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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2010
Interpretations that solely emphasize either continuity or controversy are found wanting. Historians still question how the English became Protestant, what sort of Protestants they were, and why a civil war dominated by religion occurred over a hundred years after the initial Reformation crisis. They utilize many approaches: from above and below, and with fresh perspectives, from within and without. Yet the precise nature of the relationship of the Reformation, the civil war, the interregnum and the Restoration settlement remains controversial. This review of recent Reformation historiography largely validates the current consensus of a balance of continuity and change, pressure for further reform and begrudging conformity. Yet ultimately it argues that continuity must form the foundation for any interpretation of the Reformation, for controversial or dramatic alterations to the status quo only made sense to contemporaries in the context of what had come before. Challenging ideas, like challenging individuals, did not exist in a vacuum devoid of historical context. The practical limits of possibility, constrained largely by the established norms and procedures, shaped the course of English Reformation. As such, practicality seems a unifying and central theme for current and future investigations of England's long Reformation.
The author wishes to thank the following scholars for their discussions and comments on earlier versions of this article: Kate Bethune, David Crankshaw, Janet Dickinson, Elizabeth Evenden, Simon Healy, Natalie Mears, Alec Ryrie, and Tom Stammers.
1 Kenneth Fincham and Nicholas Tyacke, Altars restored: the changing face of English religious worship, 1547–c. 1700 (Oxford, 2007); see also the forthcoming work from Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, Religion and the book in early modern England: the making of John Foxe's ‘Book of Martyrs’ (Cambridge, 2010).
2 For a survey of these historiographical developments see Haigh, Christopher, ‘The recent historiography of the English Reformation’, Historical Journal, 25, (1982), pp. 995–1007CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Christopher Haigh, English Reformations (Oxford, 1993), p. 280; Patrick Collinson, The birthpangs of Protestant England: religion and cultural change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (London, 1988), pp. 1–27.
4 For example see A. G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the diocese of York, 1509–1558 (Oxford, 1959); Peter Clark, English provincial society from the Reformation to the Revolution: religion, politics and society in Kent, 1500–1640 (Hassocks, 1977); Christopher Haigh, Reformation and resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge, 1975); Dairmid MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors: politics and religion in an English county, 1500–1600 (Oxford, 1986); Patrick Collinson and John Craig, eds., The Reformation in English towns, 1500–1640 (London, 1998).
5 This is the approach taken by Norman Jones among others; see Norman Jones, The English Reformation: religion and cultural adaptation (Oxford, 2002), p. 6.
6 See for example Nicholas Tyacke, ed., England's long Reformation (London, 1998).
7 This approach does not need to imply that the Reformation was part of a linear ‘path of development’ to modernity; see Walsham, Alexandra, ‘The Reformation and “the disenchantment of the world” reassessed’, Historical Journal, 51, (2008), pp. 497–528CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Haigh, ‘Recent historiography’. For discussion of the preceding historiography, see Patrick Collinson, ‘The English Reformation, 1945–1995’, and Ronald Hutton, ‘Revisionism in Britain’, in Michael Bentley, ed., Companion to historiography (London, 1997), pp. 336–60 and 377–91.
9 See Dickens, Lollards and Protestants.
10 Fincham and Tyacke, Altars restored, p. 2; Peter Marshall and Alec Ryrie, eds., The beginnings of English Protestantism (Cambridge, 2002), p. 8.
11 Patrick Collinson and John Craig's interpretation of localization is used here. See ‘Introduction’ in Collinson and Craig, eds., Reformation. Two key examples among many notable studies are Haigh, Tudor Lancashire, and Eamon Duffy, The voices of Morebath (London, 2001). For the impact of the local record office see Hutton, ‘Revisionism’, pp. 377–8.
12 In particular see Haigh, English Reformations; Eamon Duffy, The stripping of the altars (London, 1992); and Christopher Marsh, Popular religion in sixteenth-century England (New York, NY, 1998).
13 The impact of the monasteries on local religious life remains a neglected topic across the late medieval and early modern historiographical divides. The traditional view of inherent ‘town-versus-cowl’ conflict sits awkwardly with recent contributions to both historiographies. Similarly, a relative lack of resistance to the dissolutions (particularly in the south) is problematic if we believe that towns and monasteries were such good and interdependent neighbours. While Hailes and St Albans are polar extremes, the reaction of monastic towns to the dissolutions can be seen as another component of Marsh's ‘compliance conundrum’. Further work on the complexities of the relationship before and after the dissolution would shed further light on the relationship between the laity and religious belief and practice more generally. See Clark, James, ‘Reformation and reaction at St Albans Abbey, 1530–1558’, English Historical Review, 115, (2000), pp. 297–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ethan Shagan, Popular politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003), ch. 5; Clark, James, ‘Religion and politics in English monastic towns’, Cultural and Social History, 6, (2009), pp. 277–96Google Scholar; Ben Lowe, Commonwealth and the English Reformation (Ashgate, forthcoming); Marsh, Popular religion.
