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EYE (SUFFOLK) in the y e a r s of uncertainty 1520-1590 And they are all the names of men once as warm with life as we are at the present moment; they were not mere names in a book; there was a time when they had their hopes and fears, their troubles and trials, their joys and sorrows, their loves and hates ... men of like passions as ourselves, each had his own work to do, each had his own message to deliver, each was a link in that manifold chain which conveyed the electric spark from the early to the present century. G. M. Maclear, Peeps at Eye in the Olden Times (a public lecture delivered at Eye Town Hall on 10th January 1862) Thesis submitted for MARGARET A. COOK the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 198^*2- fgggf" K. ■ Church of St Peter & St Paul, Eye CONTENTS page Abstract i Map ii List of abbreviations iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 : The Town of Eye 9 Chapter 2: Life and Faith in Pre-Reformation Eye 15 Chapter 3? The Priory 38 Chapter ki The Grammar School 55 Chapter 5s A Parlous World: the development of English Protestantism 91 Chapter 6 : Reform continues 120 Chapter 7: Marian Reaction: the restoration of Catholicism 158 Chapter 8 : This Most Happie Daye: the Elizabethan Settlement 183 Chapter 9: The Borough: a secular epilogue 2*t1 Conclusion 270 Appendix (a) Inventory of Eye Priory at its suppression in 1536 280 (b) Eye wills: 1387-léOI 28^ (c) Eye wills: social status of testators 288 (d) Occupations and office-holding in Eye 289 (e) The Eye Oligarchy 290 Bibliography Unpublished manuscripts 292 Printed manuscripts 29^ Secondary sources 297 ABSTRACT This thesis is concerned with the effects of the Reformation at popular level. It sets out to examine the impact of change on one small community and to trace the life of its people during a period of considerable turbulence. The period covered is approximately 100 years, from the end of the fifteenth century to the end of the sixteenth, and the thesis follows the successive movements of the Reformation process beginning with the more static late-mediaeval world just prior to the Reformation, through the years of unrest, to the return of a relative stability in the decades following the Elizabethan settlement. It considers the effect of pre-Reformation heresy on the subsequent history of the town, examines the various threads which constituted the period of upheaval, looks at the inter-relatedness of both spiritual and secular motivation and investigates the attitudes and religious affiliations of certain individuals, families and groups. With the exception of the chapters on the Benedictine Priory and the Grammar School, which, for purposes of clarity, are treated as more or less self-contained units, events are dealt with in a chronological sequence. While the main focus naturally falls on the religious aspects of change, the thesis is not restricted solely to these as it aims to depict life and events as they were actually experienced by the inhabitants at the time. It is not intended to present an immaculately theoretical work of history but to show with honesty the complexity and contradictions of the evidence, arguing that the picture which emerges, while more confused, is in reality more authentic. i Map showing the position of Eye in East Anglia ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SRO Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich or Bury) NCC Norwich Consistory Court PCC Prerogative Court of Canterbury VCH Victoria County History. Suffolk. Vol I (1911), Vol II (1907) Suff. Inst. Arch. Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History Cratfield Accounts Cratfield; A Transcript of the Accounts of the Parish from AD "¡kVO to AD 16**2. with Notes, ed John James Raven (London» 1895) Bungay Accounts SRO Ipswich, Churchwardens' Accounts, Bungay St Mary, FC 1V7/E1/1 iii INTRODUCTION When Katherine of Aragon refused to accept the non-existence of her marriage with Henry VIII and the consequent illegitimacy of their daughter Mary, a series of events was set in motion that no-one (least of all that pious Catholic Queen) could possibly have foreseen. The forces that propelled those events were, of course, deeply diverse in origin but the royal divorce hastened the schism with Rome leaving a void in which those other contributory factors could gather momentum. They unfolded into that process we call the Reformation, but there were, in effect, three distinct reformations: the official or Henrician reformation which established the concept of royal supremacy in the place of papal authority; the theological reformation which began under Henry but did not fully develop until the reign of his son Edward; and the popular reformation. The official reformation covers the series of statutes enacted between 1529 and 1559 , while the theological reformation continued well into the seventeenth century. It is much more difficult to assign limits to the popular reformation since it has no obvious chronological boundaries and by its very nature is not subject to generalisation. Before 1530, England was a Catholic country containing small knots of Lollard and Lutheran heretics. After the 1580s, the country had accepted a compromise reformed church, a Church of England, from which only a minority of people actively dissociated themselves. In the intervening years - and beyond them in some cases - a considerable degree of uncertainty pervaded English society. For two or three generations, as the pendulum of faith swung backwards and forwards, the people faced an astonishing series of changes, both in their 2 religious belief and in their religious practices. Their subsequent confusion reveals itself in the theological uncertainty of wills (particularly from the 1520s to the 1570s) as well as in the comments of individuals - like the Warwickshire clergyman who, in (2) 1586, shaved his beard 'upon rumor of a change in Religion'. We should not allow the benefits of neatly-packaged historical hindsight to obscure our appreciation of the complex and bewildering realities experienced by those two or three generations of English men and women who endured them. The Reformation at national and international level is a familiar textbook story. We know much about monarchs, monks and martyrs, but what was happening on the ground in the 9,000 parishes of England? How were the people in the towns and villages affected by these extraordinary and shattering events, silent though for the most part they seem to be? This study seeks to examine popular reaction to the processes of reform as they related to the small community of Eye in North Suffolk to look at religious belief and religious practice in the context of the daily life of the parishioners. In historical terms the attempt is tantalisingly difficult because we gain only occasional glimpses into the thoughts and preoccupations of individual men and women and much of the evidence is, therefore, inconclusive. No region in sixteenth-century England was entirely homogeneous in its religious outlook and many even quite small communities were bitterly divided. But even these divisions cannot be squeezed into the convenient classification of doctrine for personal hostilities or affections at this most local of levels were every bit as significant as adherence to Rome or to the King - and indeed in many cases may well have preceded the striking of a particular theological stance. 3 Family rivalries, patriotic loyalties, alignments of social groupings, personal avarice, nostalgia for what had passed: all these factors (which in themselves had little to do with theology) tended to blur the doctrinal issues and, alongside those individuals who did feel deeply and genuinely about the religious dilemma, creates a historical tapestry of extraordinary colour and complexity. That it was not a straightforward battle between Catholics and Protestants hardly needs stating. The variety of individual response, even within the framework of a single creed, ensures that oversimpli­ fication has no place in local history. Nevertheless, in order to forestall a slide into total anarchy, some untangling of the labyrinths will be necessary, and therefore the loose designation of •Catholic' or 'Protestant' will be used where appropriate (although always with inverted commas when intended to denote a broad and non-specific meaning). In such cases, the term 'Catholic' might include those of a conservative disposition who felt threatened by any sort of change: such a traditionalist attitude may not necessarily reflect deeply-held religious convictions even though its outward manifestation might suggest this. Conversely, the term 'Protestant' could refer to those individuals who used the Protestant legislation (with its consequent weakening of the church's position) to further their own ends. There is considerable evidence at Eye of a group of men vitally concerned to extend the powers of the borough and who, by managing local affairs themselves, gradually took over many of the roles traditionally assigned to the clergy. They may or may not have been Protestants in the theological sense, but they were certainly not orthodox Catholics and they seized the opportunities created by the theological climate to enhance secular influence. The problem of evidence at this level of history is considerable. The gaps are both extensive and frustrating, and sometimes there is If only the crudest indication of an attitude.