Article contents
The Trials of Thomas Bylney and the English Reformation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
If English reform lacked a Luther or a Zwingli at least it had Thomas Bylney. In his capacity as an inflammatory preacher and a leader of men, he took the lead in starting the English Reformation. He often evoked the epithet of ‘Little’ – a reference to his slight stature – but a more fitting description would have been ‘aggressive’ or ‘tough-minded’ Bylney. Although he expressed doubts about the papacy he never openly repudiated the see of Rome: nor did he doubt the traditional doctrine of the real presence in the eucharist. Clearly, he cannot be called a Protestant although he is often portrayed as one. His conversion to evangelical reform came through reading the Novum testamentum of Erasmus, but his subsequent attack on the saints puts him beyond the pale of the milder, conservative Erasmianism. His personal influence at Cambridge was immense since he was responsible for converting key men in the coming Reformation of England: Thomas Arthur, Hugh Latimer, Robert Barnes and John Lambert. The portrait that Foxe paints of him is of saintly hue. Like the apostle Paul he was an insignificant-looking man, temperate in his habits, ascetic in his tastes, and unflagging in his concern for others. He visited ‘lazar cots’ where he comforted the sick, and went to the prisons to reclaim the hopeless. He was something of a Puritan since when his college neighbour, the future Bishop Thirlby, practised his recorder, Bylney would resort to prayer.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981
References
1 Cambridge University Library, Register West, fo. 33r.
2 Guildhall Library, Register Tunstall, 9531/10, fo. 136r.
3 Greater London Record Office, Vicar General's Book, 1520–1539, DL/C/330, fo. 136V.
4 Thomas More, The dialogue concerning Tyndale, ed. W. E. Campbell (1927), p. 193.
5 E. G. Rupp, Studies in the making of the English protestant tradition, mainly in the reign of Henry VIII (1947), pp. 23–8; ‘The recantations of Thomas Bilney’, The London Quarterly and Holborn Review, clxvii (1942), 181.Google Scholar
6 Foxe, John, Acts and monuments, ed. Townsend, G. and Cattley, R. S. (1837–1839), iv, 662: Guildhall Library, Register Tunstall, 9531/10, fo. 130V.Google Scholar
7 A. F. Pollard, Wolsey (1929), pp. 209–15.
8 A. G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the diocese of York, 1509–1558 (1959), pp. 37–52.
9 C. Cross, Church and people, 1450–1660: the triumph of the laity in the English Church (1976), p. 55.
10 H. A. Oberman, Forerunners of the Reformation (1966), pp. 207–9.
11 Leff, G., Heresy in the later middle ages (1967), 11, 575–6.Google Scholar
12 More, Dialogue, pp. 13–31.
13 Guildhall Library, Register Bonner, 1, 9531/12, fo. 30r.
14 G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation (1977), p. 161.
15 Foxe, , Acts and monuments, iv, 624–6; Guildhall Library, Register Tunstall, 9531/10, fos.132v-133v.Google Scholar
16 Foxe, , Acts and monuments, iv, 635.Google Scholar
17 Guildhall Library, Register Tunstall, 9531/10, fos. 133V-135V.
18 J. Y. Batley, On a reformer's Latin Bible (1940), pp. 47–8.
19 More, Dialogue, pp. 6–314.
20 Pollard, op. cit. pp. 209–13.
21 Greater London Record Office, DL/C/330, fos. 100r, 137V, 138V, 164r.
22 More, Dialogue, p. 194.
23 Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed.Brewer, J. S.et al. (1862–1923), iv (11), 4029(2).Google Scholar
24 Norfolk and Norwich Record Office, Act/4/4b, fos. 33v–37r.
25 ‘A letter of Thomas Bilney’, Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, x (1888), 384–7.Google Scholar
26 Ibid. 1 (1847), 143.
27 Gow, E., ‘Thomas Bilney and his relations with Sir Thomas More’, Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, xxxii (1958–1961), 307–8: E. G. Rupp, loc. cit. pp. 182–4.Google Scholar
28 Letters and papers, v, 372(3).
29 Elton, G. R., ‘The Commons’ Supplication of 1532: parliamentary manoeuvres in the reign of Henry VIII’, English Historical Review, lxvi (1951), 521–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 Cooper, J. P., ‘The Supplication against the Ordinaries reconsidered’, English Historical Review, lxxii (1957), 617–20, 636–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 Ibid. p. 622.
32 Letters and papers, v, 569.
33 Ibid. VII, 158, 171.
34 Jung, Eva-Maria, ‘On the nature of Evangelism in sixteenth-century Italy’, The Journal of the History of Ideas, xiv (1953), 512, 519, 522.Google Scholar
35 M. Mousseaux, Aux sources françaises de la Réform (1968), pp. 19, 41–3.
36 M. U. Chrisman, Strasbourg and the reform (1967), pp. 120–30.
37 J. V. Pollet, Huldrych zwingli et la Réforme en Suisse (1963), p. 26.
38 British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra E.v, fo. 398r.
39 Guildhall Library, Register Tunstall, 9531/10, fo. 134.V.
40 Kent Record Office, Act Book, DRb/pa 8, fo. 621: Rochester diocesan registry, Rochester Registers iv, Register Fisher, fo. 127r.
41 Foxe, , Acts and monuments, iv, 680–2.Google Scholar
42 Ibid. p. 690.
43 Ibid. pp. 698–700.
44 Guildhall Library, Register Tunstall, 9531/10, fos. 137r-137v.
45 Ibid. fos. 138V, 142V.
46 D. B. Knox, The doctrine of faith in the reign of Henry VIII (1961), p. 169.
- 5
- Cited by