WEBVTT 00:01.900 --> 00:02.990 Prof: Okay. 00:02.986 --> 00:06.546 Well, last time we looked at the early Tudors reestablishing 00:06.547 --> 00:10.297 the authority of the monarchy, and now we turn towards what 00:10.303 --> 00:13.653 was to prove one of the biggest problems for most of the 00:13.651 --> 00:16.511 sixteenth century: the question of the authority 00:16.511 --> 00:19.981 of the church and of the nature of English religion. 00:19.980 --> 00:24.740 Let's start by taking you to a couple of places. 00:24.740 --> 00:27.960 A few miles north of the city of Cambridge in the Fenlands-- 00:27.960 --> 00:30.840 the flatlands stretching up to--towards-- 00:30.840 --> 00:34.890 the sea, here lies the small city of Ely, 00:34.890 --> 00:39.610 which has one of the greatest of English cathedrals in it. 00:39.610 --> 00:44.690 Ely Cathedral dates back to the twelfth century and when you go 00:44.694 --> 00:49.044 there the main nave of the cathedral is of magnificent 00:49.040 --> 00:53.250 Norman architecture, but rather gloomy. 00:53.250 --> 00:56.180 But at the bottom of the nave there's a little door which 00:56.179 --> 00:58.009 leads through to the Lady Chapel. 00:58.010 --> 01:02.760 And if you go through there you get struck almost immediately by 01:02.758 --> 01:04.188 a dazzling light. 01:04.188 --> 01:07.168 You find yourself in a beautiful chapel, 01:07.165 --> 01:10.825 late medieval chapel, with vast windows glazed in 01:10.829 --> 01:14.569 clear glass with the light streaming through. 01:14.569 --> 01:18.189 On a sunny day it's quite an astonishing contrast. 01:18.188 --> 01:22.288 And it's only when your eyes get used to the light that you 01:22.292 --> 01:26.752 notice that in the stone tracery of the windows there are niches 01:26.748 --> 01:28.798 where once statues stood. 01:28.799 --> 01:31.739 Some of them are still there with the heads broken off or 01:31.736 --> 01:33.516 half the statute is still there. 01:33.519 --> 01:37.879 And here and there in the white glass of the windows you see a 01:37.882 --> 01:42.392 little bit of stained glass that they found and replaced in what 01:42.388 --> 01:46.178 were once windows full of stained-glass pictures. 01:46.180 --> 01:48.000 So that's Ely Cathedral. 01:48.000 --> 01:51.090 And if you go a couple of hundred miles north to North 01:51.089 --> 01:54.059 Yorkshire there's a little church there called Saint 01:54.062 --> 01:55.172 Agatha's Easby. 01:55.170 --> 01:57.720 It lies by the river, not far from the town of 01:57.724 --> 02:00.454 Richmond, which I was talking about last week. 02:00.450 --> 02:04.010 And at Easby there's a tiny twelfth-century church, 02:04.009 --> 02:05.219 Saint Agatha's. 02:05.218 --> 02:11.398 The windows are very small and when you go in it's exceedingly 02:11.401 --> 02:12.011 dim. 02:12.008 --> 02:15.868 But again when your eyes adjust to the light you notice on the 02:15.873 --> 02:19.933 walls faded wall paintings which were probably put there sometime 02:19.929 --> 02:22.209 early in the thirteenth century. 02:22.210 --> 02:23.600 There's Adam and Eve. 02:23.598 --> 02:27.338 There's the nativity, a very nice nativity scene with 02:27.336 --> 02:30.686 a very sweet donkey, and so the story continues 02:30.687 --> 02:33.167 'round the walls to the crucifixion, 02:33.169 --> 02:36.229 the resurrection. 02:36.229 --> 02:42.529 And in the spaces left by the main paintings there are little 02:42.532 --> 02:47.362 portrayals of medieval peasants at work sowing, 02:47.364 --> 02:49.994 plowing and so forth. 02:49.990 --> 02:54.310 And outside by the river are the ruins of Easby Abbey, 02:54.305 --> 02:58.535 which was quite near the Church of Saint Agatha's. 02:58.539 --> 02:59.429 Okay. 02:59.430 --> 03:03.380 Well, we can use those two places to symbolize the way that 03:03.378 --> 03:06.848 the Protestant Reformation has been presented in the 03:06.852 --> 03:09.782 historiography of early modern England. 03:09.780 --> 03:15.930 To some people it was, as it were, a flood of light: 03:15.925 --> 03:19.775 purifying, bracing, invigorating, 03:19.782 --> 03:21.592 liberating. 03:21.590 --> 03:25.350 On the other hand, other historians have greater 03:25.348 --> 03:29.668 sympathy for the religious culture represented by those 03:29.669 --> 03:34.069 faded wall paintings in the church at Easby or the empty 03:34.068 --> 03:38.148 niches in the windows at Ely Cathedral or the ruined 03:38.150 --> 03:42.470 monastery by the river, Easby Abbey. 03:42.470 --> 03:45.940 They have a greater sense of what was lost, 03:45.936 --> 03:50.886 of the destruction of a great deal of beauty in the course of 03:50.888 --> 03:53.528 the zeal of the reformation. 03:53.530 --> 03:56.980 Well, prior to the 1980s one could say in general that it was 03:56.978 --> 04:00.598 the first approach which tended to be the dominant tradition. 04:00.598 --> 04:04.208 The reformation was generally seen as being positive. 04:04.210 --> 04:07.960 As Christopher Marsh puts it, it "had purpose, 04:07.961 --> 04:11.791 direction and also a certain inevitability." 04:11.788 --> 04:15.498 Nowadays the dominant trend is rather in the other direction. 04:15.500 --> 04:19.130 It tends to stress the destruction of the older 04:19.132 --> 04:22.202 religious tradition, a destruction which, 04:22.204 --> 04:25.904 to quote Marsh again, was "regrettable, 04:25.898 --> 04:29.268 undesired and undesirable." 04:29.269 --> 04:32.539 So as a result we now have a much more two-dimensional 04:32.538 --> 04:34.758 historiography of the reformation. 04:34.759 --> 04:36.639 And that's a good thing. 04:36.639 --> 04:41.669 History should involve critical examination rather than mere 04:41.666 --> 04:44.816 celebration or self-congratulation. 04:44.819 --> 04:47.769 But if we have a more two-dimensional picture, 04:47.769 --> 04:51.539 one which includes not only the reformers and the victors but 04:51.538 --> 04:54.428 also those who resisted and those who lost, 04:54.430 --> 04:57.120 it's still not exactly even handed, 04:57.120 --> 04:59.520 and historians inevitably have their preferences. 04:59.519 --> 05:04.499 They tend to lean one way or the other, and this whole story 05:04.504 --> 05:08.904 is one which still engages a good deal of passion. 05:08.899 --> 05:12.559 Well, today I want to start approaching all of that by 05:12.559 --> 05:16.559 considering the nature of the old religion and the state of 05:16.564 --> 05:19.814 the pre-reformation church: its strengths, 05:19.810 --> 05:24.270 its weaknesses, and those who were already 05:24.274 --> 05:28.744 there criticizing some of its features. 