PILGRIMAGES AND RELICS
Pilgrimages and the honour shown to relics are frequently pointed out
as, with Indulgences, among the most objectionable features of the
pre-Reformation ecclesiastical system. It is assumed that on the eve of
the religious changes the abuses in these matters were so patent, that
no voice was, or indeed could have been, raised in their defence, and
it is asserted that they were swept away without regret or protest as
one of the most obvious and necessary items in the general purification
of the mediæval church initiated in the reign of Henry VIII. That they
had indeed been tolerated at all even up to the time of their final
overthrow was in part, if not entirely, due to the clergy, and in
particular to the monks who, as they derived much pecuniary benefit
from encouraging such practices, did not scruple to inculcate by every
means in their power the spiritual advantages to be derived from them.
That the objectionable features of these so-called works of piety had
long been recognised, is taken for granted, and the examinations of
people suspected of entertaining Wycliffite opinions are pointed to
as proof that earnest men were alive to these abuses for more than a
century before religion was purified from them. As conclusive evidence
of this, the names, too, of Chaucer for early times, and of Erasmus
for the Reform period, are given as those whose condemnation and even
scornful rejection of such practices cannot be doubted. It becomes
important, then, for a right understanding of the mental attitude of
the people generally to the existing ecclesiastical system at the time
of its overthrow, to see how far the outcry against pilgrimages and
the devotion to relics was really popular, and what were the precise
objections taken to them by the innovators.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance attached to pilgrimages
by our pre-Reformation forefathers. From very early times the practice
was followed with eagerness, not to say with devotion, and included not
merely visits to the shrines situated within the country itself, but
long and often perilous journeys into foreign lands--to Compostella,
Rome, and to the Holy Land itself. These foreign pilgrimages of
course could be undertaken only by the rich, or by those for whom the
requisite money was found by some one unable to undertake the journey
in person. Not infrequently the early English wills contain injunctions
upon the executors to defray the cost of some poor pilgrim to Spain,
to Rome, or to some of the noted shrines on the Continent. The English
love for these works of piety in nowise showed any sign of decadence
even right up to the period of change. Books furnishing intending
pilgrims with necessary information, and vocabularies, even in Greek,
were prepared to assist them in their voyages. The itineraries of
William Wey, printed by the Roxburghe Club, give a very good idea of
what these great religious pilgrimages must have been like at the
close of the fifteenth century. In 1462 Wey was in the Holy Land, and
describes how joyfully the pilgrims on landing at Jaffa sang the
“_Urbs beata Jerusalem_ in faburthyn.” In 1456 he took part in a large
English pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, leaving Plymouth with
a shipload of English fellow-pilgrims on May 17. William Wey’s ship
was named the _Mary White_, and in company with them six other English
ships brought pilgrims from Portsmouth, Bristol, Weymouth, Lymington,
and a second from Plymouth. They reached Corunna on May 21st, and
Compostella for the great celebration of Trinity Day. Wey was evidently
much honoured by being pointed out to the church officials as the chief
Englishman of note present, and he was given the post of first bearer
of the canopy in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. Four out of
the six poles were carried by his countrymen, whom he names as Austill,
Gale, and Fulford.
On their return the pilgrims spent three days at Corunna. They were not
allowed to be idle, but religious festivities must have occupied most
of their time. On Wednesday, the eve of Corpus Christi day, there was a
procession of English pilgrims throughout the city and a mass in honour
of the Blessed Virgin. On Corpus Christi itself their procession was
in the Franciscan church, and a sermon was preached in English by an
English Bachelor in Theology on the theme, _Ecce ego; vocasti me_. “No
other nation,” says William Wey, somewhat proudly, “had these special
services but the English.” In the first port there were ships belonging
to English, Welsh, Irish, Norman, French, and Breton, and the English
alone had two and thirty.
Such journeys were not, of course, in those days devoid of danger,
especially from sickness brought on, or developed in the course of the
travels. Erasmus, in his _Colloquy on Rash Vows_, speaks of losing
three in a company. “One dying on the way commissioned us to salute
Peter (in Rome) and James (at Compostella) in his name. Another we lost
at Rome, and he desired that we should greet his wife and children
for him. The third we left behind at Florence, his recovery entirely
despaired of, and I imagine he is now in heaven.” That this account of
the mortality among pilgrims is not exaggerated is shown in the diary
of Sir Richard Torkington, Rector of Mulbarton, in Norfolk. In 1517 he
made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and records on “the 25th of August,
that was Saynt Bertolmew’s day, deceased Robert Crosse of London, and
was buried in the churchyard of Salyus (in the island of Cyprus); and
the 27th day of August deceased Sir Thomas Tappe, a priest of the West
country, and was cast over the board; as were many more whose souls
God assoyl; and then there remained in the ship four English priests
more.”[391]
If Englishmen went abroad to the celebrated shrines, foreigners in
turn found their way to the no less renowned places of pilgrimage in
England. Pilgrims’ inns and places of rest were scattered over the
great roads leading to Glastonbury, Walsingham, and Canterbury, and
other “holy spots” in this island, and at times these places were
thronged with those who came to pay their devotion. At one time we
are told that more than a hundred thousand pilgrims were together in
the city of Canterbury to celebrate one of the Jubilee celebrations
of the martyr St. Thomas; whilst the road to Walsingham was so much
frequented, that in the common mind the very “milk way” had been set
by Providence in the heaven to point the path to Our Lady’s shrine.
With the very question of pilgrimages, Sir Thomas More actually deals
in the first portion of his _Dyalogue_, and it would be difficult to
find any authority who should carry greater weight. He first deals with
the outcry raised by the followers of Luther against the riches which
had been lavished upon the churches, and in particular upon the shrines
containing the relics of saints.
Those who so loudly condemn this devotion shown by the church to the
saints should know, he says “that the church worships not the saints
as God, but as God’s servants, and therefore the honour that is done
to them redoundeth principally to the honour of their Master; just
as by common custom of people we sometimes, for their master’s sake,
reverence and make great cheer for people to whom perhaps except for
this we would not have said ‘good morrow.’
“And sure if any benefit or alms, done to one of Christ’s poor folk for
his sake, be reputed and accepted by His high goodness, as done unto
Himself: and if whosoever receiveth one of His apostles or disciples
receives Himself, every wise man may well think that in like manner
he who honours His holy saints for His sake, honours Himself, except
these heretics think that God were as envious as they are themselves,
and that He would be wroth to have any honour done to any other, though
it thereby redoundeth unto Himself. In this matter our Saviour Christ
clearly declares the contrary, for He shows Himself so well content
that His holy saints shall be partakers of His honour that He promises
His apostles that at the dreadful doom (when He shall come in His high
majesty) they shall have their honourable seats and sit with Himself
upon the judgment of the world. Christ also promised that Saint Mary
Magdalene should be worshipped through the world and have here an
honourable remembrance because she bestowed that precious ointment upon
His holy head. When I consider this thing it makes me marvel at the
madness of these heretics that bark against the old ancient customs of
Christ’s church, mocking at the setting up of candles, and with foolish
facetiousness (fallacies) and blasphemous mockery demand whether God
and His saints lack light, or whether it be night with them that they
cannot see without a candle. They might as well ask what good did that
ointment do to Christ’s head? But the heretics grudge the cost now as
their brother Judas did then, and say it were better spent on alms upon
a poor folk, and thus say many of them who can neither find in their
heart to spend on the one nor the other. And some spend sometimes on
the one for no other intent, but the more boldly to rebuke against and
rail against the other.”
After pointing out how riches were lavished on the temple by God’s
special ordinance, Sir Thomas More continues: “If men will say that
the money were better spent among poor folk by whom He (_i.e._ God)
setteth more store as the living temples of the Holy Ghost made by His
own hand than by the temples of stone made by the hand of men, this
would perhaps be true if there were so little to do it with that we
should be driven by necessity to leave the one undone. But God gives
enough for both, and gives divers men divers kinds of devotion, and
all to His pleasure. Luther, in a sermon of his, wished that he had
in his hand all the pieces of the holy cross, and said if he had he
would throw them where the sun should never shine on them. And for what
worshipful reason would the wretch do such villainy to the cross of
Christ? Because, as he says, there is so much gold now bestowed on the
garnishing of the pieces of the cross that there is none left for poor
folks. Is not this a high reason? As though all the gold that is now
bestowed about the pieces of the holy cross would not have failed to
be given to poor men if they had not been bestowed on the garnishing
of the cross; and as though there was nothing lost except what is
bestowed about Christ’s cross. Take all the gold that is spent about
all the pieces of Christ’s cross through Christendom (albeit many a
good Christian prince and other godly people have honourably garnished
many pieces of it), yet if all the gold were gathered together it would
appear a poor portion in comparison with the gold that is bestowed upon
cups--what do we speak of cups for? in which the gold, though it is not
given to poor men, is saved, and may be given in alms when men will,
which they never will; how small a portion, ween we, were the gold
about all the pieces of Christ’s cross, if it were compared with the
gold that is quite cast away about the gilding of knives, swords, &c.”
Our author then goes on to put in the mouth of the “objector” the chief
reasons those who were then the advocates of the religious changes were
urging against pilgrimages to the shrines of saints and to special
places of devotion to our Blessed Lady. Protesting that he had, of
course, no desire to see the images of the saints treated in any way
disrespectfully, the objector declares that “yet to go in pilgrimages
to them, or to pray to them, not only seemed vain, considering that
(if they can do anything) they can do no more for us among them all
than Christ can Himself alone who can do all things, nor are they so
ready to hear (if they hear us at all) as Christ that is everywhere.”…
Moreover, to go a pilgrimage to one place rather than to another “seems
to smell of idolatry,” as implying that God was not so powerful in
one place as He is in another, and, as it were, making God and His
saints “bound to a post, and that post cut out and carved into images.
For when we reckon we are better heard by our Lord in Kent than at
Cambridge, at the north door of Paul’s than at the south door, at one
image of our Lady than at another,” is it not made plain that we “put
our trust and confidence in the image itself, and not in God and our
Lady,” and think of the image and not of what the image represents.
Further, “men reckon that the clergy gladly favour these ways, and
nourish this superstition under the name and colour of devotion, to the
peril of people’s souls for the lucre and temporal advantage that they
themselves receive from the offerings” (p. 120).
Lest it may be thought that these objections to places of pilgrimage
were merely such as Sir Thomas More invented to put into the mouth of
the “objector” in order to refute them, the reader may like to have the
words of a known advocate of the new ideas. Lancelot Ridley, in his
expositions of some of the Epistles, states his views very clearly.
“Ignorant people,” he writes, “have preferred the saints before God,
and put more trust, more confidence, (look for) more help and succour,
in a saint than in God. Yea, I fear me that many have put their help
and succour in an image made of stone or of wood by men’s hand, and
have done great honour and reverence to the image, believing that
great virtue and great holiness was in that image above other images.
Therefore that image must have a velvet coat hanged all over with
brooches of silver, and much silver hanged about it and on it, with
much light burning before it, and with candles always burning before
it. I would no man (should put out the light) in contempt of the saint
whose image there is, but I would have this evil opinion out of the
simple hearts that they should esteem images after the value they are,
and put no more holiness in one image than in another, no more virtue
in one than in another. It holds the simple people in great blindness,
and makes them put great trust and (esteem) great holiness in images,
because one image is called our Lady of Grace, another our Lady of
Pity, another our Lady of Succour or Comfort; the Holy Rood of such a
place, &c.” And this he maintained, though he did not condemn images
generally in churches. These he thought useful to remind people of
God’s saints and their virtues, and “to stir up our dull hearts and
slothful minds to God and to goodness.” What he objected to chiefly was
the special places of pilgrimage and special images to which more than
ordinary devotion was shown.[392]
In another of his _Expositions_, printed in 1540, Ridley again states
his objections to the places of pilgrimage. “Some think,” he writes,
“that they have some things of God, and other part of saints, of
images, and so divide God’s glory, part to God and part to an image,
of wood or of stone made by man’s hand. This some ignorant persons
have done in times past, and thanked God for their health and the
blessed Lady of Walsingham, of Ipswich, St. Edmund of Bury, Etheldred
of Ely, the Lady of Redbourne, the Holy Blood of Hayles, the Holy Rood
of Boxley, of Chester, &c., and so other images in this realm to the
which have been much pilgrimage and much idolatry, supposing the dead
images could have healed them or could have done something for them to
God. For this the ignorant have crouched, kneeled, kissed, bobbed and
licked the images, giving them coats of cloth, of gold, silver, and of
tissue, velvet, damask, and satin, and suffered the living members of
Christ to be without a russet coat or a sackcloth to keep them from the
cold.”[393]
Again in another place he says that his great objection to images
is not that they may not be good in themselves and as a reminder of
the holiness of the saints, but that they are used as a means of
making money. “Who can tell,” he writes, “half the ways they have
found to get, yea to extort money from men by images, by pardons, by
pilgrimages, by indulgences, &c. … all invented for money.” The above
passages may be taken as fair samples of the outcry against shrines and
pilgrimages raised by the English followers of Luther and the advocates
of the religious changes generally. It will be noticed that the ground
of the objections was in reality only the same as that which induced
them to declare against any honour shown to images, whether of Christ
or His saints. There is no suggestion of any special abuses connected
with particular shrines and places of pilgrimage, such as is often
hinted at by those who refer to Chaucer and Erasmus. In addition to
the general ground of objection, the only point raised in regard to
pilgrimages by the advocates for their suppression was that money was
spent upon them which might have been bestowed more profitably on the
poor, and that the clergy were enriched by the offerings made at the
shrines visited. Sir Thomas More’s reply to the latter suggestion has
been already given, and elsewhere his views as to the general question
of the danger of people mistaking the nature of the honour shown to
images of the saints have been stated at length. With regard to his
approval of the principle of pilgrimages there is no room for doubt.
“If the thing were so far from all frame of right religion,” he says,
“and so perilous to men’s souls, I cannot perceive why the clergy,
for the gain they get thereby, would suffer such abuses to continue.
For, first, if it were true that no pilgrimage ought to be used, no
image offered to, nor worship done nor prayer offered to any saint,
then--if all these things were all undone (if that were the right way,
as I wot well it were wrong), then to me there is little question but
that Christian people who are in the true faith and in the right way
Godward would not thereby in any way slack their good minds towards the
ministers of His church, but their devotion towards them would more and
more increase. So that if by this way they now get a penny they would
not then fail to receive a groat; and so should no lucre be the cause
to favour this way if it be wrong, whilst they could not fail to win
more by the right.”
