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John Colet’s Opus de sacramentis and Clerical Anticlericalism: The Limitations of “Ordinary Wayes”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2023
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“I wilnot give my dogge that bred that some prestes doth minister at the Alter when thei be not in clene lyff.” (statement attributed to Elisabeth Sampson, 1509)
How subversively anticlerical was late medieval Catholic reform in England? Were Elisabeth Sampson or perhaps John Wyclif the reformer or malcontent at hand, one might expect scholars rapidly to identify reform with subversion. But if John Colet's name is dropped in the conversation, “reform” will generally take on a different meaning. Son of one of London's most popular mayors, Colet was a pluralist who progressed along the familiar and painstakingly protracted route to the doctorate of theology during the final decade of the fifteenth and the first of the sixteenth century. Along the way he struck up close and lasting friendships with Erasmus, Thomas More, and William Warham. To the last of these, he probably owed his appointment in 1504 as Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London where he served until his death in 1519.
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References
1 The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources, ed. A. F. Pollard, vol. 3 (London, 1914) p. 244, citing the London episcopal registers of Richard Fitzjames.
2 Joseph H. Lupton edited all and translated most of Colet's surviving Oxford Works: Opus de sacramentis ecclesiae (London, 1867), hereafter De sacramentis; Super opera Dionysii (London, 1869), hereafter Opera Dionysii; Enarratio in epistolam S. Pauli ad Romanos (London, 1873), hereafter Ad Romanos; Enarratio in primam.epistolam S. Pauli ad Corinthios, (London, 1874), hereafter Ad Corinthios; and Opuscula quaedam theologica (London, 1876), hereafter Opuscula.De sacramentis remains untranslated. John Pits printed a catalogue of Colet's writings in his Relationum historicarum de rebus Anglicis (Paris, 1619) 692. The Gregg Press reprinted Pits's Relationum (1969) and, in four volumes, Lupton's editions (1965-1966).
3 Consult the work of G. R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge, U.K., 1926) but especially Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, U.K., 1933) pp. 210-86.
4 Select Cases in Chancery, 1364-1471, ed. William Paley Baildron (London, 1896) pp. 83-84. Writs de excommunicato capiendo at times specified the offense for which persons were sought, and assault upon a cleric was not infrequently signified. See F. Donald Logan, Excommunication and the Secular Arm in Medieval England, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts 15 (1968) 49-53.
5 The Sermon of Doctor Colete, made to the Convocation at Paulis, in Joseph H. Lupton, Life of Dean Colet (London, 1909) p. 296, hereafter Sermon. But also consult A Sermon of Conforming and Reforming made to the Convocation at St. Paul's Church in London by John Colet, D.D., ed. Thomas Smith (Cambridge, U.K., (1661). Smith's immense erudition, reflected in copious annotations, makes his early edition indispensable.
6 See Peter Iver Kaufman, “John Colet and Erasmus’ Enchiridion,” Church History 46 (1977) 296-312.
7 The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Stephen Reed Cattley, (London, 1837-1841) 4.229-230 and 5.217. But Professor Rupp may have inferred too much when he liberally speculated on the basis of these remarks that “Lollards were to be seen, nodding or exchanging patronizing glances during [Colet's] sermons.” E. Gordon Rupp, Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition (Cambridge, U.K., 1949) p. 17. Also note Karl Bauer, “John Colet und Erasmus von Rotterdam,” Archiv fur Reformations geschichte, Erganzungsband 5 (1929) 175.
8 Sermon, p. 298. Consult Michael J. Kelly, “Canterbury Jurisdiction and Influence During the Episcopate of William Warham, 1503-1532,” (PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1963) p. 112 for arguments against the traditional dating of the sermon (1512). His principal point is that Colet's call for reforming councils might more plausibly have been staged during the convocation in 1510, after a six-year interval between such gatherings. The evidence for either date is circumstantial. One might reasonably conclude that Colet's urgency on the question of councils reflects both the failure of the 1510 convocation to inspire reform and the mood of reformers between the publication of the bulls for Lateran in 1511 and the actual council later in 1512. I have retained the traditional date, but the matter may be left unresolved without undermining the discussion of De sacramentis here. With respect to Colet's classification of “the evyll and wicked lyfe of pristes” as “a certeyn kynde of heresye,” see Owst's notation on the influence of “seynte Bernard” of Clairveaux's similar complaint and its considerable influence in fifteenth-century sermons. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p. 268.