05:28.740 --> 05:34.280 And that will help us to begin consideration of how it was 05:34.281 --> 05:39.631 possible in only a few years to bring this great edifice 05:39.629 --> 05:41.379 crashing down. 05:41.379 --> 05:44.459 At the beginning of the sixteenth century, 05:44.458 --> 05:48.808 the church was of course the greatest corporate institution 05:48.812 --> 05:50.242 in the kingdom. 05:50.240 --> 05:55.920 It was the English branch of a great international institution 05:55.920 --> 06:00.760 which gave Western Europe its identity, collectively, 06:00.762 --> 06:03.372 as Catholic Christendom. 06:03.370 --> 06:06.180 The church in England--of course, there wasn't a Church of 06:06.180 --> 06:08.670 England yet-- the church in England was 06:08.666 --> 06:12.716 organized into two provinces with archbishops at Canterbury 06:12.721 --> 06:15.171 and York, and then there were twenty-one 06:15.170 --> 06:17.330 diocese each of them headed by a bishop, 06:17.329 --> 06:22.229 and beneath that archdeaconries and deaneries and so on down to 06:22.226 --> 06:26.326 somewhat more than 9,000 parishes at most local level 06:26.331 --> 06:28.861 each with its parish church. 06:28.860 --> 06:31.950 And in addition scattered around the landscape but 06:31.946 --> 06:35.656 particularly concentrated in parts of the north and the west 06:35.661 --> 06:38.561 were the great monasteries and nunneries, 06:38.560 --> 06:44.460 some 750 of them in all. 06:44.459 --> 06:48.339 The clergy who staffed this institution were a distinct 06:48.341 --> 06:51.361 estate of the realm as you already know. 06:51.360 --> 06:53.610 Attempts have been made to estimate their numbers. 06:53.610 --> 06:58.170 It's been estimated about 60,000 in all, 06:58.170 --> 07:01.480 which would mean that the clergy comprised about four 07:01.476 --> 07:04.526 percent of the entire national population or, 07:04.528 --> 07:08.278 since most of them were men, something like eight percent of 07:08.276 --> 07:13.496 the entire male population; a very large presence. 07:13.500 --> 07:17.230 Members of the clergy enjoyed a privileged position before the 07:17.232 --> 07:17.602 law. 07:17.600 --> 07:19.920 They were dealt with in the church courts in the first 07:19.915 --> 07:22.195 instance, though they could sometimes be 07:22.197 --> 07:25.067 handed over to the secular authorities if they had 07:25.069 --> 07:28.199 committed crimes, and they were supported by a 07:28.201 --> 07:31.191 variety of fees and dues paid to them and, 07:31.189 --> 07:34.719 in particular tithes, by which people gave a tenth of 07:34.718 --> 07:38.788 their income or produce for the maintenance of the church. 07:38.790 --> 07:42.130 And then of course there were the great endowments given to 07:42.132 --> 07:44.612 the church by pious members of the laity. 07:44.610 --> 07:47.890 So it was a great institution, a wealthy institution, 07:47.889 --> 07:51.399 the owner of a great deal of land and property, 07:51.399 --> 07:55.729 but also a collection of more than 9,000 small Christian 07:55.725 --> 08:00.285 communities periodically united in their parish churches in 08:00.286 --> 08:03.266 worship, in the practice of their 08:03.271 --> 08:04.091 religion. 08:04.088 --> 08:08.628 And in considering the old religion and its nature we 08:08.634 --> 08:13.974 should perhaps start there with the fundamentals of the nature 08:13.966 --> 08:17.546 and characteristics of the old faith. 08:17.550 --> 08:22.670 Well, the central doctrines can be covered briefly. 08:22.670 --> 08:26.670 They were as follows: Christ's sacrifice on the cross 08:26.670 --> 08:31.670 had made salvation available to sinful humankind through grace; 08:31.670 --> 08:33.990 divine favor. 08:33.990 --> 08:37.020 Access to grace, the means of salvation, 08:37.024 --> 08:41.074 was made available through the church and through its 08:41.072 --> 08:42.242 sacraments. 08:42.240 --> 08:45.170 Membership of the church was gained through the sacrament of 08:45.173 --> 08:47.663 baptism, usually in infancy of course, 08:47.659 --> 08:51.409 and it was demonstrated by continued participation in the 08:51.405 --> 08:54.335 sacraments, especially the mass when 08:54.342 --> 08:59.422 elements of bread and wine were consecrated and transformed into 08:59.418 --> 09:03.448 the body and blood of Christ through the miracle of 09:03.446 --> 09:05.376 transubstantiation. 09:05.379 --> 09:08.409 The Christian life involved obedience to the Ten 09:08.408 --> 09:11.438 Commandments, avoidance of the seven deadly 09:11.437 --> 09:13.527 sins, participation in the 09:13.528 --> 09:17.388 sacraments, the doing of good works and prayer. 09:17.389 --> 09:23.569 Given that all mankind was sinful, believers were enjoined 09:23.565 --> 09:28.225 to repent of their sins, to confess them, 09:28.227 --> 09:34.527 to perform penance for them and in return they were granted 09:34.528 --> 09:37.568 absolution by the priest. 09:37.570 --> 09:41.670 The church as a whole was conceived of as a community of 09:41.673 --> 09:44.563 saints, and so it was possible to pray 09:44.562 --> 09:48.812 for the souls of others, in addition to which the saints 09:48.807 --> 09:53.577 already in heaven were believed to intercede with God on behalf 09:53.581 --> 09:58.531 of living believers, so petitionary prayers could be 09:58.529 --> 10:00.629 addressed to saints. 10:00.629 --> 10:05.789 And finally the expiation of sins committed in life could 10:05.791 --> 10:11.601 continue after death when souls lingered in purgatory until they 10:11.597 --> 10:15.927 were purged of sin and made fit for heaven. 10:15.928 --> 10:20.928 The living could ease the passage of the dead through 10:20.929 --> 10:23.719 purgatory by their prayers. 10:23.720 --> 10:27.420 Only those who failed to achieve salvation by their 10:27.424 --> 10:32.094 rejection of the means of grace would probably ultimately suffer 10:32.094 --> 10:34.174 eternal torment in hell. 10:34.169 --> 10:35.349 Okay. 10:35.350 --> 10:38.030 Those are the basic beliefs. 10:38.029 --> 10:42.009 In its transmission of these central beliefs and in its 10:42.011 --> 10:46.071 practices of worship the pre-reformation church fostered 10:46.067 --> 10:49.897 what's been described as a ritually and visually rich 10:49.903 --> 10:51.013 religion. 10:51.009 --> 10:53.839 In a society in which the vast majority of people were 10:53.841 --> 10:55.991 illiterate, the decorations of the 10:55.988 --> 10:59.548 church--the paintings on the wall like those in Easby, 10:59.548 --> 11:04.538 the images, the carved images around the walls or the altars, 11:04.538 --> 11:07.158 the stained-glass windows with their pictures-- 11:07.158 --> 11:10.618 all of these were to a large extent the books of the 11:10.615 --> 11:11.425 unlearned. 