Anticlericalism and
renewal in the latemedieval Church.
Religion and Religious Change in England, c.1470-1558

Duality:
◦ Church was at one an
immensely power and
wealthy institution
◦ And the very body of Christ His spirit resided in believers.
◦ Contradiction – open it up to
charges of hypocrisy and
irreligion.
◦ Problem for all
organised religions:
 preach the rejection of the
world, but have to exist in
it.
◦ Poverty, rejection of the
world and this life in
favour of the next:
 very visibly in tension with
the realities of funding that
lifestyle and the political
power which the Church
inevitably wielded.
 Especially re: monasteries.
The ‘Church’ problem:

Traditional view:
◦ D. Knowles – declining zeal after the Anglo-Saxon period.
 Increased ‘worldliness’ led to a loss of calling, and left the
Orders unpopular and open to criticism at the Reformation.

Revisionists:
◦ B. Harvey, R. Swanson, J. Clark, K. Stober – role changing.
 Orders adapted themselves to the world, and became centres
of innovation.
 Redefined cultural movements outside the monastery’s walls
in light of ideals from within them.
The Religious Orders:

Used to be seen as an obvious ‘cause’ of the Reformation.
◦ Historiography:
 For: A.G. Dickens The English Reformation (2nd ed 1989); ‘The Shape of
Anticlericalism and the English Reformation’ in E Kouri and T Scott eds.
Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (1987) and in Dickens’ riposte to Haigh.
 Against: C. Haigh: ‘Anticlericalism and the English Reformation’, History
(1983).
 See also: R.N. Swanson, ‘Problems of the Priesthood in Pre-Reformation
England’, English Historical Review, (1990).

But what can historians do with criticism?

Perhaps it was actually a sign that the Church was healthy?
◦ Can we cut through it to see if the clergy were fulfilling their role?
Anticlericalism:
Position & Status:



‘Secular’ – parish priests, itinerant priests.
‘Religious’ – those in orders, separate from
the world.
C. 1500 – 30,000 in England:
◦ 1/3 Parish Priests
◦ Rest itinerant Priests, friars, monks.

Parish Priests:

◦ 1 of the 7 sacraments.
◦ Performed by a Bishop.
◦ Status depended upon this – NOT learning.

◦ Visibly distinct from the clergy
 Embodies their role as sacerdotal mediators of
grace.


Celibate:
◦ C11th
◦ Danger of clerical dynasties.
◦ Fundamentally about holiness:
 Purity of handling the sacrament.
 Related to how people understood their bodies.
 Celibacy the ideal.
10% University educated:
◦ Would change at the Reformation.
◦ Read, but not necessarily understand, Latin.
◦ Ex opere.
Outside civil law:
◦ Under the Church’s jurisdiction.

Patron:
◦ Fund a Church, right to appoint.
◦ Gentry, monastery, noble.
◦ Clearly opportunity for corruption,
favouritism and purchase of an office.
◦ But Reformation not end the practice.
Separate:
◦ Dress
◦ Addressed as ‘Sir’.
Ordination:

Not a preacher:
◦ Sermons not prevalent in Church.
◦ 1281 by a degree by Archbishop Pelham.
 Expound the faith 4X per annum.
◦ Role is to perform sacraments and the liturgy.
 Was this changing on the eve of the Reformation?
The Clergy & their roles:
People not power:

Religion as a verb:
◦ Not there to teach their flock, but to pray
from them, to guide them through the
sacraments of the church – the rites which
applied God’s grace to particular human
situations.
Responsible for the spiritual wellbeing
of his flock.
 The community’s memory, and often its
centre-point.
Other clerics: a varied
body.

◦ Masses for the dead.
◦ Significant social role – but withdrawn.

Itinerant priests:
◦ Scrape a living providing extra services.
◦ Sometimes lay work, too – blurred the
boundaries.
◦ Tutors
◦ Private chaplains in wealthy households.

◦ Shared a series of intimate – and
emotional – moments with him.
◦ For all his distance and distinction, part of
the community.
◦ Also its conscience – moral power an
obvious source of conflict.
Chantry priests:

Variation between parishes:
◦ Size and character important for
determining the precise nature of the
priest’s role.

Ran a selection of parishes:

Part of the fabric of social life:
◦ Impropriation.
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Schools
University education.
European-wide scholarship.
Patronage of the arts and music.
Scriptural studies & printed books.
Landlords – farming essential
Devotions – essentially houses of
prayer, logic of purgatory.
◦ Social responsibilities – house
travellers, clean roads, tend borders,
bury royalty.