14 See Jones, The English Reformation for discussion of the implications of generational turnover and interaction throughout the sixteenth century.
15 Bernard M. G. Reardon, Religious thought in the Reformation (2nd edn, Harlow, 1995).
16 Lucy Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford, 2000). An exception to this trend from the point of view of conformists with strong convictions about their faith is Judith Maltby, Prayer book and people in Elizabethan and early Stuart England (Cambridge, 1998).
17 For a detailed reflection on the concept of the civil war as England's wars of religion see John Morrill, The nature of the English revolution (London, 1993), especially pp. 33–44.
18 EEBO (Early English Books Online) is an online collection of about 100,000 of the titles listed in Pollard and Redgrave, Short-title catalogue (1475–1640) (STC) and Wing, Short-title catalogue (1641–1700) (Wing), their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640–61) collection and the Early English Books Tract supplement. See http://eebo.chadwyck.com.
19 See Michael Questier, Catholicism and community in early modern England: politics, aristocratic patronage and religion, c. 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006), especially pp. 4, 18–19; and Alexandra Walsham, Church papists: Catholicism, conformity and confessional polemic in early modern England (Woodbridge, 1993).
20 See in particular the work of Patrick Collinson and Peter Lake.
21 For example John Bossy's estimate of 60,000 Catholics in 1680 and Lawrence Stone's belief that 20 per cent of the aristocracy were Catholic in 1641. See Lawrence Stone, The crisis of the aristocracy (Oxford, 1965), p. 742; John Bossy, The English Catholic community, 1570–1850 (London, 1975), p. 189.
22 For example, very little has been published on Catholics after 1640 with the exception of Stefania Tutino, Thomas White and the Blackloists: between politics and theology during the English civil war (Aldershot, 2008). The difficulties of source material about Catholics, an inherent (even subconscious) intellectual anti-Catholicism among many historians, and a general preference to study the victors, all contribute to the relatively restrained responses to calls for more work particularly on less influential Catholics. See Haigh, Christopher, ‘Catholicism in early modern England: Bossy and beyond’, Historical Journal, 45, (2002), pp. 481–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 493.
23 Lisa McClain, Lest we be damned: practical innovation and lived experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559–1642 (London, 2004), especially pp. 81–95.
24 Jones, The English Reformation, especially chs. 1 and 2; cf. Haigh, English Reformations. There is a general neglect of the topic of generational turnover and interaction. While Jones's work and Brigden, Susan, ‘Youth and the English Reformation’, Past and Present, 95, (1982), pp. 37–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, are exceptions to this, we do not have a complete picture of the interaction between the young, the middle-aged, and the older generations over the key issues of religious change.
25 Jones, The English Reformation, p. 10.
26 Ibid., pp. 2–3.
27 Ibid., p. 42.
28 Ibid., p. 4.
29 For a sense of political compromise over the 1559 religious settlement and the agreement between J. E. Neale and Norman Jones over the positive aspects of a via media (despite their very different interpretations of the settlement itself), see Patrick Collinson, ‘Sir Nicholas Bacon and the Elizabethan via media’, in idem, Godly people: essays on English Protestantism and puritanism (London, 1983), pp. 135–53 at pp. 136–7.
30 Jones, The English Reformation, pp. 5–6.
31 Key examples of this are the use of overtly Protestant language and a unity among Protestants in at least knowing they were not Catholics. See Jones, The English Reformation, p. 6.
32 For example cf. Liz Herbert McAvoy, The book of Margery Kempe: an abridged translation translated from the Middle English with introduction, notes and interpretive essay (Woodbridge, 2003), with Joanna Moody, ed., The private life of an Elizabethan Lady: the diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599–1605 (Stroud, 1998).
33 Jones, The English Reformation, p. 47.
34 Ibid., p. 24.
35 See Kenneth Parker and Eric Carlson, ‘Practical divinity’: the works and life of Revd Richard Greenham (Aldershot, 1998), particularly pp. 87–96, 252.
36 Linda Pollock, With faith and physic: the life of a Tudor gentlewoman: Lady Grace Mildmay, 1552–1620 (London, 1993), p. 42.
37 Keith Thomas, The ends of life: roads to fulfilment in early modern England (Oxford, 2009), p. 233.
38 Christopher Durston, Cromwell's major-generals: godly government during the English revolution (Manchester, 2001), pp. 154–5.