11:11.428 --> 11:16.578 And often they conveyed the essence of central Bible 11:16.578 --> 11:19.448 stories, like the progression from the 11:19.451 --> 11:22.851 Garden of Eden through to the crucifixion and so forth at 11:22.851 --> 11:25.411 Easby, and they conveyed sometimes the 11:25.413 --> 11:29.073 central doctrines of the faith in visual representations. 11:29.070 --> 11:32.470 An outstanding example of this is the fifteenth-century 11:32.471 --> 11:36.061 stained-glass window which survives still in a church near 11:36.062 --> 11:38.522 Exeter in the West Country called-- 11:38.519 --> 11:40.839 at a place called Doddingscombeleigh. 11:40.840 --> 11:44.390 They have interesting place names in the West Country. 11:44.389 --> 11:47.759 I haven't written it on the board because the word's too 11:47.764 --> 11:51.634 long, but you'll find it on your handout, Doddingscombeleigh. 11:51.629 --> 11:57.139 In the great window there they have portrayals of--in seven 11:57.139 --> 12:01.129 panels--of each of the seven sacraments. 12:01.129 --> 12:05.119 Each of those panels is also linked by a red line in the 12:05.120 --> 12:08.460 glass to the wounds of Christ on the cross, 12:08.460 --> 12:12.380 and the message is quite clear: Christ's sacrifice, 12:12.379 --> 12:16.419 the flow of grace along the red lines through the sacraments, 12:16.418 --> 12:24.208 which the window represents the congregation participating in. 12:24.210 --> 12:28.920 Or again most churches had an elaborately carved 'rood screen' 12:28.918 --> 12:32.468 which stood at the entrance to the chancel, 12:32.470 --> 12:36.400 where the altar was, with wooden statues above it-- 12:36.399 --> 12:42.719 again a crucifix and various central saints all there for 12:42.720 --> 12:48.250 observation and veneration by the congregation. 12:48.250 --> 12:51.740 Well, numerous other images and pictures would adorn the side 12:51.739 --> 12:55.879 chapels of the churches, there would be altars dedicated 12:55.876 --> 12:58.856 to particular saints and so forth, 12:58.860 --> 13:03.320 and indeed this devotion to the saints was a particularly marked 13:03.318 --> 13:06.928 characteristic of late medieval popular religion. 13:06.928 --> 13:11.738 Images and shrines and relics of the saints were much 13:11.744 --> 13:14.434 venerated and much visited. 13:14.428 --> 13:18.048 There were some very great centers of pilgrimage. 13:18.048 --> 13:21.278 In Canterbury Cathedral was the shrine of Saint Thomas � 13:21.284 --> 13:23.674 Becket, a twelfth-century English saint. 13:23.668 --> 13:27.908 At Walsingham was a shrine dedicated to the Virgin. 13:27.908 --> 13:30.538 At Durham was the shrine of Saint Cuthbert, 13:30.538 --> 13:33.358 the great Saxon saint of the north of England, 13:33.356 --> 13:34.856 and so one could go. 13:34.860 --> 13:36.710 These were the great shrines. 13:36.710 --> 13:40.860 But there were also many lesser localized places which were 13:40.860 --> 13:44.440 visited by pilgrims from the area 'round about, 13:44.440 --> 13:48.650 and they would make donations to beautify the images at the 13:48.645 --> 13:52.485 altars of the saints and to maintain their shrines. 13:52.490 --> 13:55.750 For example, down near Exeter again there 13:55.749 --> 14:00.719 was a local saint called Saint Sidwell, S-i-d-w-e-double l. 14:00.720 --> 14:05.610 She was a Celtic martyr from the early days of the church in 14:05.610 --> 14:06.440 Britain. 14:06.440 --> 14:11.360 And records survive of the gifts that people made to Saint 14:11.355 --> 14:13.075 Sidwell in Exeter. 14:13.080 --> 14:18.420 One person gave her wedding ring to Saint Sidwell. 14:18.418 --> 14:22.638 Girdles were given to adorn the statue. 14:22.639 --> 14:26.289 Rosary beads of fine quality were given to be hung about the 14:26.291 --> 14:26.911 statute. 14:26.908 --> 14:30.368 There was money given for renewing the gilding on Saint 14:30.370 --> 14:31.590 Sidwell's statue. 14:31.590 --> 14:37.550 One person even gave money to buy her a new pair of velvet 14:37.548 --> 14:38.698 slippers. 14:38.700 --> 14:43.460 And in return people of course made petitionary prayers to the 14:43.456 --> 14:44.076 saint. 14:44.080 --> 14:48.290 You could borrow the girdles to lay across a woman in 14:48.287 --> 14:52.087 childbirth, which was thought to protect her. 14:52.090 --> 14:56.130 Well, obviously this was a system which could offer a great 14:56.125 --> 14:59.255 deal of comfort, but at the same time it could 14:59.255 --> 15:01.895 be open to the risk of corruption. 15:01.899 --> 15:06.219 It could obscure people's focus upon the central doctrines of 15:06.215 --> 15:10.095 the faith and substitute devotion to particular saints' 15:10.097 --> 15:13.447 cults, and at times expectations of an 15:13.446 --> 15:18.146 almost mechanical manipulation of the powers of particular 15:18.145 --> 15:22.925 saints in response to acts of veneration and donations. 15:22.928 --> 15:25.658 Erasmus of Rotterdam, the great humanist scholar of 15:25.658 --> 15:28.828 the early sixteenth century who taught at the University of 15:28.826 --> 15:32.966 Cambridge for a while, was deeply critical of all this. 15:32.970 --> 15:36.250 He wanted a simpler, more Bible-centered faith, 15:36.250 --> 15:40.740 and he joked in one of his essays about how there were 15:40.741 --> 15:45.551 enough pieces of the true cross, or alleged pieces of the true 15:45.551 --> 15:47.781 cross, in churches in Europe that if 15:47.779 --> 15:50.979 you got them all together you could build Noah's ark. 15:50.980 --> 15:55.070 So Erasmus was prepared to scoff at all of this, 15:55.066 --> 15:56.976 and he wasn't alone. 15:56.980 --> 16:01.270 There was undoubtedly an accretion of superstitious 16:01.265 --> 16:06.065 practices around these forms of devotion which scrupulous 16:06.067 --> 16:10.437 churchmen like Erasmus found very hard to take. 16:10.440 --> 16:13.350 And some of the saints who were venerated were of rather dubious 16:13.349 --> 16:13.949 provenance. 16:13.950 --> 16:18.880 All over the country there were holy wells and holy trees where 16:18.876 --> 16:23.486 people would hang gifts and offerings and make requests for 16:23.486 --> 16:24.676 assistance. 16:24.678 --> 16:29.278 Many of these were of very dubious origins and probably had 16:29.282 --> 16:33.732 originated as Celtic water spirits and tree spirits which 16:33.725 --> 16:38.245 had been gradually incorporated into the local practice of 16:38.248 --> 16:41.738 Christianity in the early Middle Ages. 16:41.740 --> 16:44.280 And then of course there was the whole business of the 16:44.278 --> 16:44.708 relics. 16:44.710 --> 16:46.020 The Abbey of Bury St. 16:46.017 --> 16:49.377 Edmunds, which lies about halfway between Cambridge and 16:49.379 --> 16:51.559 Norwich, had quite a collection. 16:51.558 --> 16:55.918 They had the clippings from Saint Edmund's nails. 