“Moreover, look through Christendom and you will find the fruit of
those offerings a right small part of the living of the clergy, and
such as, though some few places would be glad to retain, yet the whole
body might easily forbear without any notable loss. Let us consider our
own country, and we shall find that these pilgrimages are for the most
part in the hands of such religious persons or of such poor parishes
as have no great authority in the convocations. Besides this you will
not find, I suppose, that any Bishop in England has the profit of even
one groat from any such offering in his diocese. Now, the continuance
or breaking of this manner and custom stands them specially in the
power of those who take no profit by it. If they believed it to be
(as you call it) superstitious and wicked they would never suffer it
to continue to the perishing of men’s souls (something whereby they
themselves would destroy their own souls and get no commodity either in
body or goods). And beyond this, we see that the bishops and prelates
themselves visit these holy places and pilgrimages, and make as large
offerings and (incur) as great cost in coming and going as other
people do, so that they not only take no temporal advantage, but also
bestow their own money therein. And surely I believe this devotion so
planted by God’s own hand in the hearts of the whole Church, that is to
say, not the clergy only, but the whole congregation of all Christian
people, that if the spirituality were of the mind to give it up, yet
the temporality would not suffer it.”
It would be impossible, without making extensive quotations, to do
justice to Sir Thomas More’s argument in favour of the old Catholic
practice of pilgrimages. He points out that the whole matter turns
upon the question whether or no Almighty God does manifest His power
and presence more in one place of His world than in another. That He
does so, he thinks cannot be questioned; why He should do so, it is
not for us to guess, but the single example of the Angel and the pool
of Bethsaida related in St. John’s Gospel is sufficient proof of the
fact--at least to Sir Thomas More’s intelligence. Moreover, he thinks
also that in many cases the special holiness of a place of pilgrimage
has been shown by the graces and favours, and even miracles, which have
been granted by God at that particular spot, and on the “objector”
waiving this argument aside on the plea that he does not believe in
modern miracles, More declares that what is even more than miracles
in his estimation is the “common belief in Christ’s Church” in the
practice.
As to believing in miracles; they, like every other fact, depend
on evidence and proof. It is unreasonable in the highest degree to
disbelieve everything which we have not seen or which we do not
understand. Miracles, like everything else, must be believed on the
evidence of credible witnesses. What in their day, he says, is believed
in by all would have been deemed impossible a century or two before;
for example, that the earth is round and “sails in mid-air,” and that
“men walk on it foot to foot” and ships sail on its seas “bottom to
bottom.” Again, “It is not fifty years ago,” he says, “since the first
man, as far as men have heard, came to London who ever parted the
silver gilt from the silver, consuming shortly the silver into dust
with a very fair water.” At first the gold and silver smiths laughed
at the suggestion as absurd and impossible. Quite recently also More
had been told that it was possible to melt iron and make it “to run
as silver or lead doeth, and make it take a print.” More had never,
he says, seen this, but he had seen the new invention of drawing out
silver into thread-like wires. The “objector” was incredulous, and when
More went on to tell him that if a piece of silver had been gilded,
it could be drawn out with the gilding into gilt wires, he expressed
his disbelief in the possibility of such a thing, and was hardly more
satisfied that he was not being deceived when the process was shown to
him the next day.
These and such like things, argues More, show us that our knowledge is,
after all, very limited, and that while some supposed miracles may be
doubted, it is most unreasonable to doubt or deny the possibility of
miracles generally. If nature and reason tell us there is a God, the
same two prove that miracles are not impossible, and that God can act
when He wills against the course of nature. Whether He does in this or
that case is plainly a matter of evidence. The importance of Sir Thomas
More’s opinion on the matter of Pilgrimage does not, of course, rest
upon the nature of his views, which were those naturally of all good
Catholic sons of Holy Church, but upon the fact that, in face of the
objections which were then made and which were of the kind to which
subsequent generations have been accustomed, so learned and liberal a
man as he was, did not hesitate to treat them as groundless, and to
defend the practice as it was then known in England. That there may
have been “abuses” he would have no doubt fully admitted, but that the
“abuses” were either so great or so serious as to be any reasonable
ground against the “use” he would equally have indignantly denied.
No less clear and definite are his opinions as to “relics” and the
honour shown them. The “adversary” in the _Dyalogue_ takes up the usual
objections urged against the reverence shown to the remains of the
saints, and in particular to the wealth which was lavished upon their
shrines. “May the taking up of a man’s bones,” he says, “and setting
his carcase in a gay shrine, and then kissing his bare scalp, make a
man a saint? And yet are there some unshrined, for no man knoweth where
they lie. And men doubt whether some ever had any body at all or not,
but to recompense that again some there are who have two bodies, to
lend one to some good fellow that lacketh his. For … some one body lies
whole in two places asunder, or else the monks of the one be beguiled.
For both places plainly affirm that it lieth there, and at either place
they show the shrine, and in the shrine they show a body which they say
is _the_ body, and boldly allege old writings and miracles also for the
proof of it. Now must he confess that either the miracles at the one
place be false and done by the devil, or else that the same saint had
indeed two bodies. It is therefore likely that a bone worshipped for
a relic of some holy saint in some place was peradventure ‘a bone (as
Chaucer says) of some holy Jew’s sheep.’” More’s “adversary” then goes
on to say that our Lord in reproving the Pharisees for “making fresh
the sepulchres of the prophets” condemns the “gay golden shrines made
for saints’ bodies, especially when we have no certainty that they are
saints at all.”[394]
What all this really amounts to, replies More, is not that your reasons
would condemn honour and worship to true relics of the saints, but
that “we may be deceived in some that we take for saints--except you
would say that if we might by any possibility mistake some, therefore
we should worship none.” Few people would say this, and “I see,”
says More, “no great peril to us from the danger of a mistake. If
there came, for example, a great many of the king’s friends into your
country, and for his sake you make them all great cheer; if among them
there come unawares to you some spies that were his mortal enemies,
wearing his badge and seeming to you and so reported as his familiar
friends, would he blame you for the good cheer you made his enemies or
thank you for the good cheer you gave his friends?” He then goes on at
great length to suggest that, as in the case of the head of St. John
the Baptist in which portions only existing in each place are each
called “the head,” so, very frequently, only a portion of the body of
a saint is called “the body.” He mentions having himself been present
at the abbey of Barking thirty years before (_i.e._ in 1498), when a
number of relics were discovered hidden in an old image, which must
have been put there four or five hundred years since “when the abbey
was burned by the infidels.” He thinks that in this way the names of
relics are frequently either lost or changed. But he adds, “the name
is not so very requisite but that we may mistake it without peril, so
that we nevertheless have the relics of holy men in reverence.”
In replying to Tyndale also, More declares that he had never in all
his life held views against relics of the saints or the honour due to
their holy images. Tyndale had charged him with being compromised by
the words used by Erasmus in the _Enconium Moriæ_, which was known to
have been composed in More’s house, and was commonly regarded as almost
the joint work of the two scholars. If there were anything like this in
the _Moriæ_--any words that could mean or seem to mean anything against
the true Catholic devotion to relics and images--then More rejects them
from his heart. But they are not my words, he adds, “the book being
made by another man, though he were my darling never so dear” (p. 422).
But the real truth is that in the _Moriæ_ Erasmus never said more or
meant more than to “jest upon the abuses of such things.”
In this regard it is of interest to understand what was the real
opinion of Erasmus in regard to devotions to particular saints and
their images and relics. This is all the more important, as most
people regard the account of his two pilgrimages to Walsingham and to
Canterbury as full and conclusive evidence of his sentiments. In his
tract _Enchiridion Militis Christiani_, published at Louvain in 1518,
his views are stated with absolute clearness. “There are some,” he
says, “who honour certain saints with some special ceremonies.… One
salutes St. Christopher each day, and only in presence of his image.
Why does he wish to see it? Simply because he will then feel safe that
day from any evil death. Another honours Saint Roch--but why? Because
he thinks that he will drive away infection from his body. Others
murmur prayers to St. Barbara or St. George, so as not to fall into
the hands of any enemy. One man fasts for St. Apollonia, not to have
toothache. Some dedicate a certain portion of their gains to the poor
so that their merchandise is not destroyed in shipwreck,” &c.[395]
Our author’s point is that in these and such-like things people pray
for riches, &c., and do not think much about the right use of them;
they pray for health and go on living evil lives. In so far such
prayers to the saints are mere superstitions, and do not much differ
from the pagan superstitions; the cock to Æsculapius, the tithe to
Hercules, the bull to Neptune. “But,” he says, “I praise those who ask
from St. Roch a life protected from disease if they would consecrate
that life to Christ. I would praise them more if they would pray only
for increased detestation of vice and love virtue. I will tolerate
infirmity, but with Paul I show the better way.” He would think it,
consequently, a more perfect thing to pray only for grace to avoid sin
and to please God, and to leave life and death, sickness, health and
riches to Him and His will.
“You,” he says farther on, “venerate the saints, you rejoice to
possess their relics, but you despise the best thing they have left
behind them, namely, the example of a pure life. No devotion is so
pleasing to Mary as when you imitate her humility; no religion is so
acceptable to the saints and so proper in itself as striving to copy
their virtue. Do you wish to merit the patronage of Peter and Paul?
Imitate the faith of the one and the charity of the other and you will
do more than if you had made ten journeys to Rome. Do you wish to do
something to show high honour to St. Francis? You are proud, you are
a lover of riches, you are quarrelsome; give these to the saint, rule
your soul and be more humble by the example of Francis; despise filthy
lucre, and covet rather the good of the soul. Leave contentions aside
and overcome evil by good. The saint will receive more honour in this
way than if you were to burn a hundred candles to him. You think it a
great thing if clothed in the habit of St. Francis you are borne to the
grave. This dress will not profit you when you are dead if, when alive,
your morals were unlike his.”
“People,” he continues, “honour the relics of St. Paul, and do not
trouble to listen to his voice still speaking. They make much of a
large portion of one of his bones looked at through a glass, and think
little of honouring him really by understanding what he teaches and
trying to follow that.” It is the same so often with the honour shown
to the crucifix. “You honour,” he says, “the representation of Christ’s
face fashioned of stone or of wood or painted in colours, the image of
His mind ought to be more religiously honoured, which, by the work of
the Holy Spirit, is set forth in the gospels. No Apelles ever sketched
the form and figure of a human body in such a perfect way as to compare
with the mental image formed in prayer.”
Erasmus then passes on to speak at length of what should lie at the
foundation of all true devotion to the saints. The spirit which
actuates is that which matters. To put up candles to images of the
saints and not to observe God’s laws; to fast and to abstain and not to
set a guard on the tongue, to give way to detraction and evil speaking
of all kinds; to wear the religious habit and to live the life of a
worldling under it; to build churches and not to build up the soul;
to keep Sunday observances externally but not to mind what the spirit
gives way to--these are the things that really matter. “By your lips
you bless and in your heart you curse. Your body is shut up in a narrow
cell, and in thought you wander over the whole world. You listen to
God’s word with the ears of your body; it would be more to the purpose
if you listened inwardly. What doth it profit not to do the evil which
you desire to accomplish? What doth it profit to do good outwardly and
to do the opposite inwardly? Is it much to go to Jerusalem in the body
when in the spirit it is to thee but Sodom and Egypt and Babylon?”[396]
In his tract _De amabili Ecclesiæ concordia_, printed in 1533, Erasmus
lays down the same principle. It is, he writes, a pious and good thing
to believe that the saints who have worked miracles in the time of
their lives on earth, can help us now that they are in heaven. As long
as there is no danger of real superstition, it is absurd to try to
prevent people invoking the saints. Though superstition in the cultus
of the saints is, of course, to be prevented, “the pious and simple
affection is sometimes to be allowed even if it be mixed with some
error.” As for the representations of the saints in churches, those
who disapprove of them should not for that reason “blame those who,
without superstition, venerate these images for the love of those they
represent, just as a newly-married woman kisses a ring or present left
or sent by her absent spouse out of affection for him.” Such affection
cannot be displeasing to God, since it comes not from superstition, but
from an abundance of affectionate feeling, and exactly the same view
should be taken of the true devotion shown to the relics of the saints,
provided that it be ever borne in mind that the highest honour that can
be paid to them consists in imitation of their lives.
Considering the importance of “indulgences” or “pardons,” as they were
frequently called, in the Reformation controversies, it is curious
that very little is made of them in the literature of the period
preceding the religious changes. If we except the works of professed
followers of Luther, there is hardly any trace of serious objection
being raised to the fundamental idea of “indulgences” in their true
sense. Here and there may be found indications of some objection to
certain abuses which had been allowed to creep into the system, but
these proceeded from loyal sons of the Church rather than from those
ill affected to the existing ecclesiastical authority, or those who
desired to see the abolition of all such grants of spiritual favours.
The lawyer Saint-German, for instance, may be taken as an example
of the acute layman, who, although professing to be a Catholic and
an obedient son of the Church, was credited by his contemporaries
with holding advanced if not somewhat heterodox views on certain
matters of current controversy. What he has to say about “pardons”
and “indulgences” is neither very startling nor indeed very different
from what all serious-minded churchmen of that day held. He considered
that the people generally were shocked at finding “the Pope and other
spiritual rulers” granting “pardons” for the payment of money. This,
he considered, had been brought prominently into notice at the time he
was writing, by the indulgences granted to those who should contribute
to the building of St. Peter’s when “it has appeared after, evidently
that it has not been disposed to that use. And that has caused many to
think that the said pardons were granted rather of covetousness than of
charity, or for the health of the souls of the people. And thereupon
some have fallen in a manner into despising ‘pardons’ as though pardons
granted upon such covetousness would not avail … and verily it were a
great pity that any misliking of pardons should grow in the hearts of
the people for any misdemeanour in the grantor or otherwise, for they
are right necessary. And I suppose that if certain pardons were granted
freely without money, for the saying of certain appointed prayers, then
all misliking of pardons would shortly cease and vanish away.”[397]
Christopher Saint-German speaks much in the same way as to the evil of
connecting payment of money with the granting of indulgences, in the
work in connection with which his name is chiefly known, _A Dyaloge in
English between a Student and a Doctor of Divinity_. “If it were so
ordered by the Pope,” he writes, “that there might be certain general
pardons of full remission in diverse parts of the realm, which the
people might have for saying certain orisons and prayers without paying
any money for it, it is not unlikely that in a short time there would
be very few that would find any fault with ‘pardons.’ For verily it is
a great comfort to all Christian people to remember that our Lord loved
His people so much that to their relief and comfort leave behind Him so
great a treasure as is the power to grant pardons, which, as I suppose,
next unto the treasure of His precious body in the Sacrament of the
altar, may be accounted among the greatest, and therefore he would
labour greatly to his own hurt and to the great heaviness of all others
also who would endeavour to prove that there was no such power left by
God.”[398]
In the literature of the period, it must be remembered, there is
nothing to show that the true nature of a “pardon” or indulgence was
not fully and commonly understood. There is no evidence that it was
in any way interpreted as a remission of sin, still less that any one
was foolish enough to regard it as permission to commit this or that
offence against God. Tyndale, indeed, had suggested that by purchasing
an indulgence “thou mayest quench almost the terrible fire of hell for
three halfpence.” But Sir Thomas More meets the point directly. “Nay,
surely,” he says, “that fire is not so lightly quenched that folk upon
the boldness of pardons should stand out of the fear of purgatory.