39 For example see Alec Ryrie, ‘Counting sheep, counting shepherds: the problem of allegiance in the English Reformation’, in Marshall and Ryrie eds., English Protestantism, pp. 84–110; Marsh, Popular religion, pp. 9–10.
40 Ryrie, ‘Counting sheep’, p. 87.
41 Collinson, Birthpangs, p. xi; Ryrie, ‘Counting sheep’, p. 84.
42 Recent work focused on practical issues includes Fincham and Tyacke, Altars restored, and Elizabeth Evenden, Patents, pictures and patronage: John Day and the Tudor book trade (Aldershot, 2008). Forthcoming work includes Alec Ryrie, Being Protestant in Reformation England (Oxford, forthcoming), and Jason Peacey, Common politics: print culture and political participation in seventeenth-century Britain.
43 Haigh, English Reformations, pp. 1–11.
44 Anthony Milton, Catholic and reformed: the Roman and Protestant churches in English Protestant thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 5.
45 Ryrie, Being Protestant, seems well placed to engage with this.
46 Milton, Catholic and reformed, p. 542.
47 On the significance of the railing in of altars see Fincham and Tyacke, Altars restored.
48 For a summary of historiographical positions on the level of theological competency of laymen, and most particularly its gaps, see Walsham, Alexandra, ‘The parochial roots of Laudianism revisited: Catholics, anti-Calvinists and ‘parish Anglicans’ in early Stuart England', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 49, (1998), pp. 620–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Milton, Catholic and reformed, p. 542.
50 ‘Like the citizens of fourth-century Alexandria who could discriminate between the divine and human natures of Christ, every Elizabethan Londoner, it seems, was a theologian.’ Brian Cummings, The literary culture of the Reformation (Oxford, 2002), p. 286 (amended).
51 Milton, Catholic and reformed, pp. 542–3.
52 There are of course exceptional individuals, such as Nehemiah Wallington, who are below gentry level but who do leave records of their level of theological knowledge. See Paul Seaver, Wallington's world: a puritan artisan in seventeenth-century London (London, 1985); David Booy, ed., The notebooks of Nehemiah Wallington, 1618–1654: a selection (Aldershot, 2007).
53 Milton, Catholic and reformed, p. 543.
54 For recent examples see Gregory Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus: the Erasmian legacy and religious change in early modern England (Toronto, 2009), p. 43, and Cummings, Literary culture, p. 286. Among a vast body of literature on this subject see also Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan puritan movement (London, 1967); Peter Lake, Moderate puritans and the Elizabethan church (Cambridge, 1982); and Peter White, Predestination, policy and polemic: conflict and consensus in the English church from the Reformation to the civil war (Cambridge, 1992).
55 For an example from the middle of the sixteenth century see STC 25799, Thomas Wilson, The arte of rhetorique, for the vse of all suche as are studious of eloquence, (1553), fo. 76r.
56 For a somewhat opposing view see Cummings, Literary culture, pp. 282–6.
57 The author is very grateful to Kenneth Fincham, Tom Freeman, Simon Healy, Anthony Milton, Hunter Powell, and especially Alec Ryrie, for their informal but highly informative discussions on this subject.
58 For a sense of its controversy compare Collinson, Patrick, ‘Book reviews: The literary culture of the Reformation: grammar and grace. By Brian Cummings’, English Historical Review, 119, (2004), pp. 710–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; with Rummel, Erika, ‘Review: The literary culture of the Reformation: grammar and grace by Brian Cummings’, Renaissance Quarterly, 57, (2004), pp. 260–1Google Scholar.
59 For an example see Cummings, Literary culture, p. 165.
61 Ibid., pp. 157–65.
62 Ibid., p. 174.
63 For a summary of this point see Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus, pp. 123 and 115 respectively. Dodds believes that the specific ideas of Erasmus faded as his works were ‘heavily reworked to make them fit better with Calvinist theology’, though his rhetoric and methodology continued, see ibid., pp. 173 and 310 n. 163.
64 See Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus, p. 209. For a discussion of the increasing use of scholasticism in puritan theology in the later sixteenth and during the seventeenth century see Dewey D. Wallace, ‘Puritan polemical divinity and doctrinal controversy’, in John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim, eds., The Cambridge companion to puritanism (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 206–22.
65 For a more detailed explanation see Dodds, Exploiting Erasmus, p. 266.
67 See Thomas, The ends of life, especially pp. 2, 15, 18, 226.
68 Ibid., p. 233.
69 Jones, The English Reformation, p. 87.
70 Ibid., pp. 87, 112. Joseph Ward similarly notes ‘the reformed custom as “the feast of St Antonin alias the commemoration dinner by anniversary solemnity in commemoration of the beginning of this worshipful company”’. See Joseph Ward, Metropolitan communities: trade guilds, identity and change in early modern London (Stanford, CA, 1997), p. 113. Ward is quoting London, Guildhall Library (GL) MS 11588/2 fo. 912.