Thriving or declining? English evidence:
◦ Benedictines building expand C15th
 Increasing finery.
◦ Numbers go up 30% 1400-1500
◦ Evidence from wills in Norwich &
Salisbury shows people donating
generously and frequently.
Monasticism:

Perennial debate about monasticism &
spiritual vitality:
◦ A continual balancing act: vita contemplativa
vs vita activa:
 Endowments, gifts, patronage meant that
moving away from poverty.
 Had to adapt to engagements in the world.
◦ Dependent on how phrased.
◦ No absolute standard.
◦ Younger orders v. different to the older –
debate & criticism.


Largely continued to provide cycle of
canonical prayer, avoided moral depravity.
But:
◦ Resisted Wolsey’s austerity reforms
during the 1520s.
◦ Ease with the world could lead to a loss
of distinctiveness.
◦ Voices of criticism who thought this was
indicative of decline.
◦ Increasingly expected to justify their
position and privilege.

The ‘traditional’ view:

◦ Simply case of ‘cause’ & ‘effect’.

Points of conflict:
◦ Tithes
◦ Worldly Bishops more interested in politics
than piety
◦ Lower clergy too stupid and uneducated to
satisfy the growing desire for personal
involvement in religion which the
Reformation would eventually satiate.

Narrative of tension:
◦ Statues of 1489, 1497, 1512 on benefits of
clergy.
◦ Hume/ Standing affair 1512-15
◦ Wolsey
◦ Reformation parliament ‘anticlerical’
legislation.

◦ Not meeting C21st standards, but
adequate for the role in the C15th.

Anticlericalism:
Bishops active & engaged:
◦ Chichester, Ely, Lincoln, Norwich and
Winchester all engaged in substantial
reform and re-engagement.
◦ Diocesan administration
◦ Improve clerical standards & pastoral
activity.

Church Courts not tyrannous:
◦ Delivered justice speedily, honourably and
cheaply
◦ That used so frequently by the laity
suggests popular.

Complaints about tithes rare:
◦ Diocese of Lichfield: 600 parishes – 10
tithe disputes 1525, 4 in 1530.
Danger of teleology:
◦ Move from the study of Church history
through printed propaganda of reformers
and other anti-clerical critics.
◦ To how actually worked on the ground.
Education:


Haigh: Anticlericalism a localised affair.
But, there WAS criticism of the Church.
‘Yet if any of these were to reflect on the meaning of his linen
vestment, snow-white in colour to indicate a pure and spotless
life; or of his two-horned mitre, both peaks held together by a
single knot, signifying perfect knowledge of both Old and New
Testaments; of his hands, protected by gloves, symbolic of
purity, untainted by any contact with human affairs, for
administering the sacrament; of his crozier, a reminder of his
watchful care of the flock entrusted to his keeping, or the
cross carried before him as a symbol of his victory over all
human persons – if, I say, any of them were reflect on these
and many kindred matters, wouldn’t his life be full of care and
many kindred matters, wouldn’t his life be full of care and
trouble? But as things are, they think they do well when
they’re looking after themselves, and responsibility for their
sheep they either trust to Christ himself or delegate to their
vicars and those they call brethren’.
Erasmus, In Praise of Folly (1509)
 1) What can historians make of criticism?
 2) Was this a reminder of an ideal, rather
than its rejection?
 3) Or, is it evidence that the ideal form of
clergy was changing before the Reformation?
Three questions:



Scribner – anticlericalism as a
language.
Critics actually clerics.
John Colet:
◦ Dean of St. Paul’s.
◦ Convocation of Canterbury in
1510
 Hoped for a large-scale campaign
against clerical irregularity and
indiscipline.
 Rejuventation of the parishes by
humanist educated clerics
 And a way of hunting out Lollard
heretics as a way of safeguarding
the Church.
 Results mixed.
Criticism:

Problem:
 Did such rhetoric legitimise
criticism of the clergy?
 Severe self-criticism is
laudable.
◦ But it also means that it is
hard to defend from attack.
◦ KEY: this rhetorical
traditional/self-examination
may have left the Church
vulnerable to Reform when
it did emerge.
• Speak about medieval religion in terms that not really
help us in understanding it.
 THE Church; Catholicism; Institution
 Sounds more bureaucratic, more homogenous than actually was or
could be.
◦ Rather an amalgam of voices interpreting Christ’s scriptures, doctrines,
rituals and practices in often conflicting ways.
 Blossoming of monasticism; but also those who severely critical of
monasteries hiding away from world.
 Stress communal experience of Christ in the Mass; also those who
experience Him in an intensely personal manner – mystics.
 Upsurge in rituals, pilgrimages, relics and other aspects of devotions;
also those who thought that those aspects of the Church focussed too
much on the material – rather than the contemplative – aspects of
religion.