For though the sacrament of penance is able to put away the eternal
(nature) of the pain, yet the party for all that has cause to fear both
purgatory and hell too, lest some default on his own part prevented God
working such grace in him in the Sacrament as should serve for this.
So, though the pardon be able to discharge a man of purgatory, yet
there may be such default in the party to whom the pardon is granted
that although instead of three halfpence he gives three hundred pounds,
still he may receive no pardon at all, and therefore he cannot be out
of fear of purgatory, but ever has cause to fear it. For no man without
a revelation can be sure whether he be partaker of the pardon or not,
though he may have and ought to have both in that and every good thing
good hope.”[399]
Bishop Gardiner in 1546, in writing against George Joye, incidentally
makes use of some strong expressions about the granting of pardons
for the payment of money, and blames the friars as being instrumental
in spreading them. He has been asserting that by every means in his
power the devil, now in one way and now in another, attempts to prevent
men from practising the good works necessary for salvation. “For that
purpose,” he says, “he procured out pardons from Rome, wherein heaven
was sold for a little money, and to retail that merchandise the devil
used friars for his ministers. Now they be all gone with all their
trumpery; but the devil is not yet gone, for now the cry is that
‘heaven needs no works at all, but only belief, only, only, and nothing
else.’”[400]
This, after all, was very little more than the abuse which previously
was pointed out by the cardinal who, conjointly with Cardinal Caraffa,
afterwards Pope Paul IV., had been directed to draw up suggestions for
improvement of ecclesiastical discipline. The document drawn up by
Caraffa himself was submitted to the Pope by his command, and amongst
the points which were declared to need correction were the granting
of indulgences for money payments and permission given to travelling
collectors, such as the Questors of the Holy Spirit, &c., to bestow
“pardons” in return for subscriptions. This, in the judgment of the
four cardinals, is likely to lead to misunderstandings as to the real
nature of the indulgences granted, to deceive rustic minds, and to give
rise to all manner of superstitions.[401]
Cardinal Sadolet, one of the four cardinals who formed the Papal
Commission just referred to, in an appeal to the German princes makes
the same adverse criticism about the money payments received for the
granting of indulgences. “The whole of Germany,” he says, “has been
convulsed by the indulgences granted by Pope Leo. X. to those who would
contribute to the building of St. Peter’s. These indulgences,” he says,
“and consequently the agents in distributing them, I do not now defend.
And I remember that, as far as my position and honour would then allow,
I spoke against them when those decrees were published, and when my
opinion had no effect I was greatly grieved.” He did not, he continued,
doubt the power of the Pope in granting the indulgences, but held that
“in giving them, the manner now insisted on with every care by the
supreme Pontiff, Paul III., ought to be maintained, namely, that they
should be granted freely, and that there should be no mention of money
in regard to them. The loving-kindness and mercy of God should not be
sold for money, and if anything be asked for at the time, it should be
requested as a work of piety.”[402]
The above will show that earnest-minded men were fully alive to the
abuses which might be connected with the granting of indulgences,
and no condemnation could have been stronger than that formulated by
the Council of Trent. At the same time, it is clear that the abuses
of the system were, so far as England at least is concerned, neither
widespread nor obvious. The silence of Sir Thomas More on the matter,
and the very mild representations of his adversary, Christopher
Saint-German, show that this is the case. Saint-German’s objection was
not against the system, but against the same kind of abuses against
which subsequently the Fathers of Trent legislated. The reformers
attacked not the abuses only but the whole system, and their language
has quite unjustly been frequently interpreted by subsequent writers
as evidence of the existence everywhere of widespread abuses. In this
regard it is well to bear in mind that the translation of the works
of the German reformers into English cannot be taken as contemporary
evidence for England itself.
The cry of the advanced party which would sweep away every vestige of
the old religious observances was certainly not popular. One example of
a testimony to the general feeling in London is given in a little work
printed by one of the reforming party in 1542, when it was found that
Henry VIII. did not advance along the path of reformation marked out by
the foreign followers of Luther as quickly as his rejection of papal
supremacy and the overthrow of the religious houses had caused some
people to hope. The tract in question is called _The lamentation of a
Christian against the Citie of London, made by Roderigo Mors_,[403] and
some quotations from it will show what view an ardent reformer took
of the spirit of Londoners towards the new doctrines. “The greater
part of these inordinate rich, stiff-necked citizens,” he writes,
“will not have in their houses that lively word of our souls[404] nor
suffer their servants to have it, neither yet (will they) gladly read
it or hear it read, but abhors and disdains all those who would live
according to the Gospel, and instead thereof they set up and maintain
idolatry and other innumerable wickedness of man’s invention daily
committed in the city of London.
“The greatest part of the seniors and aldermen, with the multitude
of the inordinate rich … with the greatest multitude of thee, O city
of London, take the part and be fully bent with the false prophets,
the bishops and other strong, stout, and sturdy priests of Baal, to
persecute unto death all and every godly person who either preaches
the word or setteth it forth in writing … O Lord! how blind are
these citizens who take so good care to provide for the dead which
is not commanded of them nor availeth the dead.[405]… When they feel
themselves worthily plagued, which comes of Thee only, then they will
run a-gadding after their false prophets through the streets once or
twice a week, crying and calling to creatures of the Creator, or with
_ora pro nobis_, and that in a tongue which the greatest part of them
understand not, unto Peter, Paul, James and John, Mary and Martha: and
I think within a few years they will (without Thy great mercy) call
upon Thomas Wolsey, late Cardinal, and upon the unholy (or as they
would say holy) maid of Kent. Why not, as well as upon Thomas Becket?
What he was, I need not write. It is well known.[406]
“And think ye not that if the Blessed Virgin Mary were now upon earth
and saw her Son and only Redeemer robbed of His glory, which glory, you
blind citizens give to her, would she not rend her clothes like as did
the Apostles, for offering oblations with their forefathers’ kings’
heads unto the Queen of Heaven? How many queens of Heaven have ye in
the Litany? O! dear brethren, be no longer deceived with these false
prophets your bishops and their members.”[407]
“The great substance which you bestow upon chantries, obits, and such
like dregs of … Rome, which most commonly ye give for three causes, as
ye say, first, that you will have the service of God maintained in the
church to God’s honour, and yet by the same service is God dishonoured,
for the Supper of the Lord is perverted and not used after Christ’s
institution … and the holy memory turned into a vain superstitious
ceremonial Mass, as they call it, which Mass is an abominable idol, and
of all idols the greatest; and never shall idolatry be quenched where
that idol is used after antichrist’s institution … which no doubt shall
be reformed when the time is come that God hath appointed, even as it
is already in divers cities of Germany, as Zurich, Basle, and Strasburg
and such other.”
“The second cause is for redeeming your souls and your friends, which
is also abominable.… The idolator nowadays, if he set a candle before
an image and idol, he says he does not worship the image, but God it
represents. For say they, who is so foolish as to worship an image? The
third cause of your good intent is that the profit of your goods may
come to the priests; as though they were the peculiar people of God and
only beloved; as indeed to those who preach the Gospel the people are
bound to give sufficient living … but not that their prayers can help
the dead no more than a man’s breath blowing a sail can cause a great
ship to sail. So is this also become an abomination, for those be not
Christ’s ministers, but the ministers of a rabble of dirty traditions
and popish ceremonies, and you find a sort of lusty lubbers who are
well able to labour for their living and strong to get it with the
sweat of their face.”[408]
“… O ye citizens, if ye would turn but even the profits of your
chantries and obits to the finding of the poor, what a politic and
goodly provision! whereas now London being one of the flowers of the
world as touching worldly riches hath so many, yea innumerable poor
people, forced to go from door to door and to sit openly in the streets
begging, and many not able to do otherwise but lie in their houses in
most grievous pains and die for lack of the aid of the rich, to the
great shame of thee, oh London!”[409]
After exclaiming against the amount of money spent by the authorities
of the city of London on civic entertainments, and railing against the
support given to “the Mass of Scala cœli, of the Five wounds, and other
such like trumpery,” our author continues: “Have you not slain the
servants of the Lord, only for speaking against the authority of the
false bishop of Rome, that monstrous beast, whom now you yourselves do,
or should, abhor? I mean all his laws being contrary to Christ and not
His body, and yet you see that a few years past you burnt for heretics
abominable those who preached or wrote against his usurped power, and
now it is treason to uphold or maintain any part of his usurped power,
and he shall die as a traitor who does so, and well worthy.”[410]
After declaiming against the Mass and confession, and declaring that
the bishops and cathedral churches should be despoiled of their wealth
as their “companions and brethren in antichrist, the abbots” had been,
the author of the tract goes on: “God gave the king a heart to take the
wicked mammon from you, as he may rightfully do with the consent of the
Commons by Act of Parliament, so that it may be disposed of according
to God’s glory and the commonwealth, and to take himself as portion, as
(say) eight or ten of every hundred, for an acknowledgment of obedience
and for the maintenance of his estate. The rest politically to be put
into a commonwealth, first distributed among all the towns in England
in sums according to the quantity and number of the occupiers and where
most need is, and all the towns to be bound to the king so that he may
have the money at his extreme need to serve him, he rendering it again.
And also a politic way (should be) taken for provision of the poor in
every town, with some part to the marriage of young persons that lack
friends.”[411]
The bishops the writer considers to be the greatest obstacles to the
reformation of religion in England on the model of what had already
taken place in Germany. “You wicked mammon,” he continues, “your
inordinate riches was not of your heavenly Father’s planting; therefore
it must be plucked up by the roots with the riches of your other
brethren of the Romish church or church malignant, which of late were
rightfully plucked up. I would to God that the distribution of the
same lands and goods had been as godly distributed as the act of the
rooting up was; which distribution of the same I dare say all Christian
hearts lament. For the fat swine only were greased, but the poor sheep
to whom that thing belonged had least or nothing at all. The fault
will be laid to those of the Parliament House, especially to those who
bear the greatest swing. Well, I touch this matter here, to exhort
all that love God’s word unfeignedly to be diligent in prayer only to
God to endue the Lords, Knights, and Burgesses of the next Parliament
with His spirit, that the lands and goods of these bishops may be put
to a better use, as to God’s glory, the wealth of the commonalty and
provision for the poor.”[412]
The above lengthy extracts will show what the advanced spirits among
the English followers of Luther hoped for from the religious revolution
which had already, when the tract was written, been begun. It will also
serve to show that even in London, which may be supposed to have been
in the forefront of the movement, the religious changes were by no
means popular; but the civic authorities and people clung to the old
faith and traditions, which the author well and tersely describes as
“the Romish religion.”
* * * * *
The readers of the foregoing pages will see that no attempt has been
made to draw a definite conclusion from the facts set down, or expound
the causes of the ultimate triumph of the Reformation principles
in England. It has already been pointed out that the time for a
satisfactory synthesis is not yet come; but it may not be unnecessary
to deprecate impatience to reach an ultimate judgment.
The necessary assumption which underlies the inherited Protestant
history of the Reformation in the sixteenth century is the general
corruption of manners and morals no less than of doctrine, and the
ignorance of religious truths no less than the neglect of religious
precepts on the part of both clergy and people. On such a basis nothing
can be easier and simpler than to account for the issue of the English
religious changes. The revival of historical studies and the alienation
of the minds of many historians from traditional Christianity, whether
in its Catholic or Protestant form, has, however, thrown doubt on this
great fundamental assumption--a doubt that will be strengthened the
more the actual conditions of the case are impartially and thoroughly
investigated. Many of the genuine sources of history have only within
this generation become really accessible; what was previously known has
been more carefully examined and sifted, whilst men have begun to see
that if the truth is to be ascertained inquiries must be pursued in
detail within local limits, and that it does not suffice to speak in
general terms of “the corrupt state of the Church.”
If we are to know the real factors of the problem to be solved,
separate investigations have to be pursued which lead to very varying
conclusions as to the state of the Church, the ecclesiastical life and
the religious practices of the people in different countries. It is
already evident that the corruptions or the virtues prevailing in one
quarter must not straightway be credited to the account of another;
that the reason why one country has become Protestant, or another
remained Catholic, has to be sought for in each case, and that it may
be safely asserted that the maintenance of Catholicity or the adoption
of Protestantism in different regions, had comparatively little to do
with prevalence or absence of abuses, or as little depended on the
question whether these were more or less grievous.
Unquestionably those who desire to have a ready explanation of great
historical movements or revolutions, find themselves increasingly
baulked in the particular case of the Reformation by the new turn
which modern historical research has given to the consideration of
the question. Recent attempts to piece up the new results with the
old views afford a warning against precipitation, and have but shown
that the explanation of the successful issue of the Reformation
in England is a problem less simple or obvious than many popular
writers have hitherto assumed. The factors are clearly seen now to
be many--sometimes accidental, sometimes strongly personal--whilst
aspirations after worldly commodities, though destined not to be
realised for the many, were often and in the most influential quarters
a stronger determinant to acquiescence or active co-operation in the
movement than thirst after pure doctrine, love of the open Bible,
or desire for a vernacular liturgy. The first condition for the
understanding of the problem at all is the most careful and detailed
examination possible of the state of popular religion during the
whole of the century which witnessed the change, quite apart from the
particular political methods employed to effect the transition from the
public teaching of the old faith, as it was professed in the closing
years of the reign of Henry VIII., and the new as it was officially
practised a dozen years after Elizabeth had held the reins of power.
The interest of the questions discussed in the present volume is by
no means exclusively, perhaps to some persons is even by no means
predominantly, a religious one. It has been insisted upon in the
preceding pages that religion on the eve of the Reformation was
intimately bound up with the whole social life of the people, animating
it and penetrating it at every point. No one who is acquainted with the
history of later centuries in England can doubt for a moment that the
religion then professed presented in this respect a contrast to the
older faith; or as some writers may put it, religion became restricted
to what belongs to the technically “religious” sphere. But this was not
confined to England, or even to Protestant countries. Everywhere, it
may be said, in the centuries subsequent to the religious revolution
of the sixteenth century, religion became less directly social in its
action; and if the action and interference of what is now called the
State in every department of social life is continually extending,
this may not inaptly be said to be due to the fact that it has largely
taken up the direct social work and direction from which the Church
found herself perhaps compelled to recede, in order to concentrate her
efforts more intensely on the promotion of more purely and strictly
religious influences. It is impossible to study the available sources
of information about the period immediately preceding the change
without recognising that, so far from the Church being a merely effete
or corrupt agency in the commonwealth, it was an active power for
popular good in a very wide sense. At any rate, whatever view we may
take of the results of the Reformation, to understand rightly the
conditions of religious thought and life on the eve of the religious
revolution, is a condition of being able really to read aright our own
time and to gauge the extent to which present tendencies find their
root or their justification in the past.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Opera_ (ed. Frankfort), tom. x. p. 56, quoted by Janssen.
