AKC 2 General – Spring Term 2008 – Power & Protest
21/01/08
AKC 2 – 21 JANUARY 2008
HENRY VIII AND THE ‘ROMAN ANTICHRIST’: THE REJECTION OF THE PAPAL
SUPREMACY
DR DAVID CRANKSHAW, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
Learning Outcomes
• An understanding of the problems involved in characterizing late medieval popular religion
• An understanding of some key evangelical doctrines
• An understanding of the issues involved in the Break with Rome in the 1530s
• An understanding of aspects of the historiography of the Henrician Reformation
Structure of Lecture
1. What Are We Trying to Explain?
2. Was the Late Medieval Penitential System Burdensome?
3. ‘Para-Liturgical Practices’: Sacramentals and Folk Magic
4. A Communal and Sensual Piety: Roger Martyn (of Long Melford in Suffolk) Looks Back
... There was a fair rood loft with the rood [i.e. a huge crucifix]; Mary and John of every side, and with a fair
pair of organs standing thereby; which loft extended all the breadth of the church, and on Good Friday a priest
then standing by the rood sang the Passion. The side thereof towards the body of the church, in twelve partitions
in boards, was fair painted with the images of the twelve apostles. All the roof of the church was beautified with
fair gilt stars. Finally, in the vestry ... there were many rich copes and suits of vestments ...
Upon Palm Sunday the blessed sacrament [of the Eucharist] was carried in procession about the churchyard
under a fair canopy ...
On Corpus Christi day they went likewise with the blessed sacrament in procession about the church green
in copes, and I think also they went in procession on St Mark’s day about the said green, with hand-bells ringing
before them ...
On St James’s eve there was a bonfire, and a tub of ale and bread then given to the poor, and before my door
there was made three other bonfires, viz. on Midsummer eve, on the eve of St Peter and St Paul, when they had
the like drinkings, and on St Thomas’s eve ...
Source:
Extracts from the memoirs of Roger Martyn (c.1527-1615) reprinted in D. Cressy and L.A. Ferrell
(eds.), Religion and Society in Early Modern England: A Sourcebook (London, 1996) pp.12-13
5. Martin Luther (1483-1546)
a) The Indulgence Controversy
b) Justification by Faith Alone
c) Edification: The Word and Preaching
d) The Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist
6. Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531): The Memorialist Interpretation of the Eucharist
7. Early English Agitators: Evangelicals and Others
key names:
Thomas Bilney (?1495-1531)
William Tyndale (d. 1536)
Robert Barnes (1495-1540)
8. England and Rome
9. The English Campaign Against Luther
1517
By 1520
1520
1521
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Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses at Wittenberg, a German town in the Holy Roman Empire
Men broadly sympathetic to religious reform met for debate in the White Horse tavern in Cambridge
Lutheran books were sold in Oxford
Luther was excommunicated, condemned at the Diet of Worms and put under the imperial ban
Lutheran books were burnt in London
Henry VIII’s Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (a confutation of Lutheran doctrine) was published and
presented to Pope Leo X, earning the king the title of ‘Defender of the Faith’
10. Dynasticism and the Annulment Crisis
11. The Break with Rome: A Jurisdictional Revolution
1527
1529
• Proceedings to annul the king’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon began
• Rome was sacked by rampaging imperial troops and the pope was taken prisoner
• Cardinal Wolsey fell from power and was succeeded as Lord Chancellor by Sir Thomas More
AKC 2 General – Spring Term 2008 – Power & Protest
1530
1531
1532
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1533
1534
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21/01/08
The first session of the ‘Reformation Parliament’ began; some anti-clerical legislation was passed
Certain clergy were accused of praemunire (i.e. of recognizing a foreign jurisdiction)
Cardinal Wolsey died in disgrace
Praemunire charges were extended to the whole English clergy
An Act for the Pardon of the Clergy was passed
The clergy were fined and forced to admit a limited measure of Royal Supremacy in the English
Church
Thomas Cromwell joined the king’s council
The Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates (i.e. certain papal taxes) was passed, but was to remain
inoperative for a year
Thomas Cromwell sponsored the revival (from 1529) of the ‘Commons’ Supplication Against the
Ordinaries’, which complained of ecclesiastical oppression
Convocation (the English Church’s law-making body) responded with the ‘Answer of the Ordinaries’
The king gave his support to a determined assault on the Church
Convocation was forbidden to pass any further ecclesiastical laws
The Submission of the Clergy took place, in which the clergy acknowledged the king’s Supreme
Headship in the English Church in spiritual matters
Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor
William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, died
Thomas Cranmer became Archbishop of Canterbury
The king’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon was annulled and he married Anne Boleyn
The Act in Restraint of Appeals was passed (i.e. appeals to Rome were prohibited)
The king activated the earlier Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates (see 1532)
The Princess Elizabeth (i.e. the future Queen Elizabeth I) was born
The Act in Absolute Restraint of Annates was passed, making earlier statutory instruments permanent
The Dispensations Act was passed; dispensations from canon law (i.e. the system of law governing the
Church) would now be obtained from the Archbishop of Canterbury instead of from Rome
The Act for the Submission of the Clergy was passed
The Act of Succession was passed, stating that the Crown was to descend to the issue of the king’s
marriage to Anne Boleyn; it became treason to dispute that succession and subjects were to swear an
oath admitting its validity
The Act of Supremacy was passed, declaring that the king was Supreme Head on earth of the
Church of England
The Treason Act was passed, extending treason to verbal attacks on the king
The Act concerning First Fruits and Tenths was passed; these papal taxes were transferred to the Crown
12. Personalities, Power and Policies
a) G.R. Elton’s Thomas Cromwell and the ‘Tudor
Revolution in Government’
b) J.J. Scarisbrick’s Henry VIII
c) Court faction
d) Debate: Anne Boleyn as a patroness of evangelicals?
e) George Bernard’s Henry VIII and a ‘via media’
13. The ‘Compliance Conundrum’: Revisionism and Post-Revisionism
a) High profile victims (e.g. Sir Thomas More and John
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester)
b) Confrontation: The Pilgrimage of Grace (1536)
c) Change on the ground
d)
e)
f)
g)
Officials (e.g. churchwardens, justices of the peace)
Christopher Haigh’s piecemeal Reformation
Norman Jones on generational turnover
Ethan Shagan on collaborations and accommodations
14. Conclusion: Some Implications
a) Parliamentary statute
b) Vested interests: the nobility and gentry
c) The English Bible
d) Continental exiles (e.g. John Hooper)
e) The education of the future King Edward VI
f) Minority and the succession
Further Reading
D. Rosman, The Evolution of the English Churches, 1500-2000 (2003) Chapter 2
Full details about the AKC course, including copies of the handouts, can be found on the AKC website at:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/akc. Please join in the Discussion Board and leave your comments. If you have any
queries please contact the AKC Course Administrator on ext 2333 or via email at dean@kcl.ac.uk.
Please note the AKC Exam is on Monday 21 April 2008 between 14.30 and 16.30. You must register for
the course, using the form on the website, before registering for the exam. EXAM REGISTRATION opens
on Monday 4 February 2008. Please reply to the email you will receive giving your full name and student ID
number. The deadline for AKC exam registration is Thursday 20 March 2008.
AKC 2 General – Spring Term 2008 – Power & Protest
21/01/08