R E L I G I O N A N D R E L I G I O U S C H A N G E I N E N G L A N D , C . 1 4 7 0 -1 5 5 8

PIETY & PRACTICE

INEVITABILITY: A PROBLEM• Traditional accounts of the

Reformation• A.G. Dickens

• Caricature of late-medieval Church :• Corrupt, only concerned with

enrichment• Poor levels of piety, inept

priesthood.• England’s anti-Catholic heritage.

• Whig History legacy – England meant two things:

• ‘Protestantism’ & ‘Parliamentary sovereignity’

• Reformation beginning of both, HAD to happen!

• Teleology• Beginning with the end and projecting

backwards• Examining late-medieval Catholicism

solely for evidence of ‘what came next’ skewers its reality

• Edward Muir: historians’ obligation to ‘respect the dead, to honour how different they were from us rather than to celebrate their ability to anticipate us or our ability to surpass them’.

• History for whom, and to what end?

REVISIONIST HISTORIOGRAPHY• Late medieval Church characterised

by a religious culture which was:• Vibrant • vital

• Evidence for this:• No evidence of a swelling tide of

discontent• Laity investing in the Church – time,

money, energy – more than ever before at the Reformation.

• See the work of:• Christopher Haigh, Jack Scarisbrick, R.B.

Manning, Ralph Houlbrooke, Robert Whiting,

• Eamon Duffy• Essentially 2 thesis:• 1) How attached people were to

the liturgy• 2) That liturgy was flexible

enough to allow them to adapt the Church’s practices to a variety of activities, needs and spiritual requirements.

• That Church was not ‘top down’, ‘institutionalised’ and ‘rigid’• actually a marriage between

clergy and laity – moulded to local/individual needs.

REVISIONISTS: A CAVEAT• Focus on liturgy, practice and piety • What the laity do, how they do it, and to what extent.

• What is missing?• Clergy?

• Where are they in Duffy?• Surely pivotal to assess the role of them in this society?• And people’s views towards them?

• Structure of the Church• An institution.

• Did it conflict with other areas of this society?• Crown• Nobles• Social organisations?

RELIGION: NOW & THEN

NOW

• Voluntary

• Private

• Individual

THEN• Mandatory

• Public

• Shared

• Peter Marshall: ‘where faith met community’• Corporate souls, members of the body of

Christ which had visible expression in local structures.

THE ‘WORK’ OF TRADITIONAL RELIGION

• Biggest landowner in Europe• Major provider of charity incl. schools, hospitals• Monopolisers of orthodox access to the sacred – via the

(seven) sacraments – in partic. Baptism, Eucharist and Extreme Unction (but also penance, the Orders, matrimony & confirmation)• Providers of afterlife ‘fire insurance’ (also for your kin)• Promoter of social cohesion/peace via ‘mechanisms’ of

confession & communion• Providers of entertainment (e.g. Church Ales & election of Boy

Bishops; May Queens)

HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE PRE-MODERN WORLD?

CHURCH RECORDS• ‘Official’ records

• Courts• Domestic disputes• Crimes against the Church/society

• Wills• Tax records• Bede rolls• Churchwarden’s accounts• Registers of:

• Birth• Marriage• Death

• Visual & material culture• Art• Sculpture• Prints & book illustrations• Investment/wealth• The Church building itself

• Buildings• Bodies• Household goods

WHAT DO CHURCHWARDEN’S ACCOUNTS TELL US?

• Scale of investment in the Church• 2/3 of Church buildings in England re-

furbished C15th/ early C16th

• Pride• Lavish church with the material culture

of religion• Cloths• Vestments • Chalices • Candles • Imagery• Carvings

• How is this paid for?• Tithe• And from additional sources of

revenue. • May include:• Sheep – sell wool pay for candles

to saints• Church ales • Plays• Hock-tide

• Key:• a communal religion, not separate

from the world (like monastery) but shaped by it.

TIME: THE RITUAL YEAR• Cyclical time:

• Liturgical calendar’s re-enactment of life of Christ: • Advent• Christmas • Epiphany• Easter• Ascension • Pentecost.

• Agricultural rhythms of the year:• Carnival preceding Lent:

• licensed sin and disorder.

• Holy Week/Easter: • imaginative engagement with sufferings of

Christ.• performative

• Easter communion: individual and collective rite. • Community as ‘the body of Christ’.• Year end – Easter (not Christmas)

MARKING THE SEASONS• February/March – Carnival vs Lent • March/April – Easter – time of annual confession followed by

communion/eucharist

• May: Ascension/Pentecost/Whitsun – rogation processions (Feast of Corpus Christi)

• June: Feast of St John the Baptist – midsummer’s eve 24/6

• November – All Hallows/All Saints’ day 1/11

• November – Martinmas/St Martin’s day – 11/11

• November – Advent (30/11) – beginning of liturgical year (feast of St Andrew)

SAINTS• Different conception of sanctity:

• Not just exemplar of holy living• Portal to the supernatural• Major part of the practice of religion

• Veneration of images/ prayers/ candles

• Localism:• Each parish a patron saint• Acted as a guardian• Saint’s Day & communal celebration/

definition

• Beyond the parish:• Shrines & aspects of the landscape• Travel to see/touch relics• Pilgrimages

• Receive and indulgence• Specialities

• ‘Problem solving’?• Plague/ disease• Infant mortality• Death in childbirth• Capricious and precarious existence

• Weather• Harvest

• Mary – a special case?• Most intense cult• Why?