9 Hugh Latimer, “The Seventh Sermon on the Lord's Prayer,” Sermons (New York, 1906) p. 374.
10 Opus epistolarum D. Erasmi, ed. P. S. Allen, H. M. Allen, and H. W. Garrod (Oxford, 1906-1958) 4.523-525. Erasmus was intent on demonstrating to Justas Jonas, the recipient of the “biography” of Colet, the orthodoxy of Colet and thereby the possibility of a reformation more moderate than the one that had attracted Jonas to Saxony. See Heinz Holeczek, “Die Haltung des Erasmus zu Luther nach dem Scheitern seiner Vermittlungspolitik 1520/1,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 64 (1973) 91-92, 108-109.
11 E. Harris Harbison, The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation (New York, 1956) pp. 70-78: ”…it was Colet more than any other human being who was the source of Erasmus’ vision and sense of calling” (70). Leland Miles noted other reasons for what he termed a virtual renaissance of Colet scholarship, but the impressive number of studies that both prefigured and corroborated Harbison's claim seem to me largely responsible. See Miles's “Platonism and Christian Doctrine: The Revival of Interest in John Colet,” Philosophical Forum 21 (1963-1964) 87-103; and, inter alia, J. B. Pineau, Érasme sa pensée religieuse (Paris, 1924) pp. 90-91, 97; Ivan Pusino, “Der Einfluss Picos auf Erasmus,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 46 (1928) 93-96; Lamberto Borghi, Umanesimo e concezione religiosa in Erasmo di Rotterdam, Studi di lettere stonae filosophia 7 (1935) 39 40; Raymond Marcel, “Les ‘décourvertes’ d'Erasme en Angleterre,” Biblitheque d'humanisme et Renaissance 14 (1952) 120-123; Augustin Renaudet, Érasme et l'Italie, Travaux d'humanisme et Renaissance 15 (1954) 30-31; Charles Bene, Erasme et Saint Augustin, Travaux d'humanisme et Renaissance 103 (1969) 189-194; Albert Rabil, Jr.,Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of A Christian Humanist (San Antonio, 1972), pp. 3847; J. Kellv Sowards, Desiderius Erasmus (Boston, 1975) pp. 20-21; and Robert Stupperich, Erasmus von Rotterdam und seine Welt (Berlin, 1977) pp. 51-56.
12 See Friedrich Dannenberg, Das Erbe Platons in England bis zur Bildung Lylys, Neue Forschung: Arbeiten zur Geistesgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Volker 13 (1932) 66, who is certainly wrong, however, about Colet's influence upon Erasmus's Greek studies. Colet knew next to no Greek and he confessed late in life and long after Erasmus had become accomplished in the language, “nunc me tenet quod non didicerim Graecum sermonem, sine cujus peritia nihil sumus.” Opus epistolarum 2.257. Roland Bainton may even have been correct to assume that Colet's philological unsophistication inspired his friend to achieve mastery over the language. See, inter alia, P. Albert Duhamel, “The Oxford Lectures of John Colet: An Essay in Defining the English Renaissance,” Journal of the History of Ideas 14 (1953) 493-510; Roland Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom (New York, 1969) p. 62; and Catherine A. L. Jarrott, “Erasmus's Annotations and Colet's Commentaries on Paul: A Comparison of Some Theological Themes,” Essays on the Works of Erasmus (New Haven, 1978) pp. 125-144; but also consult Charles Béné's discussion of the “desaccord profond” between Colet and Erasmus on the principles of exegesis. Béné. Erasmé et Saint Augustin, 109-112.
