ENGLAND AND THE POPE
Nothing is more necessary for one who desires to appreciate the true
meaning of the English Reformation than to understand the attitude of
men’s minds to the Pope and the See of Rome on the eve of the great
change. As in the event, the religious upheaval did, in fact, lead
to a national rejection of the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff,
it is not unnatural that those who do not look below the surface
should see in this act the outcome and inevitable consequence of
long-continued irritation at a foreign domination. The renunciation
of Papal jurisdiction, in other words, is taken as sufficient
evidence of national hostility to the Holy See. If this be the true
explanation of the fact, it is obvious that in the literature of the
period immediately preceding the formal renunciation of ecclesiastical
dependence on Rome, evidence more or less abundant will be found of
this feeling of dislike, if not of detestation, for a yoke which we are
told had become unbearable.
At the outset, it must be confessed that any one who will go to the
literature of the period with the expectation of collecting evidence
of this kind is doomed to disappointment. If we put on one side the
diatribes and scurrilous invectives of advanced reformers, when the
day of the doctrinal Reformation had already dawned, the inquirer in
this field of knowledge can hardly fail to be struck by the absence of
indications of any real hostility to the See of Rome in the period in
question. So far as the works of the age are concerned: so far, too, as
the acts of individuals and even of those who were responsible agents
of the State go, the evidence of an unquestioned acceptance of the
spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope, as Head of the Christian Church, is
simply overwhelming. In their acceptance of this supreme authority the
English were perhaps neither demonstrative nor loudly protesting, but
this in no way derogated from their loyal and unquestioning acceptance
of the supremacy of the Holy See. History shows that up to the very
eve of the rejection of this supremacy the attitude of Englishmen, in
spite of difficulties and misunderstandings, had been persistently one
of respect for the Pope as their spiritual head. Whilst other nations
of Christendom had been in the past centuries engaged in endeavours by
diplomacy, and even by force of arms, to capture the Pope that they
might use him for their own national profit, England, with nothing to
gain, expecting nothing, seeking nothing, had never entered on that
line of policy, but had been content to bow to his authority as to
that of the appointed Head of Christ’s Church on earth. Of this much
there can be no doubt. They did not reason about it, nor sift and sort
the grounds of their acceptance, any more than a child would dream of
searching into, or philosophising upon, the obedience he freely gives
to his parents.
That there were at times disagreements and quarrels may be admitted
without in the least affecting the real attitude and uninterrupted
spiritual dependence of England on the Holy See. Such disputes were
wholly the outcome of misunderstandings as to matters in the domain
rather of the temporal than of the spiritual, or of points in the broad
debatable land that lies between the two jurisdictions. It is a failure
to understand the distinction which exists between these that has led
many writers to think that in the rejection by Englishmen of claims put
forward at various times by the Roman curia in matters wholly temporal,
or where the temporal became involved in the spiritual, they have a
proof that England never fully acknowledged the spiritual headship of
the See of Rome.
That the Pope did in fact exercise great powers in England over and
above those in his spiritual prerogative is a matter of history. No one
has more thoroughly examined this subject than Professor Maitland, and
the summary of his conclusions given in his _History of English Law_
will serve to correct many misconceptions upon the matter. What he says
may be taken as giving a fairly accurate picture of the relations of
the Christian nations of Christendom to the Holy See from the twelfth
century to the disintegration of the system in the throes of the
Reformation. “It was a wonderful system,” he writes. “The whole of
Western Europe was subject to the jurisdiction of one tribunal of last
resort, the Roman curia. Appeals to it were encouraged by all manner
of means, appeals at almost every stage of almost every proceeding.
But the Pope was far more than the president of a court of appeal.
Very frequently the courts Christian which did justice in England
were courts which were acting under his supervision and carrying out
his written instructions. A very large part, and by far the most
permanently important part, of the ecclesiastical litigation that went
on in this country came before English prelates who were sitting not as
English prelates, not as ‘judges ordinary,’ but as mere delegates of
the Pope, commissioned to hear and determine this or that particular
case. Bracton, indeed, treats the Pope as the ordinary judge of every
Englishman in spiritual things, and the only ordinary judge whose
powers are unlimited.”
The Pope enjoyed a power of declaring the law to which but very wide
and very vague limits could be set. Each separate church might have its
customs, but there was a _lex communis_, a common law, of the universal
Church. In the view of the canonist, any special rules of the Church of
England have hardly a wider scope, hardly a less dependent place, than
have the customs of Kent or the bye-laws of London in the eye of the
English lawyer.[94]
We have only to examine the _Regesta_ of the Popes, even up to the dawn
of difficulties in the reign of Henry VIII., to see that the system
as sketched in this passage was in full working order; and it was
herein that chiefly lay the danger even to the spiritual prerogatives
of the Head of the Church. Had the Providence of God destined that
the nations of the world should have become a Christendom in fact--a
theocracy presided over by his Vicar on earth--the system elaborated by
the Roman curia would not have tended doubtless to obscure the real and
essential prerogatives of the spiritual Head of the Christian Church.
As it was by Providence ordained, and as subsequent events have shown,
claims of authority to determine matters more or less of the temporal
order, together with the worldly pomp and show with which the Popes of
the renaissance had surrounded themselves, not only tended to obscure
the higher and supernatural powers which are the enduring heritage
of St. Peter’s successors in the See of Rome; but, however clear the
distinction between the necessary and the accidental prerogatives might
appear to the mind of the trained theologian or the perception of the
saint, to the ordinary man, when the one was called in question the
other was imperilled. And, as a fact, in England popular irritation at
the interference of the spirituality generally in matters not wholly
within the strictly ecclesiastical sphere was, at a given moment,
skilfully turned by the small reforming party into national, if tacit,
acquiescence in the rejection of even the spiritual prerogatives of the
Roman Pontiffs.