[2] J. L. Andre, in _Sussex Archæological Journal_, xxxix. p. 31.
[3] The use of the expression “New Learning” as meaning the revival of
letters is now so common that any instance of it may seem superfluous.
Green, for example, in his _History of the English People_, vol. ii.
constantly speaks of it. Thus (p. 81), “Erasmus embodied for the
Teutonic peoples the quickening influence of the New Learning during
the long scholar-life which began at Paris and ended amidst sorrow at
Basle.” Again (p. 84), “the group of scholars who represented the New
Learning in England.” Again (p. 86), “On the universities the influence
of the New Learning was like a passing from death to life.” Again (p.
125), “As yet the New Learning, though scared by Luther’s intemperate
language, had steadily backed him in his struggle.”
[4] _Sermons._ London: Robert Caly, 1557, p. 36.
[5] _The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman unto Christ_, sig. Aij.
[6] R. V. _The olde Faith of Great Brittayne, &c._--The style of
the book may be judged by the following passages:--“How say you (O
ye popish bishops and priests which maintain Austen’s dampnable
ceremonies)--For truly so long as ye say masse and lift the bread and
wine above your heads, giving the people to understand your mass to be
available for the quick and the dead, ye deny the Lord that bought you;
therefore let the mass go again to Rome, with all Austen’s trinkets,
and cleave to the Lord’s Supper”.… Again:--“Gentle reader: It is not
unknown what an occasion of sclander divers have taken in that the
king’s majesty hath with his honourable council gone about to alter and
take away the abuse of the communion used in the mass.… The ignorant
and unlearned esteem the same abuse, called the mass, to be the
principal point of Christianity, to whom the altering thereof appears
very strange.… Our popish priests still do abuse the Lord’s Supper
or Communion, calling it still a new name of _Missa_ or Mass.” The
author strongly objects to those like Bishop Gardiner and Dr. Smythe
who have written in defence of the old doctrine of the English Church
on the Blessed Sacrament: “Yea, even the mass, which is a derogation
of Christ’s blood. For Christ left the sacrament of his body and blood
in bread and wine to be eaten and drunk in remembrance of his death,
and not to be looked upon as the Israelites did the brazen serpent.…
Paul saith not, as often as the priest lifts the bread and wine above
his shaven crown, for the papists to gaze at.” All this, as “the New
Learning” brought over to England by St. Augustine of Canterbury, the
author would send back to Rome from whence it came.
[7] Urbanus Regius, _A comparison betwene the old learnynge and the
newe_, translated by William Turner. Southwark: Nicholson, 1537, sig.
Aij to Cvij.
[8] _Opera_ (ed. Le Clerc), Ep. 583.
[9] Ibid., Ep. 751.
[10] Remigio Sabbadini, _La Scuola e gli studi di Guarino Guarini
Veronese_, pp. 217-18.
[11] R. Sabbadini, _Guarino Veronese et il suo epistolario_, p. 57.
[12] The Earl was a confrater and special friend of the monks of
Christchurch, Canterbury. In 1468-69, Prior Goldstone wrote to the
Earl, who had been abroad “on pilgrimage” for four years, to try and
obtain for Canterbury the usual jubilee privileges of 1470. In his Obit
in the Canterbury _Necrology_ (MS. Arund. 68 f. 45d) he is described
as “vir undecumque doctissimus, omnium liberalium artium divinarumque
simul ac secularium litterarum scientia peritissimus.”
[13] Leland (_De Scriptoribus Britannicis_, 482) calls him Tillœus,
and this has been generally translated as Tilly. In the _Canterbury
Letter Books_ (Rolls Series, iii. 291) it appears that Prior Selling
was greatly interested in a boy named Richard Tyll. In 1475, Thomas
Goldstone, the warden of Canterbury Hall, writes to Prior Selling
about new clothes and a tunic and other expenses “scolaris tui Ricardi
Tyll.” In the same volume, p. 315, is a letter of fraternity given to
“Agnes, widow of William Tyll,” and on February 7, 1491, she received
permission to be buried where her husband, William Tyll, had been
interred, “juxta tumbam sancti Thomæ martyris.”
[14] _Canterbury Letters_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 13, 15.
[15] C. C. C. C. MS. 417 f. 54d: “Item hoc anno videlicet 6 Kal. Oct.
D. Willms Selling celebravit primam suam missam et fuit sacerdos summæ
missæ per totam illam ebdomadam.”
[16] _Literæ Cantuarr._ (Rolls Series), iii. 239.
[17] Leland, _De Scriptoribus Britannicis_, p. 482. _Cf._ also
_Canterbury Letters_ (Camden Soc.), p. xxvii.
[18] Leland, _ut supra_.
[19] Umberto Dallari, _I rotuli dei Lettori, &c., dello studio
Bolognese dal 1384 al 1799_, p. 51.
[20] Serafino Mazzetti, _Memorie storiche sopra l’università di
Bologna_, p. 308.
[21] Leland, _ut supra_.
[22] B. Mus. Arundel MS. 68, f. 4. The Obit in Christchurch MS. D. 12,
says: “Sacræ Theologiæ Doctor. Hic in divinis agendis multum devotus et
lingua Græca et Latina valde eruditus.… O quam laudabiliter se habuit
opera merito laudanda manifesto declarant.”
[23] In the Canterbury Registers (Reg. R.) there is a record which
evidently relates to Selling’s previous stay in Rome as a student.
On October 3, 1469, the date of Selling’s second departure for Rome,
the Prior and convent of Christchurch granted a letter to Pietro dei
Milleni, a citizen of Rome, making him a _confrater_ of the monastery
in return for the kindness shown to Dr. William Selling, when in the
Eternal City. This letter, doubtless, Selling carried with him in 1469.
[24] _The Old English Bible and other Essays_, p. 306.
[25] B. Mus. Cotton MS. Julius F. vii., f. 118.
[26] One of Prior Selling’s first acts of administration was apparently
to procure a master for the grammar school at Canterbury. He writes
to the Archbishop: “Also please it your good faderhood to have in
knowledge that according to your commandment, I have provided for a
schoolmaster for your gramerscole in Canterbury, the which hath lately
taught gramer at Wynchester and atte Seynt Antonyes in London. That,
as I trust to God, shall so guide him that it shall be worship and
pleasure to your Lordship and profit and encreas to them that he shall
have in governance.”--_Hist. MSS. Com._ 9th Report, App. p. 105.
[27] I. Noble Johnson, _Life of Linacre_, p. 11. Among the great
benefactors to Canterbury College, Oxford, was Doctor Thomas
Chaundeler, Warden of New College. In 1473, the year after the election
of Prior Selling, the Chapter of Christchurch, Canterbury, passed a
resolution that, in memory of his great benefits to them, his name
should be mentioned daily in the conventual mass at Canterbury, and
that at dinner each day at Oxford he should be named as founder.
[28] Galeni, _De Temperamentis libri tres, Thoma Linacro
interpretante_, is dedicated to Pope Leo X., with a letter from Linacre
dated 1521. “The widow’s mite was approved by Him whose vicar on earth”
Pope Leo is, so this book is only intended to recall common studies,
though in itself of little interest to one having the care of the world.
[29] G. Lilii, _Elogia_, ed. P. Jovii, p. 91.
[30] Ibid., lxiii. p. 145.
[31] Sir Thomas More writing to Colet says: “I pass my time here (at
Oxford) with Grocyn, Linacre, and our (George) Lilly: the first as
you know the only master of my life, when you are absent; the second,
the director of my studies; the third, my dearest companion in all
the affairs of life” (J. Stapleton, _Tres Thomæ_, p. 165.) Another
constant companion of More at Oxford was Cuthbert Tunstall, one of the
most learned men of his day, afterwards in succession Bishop of London
and Durham. Tunstall dedicated to More his tract _De arte supputandi_,
which he printed at Paris in 1529.
[32] Reg. Warham, in Knight’s _Erasmus_, p. 22 _note_.
[33] Encyclop. Brit. _sub nomine_.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ugo Balzani, _Un’ ambasciata inglese a Roma_, Società Romana di
storia patria, iii. p. 175 _seqq._ Of this an epitome is given in
Bacon’s _Henry VII._, p. 95. Count Ugo Balzani says: “Il prior di
Canterbury sembra essere veramente stato l’anima dell’ ambasciata.”
Burchardus, _Rerum Urbanarum Commentarii_ (ed. Thuasne), i. p. 257,
gives a full account of the reception of this embassy in Rome and by
the Pope.
[36] Harl. MS. 6237, and Add. MS. 15,673.
[37] In the same beautifully written volume is a printed tract
addressed to the Venetian Senate in 1471 against princes taking church
property. The tract had been sent to the Prior of Christchurch by
Christopher Urswick, with a letter, in which, to induce him to read it,
he says it is approved by Hermolaus Barbarus and Guarini. Christopher
Urswick was almoner to Henry VII., and to him Erasmus dedicated three
of his works.
[38] Leland, _De Scriptoribus Britannicis_, 482.
[39] This information I owe to the kindness of Dr. Montague James.
[40] _Canterbury Letters_ (Camden Soc.), p. xxvii.
[41] Ibid., p. 36, a letter in which Dr. Langton asks Prior Selling to
“attend to the drawing of it.” The draft sermon is in Cleop. A. iii.
[42] Richard Pace, _De Fructu_, p. 27. The work _De Fructu_ was
composed at Constance, where Pace was ambassador, and where he had met
his old master, Paul Bombasius. He dedicates the tract to Colet, who
had done so much to introduce true classical Latin into England, in
place of the barbarous language formerly used. The work was suggested
to him by a conversation he had in England two years before, on his
return from Rome, with a gentleman he met at dinner, who strongly
objected to a literary education for his children, on the ground that
he disapproved of certain expressions made use of by Erasmus. The tract
shows on what a very intimate footing Pace was with Bombasius.
[43] _De Fructu_, p. 99. Pace published at Venice in 1522, _Plutarchi
Cheronei Opuscula_, and dedicated the work to Bishop Tunstall. He
reminds the bishop of their old student days, and says the translation
has been examined by their “old master, Nicholas Leonicus.”
[44] Ibid.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid., p. 51. “Quas vocant proportionum inductiones … antiquitatem
superasse.”
[47] More to the University of Oxford, in Knight’s _Erasmus_, p. 31.
[48] Bishop Fisher’s love and zeal for learning is notorious. He did
all in his power to assist in the foundation of schools of sound
learning at Cambridge, and especially to encourage the study of Greek.
Richard Croke, the protégé of Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fisher,
after teaching Greek in 1516 at Leipzig, was sent by Fisher in 1519 to
Cambridge to urge the utility of Greek studies at that university. In
the _Orationes_ he delivered there, after speaking of the importance of
Greek for all Biblical study, he says that Oxford had taken up the work
with great avidity, since “they have there as their patrons besides
the Cardinal (Wolsey), Canterbury (Warham), and Winchester, all the
other English bishops except the one who has always been your great
stay and helper, the Bishop of Rochester, and the Bishop of Ely.” It
was entirely owing to Bishop Fisher’s generosity, and at his special
request, that Croke had gone to Cambridge rather than to Oxford,
whither his connection with Warham, More, Linacre, and Grocyn would
have led him, in order to carry on the work begun by Erasmus.
[49] Thomas Lupset was educated by Colet, and learnt his Latin and
Greek under William Lilly, going afterwards to Oxford. There he made
the acquaintance of Ludovico Vives, and at his exhortation went to
Italy. He joined Reginald Pole in his studies at Padua, and on his
return, after acting as Thomas Winter’s tutor in Paris, he held a
position first as a teacher and then in Cardinal Wolsey’s household.
In his _Exhortation to Young Men_, persuading them to a good life,
“written at More, a place of my Lord Cardinal’s,” in 1529, he gives a
charming account of his relation with a former pupil. “It happeneth,”
he says, “at this time (my heartily beloved Edmund) that I am in such
a place where I have no manner of books with me to pass the time after
my manner and custom. And though I had here with me plenty of books,
yet the place suffereth me not to spend in them any study. For you
shall understand that I lie waiting on my Lord Cardinal, whose hours
I must observe, to be always at hand lest I be called when I am not
bye, which would be straight taken for a fault of great negligence. I
am well satiated with the beholding of these gay hangings that garnish
here every wall.” As a relief he turns to address his young friend
Edmund. Probably Edmund doesn’t understand his affection, because he
had always acted on the principle he has “been taught, that the master
never hurteth his scholar more than when he uttereth and sheweth by
cherishing and cokering the love he beareth to his scholars.” Edmund is
now “of age, and also by the common board of houseling admitted into
the number of men, and to be no more in the company of children,” and
so now he can make known his affection. “This mind had I to my friend
Andrew Smith, whose son Christopher, your fellow, I ever took for my
son.… If you will call to your mind all the frays between you and
me, or me and Smith, you will find that they were all out of my care
for ‘your manners.’ When I saw certain fantasies in you or him that
jarred from true opinions, the which true opinions, above all learning,
I would have masters ever teach their scholars. Wherefore, my good
withipol, take heed of my lesson.”
[50] John Clement, a protégé of Sir Thomas More, was afterwards a
doctor of renown not only in medicine but in languages. He had been
a member of More’s household, which Erasmus speaks of as “schola et
gymnasium Christianæ religionis.” He is named at the beginning of the
_Eutopia_, and Sir Thomas, in writing to Erasmus, says that Linacre
declared that he had had no pupil at Oxford equal to him. John Clement
translated several ancient Greek authors into Latin, amongst others
many letters of St. Gregory Nazianzen and the Homilies of Nicephorus
Callistus on the Saints of the Greek Calendar. Stapleton, in his
_Tres Thomæ_ (p. 250), says he had himself seen and examined with the
originals these two voluminous translations at the request of John
Clement himself. He had married Margaret, the ward of Sir Thomas More,
and in the most difficult places of his translation he was helped by
his wife, who, with the daughters of Sir Thomas, had been his disciple
and knew Greek well. Mary Roper, More’s granddaughter, and the daughter
of Margaret Roper, translated Eusebius’s _History_ from Greek into
Latin, but it was never published, because Bishop Christopherson had
been at work on a similar translation. On the change of religion
in Elizabeth’s reign, John Clement and his wife, with the Ropers,
took refuge in the Low Countries. Paulus Jovius, in his _Descriptio
Britanniæ_, p. 13, speaks of all three daughters of Sir Thomas More
being celebrated for their knowledge of Latin.
[51] Erasmi _Opera_ (ed. 1703), Col. 40.
[52] Ibid., Ep. 241.
[53] Ibid., Ep. 363.