13 Frederic Seebohm, The Oxford Reformation, 3rd ed. (London, 1887).
14 See, e.g., Joseph H. Lupton, The Influence of Dean Colet Upon the Reformation of the English Church (London, 1893); Augustin Renaudet, Préréforme et humanisme à Paris pendant les premières guerres d'Italie, 1494-1517(Paris, 1916); Karl Bauer, John Colet und Erasmus von Rotterdam, pp. 155-187; J. A. R. Marriott, The Life of John Colet (London, 1933); and William A. Clebsch, “John Colet and Reformation,” Anglican Theological Review 37 (1955) pp. 167-177. Objections to “the Seebohm line” occasionally have been voiced, but never more forcefully than by Albert Hyma, “Erasmus and the Oxford Reformers,” Nederlandsch Archiefvoor Kerkgeschiedenis 25 (1932) pp. 69-92, 97-134; and by Eugene F. Rice, Jr., “John Colet and the Annihilation of the Natural,” Harvard Theological Review 45 (1952) pp. 141-163.
15 Paolo Brezzi, La Riforme Cattoliche dei secolo XV e XVI (Rome, 1945) p. 39.
16 Sermon 300-302, and The Complete Works of Thomas More, vol. 9, ed. J. B. Trapp (New Haven, 1979) p. 100.
17 De sacramentis pp. 65-68, 77-78, 82-83.
18 Opera Dionysii pp. 232-243.
19 See Sears Jayne, John Colet and Marsilio Ficino (Oxford, 1963) pp. 29-34 for a remarkably shrewd reconstruction of the order of composition of Colet's Oxford works.
20 De sacramentis, “Introduction,” pp. 16-18, 27.
21 De sacramentis, p. 76.
22 “Epitome of the Statues of the Cathedral, Drawn up by Dean Colet,” Registrum statutorum et consuetudinem ecclesiae cathedralis Sancti Pauli Londinensis, ed. W. Sparrow Simpson (London, 1873) p. 225, and E. F. Carpenter, “The Reformation: 1485-1660,” A History of St. Paul's Cathedral, ed. W. R. Matthews and W. M. Atkins (London, 1957) p. 113.
23 Jayne, John Colet and Marsilio Ficino, pp. 29-30.
24 Ad Corinthios p. 171 and Opera Dionysii, pp. 176, 254-255. Ten years before his visit to England, Erasmus had so insisted that his friends esteem Valla as he did that at least one close friendship (with Cornelius Gerard) nearly collapsed. See Opus Epistolarum 1.108-111, 114, 119-120. C. Reedijk quite sensibly refuses to be taken in by the “bantering tone” of some of Erasmus's remarks, and he attributes the break in correspondence between Erasmus and Gerard to the seriousness of their disagreement about Valla. See Reedijk's The Poems of Desiderius Erasmusiheiden, 1956) pp. 53-54.
25 The Works of John Jewell, vol. 1, ed. John Ayre (Cambridge, 1845) pp. 113-114: ”…yet it is judged by Erasmus, John Colet, and others, many grave and learned that [Dionysius] cannot be Areopagita, St. Paul's disciple….“
26 J. B. Trapp makes a similar point with reference to Colet's instructions, issued after he moved to London, that Peter Meghen copy his abstracts of the Hierarchies. “John Colet, His Manuscripts, and the Pseudo-Dionysius,” Classical Influences in European Culture, A.D. 1500-1700, ed. R. R. Bolgar (Cambridge, U.K., 1976) pp. 219-220. Also consult the account of Colet's 1515 sermon, preached in Westminster Abbey, Lupton, Life of Dean Colet, pp. 193-198.