It is necessary to insist upon this matter if the full meaning of the
Reformation movement is to be understood. Here in England, there can
be no doubt, on the one hand, that no nation more fully and freely
bowed to the spiritual supremacy of the Holy See; on the other, that
there was a dislike of interference in matters which they regarded,
rightly or wrongly, as outside the sphere of the Papal prerogative.
The national feeling had grown by leaps and bounds in the early years
of the sixteenth century. But it was not until the ardent spirits
among the doctrinal reformers had succeeded in weakening the hold of
Catholicity in religion on the hearts of the people that this rise of
national feeling entered into the ecclesiastical domain, and the love
of country could be effectually used to turn them against the Pope,
even as Head of the Christian Church. With this distinction clearly
before the mind, it is possible to understand the general attitude of
the English nation to the Pope and his authority on the eve of the
overthrow of his jurisdiction.
To begin with some evidence of popular teaching as to the Pope’s
position as Head of the Church. It is, of course, evident that in many
works the supremacy of the Holy See is assumed and not positively
stated. This is exactly what we should expect in a matter which was
certainly taken for granted by all. William Bond, a learned priest, and
subsequently a monk of Syon, with Richard Whitford, was the author of
a book called the _Pilgrimage of Perfection_, published by Wynkyn de
Worde in 1531. It is a work, as the author tells us, “very profitable
to all Christian persons to read”; and the third book consists of a
long and careful explanation of the Creed. In the section treating
about the tenth article is to be found a very complete statement of
the teaching of the Christian religion on the Church. After taking
the marks of the Church, the author says: “There may be set no other
foundation for the Church, but only that which is put, namely, Christ
Jesus. It is certain, since it is founded on the Apostles, as our Lord
said to Peter, ‘I have prayed that thy faith fail not.’ And no more it
shall; for (as St. Cyprian says) the Church of Rome was never yet the
root of heresy. This Church Apostolic is so named the Church of Rome,
because St. Peter and St. Paul, who under Christ were heads and princes
of this Church, deposited there the tabernacles of their bodies, which
God willed should be buried there and rest in Rome, and that should be
the chief see in the world; just as commonly in all other places the
chief see of the bishop is where the chief saint and bishop of the see
is buried. By this you may know how Christ is the Head of the Church,
and how our Holy Father the Pope of Rome is Head of the Church. Many,
because they know not this mystery of Holy Scripture, have erred and
fallen to heresies in denying the excellent dignity of our Holy Father
the Pope of Rome.”[95]
In the same way Roger Edgworth, a preacher in the reign of Henry VIII.,
speaking on the text “_Tu vocaberis Cephas_,” says: “And by this the
error and ignorance of certain summalists are confounded, who take
this text as one of their strongest reasons for the supremacy of the
Pope of Rome. In so doing, such summalists would plainly destroy the
text of St. John’s Gospel to serve their purpose, which they have no
need to do, for there are as well texts of Holy Scripture and passages
of ancient writers which abundantly prove the said primacy of the
Pope.”[96]
When by 1523 the attacks of Luther and his followers on the position
of the Pope had turned men’s minds in England to the question, and
caused them to examine into the grounds of their belief, several books
on the subject appeared in England. One in particular, intended to
be subsidiary to the volume published by the king himself against
Luther, was written by a theologian named Edward Powell, and published
by Pynson in London. In his preface, Powell says that before printing
his work he had submitted it to the most learned authority at Oxford
(_eruditissimo Oxoniensium_). The first part of the book is devoted to
a scientific treatise upon the Pope’s supremacy, with all the proofs
from Scripture and the Fathers set out in detail. “This then,” he
concludes, “is the Catholic Church, which, having the Roman Pontiff,
the successor of Peter, as its head, offers the means of sanctifying
the souls of all its members, and testifies to the truth of all that
is to be taught.” The high priesthood of Peter “is said to be Roman,
not because it cannot be elsewhere, but through a certain congruity
which makes Rome the most fitting place. That is, that where the
centre of the world’s government was, there also should be placed the
high priesthood of Christ. Just as of old the summus Pontifex was in
Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Jewish nation, so now it is in Rome,
the centre of Christian civilisation.”[97]
We naturally, of course, turn to the works of Sir Thomas More for
evidence of the teaching as to the Pope’s position at this period; and
his testimony is abundant and definite. Thus in the second book of his
_Dyalogue_, written in 1528, arguing that there must be unity in the
Church of Christ, he points out that the effect of Lutheranism has
been to breed diversity of faith and practice. “Though they began so
late,” he writes, “yet there are not only as many sects almost as men,
but also the masters themselves change their minds and their opinions
every day. Bohemia is also in the same case: one faith in the town,
another in the field; one in Prague, another in the next town; and yet
in Prague itself, one faith in one street, another in the next. And yet
all these acknowledge that they cannot have the Sacraments ministered
but by such priests as are made by authority derived and conveyed from
the Pope who is, under Christ, Vicar and head of our Church.”[98] It
is important to note in this passage how the author takes for granted
the Pope’s supreme authority over the Christian Church. To this subject
he returns, and is more explicit in a later chapter of the same book.
The Church, he says, is the “company and congregation of all nations
professing the name of Christ.” This church “has begun with Christ, and
has had Him for its head and St. Peter His Vicar after Him, and the
head under Him; and always since, the successors of him continually.