16:55.918 --> 17:00.428 They had the coals with which Saint Lawrence had been toasted 17:00.432 --> 17:01.262 to death. 17:01.259 --> 17:05.209 They had Sir Thomas--Saint Thomas--of Canterbury's penknife 17:05.210 --> 17:08.550 and one of his boots, all of which were objects of 17:08.548 --> 17:09.568 veneration. 17:09.568 --> 17:14.128 Well, a lot of this was clearly very far from being impeccably 17:14.132 --> 17:15.032 Christian. 17:15.028 --> 17:18.998 It was the product of the medieval church's toleration of 17:19.002 --> 17:21.702 what people refer to as syncretism, 17:21.700 --> 17:25.610 the blending together of different religious traditions, 17:25.608 --> 17:30.918 the Christianizing of some older traditions like those holy 17:30.920 --> 17:34.400 wells and sacred trees and so forth. 17:34.400 --> 17:39.090 And at times it could undoubtedly be hard to draw the 17:39.094 --> 17:44.514 line between where Christian devotion to the saints ended and 17:44.509 --> 17:47.579 superstitious practices began. 17:47.579 --> 17:48.239 Okay. 17:48.240 --> 17:52.080 Well, the old historiography tended to lay a lot of emphasis 17:52.082 --> 17:56.402 on that kind of thing, stressing the corruption and 17:56.403 --> 18:02.273 degeneracy of the old church and the compromised nature of its 18:02.269 --> 18:03.809 spirituality. 18:03.808 --> 18:06.738 But more recently in the work of historians like 18:06.739 --> 18:10.479 J.J. Scarisbrick and Eamon Duffy and Christopher Haigh, 18:10.480 --> 18:13.450 all of whom are on our reading lists, 18:13.450 --> 18:18.410 there's been a tendency to point out instead the soundness 18:18.405 --> 18:23.275 of some of the core elements of worship and to argue that 18:23.275 --> 18:28.055 whatever its faults the pre-reformation religious system 18:28.057 --> 18:32.837 was in fact hugely successful and hugely popular. 18:32.838 --> 18:37.848 Far from being a sort of rotten tree ready to fall before the 18:37.852 --> 18:42.642 first blast of reforming wind, Christopher Haigh argues that 18:42.640 --> 18:45.300 late medieval Catholic Christianity, 18:45.298 --> 18:48.938 to quote him, "was not only secure in 18:48.941 --> 18:54.361 early Tudor England but also luxuriant and energetic." 18:54.358 --> 18:58.338 And the strongest arguments in favor of such views derives from 18:58.343 --> 19:02.013 the evidence of "energetic commitment to conventional 19:02.005 --> 19:04.635 devotions" at the lowest level, 19:04.640 --> 19:07.210 at the level of the parish. 19:07.210 --> 19:10.810 There are three major sources of such evidence which people 19:10.814 --> 19:11.564 draw upon. 19:11.558 --> 19:14.938 First of all, there are people's wills. 19:14.940 --> 19:20.470 Most of them from the early sixteenth century leave some 19:20.474 --> 19:22.694 bequest to religion. 19:22.690 --> 19:25.350 The request--the bequest--of money for services, 19:25.349 --> 19:28.179 for the beautification of churches and so forth. 19:28.180 --> 19:31.630 One of the most spectacular examples is a man I've mentioned 19:31.625 --> 19:34.875 before, the extremely wealthy Robert 19:34.877 --> 19:40.307 Jannys of the city of Norwich who left when he died in the 19:40.309 --> 19:46.409 1520s the greater part of his fortune for religious purposes. 19:46.410 --> 19:49.880 He left 1,400 pounds in all, which I was trying to translate 19:49.875 --> 19:51.045 into modern money. 19:51.048 --> 19:55.618 It's difficult to do that but five or six million dollars 19:55.615 --> 20:00.505 perhaps, left to religious purposes, in modern equivalent. 20:00.509 --> 20:03.949 And there was a particular focus in such pious bequests 20:03.949 --> 20:07.579 upon the endowing of prayers and masses for dead souls. 20:07.578 --> 20:11.908 Robert Jannys for example of his 1,400 pounds laid down that 20:11.911 --> 20:16.101 800 of it was to be spent on paying priests to say prayers 20:16.095 --> 20:19.835 for his soul and for all other Christian souls. 20:19.838 --> 20:24.748 And in addition he provided 400 pounds for masses which should 20:24.750 --> 20:29.100 be said for the same--dedicated to the same purpose. 20:29.098 --> 20:33.048 So pious bequests is one form of evidence of this enthusiasm 20:33.053 --> 20:34.263 and involvement. 20:34.259 --> 20:36.609 Secondly, there are churchwardens' accounts, 20:36.608 --> 20:39.388 the account books of parish churches which sometimes 20:39.390 --> 20:42.170 survive, and they reveal the substantial 20:42.173 --> 20:45.763 sums of money which people raised and spent on their 20:45.763 --> 20:48.243 churches, on the fabric of the church and 20:48.241 --> 20:50.901 its rebuilding, and beautification, 20:50.902 --> 20:53.182 and on its furnishings. 20:53.180 --> 20:57.680 They spent far more on such purposes than they ever paid in 20:57.681 --> 21:02.261 taxes or than they paid to their manorial lords in rents. 21:02.259 --> 21:06.319 Thirdly, there's the evidence of the activity of religious 21:06.318 --> 21:06.958 guilds. 21:06.960 --> 21:11.740 All over the country there were numerous fraternities or guilds 21:11.741 --> 21:16.451 formed for religious purposes where people would band together 21:16.446 --> 21:21.306 to maintain an altar and to pray for the souls of members of the 21:21.307 --> 21:24.707 guild, both the living and those who 21:24.714 --> 21:25.964 had passed on. 21:25.960 --> 21:29.340 They also often had charitable functions, poor relief, 21:29.342 --> 21:31.132 and educational functions. 21:31.130 --> 21:34.090 And there were very, very many of these voluntary 21:34.086 --> 21:36.916 fraternities and guilds which people joined. 21:36.920 --> 21:40.200 In the city of London alone there were eighty-one religious 21:40.202 --> 21:43.432 fraternities operating in the early years of the sixteenth 21:43.430 --> 21:44.110 century. 21:44.108 --> 21:48.998 In Norwich in 1500 there were twenty-one and even much smaller 21:49.003 --> 21:51.013 places could have them. 21:51.009 --> 21:52.899 The tiny parish of Morebath in Devon, 21:52.900 --> 21:57.010 which is to the north of Exeter, was a place where they 21:57.010 --> 22:00.850 had several guilds which would-- which were run by different 22:00.845 --> 22:02.225 groups within the population. 22:02.230 --> 22:04.850 There was a women's guild; there was a young people's 22:04.848 --> 22:05.268 guild. 22:05.269 --> 22:09.129 The peasants of the area dedicated some of their sheep to 22:09.134 --> 22:13.164 the maintenance of their guilds, and the members took turns to 22:13.159 --> 22:16.599 look after those sheep and the profits went for the maintenance 22:16.599 --> 22:18.209 of the guilds' activities. 22:18.210 --> 22:21.980 Well, clearly there's a lot of evidence of such activity, 22:21.980 --> 22:26.470 and such investment in traditional religion was clearly 22:26.471 --> 22:30.301 prodigious and participation was widespread. 