The Motives, Causes, and Results of the Henrician Reformation: A Brief Inquiry by Colin D. Smith The Motives, Causes, and Results of the Henrician Reformation: A Brief Inquiry 2 Introduction When Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses in 1517, he was expressing genuine outrage at the practice of selling indulgences, with the purchaser being rewarded with eternal life. For Luther, this bartering with God’s grace was unbiblical, and something that the pope would never approve. He turned out to be mistaken, and ended up drawing the ire of the pontiff and earning himself an excommunication for his protest. In the midst of the debate, through pamphleteering and popular oratory, Luther captured the imagination of his people, and moved their hearts and consciences by passionate appeal to biblical, theological principles. He was not a politician, a royal, nor an eminent clergyman; he was merely an Augustinian monk (albeit a doctor of theology) with a zeal for the purity of the church and the gospel. Ulrich Zwingli was educated in Bern, Vienna, and Basel then served first in a parish in Glarus, during which time he studied Augustine, and then, as a priest in a Benedictine monastery in Einsiedeln. During his education he came under the influence of some of the leading humanist scholars of his day and by 1516 had determined that the church was in need of humanist reform. He became priest at the Great Minster in Zurich in 1519 and shocked the city by preaching from the Scriptures against many of the beliefs and traditions of the Catholic Church. The first major public act of ecclesiastical defiance by the Zurich reform movement happened in February 1522, when they met together at the house of the publisher Froschauer to eat sausages, breaking the Lenten fast. The city council held a public disputation in 1523 where Zwingli attempted to hold his own against the local Roman Catholic priests. While Zwingli clearly won the debate, the council did not take immediate action. Although Zwingli was willing to work slowly and patiently with the authorities over reform, some radicals took matters into their own hands resulting in iconoclasm. This precipitated a second debate in October of 1523, after which the council officially determined to make Zwingli’s Scripture-based reform the policy of the city. Over the next few years, images were removed from churches, the The Motives, Causes, and Results of the Henrician Reformation: A Brief Inquiry 3 monasteries were closed, and in 1525, the mass was abolished.1 Soon other cities adopted a similar program of reform based on the example of Zwingli and Zurich.2 These two reforms represent what is known as the Protestant Reformation: Luther with his attempt at reform from within that produced, essentially, a mix of old and new church beliefs and practices, and Zwingli’s complete overhaul of the entire system, creating the Reformed church. What links them is the fact that they were not, at least initially, forced down by either the secular ruling authority, or by some ecclesiastical body. These reforms were brought about by people who had to make appeal to authority for them to be officially sanctioned. If one compares the above accounts of the primary Reform movements of the sixteenth century with the English Reformation3, it appears that the events surrounding Henry VIII’s separation from Rome and the subsequent political and ecclesiastical measures were of an entirely different nature. While in Europe reform was pressed upon the authorities from below, it seems that in England reform was forced down from above, and took much longer to take hold. It also appears that the initial impetus to reform came primarily as a result of political and personal grievances as opposed to theological conviction. This might explain why the resulting church of England was (and in many respects continues to be) a Protestant church unlike any other Protestant church to come out of Europe: not Reformed, and yet not Lutheran. The purpose of this paper is to explore the origins of the English Reformation, looking at its foundation and development through the reign of Henry VIII. It will pay attention to the attitude of the people, whether there was a “call for reform”4 from the 1 This summary was drawn mostly from Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought 3rd ed. (Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishing, 1999), pp. 91-93; and Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform (New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 318-328. 2 Hamburg, for example, held Zurich-like disputations prior to their reformation. See Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 154. 3 In fact, as is often noted in works on the subject, it is probably more accurate to speak of English Reformations, since the attempts at reform under each successive monarch from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I were different from one another—in Mary’s case, radically so. 4 The title of the first chapter in G. R. Elton’s work, Reform & Reformation: England, 1509-1558, which, to a great extent, follows the traditional view of the English Reformation. This view, as noted in this paper, sees the English Reformation as an inevitability based on rising anticlericalism and the influence of the Lollards and ideas filtering over from the Continent, as well as the social and political conditions of The Motives, Causes, and Results of the Henrician Reformation: A Brief Inquiry 4 general populous, whether they were opposed to reform, or whether they were largely indifferent to the idea. This paper will also look at the nature of Henry VIII’s reform, its basis and motivations, asking whether Henry was driven by piety or politics, and how much his personality affected his approach to the church. Christianity in Britain to the Late Middle Ages “[O]n the whole, English men and women did not want the Reformation and most of them were slow to accept it when it came.”5 This is the conclusion Professor Scarisbrick came to as a result of his study into the attitudes of the English people both on the eve of the Reformation and in the years following. His opinion is shared by other notable historians6 who, over the past twenty years have sought to review—and revise— much of what has been said previously concerning the English Reformation and particularly the common people’s reaction to it. Such judgments are, however, notoriously hard to make with any degree of certainty. One cannot truly know the hearts of people, especially those who lived more than five hundred years ago, and both words and deeds may have non-religious motivations, even though the actions may be directed for or against religious institutions. It is the view of this writer that to understand the relationship between the English people and the Christian faith one must go back to its roots in the foundation of Christianity in the British Isles, and especially the historical relationship between Britain and Rome. The Roman Invasion to the Norman Conquest The religious beliefs and practices of the British people prior to the Roman invasion were certainly pagan, but there is not much more that can be said for certain beyond the artifacts left for posterity (the famous Stonehenge, for example), and the tales the country at the time. 5 J. J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1984), p. 1. 6 Christopher Haigh, Ronald Hutton, and D. M. Palliser to name a few. The Motives, Causes, and Results of the Henrician Reformation: A Brief Inquiry 5 of Druids and sacrifices—even human sacrifices—to mysterious deities.7 A major reason for this ambiguity is the fact that early British society was illiterate, and hence there are no written records to document their lives.8 The Roman invasion of Britain did not happen at once. Julius Caesar made a couple of attempts in 55 and 54 B.C., and Aulus Plautius turned his attention there in A.D. 43. He was followed by Ostorius Scapula and Suetonius Paulinus, and others until by the time the Emperor Severus entered the country in 209-211 A.D., the country was under Roman rule. While not yet sanctioned by the Empire, it is known that Christianity had already reached Britain by this time. Both Tertullian (c. 160-220) and Origen (c. 185-254) mention that the gospel had reached that barbarian island,9 and three British bishops are known to have attended a council in Arles in southern Gaul early in the fourth century.10 Even prior to the missionary efforts of Rome after Christianity became the official Imperial faith, it is clear that Christians were active in the British Isles. There were Celtic churches in the north and west parts of the country; missionaries were known to travel from Scotland and Ireland to the European continent, and some evidence exists of churches that stood on Anglo-Saxon soil prior to the sixth century.11 One of the most significant people to enter into the life of Augustine of Hippo in the early part of the fifth century was the British monk Pelagius, who is the earliest Christian12 British writer known to historians today.13 7 Sir George Clark, English History: A Survey (London, England: Book Club Associates, 1978), pp. 13-14. 8 Ibid., p. 15. 9 Henry Chadwick, The Early church, 18th reprint (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1987), p.63. 10 Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity Volume I: Beginnings to 1500 (Peabody, Ma: Prince Press, 1997), p. 78. Chadwick also mentions that British bishops attended the council of Ariminum in 359, and three of them were too poor to pay their own travelling expenses (Chadwick, The Early church, p.