And it has had His holy faith and His blessed Sacraments and His holy
Scriptures delivered, kept, and conserved therein by God and His Holy
Spirit, and albeit some nations fall away, yet just as no matter how
many boughs whatever fall from the tree, even though more fall than be
left thereon, still there is no doubt which is the very tree, although
each of them were planted again in another place and grew to a greater
than the stock it first came off, in the same way we see and know well
that all the companies and sects of heretics and schismatics, however
great they grow, come out of this Church I speak of; and we know that
the heretics are they that are severed, and the Church the stock that
they all come out of.”[99] Here Sir Thomas More expressly gives
communion with the successors of St. Peter as one of the chief tests of
the true Church.
Again, in his _Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer_, written in 1532
when he was Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More speaks specially about
the absolute necessity of the Church being One and not able to teach
error. There is one known and recognised Church existing throughout
the world, which “is that mystical body be it never so sick.” Of this
mystical body “Christ is the principal head”; and it is no part of his
concern, he says, for the moment to determine “whether the successor
of St. Peter is his vicar-general and head under him, as all Christian
nations have now long taken him.”[100] Later on he classes himself with
“poor popish men,”[101] and in the fifth book he discusses the question
“whether the Pope and his sect” (as Tyndale called them) “is Christ’s
Church or no.” On this matter More is perfectly clear. “I call the
Church of Christ,” he says, “the known Catholic Church of all Christian
nations, neither gone out nor cut off. And although all these nations
do now and have long since recognised and acknowledged the Pope, not as
the bishop of Rome but as the successor of St. Peter, to be their chief
spiritual governor under God and Christ’s Vicar on earth, yet I never
put the Pope as part of the definition of the Church, by defining it
to be the common known congregation of all Christian nations under one
head the Pope.”
I avoided this definition purposely, he continues, so as not “to
entangle the matter with the two questions at once, for I knew well
that the Church being proved this common known Catholic congregation
of all Christian nations abiding together in one faith, neither fallen
nor cut off; there might, peradventure, be made a second question after
that, whether over all this Catholic Church the Pope must needs be
head and chief governor and chief spiritual shepherd, or whether, if
the unity of the faith was kept among them all, every province might
have its own spiritual chief over itself, without any recourse unto the
Pope.…
“For the avoiding of all such intricacies, I purposely abstained from
putting the Pope as part of the definition of the Church, as a thing
that was not necessary; for if he be the necessary head, he is included
in the name of the whole body, and whether he be or not is a matter to
be treated and disputed of besides” (p. 615). As to Tyndale’s railing
against the authority of the Pope because there have been “Popes that
have evil played their parts,” he should remember, says More, that
“there have been Popes again right holy men, saints and martyrs too,”
and that, moreover, the personal question of goodness or badness has
nothing to say to the office.[102]
In like manner, More, when arguing against Friar Barnes, says that
like the Donatists “these heretics call the Catholic Christian people
papists,” and in this they are right, since “Saint Austin called the
successor of Saint Peter the chief head on earth of the whole Catholic
Church, as well as any man does now.” He here plainly states his view
of the supremacy of the See of Rome.[103] He accepted it not only as
an antiquarian fact, but as a thing necessary for the preservation
of the unity of the Faith. Into the further question whether the
office of supreme pastor was established by Christ Himself, or, as
theologians would say, _de jure divino_, or whether it had grown with
the growth and needs of the Church, More did not then enter. The fact
was sufficient for him that the only Christian Church he recognised had
for long ages regarded the Pope as the _Pastor pastorum_, the supreme
spiritual head of the Church of Christ. His own words, almost at the
end of his life, are the best indication of his mature conclusion on
this matter. “I have,” he says, “by the grace of God, been always a
Catholic, never out of communion with the Roman Pontiff; but I have
heard it said at times that the authority of the Roman Pontiff was
certainly lawful and to be respected, but still an authority derived
from human law, and not standing upon a divine prescription. Then, when
I observed that public affairs were so ordered that the sources of the
power of the Roman Pontiff would necessarily be examined, I gave myself
up to a diligent examination of that question for the space of seven
years, and found that the authority of the Roman Pontiff, which you
rashly--I will not use stronger language--have set aside, is not only
lawful to be respected and necessary, but also grounded on the divine
law and prescription. That is my opinion, that is the belief in which,
by the grace of God, I shall die.”[104]
Looking at More’s position in regard to this question in the light of
all that he has written, it would seem to be certain that he never
for a moment doubted that the Papacy was necessary for the Church. He
accepted this without regard to the reasons of the faith that was in
him, and in this he was not different from the body of Englishmen at
large. When, in 1522, the book by Henry VIII. appeared against Luther,
it drew the attention of Sir Thomas specially to a consideration of the
grounds upon which the supremacy of the Pope was held by Catholics. As
the result of his examination he became so convinced that it was of
divine institution that “my conscience would be in right great peril,”
he says, “if I should follow the other side and deny the primacy to
be provided of God.” Even before examination More evidently held
implicitly the same ideas, since in his Latin book against Luther,
published in 1523, he declared his entire agreement with Bishop Fisher
on the subject. That the latter was fully acquainted with the reasons
which went to prove that the Papacy was of divine institution, and that
he fully accepted it as such, is certain.[105]
When, with the failure of the divorce proceedings, came the rejection
of Papal supremacy in England, there were plenty of people ready
to take the winning side, urging that the rejection was just, and
not contrary to the true conception of the Christian Church. It is
interesting to note that in all the pulpit tirades against the Pope
and what was called his “usurped supremacy,” there is no suggestion
that this supremacy had not hitherto been fully and freely recognised
by all in the country. On the contrary, the change was regarded as a
happy emancipation from an authority which had been hitherto submitted
to without question or doubt. A sermon preached at St. Paul’s the
Sunday after the execution of the Venerable Bishop Fisher, and a few
days before Sir Thomas More was called to lay down his life for the
same cause, is of interest, as specially making mention of these two
great men, and of the reasons which had forced them to lay down their
lives in the Pope’s quarrel. The preacher was one Simon Matthew,
and his object was to instruct the people in the new theory of the
Christian Church necessary on the rejection of the headship of the
Pope. “The diversity of regions and countries,” he says, “does not
make any diversity of churches, but a unity of faith makes all regions
one Church.” “There was,” he continued, “no necessity to know Peter,
as many have reckoned, in the Bishop of Rome, (teaching) that except
we knew him and his holy college, we could not be of Christ’s Church.
