Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:13:37.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Joan of Kent, Lollardy and the English Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

John Davis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Joan Bocher, or Joan of Kent as she came to be called, is well known as the victim of the Edwardine Protestants in 1550. She was burnt for her Anabaptist view of the Incarnation: that Christ did not take flesh of the Virgin. Her Lollard and sacramentarian background is less well known. The purpose of this study is to draw attention to that background and to its significance. The story of Joan of Kent reveals that Tudor Lollardy, far from being an abortive movement, was a highly influential, eclectic and evolutionary branch of reform in England.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 1982 , pp. 225 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S., Gairdner, J. and Brodie, R. H., London 1862–1932, xviii(ii). 546Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., iv(ii). 4242(3), 4850.

3 Lambeth Palace Library, Register Pole, fos. 430r–431r.

4 Thomson, J. A. F., The Later Lollards, 1414–1520, Oxford 1965, 119, 121Google Scholar.

5 For the depositions discussed in the following two paragraphs see Letters and Papers, iv(ii). 4254.

6 Evangelism was a European phase of reform that arose as a response to Luther. It was not a coherent movement, had no conscious interchange of letters or books as did other reforming bodies, but nevertheless presents a definite phase in the Reformation. Adherents of evangelism, both orthodox and unorthodox, postulated vague doctrines of faith and grace without going the whole way in accepting solifidianism. It was espoused by such divergent figures as Cardinals Seripando and Contarini on the one hand, and Juan Valdes and Jacques Lefevre d'litaples on the other. It elevated the authority of scripture and laid emphasis upon preaching rather than the mass and the sacraments. It can be observed in otherwise orthodox circles in Spain and Naples, and in more divergent centres of reform like Meaux, Zurich and Strasbourg. It was an eclectic movement, open to influences of a varied sort, such as Erasmianism, Illuminism and Lollardy. In England Cambridge men, under the leadership of Thomas Bylney, far from evincing pure Lutheranism, combined their vague espousals of faith and attacks upon so-called ‘voluntary works' with Lollard views about saints, images, pilgrimages and papacy. Chrisman, M. U., Strasbourg and the Reform, New Haven 1967Google Scholar; Jung, Eva-Maria, ‘On the nature of Evangelism in sixteenth-century Italy’, The Journal of the History of Ideas, xiv (1953), 511–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Longhurst, J. E., Erasmus and the Spanish Inquisition: the case of Juan de Valdés, Albuquerque 1950Google Scholar; Mousseaux, M., Aux sources françaises de la Réforme, Paris 1968Google Scholar; Pollet, J. V., Huldrych Zwingli el la Réforme en Suisse, Paris 1963Google Scholar; Davis, J. F., ‘The trials of Thomas Bylney and the English Reformation’, Historical Journal, xxiv (1981)Google Scholar.

7 Kent Record Office, Act Book 1523–6, DRb/Pa/8, fo. 62r. Foxe, John, Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend, G. and Cattley, S. R., London 1837–9, iv. 680–2Google Scholar.

8 Strype, J., Ecclesiastical Memorials, Oxford 1882, ii(i). 335Google Scholar.

9 Davis, J.F., ‘Lollardy and the Reformation in England’, Archiv für Reformations-geschichte, lxxii (1981)Google Scholar.

10 Letters and Papers, iv (ii). 4030.

11 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, iv. 680–2.

12 P.R.O., State Papers 1, 237, fo. 78r: Foxe, Acts and Monuments, v. 34, 36.

13 B.L., Harleian MS 425, fo. 15r.

14 P.R.O., Star Chamber, 2/34/28.

15 Register of Henry Chichele, ed. Jacob, E. F. (Canterbury and York Society, 1943), iii. 85Google Scholar, 108: iv. 203: Lambeth Palace Library, Register Warham, iii. fos. 15gr–175v.

16 Victoria County History, Kent, ed. Page, William, London 1974, ii. 63–5Google Scholar.

17 B.L., Cotton MSS, Cleopatra E. v, fo. 398r.

18 Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation, London 1964, 181Google Scholar.

19 Letters and Papers, xviii (ii). 546. Cranmer's complicity in all of this is a problem. His most recent biographer discounts the charges made in 1543 that he was a favourer of heresy or that he approved of the reforming activities of his commissary at Canterbury. However, a different interpretation of Cranmer's career is possible. If it is true that he prayed for the overthrow of the papacy in 1526 and was an intimate of Bylney, then his marriage in 1532 could have been due to the preaching of George Stafford rather than to Lutheranism. He condemned the Lollard, Hogsflesh, in 1534, but favoured the Cambridge heretics, Hugh Larimer and John Lambert. It is possible that Cranmer took part in Cambridge evangelism and followed a vacillating course towards heresy.

20 Letters and Papers, xviii (ii). 546.

21 B.L., Cotton MSS, Cleopatra E. v, fo. 397r.

22 Lambeth Palace Libary, Register Warham, iii, fo. 175r.

23 Rochester Diocesan Registry, Rochester Registers iv (Fisher), fo. 41v.

24 Dickens, A. G., Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–1558, Oxford 1959, 75Google Scholar.

25 Cambridge University Library, Baker MS 28, 266–7.

26 Thomas Dawby, parson of Wicheling, was accused of saying in 1539 that Our Lady was no better than other women for ‘she was but a sack to put Christ in', Letters and Papers, xviii (ii). 546.

27 Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, ii (i). 335.

28 B.L., MSS Harleian 425, fo.

29 Letters and Papers, xx (i). 1181.

30 Lambeth Palace Library, Register Cranmer, fos. 78r–79r: Burnett, G., The History of the Reformation of the Church of England (revised N. Pocock), Oxford 1865, ii. 205Google Scholar.

31 Lambeth Palace Library, Register Cranmer, fo. 71v. On 20 May 1550, the Swiss pastor, Martin Micronius, wrote to Henry Bullinger commenting on the growth of the Radical Reformation in Edwardine England, noting that a woman had recently been burnt for denying the Incarnation of Christ, Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, ed. Robinson, H. (Parker Society 1846), ii. 560Google Scholar.

32 Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, ed. Nichols, J. G. (Camden Society, 1852), 58Google Scholar.

33 Lambeth Palace Library, Register Cranmer, fo. 75r.

34 The Works of Roger Hutchinson, ed. Brude, J. (Parker Society, 1842), 145–7Google Scholar.

35 Sermons by Hugh Latimer, ed. Corrie, G. E. (Parker Society, 1844–5), ii 14Google Scholar.

36 The Journal of King Edward's Reign (Clarendon Historical Society, 1884), 17Google Scholar.

37 Ads of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, J. R., London 1891, iii. 19Google Scholar.

38 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, v. 699.

39 Burnett, History of the Reformation, ii. 204.

40 Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, ii (i). 335.