[54] To take one example, Thomas Millyng, who as Bishop of Hereford
died in 1492, had studied at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, as a monk of
Westminster. During the old age of Abbot Fleet, of Westminster, he
governed the monastery, and became its abbot in 1465. He was noted
for his love of studies, and especially for his knowledge of Greek.
This, says the writer of his brief life in the _National Biographical
Dictionary_, was “a rare accomplishment for _monks_ in those days.” He
might have added, and for any one else!
[55] Dennistoun, _Memorials of the Dukes of Urbino_, iii., pp. 415
_seqq._
[56] Erasmus to Abbot Bere. _Opera_, Ep. 700.
[57] MS. Bodl. 80. It is the autograph copy of Free, _cf._ J. W.
Williams, _Somerset Mediæval Libraries_, p. 87. It was Abbot Bere
who, in 1506, presented John Claymond, the learned Greek scholar, to
his first benefice of Westmonkton, in the county of Somerset. In 1516
Claymond became first President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
often after signing himself, _Eucharistiæ servus_. Dr. Claymond
procured for his college several Greek manuscripts which had belonged
to Grocyn and Linacre, which are still possessed by it. At the end
of MS. XXIII., which is a volume containing ninety homilies of St.
John Chrysostom in Greek, is an inscription stating that this, and
MS. XXIV., were copied in the years 1499 and 1500 by a Greek from
Constantinople, named John Serbopylas, then living and working at
Reading.
[58] Ludovico Vives had been invited over to England by Cardinal Wolsey
to lecture on rhetoric at Oxford. He lived at Corpus Christi College,
then ruled by Dr. John Claymond, whom in his tract _De conscribendis
Epistolis_ he calls his “father.” The fame of this Spanish master of
eloquence drew crowds to his lectures at the university, and amongst
the audience Henry and Queen Katherine might sometimes be seen. For a
time he acted also as tutor to the Princess Mary, and dedicated several
works to the queen, to whose generosity he says he owed much. He took
her side in the “divorce” question, and was thrown into prison for
some weeks for expressing his views on the matter. Fisher, More, and
Tunstall were his constant friends in England, and of Margaret Roper
he writes, “from the time I first made her acquaintance I have loved
her as a sister.” Among his pupils at Louvain, besides the above-named
Canterbury monk, John Digon, he mentions with great affection Nicholas
Wotton, whom the antiquary Twyne speaks of as returning to England with
Digon and Jerome Ruffaldus, who calls Vives his “Jonathan,” and who
subsequently became abbot of St. Vaast, Arras.
[59] J. Venn, _Gonville and Caius College_ (1349-1897), Vol. I.
[60] Ibid., p. xvi.
[61] Ibid., p. 18.
[62] Ibid., p. 23.
[63] Ibid., p. 21.
[64] Ibid., p. xviii.
[65] _Sermons_ (1557), f. 54.
[66] A. Chalmers, _History of the Colleges, &c. of Oxford_, ii. p. 351.
[67] Hearne, _John of Glastonbury_, ii. p. 490; from MS. Cott.
Vitellius c. vii.
[68] Saint-German was born 1460. He was employed by Thomas Cromwell
on some business of the State, and died in 1540. The _Dyalogue_ was
printed apparently first in Latin, but subsequently in English. It
consisted of three parts (1) published by Robert Wyer, (2) by Peter
Treveris, 1531, and (3) by Thomas Berthalet, also in 1531.
[69] _Dyalogue_, _ut sup._, 3rd part, f. 2.
[70] One of the first Acts of King Henry VII. on his accession, was to
obtain from the Pope a Bull agreeing to some changes in the Sanctuary
customs. Prior Selling of Canterbury was despatched as King’s Orator to
Rome with others to Pope Innocent VIII. in 1487, and brought back the
Pope’s approval of three points in which the king proposed to change
these laws. _First_, that if any person in Sanctuary went out at night
and committed mischief and trespass, and then got back again, he should
forfeit his privilege of Sanctuary. _Secondly_, that though the person
of a debtor might be protected in Sanctuary, yet his goods out of the
precincts were not so protected from his creditors. _Thirdly_, that
where a person took Sanctuary for treason, the king might appoint him
keepers within the Sanctuary.
[71] Robert Keilway, _Relationes quorundam casuum_, f. 188, _seqq._
[72] _Dyalogue_, _ut sup._, f. 12.
[73] _Dyalogue_, f. 23.
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid., f. 23.
[76] Ibid., f. 21.
[77] Ibid., f. 21.
[78] _A treatyse concerning the power of the clergie and the laws of
the realme._ London, J. Godfray.
[79] _A treatyse_, &c., _ut supra_, cap. 4.
[80] _A treatyse_, &c., _ut supra_, cap. xii.
[81] _A treatyse_, &c., _ut supra_, cap. xii.
[82] Ibid., cap. xiii.
[83] Ibid., cap. vi.
[84] _English Works_ (ed. 1557), p. 1017.
[85] _A treatyse_, &c., _ut sup._, cap. vi., sig. E. i.
[86] _Salem and Bizance, a dialogue betwixte two Englishmen, whereof
one was called Salem and the other Bizance_ (Berthelet, 1533), f. 76.
[87] Ibid., f. 84.
[88] _English Works_, p. 892.
[89] Ibid.
[90] _A Dialogue_, &c., _ut sup._, f. 8.
[91] Ibid., f. 11.
[92] Ibid., f. 14.
[93] _A Dialogue_, &c., _ut sup._, p. 17.
[94] _History of English Law_, i., p. 93-4. Mr. James Gairdner, in
a letter to _The Guardian_, March 1, 1899, says: “There were, in
the Middle Ages, in every kingdom of Europe that owned the Pope’s
jurisdiction, two authorities, the one temporal and the other
spiritual, and the head of the spiritual jurisdiction was at Rome. The
bishops had the rule over their clergy, even in criminal matters, and
over the laity as well in matters of faith. Even a bishop’s decision,
it is true, might be disputed, and there was an appeal to the Pope;
nay, the Pope’s decision might be disputed, and there was an appeal
to a general council. Thus there was, in every kingdom, an _imperium
in imperio_, but nobody objected to such a state of matters, not even
kings, seeing that they could, as a rule, get anything they wanted out
of the Popes--even some things, occasionally, that the Popes ought not
to have conceded.”
[95] William Bond, _The Pilgrymage of perfeccyon_, 1531, f. 223.
[96] Roger Edgworth, _Sermons_, 1557, fol. 102
[97] Edward Powell, _Propugnaculum summi sacerdotii, &c., adversus M.
Lutherum_, 1523, fol. 22 and fol. 35.
[98] _English Works_, p. 171.
[99] Ibid. p. 185.
[100] Ibid., p. 528.
[101] Ibid., p. 538.
[102] _English Works_, p. 616.
[103] Ibid., p. 798.
[104] _Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries_ (popular edition), p.
367.
[105] In his work against Luther, Bishop Fisher teaches the supremacy
of the Pope without any ambiguity. In the _Sermon had at Paulis_
against Luther and his followers, he also put his position perfectly
clearly. The Church that has a right to the name _Catholic_ has derived
the right from its communion with the See of Peter. Our Lord called
Cephas, Peter, or rock, to signify that upon him as a rock He would
build His church. Unto Peter He committed His flock, and “the true
Christian people which we have at this day was derived by a continual
succession from the See of Peter” (fol. e. 4. d.).
[106] Simon Matthew, _Sermon made in the Cathedrall Church of
Saynt-Paule, 27 June 1535_ (Berthelet, 1535).
[107] Joannis Longlondi _Tres conciones_ (R. Pynson), f. 45.
[108] _Assertion of the Seven Sacraments against Luther_ (translation
by J. W., 1687), f. a. i.
[109] _A treatise of the donation or gift and endowment of possessions
given_ (by Constantine) _with the judgement of certain great men_,
1517, Thomas Godfray.
[110] London, Thomas Berthelet.
[111] _A dyalogue_, _ut sup._, ff. 3-7.
[112] f. A. ii.; c. i.; c. iiij. The author recommends those who
would understand the Pope’s power to “resort unto _The glasse of
truth_ or to the book named the _Determinations of the universities_.”
The book named here _A glasse of truth_ is written in favour of the
divorce. “Some lawyers,” the author says, “attribute too much to the
Pope--at length there shall be no law, but only his will.” The work
was published by Berthelet anonymously, but Richard Croke, in a letter
written at this period (Ellis, _Historical Letters_, 3rd series, ii.
195), says that the book was written by King Henry himself. It was
generally said that Henry had written a defence of his divorce; but
Strype did not think it was more than a State paper. Croke (p. 198)
says that people at Oxford, “Mr. John Roper and others,” did not
believe that the king was really the author. He says that the tract has
done more than anything else to get people to take the king’s side.
[113] _Of the olde God and the new_, B. 1. As another sample of what
was at this time said about the Popes, we may take the following:
Rome, says the author, “was by Justinian restored from ruin and decay,
from whence also came the riches of the Church. At the coming of these
riches, forthwith the book of the gospel was shut up, and the Bishops
of Rome, instead of evangelical poverty, began to put forth their heads
garnished with three crowns.” This is taken from the preface of Hartman
Dulechin, who claims to have “taught the book to speak Latin.” It was
originally printed and published in German. The English version is a
translation of the Latin.
[114] _The Defence of Peace, written in Latin more than 200 years ago,
and set forth in the English tongue by Wyllyam Marshall._ R. Wyer,
1535, folio.
[115] _The Defence of Peace_, f. 42. The well-known anti-papal opinions
of Marsilius of Padua are, of course, of no interest in themselves, but
their publication at this time in English shows the methods by which it
was hoped to undermine the Papal authority in the country.
[116] _Exposition_, &c., _ut supra_, f. i.
[117] Johann Sturmius, _Epistle sent to the cardinals and prelates that
were appointed by the Bishop of Rome to search out the abuses of the
Church_. Translated by Richard Morysine. Berthelet, 1538.
A later copy of the _Concilium de emendanda Ecclesia_, printed by
Sturmius with his letter in 1538, in the British Museum, formerly
belonged to Cecil. The title-page has his signature, “Gulielmus
Cecilius, 1540,” and there are marks and words underlined, and some few
observations from his pen in the margin. It is interesting to note that
what struck the statesman as a youth were just the points which could
be turned against the temporal claims of the Roman See.
The special evils needing correction which the committee of cardinals
note, and which they call _abuses_, are collected under 22 headings,
some of which are the following:--
(1) Ordination of priests without cure of souls, not learned, of lower
order in life, and too young and of doubtful morals: They suggest that
each diocese should have a _magistrum_ to see that candidates are
properly instructed--none to be ordained except by their own bishop.
(2) Benefices, and in particular, episcopal sees, are given to people
with interest, and not because their elevation would be good for the
church. They suggest that the best man should be chosen, and residence
should be insisted on, and consequently “non Italo conferendum est
beneficium in Hispania aut in Britannia aut ex contra.”
(3) _Pensions_ reserved from Benefices. Though the Pope, “who is the
universal dispenser of the goods of the church,” may reserve a part for
a pious use, _e.g._ for the poor, &c., still not to reserve sufficient
for the proper purpose of the beneficiary, and still more to give a
pension out of a benefice to one rich enough without, is wrong.
(4) Change of benefices for the sake of gain, and handing on benefices
by arrangement or always assigning episcopal sees to coadjutors, is the
cause of outcry against the clergy, and is in reality making private
property out of what is public.
(5) Permission to clergy to hold more than one benefice.
(6) Cardinals being allowed to hold sees. They ought to be counsellors
to the Pope in Rome, and when holding sees they are more or less
dependent on the will of the kings, and so cannot give independent
advice and speak their minds.
(7) Absence of bishops from their sees.
(8) Such religious houses as needed correction should be forbidden to
profess members, and when they die out, their places should be taken
by fervent religious. Confessors for convents must be approved by the
ordinaries of the place.
(9) The use of the keys ought never, under any pretext, to be granted
for money.
(10) Questors of the Holy Spirit, St. Anthony, &c., who foster
superstition among the poor people, should be prohibited.
(11) Confessional privileges and use of portable altars to be very
rarely allowed.
(12) No indulgences to be granted except once a year, and in the great
cities only.
Finally they say of Rome: “Hæc Romana civitas et ecclesia mater est
et magistra aliarum ecclesiarum,” and hence it should be a model to
all. Foreigners, however, who come to St. Peter’s find that priests
“sordidi, ignari, induti paramentis et vestibus quibus nec in sordidis
ædibus honeste uti possent, missas celebrant.”
Cardinal Sadolet, on receiving a copy of Sturmius’s letter, replied
in kindly terms. He had, he declared, a high opinion of “Sturmius,
Melanchthon, and Bucer, looking on them as most learned men, kindly
disposed, and cordially friendly to him. He looked upon it as the
peculiar characteristic of Luther to try and overwhelm all his
opponents with shouts and attacks.” He speaks of the great piety of
Pope Clement from personal knowledge. His wars were, he said, rather
the work of his adversaries than his own (_De consilio_, ed. J. G.
Schelhorn, 1748, p. 91).
He also, in 1539, penned the _De Christiana Ecclesia_ (in _Specilegium
Romanum_, ii. p. 101 _seqq._), sending it to Cardinal Salicati, and
asking him to pass it on to Cardinal Contarini. It was the outcome
of conversations about the troubles of the Church, and the result of
the movement was the Council of Trent, to restore, as Sadolet says,
ecclesiastical discipline “quæ nunc tota pæne nobis e manibus elapsa
est.”
[118] _Sermon on Palm Sunday_, Berthelet, 1539.
[119] Lancelot Ridley, _Commentary in Englyshe on Sayncte Paule’s
Epystle to the Ephesians_, L. 4.
[120] This important paper was printed for the first time in the
_Dublin Review_, April 1894, pp. 390-420.
[121] _A treatise concerning the division between the spiritualtie and
temporaltie._ London: Robert Redman, f. 2.
[122] _English Works_, p. 871. In the quotations made from the works
of Sir Thomas More and other old writings, for the sake of the general
reader the modern form of spelling has been adopted, and at times the
words transposed to ensure greater clearness.
[123] Ibid., p. 875.
[124] Ibid., p. 882.
[125] _Salem and Bizance. A dialogue betwixte two Englishmen, whereof
one was called Salem and the other Bizance._ London: Berthelet, 1533,
f. 5.
[126] _English Works_, p. 934.
[127] Ibid., p. 870.
[128] Ibid., p. 877.
[129] Ibid., p. 877.
[130] Ibid., p. 878.
[131] Ibid., pp. 937, 938.
[132] _A treatise concerning the division_, f. 8.
[133] _English Works_, p. 880.
[134] Ibid., p. 951.
[135] _A treatise concerning the division_, f. 3.
[136] _A treatise concerning the division_, f. 41.
[137] _English Works_, p. 884.
[138] Ibid., p. 895.
[139] Ibid.
[140] Ibid., p. 896.
[141] Ibid., p. 885.