Many have thought it necessary that if a man would be a member of the
Church of Christ, he must belong to the holy church of Rome and take
the Holy Father thereof for the supreme Head and for the Vicar of
Christ, yea for Christ Himself, (since) to be divided from him was even
to be divided from Christ.” This, the preacher informs his audience, is
“damnable teaching,” and that “the Bishop of Rome has no more power by
the laws of God in this realm than any foreign bishop.”
He then goes on to speak of what was, no doubt, in everybody’s mind at
the time, the condemnation of the two eminent Englishmen for upholding
the ancient teachings as to the Pope’s spiritual headship. “Of late,”
he says, “you have had experience of some, whom neither friends nor
kinsfolk, nor the judgment of both universities, Cambridge and Oxford,
nor the universal consent of all the clergy of this realm, nor the laws
of the Parliament, nor their most natural and loving prince, could by
any gentle ways revoke from their disobedience, but would needs persist
therein, giving pernicious occasion to the multitude to murmur and
grudge at the king’s laws, seeing that they were men of estimation and
would be seen wiser than all the realm and of better conscience than
others, justifying themselves and condemning all the realm besides.
These being condemned and the king’s prisoners, yet did not cease to
conceive ill of our sovereign, refusing his laws, but even in prison
wrote to their mutual comfort in their damnable opinions. I mean
Doctor Fisher and Sir Thomas More, whom I am as sorry to name as any
man here is to hear named: sorry for that they, being sometime men of
worship and honour, men of famous learning and many excellent graces
and so tenderly sometime beloved by their prince, should thus unkindly,
unnaturally, and traitorously use themselves. Our Lord give them grace
to be repentant! Let neither their fame, learning, nor honour move you
loving subjects from your prince; but regard ye the truth.”
The preacher then goes on to condemn the coarse style of preaching
against the Pope in which some indulged at that time. “I would exhort,”
he says, “such as are of my sort and use preaching, so to temper their
words that they be not noted to speak of stomach and rather to prate
than preach. Nor would I have the defenders of the king’s matters rage
and rail, or scold, as many are thought to do, calling the Bishop of
Rome the ‘harlot of Babylon’ or ‘the beast of Rome,’ with many such
other, as I have heard some say; these be meeter to preach at Paul’s
Wharf than at Paul’s Cross.”[106]
The care that was taken at this time in sermons to the people to
decry the Pope’s authority, as well as the abuse which was hurled at
his office, is in reality ample proof of the popular belief in his
supremacy, which it was necessary to eradicate from the hearts of
the English people. Few, probably, would have been able to state the
reason for their belief; but that the spiritual headship was fully and
generally accepted as a fact is, in view of the works of the period,
not open to question. Had there been disbelief, or even doubt, as to
the matter, some evidence of this would be forthcoming in the years
that preceded the final overthrow of Papal jurisdiction in England.
Nor are direct declarations of the faith of the English Church wanting.
To the evidence already adduced, a sermon preached by Bishop Longland
in 1527, before the archbishops and bishops of England in synod at
Westminster, may be added. The discourse is directed against the
errors of Luther and the social evils to which his teaching had led in
Germany. The English bishops, Bishop Longland declares, are determined
to do all in their power to preserve the English Church from this
evil teaching, and he exhorts all to pray that God will not allow the
universal and chief Church--the Roman Church--to be further afflicted,
that He will restore liberty to the most Holy Father and high-priest
now impiously imprisoned, and in a lamentable state; that He Himself
will protect the Church’s freedom threatened by a multitude of evil
men, and through the pious prayers of His people will free it and
restore its most Holy Father. Just as the early Christians prayed when
Peter was in prison, so ought all to pray in these days of affliction.
“Shall we not,” he cries, “mourn for the evil life of the chief Church
(of Christendom)? Shall we not beseech God for the liberation of the
primate and chief ruler of the Church? Let us pray then; let us pray
that through our prayers we may be heard. Let us implore freedom for
our mother, the Catholic Church, and the liberty, so necessary for the
Christian religion, of our chief Father on earth--the Pope.”[107]
Again, Dr. John Clark, the English ambassador in Rome, when presenting
Henry’s book against Luther to Leo X. in public consistory, said that
the English king had taken up the defence of the Church because in
attacking the Pope the German reformer had tried to subvert the order
established by God Himself. In the _Babylonian Captivity of the Church_
he had given to the world a book “most pernicious to mankind,” and
before presenting Henry’s reply, he begged to be allowed to protest
“the devotion and veneration of the king towards the Pope and his most
Holy See.” Luther had declared war “not only against your Holiness
but also against your office; against the ecclesiastical hierarchy,
against this See, and against that Rock established by God Himself.”
