¹ See e.g.The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford 1989, viii. 769,Google Scholarunder ‘learning’, 3.b, reproducing the entry from the first edition; and M., Dowling, Humanism in the Age of Henry 8, London 1986,Google Scholaropposite p. 1; R. W., Chambers, Thomas More, London 1934, 84;Google ScholarThe Works of Hugh Latimer, ed. G. E., Corrie (Parker Society 1844–1845) 1 30n.Google Scholar

² G., Walker, ‘Saint or schemer? The 1527 heresy trial of Thomas Bilney reconsidered’, this JOURNAL 11 (1989), 219–38 at p. 228;Google ScholarR., Home (trans.) Certaine Homilies of M. Joan Calvine, ‘Rome’1553, STC4392, Home's preface, sig. 104.Google ScholarThe confusion is now so deeprooted that it is possible for a Cambridge examination paper to present candidates with the notorious comment of the duke of Norfolk in 1540, ‘It was merry in England before the New Learning came up’, and ask them ‘What was “the New Learning”?’, in the expectation of an answer about Latin and Greek: Cambridge University, Preliminary Examination for Part I of the Historical Tripos, 8 June 1987, Paper j , English History: Social and Economic, 2, question 29: for the context of Norfolk's remark, see below, p. 37 n. 48.Google Scholar

³ A., Fox, ‘Interpreting English humanism’, in A., Fox and J., Guy, Reassessing the Henrician Age: humanism, politics and reform, 1500–1550, Oxford 1986, 9–33, at p. 31.Google Scholar

⁴ F. A., Gasquet, The Eve of the Reformation, London 1900, 14–50, esp. ch. 2 ‘The revival of letters in England’.Google Scholar

⁵ Allan G., Chester, ‘The “New Learning”: a semantic note’, Studies in the Renaissance 2 (1955). 139–47. at p. 141.Google Scholar

⁶ Notably by Elton, G. R., Policy and Police: the enforcement of the Reformation in the age of Thomas Cromwell, Cambridge 1972, 23–34.Google ScholarThe accuracy of the usage here is dictated by the author's immersion in and faithfulness to the original sources.Google Scholar

⁷ A. I., Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: problems of belief and perception, trans. J. M., Bak and P. A., Hollingworth, Cambridge 1988, p. 18.Google Scholar

⁸ W., Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises, ed. H., Walter (Parker Society 1848), 163.Google ScholarThis is the earliest occurrence known to me, some three years prior to the earliest noticed by Chester. It should perhaps be more properly dated to 1527, when Obedience was first printed in an edition now lost.Google Scholar

⁹ Bishop Barlowe's Dialogue on the Lutheran Factions, ed. A. M., McClean, Sutton Courtenay 1983, 117, 120.Google ScholarFor the suggestion that More's hand can be detected behind the work, see G. E., Duffield's appendix at pp. 178–95. The dialogue was originally published by More's relative, W. Rastell, with a colophon dated 28 Jul. 1531 (STC 1461).Google Scholar

¹⁰ The Prayer and Complaynt of the Ploweman unto Christ, n.p. n.d., STC 20036, preface dated the last day of February 1531, sig. A2V. Cited by Gasquet, Eve of the Reformation, 17 and Chester, ‘New Learning’, 142–3. They cite it as from 1531, but the date of the preface suggests appearance in 1532 (new style). The second printing (STC 20036.5), dated 1532, has its preface signed ‘W.T’. John Bale, attributed the book to Tyndale.Google ScholarSee Halkett, and Laing, , A Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous Publications in the English Language 1475–1640, ed. J., Horden, London 1980, 157.Google Scholar

¹¹ Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (hereinafter cited as LP) vi. no. 934, Vaughan to Cromwell, 3 Aug. 1533.Google Scholar

¹² T., Becon, The Governance of Virtue, in The Early Works of Thomas Becon (Parker Society 1843), 439.Google Scholar

¹³ The Complete Plays of John Bale, ed. P., Happe, Cambridge 1985–1986, 1. 60.Google ScholarSee below, p. 36, n. 43.Google Scholar

¹⁴ On the general topic of records and literature relating to confession as evidence for ‘popular’ culture, though in a rather different context, see Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture, 24–31, 78–103.Google Scholar