22:30.299 --> 22:34.689 You can't gainsay that; the evidence is clear. 22:34.690 --> 22:39.180 It supports such views as that of the historian Richard Rex who 22:39.181 --> 22:43.531 argues that "it's possible that the ideal of a Christian 22:43.527 --> 22:46.707 community united in belief and worship," 22:46.714 --> 22:50.124 an ideal which was to be pursued so zealously by 22:50.118 --> 22:55.848 Protestants and Catholics alike, "was never so closely 22:55.848 --> 23:00.518 approximated" to as in the late medieval 23:00.518 --> 23:01.578 parish. 23:01.578 --> 23:04.828 It's certainly possible to read the evidence that way. 23:04.828 --> 23:06.718 And at present, as I've said, 23:06.721 --> 23:10.171 that's the dominant trend in the historiography, 23:10.170 --> 23:14.550 but at the same time one has to recognize that it's not without 23:14.548 --> 23:15.888 some ambiguities. 23:15.890 --> 23:20.680 One can't be sure quite how well attended parish churches 23:20.681 --> 23:22.051 actually were. 23:22.048 --> 23:26.858 One can't be quite sure just how extensive participation in 23:26.857 --> 23:30.997 parish guilds was-- in some places it seems to have 23:31.000 --> 23:35.110 been quite widespread though some guilds were somewhat 23:35.105 --> 23:36.805 socially exclusive. 23:36.808 --> 23:41.628 And above all it's been said that a vast amount of the money 23:41.630 --> 23:46.690 which was invested in the late medieval church was invested for 23:46.694 --> 23:51.194 the specific purpose of easing the passage of one's soul 23:51.189 --> 23:53.149 through purgatory. 23:53.150 --> 23:56.650 That was fundamental to a great deal of it, as in the case of 23:56.646 --> 23:57.576 Robert Jannys. 23:57.578 --> 24:03.288 And arguably that preoccupation with easing the passage of souls 24:03.291 --> 24:08.731 through purgatory was motivated more by fear than by anything 24:08.732 --> 24:09.552 else. 24:09.548 --> 24:14.498 In a sense, purgatory could have been a somewhat oppressive 24:14.503 --> 24:17.773 doctrine, raising anxiety particularly 24:17.771 --> 24:22.101 amongst those who couldn't afford to pay for masses for 24:22.097 --> 24:23.297 their souls. 24:23.298 --> 24:26.518 In other words, the fact of heavy investment in 24:26.522 --> 24:30.802 traditional religion cannot be denied, but its meaning is open 24:30.798 --> 24:32.338 to interpretation. 24:32.338 --> 24:37.628 Like so much historical evidence you can read it more 24:37.631 --> 24:39.261 ways than one. 24:39.259 --> 24:44.019 Well, you can say the same sort of thing about the evidence 24:44.023 --> 24:48.463 relating to relationships between members of the clergy 24:48.461 --> 24:49.941 and the laity. 24:49.940 --> 24:53.370 Certainly, there was sometimes quite acute conflict, 24:53.365 --> 24:56.115 especially over such matters as tithes. 24:56.118 --> 24:59.498 People sometimes resented the payment of tithes and resisted 24:59.496 --> 25:01.776 it, or similarly other dues which 25:01.781 --> 25:06.101 might be demanded by the clergy, mortuary payments when people 25:06.096 --> 25:07.426 died and so forth. 25:07.430 --> 25:11.310 And then there was the perennial problem of instances 25:11.306 --> 25:14.786 of clerical misbehavior, especially the sexual 25:14.788 --> 25:18.538 misconduct of a clergy was-- which was--theoretically 25:18.535 --> 25:19.245 celibate. 25:19.250 --> 25:23.560 That was the butt of a great deal of ribald comment 25:23.556 --> 25:26.826 throughout the late medieval period. 25:26.828 --> 25:30.438 Sometimes the jurisdiction of the church courts, 25:30.440 --> 25:34.670 which had jurisdiction over such matters as marriage and the 25:34.674 --> 25:38.844 probate of wills and other things which were of a spiritual 25:38.837 --> 25:41.517 nature, this was sometimes resented 25:41.515 --> 25:45.895 particularly by their rivals, the common lawyers in the 25:45.897 --> 25:47.367 secular courts. 25:47.368 --> 25:52.708 Or again the pomp and the pride of some of the great clergy 25:52.712 --> 25:58.152 could occasion a certain amount of cynicism and contempt. 25:58.150 --> 26:01.830 An outstanding example of a great clergyman who attracted 26:01.830 --> 26:05.710 that kind of opprobrium was Henry VIII's chief minister, 26:05.710 --> 26:08.860 Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal Wolsey, 26:08.856 --> 26:14.936 who to all intents and purposes ran the government on Henry 26:14.942 --> 26:19.142 VIII's behalf between 1514 and 1529. 26:19.140 --> 26:22.430 Wolsey was proud; he was arrogant; 26:22.430 --> 26:26.060 he was extremely able but he was arrogant; 26:26.059 --> 26:27.499 he held multiple livings. 26:27.500 --> 26:29.700 He was Archbishop of York; he was Bishop of Durham; 26:29.700 --> 26:32.920 he held other church livings, places he never visited, 26:32.916 --> 26:34.856 and drew the income from them. 26:34.858 --> 26:38.458 He engaged in a great deal of conspicuous consumption, 26:38.462 --> 26:42.072 building his own palaces most of which were eventually 26:42.066 --> 26:43.966 confiscated by the king. 26:43.970 --> 26:48.310 He had a mistress and children and so on and so forth. 26:48.308 --> 26:55.208 It's been argued that if few people envisaged an alternative 26:55.209 --> 27:01.759 religion before 1520 there was nonetheless a good deal of 27:01.759 --> 27:08.309 anticlericalism which could be drawn upon when action was 27:08.307 --> 27:13.217 eventually taken against the church. 27:13.220 --> 27:17.860 That view in--clearly has some strength, and yet again one has 27:17.855 --> 27:21.195 to consider whether it might be overdrawn. 27:21.200 --> 27:25.000 It's true that the parish clergy were often not very well 27:24.996 --> 27:28.176 educated, that some of them had moral 27:28.175 --> 27:31.275 failings, that some of them came into 27:31.277 --> 27:33.967 conflict with their parishioners. 27:33.970 --> 27:36.920 But on the other hand the crucial issue was whether they 27:36.917 --> 27:39.967 were adequate to perform the religious services which were 27:39.973 --> 27:41.103 expected of them. 27:41.098 --> 27:45.108 Their principal duties were not as educators; 27:45.108 --> 27:47.428 their principal duties were as priests. 27:47.430 --> 27:49.120 Their principal duties were sacerdotal. 27:49.118 --> 27:53.918 They had to perform the rituals, the sacraments, 27:53.916 --> 27:55.036 the mass. 27:55.038 --> 27:59.548 If they had their faults, they also had the sacred power 27:59.554 --> 28:04.484 by virtue of their ordination to perform those sacraments. 28:04.480 --> 28:07.460 They had the power to consecrate the elements in the 28:07.460 --> 28:07.870 mass. 28:07.868 --> 28:11.308 They had the power to administer the last rites to the 28:11.309 --> 28:11.829 dying. 