[142] Bishop Fisher gives much the same testimony to the moral
character of the religious generally in his sermon against Luther.
After praising the state of virginity, he continues: “And it is not to
be doubted but that there is in Christendom at this day many thousands
of religious men and women that full truly keep their religion and
their chastity unto Christ.… If Almighty God did reserve in that
little portion of Jewry so great a multitude beyond the estimation of
the prophet, what number suppose ye doth yet remain in Christendom of
religious men and women, notwithstanding this great persecution of
religious monasteries, both of men and women, done by these heretics
by this most execrable doctrine? It is not to be doubted but in all
Christendom be left many thousands who at this hour live chaste, and
truly keep their virginity unto Christ.” (_A Sermon had at Paulis_,
Berthelet, f. g. ii.)
[143] Ibid., p. 735. Sir Thomas More, in his _Dyalogue_, thinks that
the number of priests without very definite work had tended to diminish
the respect paid to them by the laity. “But were I Pope,” he says, … “I
could not well devise better provisions than by the laws of the Church
are provided already, if they were as well kept as they are well made.
But as for the number, I would surely see such a way therein that we
should not have such a rabble that every mean man must have a priest
in his house to wait upon his wife. This no mean man lacketh now, to
the contempt of the priesthood, (placed) in as vile an office as his
horsekeeper. That is truth indeed, quod he, and in worse, too, for they
keep hawks and dogs.” If the laws of the Church were kept, there would
not be the excessive number of priests for fit and proper positions,
so that “the whole order is rebuked by the priests’ begging and lewd
living who are either obliged to walk as rovers, and live upon trentals
or worse, or serve in a secular man’s house” (_English Works_, p. 223).
[144] _A treatise concerning the division_, ff. 14-16.
[145] _Dyalogue_, &c., f. 2.
[146] _A treatise concerning the division_, f. 23.
[147] Ibid., f. 25.
[148] Ibid., f. 26.
[149] _English Works_, p. 936.
[150] _English Works_, p. 620.
[151] _A Sermonde … made in 1538._ By John Longlande, Bishop of
Lincolne. London: f. 2.
[152] _Henry VIII._, vol. ii. pp. 50-1.
[153] Ibid., vol. i. p. 600.
[154] Ibid., ii. p. 470.
[155] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. 717.
[156] _Sermo Exhortatorius_, W. de Worde.
[157] Gairdner, _Calendar of Papers Foreign and Domestic_, v., preface,
ix.
[158] Froude’s translation.
[159] _Opera_, ed. Leclerc, iii. col. 102.
[160] Ibid., Ep. 144.
[161] In one of his works Erasmus gives the highest praise to English
ecclesiastics for their single-minded devotion to their clerical
duties. He contrasts them with clerics of other nations in regard to
worldly ambitions, &c. “Those who are nearest to Christ,” he writes,
“should keep themselves free from the baser things of this world. How
ill the word ‘general’ sounds when connected with that of ‘Cardinal,’
or ‘duke’ with that of ‘bishop,’ ‘earl’ with that of ‘abbot,’ or
‘commander’ with that of ‘priest.’ In England the ecclesiastical
dignity is the highest, and the revenues of churchmen abundant. In that
country, however, no one who is a bishop or abbot has even a semblance
of temporal dominion, or possesses castles or musicians or bands of
retainers, nor does any of them coin his own money, excepting only the
Archbishop of Canterbury, as a mark of dignity and honour, which has
been conferred on him on account of the death of Saint Thomas; he is,
however, never concerned in matters of war, but is occupied only in the
care of the churches.” (_Consultatio de Bello Turcico._ _Opera_, ed.
Leclerc, tom. v. p. 363.)
[162] _Opera_, &c., _ut sup._, Ep. 149.
[163] Ibid., Ep. 175.
[164] Ibid., Ep. 216.
[165] Ibid., Ep. 272.
[166] Ibid., Ep. 474.
[167] Thomas More, _Epigrammata_ (ed. Frankfort, 1689), p. 284 _seqq._
[168] Ibid., Ep. 148.
[169] _Erasmus_, p. 63.
[170] _Quarterly Review_, January 1895, p. 23.
[171] The question about Erasmus’s translation of this word came up
in the discussion between Sir Thomas More and Tyndale about the use
made by the latter of the word _congregatio_ for Church in his version
of the New Testament. More writes: “Then he asketh me why I have not
contended with Erasmus, whom he calls my darling, all this long time,
for translating this word _ecclesia_ into this word _congregatio_,
and then he cometh forth with his proper taunt, that I favour him of
likelihood for making of his book of _Moriæ_ in my house.… Now for
his translation of _ecclesia_ by _congregatio_ his deed is nothing
like Tyndale’s. For the Latin tongue had no Latin word used before for
the Church but the Greek word _ecclesia_, therefore Erasmus in his
new translation gave it a Latin word.… Erasmus also meant no heresy
therein, as appears by his writings against the heretics.” (_English
Works_, pp. 421, 422.)
[172] Ep. 384.
[173] Ep. 423.
[174] Ep. 531. Lee’s account of his quarrel with Erasmus is given in
his _Apologia_, which he addressed to the University of Louvain. He
states that Erasmus had come to his house at that place, and had asked
him to aid in the corrected version of his New Testament which he was
then projecting. At first Lee refused, but finally, on being pressed
by Erasmus, he consented, and began the work of revision, but Erasmus
quickly became angry at so many suggested changes. Reports about the
annotations and corrections proposed by Lee began to be spread abroad,
and Erasmus hearing of them, suspected some secret design, and came
from Basle to try and get a copy of the proposed criticism. Lee wished
that it should be considered rather a matter of _theology_ than of
_letters_. Bishop Fisher wrote, on hearing rumours of the quarrel,
urging Lee to try and make his peace with Erasmus, and in deference
to this, Lee informed Erasmus that he would leave the matter entirely
in the hands of the bishop, and had forwarded to him the book of his
proposed criticisms. Erasmus, however, did not wait, but published
the _Dialogus Domini Jacobi Latomi_, which all regarded as an attack
upon Lee. The latter would have published a reply had he not received
letters from England from Fisher, Colet, Pace, and More, begging him to
keep his temper. Lee agreed to stop, and only asked Fisher to decide
the matter quickly. On returning to Louvain, Lee found that Erasmus
had published his _Dialogus bilingium et trilingium_, in which Lee was
plainly indicated as a man hostile to the study of letters in general.
This Lee denied altogether, and in brief, he does not, he says, condemn
Erasmus’s notes on the New Testament so much as the copy he had taken
as the basis for his corrections of the later text. “Politian,” says
Lee, at the end of his _Apologia_, “Politian declares that there are
two great pests of literature--ignorance and envy. To these I will add
a third--‘adulation’--for I have no belief in any one who, having made
a mistake, is not willing to acknowledge it.”
Lee’s criticism of Erasmus’s translation appeared at Louvain in January
1520. It produced an immediate reply from Erasmus, published at Antwerp
in May 1520--a reply “all nose, teeth, nails, and stomach.” In this
Erasmus says that 1200 copies of the New Testament had been printed by
Froben. In the collation he had been much assisted by Bishop Tunstall,
who had, in fact, supplied the exemplar on which he had worked. Erasmus
then gives what he thinks is the correct version of the differences
between Lee and himself. Lee, he says, was only just beginning Greek,
and Erasmus, who had been working at the correction of his version of
the Testament, showed him what he was doing. The margins of the book
were then full of notes, and here and there whole pages of paper were
added. Lee said that he had a few notes that might be useful, and
Erasmus expressed his pleasure at receiving help and asked for them.
Lee thereupon gave him some miscellaneous jottings, and of these,
according to Erasmus’s version of the facts, he made use of hardly
anything. Soon, however, reports were spread about that out of some
three hundred places in which Lee had corrected the first edition of
the translation, Erasmus had adopted two hundred. Bishop Fisher tried
to make peace, and to prevent two men who both meant well to the cause
of religion from quarrelling in public. His intervention was, however,
too late, as already the letter of Erasmus to Thomas Lupset had
appeared and thus rendered reconciliation impossible.
[175] Ep. 231.
[176] Ep. 380. This bishop must have been the Spaniard, George de
Athegua, who was appointed to the see of Llandaff in 1517, and held it
for twenty years.
[177] Ep. 380.
[178] Ep. 453.
[179] Ep. 416.
[180] Ep. 547.
[181] Ep. 529. Erasmus wrote strongly against anything that seemed to
favour the idea of national churches. After declaring that national
dislikes and enmities were unmeaning and unchristian, he continues: “As
an Englishman you wish evil fortune to a Frenchman. Why not rather do
your wishes come as a man to a fellow-man? Why not as a Christian to a
Christian? Why do these frivolous things have greater weight than such
natural ties, such bonds of Christ? Places separate bodies, not souls.
In old days the Rhine divided a Frenchman from a German, but the Rhine
cannot divide one Christian from another. The Pyrenees cut off Spain
from France, but these mountains do not destroy the communion of the
Church. The sea divides the English and French peoples, but it cannot
cut off the society of religion.…” The world is the fatherland of all
people; all men are sprung from a common stock. “The Church is but one
family, common to all.” (_Opera._, tom. iv. col. 638.)
[182] Ep. 715.
[183] Ep. 723.
[184] Ep. 477.
[185] Ep. 528.
[186] Ep. 656.
[187] Ep. 334 (second series.)
[188] _Spongia_ (Basle, Froben, 1523), c. 5.
[189] Ibid., sig. d. 4.
[190] Ibid., sig. e. 2.
[191] Ibid., sig. e. 2. The supreme authority of the Pope is asserted
by Erasmus in numberless places in his works. For example, in the
tract _Pacis Querimonia_, after saying that he cannot understand how
Christians, who understand Christ’s teaching and say their _Pater
noster_ with intelligence, can always be at strife, he proceeds: “The
authority of the Roman Pontiff is supreme. But when peoples and princes
wage impious wars, and that for years, where then is the authority
of the Pontiffs, where then is the power next to Christ’s power?”
&c. (_Opera._, tom. iv. p. 635). So too in his _Precatio pro Pace
Ecclesiæ_, after praying that God would turn the eyes of His mercy upon
the Church, over which “Peter was made Supreme Pastor,” he declares
that there is but “one Church, out of which there is no salvation.”
[192] Ep. 478.
[193] Ep. 501.
[194] Ep. 563.
[195] Ep. 600.
[196] Ep. 563.
[197] Ep. 667.
[198] Ep. 501 (Mr. Froude’s translation).
[199] Ep. 793.
[200] Ep. 823.
[201] Ep. 751.
[202] The Pope himself read the _Enconium Moriæ_ and understood the
spirit of the author; at least so Erasmus was told. He wrote at the
time “the Supreme Pontiff has read through _Moriæ_ and laughed; all he
said was, ‘I am glad to see that friend Erasmus is in the _Moriæ_,’
and this though I have touched no others so sharply as the Pontiffs”
(Ep. p. 1667). What Sir Thomas More thought about it may be given in
his own words, written some years later. “As touching _Moriæ_, in which
Erasmus, under the name and person of _Moria_, which word in Greek
signifies ‘folly,’ merely touches and reproves such faults and follies
as he found in any kind of people pursuing every state and condition,
spiritual and temporal, leaving almost none untouched. By this book,
says Tyndale, if it were in English, every man should then well see
that I was then far otherwise minded than I now write. If this be true,
then the more cause have I to thank God for the amendment. God be
thanked I never had that mind in my life to have holy saints’ images or
their holy relics out of reverence. Nor if there were any such thing
in _Moriæ_ this could not make any man see that I were myself of that
mind, the book being made by another man though he were my darling
never so dear. Howbeit, that book of _Moriæ_ doth indeed but jest upon
abuses of such things.… But in these days, in which men by their own
default misconstrue and take harm from the very Scripture of God, until
men better amend, if any man would now translate _Moriæ_ into English,
or some work either that I have myself written ere this, albeit there
be no harm therein, folks being (as they be) given to take harm of what
is good, I would not only my darling’s books, but my own also, help
to burn them both with my own hands, rather than folk should (though
through their own fault) take any harm of them.” (_English Works_, pp.
422-3.)
[203] _Opera Omnia_ (Froben’s ed., 1540), i. p. 831.
[204] Pp. 832-33.
[205] P. 837.
[206] A case in point was the finding of the celebrated statue of the
Laocöon on January 14, 1506. This discovery was accidentally made in
a vineyard, near Santa Maria Maggiore, and no statue ever produced so
general and so profound an emotion as the uncovering of this work of
art did upon the learned world of Rome. The whole city flocked out
to see it, and the road to the vineyard was blocked day and night by
the crowds of cardinals and people waiting to look at it. “One would
have said,” writes a contemporary, “that it was a Jubilee.” And even
to-day the visitor to the Ara Cœli may read on the tomb of Felice de
Fredis, the happy owner of the vineyard, the promise of “immortality,”
_ob proprias virtutes et repertum Laocohontis divinum simulachrum_ (I.
Klaczki, _Jules II._, p. 115). It is not at all improbable that in the
above passage Erasmus was actually thinking of the delirium caused by
the finding of this statue.
[207] Ibid., p. 838.
[208] For example, the Rev. W. H. Hutton states in the _Guardian_,
January 25, 1899, as the result of his mature studies upon the
Reformation period, that “the so-called divorce question had very
little indeed to do with the Reformation.” Mr. James Gairdner, who
speaks with all the authority of a full and complete knowledge of the
State papers of this period, in a letter to a subsequent number of the
_Guardian_, says, “When a gentleman of Mr. Hutton’s attainments is able
seriously to tell us this, I think it is really time to ask people to
put two and two together, and say whether the sum can be anything but
four. It may be disagreeable to trace the Reformation to such a very
ignoble origin, but facts, as the Scottish poet says, are fellows you
can’t coerce … and won’t bear to be disputed.” What “we call _the_
Reformation in England … was the result of Henry VIII.’s quarrel with
the Court of Rome on the subject of his divorce, and _the same_ results
could not possibly have come about in any other way.” When “Henry VIII.
found himself disappointed in the expectation, which he had ardently
cherished for a while, that he could manage, by hook or by crook, to
obtain from the See of Rome something like an ecclesiastical licence
for bigamy,” he took matters into his own hands, “and self-willed as he
was, never did self-will lead him into such a tremendous and dangerous
undertaking as in throwing off the Pope. How much this was resented
among the people, what secret communications there were between leading
noblemen with the imperial ambassador, strongly urging the emperor to
invade England, and deliver the people from a tyranny from which they
were unable to free themselves, we know in these days as we did not
know before.”
[209] Camden Society, p. 163.