¹⁵ R. K., Marshall, Mary of Guise, London 1977, 113.Google Scholar

¹⁶ R., Edgeworth, Sermons, London1557, STC 7482, fos. 37 5 and 7 5.Google ScholarCited by Gasquet, , Eve of the Reformation, 16.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Homilies sette forth by the righte reverende father in God, Edmunde Byshop of London, London, 1555. STC 3285. 4, fo 32r. Cf. EPh. iv. 14.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Northbrooke, J., A Treatise against Dicing, Dancing, Plays, and Interludes, ed. J. P. C. J., Payne Collier, London 1843, 12.Google Scholar

¹⁹ As Chester tentatively suggests, though unaware of the term's pedigree: ‘New Learning’, 142–3.Google ScholarFor an early example see Augustine, , De Fide et Operibus, of c. AD 413, ed. J., Zycha (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 61), Vienna 1900, 78, ‘ipsi insuper dicunt novam esse doctrinam’.Google Scholar

²⁰ M., Luther,Ada Augustana, in Dokumente zur Causa Lutheri (1517–1521), ed. P., Fabisch and E., Iserloh (Corpus Catholicorum 61–)2, Münster 1988–1991, 2. 89, 97.Google Scholar

²¹ Ascham to Lee, perhaps early 1544, The Whole Works of Roger Ascham, ed. J. A., Giles, London 1865, 1, no. 18, at p. 35:Google Scholar‘semper abhorruit animus meus ab omnibus quum Anglice turn Latine scriptis libris, quibus nova aliqua importaretur doctrina’.Google Scholar

²² G. R., Potter, Zwingli, Cambridge 1976, 95 n. 2, 139.Google ScholarFor Zwingli's comments see his Eine treue und emstliche Vermahnung an die Eidgenossen, in H., Zwingli, Sämtlich Werke, ed. E., Egli, G., Finsler, AND W., Köhler (Corpus Reformatorum xc), Leipzig 1914, 3. 110.Google Scholar

²³ A Comparison betwene the Olde Learnynge and the Newe, London 1538, STC 20841, esp. sig. A2v, putting into the mouths of his adversaries the sayings, ‘Thys is the newe doctrine (saye oure adversaries) lately devysed and fornished in the shoppes or workehouses of heretykes’ and ‘Let the heretykes go and shake theyr eares, with theyr newe learnyng, which spronge and rose up of late’. Sig. A.j.r makes explicit the author's intention to assess which party really deserved the charge of doctrinal innovation. The book's significant title is observed by both Gasquet (Eve of the Reformation, 18–19) and Chester (‘New Learning’, 143–4).Google Scholar

²⁴ Erasmus, , Adagiorum Opus, Basel 1533, 858,Google Scholarand compare his Dulce bellum inexpertis, London 1534, fo. 23V.Google Scholar

²⁵ Thomas Elyot, , The Boke named the Gouernour, ed. H. H. S., Croft, London 1883, 2. 377.Google Scholar

²⁶ Warham to Wolsey, 8 M a r . 1527, in H., Ellis (ed.), Original Letters, Illustrative of the English Reformation London 1825–1846, 3rd ser. 1. 239.Google ScholarEllis misdates it to 1521. For a correction, see R., Rex, ‘The English campaign against Luther in the 1520s’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 41 (1989), 85–106, at p. 89 n. 27.Google Scholar

²⁷ LP vii. no. 32, Sampson to Cromwell, 10 Jan. 1534.Google Scholar

²⁸ Tunstall to Cecil, 12 Aug. 1559, cited by C., Cross, The Royal Supremacy in the Elizabethan Church, London 1969, 27.Google Scholar

²⁹ LP vii. no. 308, Drome to Marshall, 9 Mar. 1534; and ibid.. 667, Elizabeth George to her son, friar John, no date.