71 Jones, The English Reformation, p. 112.
72 GL MS 11588/4, Orders of the court of assistants: 22 April 1640–15 June 1668, p. 3. The traditional feast was now replaced with the usual instruments for a Protestant prayer day, the eating of wine and cakes, divine service, and of course preaching. Among numerous examples of payments for these instruments on other religious occasions see GL MS 11571/13 fo. 46v which lists the payments by the Grocers company for wine and cakes costing £21 1s 4d for a thanksgiving day in September 1649.
73 For Jones's view of a ‘new social morality’ being the division or ‘the change’ when early modern England separated from its late medieval roots see Jones, The English Reformation, p. 135. For an exploration of the long Reformation approach and avoiding the implication of a seamless secularization process, see Walsham, ‘“Disenchantment”’.
74 For a sensitive account of the civil war, including its human cost and emotional impact, see Ian Gentles, The English revolution and the wars in the three kingdoms, 1638–1652 (Harlow, 2007), especially pp. 433–62. See also Mark Stoyle, Soldiers and strangers: an ethnic history of the English civil war (London, 2005).
75 Thomas, The ends of life, pp. 232–4; Charles I in R. Scrope and T. Monkhouse, eds., State papers collected by Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1767–86), ii, p. 248, as quoted in Gentles, English revolution, p. 296.
76 See Steve Hindle, The state and social change in early modern England, c. 1550–1640 (London, 2000), and Martin Ingram, ‘Reformation of manners in early modern England’, in Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox, and Steve Hindle, eds., The experience of authority in early modern England (London, 1996), pp. 47–88.
77 Hindle, State and social change, p. 178.
78 Ibid.
79 Ingram, ‘Reformation of manners’, p. 80.
80 Christopher Harper-Bill, The pre-Reformation church in England, 1400–1530 (Harlow, 1996), p. 24.
81 See G. E. Elton, England under the Tudors (3rd edn, London, 1991), pp. 162–5.
82 Milton, Catholic and reformed, p. 472. See also Thomas, Ends of life, p. 226. For discussion of how the soul was largely conceived of ‘in terms of relationships of office’, see Conal Condren, Argument and authority in early modern England: the presupposition of oaths and offices (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 34, 125–46.
83 In this way Jones's work is complemented by that of the late Christopher Durston.
84 These figures are from Christopher Durston, ‘Policing the Cromwellian church: the activities of the county ejection committees, 1654–1659’, in Patrick Little, ed., The Cromwellian protectorate (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 188–205, at p. 188.
85 See Durston, Cromwell's major-generals, pp. 162–5, and the entry for Wednesday 20 Feb. 1656 in Alan MacFarlane, ed., The diary of Ralph Josselin (Oxford, 1976), pp. 362–3.
86 For ejection figures see Durston, Cromwell's major-generals, p. 161. For ‘double-ejections’ see also idem, ‘Cromwellian church’, p. 200.
87 Ann Hughes, ‘“The public profession of these nations”: the national church in interregnum England’, in Christopher Durston and Judith Maltby, eds., Religion in revolutionary England (Manchester, 2006), pp. 93–114, especially pp. 100, 104, 109.
88 For details of the process of ejection, its level of success, and the religious diversity of its commissioners, see Durston, ‘Cromwellian church’, pp. 188–92, and Hughes, ‘“Public profession”’.
89 Durston, ‘Cromwellian church’, p. 193, and idem, Cromwell's major-generals, p. 161.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid., pp. 162–5; for a sense that the thirst for ejection emanated from the ‘rougher members’ of the godly see also G. B. Tatham, Puritans in power: a study in the history of the English church from 1640 to 1660 (Cambridge, 1913), p. 81, as quoted by Durston in ‘Cromwellian church’, p. 205. John Coffrey's recent work on John Goodwin (known for his campaign of toleration) highlights that Goodwin likened the ‘triers’ to the Spanish Inquisition. See John Coffey, John Goodwin and the puritan revolution (Woodbridge, 2006), especially pp. 235, 255–7. On the extent of unease more generally see Durston, ‘Cromwellian church’, pp. 202–3 and idem, Cromwell's major-generals, pp. 164–6.
92 British Library, MS Additional 78259, fos.136r–137v.
93 This conclusion can be reached through a close reading of protectoral proclamations such as Wing C7077, A declaration of his highness the lord protector, inviting the people of England and Wales to a day of solemn fasting and humiliation. I hope to write in more detail on this issue at a later date.