27 Jayne, John Colet and Marsilio Ficino, p. 30.
28 The “Catechyzon” was reprinted in Lupton, Life of Dean Colet, pp. 285-289.
29 De sacramentis, p. 83, and cf. Registrum statutorum, p. 225.
30 The identity of the Latin translation of the Hierarchies consulted by Colet is still a matter of some disagreement. Eugene Rice has made a convincing case for Lefevre d'Etaples’ 1498 translation, which was unavailable to me. My citations refer to the De ecclesiastica hierarchia printed with the pseudo-Dionysius's Opera in Strasbourg, 1503 and reissued in Frankfurt, 1970 (hereafter Hierarchia). For the leiturgoi, cf. Hierarchia 173r-175r and Opera Dionysii 240-242. Also note Rice's review of Sears Jayne's John Colet and Marsilio Ficino, in Renaissance News 17 (1964) 108.
31 De sacramentis pp.,46, 49.
32 Ibid. p. 75.
33 Sermon, p. 297. Most recent studies explain, without exonerating, that the worldliness to which Colet points here was an accepted part of church administration. Absenteeism, incontinence, and general misconduct were not, it is said, widespread among parish clergy. But “pastoral vision” was wanting among trained lawyers who commonly rose to the episcopacy and bypassed parish service. For a summary opinion, which incorporates the more detailed research of Margaret Bowker and Peter Heath, see J. R. Lander, Government and Community: England 1450-1509 (Cambridge, Mass., 1980) pp. 105-151. Also consult Felicity Heal, Of Prelates and Princes (Cambridge, U.K. 1980) pp. 1-100.
34 Ad Corinthios, p. 183.
35 Opera Dionysii p. 248: ”…ut super cahos confusionis et mundi, aliquorum hominum in Deo simplicium et perfectorum luculentus ordo extet, quae sit civitas in monte posita, quae sit lux mundi et sal terrae…. Sed, proh dolor, fumus et caligo tetra ex valle hominum tenebrosorum tanta jam dudum et tam spissa spiravit sursum, ut civitatis lumen fere obruit.“
36 See especially Colet's second lectures on Romans, Ad Romanos, pp. 178-181, 194-197, 215-216. Also note Opera Dionysii, p. 254.
37 Ad Corinthios, pp. 177-178: “Atque apud Corinthios, qui non parva de se, nee parum se sapere et posse cogitarunt, si nunciam Christi afferens vili se pendit…ut non ipse homunculus insipiens et impotens, sed sapiens et mirificus Deus in eo videatur omnia egisse, qui operatur in Fidelibus ministris suis, et trahit ad finem mysteriorum suorum quos ipse vult.“
38 Opera Dionysii, p. 241: ”…omnes [tres sunt nominati ecclesiastic! ordines; pontificum, sacerdotum, et ministrorum] collaborant in abstractione ab hoc mundo, et sanctificatione hominum Deo.” Also note Ad Romanos, pp. 187-188; Ad Corinthios, p. 250; and Opera Dionysii, pp. 175-176, 206-207, 220-222.
39 Sermon, p. 299.
40 In Opera Dionysii, “spiritales homines” are still clergy (250). Laypersons, whose training is complete (“perfecti et consummati Christiani“), are distinguished “sub nomine sanctae plebis” from the clergy, whose spirituality is somehow superior to lay spirituality (252).
41 Opera Dionysii, pp. 258, 264-265: “Quia est valde annotandum, ut pontifices non insolescant, non esse hominum remittere peccatorum vincula; nee ad eos pertinent potestas solvendi et ligandi quicquam…. Relaxant et retranunt, solvunt et ligant homines, non ex fide Deo quae ligata sunt in celis, sed quae ipsi volunt, unde omnia disturbantur in terris. Non sunt executores voluntatis Dei, sed actores propriae.” Also see De sacramentis, pp. 90-92.