[210] The same high authority, in a letter to the _Guardian_, March
1, 1899, says, “People will tell you, of course, that the seeds of
the Reformation were sown before Henry VIII.’s days, and particularly
that it was Wycliffe who brought the great movement on. I should be
sorry to depreciate Wycliffe, who did undoubtedly bring about a great
movement in his day, though a careful estimate of that movement is
still a _desideratum_. Even in theology the cardinal doctrine of the
Reformation--justification by faith--is in Wycliffe, I should say,
conspicuous by its absence. But, whatever may be the theological debt
of England to Wycliffe at the present day, twenty Wycliffes, all
highly popular, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would not
have brought about a Reformation like that under which we have lived
during the last centuries. That was a thing which could only have been
effected by royal power--as in England, or by a subversion of royal
authority through the medium of successful rebellion--as in Scotland.”
[211] _Henry VIII._, i. p. 51.
[212] Roger Edgworth, _Sermons_ (London: Robert Caly, 1557), preface.
[213] _English Works_, p. 339.
[214] Strype, _Eccl. Mem._ (ed. 1822), I. i. p. 254.
[215] This book was apparently condemned for reflecting on the king’s
divorce rather than for its Lutheran tendencies. “The Soul’s Garden,”
as Bishop Tunstall calls it, was printed abroad, and “very many lately
brought into the realm, chiefly into London and into other haven
towns.” The objectionable portion was contained in “a declaration made
in the kalendar of the said book, about the end of the month of August,
upon the day of the decollation of St. John Baptist, to show the cause
of why he was beheaded.” (Strype, _ut supra_, ii. p. 274.)
[216] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. p. 737.
[217] Ibid., 720.
[218] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. p. 727.
[219] Richard Smythe, D.D., _The assertion and defence of the Sacrament
of the Altar_, 1546, f. 3.
[220] _English Works_, p. 940.
[221] _English Works_, p. 921.
[222] _English Works_, pp. 341-344.
[223] Ibid., p. 346.
[224] Ibid., p. 351.
[225] Germen Gardynare, _A letter of a yonge gentylman_, &c. London: W.
Rastell, 1534.
[226] _English Works_, pp. 257-259.
[227] Ibid., p. 1035.
[228] Ibid., p. 409.
[229] _The Werke for Householders._ London: John Waylande, 1537.
[230] Richard Whitford, _Dyvers holy instructions_. London: W.
Mydylton, 1541.
[231] _Sermons_, sig. h. vij.
[232] _English Works_ (ed. 1557), pp. 233-4. This positive declaration
of Sir Thomas More is generally ignored by modern writers. In a
recently published work, for example (_England in the Age of Wycliffe_,
by George Macaulay Trevelyan), it is stated that “we have positive
proof that the bishops denounced the dissemination of the English Bible
among classes and persons prone to heresy, burnt copies of it, and
cruelly persecuted Lollards on the charge of reading it” (p. 131). In
proof of this statement the author refers his readers to a later page
(p. 342) of his volume. Here he culls from Foxe (_Acts and Monuments_)
the depositions of certain witnesses against people suspected of
teaching heresy. Amongst these depositions it is said by a few of the
witnesses that some of these teachers were possessed of portions of the
Scriptures in English. Mr. Trevelyan assumes, because witnesses speak
to this fact, that it was for this they were condemned, or, as he puts
it, “cruelly persecuted,” by the ecclesiastical authorities. Had he
examined his authority, Foxe, more carefully, he would have found the
actual list of _articles_ formulated against these teachers of heresy.
These alone are, of course, the _charges_ actually made against them;
and the mere deposition of witnesses in those days were, no more than
they are in ours, the charges upon which the accused were condemned.
In the _articles_ or charges we find no mention whatever of the
English Bible, and, according to the ordinary rules of interpretation
of documents, this absence of any mention of Bible-reading in the
indictment, formulated after the hearing of the evidence, and when
witnesses had testified to the fact, should be taken to show that the
mere possession of the vernacular Scriptures, &c., was not accounted
an offence by the Church authorities. The real charge in these cases,
as in others, was of teaching what was then held to be false and
heretical, teaching founded upon false interpretations of the Scripture
text, or upon false translations.
[233] Ibid., p. 235.
[234] Ibid., p. 240.
[235] Ibid., p. 241.
[236] Ibid., p. 240.
[237] Ibid., p. 241.
[238] Ibid., p. 245.
[239] Ibid., p. 510.
[240] Ibid., p. 678.
[241] Roger Edgworth, _Sermons_, London, Caly, 1557, f. 31.
[242] Sir Thomas More, _English Works_, p. 108.
[243] Thomas Lupset, _Collected Works_, 1546. _Gathered Counsails_, f.
202.
[244] Ibid. _An Exhortation to young men_, written 1529. He insists
much on the obligation of following the teaching of the Church.
[245] John Standish, _A discourse wherein is debated whether it be
expedient that the Scripture should be in English for all men to read
that wyll_ (1555), A. iij.
[246] _English Works_, p. 850.
[247] J. S. Brewer, _Henry VIII._, vol. ii. p. 468.
[248] Dore, _Old Bibles_, p. 13.
[249] P. 15.
[250] Ellis, _Historical Letters_, 3rd Series, ii. p. 71.
[251] Johannes Cochlæus, _An expediat laicis legere Novi Testamenti
libros lingua vernacula_, 1533, A. i. The warning of Cochlæus was
addressed to the Scotch king, and as a result of this letter, pointing
out the Lutheran character of the English version of Tyndale, the
Scotch bishops in the Synod of St. Andrews in 1529 forbade the
importation of Bibles into Scotland.
[252] Ibid., L. iij.
[253] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. p. 727.
[254] _Cf._ Parker Soc. Tyndale’s _Doctrinal treatises_, &c., preface
xxx.
[255] Probably on Sunday, February 11, when Cardinal Wolsey, with
six and thirty bishops and other ecclesiastics, were present at the
burning of Lutheran books before the great crucifix at the north gate.
Amongst the books, according to Tyndale, were copies of his translated
Testament.
[256] Dore, _Old Bibles_, p. 26.
[257] Dore, _ut sup._, 32.
[258] _English Works_, p. 422.
[259] Dore, 35.
[260] _English Works_, p. 849.
[261] _English Works_, p. 341.
[262] Ibid., p. 410.
[263] Ibid., p. 416.
[264] Ibid., p. 417.
[265] Ibid., p. 419.
[266] Ibid., p. 422.
[267] Ibid., p. 424.
[268] Ibid., p. 425.
[269] Ibid., p. 427.
[270] Ibid., p. 435.
[271] Ibid., p. 437.
[272] Ibid., p. 493.
[273] Ibid., p. 422. For examples of other false translations, see also
p. 449.
[274] Standish, _A discourse_, &c., _ut supra_, sig. A. iiij.
[275] _English Works_, p. 223.
[276] Ibid., p. 223.
[277] Standish, _ut supra_, sig. E. iiij.
[278] Roger Edgworth, _Sermons_, f. 31.
[279] _The assertion and defence of the Sacrament of the Altar_ (1546),
f. 3. The amateur theologians and teachers who sprung up so plentifully
with the growth of Lutheran ideas in England seem to have been a source
of trouble to the clergy. There was no difficulty in Scripture so hard
which these “barkers, gnawers, and railers,” as Roger Edgworth calls
them, were not ready to explain, and even women were ready to become
teachers of God’s Word, “and openly to dispute with men.” Speaking in
Bristol, in Mary’s reign, he advises his audience to stick to their
own occupations and leave theology and Scripture alone, “for when a
tailor forsaking his own occupation will be a merchant venturer, or a
shoemaker will become a grocer, God send him help. I have known,” he
says, “many in this town that studying divinity has killed a merchant,
and some of other occupations by their busy labours in the Scripture
hath shut up the shop windows, and were fain to take sanctuary, or
else for mercery and grocery hath been fain to sell godderds, steaves,
pitchers, and such other trumpery.”
[280] _A Commentary in Englyshe upon Sayncte Paule’s Epistle to the
Ephesians_, 1540.
[281] _An Exposition in Englysh upon the Epistle of St. Paule to the
Colossians_, 1548.
[282] _An Exposition_, &c., _upon the Philippians_, 1545.
[283] As an example of the open way in which the reading of the Bible
was advocated, take the following instance. Caxton’s translation of
the _Vitæ Patrum_, published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495, contained an
exhortation to all his readers to study the Holy Scripture. “To read
them is in part to know the felicity eternal, for in them a man may see
what he ought to do in conversation … oft to read purgeth the soul from
sin, it engendereth dread of God, and it keeps the soul from eternal
damnation.” As food nourishes the body, “in like wise as touching
the soul we be nourished by the lecture and reading of Scripture.…
Be diligent and busy to read the Scriptures, for in reading them the
natural wit and understanding are augmented in so much that men find
that which ought to be left (undone) and take that whereof may ensue
profit infinite” (p. 345).
[284] B. Mus. Harl. MS. 172, f. 12b.
[285] Harl. MS. 115, f. 51.
[286] Ibid., f. 53.
[287] In speaking of the third Commandment, _The art of good lyvyng and
good deyng_ (1503) warns people of their obligation to “Layr the holy
prechyngys, that ys the word of God et the good techyngys, and shoold
not go from the seyd prechyngs” (fol. 8. 2).
[288] Ibid., f. 1.
[289] _The Myrrour of the Church_ (1527), Sig. B4.
[290] _Exornatorium Curatorum._ W. de Worde. In 1518 the Synod of Ely
ordered that all having the cure of souls should have a copy of this
book, and four times a year should explain it in English to their
people. (Wilkins, _Concilia_, III., p. 712.)
[291] _The Prymer of Salisbury Use._ Rouen: Nicholas le Rour, f. b. vij.
[292] _The art of good lyvyng and good deyng._ Paris, 1503, f. g. 2.
[293] _English Works_, p. 116.
[294] _English Works_, p. 117.
[295] Ibid., p. 121.
[296] Ibid., p. 420.
[297] _Sermons_, fol. 40.
[298] _English Works_, pp. 196-7.
[299] Ibid., p. 198.
[300] Ibid., p. 199.
[301] Ed. W. de Worde, 1496.
[302] William Bond, _The Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon_, Wynkyn de Worde,
1531, fol. 192.
[303] Ibid., fol. 196.
[304] Ibid.
[305] _English Works_, p. 408.
[306] The full title of this book is: _Pupilla oculi omnibus
presbyteris precipue Anglicanis necessaria_. It is clear from the
letter that W. Bretton had already had other works printed in the same
way, and it is known that amongst those works were copies of Lynwode’s
_Provinciale_ (1505), _Psalterium et Hymni_ (1506), _Horæ_, &c. (1506),
_Speculum Spiritualium_, and Hampole, _De Emendatione Vitæ_ (1510),
(cf. _Ames_, Ed. Herbert, iii. p. 16). Pepwell the London publisher, at
“the sign of the Holy Trinity,” was the same who published many books
printed abroad, and had dealings with Bishops Stokesley and Tunstall.
[307] For further information upon popular religious instruction in
England, see an essay upon the teaching in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries in my _The old English Bible, and other Essays_. The Rev. J.
Fisher, in his tract on _The Private Devotions of the Welsh_ (1898),
speaking of the vernacular prayer-books, says, “they continued to be
published down to the end of Henry’s reign, and, in a modified form,
even at a later date. Besides these prymers and the oral instruction in
the principal formulæ of the Church, the scriptorium of the monastery
was not behind in supplying, especially the poor, with horn-books, on
which were, as a rule, written in the vulgar tongue the Lord’s Prayer,
the Creed, and the Hail Mary.” In 1546 appeared a prymer in Welsh in
which, amongst other things, the seven capital or deadly sins and their
opposite virtues are given and analysed. This book, consequently,
besides being a prayer-book afforded popular instruction to the people
using it. The prymers in Welsh, we are told, were usually called
“Matins’ Books,” and continued to be published long after the change
of religion. A copy published in 1618 is called the fifth edition,
and copies of it are recorded under the years 1633 and 1783. “It is
rather a curious fact,” writes Mr. Fisher, “that nearly all the Welsh
manuals of devotion and instruction, of any size, published in the
second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth
century, were the productions of Welsh Roman Catholics, and published
on the Continent. In Dr. Gruffydd Roberts’s Welsh Grammar, published at
Milan in 1567, will be found poetical versions of the Apostles’ Creed,
the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Ten Commandments and the Seven
Sacraments. This work was followed by the _Athravaeth Gristnogavl_,
a short catechism of religious doctrine, translated or compiled by
Morys Clynog, the first Rector of the English College in Rome. It was
published at Milan in 1568, and contains the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer,
the Hail Mary, the Ten Commandments, &c., in Welsh, with expositions.”
The above, with the prayer-books of 1567, 1586, 1599, were all the
works of religious instruction and devotion (private and public) that
appeared in Welsh down to the end of the sixteenth century. I might add
that there is in the Earl of Macclesfield’s collection a large folio
volume of _Miscellanea_ (Shirburn MS. 113, D. 30), written between 1540
and 1560, which contains a prymer occupying several pages. There is
also in the Swansea Public Library a Welsh-Latin MS. of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, written in different hands and in the South
Walian dialect, which forms a manual of Roman Catholic devotion,
containing in Welsh devotions for Mass, the usual meditations and
prayers for various occasions, instructions, &c.
With the seventeenth century there is a good crop of manuals of
devotion and instruction, such as the catechisms of Dr. Rosier Smith
(1609-1611) and Father John Salisbury (1618 _tacito nomine_), both
Welsh Roman Catholics (pp. 24-26).
[308] _A Werke for Housholders._ London, R. Redman, 1537, sig. A. 8.
[309] Ibid., sig. B. i.
[310] Ibid., sig. C. 8.
[311] Ibid., sig. D. 5.
[312] B. Mus. Harl. MS. 2125, f. 272.
[313] _Penny Cyclopædia._ Art., “English Drama.”
[314] _A Relation of the Island of England_ (Camden Society), p. 20.
[315] Ibid., p. 23.
[316] _Venetian Calendar_, ii. p. 91.
[317] _Works on the Supper_ (Parker Society), p. 229.
[318] To take one instance: the church of St. Neots possessed many
stained glass windows placed in their present positions between the
years 1480 and 1530. Almost all of them were put in by individuals,
as the inscriptions below testify. In the case of three of the lights
it appears that groups of people joined together to beautify their
parish church. Thus below one of the windows in the north aisle is the
following: “_Ex sumptibus juvenum hujus parochiæ Sancti Neoti qui istam
fenestram fecerunt anno domini millessimo quingentessimo vicessimo
octavo_.” Another window states that it was made in 1529, “_Ex
sumptibus sororum hujus parochiæ_”; and a third in 1530, “_Ex sumptibus
uxorum_.”
[319] _History of Modern Architecture_, pp. 37, 87.
[320] _Archæologia_, vol. xli. p. 355.
[321] _Parish Life in England before the Great Pillage_ (“Nineteenth
Century,” March 1898), p. 433.
[322] _Churchwardens’ Accounts_ (Somerset Record Soc.), ed. Bishop
Hobhouse, p. 200, _seqq._
[323] Ibid., p. xxi.