• Vengeful God – role of caring, sympathetic protector open.

• Example of meek submission to divine will• In the works of some theologians – notably

Gabriel Biel – she is almost the co-redeemer of mankind.

PICKERING, YORKSHIRE

St. Peter & Paul St. Sebastian

LAY INVOLVEMENT• Fraternities• Voluntary associations of laymen• Usually a devotion to the host, the

Trinity or the Virgin Mary.• 30,000 in LC15th.• Very high – almost improbable• Own patron saint and therefore

own rounds of religious practices• Maintain own

light/candles/chapel for patron• Own altars in church – richest

support own priest to tend to their needs

• Burial of members• Other forms of support –

religious and non-religious.

• Tensions• Complement or supplement

‘official’ religion • In competition with the Church?• Did it withdraw from the body?

• Within and without the parish:• Needs and demands which may not

have been for the village or parish as a whole

• Members may come from other parishes.

• Yearning?• Counter Reformation respond to

Protestantism in Europe by extending confraternities.

SACRAMENTAL RELIGION• Mediation

• Clergy’s pivotal role in society: to assist people en route to salvation.

• Not necessarily about belief in the modern sense• Remember verb vs noun: Sacramental religion:

• God’s grace channelled through particular ritual actions, material objects and sacred places.

• Salvation: a problem.• Adam & Eve and Original Sin

• God, in his mercy, offered the opportunity to be saved – salvation.

• Saving work of Jesus Christ on the Cross – crucified for the sins of humanity – was mediated through the sacrificial and sacramental ministry by the priests of the Catholic Church.

• The rituals and sacraments of Catholic Church was the route through which that opportunity could be realised.

• No salvation outside of it.

• Overly material?• Scholasticism• Role of God and humanity in the

process• Catholics – rites of the Church afforded

some leverage• Protestants – God alone decided

• Sacraments a visible role in life of the average Christian• Punctuated their journey from cradle to

grave:• Baptism• Confirmation• Confession• Marriage• The Mass• Extreme Unction

THE MASS• Temporal centre of the world:• Collapse time• Sacrifice• Ritual re-enactment of the Last

Supper

• Transubstantiation:• Piety & pity

• Efficacious:• See God

• Not a singular practice:• Powerful – variety of uses:• Masses for the dead• Corpus Christi procession• Mysticism• Unofficial – curses• Bossy – ‘social institution’• Marshall – ‘where faith met

community’.

ST GREGORY’S MASS

MATTHIAS GRUNEWALD

CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION

DOES ‘COMMUNAL’ = ‘UNIFORM’• Uniformity:• No space for individual to approach

God?• Christian?• Keith Thomas, Religion & the Decline

of Magic• Division of ‘elite’ and ‘popular’

religion.• Most ‘Christianity’ before the

Reformation not ‘Christian’ in any meaningful sense.

• Overstatement to see as semi-magical or solely ritual based

• Religious books:• Handbooks for priests• Catechisms• Work through the basics before

confession:• 10 Commandments• Seven deadly sins• Works of mercy• Five bodily senses• Asked parishioner how their

behaviour accorded with• A move to education/ instrospection/

piety?• Eamon Duffy• ‘Popular’ & ‘Elite’? Or ‘traditional’?

BOOKS OF HOURS• Primer of religious instruction/

text-book of essentials o faith• Poor Caitiff – didactic and

devotional works• Dives and Pauper – systematic

exposition of the Commandments• Prayers to meditate on – especially

the Passion.• Thousands printed in the later-

fifteenth century• Extensive readership by the

standards of the time (if not our own).

• Division of ‘popular’ and ‘elite’?• Peter Burke• 1500-1800: move to a divide

between solemn ‘high’ and a vibrant ‘low’ culture

• Social stratification determines cultural stratification• Access to culture• Ability to read

• Duffy – ‘traditional’• Shared/common culture• Oral and written not as

demarcated as we would see it.

BOOKS OF HOURS

BOOKS OF HOURS

DIVISIONS?

• Were the gentry withdrawing?• Develop own chapels• Moves to build own pews in

Church• Reading = withdrawl?• Group reading, not private.

• Criticisms of the ‘material’ aspect of late medieval Christianity:• shrines/ pilgrimages criticised• Yearning, or debate?• Individual examples, rather than

the system?

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

• Vibrant and vital• Fulfil needs in many different facets of life

• Clearly not waiting for Reformation• But were there fissures in the bedrock of this Church?

• Was that vibrancy actually a weakness as much of a strength?• Ability to be pulled in lots of different ways – as communal as historians

suggest?• Later lecture – see that early Protestantism had much to do with

Reform movement within the Church• Perhaps ‘Ref’ not a juncture, but a continuation of what was already

present.