42 Opuscula 259.
43 Ad Romanos, pp. 218, 224. But also note Edward Surtz, The Praise of Pleasure: Philosophy, Education, and Communism in More's “Utopia” (Cambridge, Mass., 1957) pp. 166-167; Gustav Adolf Benrath, Wyclifs Bibelkommentar (Berlin, 1966) pp. 332-335; and John A. F. Thomson, The Later Lollards (Oxford, 1965) pp. 239-250. Surtz concedes that Colet accepted the inevitability of private property in status naturae lapsae. He nevertheless senses that Colet anticipated the Utopia's preference for “Christian communism.” Actually Colet's ideals more closely resemble those of Wyclifs early biblical commentaries, which reflected mendicant criticisms of the church's greed and worldly dominion.The later Wyclif escalated his war on ecclesiastical possessions and alienated his mendicant supporters, but Thomson, in his survey of later Lollard “doctrines and beliefs,” makes no mention of communism. This may mean that Wyclif was remembered as a critic of excess (see, e.g., Joannis Wyclif Sermones, ed. Johann Loserth, [London 1887-1890] 2:44-49) and not as a pioneer of prohibitions against ownership, later ascribed to Colet but correctly ascribed to Thomas More.
44 Ad Romanos, pp. 219-220; Sermon, p. 303.
45 Ad Corinthios, p. 186: “In qua proculdubio eadem debet esse ratio conservandi quae data fuerint quondam, quae fuerit comperandi. Amor Dei et proximi, desiderium celestium, contemptus mundanorum, vera pietas, religio, charitas, benignitas erga homines, simplicitas, patientia, tollerantia malorum, studium semper bene faciendi vel omnibus hominibus, ut in constanti bono malum vincant….“
46 Opuscula, pp. 260-261
47 Ibid., pp. 263-265; Ad Corinthios, pp. 189-190; Opera Dionysii, p. 220.
48 Opuscula, pp. 226, 243 and Ad Corinthios, p. 254. But the dissension that Colet took to be a symptom of his ailing church was accepted as commonplace. “The language of the episcopal chancery is pious and edifying,” A. H. Thompson remarked, “the preambles of its common forms are full of unction; but the objects for which the whole organization has been built up are legal and judicial.” Diocesan administration was characterized principally by systems of tribunals, though church courts in England were not used as extensively as they were in Germany to collect tithes. See A. Hamilton Thompson, The English Clergy and Their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947)pp. 40-71 and Henry J. Cohn, “Reformatorische Bewegung und Antiklerikalismus in Deutschland und England,” Stadtburgertum und Adel in der Reformation, ed. Wolfgang J. Mommsen (Stuttgart, 1979) pp. 317-318.
49 Hierarchia 123v., 164v., 167r; and Opera dionysii p. 216.
50 De sacramentis, pp. 40-41. :
51 Ibid., pp. 35-38, 81-82, 90-91. “Medius” had a slightly different meaning for Colet in Opera Dionysii, pp. 200, 207.
52 De sacramentis, pp. 84-85. The way of purgation and toward perfection was chartered by the pseudo-Dionysius. For Colet's adaptations, see Catherine A. L. Jarrott, “John Colet on Justification,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 7 (1976) pp. 66-67.
53 Opera Dionysii, pp. 254-255.
54 Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, e.g., 24.50: “Deinde monendus est ex hac occasione, ut si quid etiam in scripturas audiat, quod carnaliter sonet etiamsi non intelligit, credat tamen spiritale aliquid significare, quod ad sanctos mores futuramque vitam pertineat. Hoc autem ita breviter discit, ut quidquid audierit ex libris canonicis, quod ad dilectionem aeternitatis et veritatis et sanctitatis, et ad dilectionem proximi referre non possit, figurate dictum vel gestum esse credat; atque ita conetur intelligere, ut ad illam geminam referat dilectionem.“
55 See Colet's earlier remarks on the exclusion of certain classes of Christians from full participation in church life, Opera Dionysii, pp. 217-219; but note that some qualifications were allowed to mitigate the prohibitions. Funeral rites, for example, were closed only to catechumens. Colet agreed with the pseudo- Dionysius (Hierarchia 176v) that energumens and penitents were likely to profit from attendance inasmuch as they would have received enough instruction to understand what goes on around, if not in, the sacrament of final annointing. Opera Dionysii, p. 260: ”…quanquam aliis sacris non sinuntur interesse, parentationibus tamen et justis interesse possunt, ut ecclesiae officio et spe futura vitae quam cernant in sacris mortuorum, commoneantur ut resipiscentis futuram vitam desiderent.” De sacramentis, however, insists that partial instruction was no alternative to complete purgation. Colet noted that, in this instance, the pseudo-Dionysius had failed adequately to inform readers (“non locutus est Dionysius“) of the scrupulous preparation preliminary to participation in any ceremony. See De sacramentis, pp. 85-86, 92.