³⁰ LP xiv. pt. 2, no. 796,Google ScholarJohn Hamon to Cromwell, informing against the conservative Dr Thomas Thompson, , vicar of Enfield, and his curate. R., Whitford, The Pype or Tonne of the Lyje of Perfection, London 1532 (STC 25421), title page verso.Google ScholarLP xiv. pt. 1, no. 897 reports the words of John, Divale, curate of Wincanton, spoken on Good Friday 1539 against ‘these new fangled fellows which read these new books, for they be heretics and knaves and Pharisees’.Google Scholar

³¹ T., Heskyns,The Parliamentof Chryste, Antwerp 1566, STC 13250, sig. ¶5v.Google Scholar

³² For ‘good letters’, see the translator's dedication to Lord Audley, in The Preceptes of the Excellent Clerke and Grave Philosopher Plutarche for the Preservation of Good Healthe, tr. J., Hales, London 1543, STC 20062, sig. 6r.Google ScholarFor ‘good learning’, see Margaret Ascham's dedication of her husband Roger's The Scholemaster to Sir William Cecil, , remembering ‘how much all good learnyng oweth unto you’, and Roger Ascham's own comment on the alleged decline of humanism and revival of scholasticism in the arts course under Mary, ‘the love of good learning, began sodenly to wax cold’, in English Works of Roger, Ascham, ed. W.A., Wright, Cambridge 1904, 173, 281.Google ScholarChester, ‘New Learning’, 145, notices ‘good learning’ but not ‘good letters’.Google Scholar

³³ Erasmus, , Adagiorum Opus, 867,Google Scholarand Dulce bellum inexpertis, fo. 3gr, discussing the dedication of Leo x and the Medici house to the humanities;Google ScholarJ., Palsgrave, The Comedy of Acolastus, ed. P. L., Carver (Early English Text Society, orig. ser. 202, 1937), 3.Google Scholar

³⁴ Thus in John Bale's, Scriptorum Illustrium Maioris Brytanniae ...Catalogus, Basel 1557–9, it is for dedication to ‘bonae literae’, not ‘nova doctrina’, that scholars and patrons are lauded.Google Scholar

³⁵ See D. R., Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology: consciousness and society in the French Reformation, Cambridge 1981, 140.Google ScholarHowever, Kelley's comment, ‘The doctrinal pedigree and associations of the “new learning” (nova doctrina) were not lost on its orthodox critics, who from the beginning recognized its subversive tendencies’, entirely misses the point. It was not that the critics perceived subversion in the ‘nova doctrina’ (i.e. humanism): by defining something as ‘nova doctrina’, they were declaring it to be heretical and subversive. Kelley, does not produce any evidence that the equation of'bonae literae’ as such with ‘nova doctrina’ was in fact drawn by the conservatives, still less that the humanists claimed or accepted the appellation ‘nova doctrina’ for their endeavours.Google Scholar

³⁶ Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, ed. F., Griffin Stokes, London 1909, 205, ‘novam latinitatem’ and ‘novos latinisatores’.Google Scholar

³⁷ Erasmus, , Adagiorum Opus, Basel 1528, 915–16,Google Scholarcriticising those ‘qui putant autoritati suae detrahi si quid novae eruditionis accedat iuventuti, contentique his quae pueri didicerunt, alia nee doceri patiuntur, nee sustinent discere’ and complaining ‘Nova vocant quae sunt vetustissima, vetera nominant, quae sunt nova’.Google Scholar

³⁸ Lyfe of Perfection, title page verso.Google Scholar

³⁹ LP 9. no. 1059. See Chester, , ‘New Learning’, 144; and also Elton, Policy and Police, 33–4, 151, 237,Google Scholarshowing that Corthop was an abrasive character, whose faults included reluctance to erase the pope's name from liturgical books.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ LP viii. no. 480.Google Scholar

⁴¹ The Works of Thomas Cranmer, ed. J. E., Cox (Parker Society 1844–1846), 2. no. 202, pp. 350–1,Google Scholarsummarised at LP xii. pt. 2, no. 846.Google Scholar

⁴² Latimer's Works, 2. 318. Also cited by Chester, from the original MS: ‘New Learning’, 141–2.Google ScholarChester, dates this letter to 1531, but I follow Elton, Policy and Police, 113–17 in placing the controversy in 1533.Google Scholar