28:11.828 --> 28:17.298 They had the power to absolve sin and that above all set them 28:17.298 --> 28:22.768 apart, and it could make them objects of reverence or even of 28:22.766 --> 28:23.856 anxiety. 28:23.858 --> 28:28.928 In a sense then human weaknesses could be cloaked by 28:28.933 --> 28:31.723 the majesty of the office. 28:31.720 --> 28:35.180 As for the higher clergy, by the early sixteenth century 28:35.182 --> 28:38.142 men like Thomas Wolsey were really spectacularly 28:38.142 --> 28:39.152 exceptional. 28:39.150 --> 28:43.690 Most bishops on the whole were quite an impressive group. 28:43.690 --> 28:46.780 If a lot of them were primarily administrators in their 28:46.784 --> 28:49.604 functions, and servants of the state very 28:49.596 --> 28:54.336 often as well as of the church, they were often conscientious 28:54.340 --> 28:57.240 enough in running their dioceses. 28:57.240 --> 29:01.810 So given the powers and the privileges of the clerical 29:01.805 --> 29:06.965 estate it was inevitable that abuses could provoke resentment 29:06.972 --> 29:11.622 and indeed conflict and there were occasional notorious 29:11.624 --> 29:15.764 scandals which appear particularly significant in 29:15.759 --> 29:17.309 hindsight. 29:17.308 --> 29:21.068 Nevertheless, if such incidents reveal 29:21.069 --> 29:27.269 tensions they don't necessarily reveal a fundamental hostility 29:27.269 --> 29:30.319 to the established church. 29:30.318 --> 29:36.378 But there was real criticism which went beyond mere 29:36.381 --> 29:43.051 occasional resentment and it came from three sources. 29:43.048 --> 29:47.258 First of all, there was criticism that came 29:47.259 --> 29:51.469 from reformers within the church itself. 29:51.470 --> 29:54.700 John Colet, whose name is on your handout, 29:54.700 --> 29:59.200 the Dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, 29:59.200 --> 30:03.220 was a man who was deeply troubled by the failings of the 30:03.221 --> 30:03.881 church. 30:03.880 --> 30:07.200 He--in a famous sermon which he preached to Convocation, 30:07.200 --> 30:09.090 which was the gathering of the leading clergy, 30:09.088 --> 30:11.258 the parliament of the church if you like-- 30:11.259 --> 30:16.729 in a sermon to Convocation in 1511 he castigated the pride and 30:16.733 --> 30:21.943 the worldliness which was to be found among some clergy. 30:21.940 --> 30:25.890 And Colet could be said to be representative of the long 30:25.891 --> 30:29.341 reformist tradition within the church itself, 30:29.338 --> 30:33.588 whereby strict moralists demanded from time to time that 30:33.585 --> 30:37.745 the clergy should live up to the standards of their own 30:37.753 --> 30:42.083 profession in a manner which would deserve the privileges 30:42.077 --> 30:43.927 that they enjoyed. 30:43.930 --> 30:45.170 And Colet wasn't alone. 30:45.170 --> 30:50.220 His close friend, the pious layman Thomas More, 30:50.220 --> 30:53.580 a learned and devout man, sympathized greatly with 30:53.575 --> 30:57.745 Colet's desire for the reform of clerical standards and so did 30:57.752 --> 31:00.152 others among the senior clergy. 31:00.150 --> 31:03.090 Bishop John Fisher of Rochester, which is down in 31:03.088 --> 31:04.828 Kent, or Bishop Tunstall, 31:04.826 --> 31:07.286 first of London, then of Durham, 31:07.292 --> 31:12.082 were other bishops who had reforming agendas of this kind 31:12.083 --> 31:13.883 within the church. 31:13.880 --> 31:16.880 Well, most of these were elite critics. 31:16.880 --> 31:21.330 They, one could say, enjoyed the luxury of knowing 31:21.330 --> 31:24.630 better, but they weren't willing to 31:24.625 --> 31:30.015 challenge the ultimate authority of the church itself nor were 31:30.015 --> 31:35.045 they really willing to damage the practice of piety of the 31:35.050 --> 31:36.730 common people. 31:36.730 --> 31:40.340 They were very anxious not to break the unity of Christendom 31:40.336 --> 31:43.146 though they wanted the church to reform itself, 31:43.150 --> 31:45.290 and all of them died Catholics. 31:45.288 --> 31:49.318 Indeed, Thomas More and John Fisher both died as martyrs for 31:49.319 --> 31:52.329 the old faith, executed in the early years of 31:52.327 --> 31:54.647 the reformation by Henry VIII. 31:54.650 --> 31:58.550 They died in defense of the papal authority over the English 31:58.554 --> 31:59.154 church. 31:59.150 --> 32:03.790 So there were some critics within the church. 32:03.788 --> 32:07.668 At the other end of the scale there were a set of very 32:07.673 --> 32:11.923 trenchant plebeian critics of both church authority and the 32:11.923 --> 32:15.883 conventional nature of late medieval Catholicism, 32:15.880 --> 32:20.920 and these were the heretics known in England as the 32:20.920 --> 32:22.030 Lollards. 32:22.028 --> 32:26.788 Lollards were the followers of a fourteenth-century Oxford 32:26.786 --> 32:31.376 theologian, John Wycliffe, who had been very critical of 32:31.375 --> 32:33.625 the church of his time. 32:33.630 --> 32:39.280 Wycliffe had died in 1384 but his ideas survived him. 32:39.279 --> 32:44.469 The Lollards were an underground heretical sect and 32:44.468 --> 32:50.278 they had survived for over a century despite intermittent 32:50.279 --> 32:51.939 persecution. 32:51.940 --> 32:56.540 They were deeply hostile to the privileges enjoyed by the 32:56.539 --> 32:57.279 church. 32:57.279 --> 33:01.119 Many of them saw both the pope and the church hierarchy as 33:01.115 --> 33:05.015 being a kind of collective representation of Antichrist. 33:05.019 --> 33:08.619 They were deeply hostile to veneration of the saints, 33:08.622 --> 33:12.782 the reverence shown to saints and to relics of the saints. 33:12.778 --> 33:18.448 They regarded it as fraudulent and idolatrous. 33:18.450 --> 33:22.360 They were skeptical of the doctrine of transubstantiation 33:22.355 --> 33:25.235 in the mass which-- they tended to see the 33:25.238 --> 33:28.588 communion service more as a service of remembrance. 33:28.588 --> 33:32.228 They regarded the doctrine of purgatory as a false doctrine 33:32.230 --> 33:35.370 which had been late introduced into the church, 33:35.368 --> 33:39.408 and they saw the saying of masses for souls as simply a 33:39.413 --> 33:43.313 mercenary racket to put money into the pockets of the 33:43.306 --> 33:44.426 priesthood. 33:44.430 --> 33:49.280 And above all they relied upon the authority of the Bible. 33:49.279 --> 33:54.079 From the 1380s onwards, Lollards had translated the New 33:54.083 --> 33:58.983 Testament into English and copies of their New Testament 33:58.976 --> 34:03.506 translation were secretly circulated amongst Lollard 34:03.512 --> 34:04.672 groups. 34:04.670 --> 34:06.010 Some of them are extremely beautiful. 