Point is: not mistake disagreement, discussion and debate as
something fundamentally riddled with dissent.
The Nature of the Church:

Conciliarism:
◦ idea of the balance of power between
bishops and the papacy was not cut and
dry.
◦ Some argued that when all bishops
assembled in a general council of the
Church it had more power than the
Papacy.
 Way of curbing political aspirations
 Ensuring aspects of local tradition against
assertions of papal uniformity.

Attempts at reform sincere, but lacking
in success.
◦ 1511 Council of Pisa
◦ 1512-17 5th Lateran Council
◦ Plenty of soul-searching, and tussling for
power between the French monarchy and
the Papacy
◦ But inconclusive – memory of the schism
in the previous century too neat for Papal
reform to be considered.

Devotio Moderna:
◦ New style of C15th piety – intense,
introspective and an imaginative mode of
reaching out to God.
◦ Series of practical action and organisation
of thoughts and life encapsulated in The
Imitation of Christ (best-seller).
◦ New order: Brethren Of The Common Life.
 Important members: Thomas a Kempis;
Gabriel Biel; Pope Adrian VI.
◦ But origins, C14th Dutch Geert Groote –
never passed beyond Deacon.
 Evidence of a ‘popular’ engagement in
the Church, of pious activism.
 Promised that the laity could aspire to
the high personal standards that
previously only attainable by the clergy.
European renewal:

News orders:

◦ Urge to self-reformation is perennial in a
body of people who commit themselves to
live in austerity.
◦ The temptations and weakness of the flesh
require constant safeguarding.
◦ Hardly a century in Church history where
calls for greater severity do not exist.
◦ Ensure commitment to self-mortification
and examination kept – even more severe
C14th and C15th.

◦ Benedictines.
◦ C14th strict proposal of papal rules for
monastic reform.
◦ Single general chapter supervised their
affairs, imposed regular visits upon their
houses.




Franciscans:
◦ Various branches almost compete
between to be the most severe in inflicting
the agonies of self-examination.
◦ Spain, Cardinal Ximenes bolstered the
Observant Franciscans
◦ 1507 – Minims in Spain and France
◦ 1529 – Capuchins in Italy.
◦ Ireland – Gaelic parts in West.
◦ KEY: vehemently pious men actively
lobbying to found new Orders; and that
there was demand for them.
European renewal:
English orders:

Financial stability
Increased membership from the 1480s
Lively intellectual life – fervour.
Many monks attend university, particularly
Oxford.
Individual reformers:
◦ Bishop Christoph von Utenheim
◦ Humanist scholarship & Devotio Moderna
to promote reform of Church’s liturgy in
Switzerland.
◦ Collaborated with other reforming
Churchmen:
◦ Jacob Wimpfeling (humanist author)
◦ Johannes Geiler von Kayserberg (preacher
from Strasbourg).
◦ New form of sermon/service: prône.
Context: hope for the future & the
Renaissance.
 One of the most important
Humanist scholars.
 European-wide scope:

◦ All of Europe was desperate to claim
him as their property:
◦ Spanish Church may overtures to get
him to Spain
◦ Bishop of Cracow, Pietr Tomicki
◦ Remarkable stream of letters across
the continent exchange ideas and
friendship with many of the period’s
great minds.
◦ Early part of C16th at Oxford, friend
to Thomas More & also many of the
key figures who would begin
England’s Reformation.
Erasmus:

Embodies the contradictions of the
late-medieval Church.

As a young man, inspired by the Devotio
Moderna.
◦ Briefly enters an Augustinian
monastery at Steyn.
◦ Hated it, and became convinced that
it was wasteful:
 Believed that the austerity and
learning of that brand of
introspective piety should be
unleashed in the world rather
than remaining a cloistered ideal.
Applied his learning – particularly
his mastery of languages – to
biblical texts.
 Back to the source:



 Jerome, translated as ‘poenitentiam’ –
‘do penance’.
◦ Basis of medieval Church’s doctrine
of penance:
 Fundamental part of Church as
the mediator of grace, priestly
power in granting absolution.
The New Testament:
◦ Would inspire many Protestants
TO ATTACK JEROME WAS TO ATTACK
THE WESTERN CHURCH, BECAUSE
HIS BIBLE FOUNDATION OF MUCH
OF WHAT THAT CHURCH TOOK FOR
GRANTED.
Key translations with regard to the
Gospels.
◦ John the Baptist cries out in the
wilderness ‘metanoeite’:
Greek – opened up the learning of
the Church Fathers.
– which horrified Erasmus –
largely because his Latin
translations superseded the
traditional Vulgate Bible,
making the sense clearer.