England, the speaker continued, “has never been behind other nations
in the worship of God and the Christian faith, and in obedience to the
Roman Church.” Hence “no nation” detests more cordially “this monster
(Luther) and the heresies broached by him.” For he has declared war
“not only against your Holiness but against your office; against the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, against this See, that Rock established by
God Himself.”[108]
Whilst the evidence goes to show the full acceptance by the English
people of the Pope’s spiritual headship of the Church, it is also
true that the system elaborated by the ecclesiastical lawyers in
the later Middle Ages, dealing, as it did, so largely with temporal
matters, property, and the rights attaching thereto, opened the door
to causes of disagreement between Rome and England, and at times open
complaints and criticism of the exercise of Roman authority in England
made themselves heard. This is true of all periods of English history.
Since these disagreements are obviously altogether connected with the
question, not of spirituals, but of temporals, they would not require
any more special notice but for the misunderstandings they have given
rise to in regard to the general attitude of men’s minds to Rome and
Papal authority on the eve of the Reformation. It is easy to find
evidence of this. As early as 1517, a work bearing on this question
appeared in England. It was a translation of several tracts that had
been published abroad on the debated matter of Constantine’s donation
to the Pope, and it was issued from the press of Thomas Godfray in
a well-printed folio. After a translation of the Latin version of a
Greek manuscript of Constantine’s gift, which had been found in the
Papal library by Bartolomeo Pincern, and published by order of Pope
Julius II., there is given in this volume the critical examination of
this gift by Laurence Valla, the opinion of Nicholas of Cusa, written
for the Council of Basle, and that of St. Antoninus, Archbishop of
Florence. The interest of the volume for the present purpose chiefly
consists in the fact of the publication in England at this date of
the views expressed by Laurence Valla. Valla had been a canon of the
Lateran and an eminent scholar, who was employed by Pope Nicholas V.
to translate Thucydides and Herodotus. His outspoken words got him
into difficulties with the Roman curia, and obliged him to retire to
Naples, where he died in 1457. The tract was edited with a preface
by the leader of the reform party in Germany, Ulrich von Hutten. In
this introduction von Hutten says that by the publication of Pincern’s
translation of the supposed donation of Constantine Julius II. had
“provoked and stirred up men to war and battle,” and further, he
blames the Pontiff because he would not permit Valla’s work against
the genuineness of the gift to be published. With the accession of Leo
X. von Hutten looked, he declares, for better days, since “by striking
as it were a cymbal of peace the Pope has raised up the hearts and
minds of all Christian people.” Before this time the truth could not be
spoken. Popes looked “to pluck the riches and goods of all men to their
own selves,” with the result that “on the other side they take away
from themselves all that belongs to the succession of St. Peter.”
Valla, of course, condemns the supposed donation of Constantine to the
Pope as spurious, and declares against the temporal claims the See of
Rome had founded upon it. He strongly objects to the “temporal as well
as the spiritual sword” being in the hands of the successors of St.
Peter. “They say,” he writes, “that the city of Rome is theirs, that
the kingdom of Naples is their own property: that all Italy, France,
and Spain, Germany, England, and all the west part of the world belongs
to them. For all these nations and countries (they say) are contained
in the instrument and writ of the donation or grant.”
The whole tract is an attack upon the temporal sovereignty of the head
of the Christian Church, and it was indeed a bold thing for Ulrich von
Hutten to publish it and dedicate it to Pope Leo X. For the present
purpose it is chiefly important to find all this set out in an English
dress, whilst so far and for a long while after, the English people
were loyal and true to the spiritual headship of the Pope, and were
second to no other nation in their attachment to him. At that time
recent events, including the wars of Julius II., must certainly have
caused men to reflect upon the temporal aspect of the Papacy; and
hearts more loyal to the successor of St. Peter than was that of Von
Hutten would probably have joined fervently in the concluding words
of his preface as it appeared in English. “Would to God I might (for
there is nothing I do long for more) once see it brought to pass that
the Pope were only the Vicar of Christ and not also the Vicar of the
Emperor, and that this horrible saying may no longer be heard: ‘the
Church fighteth and warreth against the Perugians, the Church fighteth
against the people of Bologna.’ It is not the Church that fights and
wars against Christian men; it is the Pope that does so. The Church
fights against wicked spirits in the regions of the air. Then shall
the Pope be called, and in very deed be, a Holy Father, the Father of
all men, the Father of the Church. Then shall he not raise and stir up
wars and battles among Christian men, but he shall allay and stop the
wars which have been stirred up by others, by his apostolic censure and
papal majesty.”[109]
Evidence of what, above, has been called the probable searching of
men’s minds as to the action of the Popes in temporal matters, may
be seen in a book called a _Dyalogue between a knight and a clerk,
concerning the power spiritual and temporal_.[110] In reply to the
complaint of the clerk that in the evil days in which their lot had
fallen “the statutes and ordinances of bishops of Rome and the decrees
of holy fathers” were disregarded, the knight exposes a layman’s view
of the matter. “Whether they ordain,” he says, “or have ordained in
times past of the temporality, may well be law to you, but not to us.
No man has power to ordain statutes of things over which he has no
lordship, as the king of France may ordain no statute (binding) on the
emperor nor the emperor on the king of England. And just as princes of
this world may ordain no statutes for your spirituality over which they
have no power; no more may you ordain statutes of their temporalities
over which you have neither power nor authority. Therefore, whatever
you ordain about temporal things, over which you have received no power
from God, is vain (and void). And therefore but lately, I laughed well
fast, when I heard that Boniface VIII. had made a new statute that
he himself should be above all secular lords, princes, kings, and
emperors, and above all kingdoms, and make laws about all things: and
that he only needed to write, for all things shall be his when he has
so written: and thus all things will be yours. If he wishes to have my
castle, my town, my field, my money, or any other such thing he needed,
nothing but to will it, and write it, and make a decree, and wot that
it be done, (for) to all such things he has a right.”