⁴³ LP xiii. pt. 2, no. 141, 20 Aug. 1538. Reports of similar use of the confessional against ‘new learning’ can be found at LP viii. nos 406–7; xiii. pt. 1, no. 1199; and xiv. pt. 2, no. 796.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ LP xiv. pt. 2, no. 400, p. 140. Cf. Latimer's comment in his sermon at Stamford on 9 Nov. 1550, reporting on replies from his flock to questions about their knowledge of the Lord's Prayer: some would answer, ‘I can say my Latin Pasler-noster’, or else, ‘I can say the old Pater-nosier, but not the new’. See Latimer's Works, i. 307.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ LP xiv. pt. 2, no. 796 and xviii. pt. 2, p. 304. Thomson was a friend of John Fisher. Series was a die-hard conservative who survived to testify against Cranmer in Mary's reign.Google ScholarSee A. B., Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford A.D. 1501–1540, Oxford 1974, 510.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ LP xiii. pt. 1, no. 1199.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Cranmer, to Cromwell, , 8 Oct. 1538, Cranmer1s Works, 2. no. 244, pp. 381–4.Google ScholarOn Shepreve see Emden, , Biographical Register, 513–14.Google ScholarCorpus was of course a centre of humanist study, for which see J. K., McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics, Oxford 1965, 82–3.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ LP xvi. no. 101, deposition of John Lasselles, c. 15 Sept. 1540.Google Scholar See also Chester, , ‘New Learning’, 144,Google Scholaralthough Chester misses the true significance of Norfolk's remark.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ LP vi. no. 1466, report to Cromwell, c. 1533. One can only regret the success of Henry vm's government in suppressing detailed accounts of the Holy Maid's revelations. The religious thoughts of an uneducated girl mediated through highly educated clergymen for popular consumption would have been invaluable evidence about popular religion.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ The Scholemaster, in English Works, 279–80.Google ScholarChester, draws attention to Ascham's remark, but misinterprets him as referring to Lutheranism: (‘New Learning’, 144–5).Google ScholarThere is no evidence that Ascham had evinced Lutheran leanings this early, and we have already noted his denial of such leanings made ten years earlier (see above, n. 21). The context makes his meaning clear.Google Scholar

⁵¹ LP viii. no. 406. See also LP xiv. pt. 2, no. 796, where Dr Thomson's, curate at Enfield was accused of objecting to the erasure of the pope's name and of refusing to preach against the papacy (on the grounds that this was not his job).Google Scholar

⁵² LP viii. no. 799, depositions against Croft.Google Scholar

⁵³ LP xm. pt. 1, no. 981, item 2, p. 361.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Cranmer, to Cromwell, , 14 Mar. 1535, Cranmer's Works, 2. no. 139, pp. 300–2.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Elton, , Policy and Police, 24, 57.Google ScholarSee also the less accurate LP 9. no. 846, 18 Nov. 1535, followed by Chester, , ‘New Learning’, 144.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ LP xii. pt. 1, no. 6, p. 9.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ LP xii. pt. 1, nos 900, questions 30–5; and 901, Aske's replies, 11 Apr. 1537;Google ScholarChester, , ‘New Learning’, 144.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ W., Turner, A New Dialogue wherein is conteyned the examination of the Messe, London n.d., STC 24363, sig. A5V.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Cited in D., Norbrook, Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance, London 1984, 33.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ U., Zwingli, The Ymage of bothe Pastoures, tr. John Veron, Sinonoys, London 1550, STC 26142, sig. A3r, translator's dedication to Somerset.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See his third sermon on the Lord's Supper, in The Works of Roger Hutchinson, ed. J., Bruce (Parker Society 1842), 274.Google Scholar

⁶² Cranmer's Works, ii. no. 314, p. 453.Google Scholar

⁶³ The First Mew Testament Printed in the English Language (facsimile of Tyndale's ) , ed. F., Fry, Bristol 1862, fo. 44V.Google ScholarWycliffe's version used the same words, as did most subsequent versions.Google ScholarSee also Chester, ‘New Learning’, 143.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ The Prayer and Complaynt of the Ploweman, sig. A2r–vGoogle Scholar

⁶⁵ The Old Learnynge and the Newe, sig. A2r.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Becon, , Early Works, 439.Google ScholarNone of the sixteenth-century English bibles used ‘learning’ here, all preferring ‘doctrine’, though Becon's stray rendering confirms that the words were close synonyms.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Select Works of John Bale, ed. H., Christmas (Parker Society, 1849), 453 (in The Image of Both Churches).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ A Confutation of that Treatise which one John Standish made agaynst the Protestation of D. Barnes, Zurich, n.d., STC 5888, sig. f4r.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Two Bokes of the Noble Doctor and B. S. Augustine, trans. J., Scory, n.p., n.d., STC 921, fo. 3V and frequently thereafter.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Horne, , Homilies of M. Calvine, preface, sigs. B4V–5V.Google Scholar