56 De sacramentis, pp. 62-64.
57 Ibid, p. 71: “Et ad eosdem Romanos, quos velit gentem esse sanctam et sacerdotalem (nam est sacerdotis sacerdotium propagare: nihil enim est munus et officium cujusque, nisi propagatio ejusdem et qui se sacrificavit Deo efflcere ut secum alii consacrificans justitiam, id est, quisque in ea se justum, vivam hostiam, offerat Deo) scribit….“
58 Ibid., p. 93.
59 For example, Opera Dionysii. P- 258, holds fast to differences in rank in ecclesia militante. Moreover, “Diversitas et ordo hie in ecclesia militante imago est ordinis illius quem ecclesia trimphans est habitura in celis. Sacerdos itaque quis habetur justior laico, is mortuus dum parentatur, in medio choro inter sacerdotes statuitur. …ut hoc ordine ammoniti alium in celis sacerdotibus locum, et sacratiorem multo, quam laico datum esse credimus….” Also see n. 40 above.
60 Opuscula, p. 228.
61 Ad Corinthios, p. 243
62 De sacramentis, p. 35.
63 Ibid., p. 94. Also, for earlier remarks on the spirit's work in the church, consult Opuscula, pp. 263-264; Ad Romanos, p. 187; Ad Corinthios, pp. 162, 230, 234, 239, 246-249; and Opera Dionysii, p. 192.
64 Opuscula, pp. 187-188; Ad Romanos, p. 184; and Ad Corinthios, pp. 221-222.
65 Opuscula, p. 194: “Tam est spiritus unus qui est in omnibus; tam sunt omnes in spiritu uno qui est Christi. Quod est infimo membro, id idem est in omnibus. Hinc est quod sensus dolorque communis est, communeque gaudium. Atque ubi spiritus dolet, ubique dolet; ubi guadet, simul ubique gaudet: id est facit dolere et gaudere: …et ubi non est communis lesio, est tamen ex unitate spiritus communis sensus; quia spiritu omnia unum sunt in Deo, qui adest totus omnibus, in se unus, et omnia in se uniantur, sensu, sapientia, voluntate, studiis, actionibusque communibus.“
66 For Erasmus and Colet on sacraments, see Kaufman, “John Colet and Erasmus“Enchiridion” pp. 309-312; but also note, on sacraments and the principle of accommodation, Emile V. Telle, Érasme de Rotterdam et le septième sacrement (Geneva, 1954) p. 378, note 32. Despite its assumption that Erasmus was rather stubbornly attached to a favorable view of meritum de congruo, John B. Payne's Erasmus, His Theology of the Sacraments (Richmond, 1970) is a most useful summary of the humanist's position.
67 De sacramentis, pp. 78-80.
68 More's Apology repeats Livy's story of Calavius's rescue of the Capuan senate. The population would have slaughtered their senators for “covetouse and cruell delyng” and handed over the city to Hannibal, but Calavius betrayed this intention to the senate, and then he himself addressed the angry mob. Calavius advised only that the people must “set soros better men in theyr places” before dispatching the senators. But for each narre of a citizen drawn in lottery, voices were raised in protest (“an evyll and a noughtye man“). The senate was saved, for none better could be formed. It is no great thing, More extrapolated, to find fault with a governing body, senate or episcopacy, but for most prelates, considered individually, replacements who would also be improvements would be difficult to locate. See Complete Works of Thomas More, 9, pp. 79-82.