34:06.009 --> 34:11.189 One tends to imagine these as being rather primitive products 34:11.190 --> 34:14.790 produced in secret, but some of them survive and 34:14.791 --> 34:17.831 they could be in fact very beautifully produced, 34:17.829 --> 34:21.319 even illuminated. 34:21.320 --> 34:24.450 So these were the Lollards, and all of these features of 34:24.454 --> 34:27.594 their beliefs and attitudes tend to make them sound like 34:27.588 --> 34:31.938 proto-Protestants, and so in a sense they were. 34:31.940 --> 34:35.520 Wycliffe undoubtedly influenced the great Bohemian reformer of 34:35.521 --> 34:38.521 the fifteenth century, Jan Hus of Prague, 34:38.518 --> 34:43.278 and Jan Hus' teachings deeply influenced Martin Luther so 34:43.275 --> 34:47.095 there is a connection which can be traced. 34:47.099 --> 34:51.579 Both Catholics and Protestants were later to see the Lollards 34:51.581 --> 34:55.541 as being forerunners of the reformation in England. 34:55.539 --> 35:02.209 That's a view you find already current by the 1540s and 1550s. 35:02.210 --> 35:08.430 But more recently their role has been somewhat questioned, 35:08.434 --> 35:14.554 or at least their potential for bringing about change. 35:14.550 --> 35:18.940 The point usually made is that certainly the Lollards were 35:18.936 --> 35:22.166 present but they were not very numerous. 35:22.170 --> 35:23.920 Well, that's true. 35:23.920 --> 35:26.010 Nevertheless, there were some areas of 35:26.014 --> 35:26.924 concentration. 35:26.920 --> 35:30.590 There were quite a few of them in London, hiding out in the 35:30.588 --> 35:31.788 crowd as it were. 35:31.789 --> 35:34.639 There were some areas of the country where their influence 35:34.644 --> 35:36.654 had spread and remained deeply rooted. 35:36.650 --> 35:41.990 The Chiltern Hills just to the northwest of London was one area 35:41.992 --> 35:45.012 where they were well established. 35:45.010 --> 35:49.160 There were outposts of Lollardy scattered through the small 35:49.155 --> 35:50.795 towns of East Anglia. 35:50.800 --> 35:53.900 We know about all of this because occasionally bishops 35:53.902 --> 35:57.712 would conduct a kind of purge of Lollards within their diocese; 35:57.710 --> 35:59.440 they would seek them out. 35:59.440 --> 36:04.270 In 1521, one bishop conducted such a purge in the county of 36:04.268 --> 36:07.178 Buckinghamshire, which is over here, 36:07.177 --> 36:10.387 and he brought in over 400 Lollard suspects-- 36:10.389 --> 36:14.069 so within a single county there were a fair number of these 36:14.068 --> 36:14.638 people. 36:14.639 --> 36:17.599 They were nevertheless contained. 36:17.599 --> 36:19.939 The church courts were vigilant. 36:19.940 --> 36:21.940 There were these occasional purges. 36:21.940 --> 36:24.830 Occasionally, a Lollard was burned though 36:24.827 --> 36:29.017 most of them when they were found tended to recant and then 36:29.016 --> 36:33.056 quietly go back when they weren't being observed to their 36:33.061 --> 36:34.651 private beliefs. 36:34.650 --> 36:38.610 Occasionally, though, examples were made and 36:38.606 --> 36:40.536 people were burned. 36:40.539 --> 36:44.649 Over the nation as a whole they were a tiny minority but they 36:44.648 --> 36:48.548 were there and in some areas they were quite a significant 36:48.550 --> 36:51.390 presence, especially amongst the literate 36:51.391 --> 36:54.791 laity of London and parts of the southeast of England, 36:54.789 --> 36:57.429 with scatterings of sympathizers elsewhere. 36:57.429 --> 37:02.009 There were even some members of the clergy who secretly 37:02.007 --> 37:04.717 sympathized with the Lollards. 37:04.719 --> 37:08.449 So they were able to retain a presence, 37:08.449 --> 37:11.909 they were able to retain a certain coherence through their 37:11.911 --> 37:15.561 underground contacts, and I think it's a mistake to 37:15.556 --> 37:17.286 dismiss them entirely. 37:17.289 --> 37:21.249 One could compare them perhaps to the dissidents of Eastern 37:21.253 --> 37:25.633 Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, who were hard put to survive 37:25.625 --> 37:29.475 and were in no position to overthrow the established 37:29.478 --> 37:32.398 system, but were nonetheless a 37:32.403 --> 37:35.263 corrosive presence within it. 37:35.260 --> 37:39.900 And when the structures of power were eventually to be 37:39.900 --> 37:45.160 shaken the Lollards similarly were ready to come out into the 37:45.155 --> 37:49.705 open when they had the opportunity and many did. 37:49.710 --> 37:53.590 Well, between the critics within the church, 37:53.590 --> 37:56.010 the reforming members of the higher clergy, 37:56.010 --> 37:59.570 and the Lollards at the other end of the scale, 37:59.570 --> 38:06.300 there were small numbers of people who can be legitimately 38:06.295 --> 38:10.185 described as early Protestants. 38:10.190 --> 38:14.090 Most of them didn't actually owe much to the Lollard 38:14.090 --> 38:15.010 tradition. 38:15.010 --> 38:16.910 They were mostly highly educated; 38:16.909 --> 38:20.909 in fact, they were mostly members of England's two 38:20.913 --> 38:23.693 universities, Oxford and Cambridge, 38:23.690 --> 38:26.470 but in particularly Cambridge. 38:26.469 --> 38:32.179 They were mostly men of evangelical orientation, 38:32.179 --> 38:37.619 very pious, and when they learned of Martin Luther's 38:37.621 --> 38:43.381 doctrinal protests made in Germany in 1517 they took an 38:43.382 --> 38:44.772 interest. 38:44.768 --> 38:48.528 Luther's books were actually available in the early years 38:48.534 --> 38:50.824 after his first protest of 1517. 38:50.820 --> 38:54.250 They weren't actually banned until the early 1520s, 38:54.250 --> 38:58.770 so people could get hold of copies from Germany and they 38:58.769 --> 39:02.879 were able to read them to see what was going on. 39:02.880 --> 39:07.260 Some of them became persuaded of Luther's arguments. 39:07.260 --> 39:10.820 The Cambridge men, who included Thomas Cranmer, 39:10.820 --> 39:14.690 later to be the Archbishop of Canterbury under the reformed 39:14.692 --> 39:17.752 church, met secretly at a tavern known 39:17.750 --> 39:22.770 as the White Horse Tavern which was in the red light district of 39:22.768 --> 39:25.948 the town near the river-- it still stands; 39:25.949 --> 39:28.469 it's now the Cambridgeshire Folk Museum-- 39:28.469 --> 39:32.909 and the meetings amongst them were known as Little Germany 39:32.909 --> 39:37.349 because they were discussing books which had been smuggled 39:37.349 --> 39:41.789 from the centers of the early reformation in Germany. 39:41.789 --> 39:45.049 They also discussed the works of the early Swiss reformers 39:45.047 --> 39:46.817 which were available to them. 39:46.820 --> 39:50.620 Well, the position of these early Protestants was often 39:50.621 --> 39:51.961 rather ambiguous. 