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Re-Imaging The Marian Catholic Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Extract

The late Professor Geoffrey Dickens in his book, The English Reformation, condemned the Marian church for ‘failing to discover’ the verve and creativity of the Counter-Reformation; on the other hand, Dr Lucy Wooding has praised the Marian church for its adherence to the views of the great religious reformer Erasmus and its insularity from the counter-reforming Catholicism of Europe in her book Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England. However, by studying the Latin and English catechetical, homiletic, devotional and controversial religious texts printed during the Catholic renewal in England in the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–58) and the decrees of Cardinal Reginald Pole's Legatine Synod in London (1555–56), a very different picture emerges. Rooted in the writings of St John Fisher—which also influenced the pivotal decrees of the Council of Trent (1545–63) on justification and the Eucharist—Marian authors presented a theological synthesis that concurred with Trent's determinations. This article will focus on three pivotal Reformation controversies: the intrepretation of scripture, justification, and the Eucharist.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2007

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References

Notes

1 Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation: Second Edition (University Park, PA, 1989), p. 311;Google Scholar Wooding, Lucy, Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford, 2000),CrossRefGoogle Scholar passim. This paper was originally given under the title ‘Marian Catholicism Revisited’ at a Catholic Record Society Conference, Harvington Hall, Kidderminster. Sources for the article are printed in London unless otherwise stated.

2 Hogarde, Miles, A treatise entitled the Pathe waye to the tome of perfection, (1554), sig. E3r.Google Scholar

3 Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, p. 243.

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5 Bonner et al., Homelies, fol. 32r.

6 Ibidem., fols. 37r–8v.

7 More, Responsio ad Lutherum, 2, 21, cited in Pelikan, Jaroslav, Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700) (Chicago, 1984), p. 264;Google Scholar Rex, Richard, The Theology of John Fisher (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 107–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Hogarde, Displaying of the Protestantes, fol. 13r–v.

9 Standish, Whether scripture should be in English, sigs. G4r–5r.

10 Bonner et al, Homélies, fol. 19r.

11 Edgeworth, Roger, Sermons very fruitfull, godly and learned by Roger Edgeworth: Preaching in the Reformation c.1535–c. 1553, Wilson, Janet, ed. (1557; Cambridge, 1993), pp. 141, 191.Google Scholar

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13 Watson, Twoo Sermons, sig. B7r–v. For the place of sermons at St Paul's Cross in the English psyche, see Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), p. 281.Google Scholar

14 Standish, John, The triall of the supremacy wherin is set fourth the vnitie of christes church militant geuento S. Peter and his successoures by Christe… (1556),Google Scholar sig. R2r.

15 St Augustine, Contra epistolam Manichaei, 1, 5 in Writings in Connection with the Manichaean Heresy, Richard Stouthert, trans. (Edinburgh, 1872). Bonner et al., Homélies, sig. 36r [recte 39r]; Tunstall, De Veritate, sig. 119r; Standish, Triall of the supremacy, sig. R2v–3r, and Whether scripture should be in English, sig. 15V; Angel, John, The agrement of the holye fathers, and Doctors of the churche. vpon the cheifest articles of the christian religion… very necessary for all curates… [1555?],Google Scholar sig. A4r, fols. 44v, 101v; Brooks, Sermon very notable, sig. B4r; Pollard, Leonard, Fyve homiles of late… Uewed, examined and alowed by… Edmond byshop of London… (1556),Google Scholar sig. E3V; Erasmus, Desiderius, The epistle of Erasmus Roterdamus, sent vnto Conradus Pelicanus, concerning his opinion of the blessed Sacrament… (1554),Google Scholar sig. A5r; for medieval theologians on this text see Cameron, Euan, The European Reformation (Oxford, 1991), p. 89.Google Scholar pace Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, p. 124.

16 See Congar, Yves, Tradition and Traditions: an historical and theological essay, Naseby, M., Rainborough, T., trans. (1966), p. 117.Google Scholar

17 Blench, J. W., Preaching in England in the Late 15th and 16th Centuries (Oxford, 1964), pp. 4952.Google Scholar

18 Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, p. 212.

19 Macek, Ellen, The Loyal Opposition: Tudor Traditionalist Polemics, 1535–1558 (New York, 1996), pp. 39, 42.Google Scholar

20 Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, pp. 178–79, cf. pp. 109–11.

21 Ibidem., pp. 154–64.

22 Ibidem., pp. 153, 159; Watson, Catholyke doctryne, fol. 143r; cf. The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Schroeder, H. J., trans. (Rockford, IL, 1978), p. 39.Google Scholar

23 See Cameron, European Reformation, pp. 117–19.

24 Canons and Decrees of Trent, p. 35.

25 Pollard, Fyve homiles, sig. C11v.

26 Hogarde, Displaying of the Protestantes, fol. 39r.

27 More, Thomas, The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer in The Yale Edition of Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Martz, Louis, et al. eds., Vol. 8 (1973), pp. 401, 779;Google Scholar Gardiner, Stephen, A Declaration of the Deuils Sophistrie, wherwith he robbeth the vnlearned people, of the true byleef, of the most blessed Sacrament… (1546), sigs. 37r–9r.Google Scholar Wooding maintains that Gardiner's writings ‘incorporated these reformed ideas on faith and the diminished significance of good works’; Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, p. 97. See also further references to Gardiner's Declaration below.