69 Margaret Bowker, The Secular Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1495-1502 (Cambridge, U.K., 1968) pp. 118-119.
70 Reginald Pecock, Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy, ed. Churchill Babington (London, 1860) 2.449-451. See especially E. F. Jacob's Raleigh Lecture, “Reynold Pecock, Bishop of Chichester,” Proceedings of the British Academy 37 (1951) 121-153, but also note V. H. H. Green, Bishop Reginal Pecock, A Study in Ecclesiastical History and Thought (Cambridge, U.K., 1945) and, for several suggestive remarks on Pecock and Colet, Arthur B. Ferguson, “Reginald Pecock and the Renaissance Sense of History,” Studies in the Renaissance 13 (1966) pp. 147-165.
71 Pecock, Repressor, 1.93-96.
72 E.g. Ad Romanos, p. 176.
73 De sacramentis, p. 54.
74 Ibid. p. 55.
75 Ibid., p. 58.
76 Ibid., p. 59.
77 Ibid., pp. 44-45.
78 Claire Cross, Church and People, 1415-1660: The Triumph of the Laity in the English Church (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1976). But also consult, for criticism of Cross and A. G. Dickens, Christopher Haigh, “Some Aspects of the Recent Historiography of the English Reformation,” Stadtburgertum und Add in der Reformation, ed. Wolfgang T. Mommsen (Stuttgart, 1979) pp. 92-95. Dickens anticipated and replied to some of the most damaging criticism in his “Heresy and the Origins of English Protestantism, “ Britain and the Netherlands, vol. 2, ed. J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossman (Groningen, 1964) pp. 47-66.
79 De sacramentis, pp. 91-92.
80 See Arthur G. Ogle, The Tragedy of Lollards’ Tower (Oxford, 1949); and John Fines, “The Post-Mortem Condemnation for Heresy of Richard Hunne,” English Historical Review 78 (1963) pp. 528-531.
81 H. C. Porter, “The Gloomy Dean and the Law: John Colet, 1466-1519,” Essays in Modern English Church History, eds. G. V. Bennett and J. D. Walsh (New York, 1966) pp. 18-43.
82 Henry VIFs parliaments restricted and, in cases of treason, withdrew “benefit of clergy,” developments that Leona Gabel considered a “drastic reform.” See S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (Berkeley, 1972) p. 243 and Leona Gabel, Benefit of Clergy in the Late Middle Ages, Smith College Studies in History 14 (1928-1929) pp. 87, 124. But the statute of 1512 (4 Henry VIII, cap. 2) blamed recidivism on the ease with which criminous clerics could escape severe punishment and deprived clerics in minor orders of the privilege of having penalties assigned in ecclesiastical courts (and lifted upon compurgation). The statute also removed, to some degree, the rights of sanctuary. Peter Heath has contended that recidivism was, on the whole, infrequent, though privilege of clergy had been claimed, and presumably abused, by persons whose only connection with the minor orders of the church was tenuous. See Heath's The English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation (London, 1969) pp. 120-121, 188. Clerical protest against the statute was significant and effective, and the privilege was restored by the next parliament (1515). Consult Richard J. Schoeck, “Common Law and Canon Law in Their Relationship to Thomas More,” St. Thomas More: Action and Contemplation, ed. Richard S. Sylvester (New Haven, 1972) pp. 25-26 and J. Duncan M. Derrett, “The Affairs of Richard Hunne and Friar Standish,” Complete Works of Thomas More 9, 215-216.
83 Robert Keilwey, Reports d'ascuns Cases, ed. Jean Croke (London, 1688) p. 183r: “Et le dit Doctor Standishe perceivant per le bill, et per le manner de lour [the bishops in convocation] demeaner que ils avoyant malice a luy, et que lour principall cause ne fuit auter, mes pur cause de son opinion en maintenance del temporall juristiction de nottre Seigniour le Roy ….” Et aury il perceiva ouster que lour entent fuit per reason de lour graunde power de luy convicte de heresie, et que il ne fuit able de resister lour malice, per que il vient a nostre dit Seignior le Roy pur son aide.” The king did, in fact, intervene. Standish was spared and made Bishop of St. Asaph in 1518. See William E. Wilkie, The Cardinal Protectors of England (Cambridge, U.K., 1974) pp. 158-159 on the provision of Standish, over and above Wolsey's objections.
