Lincolnshire 1536: heresy, schism or religious discontent?

Extract

The Pilgrimage of Grace has received much attention: besides the massive study of the Misses Dodds, both professor Knowles and professor Scarisbrick have devoted many detailed pages to it, and its importance as a challenge to the Henrician régime is not in question. What continues to perplex generations of scholars is why an outbreak of this kind should have occurred in the autumn of 1536, and whether the explanations for it should be primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) sought in the fields of administrative, economic, social or religious history. If religion is the key, is the Pilgrimage best understood as a rebellion by ‘conservative’ catholics who disliked the recent religious innovations, or of progressives who sought for further and more far-reaching reforms? Is it a heretical or schismatic movement or neither? The problem was clearly stated in a paper to this society by professor Dickens, and it has been the subject of local studies and detailed papers ever since. These studies have focused attention on the importance of regional differences in the Pilgrimage. They have shown clearly that our understanding of it will not be advanced further unless we are prepared to attend to these differences, and to the whole structure of local politics which accompanied them.