The clerk does not, however, at once give up the position. You mean,
he says in substance, that in your opinion the Pope has no power over
your property and goods. “Though we should prove this by our law and
by written decrees, you account them for nought. For you hold that
Peter had no lordship or power over temporals, but by such law written.
But if you will be a true Christian man and of right belief, you will
not deny that Christ is the lord of all things. To Him it is said in
the Psalter book: ‘Ask of me, and I will give you nations for thine
heritage, and all the world about for thy possession’ (Ps. ii.). These
are God’s words, and no one doubts that He can ordain for the whole
earth.”
Nobody denies God’s lordship over the earth, replied the knight, “but
if be proved by Holy Writ that the Pope is lord of all temporalities,
then kings and princes must needs be subject to the Pope in temporals
as in spirituals.” So they are, in effect, answered the clerk. Peter
was made “Christ’s full Vicar,” and as such he can do what his lord
can, “especially when he is Vicar with full power, without any
withdrawing of power, and he thus can direct all Christian nations in
temporal matters.” But, said the knight, “Christ’s life plainly shows
that He made no claim whatever to temporal power. Also in Peter’s
commission He gave him not the keys of the kingdom of the earth, but
the keys of the kingdom of heaven. It is also evident that the bishops
of the Hebrews were subjects of the kings, and kings deposed bishops;
but,” he adds, fearing to go too far, “God forbid that they should
do so now.” Then he goes on to quote St. Paul in the Epistle to the
Hebrews to prove that St. Peter was Christ’s Vicar only in “the godly
kingdom of souls, and that though some temporal things may be managed
by bishops, yet nevertheless it is plain and evident that bishops
should not be occupied in the government of the might and lordship of
the world.” And indeed, he urges, “Christ neither made St. Peter a
knight nor a crowned king, but ordained him a priest and bishop.” If
the contention that “the Pope is the Vicar of God in temporal matter
be correct,” then of necessity you must also grant that “the Pope may
take from you and from us all the goods that you and we have, and give
them all to whichever of his nephews or cousins he wills and give no
reason why: and also that he may take away from princes and kings
principalities and kingdoms, at his own will, and give them where he
likes.”[111]
This statement by the layman of the advanced clerical view is somewhat
bald, and is probably intentionally exaggerated; but that it could
be published even as a caricature of the position taken up by some
ecclesiastics, shows that at this time some went very far indeed
in their claims. It is all the more remarkable that the argument is
seriously put forward in a tract, the author of which is evidently a
Catholic at heart, and one who fully admits the supreme jurisdiction
of the Pope in all matters spiritual. Of course, when the rejection
of Papal jurisdiction became imminent, there were found many who by
sermons and books endeavoured to eradicate the old teaching from
the people’s hearts, and then it was that what was called, “the
pretensions” of the successors of St. Peter in matters temporal were
held up to serve as a convenient means of striking at the spiritual
prerogatives. As a sample, a small book named a _Mustre of scismatyke
bysshops of Rome_ may be taken. It was printed in 1534, and its title
is sufficient to indicate its tone. The author, one John Roberts, rakes
together a good many unsavoury tales about the lives of individual
Popes, and in particular he translates the life of Gregory VII. to
enforce his moral. In his preface he says, “There is a fond, foolish,
fantasy raging in many men’s heads nowadays, and it is this: the Popes,
say they, cannot err. This fantastical blindness was never taught by
any man of literature, but by some peckish pedler or clouting collier:
it is so gross in itself.” And I “warn, advise, beseech, and adjure all
my well-beloved countrymen in England that men do not permit themselves
to be blinded with affection, with hypocrisy, or with superstition.
What have we got from Rome but pulling, polling, picking, robbing,
stealing, oppression, blood-shedding, and tyranny daily exercised upon
us by him and his.”[112]
Again, as another example of how the mind of the people was stirred
up, we may take a few sentences from _A Worke entytled of the olde
God and the new_. This tract is one of the most scurrilous of the
German productions of the period. It was published in English by
Myles Coverdale, and is on the list of books prohibited by the king
in 1534. After a tirade against the Pope, whom he delights in calling
“anti-Christ,” the author declares that the Popes are the cause of many
of the evils from which people were suffering at that time. In old
days, he says, the Bishop of Rome was nothing more “than a pastor or
herdsman,” and adds: “Now he who has been at Rome in the time of Pope
Alexander VI. or of Pope Julius II., he need not read many histories. I
put it to his judgment whether any of the Pagans or of the Turks ever
did lead such a life as did these.”[113]
The same temper of mind appears in the preface of a book called _The
Defence of Peace_, translated into English by William Marshall and
printed in 1535. The work itself was written by Marsilius of Padua
about 1323, but the preface is dated 1522. The whole tone is distinctly
anti-clerical, but the main line of attack is developed from the
side of the temporalities possessed by churchmen. Even churchmen, he
says, look mainly to the increase of their worldly goods. “Riches
give honour, riches give benefices, riches give power and authority,
riches cause men to be regarded and greatly esteemed.” Especially is
the author of the preface severe upon the temporal position which
the Pope claims as inalienably united with his office as head of the
Church. Benedict XII., he says, acted in many places as if he were all
powerful, appointing rulers and officers in cities within the emperor’s
dominions, saying, “that all power and rule and empire was his own, for
as much as whosoever is the successor of Peter on earth is the only
Vicar or deputy of Jesus Christ the King of Heaven.”[114]
In the body of the book itself the same views are expressed. The
authority of the primacy is said to be “not immediately from God, but
by the will and mind of man, just as other offices of a commonwealth
are,” and that the real meaning and extent of the claims put forward by
the Pope can be seen easily. They are temporal, not spiritual. “This
is the meaning of this title among the Bishops of Rome, that as Christ
had the fulness of power and jurisdiction over all kings, princes,
commonwealth, companies, or fellowships, and all singular persons, so
in like manner they who call themselves the Vicars of Christ and Peter,
have also the same fulness of enactive jurisdiction, determined by
no law of man,” and thus it is that “the Bishops of Rome, with their
desire for dominion, have been the cause of discords and wars.”[115]
Lancelot Ridley, in his _Exposition of the Epistle of Jude_, published
in 1538 after the breach with Rome, takes the same line. The Pope has
no right to have “exempted himself” and “other spiritual men from the
obedience to the civil rulers and powers.” Some, indeed, he says, “set
up the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome above kings, princes, and
emperors, and that by the ordinance of God, as if God and His Holy
Scripture did give to the Bishop of Rome a secular power above kings,
princes, and emperors here in this world. It is evident by Scripture
that the Bishop of Rome has no other power but at the pleasure of
princes, than in the ministration of the Word of God in preaching God’s
Word purely and sincerely, to reprove by it evil men, and to do such
things as become a preacher, a bishop, a minister of God’s Word to do.