84 See William D. McCready, “Papalists and Antipapalists: Aspects of the Church/State Controversy in the Later Middle Ages,” Viator 6 (1975) pp. 241-273.
85 Keilwey, Reports d'ascuns Cases, 183v-184r.
86 Opus Epistolarum 4.524. Thomson, Later Lollards, p. 252, cites this “prosecution” (though formal proceedings against Colet seem not to have amounted to much) as evidence that the church was alert and especially “on guard against challenges to its authority.” The Victoria History of London, vol. 1, ed. William Page (London, 1974) p. 236, closely associates Fitzjames's opposition with Lollard attendance at St. Paul's. Thomson is more cautious. He suspects simply that the same ideas that attracted dissenters annoyed Colet's theologically more conservative bishop.
87 P. S. Allen, “Dean Colet and Archbishop Warham,” English Historical Review 17 (1902) p. 306. The alleged suspension is customarily identified as the “molestia negotiorum” of Opus epistolarum 1.527. 88 Opus epistolarum 2.37. 89 Warham had resigned as chancellor of the realm in 1515, and this “release” is what Erasmus may well have had in mind the following year, Opus epistolarum 2.246: “Gaudeo N. ereptum e carcere regio.” If this is so, and Allen's argument to that effect (n. 87 above) is not implausible, the description of N's (Warham's) betrayal of Colet must be taken seriously: ”…cum is semper a Coleto inter amicissimos habitus, cum iam amicus urgeretur episcoporum calumniiis, ab illius adversariis steterit.” Two problems persist with respect to this apparent change in Warham's loyalties, or more precisely, with respect to the identification of “N” with Warham, and it would be foolish to leave them unmentioned. The story of Warham's betrayal was not included in Erasmus's encomiastic sketch of Colet's life, a document often cited to confirm Warham's patronage and friendship for the Dean of St. Paul's. This may simply have been a tactical omission. More damaging, however, is the statement that Colet obtained N's (Warham's?) “release” (Opus epistolarum 2.246: “Amo coleti tam Christianum animum; nam ejus unius opera liberatum audio“). There is no evidence whatsoever that Colet played any prominent part in Warham's resignation. Perhaps Warham was not “N.” The most that can be said with certainty is that some “amicissimus,” whom Colet once supported, had taken up with Colet's enemies.
90 E.g., De sacramentis, p. 37.
91 Ibid., pp. 89-90.
92 Ibid., pp. 82-85.
93 Pollard, Reign of Henry VII, p. 244.
94 Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, ausgewählte Werke, ed. Hajo Holborn (Munich, 1933) pp. 24, 28, 83-87, 98-99, 117-118, 132-133.
95 Bernd Moeller, “Frömmigkeit in Deutschland um 1500,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 56 (1965) p. 29.
96 See J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1976) pp. 319-321; but also note William W. MacDonald, “Anticlericalism, Protestantism, and the English Reformation,” Journal of Church and State 15 (1973) 28-30. MacDonald has done little more than compress the four types of anticlericalism from Scarisbrick's first edition ([London, 1968] pp. 243-244) into three, but his discussion of other literature, inter alia, Gasquet, Froude, Pollard, and Hughes, is helpful (especially pp. 21-26). In addition to the classifications mentioned here, viz., “of heresy” and “idealistic and religious,” Scarisbrick lists the “negative and destructive” anticlericalism associated with local antipathies but not always with Lollardy and “idealistic and secular” anticlericalism principally represented by Thomas Cromwell. The relationship between this last category and early Tudor clerical anticlericalism is the subject of my forthcoming monograph.
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