henrican reformation: The Evidence of the
Robin Hood Stories” Journal of British Studies 41, no.1 (2002) : 7.
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Supremacy was somewhat ancillary to the religious aspects of the Reformation in public
and private life. Ambassador Pate was a conflicted character; on the one hand,
diplomatically, he was a devoted and loving subject to his prince, but religiously and
morally he was tied to the Pope.8 While Pate was only one person, Sowerby connects him
to a wider discontent with the Supremacy than was previously researched.
Following this trend of reexamining and reevaluating old evidence, G.W.
Bernard’s 2005 text The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the
English Church points toward a more personal agenda for the Reformation as opposed to
Elton or Dickens, who’s Reformation was more popular. Similarly to Field, Bernard says
“the king had found loyal, shrewd, and learned advisers to assist him [in his goal of
supremacy]: he had cajoled and bullied the church into granting him what he needed; and
he secured the acquiescence of the political nation”9. It is here again we see the elevation
of the Royal Supremacy in the English Reformation.
In 2003, Ethan H. Shagen produced Popular Politics and the English
Reformation. This text follows in the 21st century vein of a more personal and public
interpretation of the reformation. In fact, it is even more radical than the other tome-like
general studies of the reformation, as Shagen attempts to put into perspective the views of
a wider swath of English people during this tumultuous time. Differing from all of his
predecessors, Shagen states, “if religion permeated every aspect of sixteenth-century
experience, that implies that religion itself was not a rigid or self-contained sphere but
rather was structured through its interactions with the culture in which it was imbedded”
Tracey A. Sowerby, “Richard Pate, the Royal Supremacy and Reformation
Diplomacy” The Historical Journal 54, no.2 (2011) : 274.
9 G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English
Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005) , 72.
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. This is fundamentally different than all who came before Shagen, as they all seem to
view religion as an arm of contemporary politics and diplomacy, rather than the cultural
and social aspects that the vast majority of English people viewed it.
Overall, the literature of the English Reformation has evolved greatly in the last
half-century. The focuses shifted from general accounts that zeroed in on hard politics,
mostly government figures and foreign policy, to more social and personal accounts that
included a far greater amount of people in 16th century England.
Ethan H. Shagen, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003) , 1.
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Bibliography
Bernard, G.W. The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English
Church. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
Bowker, Margaret. “The Supremacy and the Episcopate: The Struggle for Control, 15341540,” The Historical Journal 18, no.2 (1975) 227-243.
Dickens, A.G. The English Reformation New York: Schocken Books, 1964.
Elton, G.R. Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1977.
Field, Sean “Devotion, Discontent, and the Henrican Reformation: The Evidence of the
Robin Hood Stories,” Journal of British Studies 41, no.1 (2002) 6-22.
Haigh, Christopher, “A.G. Dickens and his Reformation”, History Today, 51 , no.11
(2001) 7.
Shagen, Ethan H, Popular Politics and the English Reformation Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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Sowerby, Tracey A, “Richard Pate, the Royal Supremacy and Reformation
Diplomacy” The Historical Journal 54, no.2 (2011) 265-285.