39:51.960 --> 39:56.830 Not all of them had made a full transition to doctrinal heresy. 39:56.829 --> 40:01.879 One who was much venerated later was a man named Thomas 40:01.875 --> 40:07.105 Bilney, who was actually captured and burned at the stake 40:07.108 --> 40:08.228 in 1531. 40:08.230 --> 40:12.830 It seems unlikely that Bilney was ever a full-blown Lutheran. 40:12.829 --> 40:17.179 Nonetheless, he was a passionate evangelical 40:17.175 --> 40:23.945 who detested some aspects of the practice of worship at the time. 40:23.949 --> 40:26.599 He saw it as a cluttered form of devotion. 40:26.599 --> 40:31.399 He wanted a much more biblically based religion and he 40:31.400 --> 40:34.300 preached openly these beliefs. 40:34.300 --> 40:37.780 In his own words, he "went up to 40:37.777 --> 40:41.637 Jerusalem" for those beliefs and was 40:41.641 --> 40:45.991 eventually burned in the city of Norwich. 40:45.989 --> 40:48.109 Bilney was a sort--of Protestant one could say; 40:48.110 --> 40:50.010 he was halfway there. 40:50.010 --> 40:52.670 Or another example is William Tyndale. 40:52.670 --> 40:55.850 Tyndale was the first translator, other than the 40:55.847 --> 40:58.597 Lollards, of the New Testament into 40:58.597 --> 41:03.247 English, the translator of the first published version of the 41:03.251 --> 41:05.191 English New Testament. 41:05.190 --> 41:09.280 He had long had the idea that it was desirable to translate 41:09.282 --> 41:13.402 the scriptures into English, but he originally brought that 41:13.402 --> 41:18.652 project to Cuthbert Tunstall, the reforming Bishop of London. 41:18.650 --> 41:23.360 He was willing to do it within the boundaries of the existing 41:23.362 --> 41:24.072 church. 41:24.070 --> 41:27.210 Tunstall, however, would not back him. 41:27.210 --> 41:31.320 Tunstall, like many churchmen, associated the scriptures in 41:31.318 --> 41:33.018 English with Lollardy. 41:33.019 --> 41:35.079 He thought it was too dangerous. 41:35.079 --> 41:38.829 So Tyndale had to look for support elsewhere and when 41:38.831 --> 41:42.871 rejected he found patronage from a London merchant called 41:42.871 --> 41:44.461 Humphrey Monmouth. 41:44.460 --> 41:49.660 Humphrey Monmouth is known to have been a Lollard sympathizer. 41:49.659 --> 41:54.109 He sent Tyndale abroad where Tyndale eventually became a 41:54.110 --> 41:59.130 Lutheran and in 1526 produced his New Testament in Germany, 41:59.130 --> 42:03.730 had it printed there, and copies were subsequently 42:03.731 --> 42:08.711 smuggled into England through the cloth trade with the 42:08.706 --> 42:10.206 Netherlands. 42:10.210 --> 42:11.950 The fact that these early Protestants were mostly based in 42:11.952 --> 42:13.482 Cambridge and parts of East Anglia and London is no 42:13.481 --> 42:13.881 accident. 42:13.880 --> 42:18.930 These are the areas most easily reached by the trade routes from 42:18.932 --> 42:21.342 the Netherlands and Germany. 42:21.340 --> 42:24.670 Well, as William Tyndale's story indicates, 42:24.670 --> 42:29.030 people like him had a rather separate origin from the 42:29.025 --> 42:32.085 Lollards, but not infrequently they 42:32.090 --> 42:34.730 eventually linked up with them. 42:34.730 --> 42:38.840 The older Lollard networks were sometimes activated to smuggle 42:38.844 --> 42:43.094 New Testaments into England and Lutheran books into England once 42:43.094 --> 42:46.574 they were banned, and by the 1520s the two 42:46.570 --> 42:50.220 movements had to a large extent overlapped. 42:50.219 --> 42:54.499 To some extent they were merging together and becoming 42:54.503 --> 42:56.933 one, a critical underground. 42:56.929 --> 43:03.689 So one can say that England had a religious underground by the 43:03.693 --> 43:04.583 1520s. 43:04.579 --> 43:09.099 It did not in itself mount a significant challenge to the 43:09.096 --> 43:11.916 hegemony of traditional religion. 43:11.920 --> 43:14.960 In all probability, it would never have 43:14.960 --> 43:19.280 spontaneously gained the strength to mount a victorious 43:19.282 --> 43:23.842 challenge to the religious status quo of the kind that was 43:23.844 --> 43:28.494 mounted by Protestants in some of the cities of Germany and 43:28.487 --> 43:32.167 Switzerland and Flanders and so forth. 43:32.170 --> 43:34.700 But to say that, that they might never have 43:34.697 --> 43:38.367 gained the spontaneous strength to mount such a challenge, 43:38.369 --> 43:44.699 is speculation because of course what actually happened is 43:44.702 --> 43:50.592 that this tiny minority of dissidents actually won. 43:50.590 --> 43:55.340 And what made it possible was a contingent circumstance, 43:55.340 --> 44:00.650 a contingent circumstance of the kind that so often makes 44:00.648 --> 44:06.618 history take turns which are otherwise utterly unpredictable. 44:06.619 --> 44:09.139 And that circumstance is probably known to you. 44:09.139 --> 44:14.099 In 1527, King Henry VIII, a man whose hostility to Martin 44:14.097 --> 44:19.587 Luther and the early Protestants was such that he had written a 44:19.585 --> 44:24.805 book against them and had been awarded the title Defender of 44:24.806 --> 44:31.506 the Faith from the pope in 1521, this man decided that he needed 44:31.507 --> 44:34.857 to have his marriage dissolved. 44:34.860 --> 44:37.010 He was thirty-five. 44:37.010 --> 44:40.220 His wife, Katherine, was forty-ish. 44:40.219 --> 44:45.709 They had one daughter but they had no son and the Tudor 44:45.713 --> 44:48.463 succession was in danger. 44:48.460 --> 44:50.980 Henry needed his marriage dissolved; 44:50.980 --> 44:53.660 he needed it desperately. 44:53.659 --> 44:57.909 All the achievements of his father and his own early reign 44:57.909 --> 45:01.939 in establishing the Tudor dynasty were at risk of being 45:01.936 --> 45:05.066 lost without a male heir to the crown. 45:05.070 --> 45:06.600 He needed a new wife. 45:06.599 --> 45:11.929 He needed to remarry, hopefully to beget such a son 45:11.934 --> 45:13.754 to succeed him. 45:13.750 --> 45:19.560 The pope, Clement VII, would have loved to cooperate. 45:19.559 --> 45:22.909 Popes usually cooperated with kings over such difficult 45:22.909 --> 45:23.529 matters. 45:23.530 --> 45:27.640 But he couldn't oblige for political reasons since the pope 45:27.635 --> 45:31.595 was in the immediate power of the Emperor of Germany, 45:31.599 --> 45:37.559 Charles V, who happened to be Queen Katherine's nephew. 45:37.559 --> 45:42.719 So these were the contingent circumstances and it was those 45:42.717 --> 45:48.497 contingent circumstances which were to make all the difference. 45:48.500 --> 45:51.200 And how that happened we'll look at next week. 45:51.199 --> 45:55.999