[324] Ibid., p. xii.
[325] _Archæologia_, vol. xli., p. 333 _seqq._
[326] _Somerset Record Soc._, preface, p. xi.
[327] J. W. Cowper, _Accounts of the Churchwardens of St. Dunstan’s,
Canterbury_ (_Archæologia Cantiana_, 1885).
[328] Siméon Luce, _Histoire de Bertrand du Guesclin_, p. 19.
[329] The words of Pope Leo XIII. as to the Catholic teaching
most accurately describe the practical doctrine of the English
pre-Reformation Church on this matter: “The chiefest and most excellent
rule for the right use of money,” he says, “rests on the principle that
it is one thing to have a right to the possession of money and another
to have the right to use money as one pleases.… If the question be
asked, How must one’s possessions be used? the Church replies, without
hesitation, in the words of the same holy doctor (St. Thomas), _Man
should not consider his outward possessions as his own, but as common
to all_, so as to share _them without difficulty when others are in
need_. When necessity has been supplied and one’s position fairly
considered, it is a duty to give to the indigent out of that which
is over. It is a duty, not of justice (except in extreme cases) but
of Christian charity … (and) to sum up what has been said, Whoever
has received from the Divine bounty a large share of blessings … has
received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his
own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the
minister of God’s Providence, for the benefit of others.”
[330] _The Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 63.
[331] _Churchwardens’ Accounts_ (Somerset Record Soc.), p. xxiv.
[332] Roger Edgworth, _Sermons_, London, R. Caly, 1557, p. 309.
[333] _Parish Life in England before the Great Pillage_ (“Nineteenth
Century,” March 1898), p. 432.
[334] _English Gilds_ (Early English Text-Society), pp. lxxx.-civ.
[335] Ibid., p. xiv.
[336] _The Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 306.
[337] _English Gilds_ (Early English Text-Society), p. 3.
[338] Ibid., p. 6.
[339] Ibid., p. 8.
[340] Ibid., p. 48.
[341] Egerton MS., 142.
[342] The existence of which I know from Mr. Francis Joseph Baigent,
who with his usual generosity allowed me to examine and take my notes
from the copies which he has among his great collection of materials
for the history of Hampshire.
[343] One example of this latter, or as I might call it, ordinary
expense of the society, is worth recording. In 1411, and subsequent
years, an annual payment of 13s. 4d. is entered on the accounts as
made to one Thomas Deverosse, a tailor, and apparently a member of the
fraternity. The history of this man’s poverty is curious. When Bishop
William of Wykeham, desiring to build Winchester College, purchased
certain lands for the purpose, amongst the rest was a field which a
tailor of Winchester, this Thomas Deverosse, subsequently claimed; and
to make good his contention, brought a suit of ejectment against the
Bishop. The case was tried in the King’s Bench, and the tailor not only
lost, but was cast in costs and so ruined. With some writers, William
of Wykeham’s good name had been allowed to suffer most unjustly for
his share in the misfortunes of the unlucky tailor; for the Bishop not
only undertook to pay the costs of the suit himself, but agreed that
the college should make the unfortunate claimant a yearly allowance of
8d. to assist him in his poverty. The Tailors’ Guild secured to him a
pension of 13s. 4d.
[344] Here is the bill for the annual feast in the Guild of Tailors
of Winchester in 1411. The association was under the patronage of St.
John the Baptist, and they kept their feast on the Day of the beheading
of the Saint, August 29. In this year, 1411, the 29th of August fell
upon a Saturday, which in mediæval times, as all know, was a day of
abstinence from flesh-meat. It is to be noticed, consequently, that
provision is made for a fish dinner: “6 bushels of wheat at 8½d. the
bushel; for grinding of the same, 3d.; for baking the same, 6d.;
ready-made bread purchased, 12d.; beer, 7s. 1d.; salt fish bought of
Walter Oakfield, 6s. 8d.; mullet, bass, ray, and fresh conger bought of
the same Walter, 6s. 8d.; fresh salmon of the same, 8s.; eels, 10½d.;
fresh fish bought of John Wheller, ‘fisher,’ 2s.; ditto, of Adam Frost,
9s.; ditto, bought of a stranger, 2s. 8d.; beans purchased, 9d.; divers
spices, _i.e._ saffron, cinnamon, sanders, 12½d.; salt, 2d.; mustard,
2½d.; vinegar, 1d.; tallow, 2d.; wood, 18d.; coals, 3½d.; paid to
Philip the cook, 2s.; to four labourers, 2s. 6d.; to three minstrels,
3s. 4d.; for rushes to strew the hall, 4d.; three gallons and one pint
of wine, 19d.; cheese, 8d.” Making in all a total of £3, 4s. 3½d. This,
no doubt, represented a large sum in those days, but it is as well to
remember that at this time the guild consisted of 170 men and women,
and the cost of the feast was not one-sixth part of the annual income.
[345] Harl. MS. 4626, f. 26.
[346] Ibid., f. 29. This was confiscated to the Crown on the
dissolution of the Guilds and Fraternities under Edward VI.
[347] _Introduction to English Economic History_ (2nd ed.), i. pp.
100-101.
[348] _Old Crown House_, p. 36, cf. pp. 37-39.
[349] See the remarks in regard to France of M. Charles de Ribbe, _La
Société Provençale à la fin du moyen age_, 1898, p. 60. Speaking of the
fifteenth-century wills, he says: “Nous en avons lu un grand nombre, et
nous avons été frappé de la haute inspiration, parfois meme du talent,
avec lesquels des notaires de village savaient traduire les élans de
foi et de piété dont ils étaient les interprètes chez leurs clients.…
Cette foi et cette piété; trouvé d’abord leur expression dans le
vénérable signe de la sainte croix (lequel est plus d’une fois figuré
graphiquement). Suit la recommandation de l’âme à Dieu Créateur du ciel
et de la terre, au Christ rédempteur, à la Vierge Marie,” &c. (p. 91).
[350] _Testamenta Eboracensia_ (Surtees Society), vol. iv. p. 21.
[351] Ibid., p. 127.
[352] Ibid., p. 127.
[353] Ibid., p. 170.
[354] Ibid., p. 27.
[355] Ibid., p. 60.
[356] Ibid., p. 335.
[357] Ibid., p. 277.
[358] Ibid., p. 139, _seqq._
[359] Ibid., p. 61 and _note_.
[360] Ibid., p. 69.
[361] Ibid., p. 89.
[362] Ibid., p. 132.
[363] Ibid., p. 149.
[364] Ibid., p. 208.
[365] Ibid., p. 215.
[366] Ibid., p. 230.
[367] Ibid., p. 119.
[368] Ibid., p. 160.
[369] B. Mus. Harl. MS. 670, f. 77 b.
[370] _Yorkshire Chantry Surveys_ (Surtees Soc.), ii., preface, p. xiv.
[371] _The Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 306.
[372] J. S. Burn, _History of Henley on Thames_, pp. 173-175.
[373] R. O. Chantry Certificate, No. 13 (account for year 37 H. VIII.),
No. 17.
[374] Ibid., No. 30 and No. 95, M. 6.
[375] Ibid., No. 37, M. 12; also No. 95, M. 7; and No. 13 (38) Mins.
Accts. 2, 3, Ed. VI., shows that the king received £11, 19s. 8d. for
the property of this chapel, which was granted to Robert Swift and his
brother.
[376] R. O. Chantry Certificate, No. 45 (m. i. d.).
[377] Ibid.
[378] Ibid.
[379] Ibid. (18).
[380] Ibid. (20).
[381] This was owing to the recent dissolution of the Abbey.
[382] In one case it is said: “_Mem._: The decay of rent is caused by
the fact that most came from lands in possession of the abbey; since
the dissolution these have been sold, and the purchasers do not allow
that they are liable to pay.” The hospital called St. Parvell’s,
without the south gate, also had been dissolved by Henry VIII., and the
property granted to Sir George Somerset (6th July, 37 H. VIII.). It
had produced £16, 13s. 4d. a year, with £5, 10s. “paid out of the late
abbey of Bury to the sustentation of the poor.” The whole charity, of
course, by the dissolution of the abbey and the grant of the remaining
property as above, had come to an end.
[383] Ibid. (No. 44).
[384] _Yorkshire Chantry Surveys_ (Surtees Soc.), p. 213.
[385] Ibid., p. 214.
[386] Ibid., p. 215.
[387] Ibid., p. 216.
[388] Ibid., p. 11.
[389] Ibid., p. 12.
[390] Ibid., p. 13.
[391] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, vol. lxxxii., ii. 318. Quoted in J. Gough
Nichol’s _Pilgrimages_, &c. Introduction, xcv.
[392] Lancelot Rydley. _Exposition in the Epistell of Jude._
London, Thomas Gybson, 1538, sig. B. v. In sermons and writings,
pre-Reformation ecclesiastics strove to impress upon the minds of the
people the true principles of devotion to shrines and relics of the
saints. To take one example beyond what is given above. In _The Art
of Good Lyvyng and Good Deyng_, printed in 1503, the writer says: “We
should also honour the places that are holy, and the relics of holy
bodies of saints and their images, not for themselves, but for that in
seeing them we show honour to what it represents, the dread reverence,
honour and love of God, after the intention of Holy Church, otherwise
it were idolatry” (fol. 6).
[393] _A Commentary in Englyshe upon the Ephesians_, 1540, sig. A. ii.
[394] P. 190.
[395] _Opera omnia_ (ed. Leclerc), tom. v., col. 26.
[396] Col. 37.
[397] _A treatise concerning the division between the spiritualitie and
the temporalitie._ London, R. Redman (1532?), fol. 27.
[398] _Dyaloge in Englyshe_, 1531. Part 3, fol. 23.
[399] English Works, p. 476.
[400] Stephen Gardiner. _A declaration of such true articles as George
Joye hath gone about to confute as false._ 1546, f. 2.
[401] _Consilium de emendanda ecclesia_ (Ed. 1538), sig. B. 4.
[402] Jacobi Sadoletti, _Opera Omnia_, Verona (1737). Tom ii., p. 437.
[403] It is said to be “printed at Jericho in the land of Promes, by
Thomas Treuth.”
[404] The English Testament.
[405] Sig. A. 3.
[406] Ibid., sig. A. 4.
[407] Ibid., sigs. A. 5 d., A. 6 d.
[408] Ibid., sig. B. i.
[409] Ibid., sig. B. ii.
[410] Ibid., sig. B. viii.
[411] Sig. D. vii.
[412] Ibid., sig. D. viii.
INDEX
Abbots, display in elections of, 129
Abraham, religious play, 320
Adrian VI., Pope, 157
Aggeus, Augustine, 310
Aldine press, at Venice, 160
Aldus, printer, 160, 166
Alexander VI., Pope, 102
Alms, 132
Alton, foundation for obits at, 403-404
Amberbach, printer, 166
Amyas Chantry, 401-402
Angels, devotion to, 308
Anti-clerical spirit, 114, 119
Antoninus, St., Archbishop of Florence, 96
“Apology” of Sir Thomas More, 71, 73, 115, 122, 144
Archæology, pagan and Christian, 206
Architecture, pre-Reformation activity in, 9-10, 328 _et seq._;
decline of the art, 329
Aretino, 23
Art, great activity of, prior to Reformation, 10-12
Arundel, Archbishop, 236
Ashley, Mr. W. J., cited, 379
Augmentation, Court of, 384
Badsworth, chantry foundation at, 401
Baigent, Mr. F. T., 372, _note_
Baker, mediæval fresco painter, 11
Baptism, 225
Barbarus, Hermolaus, 29
Barnes, Friar, 88, 118, 119, 136, 223
Basle, printing-press at, 165
Baynard’s Castle, meeting at, 68
Beccles, foundation at, 408
Becket, Thomas, 441
Bede-roll, 335, 341
Benedict XII., 103
Benedictine Order, average of graduates at Oxford, 42
Benefices, 55, 106, 108, _note_, 353
Benefit of clergy, 55
Bequests, mediæval, 389 _et seq._
Bere, Abbot, of Glastonbury, 39, 40, _note_
Berthelet, publisher, 72, _note_, 73, 98, _note_, 102, _note_,
107, _note_, 110, 137, _note_, 298
Bible, the Bishops’, 247
Bible, Erasmus’s translation, 168 _et seq._
Bible, English, hostility to, 236;
evidence of Catholic acceptance, 237, 242, 247;
supposed early Catholic version, 237, 242, 247;
persecutions for possession examined, 240, and _note_, 241;
translations authorised, 242-243, 247-249;
not prohibited, 247, 275-276;
absence of popular demand for, 250-251;
Tyndale’s version and Luther’s share in it, 252 _et seq._;
useless without interpretation, 275
Bishops, and ordination, 148;
and spiritual jurisdiction, 154;
obstacles to Reformation, 444
Blackfriars, meetings at, 67, 68
Bombasius, Paul, 33, _note_, 34
Bond, William, 83, 305
Boniface VIII., Pope, 99
Books, heretical, prohibited, 213-216;
More on heretical, 218 _et seq._;
earliest printed largely religious, 315
Bourbon, Duke of, 230
Boyer, Sebastian, Court physician, 160
Brentano, Mr., cited, 362-363
Brethren of St. John’s, 374;
and Hospital, 375
Bretton, William, 310, and _note_
Brewer, Mr., cited, 147, 211-212, 250, 279
Brotherhoods, Parish, 347
Brunfels, Otto, 194
Brygott, Richard, prior of Westacre, 44
Bucer, 214
Burials, 54
Burnet, historian, cited, 4
Bury St. Edmunds, chantries at, 409
Butley, Priory of, 43
Calendar of papers, domestic and foreign, of reign of Henry VIII., 4
Cambray, Bishop of, 159
Cambridge, portions of Prior Selling’s library at, 32;
monastic students at, 43;
petition of scholars to the king, 47
Campeggio, Cardinal, 179, 180, 181
Canterbury, Archbishop of, on clerical immunity, 69
Canterbury, entertainment of Emperor Manuel at Christchurch, 22;
Selling and Hadley, monks of Christchurch, 24 _et seq._;
Canterbury College at Oxford, 27, 28, _note_;
St. Augustine’s and the literary movement, 40
Caraffa, Cardinal, afterwards Paul IV., 105, 107, 438
Carmelites, origin, 117;
responsibility for Lutheranism, 197
Caxton, 275, _note_
Chalcocondylas, Demetrius, 29
Chantries, 123, 124, 399, 401
Chapels of ease, 413
Chaplains, evil effects of their position, 138-139
Charnock, Prior, 39
Chaucer, cited, 415
Children, and idols, 292;
religious instruction of, 312, 313-314
Christchurch, _see_ Canterbury
Christianity and the classical revival, 203-206
Chrysoloras, Manuel, Greek scholar, 23, and _note_
Chrysostom, St., cited, 122