Erasmus – ‘metanoeite’ – ‘repent’.
◦ i.e. come to your sense, repent.
 Insular, individual, not action-based.
 MUCH TURNED ON ONE WORD.
Translation of the New Testament
(1516)

Raises questions about the Cult of the
Virgin Mary:
 Wellspring of devotion to her in period –
pilgrimages, prayers, relics, etc.
 On basis of handful of references to her in
the bible.
◦ Church expand through allegory
 i.e. reading biblical texts indirectly.
 Especially true of Old Testament texts
(before Christ).
 E.g. female personification of Wisdom in
the Book of Sirach; beautiful bride in the
Song of Songs.


◦ Foundation of the Hail Mary
◦ ‘gratiosa’ (‘gracious’) rather than ‘gratia plena’
(‘full of grace’ – that is, full of the merits of
God and therefore a medium).
◦ Problematized Mary as a prop for devotion
and for Good Works, & therefore many of the
Church’s activities in procuring salvation.

Loathed the materiality of the Church’s
rites:
◦ Went on to satirise pilgrimages to English
shrines to Mary at Walsingham and
Canterbury in his Colloquies.
◦ Loathed much of the physicality and tactility
of catholic devotion, seemed to be a religion
of the flesh, not the spirit.
Erasmus loathed this supporting of the
cult of Mary through such flimsy
evidence.
◦ Thought that such allegories referred to Christ
and the Church, not Mary.
Rewrote Angel Gabriel’s greeting to
Mary:

Enchiridion Militis Christiani (‘Dagger
for a Christian Soldier’).
◦ Approach God in a different way.
◦ Knowledge of God to reign in all – pure
knowledge of God would reform the body,
living a contemplative life inspiried by Christ.
◦ Outward ceremony and ritual replaced with
quiet and persistent contemplation on the life
of Christ.
Erasmus

Mary’s ‘Virginity’:
◦ Jerome had based on a reading of
Ezekiel 44:2:
 Shutting of the gate which only the
Lord could enter
◦ Erasmus could not read texts which
supported Mary’s perpetual virginity
as Jerome had done.
 ‘We believe in the perpetual virginity of
Mary, although it is not exclaimed in
the sacred books’.
◦ Some matters of importance had to
be taken ‘ad fontes’ (in faith),
because the Church said that they
were true, not in bible:
◦ Key problem for Ref: did the bible
contain all truth?
◦ Difference between him and Prots –
‘no’, ‘yes’.


Not a prequel.
Embodied the Church’s ambiguities:
◦ For all his criticisms of the Church as an
institution, and its practices, he was
heavily reliant upon it for his livelihood.
◦ Happy to accept patronage from bishops
and those who directly profited from the
practices he debunked
◦ Archbishop of Canterbury, William
Warham, provided pension
◦ Money in question should have sustained
pastoral duties in Aldington, Kent
◦ Town which produced Elizabeth
Barton, the Maid of Kent – ecstatic
visions became source of revenue.
 Even during the reformation
when Warham replaced as
Archbishop of Canterbury by
Thomas Cranmer, Erasmus
concerned that his pension kept
coming.
Erasmus – a prequel to the
Reformation?

Here was a man who was
intensely pious, considered
himself a Catholic, but was
content to criticise the Church
to which he belonged severely:
◦ That he saw Christianity differently
from many people was a sign not
of its fundamental ruptures, but of
its fecundity.
◦ Of its ability to house many
different types of Christian.

And, for all he shared revulsion
at many of the Church’s
practices, loathed Reformers.
◦ Huge debates – especially Luther,
on Free Will and Faith Alone.
Erasmus:

Three key points:
◦ Distinction between the existence of criticism and a nation
simmering with revolutionary discontent.
◦ Standards by which we hold the clergy are often
teleological
 Ritual and sacrament; pastors and pillars of the
community
 Not preachers.
 Church that was trying to renew itself – not moribund and
static; but vibrant and evolving.

But, if not anticlericalism, then what?
Concluding Thoughts: