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THROUGH FAITH UNFEIGNED: RECANTATION AND SUBVERSION IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND by Angela May Ranson Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts at Dalhousie University Halifax Nova Scotia August 2010 © Copyright by Angela May Ranson 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-69848-8 Our file Notre r6f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-69848-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY To comply with the Canadian Privacy Act the National Library of Canada has requested that the following pages be removed from this copy of the thesis: Preliminary Pages Examiners Signature Page (pji) Dalhousie Library Copyright Agreement (piii) Appendices Copyright Releases (if applicable) Table of Contents Abstract v Acknowledgements vi Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Creative Truth 22 Chapter Three: The Control of Conscience 58 Chapter Four: Until the End 91 Chapter Five: Conclusion 132 Bibliography 141 IV Abstract During the religious conflict in sixteenth-century England, many people idealized the men and women who died for their faith, and associated recantation with shame, cowardice, and the rejection of God's truth. Modern scholarship maintains this association, focusing on the significance of the martyrs in the progress of the Reformation. This thesis studies recantation as a means of resistance to the changes in religious temporal authority that marked the English Reformation. It uses the writings of many of the major religious figures of the century to examine three key concepts: the truth, the conscience and the good death. Changes in these three concepts reflect a new individualization of faith that suggest reasons to recant other than fear or cowardice. Instead of being shameful, recantation could be a means to subvert authority or to promote God's truth. Recantation, like martyrdom, played a significant role in the progress of Reformation ideas. v Acknowledgements The history department at Dalhousie contains some of the most amazing people I have ever met. Val and Tina in the office have been endlessly supportive, kind, and fun to work with. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge and for your willingness to help. Thanks to Dr. Jerry Bannister for the Masters' Seminar, and thanks to Dr. Justin Roberts for providing great advice and opportunities. Thank you as well to the other Masters students I met during this year: Ellie, for introducing me to the London Fog. Joanna and Charlene, for fascinating me with your incredible passion for your topics. Ken, for your devotion to the conference we worked on together. Your energy really carried the day. Alan, for introducing me to so many wonderful people. Thursday nights at Coburg Coffee proved as educational as any lectures or papers. I also want to thank Dr. Cynthia Neville for all her help and encouragement with this thesis, and especially for her skill in asking questions. You always helped me clarify my thoughts and defend my opinions, and I appreciate that. Thank you for lessons in historiography, and for a great class that included the quirky stuff of history, such as Charlemagne's moustache and the complicated medieval definition of "dead." Hearty thanks and a round of applause go to my supervisor, Dr. Krista Kesselring. Thank you for telling me the truth and letting me know when I was heading in the wrong direction. Thank you for your insight, since you often knew what I was trying to say better than I did. Thank you for a class that taught me so much about writing and reading at the graduate level and inspired this thesis. Thank you for your offers to help me move and for talking about celebrity gossip during our meetings. Thank you for the seminar evenings at your house, and for introducing me to Tim Stretton. Thank you to Tim, for acting as my third reader. I really appreciate your comments and thoughts. For Margarita Mondays, Gingergrass Fridays, and for enduring the mice with me, thank you to my roommate Colleen and my friend Rebecca. Mis amigas, gragias. For her 24-hour telephone support line, I thank my sister Sarah. For helping me move (over and over again) thank you to my brother Andrew. For driving and reading papers, thank you to my brother Paul. For his great advice and support, thank you to David Edwards. For great parties and fun times, thanks to Julia, Emily, Gregg, Jake, Dainis, Andrew, LingLing, Dorothy, Elaine, Kimberley, all my uncles and aunts, and my Nanny Symes. For teaching me about the truth of Romans 8:28 and Philippians 4:6-8, thanks to my mother Ruby. I love you all. "It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And we cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad." C.S. Lewis VI 1 Chapter One: Introduction As many historians of the English Reformation have noted, the conflict in England during the reign of the Tudors was not solely a matter of religious dissent but also a fundamental change in the political and social structure of the country. The legitimacy of existing authorities came into question, and the debate splintered the cohesion of the medieval community, making faith a more individual decision than it had ever been before. This changed some fundamental cultural beliefs and loyalties in England, and made the common people participants in politics in new and different ways. Some participated by actively or passively resisting religious change, collaborating with authorities, or conforming despite differing internal beliefs. Resistance, collaboration, and conformity can all be found in the renewed culture of martyrdom. In the context of this thesis, the culture of martyrdom refers to the revival of the medieval idealization of martyrdom in religious texts and in the records left by martyrologists, which described the experiences of the martyrs themselves. Many Christian leaders and adherents held martyrdom up as an example of ideal behaviour for the faithful Christian, and the ultimate manifestation of faith. As Thomas S. Freeman notes in his book Martyrs and Martyrdom in England 1400-1700, "in early-modern England, martyrs mattered", and their sacrifices were all the more significant due to the complexity of changing royal religious policy in England and the competition between differing religious beliefs.1 The martyrs both displayed and caused resistance, as they held firm to their faith even until death, and many studies of Reformation England focus 1 Thomas S. Freeman and Thomas Mayer, Martyrs and Martyrdom in England 1400-1700 (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2007), 1. 2 on the significance of these martyrs. William Clebsch studies the martyrs who died under Henry VIII in his book England's Earliest Protestants. Seymour Byman examines the rituals and behaviour of the martyrs in his article about the patterns of Tudor martyrdom. Robert Kolb looks at sixteenth-century views of the rewards of martyrdom in his article "God's Gift of Martyrdom: Early Modern Understanding of Dying for the Faith." David Loades contributes to the study of sixteenth-century martyrs through one book about the role of John Foxe in the Reformation, and another called The Oxford Martyrs. Susannah Monta writes about the influence the tradition of sixteenth- century martyrdom had on popular writings in her book Martyrdom and Literature in Early Modern England. It is easy to forget that the number of people who recanted during the sixteenth century is far greater than the number of martyrs. In fact, some martyrs recanted the first time the monarch or the church required them to do so. Thousands of people obeyed when ordered to abjure their beliefs, and this too was part of the culture of martyrdom. Many did so out of fear, out of the desire for physical survival, or out of a hope for political gain. The culture of martyrdom did not support those motives for recantation; many tracts, treatises and sermons warned against the dangers and disgrace of recanting or abjuring religious beliefs.