28 Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, pp. 163, 212.

29 Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation II, 1536–1558, Frere, W. H. and Kennedy, W.M., eds. (1910), p. 349.Google Scholar

30 Ibidem., pp. 162–64.

31 Certain Sermons or Homilies (1547) and a Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion (1570): a Critical Edition, Bond, R. B., ed. (Toronto, 1987), pp. 73, 75;CrossRefGoogle Scholar cf. Bonner et al, Homelies, fols. 10v, 11v, 12v.

32 Bonner et al., Homelies, fol. 17r, cf. fol. 16v.

33 Ibidem., fol. 18r, cf. fol. 17v.

34 Ibidem., fols. 29r, 28v cf. fol. 30v.

35 Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, p. 163.

36 Bonner, Profitable doctryne, sigs. B1v–4r, R1r.

37 Ibidem., sig. B4r; Fisher, John, A Sermon very notable… made at Paules Crosse in London… concerningthe Heresies of Martine Luther… (1554),Google Scholar sigs. C7r-D4r. Fisher cited Romans 2.13 and 8.13.

38 Watson, Catholyke doctryne, fol. 95v; cf. fol. 2V.

39 Hogarde, Displaying of the Protestantes, fols. 112v–115r; and Path waye to perfection, sig. E1r.

40 Peryn, William, Spiritual exercyses and goostly meditacions, and a near way to come to perfection… very profitable for Religious, and generall for all other that desyre to come to the perfect hue of god… (1557),Google Scholar sigs. A4r, L7V.

41 Ibidem., sig. A1r–v.

42 Watson, Catholyke doctryne, fols. 17r–v, 12r–v; Bonner, Profitable doctryne, sigs. Ee4v–Ff2r, Ggr-v; John Redman, Complaint of Grace (155), sigs. H1V–2V, 12r–4v.

43 Watson, Catholyke doctryne, fol. 12r; Redman, A compendious treatise called the complaint of Grace… containyng in it muche godly learnyng and veritie of matter… [1556?], sig. 12V.

44 Macek, Loyal Opposition, pp. 58–61; Canons and Decrees of Trent, p. 38; Cameron, European Reformation, pp. 125–28.

45 Watson, Catholyke doctryne, fols. 33r–4v.

46 Smyth, Richard, The seconde parte of the booke called a bouclier of the catholyke fayeth… (1555),Google Scholar sigs. C6r–8r.

47 Bonner, Profitable doctryne, sig. Q1r.

48 Evennett, H. O., The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (Notre Dame, IN), p. 41.Google Scholar

49 See Loades, David, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford, 1989), pp. 193, 245, 310;Google Scholar and my Oxford D. Phil, thesis, ‘Recalled to Life: the Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor's Church’, pp. 16–20, 24–25, 32.

50 Watson, Catholyke doctryne, fols. 48r–9v, 61r'v.

51 Ibidem., fols. 61v.

52 Ibidem., fols. 53v–4r, 79r.

53 Evennett, Spirit of the Counter-Reformation, pp. 38–39; Taylor, Larissa, Heresy and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-Century Paris: François Le Picart and the Beginnings of the Catholic Reformation (Leiden, 1999), p. 135.Google Scholar

54 Necessary doctrine (1543), sigs. K2v–3r.

55 MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (1996), p. 385;Google Scholar The Later Reformation in England,1547–1603: Second Edition (2001), p. 12.

56 Rex, Theology of Fisher, pp. 143–44.

57 Ibidem., pp. 142–43.

58 Bireley, Robert, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450–1700 (1999), p. 105.Google Scholar

59 Christopherson, John, An exhortation to all men to take heed agaynst rebellion (1554), sigs. X1v–2r.Google Scholar

60 Peryn, Exercyses, sig. R7r.

61 Loyola, Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Puhl, Louis, ed. (Chicago, 1951), no. 354.Google Scholar

62 Bush, John, A brefe exhortation set fourthe by the vnprofitable seruant of Iesu christ, Paule Bushe, …to Margare te Burges… (1556),Google Scholar sig. B4rv.

63 Evennett, Spirit of the Counter-Reformation, p. 38.

64 The Anglican Canons 1529–1947, Bray, Gerald, trans., ed. (Woodbridge, Suffolk), pp. 9093;Google Scholar thetabernacle in Gloucester Cathedral served as a model for the rest of the diocese; See Visitation Articles II, p. 408; cf. p. 394.

65 Hughes, Philip, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in England (1944), p. 78.Google Scholar

66 Evennett, Spirit of the Counter-Reformation, p. 38.

67 Watson continued to write on the eucharist while in prison under Elizabeth. See Smith, ‘An Unpublished Translation By Bishop Thomas Watson of a Spurious Sermon of St Cyprian of Carthage: Introduction and Text’, Recusant History Vol. 21 (1993), pp. 419–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

68 Watson, Catholyke doctryne, fol. 57v.

69 ‘Recalled to Life: the Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor's Church’, pp. 23–35.

70 Evennett, Spirit of the Counter-Reformation, p. 125.