Other power Scripture does not attribute to the Bishop of Rome, nor
suffer him to use. Scripture wills him to be a bishop, and to do the
office of a bishop, and not to play the prince, the king, the emperor,
the lord, and so forth.”[116] It is important to note in this passage
that the writer was a reformer, and that he was expressing his views
after the jurisdiction of the Holy See had been rejected by the king
and his advisers. The ground of the rejection, according to him--or
at any rate the reason which it was desired to emphasise before the
public--would appear to be the temporal authority which the Popes had
been exercising.
In the same year, 1538, Richard Morysine published a translation of
a letter addressed by John Sturmius, the Lutheran, to the cardinals
appointed by Pope Paul III. to consider what could be done to stem the
evils which threatened the Church. As the work of this Papal commission
was then directly put before the English people, some account of it
is almost necessary. The commission consisted of four cardinals, two
archbishops, one bishop, the abbot of San Giorgio, Venice, and the
master of the Sacred Palace, and its report was supposed to have been
drafted by Cardinal Caraffa, afterwards Pope Paul IV. The document
thanks God who has inspired the Pope “to put forth his hand to support
the ruins of the tottering and almost fallen Church of Christ, and to
raise it again to its pristine height.” As a beginning, the Holy Father
has commanded them to lay bare to him “those most grave abuses, that is
diseases, by which the Church of God, and this Roman curia especially,
is afflicted,” and which has brought about the state of ruin now so
evident. The initial cause of all has been, they declare, that the
Popes have surrounded themselves with people who only told them what
they thought would be pleasant to them, and who had not the honesty
and loyalty to speak the truth. This adulation had deceived the Roman
Pontiffs about many things. “To get the truth to their ears was always
most difficult. Teachers sprung up who were ready to declare that the
Pope was the master of all benefices, and as master might by right sell
them as his own.” As a consequence, it was taught that the Pope could
not be guilty of simony, and that the will of the Pope was the highest
law, and could override all law. “From this source, Holy Father,” they
continue, “as from the Trojan horse, so many abuses and most grievous
diseases have grown up in the Church of God.” Even pagans, they say,
scoff at the state of the Christian Church as it is at present, and
they, the commissioners, beg the Pope not to delay in immediately
taking in hand the correction of the manifest abuses which afflict and
disgrace the Church of Christ. “Begin the cure,” they say, “whence
sprung the disease. Follow the teaching of the Apostle St. Paul: ‘be a
dispenser, not a lord.’”
They then proceed to note the abuses which to them are most apparent,
and to suggest remedies. We are not concerned with these further
than to point out that, as a preliminary, they state that the true
principle of government is, that what is the law must be kept, and that
dispensations should be granted only on the most urgent causes, since
nothing brings government to such bad repute as the continual exercise
of the power of dispensation. Further, they note that it is certainly
not lawful for the Vicar of Christ to make any profit (_lucrum_) by the
dispensations he is obliged to give.
Sturmius, in his preface, says he had hopes of better things, now
that there was a Pope ready to listen. “It is a rare thing, and much
more than man could hope for, that there should come a Bishop of Rome
who would require his prelates upon their oath to open the truth, to
show abuses, and to seek remedies for them.” He is pleased to think
that these four cardinals, Sadolet, Paul Caraffa, Contarini, and
Reginald Pole had allowed fully and frankly that a great portion of
the difficulty had come from the unfortunate attitude of the Popes
in regard to worldly affairs. “You acknowledge,” he says, “that no
lordship is committed to the Bishop of Rome, but rather a certain cure
by which he may rule things in the church according to good order. If
you admit this to be true and will entirely grant us this, a great part
of our (_i.e._ Lutheran) controversy is taken away; granting this also,
that we did not dissent from you without great and just causes.” The
three points the cardinals claimed for the Pope, it may be noted, were:
(1) that he was to be Bishop of Rome; (2) that he was to be universal
Bishop; and (3) that he should be allowed temporal sovereignty over
certain cities in Italy.[117] Again we find the same view put before
the English people in this translation: the chief objection to the
admission of Papal prerogatives was the “lordship” which he claimed
over and above the spiritual powers he exercised as successor of St.