⁷¹ The Old Leamynge and the Newe, sig. A3r.Google Scholar

⁷² The book is noticed by Gasquet, , Eve of the Reformation, 17,Google Scholar and Chester, , ‘New Learning’, 143.Google ScholarNeither of them notices the Protestant effort to reverse the rhetoric.Google Scholar

⁷³ Latimer's Works, i. 30–1.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Cranmer's Works, ii. no. 314, p. 450.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Whitaker, W., An Answere to the Ten Reasons of Edmund Campion, trans. R., Stocke, London 1606, STC 25360, 307, 67.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ T., Becon, The Reliques of Rome, London 1563, STC 1755, sig. A3r.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ J., Hooper, An Answer unto my Lord of Wynchesters Booke Intytled a Detection of the Devyls Sophistrye, Zurich 1547, STC 13741, sig.Google Scholar B4V (cf. Early Writings, 112). Hooper reiterates the charge throughout the book.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Early Writings of John Hooper, ed. S., Carr (Parker Society, 1843), 445Google Scholar(preface to An Oversight and Deliberation upon the Holy Prophet Jonas, London 1550).Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Happé, , Plays of John Bale, 2. 42, 104 (my emphasis).Google Scholar

⁸⁰ See above, nn. 11, 50. For another example see Cranmer's Works, ii, appendix vi, 466, where an anonymous theologian attempting to dissuade Henry vm from declaring clerical celibacy a matter of divine law (presumably in the context of the Act of Six Articles in 1539) points out ‘How not only men of the new learning (as they be called), but also the very papisticall authors, do allow, that by the word of God priests be not forbidden to marry’.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Chester, , ‘New Learning’, 144.Google Scholar

⁸² P., Jones, Certaine Sermons Preached of Late at Ciceter, London 1588,Google ScholarSTC 14728, dedication to the bishop of Gloucester, sig. ¶8r (my emphasis).Google Scholar

⁸³ See for example John Rastell, , A Treatise Intitled, Beware of M. lewd, Antwerp 1566,Google ScholarSTC 20729, sigs A5V, ‘the new Doctrine’; Agr, ‘the ncwe Gospellers’; and Aior, ‘a new and upstart Religion’. Thomas Becon noted in the preface to his Reliques of Rome, sig. hand ir, that adversaries of God's truth (i.e. papists) call the Word ‘heresie, erroure, doctrine new and straunge’. Converts to Catholicism adopted the terminology. Shortly before her execution in 1586, Margaret Clitheroe dismissed the Puritan preacher Wigginton with the words, ‘My faith is stayed already, and I purpose not to seek for new doctrine’Google Scholarsee J., Morris (ed.), The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers related by themselves, 3rd ser., London 1877, 425.Google ScholarTheophilus Higgons, during his brief flirtation with Catholicism, , wrote a book entitled Try Before You Trust, n.p. 1609,Google ScholarSTC 13454, whose subtitle was ‘a discovery of sondry vanities in the new Gospell according to Luther, Zvingl. and others’.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ There is more than a little ambivalence over ‘old’ and ‘new’ in Christian theology and English usage, but the distinction between ‘renovatio’ and ’innovatio’ accounts for much of it. Thus the conquest of the ‘old Adam’ and the regeneration of the ‘new man’ in Christ represent the restoration of the original divine order broken by the Fall. The presentation of the Gospel as ‘good news’ and the relationship of the New to the Old Testament further complicate the picture, as does the growing popular demand for ‘news’ (in something like the modern sense of up to the minute information) – a demand satirized by the Protestant Robert Crowley in his epigrams: ‘Oh! that these newes bryngars had for theyr rewarde Newe halters of hemppe to sette them forwarde’.Google ScholarSee The Select Works of Robert Crowley, ed. J. M., Cowper (Early English Text Society, ext. ser. 15, 1972), 38–9.Google ScholarThe problem of novelty is too wide to be explored fully here. For our purposes it is enough that Protestant polemic consistently sought to rebut the Catholic charge of innovation.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Grafton, to Cromwell, , 1537, cited in modernised spelling in J., Strype, Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, Oxford 1848–54, 1.Google Scholarappendix 20, p. 396. See also LP xii. pt. 2, app. 35.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Cerlayne Sermons, or Homelies, Appoynted by the Kynges Maiestie, London 1547, STC 13639–5 sig. X4r.Google Scholar