Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Le Baigue, Anne Catherine (2019) Negotiating Religious Change: The Later Reformation in East Kent Parishes 1559-1625. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/76084/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Negotiating Religious Change:the Later Reformation in East Kent Parishes 1559-1625 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies University of Kent April 2019 Word Count: 97,200 Anne Catherine Le Baigue Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2 Acknowledgements...…………………………………………………………….……………. 3 Notes …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3 Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………………………………… 4 Maps ……..……….……………………………………………………………………………….…. 4 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………… 5 Chapter 1: Introduction to the diocese with a focus on patronage …….. 34 Chapter 2: The city of Canterbury ……………………………………………………… 67 Chapter 3: The influence of the cathedral …………………………………………. 108 Chapter 4: The town of Sandwich ……………………………………………………… 147 Chapter 5: The town of New Romney ………………………………………………… 191 Chapter 6: The rural parishes ……………………………………………………………… 225 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………. 262 Appendix ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 270 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………………. 287 1 Abstract This study investigates the re-introduction and consolidation of Protestantism within the diocese of Canterbury following the accession of Elizabeth in 1558 until the death of James I in 1625: that is, after the reforms of the first half of the sixteenth century, but before the changes brought in by Archbishop Laud and the events leading to the outbreak of the English Civil War. While the actions of the state and the political motivations of key figures are touched upon, the main focus is the development of religion at parish level and how attitudes and customs changed over time as the demands of the Elizabethan Settlement of religion took root within the parishes. The historiography of the Reformation has revealed wide variation in how religious change has been viewed at the local level. This thesis challenges the revisionist view which has described the progress of the later Reformation in England as protracted and contested at every step by the majority of people. It argues instead that some revisionist writing has been too pessimistic when applied to the diocese of Canterbury, and demonstrates that, in east Kent, resistance and division were not the default response following the 1559 Settlement. Communities were able to negotiate a path which stayed within the bounds of the law but which reflected their individual parish context. In this respect, this thesis proposes a less antagonistic view of religious change than has appeared from the historiography. By using a small number of carefully chosen case studies, this thesis offers a refined sense of place concerning the growth of Protestantism in both urban and rural communities in Kent. The case studies focus on the city of Canterbury, on the towns of Sandwich and New Romney and on the surrounding parishes which formed the rural hinterlands to these three urban communities. They reveal the complexities of religious change, and suggest that a homogenous response to state-imposed reforms cannot be assumed, even in parishes which were geographically close. Extending the research to 1625 has enabled an examination of the consolidation of Protestantism into the Jacobean period. This indicates how parish religion continued to develop after the death of Elizabeth, by which time people had clearer expectations and were prepared to demand more of their clergy. At James’s death, parish religion in the diocese of Canterbury was strong. 2 Acknowledgements Many people have supported me during the completion of this thesis. I would like to thank all those individuals at the University of Kent, especially within the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, who have helped me along the way. I am also grateful to the staff at the various archives and record offices that I have visited, but especially to the staff of Canterbury Cathedral Archive and Library. My particular thanks go to Kenneth Fincham and Andrew Foster for their continual support, advice and, most importantly, their encouragement and patience throughout the completion of this thesis. Notes Original spelling and punctuation have been retained wherever possible. Where contractions have been expanded this is indicated by the use of brackets. In a small number of cases punctuation has been silently added in order to aid comprehension. The start of the new year is taken to begin on the 1st January. The majority of pre-1700 printed works have been digitally sourced from Early English Books Online. Unless otherwise noted, the place of publication of referenced works is taken to be London. 3 Abbreviations APC Acts of the Privy Council Abp Archbishop Arch Cant Archaeologia Cantiana BL British Library CCA Canterbury Cathedral Archives CCCC Corpus Christi College, Cambridge CCEd Clergy of the Church of England database CSPD Calendar of State Papers Domestic D&C Dean and Chapter EEBO Early English Books Online EHR English Historical Review HJ The Historical Journal HR Historical Research JBS Journal of British Studies JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History L&P Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography P&P Past and Present REED Records of Early English Drama SPO State Papers Online THRS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society TNA The National Archives Maps Map 1: Canterbury Diocese showing the eleven deaneries…………………. 12 Map 2: The distribution of patronage across the diocese……………………. 40 Map 3: The distribution of Crown patronage ……………………………………… 42 Map 4: Advowsons held by lay men and women ………………………………… 43 Map 5: The distribution of ecclesiastical patronage ……………………………. 52 Map 6: The location of Sandwich………………………………………………………… 149 Map 7: The location of New Romney………………………………………………….. 191 Map 8: The rural parishes ………………………………………………………………….. 225 4 Introduction In 1595 Josias Nichols, the vicar of Eastwell in the diocese of Canterbury, published An order of Household Instruction as a tool for masters when instructing the members of their households in the ‘principal points of the Christian religion without the knowledge whereof no man can be saved’.1 In the book Nichols was at pains to point out that although it had been thirty-seven years since Protestantism had been re- introduced in England ‘there are to bee found so many that knowe not how they should bee saved or how they are justified’.2 His evidence for the parlous state of religion in the area came from conversations he had had with parishioners, encountered when he was out and about in local parishes. In these conversations he was shocked, he wrote, to find such a large number of so-called Christians who were ‘so ignorant and brutish and so farre from being indeed that which they delight to bee called’.3 Nichols is well known for claiming in the early years of the seventeenth century that in his parish of Eastwell, after over twenty years of his own leadership, only one in ten of the communicants understood the basics of the Christian religion.4 Nichols’ pessimistic attitude towards the progress of the Protestant Reformation is one which has also been evident in the writings of a number of historians who have focused not only on the unwillingness of the bulk of the population to embrace Protestantism, but even on the inability of many people to understand the new religion. The aim of this study is to investigate the Reformation in the diocese of Canterbury following the Elizabethan Settlement of religion in 1559 until the death of King James I in 1625. In 1971, Keith Thomas suggested that conformity to the established religion after 1559 had ‘little or no impact on the lives of ordinary people’.5 Just over a decade later Christopher Haigh noted that conservative attitudes remained strong in the first half of Elizabeth’s reign, and that even in the second part of the reign, the ‘efforts of godly ministers’ were only able to create a ‘small Protestant 1 Josias Nichols, An Order of Household Instruction (1595), sig. B. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., sig. B1v. 4 Josias Nichols, The Plea of the Innocent (1602), p. 213. 5 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1971), p. 116 5 minority rather than a thoroughly Protestant nation’.6 This thesis will examine the extent