Peter. On this point we find preachers and writers of the period
insisting most clearly and definitely. Some, of course, attack the
spiritual jurisdiction directly, but most commonly such attacks are
flavoured and served up for general consumption by a supply of abuse
of the temporal assumptions and the worldly show of the Popes. This
appealed to the popular mind, and to the growing sense of national aims
and objects, and the real issue of the spiritual headship was obscured
by the plea of national sentiment and safeguards.
To take one more example: Bishop Tunstall, on Palm Sunday, 1539,
preached before the king and court. His object was to defend the
rejection of the Papal supremacy and jurisdiction. He declaimed against
the notion that the Popes were to be considered as free from subjection
to worldly powers, maintaining that in this they were like all other
men. “The Popes,” he says, “exalt their seat above the stars of God,
and ascend above the clouds, and will be like to God Almighty.… The
Bishop of Rome offers his feet to be kissed, shod with his shoes on.
This I saw myself, being present thirty-four years ago, when Julius,
the Bishop of Rome, stood on his feet and one of his chamberlains held
up his skirt because it stood not, as he thought, with his dignity
that he should do it himself, that his shoes might appear, whilst a
nobleman of great age prostrated himself upon the ground and kissed his
shoes.”[118]
To us, to-day, much that was written and spoken at this time will
appear, like many of the above passages, foolish and exaggerated; but
the language served its purpose, and contributed more than anything
else to lower the Popes in the eyes of the people, and to justify
in their minds the overthrow of the ecclesiastical system which had
postulated the Pope as the universal Father of the Christian Church.
Each Sunday, in every parish church throughout the country, they had
been invited in the bidding prayer, as their fathers had been for
generations, to remember their duty of praying for their common Father,
the Pope. When the Pope’s authority was finally rejected by the English
king and his advisers, it was necessary to justify this serious breach
with the past religious practice, and the works of the period prove
beyond doubt that this was done in the popular mind by turning men’s
thoughts to the temporal aspect of the Papacy, and making them think
that it was for the national profit and honour that this foreign yoke
should be cast off. Whilst this is clear, it is also equally clear
in the works of the time that the purely religious aspect of the
question was as far as possible relegated to a secondary place in the
discussions. This was perhaps not unnatural, as the duty of defending
the rejection of the Papal supremacy can hardly have been very tasteful
to those who were forced by the strong arm of the State to justify it
before the people. As late as 1540 we are told by a contemporary writer
that the spirituality under the bishops “favour as much as they dare
the Bishop of Rome’s laws and his ways.”[119]
Even the actual meaning attached to the formal acknowledgment of
the king’s Headship by the clergy was sufficiently ambiguous to
be understood, by some at least, as aimed merely at the temporal
jurisdiction of the Roman curia. It is true it is usually understood
that Convocation by its act, acknowledging Henry as sole supreme Head
of the Church of England, gave him absolute spiritual jurisdiction.
Whatever may have been the intention of the king in requiring the
acknowledgment from the clergy, it seems absolutely certain that the
ruling powers in the Church considered that by their grant there was no
derogation of the Pope’s spiritual jurisdiction.
A comparison of the clauses required by Henry with those actually
granted by Convocation makes it evident that any admission that the
crown had any cure of souls, that is, spiritual jurisdiction, was
specifically guarded against. In place of the clause containing the
words, “cure of souls committed to his Majesty,” proposed in the king’s
name to his clergy, they adopted the form, “the nation committed to his
Majesty.” The other royal demands were modified in the same manner,
and it is consequently obvious that all the insertions proposed by the
crown were weighed with the greatest care by skilled ecclesiastical
jurists in some two and thirty sessions, and the changes introduced by
them with the proposals made on behalf of the king throw considerable
light upon the meaning which Convocation intended to give to the
_Supremum Caput_ clause. In one sense, perhaps not the obvious one,
but one that had _de facto_ been recognised during Catholic ages, the
sovereign was the Protector--the _advocatus_--of the Church in his
country, and to him the clergy would look to protect his people from
the introduction of heresy and for maintenance in their temporalities.
So that whilst, on the one hand, the king and Thomas Cromwell may well
have desired the admission of Henry’s authority over “the English
Church, whose Protector and supreme Head he alone is,” to cover even
spiritual jurisdiction, on the other hand, Warham and the English
Bishops evidently did intend it to cover only an admission that the
king had taken all jurisdiction in temporals, hitherto exercised by the
Pope in England, into his own hands.
Moreover, looking at what was demanded and at what was granted by the
clergy, there is little room for doubt that they at first deliberately
eliminated any acknowledgment of the Royal jurisdiction. This deduction
is turned into a certainty by the subsequent action of Archbishop
Warham. He first protested that the admission was not to be twisted in
“derogation of the Roman Pontiff or the Apostolic See,” and the very
last act of his life was the drafting of an elaborate exposition, to
be delivered in the House of Lords, of the impossibility of the king’s
having spiritual jurisdiction, from the very nature of the constitution
of the Christian Church. Such jurisdiction, he claimed, belonged of
right to the Roman See.[120]
That the admission wrung from the clergy in fact formed the thin end of
the wedge which finally severed the English Church from the spiritual
jurisdiction of the Holy See is obvious. But the “thin end” was, there
can be hardly any doubt, the temporal aspect of the authority of the
Roman See; and that its insertion at all was possible may be said in
greater measure to be due to the fact that the exercise of jurisdiction
in temporals by a foreign authority had long been a matter which many
Englishmen had strongly resented.